When time permits, I frequently meet up with English Patriot group ‘March for England’ as a guest at their events.
MFE consist of members of all ages and mark events such as Remembrance Day, Armed Forces Day, St George’s Day and, last weekend, the anniversary of the 7/7 bombings in London.

The 2010 MFE Remembrance for the victims of 7/7 (Above) – ‘Pompey’ Dave & Myself at Tavistock Square

The Tavistock Square event is always a solemn meeting, as one of the officers from MFE lost a friend on the bus that was destroyed by a suicide bomber.
This Year’s Tribute

Early arrivals congregated at Euston national rail station, and then proceeded to the muster point at a local public house. The weather turned inclement, but with overcast skies around forty people attended a small ceremony where MFE officer ‘Pompey’ Dave gave a short speech and wreaths were laid to commemorate the fallen. The officers of MFE had notified the Police of the annual event as usual, and the intelligence officer who they normally work with thanked the organisers for the advance notice and advised that a small Police presence would keep a respectful distance and observe (Unfortunately, this officer was elsewhere on the day which may have caused the issues that followed).
It was also good to see a senior member of the Iranian Green Party who has always been supportive lay a wreath and then come for a chat and a drink with us afterwards – Every time I meet this gentleman I feel that it shows that love of country and tradition is a common thread around the world, and that despite national borders patriots everywhere have more in common than they have differences.
After the ceremony, we returned to the pub and the lunchtime coffees were replaced with lager, English bitter and conversation. Many of the familiar faces were in attendance including the ever present journalist from The New England Review, ‘Esmerelda Weatherwax’, who I had a pint and a great conversation on the state of our country with.
By 2pm, many were drifting away, and the 15 remaining decided to continue our afternoon at a pub local to one of our members that has a special place in London folklore – The Blind Beggar in Whitechapel. For those who don’t know the history, this is the pub where East End gangster Ronnie Kray shot James Cornell and finally fell foul of the constabulary – He received a life sentence for the murder, and the reign of the Kray family in the London underworld was ended. Because of this notoriety, the pub is now part of the East End tourist trail, and we actually met and chatted with a number of tourists in the pub before the sad events that unfolded.
Persecuted for being English and proud?
We took the tube from Euston to Whitechapel, and were followed by our two Police ‘shadows’ on the underground. When we got off at Whitechapel, and turned left to walk the 150 yards or so to the The Blind Beggar, one of the officers was talking overtime in to his radio.
We entered the pub, and placed our drinks orders before retiring to the beer garden where we started chatting with tourists who were on the ‘Jack the Ripper’ tour. Within a few minutes, five Police vans pulled up outside of the pub (We had seen the blue lights going the other way when we entered, but these were turned off when they parked at the kerb). This was followed within a few minutes by around one hundred Police officers (Some in riot gear) turning up outside the pub, an event that did not go unnoticed by those of us sat in the beer garden having a quiet drink.Some of the middle aged tourists seemed quite excited by the possibility of a Police raid – One of the MFE members commented to me ‘This doesn’t look too good’.
After a few minutes, around thirty officers entered the pub and flooded out in to the beer garden. I was sat with Pompey Dave and a couple of other members of MFE, and we were asked to put down our drinks and ‘come inside’ as they would like a quick word. We were assured that once done we could come back out and finish our pints.
Once inside, this seemed far from likely as we were taken by individual officers to separate seats and asked to identify ourselves. Once the ID check was done, I was advised by the officer talking to me (PC Miah, who was courteous and professional throughout) that I was under arrest for ‘Breach of the Peace’. When I asked why, I was advised that they had ‘intelligence’ (Not the word I would use) that we were here to upset an Islamic conference locally by the extremist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and as such we were being arrested on suspicion of causing a problem.
I asked Constable Miah if it was likely that I was going to cause a fight dressed in a suit with a black tie, and also if I was indeed here to cause an issue why I hadn’t got off at a tube station nearer to the conference? The reply I got was that ‘We are just following up on intelligence’, and with that I was escorted out of the pub (After a toilet break, which PC Miah kindly allowed to stop my tortured bladder from having an issue in the Police van)

Once outside the pub, I was stopped on the street to have my picture taken by Police photographers. Because of the massive Police presence, a crowd had turned up to see what was going on, and the MFE members were subjected to heckling by a number of Islamic youths who had decided that they were EDL (Despite having no English emblems showing as a sign of respect to all those who perished on 7/7)
We were then put 3 each in to the Police vans and driven away from the area, with large Police escorts inside the vehicles (There were 10 officers in our van with myself and 2 MFE stalwarts)
In my opinion, this was done in case our presence was offending members of Hizb and MAC (Muslims Against Crusades), whose Conference by all accounts featured sentiments such as those in the picture above (Taken from a 2010 London protest) – Indeed, Hizb are a proscribed organisation in pretty much every country in Western Europe, with links to Islamic extremist and terrorist organisations. It would appear that the right of an Englishman to sit and have a quiet drink in a pub is now subject to whether or not an extremist organisation who want to instill their own laws on to our country are happy with him being there.
No room at the inn

The Police drove us out of Whitechapel and we ended up in Kent, at Bromley Police Station. I asked the officers twice why we were being taken so far, and they replied that there was no space available in other Police Stations in London to process us. I commented that this seems a bit worrying on a Saturday afternoon, especially out of the football season and in view of the cuts to the Metroplitan Police that are being proposed as part of the Government austerity measures.
Once at Bromley, we were held in the vans for 10 minutes, and then a senior officer said that we were being ‘de-arrested’ and should go home (But not via Whitechapel!) When a couple of the members (Both teenage girls) pointed out that they had no additional money to get back to London, and their tickets were only valid from central stations to their home towns on the South coast the officers stated that it was ‘not their problem’ – As usual, MFE members rallied round and made sure that their compatriots got home.

An affront to the rights of the majority

Once released by the Police, we took a photo with the previously packed away flags outside the Police Station (left)
Strangely, we were not approached by any officers about this, yet our mere presence in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets triggered a major operation. You have to ask yourself – Why? In 21st Century England, are there no go areas that exist outside of the law of the land where other forces control what can and cannot be said?
I believe that this was a gross injustice aimed at the English people, who were merely out commemorating our countrymen who were killed in cowardly attacks by enemies of our way of life. The thought that this might have been perpetrated by the establishment on behalf of those who would conspire to create another 7/7 seems beyond reasonable belief.