Walthamstow shopkeepers boarded up windows – until they heard ‘oppose Tommy Robinson’

Shopkeepers and residents in Walthamstow, east London, had braced themselves for a mob of far-Right agitators to descend on their town on Wednesday evening.

Scores of police officers had amassed along the thoroughfare after speculation swirled online that extremists were planning to target an immigration lawyer’s office in the centre of town.

Hours before the riots were expected to begin, business owners were seen hastily fixing wooden boards to the front of their premises.

Many nearby shops, cafés and pubs closed early over fears rioters would tear through the streets smashing windows and torching buildings as they had done in towns and cities across the UK in the past week following the fatal stabbing of three young children in Southport.

However, by 8pm the expectant horde of far-Right hooligans was nowhere to be seen.

In their place were 5,000 anti-racism protesters who had turned out en masse, holding banners of ‘Oppose Tommy Robinson’ and ‘Refugees Welcome’.

The crowd, waving placards and posters reading ‘Stop The Far Right,’ marched along the thoroughfare to chants of “Nazi Scum, off our streets”.

Police officers guided the crowd down the high road, some of whom carried  the green red and white flag of Palestine.

Stella Creasey, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, later said a “three-figure” police presence had been deployed.

One woman, living in a third floor flat overlooking the march plastered her windows with signs reading ‘No to Racism’ and ‘F— Nazi Scum.’

Others climbed onto the top of newsagents to watch the procession of the march.

The only sign of any disorder was when two young men were briefly detained before being quickly released.

At one point a young boy shouted into a megaphone; ‘Where’s the EDL?’.

It was a question many older Walthamstow residents could answer as twelve years earlier the English Defence League had been chased out of the town after attempting to stage a rally through the town centre.

The 200 EDL or so members, Tommy Robinson among them, had been grossly outnumbered by the 4,000 anti-fascist demonstrators and were stopped in their tracks.