Far right protest against Bolton mosque

The Bolton News and The Guardian cover the far right anti-mosque protest over planning permission granted by the local council for the building of a mosque in Grecian Street, Bolton.

The ‘Stop the mosque’ campaign, which organised the campaign, protested outside Bolton Town Centre.

The campaign organiser, Bryn Morgan, told the Bolton News: “This is not a racist protest, we are not vilifying the Muslim community, they are actually a bit of an unfortunate target because Labour are so busy trying to please the Muslim voters.

“We chose to have the protest here to demonstrate against the council, we didn’t want to go to the mosque because we don’t want the Muslim community to feel threatened,” he added.

Morgan’s claims not to be supporting a “racist” protest or “vilifying the Muslim community” will come as news to those familiar with his previous campaign against the Astley Bridge mosque in Bolton some years ago, as well as those knowledgeable about his BNP background.

Having been granted planning permission by Bolton Council in July 2014, the applicants, Taiyabah Mosque, were faced with considerable anti-Muslim hostility by individuals connected to the ‘Stop The Astley Bridge Mosque’ campaign.

The abuse included threats to “torch” and “blow up” the mosque posted on the ‘Stop The Astley Bridge Mosque’ Facebook page. The council meeting at which the planning application was approved descended into chaos after anti-mosque protestors disrupted the proceedings and in a related incident, a man who had attended a North West Infidels protest against the mosque held in August 2014 was convicted for racially abusing a group of Asian menfrom atop a bus after the protest ended.

The ‘Stop the Astley Bridge Mosque’ Bolton campaign was led by Bryn Morgan, and the August 2014 protest organised by the North West Infidels was “enthusiastically” promoted by Morgan’s group.

Morgan himself has a background in BNP activism though has not been averse to co-operating with other far right groups against Muslims.

In an excerpt from a speech delivered in May 2014, following the BNP’s routing in the European parliament elections that year, Morgan said:  “I’ve stood with various different factions prior to being involved with the BNP”, he told the audience. “It’s no secret that I stood with the English Defence League, I stood with the North West Infidels. I stood with various factions that tried to take a fight to the left wing, to the Muslims, out on the streets.”

Islamophobia Watch, which has documented Morgan’s tactical far right alliances, reported he and members of the BNP “joined “various patriotic organisations, such as the National Front” in an anti-mosque protest in Bolton on 5 July. The BNP even posted a video of the demonstration which featured Bryn Morgan denouncing the capitulation of Labour politicians to Islam while standing next to an NF banner displaying the Fourteen Words – a Hitler-inspired, white-power slogan coined by a convicted far-right terrorist. BNP supporters were also urged to support the Infidels’ demonstration on 2 August “to make your voice heard against yet another step towards the Islamification of Great Britain”.”

Little surprise really that the Bolton protest at the weekend saw far right protestors “raising their hand in [Nazi] salute as they held signs stating “no more mosques”.”