EXCLUSIVE: E&S goes undercover inside the EDL

As around 200 supporters gathered in Walsall, our undercover reporters witnessed an attempt to muster support to target a Muslim place of worship there.

The EDL claims to be 'non-racist and non-violent' and said they were in Walsall 'to expose problems brought about by Islamification'.

We sent a team of undercover reporters to mingle with EDL supporters and test the group's claims – and what they found revealed the ugly face of the group in all its horror. On a day when nine people were arrested during the 'peaceful protest', we found EDL supporters:

• Openly snorting cocaine in a pub toilets before taking to the streets.

• Boasting that they would target mosques.

• Declaring all Muslims paedophiles.

• Intimidating a female journalist.

• Claiming Cannock council was institutionally ‘racist’ by proactively keeping out Muslims.

EDL supporters had gathered in the Oak Inn pub on Green Lane, which had agreed with police to house the group's followers. Reporters watched as many of them spent the morning plying themselves with drink and drugs before embarking on the short march to the town's Gallery Square.

The hate-filled speech of one EDL supporter from Cannock was secretly recorded by our team. He told the reporters: "Stick around at the end there's a few of us going to find a mosque and stir things up a bit. We have lads down the mosques today. They are clocking the ******* area. They'm only young kids, they'm only 16. We got them ******* clocking the area seeing what security they have got on it."

The bald protester wore thick-rimmed black sunglasses but his sheepish grin suggested excitement at the prospect.

Short in stature and sporting jeans, a white T-shirt and a cream-coloured Rockport jacket, he casually rolled a cigarette whilst disclosing his plan, oblivious to the fact he was being filmed.

The supporter, who was not involved in the drug-taking, called Cannock the 'last standing little piece of England' and described the council as 'racist'. "If you have a house off the council in Cannock to say you can't sell it to anybody who ain't worked or lived in the area for 10 years, that's why Cannock has got no ******* muzzas," he said. "But it works. It's kept Cannock white, you know what I mean?"

He added that he had been to school with councillors from the district who 'are on my wavelength'.

No mosques were targeted that day and the Cannock man was not involved in the attack on the female journalist at the march.

A different supporter told our reporters that 'all Muslims were paedophiles', a slur that was repeated in chants by others both inside the pub and on the march.

Police spokeswoman Deb Edmonds said police received no reports of drug abuse inside the pub. EDL leaders refused to speak to our reporter at the march and this week the group did not respond to requests for a comment.

For more reaction see today's Express & Star.