Dominic Casciani Profile picture
BBC News Home and Legal Correspondent. // Stories // Features // Analysis // Documentaries // The Mafia Man in the Lancashire Caravan: https://t.co/XubKET4WSW

Jun 14, 2020, 13 tweets

Some mop-up thoughts from yesterday's violence in London and answers to a few Qs in my timeline. I have ignored the ones from those who can't edit out the f word or other abuse from their comments. Thread:

1) Some people say there were Nazi salutes & we have not reported these. I didn't see Nazi salutes. I saw football lads raising their arms while chanting, in a way that it commonly scene at footy matches. If that is what people are referring to, they're not Nazi salutes.

2) Some people say we're tarnishing the name of football supporters. Well, speaking as a born and bred supporter of the once and soon to be mighty again Nottingham Forest, I don't think so. But a football-firm linked outfit, the DFLA were key organisers yesterday.

The DFLA - Democratic Football Lads Alliance - organised on Facebook and you don't need MI5's powers to find open source proof of their plans. No one turned up in club colours - that's part of the deal - but some were there with DFLA badges and t-shirts.

I can definitely recall seeing guys with club tattoos.

I don't think it's accurate to call all these guys "far right" in the sense that far right = anti-black. There were a tiny number of black men among them. So some footy firms turned out, to be frank, for a bit of a rumble with the police and to defend their "identity".

Far right is a complex term these days. I don't like using it because it means different things to different people. Example: Tommy Robinson has a thing against Islam/Muslims but has friends and helpers who are from ethnic minorities. Complicated. Better to say what we see.

But the trad white-nationalist far right were definitely there too - and there is some overlap between them and the football firms, depending on where they come from in England. Think of yesterday as a Venn Diagram of street aggro. Different, overlapping motivations.

Very few protesters were actually "defending" any national memorials.

Some people claim we've not reported attempts by BLM types to stir trouble. The BLM lot were kept well separate. There were definitely moments when some people who may or may not have been BLM came close to Parly Sq and were kept back by police.

I couldn't clearly see who these people were - we were inside the police containment kettle. Sorry about that. Only human.

Some people say we failed to report a series incident of anti-white violence at Trafalgar Sq. Well I and other BBC people looked into it and there's no incident, witnesses or crime scene that matches claims of a life-threatening throat-slashing.

Finally, some abuse directed at me & colleagues for "ignoring" purported previous BLM violence. I wasn't at Bristol but we reported - clearly - the criminal damage of the statue being toppled. Our pictures from other demos are out there.

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