Anti-Muslim group Pegida holds march in Newcastle

[shenmue]

Story here

...and gets outnumbered 5-to-1 by the counterprotestors.

[non sociopath skin]

1. I was there and, believe me, it was very much more than 5-1

I understand that the Northumbria Police Commissioner Vera Baird tweeted that there were 3,000 at the anti-Pegida rally and only 200 at the Pegida one. Certainly, a police officer told us during our rally that they reckoned 3,000 and a colleague took a photo of the Pegida lot from a neighbouring building on which there certainly didn't seem to be more than 300 max. It was still enough for the knuckle-draggers to have a punch-up among themselves after which five of them were arrested.

Matthew Pope, Pegida's self-appointed Englische Gauleiter and another sad, angry little man looking for some kind of kudos on the Far Right, has had his fifteen minutes of fame, I suspect. Before the event, he was seeking to assure the local community that Pegida was a "respectable" outfit and that members of Far-Right would be unwelcome. In fact - as anyone in Newcastle could have warned him - his rally consisted almost exclusively of the Usual Suspects from the North-East outposts of far right groups like the EDL and BNP.

Later, in the time-honoured tradition Far-Right of picking up a bigger shovel when they find themselves in a hole, Gauleiter Pope assured the press that they would have had another thousand there, but many of his followers got the times of the trains wrong. And here was me thinking that fascists were good with trains running on time ...

A great and life-affirming day. Kudos to the organisers of the anti-Pegida rally and the thousands who took part.

The Skin

[shenmue]

3. Yay!

Thank you for the correction.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Congrats to the counter-protestors...

Fortunately, so far the right-wing nuts tend not to bring out as huge numbers for their 'events' as they hope. Often it's more a case of 'Smarty smarty gave a party - and nobody came!' than of American Tea Party rallies. Let's hope that this continues!