How Portsmouth became a hotbed of radicalised Muslims and far-right thugs

It is Saturday afternoon in Portsmouth and lines of police are watching the crowds streaming out of Fratton railway station. Football fans in white and blue weave between the mounted officers in the middle of the road, some steadier on their feet than others. A scuffle breaks out between a gang of beery youths and an equally drunk older man about whether or not they are ‘Portsmouth’. The young men jeer as police usher him away.
The city’s football team is playing Luton, the town where the English Defence League (EDL) started in 2009. In the ensuing six years the organisation has managed to take root 100 miles away in Portsmouth, where it now has, in the words of the city’s council leader, a ‘virulent’ presence. The authorities fear trouble will accompany such a meeting of minds, and there are rumours that an EDL demonstration is planned at the Jami Mosque to coincide with the football match. The city’s largest mosque, it has been targeted by the far right numerous times in recent years.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11665456/How-Portsmouth-became-a-hotbed-of-radicalised-Muslims-and-far-right-thugs.html