"WRONG TO ALLOW EDL RALLY" SAY LEICESTER COUNCILLORS

Having sent a press release to the Leicester Mercury about our open meeting on Tuesday evening with City Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby - and having had a reporter from the Mercury attend the meeting - I've been looking forward to some decent coverage of that event in the paper. There's mention of it in the Mercury today, bolted onto something else. I wrote some comment to go at the end of this article, but I'll credit you with enough native intelligence, faithful reader, to know the kind of thing I would have said:

"Wrong to allow EDL rally" say Leicester councillors

Concerned city councillors have backed former council leader Ross Willmott, who said it was wrong to allow the EDL to march through the city centre.

Coun Willmott spoke out on Tuesday, and said it was "astonishing" that the police advised the council that the group should be allowed to parade through the city.

City centre ward councillors Patrick Kitterick and Neil Clayton have backed his stance, and say other councillors feel the same way.

Coun Kitterick said: "A march is going to cause huge disruption to shopkeepers and market traders on the busiest trading day of the week. Many people will choose to avoid the city centre altogether.

"I also have a problem with the march on a point of principle, because images of the EDL marching past the clock tower in a city like Leicester – which is so proud of its diversity – would be very damaging."

Coun Clayton said: "There's no real reason why the EDL couldn't have been banned from marching altogether and forced to have a static demonstration away from the city centre."

The Leicester Council of Faiths has also revealed it wrote to the police recommending that the EDL march be banned. Fayyaz Suleman, vice-chairman of the Council of Faiths, told a 100-strong meeting on Tuesday night that the group had opposed Saturday's march in Leicester.

Mr Suleman, speaking at an open meeting of the Council of Faiths at the Gur Panth Parkash Gurdwara, in Knighton Fields, said: "We felt that the EDL should be banned this time as they were last time.

"The police have met with us and explained that they feel it is easier for them to contain the march rather than deal with a static protest. We have accepted the police's position and their reassurances that it is the best of two not very good options."

City mayor Sir Peter Soulsby told the meeting he had spoken to the police who had advised him that the best way to deal with the EDL was to let them march in the city, but with very specific conditions.