EDL plans protest in Stevenage against 'grooming incidents'

Local papers, The Advertiser and Comet, report on the English Defence League’s plans to protest in Stevenage as announced on the group’s Facebook page.

The paper notes the group’s plan “to protest at grooming incidents” though any explicable link to criminal cases in Stevenage is not clear.

Far right groups have used criminal trials in places like Oxford and Rochdale to protest outside the courts as well as organise campaigns in local areas scapegoating Muslim communities as a whole for the criminal behaviour of a few. Britain First has taken this much further with several reports of the far right group ‘invading’ mosques in Glasgow, Bradford and east London to distribute leaflets on ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ while also handing out Bibles.