The English Defence League has said it is planning a festival this summer, Luton on Sunday can reveal. Kevin Carroll, the joint-leader of the group, said that the EDL will “be coming back to Luton this year” and holding a festival in St George’s Square.

He said: “We’ll be coming back to Luton this year that’s for sure. We did consider, from the demonstration point of view, but then we thought about a festival. We are going to call it Love EDL Hate Racism and then we can have bands, music and entertainment.”

Mr Carroll also said that the group would be inviting a host of international speakers including controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders and Danish activist Anders Gravers Pedersen. He also said that American activists Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Rabbi Nachum Shifren were being lined up.

Luton on Sunday, 18 February 2013

The idea that Geert Wilders would agree to speak at such an event is clearly absurd. When the EDL organised a demonstration in support of Wilders in October 2010 he publicly dissociated himself from them. As he never ceases to remind us, Wilders heads the third largest party in the Dutch parliament, and he is not going to destroy his carefully cultivated image as a respectable politician by getting involved with an organisation of thugs and convicted criminals. Geller and Spencer, on the other hand, have no objection to working with such people.