Mayor John Biggs has asked the Metropolitan police to do more to fight racist groups. Pic: Tower Hamlets Council

Society needed to stay ”away from the gutter of provocation” the Mayor of Tower Hamlets said in the wake of demonstrations outside the East London Mosque by the  Britain First nationalist movement.

Mayor John Biggs, who visited the mosque in Whitechapel and the Islamic Centre following the demonstration last Tuesday, also met with officers from the Metropolitan Police yesterday to discuss the need for improvements in managing groups that spread racism in the Borough.

“We must be vigilant and we must maintain the higher ground, away from the gutter of provocation, where these groups belong,”  Biggs said.

Britain First opposes immigration and multiculturalism and ”the Islamisation of the United Kingdom”.

A spokesperson for the London Muslim Centre said: “We had Britain First, a kind of fascist organisation, protesting outside the mosque claiming it’s a Christian country. They said they wanted their country back and how everybody will be condemned unless they followed Jesus Christ, as their Saviour and Lord.”

Biggs said Mark Simmons, the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and Sue Williams, the newly appointed Tower Hamlets Borough Commander, consider all ways of stopping racist groups with extreme views from insulting Muslim residents.

The Mayor said police should use legal action to block any further Britain First’s protests.

Police said they will have local patrols within the area to prevent racist groups from protesting and ensure officers of the borough have now been trained to deal with these types of situations.