‘They were laughing and smirking at us’: EDL protestors attend peaceful BLM protest in Brighton

At the Black Lives Matter protests taking place in Brighton today, it was reported that the English Deference League turned up and stood by the war memorial monument at the Old Steine.

One Twitter user Tweeted about the EDL coming to the protest, they said: “There’s an EDL protest in brighton at the moment because of the Black Lives Matter march and they’re protecting some statue in a park”

Georgie Mason-Mottram, a student at The University of Sussex and one of todays BLM protestors, exclusively told The Sussex Tab: “The EDL protestors were at the Old Steine and were surrounded by police. They [EDL protestors] were drinking alcohol, doing hand gestures, laughing and smirking at us.

“I took a video of a man on top of a police car, the policeman gave him their megaphone too. He was telling us not to even pay the EDL guys attention and head straight to the level. News outlets are making it out like we wanted to protest against EDL but we didn’t care about them, we are focusing on the real problem.”

Claims have been made that the BLM protest route was purposefully changed so that the protestors would pass the war memorial, one Twitter user Tweeted saying: “BLM changing their planned route in Brighton to go to a war memorial where a silent and peaceful protest to protect monuments, were taking place, tells you everything you need to know.”

Another Twitter user stated: “EDL at Brighton Protests today ‘protecting’ the war memorial by smoking and drinking topless on it with no masks and being fully protected by the police.”

Featured image courtesy of Victor Smith on Twitter.

Footage of the man on top of the police car can be seen on our Instagram story, here.