After a busy week I want to try and catch up on blogging related things this evening.

Although I feel I’ve probably written too much about the unfortunate rally by the English Defence League in Luton last weekend, I thought ought to do a post to follow up.

If you haven’t seen it, I wrote about my experience on the day here.

Luton rapidly got back to normal after the events on Saturday as the barriers were removed, the police left town, and the square was swept. I have heard there have been a few incidents of graffiti related to the EDL this week, but other than that there doesn’t appear to have been any immediate consequences. Whether there is any lasting damage to community relations within the town remain to be seen. I know that lots of people have been working really hard to ensure that there aren’t.

This is how the local press covered it:

• Luton Today: ‘Protest passes off ‘relatively smoothly’ with just eight arrests‘ and their video report.
• Luton on Sunday: ‘Luton’s sigh of relief‘ and ‘They came, they protested and, happily, left the town in peace‘

In other media:

• BBC: ‘EDL and UAF stage rival protests in Luton‘
• BBC: ‘Eyewitness: EDL return to Luton‘
• The Guardian: ‘EDL stages protest in Luton‘
• Plus an article from Nick Lowles, the editor of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight.