The EDL In Leeds

The EDL came to town to get pissed and shout in the street. We asked them why and filmed it.

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_MG_5093-2There’s an abandoned pub in Moortown – a small civil parish five miles north of Leeds – which a charity wants to convert into a multi-faith community centre.

A mob of working-class whites aren’t happy with this, and for the past month have been kicking up a major fuss, both on and offline, trying to prevent it from happening.

The problem? The charity is the UK Islamic Mission, and most of their members aren’t white.

So this toothless gang – more commonly known as the English Defence League – assembled at a nearby drinking haunt yesterday in order to chant, fly the flag of St George, and smash back budget alcohol.

Although if you asked them as to what they were doing – as we did – they’d tell you they were ‘protesting’.

They’d say they were protesting about the “Islamification of Britain”; about losing their identity in a country that’s 85% white; and about important issues like the national dish now being a curry.

They had dogs on leashes, synchronised chants, a plethora of ‘patriotic’ tattoos and even megaphones, but what they lacked was a coherent message.

The Tab was told about how they “weren’t racist” and how public buildings are being “torn down and replaced by mosques”, but all we heard was the uneducated hate and racist bile of a group who are struggling to find an outlet for their anger.

We wanted to find out why they had chosen specifically this issue to assemble for, what they hoped to achieve and what impact they were having on the political dialogue in the UK.

We put these questions to them, filmed it and will be putting out the video tomorrow.

All photos courtesy of Ally Fekaiki