English Defence League

The English Defence League is an organisation which claims that its seeks to "Remove Islamic Fundamentalists from our streets, and Remove ALL practice of Shari'ah Law in England."

History

According to the Guardian the group was started by Tommy Robinson (a pseudonym), after a Muslim protest at the homecoming of the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment in Luton in March 2009:

Only a handful of Muslim protesters disrupted the Anglians' homecoming parade, and they were drawn from an small extremist group that had already been ostracised by the mainstream Muslim community. However, it was enough for Robinson and others to set up a group called United People of Luton, and look across the country for support.

The Luton group linked up with Birmingham-based British Citizens Against Muslim Extremists to form the English Defence League. Robinson set up the group's website in March.

According to the Times, fewer than 100 supporters turned out for an EDL March near the Bullring in Birmingham on 8 August 2009, where they were heavily out-numbered by Muslims and anti-Fascists. Clashes between the two groups led to 35 arrests.

The EDL acquired a new spokesman, Trevor Kelway, at around this time.

The Telegraph reported on 21 August that the Home Secretary had granted an order banning marches in Luton ahead of a planned demonstration by the EDL on the bank holiday weekend.

The order states: "This order prohibits any procession or march involving members or supporters of, but not limited to, the English Defence League, UK Casuals United, March for England and United People of Luton or any associated group or any march which has not been applied for in accordance with Section 11 of the Public Order Act 1986, shall take place anywhere within the Borough of Luton."

A second EDL demonstration in Birmingham on 5 September 2009, led to further clashes in which 90 people were arrested.

On 13 September 2009, members of the EDL were involved in a stand-off with pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Central London:

There were several brief confrontations as EDL activists chanted "We hate Muslims" and "Muslim bombers off our streets".

Hundreds of police officers kept the two sides apart as the march made its way to the Mall. Scotland Yard said there were no arrests.

BNP links

A significant number of people involved in the EDL have had associations with the British National Party:

EDL founder Paul Ray wrote in 2007 on his Lionheart blog that " if there is a political party who cares about the British people and its way of life then it has got to be the British National Party"

EDL organiser Davy Cooling admitted to the Guardian that he had attended BNP events when younger, but said he was not a member of the party. His name nevertheless appears, with his former Luton address, on the list of BNP members leaked to Wikileaks.

Chris Renton, listed as an "activist" on the BNP's leaked membership list, set up an EDL website.

However, suggestions that the EDL is a BNP front seem to be wide of the mark. Searchlight has suggested that disaffection with the Luton BNP on the part of activists associated with the 'Men in Gear' group of football hooligans contributed to the rise of the EDL. The BNP has proscribed involvement in the EDL for its members. Nick Griffin has denounced the EDL, saying "This is a neo-con operation. This is a Zionist false flag operation." What this comment elided was that the BNP had itself sought to establish links with the Counterjihad movement through figures like Adrian Morgan prior to the EDL's emergence.

Hooligan links

Searchlight journalist Nick Lowles has said of the EDL:

All their key people are football hooligans – many with related convictions and banning orders. Most of the people they are mobilising around the country are from the football hooligan networks. I do not call the EDL a fascist organisation because it is not (though this doesn’t make any less dangerous and of course there are many active fascists within it and at a senior level) but organically linked and driven by football hooligans it is. I should add racist and Islamophobic as well.

Counterjihad links

Paul Ray

Prior to the EDL's foundation, founder member Paul Ray had a number of contacts with the US counterjihad movement.

In January 2007, Pamela Geller interviewed Ray on BlogTalk Radio.

In January 2008, Phyllis Chesler interviewed Ray after he was accused of inciting racial hatred. In the resulting article she stated that she had been alerted to his situation by Carol Gould. She wrote an update to the piece after Ray's pro-BNP views were made known to her:

I myself no longer demand purity or conformity in my political alliances. I think we are at war and we must make alliances with people with whom we may not agree on every issue. However, others believe that there are some people who, no matter what, are “off-limits” where civilized political and military alliances are concerned.

Christian Action Network

Martin Mawyer and Jason Campbell of the Christian Action Network (CAN) interviewed three members of the English Defence League during a visit to London in August 2009. During this meeting they invited the EDL members to the George Restaurant in East London a few days later. CAN also invited Robert Spencer, Douglas Murray, Adrian Morgan and Paul Weston to the George on the same date. Spencer and Murray later said that they had not known the EDL would be present and did not meet with them over the course of the evening. Morgan did meet with them, but said he did not condone their tactics.

Alan Lake

<youtube size="medium" align="right" caption="Alan Lake speaking in Sweden on the counterjihad movement's alliance with UK football supporters (at 3 min 19 sec)">GMzFFm2V4QE</youtube> The Guardian reported in September 2009 that Alan Lake was advising the EDL:

"We are catching a baby at the start of gestation," said Lake, who is considering funding the EDL. "We have a problem with numbers. We have an army of bloggers [in the far-right] but that's not going to get things done.

"Football fans are a potential source of support. They are a hoi polloi that gets off their backsides and travels to a city and they are available before and after matches."

Lake's counterjihad networking website 4freedoms.com lists both the English Defence League and the International Civil Liberties Alliance as affiliates. Both sites have reciprocal links back to 4Freedoms.com.

Ulster Loyalist links

BBC journalist Paraic O'Brien has said that he attended a meeting of the EDL leadership at the Barbican, East London, in late September/Early October 2009:

During the conversation it was also let slip that someone purporting to be from the Ulster Defence Association had been in contact, interested in starting a branch in Northern Ireland.

On 23 October 2009, EDL founder Paul Ray posted pictures of himself with German neo-Nazi Nick Greger holding up t-shirts emblazoned with a UDA logo and a picture of loyalist Johnny Adair, a friend of Greger's.

The Sunday Mercury reported claims that the EDL had linked up with loyalists in late October 2009:

Senior members of the Ulster Defence Association, said to be behind more than 250 killings during the Troubles, have reportedly been in contact with leaders of the right-wing English Defence League.

The sinister development brought an angry response from Birmingham MP Khalid Mahmood.

“The EDL are becoming more dangerous,” the Perry Barr MP said.

According to the paper, EDL spokesman Tommy Robinson refused to be drawn on the issue:

“People from all walks of life come along to our meetings and we don’t ask questions,” he said. “Every town that has an Islamic community has a group of extremists and Belfast is no different."

Reactions

Political reactions

The EDL was strongly attacked by Communities Secretary John Denham in September 2009:

“You could go back to the 1930s if you wanted to - Cable Street and all of those types of things. The tactic of trying to provoke a response in the hope of causing wider violence and mayhem is long established on the far-right and among extremist groups.”

Denham also said that the Government would announce measures aimed at white, working class communities to undercut far-right support.

Police reactions

The National Public Order Intelligence Unit was due to produce a briefing on the EDL ahead of a meeting chaired by Assistant Chief Constable Sharon Rowe of West Midlands Police in September 2009.

On 24 September, Metropolitan Police Chief Constable Sir Paul Stephenson said the EDL and Stop the Islamisation of Europe were not extreme right-wing groups and could not be barred from protesting:

“the concern to me is how groups like that either willingly or unwillingly allow themselves to be exploited by very extreme rightwing groups like the National Front and the British Freedom Fighters”.

Mainstream anti-Islamist reactions

The Spectator's David Blackburn and Martin Bright criticised John Denham for over-stating the EDL's significance. Bright wrote:

My real concern here is that talk of rising tension between Muslims and the white working class becomes self-fulfilling. The rise of al-Qaeda, the bombing of civilian targets by extremists and the emergence of home-grown networks of terrorists has not led to retaliatory attacks and long may that continue.

But that doesn't mean the situation isn't serious. There are extremists within the Muslim community and the white working class who would like nothing more than a conflagration.

Michael Burleigh also criticised Denham in a Standpoint blog post:

Although the liberal-Left has not so far proved any connection to the BNP, the so-called Communities Secretary, John Denham, has been making fatuous analogies between the English Defence League/Stop the Islamisation of Britain, and the BUF members who invaded Cable Street in the 1930s.The BUF were bent on assaulting Jews qua Jews, not in protesting against a structure which could very well be conceived of as a magnet for the propagation of anti-western extremism.

Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens took issue with this in another Standpoint post the following day which noted the BNP connections of EDL members Chris Renton and Davy Cooling:

Within the world of anti-jihadism, there is a clear divide between those who consider all Muslims to be a threat and those who understand that the problem lies within a small but very influential section of the Islamic world. Siding with the former should not be an option as it requires a total disavowal and abandonment of liberal and pluralist values based solely on the basis of a mutual foe.

Lucy James of the Quilliam Foundation said in September 2009 that it was "not the time to panic" but that far-right activists could prove disorder by targeting mosques:

“They can be very calculating in getting a response,” said Ms James. “It is important that people do not react with violence and do not themselves appear as threatening to the local community.”

Douglas Murray wrote in October 2009 that he would have nothing to do with the EDL because of the group's BNP links and Paul Ray's comment that he opposed "all devout Muslims". He added:

For years, our political class has allowed militant Islam to thrive in Britain and ignored those who have been warning of the consequences. Now the entirely predictable street-level response has begun. In the ensuing noise, as actual fascists from all sides try to clear the ground for themselves, those of us who hate them all will need all our care and caution to work out who is who.

See Also, External Resources, contact, Notes

See Also

• Scottish Defence League

External Resources

• Simon Cressy, English Defence League cracks begin to show, Searchlight, January 2010.
• Flickr English Defence League, Manchester 10/10/09, Photo set by Dan Sims.

Contact

• Website http://www.englishdefenceleague.org
• Facebook English Defence League
• Facebook English Defence League Bedford Division
• Twitter edlupdates
• Causes English Defence league