From: Channel 4 News daily email reports:
Last night's disturbances in Harrow in which hundreds of anti-fascist demonstrators turned out to chase off an anti-Muslim demonstration at a mosque, follow a summer of attempted protests by new groups like English Defence League. They're mostly anti-Muslim - they would say anti-extremist. At least four specialist police units are looking into them and politicians are starting to sound alarmed. The cabinet minister John Denham is being widely quoted as comparing the movement to Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts. He is anxious to make clear he does not think the movement has anything like the support of the anti-Jewish marches of the 1930s - but it is reminiscent. So who are they? What do they represent? And is it proof that the Labour strategy of suggesting working-class whites do have legitimate concerns about fairness in society has backfired? Some argue they have ended up helping to bring the BNP and others into the mainstream, and made them sound more respectable than they are. We'll be talking to former Home Office minister Tony McNulty, who is also the MP for Harrow. Muslims in police clash at Harrow mosque:
Young Muslim men clash with police after gathering to confront an anti-Islamist organisation which had threatened to hold a demonstration outside a new Harrow mosque. Andy Davies reports.
Harrow Central Mosque, which is located in the heart of London's most religiously diverse borough, was forced to place security guards at its doors as police maintained a heavy presence in response to calls from right-wing protesters to demonstrate against “Islamic extremism” on the anniversary of the 11 September attacks.
The English Defence League, and a group calling itself Stop the Islamization of Europe, had threatened to hold the demonstration outside the borough's main mosque, a multi-million pound building which is currently under construction and which will provide a prayer space for the area's 35,000 Muslims.
