Some Notes on the Democratic Football Lads Alliance London March

Complaints include “Dickens dossier on the establishments paedophile ring”

A Facebook event announcement for yesterday’s Democratic Football Lads Alliance march in central London:

THE SILENCE IS DEAFENING.

From the establishment the Media and the far left

returning jihadists.
veterans treated like traitors.
thousands of AWOL migrants.
Dickens dossier on the establishments paedophile ring.
rape gangs and groomers.
paedos given weak sentences .
epideminc of gang and knife crime.
police cuts when we need more.
cover ups and political injustices.
the constant threat of terror but we still let strangers in.

THE SILENCE IS DEAFENING.

SO WE MARCH IN SILENCE

LONDON OCT 13TH

OUR SILENCE WILL SPEAK VOLUMES

WE ARE NOT GOING AWAY

DFLA ARE HERE TO STAY

A “silent march” would have had the advantages of dignity and of keeping demonstrators on-message, but from media reports and YouTube uploads it appears that the chants of counter-protestors proved too much of a provocation, leading to clashes with police. Mail Online reports:

Violent scenes have erupted in central London as supporters of the right-wing Democratic Football Lads Alliance clashed with police and rival demonstrators during a march and one told officers: ‘I’ll kill you’.  

Hundreds of Football Lads protesters marched from Park Lane to Whitehall – with one of them seen making a Nazi salute – before some of them began to push through police escorts and chaos ensued. 

Many could be heard chanting ‘Whose streets? Our streets?’, as the group marched down Pall Mall on Saturday afternoon in one of their largest demonstrations so far.

However, despite a headline reference to “Nazi salutes” in the plural, only one example was reported and photographed, and as such should probably be seen as an outlier.

The DFLA’s list of grievances in its Facebook event blurb for the most part have in fact been reported in the media, despite the allegation of “silence” – and this includes “establishment paedophile ring” claims, which have also been heavily promoted on some left-wing websites, such as The Canary (as blogged here). The much mythologised “Dickens dossier” referred to above not long ago gave the Labour MP John Mann an opportunity to grandstand, as I discussed here.

The spectacle of a demonstration that turned into a “clash” seems to have been more interesting to most news hacks than explaining who the DFLA actually are and taking note of which groups and causes were associated with the event. The DFLA itself began as a split from John Meighan’s FLA earlier this year, and judging from the size of Saturday’s crowd it seems that its claim to be “true FLA” accurately reflects its position.

Videos of the stage erected by the DFLA at Speakers’ Corner featured the banners of two groups: Justice for Our Boys (blogged here) and Justice 4 the 21 (var. Justice for the 21, justice4the21), which campaigns on behalf of those killed in the 1974 Birmingham pub bombing. Links between Justice 4 the 21 and the DFLA apparently go back several months.

Also participating was Justice for the Women and Children (var.  Justice for the Women & Children, Justice for Women and Children), which appears to have emerged out of Justice for Women Of Sunderland; the Sunderland Echo describes the “Wearside-based” group as having been “formed following a series of rape inquiries launched in Sunderland earlier this year”, and notes support from the DFLA. The co-organiser, Sharon Binks, very recently spoke at the UKIP conference; in May, she was herself the subject of a “Justice for…” campaign after she was arrested for allegedly ignoring a dispersal order at a Manchester protest. The group is also making links with the Democrats and Veterans Party.

A DFLA video promoting the march on Facebook also refers to Melanie Shaw (blogged here).