Police permission given for our Codnor protest from 9am

We are pleased to report that there was a very fruitful and productive meeting with the Derbyshire police this morning. The result of which has been that we have police agreement for us to congregate in protest at the BNP in Codnor as we originally intended from 9am onwards.

We understand that any concerns that the Midlands TUC had about our protest being legal and safe are now resolved and that locally unions and Stop the BNP activists from across the region and elsewhere will be able to congregate at 9am in Codnor.

It appears that there have been some malicious rumours been set up to disrupt our negotiations with the police and the TUC and we will be reporting on them in due course.

Public Order Act invoked against anti-fascist protests

Keep watching this site for important updates

This morning, Monday 11^th August, the Public Order Act will be invoked and signed off by Derbyshire Constabulary to cover the area of the BNP’s RWB festival on the week-end of 15^th-17^th August. The exact terms of the implementation of that Act we have yet to see but we understand that it seriously restricts the rights of protesters against the BNP’s Red White and Blue festival. We are unaware of any restrictions on any BNP activity.

A UAF demonstration has been organised on August 16^th under fairly tight conditions but the organisers of that march have at no time invited us to share in the planning of that activity.

This campaign still intends to exercise our legal right to protest as close to the BNP festival site as possible from 9-11am on August 16th.

The Notts Stop the BNP campaign, central to Stop the RWB Festival campaign, has arranged to meet with the police later in the morning of 11th August. Contrary to some rumour, the Notts Stop the BNP campaign had written to the police as early as 18^th July and received a reply informing us that we would be contacted in due course. We heard nothing further until the information about the Public Order Act restrictions was released to us via the Midlands TUC last Friday, 8^th August. This information was given in the lead up to a meeting between Midlands TUC, the UAF and the police on the same Friday.

The amended details of our protest will be announced as soon as we can find out from the police, both the terms of the Public Order Act and where we can congregate without risk to those involved. We hope to announce this within the next day.

Please try and attend this important protest. Those attending from Nottingham please contact the campaign (07980 089859) to obtain a coach ticket. We are strongly recommending that people use our transport to ensure we all arrive at the same place

We appeal to all other supporters to join us at the venue that we hope to announce by tomorrow.