A Place to Stand

 "Metropolitan Police raided a pub in central London and arrested 179 members of the right-wing, anti-immigrant group the English Defence League (EDL), on the basis that they were planning to attack the occupiers outside St Paul’s Cathedral.

it seems pretty clear that far more repression has been carried out in the name of protecting Occupy London than in the name of attacking it.

Apparently some of them had Facebooked and tweeted about having a punch-up at St Paul’s. Yet as those part-time libertarians who rushed to the aid of that bloke arrested for tweeting about blowing up Robin Hood airport in Nottingham should know, what people say on social-networking sites and what they do in real life are often very different things.

Perhaps the most startling thing about Friday’s mass arrest of political activists who had not committed any crimes is that many St Paul’s occupiers supported it; more than that, they appear to have assisted it....One occupier said of the police, ‘It is fantastic if they are using their resources to try and stop people getting to this site’. He said that at Occupy London’s ‘general assembly’ earlier in the day, the occupiers had been made aware of an allegedly chilling EDL statement, in which ‘they called us all sorts of names’.

Even worse, on Facebook some occupiers are boasting about having informed the police of the EDL’s alleged intentions....‘I and some friends aided in the arrests’.

not so anarchist as not to want the police arresting for "rudeness"

  It is virtually impossible to get anything from the EDL site since, according to a Google search there is nobody online representing the EDL. This seems to mean no such sites exist or that Google are deliberately censoring. Actually I made another search later and did reach the EDL site here. using similar search terms.

   The closest to an impartial report is this from the Press Association who said 

But police said there were no reports of disorder between opposing groups ahead of Friday's arrests.

"All 179 were taken to police stations across London," a Scotland Yard spokesman said.

"Three people were arrested for affray and have been bailed pending further inquiries."
The spokes man said that "176 people were arrested to prevent a breach of the peace - they have since been released".

  I assume "affray" means they were resisting being arrested for committing no crime. "Arrested to prevent a breach of the peace" is arrested for nothing on 2 grounds - firstly that breach of the peace defined as "any act which disturbs the public or even one person" is a catch all charge allowing the police, if misused, to arrest anybody or even 179 anybody's. Nobody arrested for any alleged Facebook rudeness, something we know the police would do if there were even the ghost of a case, so I assume there isn't.

  Secondly that they weren't even arrested for causing such a breach but "to prevent such a breach" in some unspecified way at some unspecified time in the future. Who, provably, should not be arrested for that?

  Clearly the Occupists outside St Pauls have been guilty of far worse for weeks and could have been arrested,presumably much more easily if the police timed it right since at night 90% of the tents are unoccupied while the Occupists stop occupying and go home to feed their cats.

  As I have pointed out before, the Occupy movement is not a genuine popular movement but a media and government promoted fraud to give the appearance of a "left" opposition opposed to free enterprise in support of big government collectivism. Now the police have gone from trying to appear "neutral" about enforcing the law to very actively subverting the law to assist the criminal "demonstrators" and arrest those whose only "crime" is not wanting to be arrested.

   Norman Tebbit has somewhat gentler things to say about the refusal to enforce the law - assuming it to be cowardice rather than corruption.

UPDATE This story, which I had not previoously noticed, has been pointed out in comments.

A coach full of English Defence League supporters was pelted with missiles after it broke down in east London.
The coach was carrying 44 EDL members when it stopped in Mile End Road, Tower Hamlets.
About 100 Asian teenagers then pelted it with bricks and stones, according to a BBC reporter at the scene.
Police arrested all 44 EDL supporters

 To be fair the article later points out that 16 of the 100+ thugs as well as all 44 of the victims were arested. I assume the justification for arresting the victims was that they were in an Islamic no-go area in central London.