A weekend festival of the far-right British National Party (BNP) will go ahead despite fears it will inflame racial tensions in a part of the country that saw Britain's worst race riots in more than a decade last year.
The Anti-Nazi League (ANL) made a last-minute plea for the event to be banned this evening, saying to hold it in Sawley in the north of England - some 30 km from Oldham, where last summer's riots took place - was "incredibly provocative".
But police said they had no grounds to ban the rally, and placed restrictions on the ANL's planned counter-demonstration in order to keep the two organisations apart.
"The BNP meeting is a private event being held on private premises," said John Thompson, Divisional Commander of Lancashire police. "We are aware of calls for the event to be banned, but we have no powers to do so because the organisers are doing nothing illegal."
Towns across northern England erupted into riots last summer as simmering tensions between Asians and whites exploded into violence. Far-right activists were alleged to have been agitating in hard-hit areas such as Oldham.
The BNP, which won just 0.2 percent of the vote in Britain's general election last year, was given a substantial boost in May this year when three of its members were elected as local councillors in Burnley, 10 miles from this weekend's event.
The weekend rally has been named the "Red, White and Blue Festival" after the colours of the UK national flag. "
It's out of the way. We're not bothering anybody," BNP leader Nick Griffin said. "It's a family weekend, a celebration of the culture of the British Isles, with obviously a political element to it."
But Sahid Malik, a member of the ruling Labour Party's policy-making National Executive Council and resident of Burnley, claimed only the BNP's image had changed. "Skinheads and swastika tattoos are behind the scenes."