In 2009, the UK Communities Secretary John Denham condemned the EDL and compared its tactics to those used by the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s. In 2010, the Conservative Party leader—and subsequent Prime Minister—David Cameron described the EDL as "terrible people", adding that "if we needed to ban them, we would". Later that year, it rejected calls to ban the group; as the EDL did not openly glorify terrorism it could not be proscribed under Britain's counter-terrorism legislation. Police reported that EDL activities hampered their own counter-terror operations among British Muslim communities.
