A prominent Church of England reverend delivered a crushing message to far-right group 'Britain First' at one of their anti-mosque protests on Saturday.
Reverend Prebendary Alan Green, an east London rector, stood in solidarity with his "Muslim friends" when their place of worship was picketed to tell nationalists to "stop waving crosses around and making them a symbol of hate".
Green, who chairs Tower Hamlets' Inter-Faith Forum, accused Britain First members of being "un-Christian" and said they were "undermining the mission of the Church" with their "extremist" views.
He told HuffPost UK how, on learning of the demonstration outside one of London's biggest mosques, he left Sainsbury's to go and address the 30 people clad in green army-style jumpers parading around waving Union flags.
"Over the last 12 months we’ve bought together the police, faith leaders, the council and local people to combat extremists coming into the borough and trying to stir stuff up.
"I went to the Britain First protest today to tell them they're not welcome here, and they don’t need to represent the church because we're already doing that.
"They wave their crosses about and what they are doing with those crosses is making them symbol of hate."
"You don’t represent Christianity - you’re undermining the mission the church in this place," he added.
The Metropolitan Police said officers were called to the protest at 1:30pm on Whitechapel Road this afternoon. No arrests have been made.