The Democratic Football Lads’ Alliance (DFLA) marched from Park Lane to Whitehall at the weekend, and I decided to ask them why.
The marchers were explicitly hostile to journalists, but I braved their insults and managed to persuade a few of them to talk on camera.
The first person I interviewed wanted Britain for the British and hoped that we could have our own President Trump.
The DFLA has no website, but on its East Midlands branch Facebook page describes itself as pro-UKIP and concerned by the threat of “Islamisation and Sharia…” Their Twitter profile states that they are opposed to “all extremism,” and also to “grooming gangs, and those who oppose us for trying to tackle them!”
This implicit link between Islam and rape was voiced by my second interviewee who blamed “mass immigration” for “Muslim rape gangs.”
I also spoke to members of an anti-fascist group who arrived to confront the DFLA. The woman I spoke to was afraid to show her face on camera, but accused the DFLA of fascism and misogyny and said it was important to stand up to the far right.
It was later reported in The Sun and other papers that the clash between the groups grew violent and that one DFLA supporter threatened to kill a police officer.
For my part I left the scene with a strong sense of far right mobilisation on one side, and a determination to stop it on the other.
