BNP outside KFC Meadowbank

Update, 5th July: The BNP will be back outside this KFC on Saturday 7th July from 12:30. UAF plan counterprotest.
—-
First I heard they were going to be there was this morning.

BNP plan racist demo at KFC Meadowbank #Edinburgh 1pm today. twitter.com/nickgriffinmep… Scotland – one country, many cultures. Peacefully oppose.

— EdinburghEye (@EyeEdinburgh) June 23, 2012

They claimed they were there because they were protesting animal cruelty. Also because this KFC uses halal chickens, and they complained they were being “forced” to eat halal meat.

Most of the time we were there (three of us) there were only three of them.

13:22

(The man in the brown jacket isn’t BNP: he’s just one of several customers that went in and out without hindrance during their demo. There were several police there, too. The man with the union jack on his cap kept raising his BNP sign to cover his face whenever he saw a camera pointed in his direction.)

13:23

I asked them, and they admitted they had never protested outside any other KFC, nor would they protest outside McDonalds. Just here, at this specific KFC, because of the halal chickens.

13:25

Is KFC animal cruelty any worse than anywhere else that serves factory-farmed chicken?

KFC just buys by lot. Whoever happens to produce chickens at the best price in a given week gets the contract. That’s it. It’s profit based, after all.

The chickens you buy at the grocery store or eat at any restaurant come from the same mills. The same is true for beef and pork. And yes, they are not happy animals and are not fed real food.

13:26

They complained that the EDL had not been allowed to march in Edinburgh, placing themselves as supporters.

I happened to find on the Hope not Hate blog an account of how a leader of the SDL, John “Snowy” Shaw, let his llamas starve to death in February this year:

Shaw, 41, of Littondale Avenue, Knaresborough, said he could not afford to feed them.

He pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering leading to death and two counts of not providing a suitable diet and failing to protect the llamas from pain, suffering and disease.

He was jailed for 12 weeks, suspended for a year, and ordered to do 200 hours of unpaid work, with £3,050 costs, and given a 10-year ban on keeping animals.

13:27

13:30

One of the other anti-BNP protesters had brought a homemade stenciled banner. She’s German, and finds Nazis of any breed peculiarly outrageous. It was a bit windy to keep it out, though.
13:31

13:37

The one in the hood kept telling us he wasn’t a racist, but white Christians ought to get first crack at the jobs and immigration was a big problem. They all knew that Ed Milliband had made a speech supporting the BNP position on immigration.

13:38

The one with the camera phone is the one who called me a fucking wanker.

I have just been called a fucking wanker by a BNP activist. Yay.

— EdinburghEye (@EyeEdinburgh) June 23, 2012

There was another guy who was completely masked – he also took pics of us three on his phone camera.

Then a young-ish man turned up in an MP-like suit with a big rosette and joined the protest.

13:39

The wee boy looked absolutely gobsmacked to find himself in the middle of a BNP protest.

BNP guy lecturing us on UKIP policy. And warning each other off swearing.

— EdinburghEye (@EyeEdinburgh) June 23, 2012

The guy in the blue hood was lecturing us on what sounded exactly like UKIP policy. They were all warning each other off swearing “because of the children”.

13:40

These three plus the shy man who kept covering his face with the BNP poster were there most of the time.

13:41

At this point they were all so busy telling us about animal cruelty that we three counter-protesters had a quick conference and discovered we were all vegetarians.

13:48

Things that the guy in the blue hood told us were:

Nelson Mandela is a violent racist, apparently. #BNPKFC

— EdinburghEye (@EyeEdinburgh) June 23, 2012

And Jewish bankers are responsible for the recession. Gosh.#BNPKFC

— EdinburghEye (@EyeEdinburgh) June 23, 2012

It’s raining. We’ve just had a surreal convo with a #BNPKFC who kept saying racist crap but oh, NOT RACIST, him. Ony 2 left.

— EdinburghEye (@EyeEdinburgh) June 23, 2012

At this point it was raining quite hard, there were only the six of us, and I was wondering how long they were going to stay, and what for.

14:02

BNP picketing KFC Meadowbank because it uses halal meat. Counterprotest all three vegetarians. #confused #kfcbnp

— EdinburghEye (@EyeEdinburgh) June 23, 2012

And then the rain cleared up, and several more BNP activists appeared, including a man in a chicken suit.

14:07

“You look weak and silly!” they told us, taking snapshots of us with their phones to get us to go away.

“You have a man in a chicken suit,” I said. “We win.”

14:08

The man in the MP-like suit making a two-fingered salute at us.

After that, for several minutes, they ignored us, and got into a line with their placards outside KFC so that a couple of other activists could take photographs of them.

14:09

It turned out the chicken suit man had to lend one of the other activists his phone to get a photo.

And then once they’d got their photos done, they had time to shout at us some more while they were packing up.

14:12

They wanted to know why, as Muslims are only 2% of the population, the rest of us should be “forced” to cater to a tiny minority.

I told them the BNP are an even smaller minority, and why should the rest of us have to cater to them?

Things to do, chicken suits to wear.

14:13

We waited until most of them had gone – including the two men in suits, one MP-like and one chicken – and we went too. The police stayed until we were safely out of the way.