The EDL have responded to the riots and looting by calling upon members in some locations to prepare to defend their neighbourhoods, homes and families. This elicited a good response in Eltham, where about 50 members of the EDL came down to help the locals nip any trouble in the bud. With local non-EDL, their total numbers came to somewhere between 200 (according to the Daily Telegraph) and 500 (according to the Casuals United blog). The Daily Telegraph report on the joint EDL and local attempt to defend Eltham was not framed in a complementary manner, and neither was it accurate, describing the EDL as a 'political party' which anyone who has heard of the EDL knows that it is not, as well as 'far right', which is a straightforward baseless slur upon the good name of the movement. The movement should be congratulated in taking the initiative to help English communities to defend themselves at a time when the police find themselves overstretched and unable to respond to every call for assistance.
Vigilante groups have sprung up elsewhere in London, with another instance of English vigilantism being in Enfield where 350-400 people turned out on Tuesday night to keep rioters and looters out. Another notable new instance of this phenomenon was in Southall, where Sikh men gathered to defend their gurdwara. All of these instances follow on from the formation of 'local protection units' by Turkish and Kurdish shopkeepers in the Wood Green area of London over the weekend following an overspill of the initial violence from Tottenham.
The first of the videos below shows EDL vigilantes on the streets of Eltham looking to ensure that the looters don't trash their community. The second video is from the Daily Telegraph and features an interview with the EDL's south-east regional organiser, Jack England. Unfortunately, this video demonstrates that the Metropolitan Police seem to have fallen for the smears about the EDL and sent a significant number of officers to kettle the EDL and other local residents who had come out to defend their neighbourhood. This is a great pity, as obviously these desperately-needed police resources should have been deployed elsewhere in the capital where they were needed.
Vigilante groups have sprung up elsewhere in London, with another instance of English vigilantism being in Enfield where 350-400 people turned out on Tuesday night to keep rioters and looters out. Another notable new instance of this phenomenon was in Southall, where Sikh men gathered to defend their gurdwara. All of these instances follow on from the formation of 'local protection units' by Turkish and Kurdish shopkeepers in the Wood Green area of London over the weekend following an overspill of the initial violence from Tottenham.
The first of the videos below shows EDL vigilantes on the streets of Eltham looking to ensure that the looters don't trash their community. The second video is from the Daily Telegraph and features an interview with the EDL's south-east regional organiser, Jack England. Unfortunately, this video demonstrates that the Metropolitan Police seem to have fallen for the smears about the EDL and sent a significant number of officers to kettle the EDL and other local residents who had come out to defend their neighbourhood. This is a great pity, as obviously these desperately-needed police resources should have been deployed elsewhere in the capital where they were needed.
I live in Eltham and it's not gone unnoticed here that when Sikhs with swords and Turks with baseball bats go onto their local streets the coverage is favourable. But working-class English do the same, unarmed, and the police are sent in huge numbers from as far away as Wales to ethnically insult us and chase us off, and the liberal press mutter darkly about "racism" on our part! There has been a siege mentality here since the Stephen Lawrence case, the events of this week and the predictable middle-class liberal response to us in particular have done nothing to change that.
ReplyDeleteProps should go to EVERYONE who stood up to the rioters, regardless of race, colour or religion. This website should take note from the 20,000 people who turned out for the funeral of the three men in Birmingham who were hit down by accepting that you should judge people on what they do, and not by your own pre-determined set of prejudices about religion, race, or background. If three white people defending their homes had been hit down by a Muslim driver, this blog would have been screaming merry hell about it and saying it was a travesty to the world as we know it that they were in England in the first place, and you know it.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, I would appreciate if you would respond to my points with logical debate, instead of simply not approving them for other people to see if you cannot defend your point of view.
ReplyDelete