After the disturbances in Rochdale, Asian youth turned out against the wishes of some of the mosque elders to confront the EDL in Hyde. SchNEWS spoke to one anti-fascist who also made the trip.

“The planned route for march through town from the train station didn’t happen due to sheer numbers of Asian, around 250-300 youth who gathered outside close to the train station. The EDL had the briefest of marches and were herded along the side of ASDA round a side alley into a car park next to the bus station out of sight of the public.”

Jumping on the bandwagon were  the BNP – with Nick Griffin himself tarnishing the town with his presence. They gathered a motley fifty in a small rally opposite the town hall under the slogan “Hope for England”. Griffin appealed to EDL members and invited them to join in the fun – in fact virtually all the BNP apart from Nasty Nick himself joined the EDL march.

EDL numbers weren’t amazingly high, possibly as many as 600.

According to our eyewitness “As the EDL were dispersing, a group of them made their way across the ASDA car park to confront the youth outside the Mosque. They were chased off after the youth charged .In fact they ended up waiting to be kettled on the other side of the car park. The police eventually moved all the EDL on. Anti-fascists were present throughout the whole day, mixing with the locals but not in enough numbers to make an impact. “