Over the past few months the English Defence League (EDL) have been attempting to capitalise on the outrage caused by the heckling of British Army troops in Luton by a handful of Salafist Islamists that prompted an angry street demonstration composed of hundreds of mainly football casuals, attacking Asian owned business and an Asian man. After which EDL protests were to face humiliating defeats in Birmingham (twice) and Harrow where over 1,000 people mobilised to prevent a demonstration against the local Mosque organised by Steve Gash, the one man army behind the obscure Stop Islamisation Of Europe.

The latest in this sequence of anti-Muslim outbursts was aimed at the Iranian backed Al Quds (Jerusalem) day. The Al Quds marches occur annually after the last Friday of the Islamic fasting month Ramadan, and was created by Ayatollah Khomeini as a day of solidarity towards the Palestinian people and oppressed people across the world. No doubt by oppressed people, the Ayatollah never envisaged Muslims living under Islamic governments.

This year the demonstration in London was led by ultra-orthodox Jews from Neturei Karta, Islamic clerics and imams and hundreds of Hezbollah and Hamas supporters. The EDL numbered around 60, but only half managed the 30 metre journey out of All Bar One to the designated protest area in Piccadilly Circus, a pen flanked by dozens of police. The pen itself contained around 30 pro-Mousavi supporters. In previous years a counter demo by the Al Quds day supporters featured exiled Iranian communists, Iranian Royalists and the leftists Alliance for Workers Liberty.

After a two-hour delay to the start of the march, around 500 protestors marched from Marble Arch to the bottom of Haymarket. The march was intended to go to Trafalgar Square but was barred due to their lack of public liability insurance. Eventually all went their separate ways. Islamist Reactionaries, 0 – English Reactionaries, 0.