In an article written in July after the release of the
initial raw headline results from the 2011 Census, I noted how the highest
population increases in the country appeared to take place in the boroughs possessing the largest Muslim populations, and today’s release of census
results relating to religion appear to confirm this supposition. In July I observed that Tower Hamlets and Newham were recorded as displaying the greatest
rate of population increase between 2001 and 2011, and today’s results state that Tower
Hamlets has the highest share of Muslims in the country, and Newham the second,
with the percentages standing at respectively 34.5% and 32.0%.
In Yorkshire, Bradford had experienced the fastest population growth, and once again I had attributed this to its growing Muslim population. This latter supposition also seems to be borne out by the
statistics, for whereas the city’s Muslim population was recorded at 16.08% in 2001, the 2011 census reveals this percentage to have increased to 24.7%,
making it the borough with the fourth largest share of Muslims in the country.
Blackburn and Darwen, with 27.0%, stood in third place. Luton, the birthplace
of the EDL, possessed the fifth highest concentration of Muslims at 24.6%.
Across England and Wales as a whole, the number of Muslims increased rapidly during
this 10-year period to a total of 2.7 million, its proportion of the population
exploding from 3.0 to 4.8%.
The Muslim share of Bradford's population has risen by 53.6% in just ten years. Demographic Islamisation is thus a reality in England today,
and the greater the number that profess that faith, the louder will be the calls
for it to be protected and for the admission of co-religionists from overseas. Overall,
what with London now being not only a minority English but also a minority British city, the census results make for grim reading.
It has been announced that elements of the anti-free speech
Far Left will be holding a fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference in
Manchester on Tuesday evening. Gathering beneath what it terms “the antifascist flag”, UAF will be bringing together a range of individuals who will be
discussing how to make political capital out of manufacturing a
phantasmogorical “fascist” threat in Luton specifically, England more widely,
and Europe generally. To date, they have been highly successful in raising
funds from innocent trades unionists through invoking the spectre of a
non-existent recrudescent fascism, and in order to legitimise their ongoing
existence and continued funding it is necessary for this bogey to be kept
alive in the public's, or at least the Labour Party’s, imagination.
Kelvin Hopkins, MP for Luton North, will be making the most
brazen bid for Muslim votes by inveighing against the evils of “the racists and
fascists of the English Defence League in his Luton constituency”, whilst other
veterans of the cause will include the previously convicted Weyman Bennett, as
well as a number of current and former Labour MEPs. Although there are
certainly minority elements within the EDL that have caused violence at some of
their demonstrations, violence and threat are inherent within UAF’s modus
operandi, as most recently demonstrated by the decision to cancel a debate
between Stephen Lennon of the EDL and representatives of the Muslim Debate
Initiative at London’s Conway Hall that was scheduled for 4 October. In a post
on their blog, the Muslim Debate Initiative (MDI) made it clear that it had
been cancelled not because of any perception of potential violence from the EDL
or from Muslim objectors, but because of the threat from so-called
“anti-fascists”. The MDI blog reports the decision relating to the cancellation
as follows:
Conway Hall, has decided based upon advice from the Police,
and under pressure from various anti-fascist organisations and at least one MP,
that the event may put the public at risk to public health and safety concerns
under the current climate. Despite the security procedures of MDI within the
building, the Venue Director was concerned about the safety of attendees
outside the hall when going to, and leaving the event. Therefore, Conway Hall
has informed Muslim Debate Initiative that for the time being, they will have
to cancel the hire of the hall to MDI for this public event.
The MP concerned was Frank Dobson. Contrary to the assertions
of UAF and its ideological confederates, it is not some phantom “Far Right”
that we should fear with respect to our liberties, but the very real and
influential Far Left of which it is a part. Reading the jubilant piece relating
to the forcing of the cancellation of this debate on the UAF website, one is
met with the following startling passage:
We believe the EDL is a fascist organisation. Fascism stands
for: the total annihilation and mass murder of its opponents including trade
unionists, liberals, social democrats, socialists, communists, Jewish, Muslim,
black, Asian, lesbian, gay communities and other large sections of humanity. It
also stands for war, the destruction of all democracy and freedom. History
shows this is what happens when fascism gains power.
Is this what the supporters of UAF truly believe? Does the
quote above strike you as having been penned by someone with a rational perspective fully apprised of the facts, or by someone suffering from a paranoid set of delusions? The question is superfluous. UAF is a dangerous anti-democratic campaign
group that employs PC anti-racism slogans to mask its SWP-driven agenda. Any
decent delegates at the Labour Party Conference this week would be wise to give
this thuggish fringe a wide berth, and thereby avoid complicity in
manufacturing unnecessary social conflict.
UAF's Weyman Bennett: arrested for conspiracy to commit violent disorder
News is breaking of a Sikh protest in Luton, apparently prompted by the release of a man accused of sexually assaulting a Sikh girl. Given that Stephen Lennon of the EDL has stated that they will be joining the protest, the assumption must be that the alleged perpetrator of the assault was from a Muslim background. Some 250 Sikhs are reported as having gathered to protest outside of Luton Police Station. One Tweet also claims that some roads in the town have also been blocked off as a consequence. According to a brief report on the East Anglia EDL Division page, the man charged with the assault is of Pakistani origin. A report on a Sikh forum claims that the girl was dragged into some woodland and raped. The BBC reports that the alleged assault took place on Monday, and that a sit-down protest is taking place outside of Luton's Buxton Road police station. Although it mentioned "members of the Sikh community", the report contained no reference to the EDL.
An ITV news report noted that Sikhs had travelled to Luton from as far away as Birmingham, and that local Sikh residents were keen for the situation to be resolved peacefully and were liaising with the police to this effect, despite their initial lack of satisfaction with what they perceived to be an inadequate police response to this crime.
An EDL Facebook report claims that Stephen Lennon/Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll visited Luton Gurdwara this evening, and that rather than numbering 250, the demonstration was some 500 strong. According to The Daily Telegraph, the protest occurred because the "community . . . feels the police could do more with regards to the investigation and current situation". Moreover, police were said to be "in talks" with protesters because of 'fears of rising tensions'. Relations between Sikhs and Muslims have often been strained, and on 18 May a group of Pakistanis attacked a young Sikh man in Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, leaving him with a fractured eye socket and cuts and bruises.
Today the EDL is holding a demonstration in Luton to mark the third anniversary of its foundation. Unsurprisingly, UAF and the SWP are holding a counterdemonstration (badged as 'We are Luton'), as has become traditional upon such occasions. According to the Casuals United blog (hat tip for the picture below), some 2,000 supporters have taken to the streets of Luton. This also coincides with the long-anticipated official announcement regarding Stephen Lennon/Tommy Robinson joining the British Freedom Party (BFP) as Deputy Chairman. It has been announced that he will be sharing this role with Kevin Carroll. Quite how effective that arrangement proves to be remains to be seen.
Yesterday witnessed the first electoral test for the BFP, and as can be seen from the results at this link, it fared spectacularly badly. Although those who head both the BFP and the EDL hope that today's announcement will provide a boost for the former, it has already prompted the departure of a number of BFP members. However, what is beyond dispute is the fact that Stephen Lennon's decision to join the BFP will generate headlines and afford the party far more coverage than it has hitherto enjoyed. Although Matthew Goodwin correctly observed in The Guardian yesterday that the BNP was spent as an electoral force and should now be considered a political irrelevance, he perhaps places rather too much store upon the potential success of an EDL/BFP tie-up, owing to the numerous reasons outlined in previous articles highlighting the weaknesses both of this strategic approach and of the BFP's policies and presentation (a detailed criticism of its 20 Point Plan can be found here).
Luton of course has acquired a reputation for radical Islamism, with the most recent arrest for terrorist-related offences taking place towards the end of last month when five men in the town were detained in police swoops. It is therefore not surprising that Luton was the town that gave birth to the EDL, and this fact has in recent months drawn considerable media coverage, most notably in two documentaries looking at ethno-confessional polarisation in the town: Stacey Dooley's lightweight 'My Hometown Fanatics' and the rather more serious but partial episode of Despatches 'Proud and Prejudiced'. Both of these came after a special Radio 4 report on the town last September, featuring interviews conducted by John Humphrys with Stephen Lennon and Sayful Islam amongst others.
The following video gives a flavour of the EDL demo today.
“Read all about it! Five terror plot suspects arrested in
Luton!” Yes, yet again dear reader, police have descended upon a number of
addresses within a certain “community” to arrest a group of men alleged to have
been planning to inflict death, injury and general misery upon the host
population, simply because we do not share their warped backward Islamist
ideology. So wearisomely familiar and routine have such arrests become, that it
is increasingly hard to be moved to comment upon them, which is a worrying sign
in itself.
Scarce a week seems to go by without another Islamist plot
being uncovered, and for all of the media’s professed concern about a potential
network of crypto-Breiviks lurking in the shadows waiting to butcher the
innocent, this thankfully remains as firmly in the realms of fantasy as
Breivik’s resurrected ‘Knights Templar’. Breivik the butcher, mercifully,
remains an army of one; a genuine clerical fascist; a warped individual who
carries within himself more the spirit of Mohammed than that of Christ; a man
possessed of a lust for blood, rather than a desire for peace. Breivik is, in
many respects, a mirror-image jihadi. A man who truly loves his people would
never seek them out and methodically murder them, irrespective of any
ideological difference. Breivik is no nationalist. He has made of himself a
wretch and a perpetual outcast.
And what of the men in Luton who have just been arrested?
What will they become? For the English, if these five prove to be found guilty,
then true justice must surely demand that they be shunned and returned to their
land of ancestral origin. Amongst their “community” however, how will they be
regarded? Will they be ostracised or fêted? The likely attitude, sadly, is
predictable, for although many of Luton’s Muslims will refrain from lionising
these aspirant killers, significant numbers of them will not. As sure as night
follows day, in the weeks, months and perhaps years ahead, their advocates will
be heard, and they will shriek at us as if we were the criminals. Luton,
according to an initiative funded by the town council, is in “harmony”. This
arrest, together with this medium-sized town’s Muslim population having
provided a home to the Stockholm suicide bomber Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly,
one of the fertiliser bomb plotters and a facilitator of the 7/7 bombings,
attests to the fact that there is no such thing. It is also home of course, to Sayful Islam. For observers to profess to be
perplexed at why Luton should have given birth to the EDL is thus disingenuous
to say the least.
In a little under two weeks’ time, the EDL plans to
demonstrate in Luton in celebration of its third anniversary. What impact, if
any, will these arrests have upon that day, Saturday 5 May? Channel 4 may have
dubbed Stephen Lennon and the EDL “proud and prejudiced”, but who can blame him
and his supporters for wishing to articulate a deep and well-founded sense of
unease arising from certain unwelcome phenomena originating within the Muslim
population, that no major political party will acknowledge, let alone address?
“Luton in harmony”? Unfortunately not. It could be, but that would demand
something that our current authorities are unwilling to do: ditching
multiculturalism and rooting out Islamism once and for all. The one reassuring
thing to emerge from today’s story is the fact that our security agencies have
once again nipped a potential plot in the bud. Overall, they have done a pretty
good job in recent years.
A little over a week ago a story appeared courtesy of Reuters in which journalist Michael Holden claimed that the EDL was going “to form [a] “Freedom Party””. This claim was made upon the basis of a couple of quotes from Stephen Lennon:
Stephen Lennon, head of the English Defence League (EDL), said the three-year-old grassroots group wanted to move on from holding street demonstrations to contesting elections.
"The British political anti-Islamist party will be launched in May at our Luton demonstration," Lennon told Reuters, saying the new body would be called the Freedom Party.
"At the Luton demonstration, the whole country will hear an anti-Islamist political party that gives everyone an option in a non-racist way - the opposite to the British National Party."
It would seem that either Holden misheard what Lennon said, or that Lennon accidentally omitted the first part of the party’s full name which, given his hitherto stated support, can only be assumed to be the British Freedom Party. There is, or more accurately was, a UK political party named The Freedom Party (its website can be viewed here), but it is now essentially defunct although still technically under the chairmanship of Adrian Davies. So, the question that naturally poses itself is this: is Lennon really proposing to launch another party named “The Freedom Party”, or is he choosing the occasion of this May’s EDL Luton demo for what will be the third attempted launch of the British Freedom Party (BFP)?
The second option would seem to be the most logical one, but then again, not as logical as it ought to be. After all, the local elections are on Thursday 3 May, but the EDL’s Luton demo is on Saturday 5 May. Why choose to launch a party two days after the elections, particularly if the launch in question is actually a relaunch of the BFP? The BFP has previously declared its intention to field candidates in May, but to date, no concrete announcements seem to have appeared in connection with such plans. Perhaps a decision, for whatever reason, has been taken to delay its electoral baptism? Whatever the fact of the matter, this launch or relaunch is being poorly managed and communicated owing to the lack of clarity surrounding the whole affair.
Yesterday also witnessed Stephen Lennon/Tommy Robinson appear on the BBC Sunday morning television programme ‘The Big Questions’ following his trip to Aarhus in Denmark the preceding day for a European Counter-jihad gathering. Although this was the first time that he had appeared on ‘The Big Questions’, this was not the first occasion that Islam featured in the programme, for the fact is that it seems to play a disproportionate role in almost every episode that is aired. This perhaps should not come as a surprise given that Aaqil Ahmed was appointed as the BBC’s Commissioning Editor Religion and Head of Religion and Ethics in 2009. His appointment has served to embed a pre-existent pro-Islam bias at the BBC, which also seems to have spilled over into its ‘Thought for the Day’ slot on Radio 4’s Today Programme, where once again Islamic voices are given a disproportionately large amount of airtime, whereas neo-pagans, Wiccans, UFO worshippers and voodoo practitioners seem to be left out of the equation. Come on now BBC, when are you going to redress your innate monotheistic bias! So much for ‘diversity’, eh?
Returning to yesterday’s rather more mundane and predictable bear-baiting session on ‘The Big Questions’, the BBC did of course deploy its normal tactic of packing its panel and audience full of pro-Muslim voices, leaving Lennon to defend himself from a far from impartial Nicky Campbell. The latter sneeringly inferred that Lennon dwelt in an alternative reality, responding to his comment that many middle class academics, such as Matthew Goodwin (also on the panel insinuating that Lennon was a crypto-Nazi), were out of touch with ordinary people’s life experience and concerns with the question: “Are they out of touch with what he perceives to be his reality?”
Although the programme purports to present a debate, its real function is to draw the audience towards a predetermined conclusion agreed in advance by its producers, and brought about through their careful selection and weighting of the audience. The end result is to produce a narrow and dogmatic BBC narrative that dehumanises anyone who objects to the ill effects of multiculturalism through making nasty and baseless assertions about their characters, and insinuating that anything other than a thoroughgoing endorsement of its position inexorably paves the way for ethnic cleansing and gas chambers. Yesterday’s episode, as can be seen from the video excerpt below, conformed precisely to this tediously predictable and bogus narrative.
Unfortunately, you would have had to have spent the last twenty years in a coma not to have discovered Islam in England today. Its apologists are granted an almost ubiquitous presence on our airwaves, and nobody in polite company is permitted to say a bad thing about this ideology for it is always deemed to be ‘worthy’ of respect thanks to its designation as a religion. Such an attitude of submission and deference to a system of belief that embodies, advocates and codifies some of the ugliest cruelty and bigotry known to man is little other than craven. It is an ideology that has no place in the eighteenth, let alone the twenty first century. Its gratuitously cruel punishments and systematised hatred of women are an unnatural and unwelcome graft onto our body politic. As such, the national body is displaying signs of rejection, and thus the EDL turned up to protest against Tuesday’s opening of Luton’s ‘Discover Islam Centre’.
Why does Luton need such a centre? Who has provided it with backing and finance? What are its objectives? With respect to the first question the answer is straightforward: Luton does not require such a centre. Nowhere in England needs a ‘Discover Islam Centre’ any more than anywhere needs a ‘Discover the Inquisition Centre’. In their ideology and conduct the two are very much akin, with their irrational religious fanaticism being a phenomenon that until recent decades we thought had long since passed forever from our island home. Alas, contemporary reality demonstrates otherwise, for the advocates and enablers of obscurantism seem intent upon reintroducing barbaric practices in the name of tolerance.
Depressingly, the presence of certain local dignitaries at Tuesday’s opening suggests that even at this time of deep cuts in public spending Luton Council may yet be devoting scarce taxpayers’ money to promoting this centre for Islamic proselytisation. Luton Todayreports that the “mayor, council leader, council chief executive and Luton in Harmony co-ordinator Sarah Allen” were all in attendance. Why? Is it the job of a mayor and senior council figures to promote Islam? Why is this considered acceptable?
As for the purpose of Luton’s ‘Discovering Islam Centre’ that is transparent enough: to promote Islam. What benefit does this afford to anyone in Luton other than to those Muslims keen to push their dogma upon the rest of the population? None. It is therefore apposite to ask the question afresh: why were Luton’s mayor, council leader and other senior council personnel at the opening of this propaganda centre yesterday? Why were they not instead attending to real council business for the benefit of all of the people they purport to represent? Luton residents should write to the mayor and the council to complain about this official backing of a centre created with the explicit intent of propagating a backward ideology, demanding an explanation for their actions and position. The ‘Discovering Islam Centre’ should be closed, as its existence does nothing other than deliberately exacerbate tensions in the town.
The EDL’s leader Stephen Lennon (alternatively known as Tommy Robinson) has declared that the intent of the protest is the closure of this centre. It transpires that the manager of the centre is a man named Yusuf Bonner, a Muslim convert who in a former life was a Catholic monk. According to Luton Today, Bonner is a blogger said “to have links to an organisation connected with Islamic extremists” who has called for the mass conversion of our people to Islam. Why therefore, are senior members of Luton Council complicit in promoting this agenda?
As for who has funded the centre, it is claimed that all of the money has originated from within “Luton’s Muslim community, including from Bury Park businessman Mohammed Nadeem.” Really? No Saudi cash kicking around then, or “community cohesion” grants?
The following video shows the EDL protest together with interviews with Stephen Lennon and one of the centre’s trustees, Sufian Sadiq.
The publicity in advance of this documentary revealed that the makers of this programme had set out with the intent of portraying Sayful Islam’s Islamists and Tommy Robinson’s EDL as morally equivalent “extremists”, who both should be condemned for their “intolerance”. In this narrative expectation, we were not to be disappointed, although of course it was disingenuous of the Dispatches editorial team to portray the EDL as a “far-right threat” to be feared as much as England’s burgeoning Islamist movement. In the opinion of the author, the EDL represent a genuine grassroots working-class movement that has arisen to fill the vacuum created by mainstream politics’ unwillingness to address the real concerns that they articulate, albeit in a working-class idiom not as polished as that of the professional political class. In its treatment of the EDL, the Dispatches team on this occasion thus fell into the typical inverted snobbery characteristic of the mainstream media, treating EDL supporters contemptuously simply because of the manner of their speech. That said, this programme was in an altogether different class to Stacey Dooley’s ‘My Hometown Fanatics’ which covered much of the same ground in a more superficial manner last week.
Robinson (real name Stephen Lennon) may have commented at the latest EDL demo in Hyde on Saturday that the title of the programme could be interpreted as representing his “pride” and Sayful Islam’s “prejudice”, but Channel 4 would not concur, for “a plague on both your houses!” was its effective message, echoing the standard line now peddled by the anti-democratic leftist pressure group ‘Hope Not Hate’.
The documentary opened with Robinson driving through Luton town centre, noting how he used to walk through the area as a child, but could no longer do so for fear of being beaten up. Soon enough, Sayful Islam was spotted, and within a few moments he had strolled over to Robinson’s car for an ill-tempered verbal exchange which ended with Islam hitting Robinson in the face. Islam called Robinson “racist”, to which the latter retorted, “What race is Islam?”
Luton, intoned the narrator, has a population of circa 200,000, 15% of which is Muslim – five times the national average. Having set the demographic context the documentary moved on to the formation of the EDL in 2009 in response to a Muslim protest against a homecoming parade of the Royal Anglian Regiment in the March of that year. Throughout, the documentary tended to intercut interviews with Sayful Islam, formerly of ‘Muslims Against Crusades’ (now banned), and Tommy Robinson, giving their contrasting perspectives. However, Robinson tended to enjoy more of the limelight throughout.
Islam has five children and studied accountancy at local university, and worked for a time as a tax inspector:
“We wanna shake the people and wake them up from their slumber. . . . The real heroes are people who have no homes, who have been raped, who have been violated.”
And when we awake from our slumbers, what would he like to offer us? An Islamic state. In that case, please do not disturb my sleep.
He grew up in Bury Park and became a disciple of Omar Bakri, founder of the banned group Al-Muhajiroun. Sayful’s followers are banned from most local mosques. One of the fertiliser bomb plotters and the Stockholm suicide bomber came from Luton. He, like others of his ilk, claims that Shariah Law will deal with the problems of contemporary society, preventing drug problems, prostitution and promotion of homosexuality. He sees a society “full of sexual deviancy and every sin.”
Lennon too is married and has three children. The narrator stated that he had served time for assaulting an off-duty policeman during a domestic dispute, but provided no explanation as to what had happened. Why is he alarmed about Islamisation? “If this is happening now when 3% of the country’s population is Muslim, God help us if it gets to 20%!” In twenty years time, he fears that such an eventuality could unfold. As for Muslims being offended, he retorted “I’m offended when I see a woman in a burqa. . . . We’re offended on a daily basis.”
Returning to the genesis of the EDL, it was Muslim barracking of the Royal Anglian Regiment together with Muslims spitting in a soldier’s mother’s face that generated the anger that precipitated its formation. Robinson managed to gather together 200 people, mostly Luton football fans, to mount a protest calling for a ban on Islam’s group, with Robinson spending £400 getting a cameraman to film the protest. This resulted in him receiving a banning order from the town centre and an ensuing “summer of tension”. Two hooded men attacked a local mosque with firebombs. An imam – billed as a “moderate” - opposed Sayful Islam, and claims that had Robinson stuck to attacking “Muslim extremism” he would not have a problem with that, but in his opinion he had now gone well beyond this and started attacking Islam as a religion.
The EDL claims 100,000 supporters, and dozens of demos have been held since its inception. However, although the narrator claimed that many had turned violent, he did not explain the nature of the violence or indeed point out that on the majority of occasions when violence had flared, it had been instigated by UAF and most of those who turned out to be arrested were so-called ‘antifascists’. The shadowy world of the SWP-dominated self-styled ‘antifascist’ movement was not examined, which constituted a serious flaw in the documentary’s approach.
The documentary, as covered in the preview article and attendant clip a couple of days ago, then moved on to the ‘Luton in Harmony’ initiative, which has attempted to paper over the wide and deep cracks between the town’s Muslim population and the rest. Lennon stated: that living in harmony wasn’t a problem for “The Hindus, the Jews, the Sikhs, the gay community”, but only one “with the Muslims.”
Sayful Islam concurred that there was an absence of harmony in the town:
“If you want to say Luton is in harmony, then why was the EDL born here?”
On the second anniversary of the EDL’s birth in 2011 Luton witnessed its largest EDL protest to date, and another one is planned for this year. As often on such occasions, UAF staged a counterdemonstration, which necessitated a massive police operation, with in excess of 1500 police being drafted in: “Luton was bracing itself for violence” intoned the narrator. Thankfully, the demonstration was remarkably peaceful. Only eight arrests were made throughout the £800,000 police operation.
That the EDL were having a political impact on the national stage appeared to be made clear by the fact that David Cameron chose to make a speech in Munich on the eve of the demonstration, stating that multiculturalism had failed (meaning nothing of the sort however, for his administration has continued to be a vigorous advocate of this policy). Lennon chose to disagree with Cameron, stating to the crowd:
“David Cameron is wrong, multiculturalism has worked. We live side by side as brothers and sisters.”
However, he stated:
“Stop building mosques in our community, we’ve had enough of it!”
“Every single one of you is in the forefront of the struggle against militant Islam.”
It seems to me however that it is precisely multiculturalism that has failed, for it is this ideology that has allowed Islamisation to take root and flourish. Lennon, it would appear, is confusing multiculturalism with multiracialism. He has always strongly objected to allegations that the EDL are racist, and was at pains to rebut this on a number of occasions, contrary to UAF claims which cited comments made on the EDL’s Facebook page as evidence. As he pointed out, he and his organisation could not be responsible for every comment posted. He himself had joined the BNP for a year in 2004, but claimed that he failed to renew his membership because he objected to the way that they barred blacks not only from the party, but also from social activities.
The rest of the documentary covered a number of other protests in 2011, including the EDL Tower Hamlets demo and a MAC demo at the American Embassy. Lennon was also shown being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman in the wake of the Breivik atrocity, during which he acquitted himself well (click here for full video of the interview). Interestingly, the programme did not touch upon the EDL’s proposed collaboration with the British Freedom Party announced last November. Why was this not mentioned? Will Robinson eventually declare that he will join the BFP and perhaps stand as a parliamentary candidate? If so, the documentary gave no hint of this possibility. Is however, a credible new party about to emerge which will fully address the concerns of the EDL without being as narrowly focused as the BFP? This is a distinct possibility, as is discussed here.
Overall therefore, this was an interesting documentary that gave us a view into both the EDL and to a lesser extent the world of Sayful Islam’s Islamists (see ‘My Brother the Islamist’ for a better treatment of Islamism in England today). However, the documentary would have been greatly enhanced if it had set its subject matter against the backdrop of the real trends towards Islamisation in England today, and examined the concept of Islamisation. In all likelihood though, this would have necessitated a two-part documentary. Dispatches has produced a number of excellent documentaries on Islamist extremism in the past, but this one did not quite live up to those high standards. As such, it was something of a curate’s egg.
On Thursday evening Channel 4 will be screening a documentary entitled ‘Make Bradford British’. It used to be, but it is no longer. Rather like buses, it would seem that documentaries dealing with the problems posed by Islamisation (although not explicitly framed that way) come in threes, for in the past ten days we will have had two documentaries on Luton and one on Bradford. Does this tell us something significant about the public mood and the preoccupations of the mass media, or is it just coincidence?
Channel 4 has uploaded a taster of Monday evening’s documentary on “extremism” in Luton (see video at the foot of this article), in which Dispatches spent a year investigating and filming the activities, personalities and views of the town’s militant Islamists, such as Sayful Islam, and their opponents in the EDL led by Stephen Lennon (Tommy Robinson). The documentary is said to feature footage in which Islam punched Lennon in the face as he unwound his car window to speak to him.
The clip itself opens with a shot of a meeting of the local council’s committee on promoting cohesion in the town, swiftly followed by comments from Sarah Allen, Luton’s Cohesion Officer:
“We’re in a time of recession. We know that in a recession, those sorts of ideas – scapegoating, racism can increase.”
In this statement, Allen displays the characteristic non-thinking ‘analysis’ trotted out by anyone on the Left who is either unwilling or unable to grant any sort of autonomy to cultural phenomena. The EDL did not arise as a response to a downturn in the economy, and it has not sought to scapegoat Muslims for our economic plight. It arose because of a specific problem with Islamism within our shores – the desire of a section of the UK passport-holding Muslim population to Islamise our society, and to live by the norms and social practices of their ancestral familial homelands. The phenomenon of Muslim paedophile grooming – of which the current trial in Liverpool provides but the latest example – is part of this unbidden and unwelcome imported cultural assemblage.
Allen remarked of the emergence of the EDL:
“I think it just happened and it struck a chord, and that is not to be denied or to be ignored; but I don’t think it is because of something to do with this town.”
She is correct in thinking that the rise of the EDL is not specific to Luton, for the problems suffered by this town as a by-product of its Islamisation are painfully familiar to English residents of other towns and cities such as Rochdale, Keighley, Bradford, Derby, Blackpool, Rotherham, Dewsbury and Sheffield. The first five in the list have all have borne witness to ugly and significant cases of Muslim paedophile grooming of white English girls. This however, is not something that Allen is aware of, or seems to wish to be aware of. Those who support the EDL, Casuals United and various other nationalist groups and parties are painfully aware of the existence of this criminal problem. Muslim paedophile grooming has nothing to do with recession, and everything to do with the example of the 53-year-old paedophile Prophet Mohammed and the consummation of his marriage to his six-year-old bride Aisha at the age of nine.
Commenting on “Luton in Harmony” Allen stated that it:
“is not a political campaign. It is a media, if you like, a branding concept. Our intention is to undermine those hateful messages and to promote the unity that we know exists in our town.”
Well, a true “Luton in Harmony” could exist if those troublesome elements that insist upon wishing to live their lives by Shariah were to be deported to their ancestral familial homelands where they could indeed do so. Unless that happens, there will be no harmony in Luton or anywhere else in England where Islamist fanatics agitate for our downfall and the imposition of Islamic law and governance.
The programme’s executive producer Paul Woolwich told Luton Today:
“Both men [Stephen Lennon and Sayful Islam] have valid comments to make, and it’s a debate that at some stage will need to be had”.
“We have to try and find ways of engaging with what they are saying.”
As predicted, it would thus seem that this latest documentary in Channel 4’s Dispatches series, that has produced some excellent exposés over the years, has chosen to portray the EDL and Islamists as being of the same ilk, with a “plague on both their houses” attitude. Channel 4’s intent seems to be to denounce both parties with a view to propping up an increasingly creaky and worm-eaten concept to which it is ideologically wedded: multiculturalism. Multiculturalism has had its day. It has failed. That, rather than any editorial voiceover, will be the real message of Monday’s episode of Dispatches. A full review of the programme can be read by clicking here.
Stacey Dooley the documentary maker was, to put it bluntly, irritating. “Why’s my hometown becoming so divided?” she chirped at the programme’s outset. Perhaps I am being a little unfair in my evaluation of Dooley, so let me flesh out her character a little more, for she is more than just irritating: she is also ignorant, naïve and deferential towards Muslims and Islam. She appears to be one of those people who is so open-minded that her brains fall out, as Richard Dawkins might put it; someone ripe for conversion to Islam. Then again, this young woman is the product of a politically correct education system, so her lack of awareness vis-à-vis the fundamentals of Islam can be comprehended, if not forgiven. In sum, she’s as dense as a pig of lead, and thus perfect for presenting a piece celebrating Luton’s “diversity” on BBC3.
The first person she stated she wished to interview was EDL leader Stephen Lennon, whom, it transpired, she had vaguely known years before as the two of them had grown up in the same area of town. Upon his non-arrival for an interview at a local radio station she gave vent to some disparaging remarks about him, whilst savouring the opportunity to speak to the oleaginous Inayat Bunglawala who unfortunately proved to be on hand to extol the virtues of Islam. Dooley, Bunglawala and a local Muslim politician had something of a “love in”, with the latter commenting with respect to the EDL: “They’re not a nice bunch of people”. Not as “nice” as all of those devout lovers of Shariah, needless to say.
Dooley next headed to Lennon’s tanning salon, but sign of Lennon there was none. The reason for his absence and non-attendance at the radio station was, it transpired, that he had been arrested whilst protesting.
The next section of Dooley’s attempt to legitimise the Islamic presence in Luton consisted of a potted and incomplete history of the Muslim settlement of the town, which she attributed to the demand for labour in the Vauxhall Cars factory which closed in 2000. The area in which they chose to settle, as every Lutonian knows, was Bury Park, which now hosts a population of 30,000 “Asians” who happen to be predominantly Muslim. Dooley commented that she had never shopped there and that “it’s really interesting” as “you could easily mistake it for not being an English town”. Her squeals of delight were difficult to suppress, as she revelled in revealing that there are now circa (not the word she chose to use) 30 mosques in Luton.
Dooley’s next encounter was with a group of Lutonian Muslims, yelling the usual anti-British slogans and curses involving death, hell and sundry other unpleasantries. This was, apparently, a demonstration in “defence” of the wife of a Muslim resident who had bombed Stockholm. “I found their chanting provocative and extreme” said Dooley, enjoying the frisson occasioned by the slogan ‘British police burn in hell!’ All was not sweetness and light however, for even Dooley’s dimwittedness gave way before some burka-clad harridan’s injunction for the reporter to “put some clothes on” to cover up her nakedness: “I tried my hardest to sympathise with people who were different to me”, stated Dooley, but her patience was momentarily wearing thin. “One of the saddest things, is that people have brought their kids along” she continued.
The next interviewee was to be Islamist windbag Anjem Choudhary, whose speech bore in its cadence a startling resemblance to that of Nick Griffin’s: “If the law of the land is Islamic, we’ll respect it” he enunciated, in his typically self-assured manner. Still, Dooley was undaunted in leaping to the defence of Luton’s Islamic population: “Of the 30,000 Muslims living in Luton, there are less than a hundred at this rally.” Furthermore, although she ventured to comment, “I do feel shocked at this protest,” she was quick to emphasise her belief that it was not representative of the views of Muslims in Luton.
As was to be expected in a BBC ‘documentary’ of this type, the presenter paid a visit to her old school in an attempt to track down some of her old schoolmates. Strangely, she appeared to be unawares of the existence of the data protection act, so quite naturally her old teachers could not provide her with contact details of other ex-pupils. Sadly, one of them was an English girl who had converted to Islam, for which the school must be assumed to bear a considerable degree of culpability. In order to demonstrate her multicultural credentials, Dooley revealed that she had had a Muslim classmate named Amara, “what I would call a moderate Muslim.” Well, she so wished to seek her out because, after all, “Sometimes, Islam gets a rough old time.” How touchingly naïve of her to say so.
Unfortunately, Amara was duly tracked down, and when asked about the likes of Choudhary and Sayful Islam provided a typically slippery Muslim response which basically told us that she concurred with their views, but she’d prefer to deceive us on camera, describing them as “Not bad people, but people with different views.” So, this self-styled “moderate Muslim” turned out to be just as “moderate” as one would anticipate.
Having thus ‘established’ that other than the hundred or so slogan-chanting bomb enthusiasts all of Lutons Muslims were “moderates” it was time to rubbish the EDL by describing them as “extremists”: “Many believe they’re a violent racist organisation that recruit from football terraces.” Really? And what do you believe Dooley? There wasn’t much insinuation at play there, was there?
Next on the list of interviewees was leading EDL spokesman Kev Carroll: “I’m not aggressive, I’m just passionate, you know?” He singles out the “Islamic community” as alone amongst immigrant groups to who have not made any effort to integrate, unlike Sikhs, Chinese and blacks. Dooley though clearly thought that he was “extreme”, most likely because he didn’t have a holy book to back up his beliefs. If you have a holy back upon which to base your bigotry, then for Dooley this is entirely legitimate, as was evidenced by her total lack of awareness of the theory and reality of Shariah Law. After all, as Caroll indicated, the penalty for adultery is stoning. However, not to be dissuaded from trying to understand and empathise with the advocates of Shariah, Dooley spoke to a Shariah apologist who claimed that stoning was not really a punishment because there were supposed to be four witnesses to such a crime and there rarely were, so in practice people were not stoned for the crime. Did he believe with it in principle. Well, yes, as all Muslims want Shariah. Dooley proved to be blithely accepting of Omar’s explanation and naturally designated him a “moderate”. With such “moderates”, who needs “extremists”?
Dooley continued: “The problem with Luton, is although the central mosque preaches peace, down the road it’s a different story.” Down the road she happened upon Sayful Islam, a former member of Al-Mahajiroun who last year assaulted Stephen Lennon/Tommy Robinson, but he would not condescend to speak to her, claiming that he was busy. Thus, Dooley decided to speak to two others of his ilk who refused to shake her hand. They claimed that women in the UK are “degraded” and “humiliated”. They don’t believe in democracy and secularism and predictably claimed that “Islam is the real solution”. One implied that he supported Al-Qaeda, and eventually Dooley’s even chirpy, sugary idiocy dissolved: “That makes me feel that we’re always gonna have issues in Luton.” She suspected that they, and their kind, “would encourage and applaud others” who carried out acts of terrorism. Yes Dooley, that is how it is. You are not very quick on the uptake, are you girl?
At the central mosque, interviewees claimed that the extremists were loudmouths who were “cowardly”, because although they called for people to go and fight the Americans, they would not go themselves. “It saddens me that young vulnerable Lutonians are being groomed by the radicals” Dooley opined with respect to the malign influence of these Islamist poltroons.
Strangely, she described the call to prayer as a sign of “how diverse” Luton had become. How could this be “diverse”, given that it is a supremacist expression of confident Muslim monoculturalism. She then insisted on smiling at a couple of niqab-clad droids. They were, unsurprisingly, a couple of hostile individuals, who wore this garb as a deliberate statement of their rejection of the host society and its cultural norms. Dooley even went so far as to don full Islamic dress, niqab included: “I do feel so different in this. I feel like people are staring a little bit.” Someone told her to take her mask off: “Why do people think that they can dictate what you wear?”
At last, the final ten minutes of the programme finally brought the much-sought-for interview with Stephen Lennon, who claimed that the EDL had put Luton on the map for a positive reason: “I love Luton, and I want what’s best for Luton.” Dooley, as befitting her lack of morality engendered by her surrender to cultural relativism argued that Muslims should be able to live their lives by Shariah Law, in Luton: “I persuaded Stephen to walk through Luton with me.” He stated that he had not walked through Luton with his wife and kids for two years, and mentioned that she did not agree with the EDL, neither did her parents. Nonetheless, Lennon remained steadfast in his belief in the EDL’s cause for “Islam rules through fear and intimidation” and there was no way that he was going to let it silence him.
Dooley continued to be excruciating, defending the niqab and the burka, and insisted on speaking to a random Muslim on the street who stated that he wanted Shariah Law, yet she still considered him to be a “moderate”. More “moderates”, it would seem, were in the vicinity, for “Soon several young men were following us and I was beginning to feel on edge.” Muslims closed in on Lennon, attempting to intimidate him through force of numbers.
This documentary left me feeling exasperated at Dooley’s wilful ignorance and stupidity. The woman appears to be incapable of rational thought, preferring instead to emote and empathise, even with those who would treat her like trash. “Ignorance is what causes extremism”, Dooley concluded. Now, although I do concur with this conclusion, I do not do so in a manner that she would find agreeable, for it is the ignorance displayed by politically correct cultural relativist dupes such as Dooley that allows “extremism” to flourish. The BBC, once again, has excelled itself in producing a piece of apologia for Islam's presence, entrenchment and growth in contemporary England.
Stacey Dooley: a bit dim, or an animatronic mannequin?
In the following video, Tommy Robinson/Stephen Lennon drives a reporter around his home town of Luton, taking him through the town’s Islamic enclave. There they encounter local Islamist Sayful Islam who recognises Robinson and approaches the car to repeatedly call Robinson a ‘racist’ before hitting him in the face. It would behove Jeremy Paxman to witness this ugly reality, given his condescending refusal to recognise the genuine problem that exists with Islamisation in England today. Paxman’s BBC colleague John Humphreys visited Luton relatively recently to interview both Robinson and Islam. At the end of his report he seemed to be on the verge of recognising that the EDL might be articulating genuine concerns, but ultimately the report was equivocal. What would he make of this recent encounter between the two men?
Whilst we basked in belated summer’s welcome heat, the benign Sun beaming from on high, the malcontents of Luton troubled the eye with their shrouded forms, and the ear with their jarring speech and chanting foul. Bearded, wishing to be heeded, their presence, most certainly unneeded, imposing their message upon the passers-by, who would far sooner avert the eye, and hurry to some other place, for this was hardly to their taste. Why? Why should this have been? A parade of Muslims, once more obscene, described in doggerel, yet real, not another bad dream. In Bury Park they barked their chants, “Allahu Akbar” and sundry rants, about two Muslimahs stripped and searched, upon terror charges as is the policeman’s work.
These people go by many names, and show us kuffar but fierce disdain, but we shall not flinch from their parades, whether it be Al-Mahajiroun or Muslims Against Crusades. In other words, the stirrers were at it again in Luton’s Bury Park yesterday as shown in the video below. Welcome to Luton? No thanks. Is Stevenage any better?
One of the irksome aspects of the BBC radio ‘Listen again’ facility is the fact that recordings of broadcasts remain available for only a week after their initial airing. Nonetheless, here is the link should you wish to give it a try.
Having been in a rush this morning, I caught only part of John Humphrys’s report on Luton, and thus listened to it in full this evening. Indeed, I had earlier wondered if I had still been half asleep when I heard his conclusion to the piece, as it struck me that Humphrys seemed to be on the dawn of realising the reality of Islamisation and the threat that it poses to England and the English. Astonishingly, it seems that this may be the case. If so, this will mark a watershed moment for one of the country’s most influential political broadcasters.
The report was run as part of the BBC’s build up to the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and although entitled ‘9/11 ‘led to rise inIslamophobia’’, the airtime afforded to Tommy Robinson/Stephen Lennon meant that the EDL perspective had a chance to reach millions of listeners across the country. The EDL leader, currently under arrest and staging a hunger strike, acquitted himself with aplomb, and not once did the report refer to the EDL as ‘far-right’, which was a staggering achievement for the BBC given its record on this score.
Luton had been selected as the location for the report not only because that is where the EDL was born, but also because of the events that functioned as the catalyst to its formation: the barracking of the Royal Anglian Regiment by a group of Islamists during their homecoming parade in 2009 and the fact that the 7/7 bombers departed from the town on the morning that they unleashed wanton carnage in London in 2005. The report was set out in typical BBC style, seemingly posing a question whilst structuring the report in such a fashion as to make the answer implicit and predetermined, thus in this instance it was a case of contrasting Islamist views with those of the EDL, with the “Muslim community” being cast in the role of the moderate majority. The clear implication was that the Islamist and EDL perspectives ought to be perceived as equally ‘extreme’ and repugnant, and that those of the “Muslim community” should be applauded. Now, that of course means that the English view was structurally displaced and portrayed as by definition ‘extreme’. What a dreadful pass we have come to when our own country’s state broadcaster deliberately portrays our native population as beyond the pale! Nonetheless, as will be seen, the unpleasant reality of what has happened to Luton appears to have even made some impression upon Humphrys.
Thus, the report opened with references to halal butchers, sari shops and women wearing mostly full Islamic dress with faces covered – “Nothing unusual in Britain today”, dutifully noted Humphrys, before stating that Luton has “acquired a reputation as a breeding ground for Islamic extremism” which “the city fathers” think is “rubbish”. Before the interviews commence the scene is finally set with the comment: “But listen to these voices, all people born and bred in Luton, and you’ll hear the story of a town divided.”
Most of the report consisted of interviews with Farasat Latif (Imam at the Al Ghurabaa Mosque), Luton Islamist Sayful Islam and EDL Leader Tommy Robinson (Stephen Lennon). Humphrys seemed to be taken aback both by the positions of Sayful Islam and Tommy Robinson, but his concluding remarks are interesting, and perhaps suggests that Humphrys is awakening to the fact that the EDL is not an organisation of paranoid football hooligans, but a genuine English patriotic movement seeking to preserve the English way of life from an all-too-real Islamic threat. Below I provide a transcript of some of the key parts of the report. Note in particular the last three paragraphs that taken together seem to indicate Humphrys’s dawning realisation that all is not well with the BBC’s official line with respect to the ‘religion of peace’ (sic).
Sayful Islam (formerly of the banned organisation Al-Muhajiroun):
“What I would describe myself as is someone who doesn’t want to compromise in terms of Islam. If I believe in Islam, and if I practise Islam and if I’m called to Islam, I will not compromise on any aspect of that because obviously if I do then I might fall into falsehood, and when I do something like that, you see a clash of civilisations where you see the Islamic way of life does clash with the Western way of life: stuff like British values and British identity obviously is something that I will never adhere to or follow”
John Humphrys:
“But you live here?”
Sayful Islam:
“Yeah, of course I do live here and I have lived here for many years. I’ve lived here all my life. Britain claims to be a place where you have freedom, where you have the right to practise whatever you want to. Then why don’t I have the right to practise Islam?”
Humphrys went on to note that 60% of the population in the area he was visiting was Muslim:
“The English Defence League is appalled by that. Set up and run by a Luton businessman Tommy Robinson, the EDL has been remarkably successful in a very short time at getting people around the country to come out onto the streets to protest against what they see as a growing threat from Islam.”
Tommy Robinson:
“Thirty years ago in this town there was 3,000 Muslims and one mosque yeah. If you’d have said to people thirty years ago, in thirty years time there will be 19 mosques, there’ll be 30, 40, 50,000 Muslims, they’ll be banning the emblem of St George in your school, they’ll be opening a prayer centre in the Arndale Centre, they’ll be attacking your troops when they’re walking home, they’ll have stalls set up promoting jihad and extremism every single week in the town, thirty years ago people would have said “never, that’s not going to happen in Luton”, but it’s happened. At the end of the day Islamic demographics are terrifying; the birth-rate and the statistics are terrifying.”
John Humphrys:
“Are you just racists?”
Tommy Robinson:
“I’m not racist at all, I completely hate racism. We’ve defeated Nazism yet we’re allowing Islamism to flourish because it goes under the banner of a religion.”
John Humphrys:
“But aren’t you promoting hatred against them?”
Tommy Robinson:
“We don’t do anything out of hate we do it out of love; love for Christianity, love for our culture, love for my kids’ futures.”
John Humphrys:
“At the heart of this conflict is obviously fear. But is it of fear of Islamic terrorism, another 9/11, or is it something else? Robinson says what his organisation fears is Sharia Law.”
Tommy Robinson:
“In 2003 the European Court of Human Rights outlawed Sharia Law in Europe and said that it’s incompatible with Western democracy because of their views on homosexuals, their views on women and their views on infidels – that’s all of us. It’s incompatible. It won’t work. And all we see now is a louder, louder voice and a louder call for Sharia Law, and aspects of Sharia Law to be implemented in the British legal system.”
John Humphrys:
“More moderate Muslims dismiss that out of hand. Sharia simply enables them to practise their religion they say, to observe their culture. It’s not law in any meaningful sense. But Sayful Islam delivers what sounds a rather chilling warning.”
Sayful Islam:
“I believe that Sharia is the alternative. The fact that I am calling for [an] Islamic state, a state that would implement Sharia, it’s not just the Muslims that want an alternative, we can see even now non-Muslims are searching for an alternative, uh social fabric of this society even the economic, political are collapsing and this is where people like myself come along and we present this alternative which I believe is Islam.”
John Humphrys:
“That’s exactly what the English Defence League fears, or maybe we should call it the Englishness Defence League. What’s happened here in Luton over the past ten years suggests that it’s no longer a threat to the security of England that so many fear, it’s more a threat to the English way of life.”
Following his interview with Jeremy Paxman on Wednesday evening in advance of today’s EDL demonstration in Luton, Tommy Robinson yesterday put up a good performance against a smug grinning Sky News presenter named Adam Boulton. In this he drew attention to a number of death threats against him and his family which have been made by Muslim militants and the fact that he and some other leading members of the EDL such as Guramit Singh have to live with 24-hour police protection. Despite clearly outlining the threats to his personal safety and his reading out a police message advising him to keep out of Luton today because of further threats to his life, Boulton kept asking him why he thought it necessary to assume a pseudonym and to have worn a balaclava at the first EDL demonstration. Might not the communication at the beginning of the interview have rendered such questions superfluous Mr Boulton? A video of the interview is posted below:
Initial reports coming in from the EDL demo in Luton today indicate that circa 2,000 police have been deployed to keep public order and prevent UAF protesters from clashing with the EDL. The Hope Not Hate campaign claimed that by midday around 1,000 EDL supporters had arrived, whereas the EDL itself is hoping to bring 10,000 protesters to the streets. It has also been claimed that some coachloads of EDL protestors have been turned back because the passengers were drunk. German, Dutch and Swedish Defence League flags have been spotted, highlighting the international links that the EDL has developed over the years.
For all that Lowles says, although Cameron’s speech is billed as ‘rejecting multiculturalism’ in favour of a ‘muscular liberalism’, I can guarantee that this will be nothing more than an attempt to gain some favourable headlines in papers such as the Daily Mail and Telegraph. Given that press releases have referred to his wish to tackle ‘extremist ideologies’ (note the plural) I predict that subsequent policy will instead consist of a ‘muscular multiculturalism’ which will focus equally upon damning Islamism and British/English nationalism. You will recall Cameron’s injunction from a year or two ago for mainstream British society to learn from mainstream Muslim values. Witness also Sayeeda Warsi’s shrill prelude to the oncoming anti-nationalist witch-hunt with her admonition of members of the indigenous middle class for their so-called socially acceptable ‘Islamophobia’.
Cameron will focus as much upon attacking the EDL as he will upon Islamism. Tommy Robinson (Stephen Lennon) will thus be fooling himself if he thinks that ‘cast iron Dave’ will do anything to seriously tackle Islamisation in this country. For example, the Tories are already committed to overseeing an expansion in the network of faith schools and are now funding Muslim schools which will rear a generation of English-despising Muslims with a superiority complex coupled with the usual sense of Muslim resentment about the wider non-Islamic society within which they reside. This is the reality of Cameron’s ‘attack’ upon multiculturalism. Cameron’s seeming shift on this issue should be seen in the same light as his promise to hold a referendum on the EU and to limit mass immigration, both of which were worthless verbiage. The fact that Cameron chose to make his speech on the same day as the Luton demo suggests that he is attempting to undermine the base of support for the EDL. In that respect Tommy, Cameron indeed ‘knows his base’ (click here for a more in-depth consideration of Cameron's speech).
Press Reaction
Press reaction to the EDL’s Luton outing has been predictably hostile, using the usual panoply of National Union of Journalists (NUJ) pariah terms: the Daily Mail dubbed the EDL ‘far-right’, called its protest ‘inflammatory’ and dutifully and uncritically reported the UAF chant of ‘Nazi scum off our streets’ which made the paper complicit in this defamation of the movement. The Daily Mirror called it ‘far-right’, and even went so far as to regurgitate Labour MP Sadiq Khan’s ridiculous accusation that Cameron’s speech about multiculturalism was tantamount to 'writing propaganda for the EDL'. The Guardian predictably ran with an hysterical edition featuring numerous articles on the ‘far-right’ EDL, with its harridan Suzanne Moore describing the EDL as using the ‘language of fake inclusiveness’ and as being ‘the mirror image of Al-Mahajiroun’. She once again deployed that tired old canard linking economic bad times and the rise of the ‘far right’: ‘Far-right movements will, of course, thrive during a recession.’ Nick Lowles of ‘anti-fascist’ campaign group Hope Not Hate was also afforded the opportunity to write an opinion piece on the EDL. The movement must be doing something right to whip up this near-universal torrent of opprobrium.
Always remember that the tactics used by the mainstream media, politicians and leftist campaigns against patriotic movements and parties opposed to globalisation and Islamisation can be summarised by the following acronym: SID. This stands for stigmatise, isolate and destroy. Whenever you read reports about the EDL or patriotic parties here or across Europe, remember to read them taking this tactic into account. Robinson's speech to the EDL crowd in Luton's St George's Square can be viewed here:
EDL Protestors at Luton Station (courtesy of PI News)
“Luton will be the biggest test yet of what the EDL has become” (Newsnight Reporter).
In advance of this Saturday's EDL demo in Luton Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Lennon) the founder of the protest group was invited into the Newsnight studio for a grilling by Jeremy Paxman. This slot had to wait until after analysis of the day's events in Egypt and what significance they may have for the democratic prospects for the Arab world. Thus, in the opening shots of the programme an understandably nervous Robinson was pictured awaiting his ordeal. Unsurprisingly, Paxman introduced him by drawing attention to the significant expense which would be incurred by this Saturday's demonstration.
Before the interview proceeded, Newsnight ran a report on the EDL which it was said had been worked on by a BBC journalist over the past six months whilst she was “getting to know members of the EDL”. She noted the large number of demonstrations that it has held over the past two years since its inception in Luton in response to the barracking of members of the Royal Anglian Regiment by a group of Islamists. Although neither the Muslim Defence League (MDL) nor UAF were named, she mentioned that groups had formed in opposition to the EDL. This weekend’s demo was billed as being likely to be biggest yet, which has caused some surprise to the police and media who did not expect the EDL to last for such a length of time. The fact that neither predicted this suggests to me a very real and deep lack of understanding of the issues that have fed into the rise of the EDL. This certainly became evident when Paxman got underway with his interview.
Starting with a precis of Robinson's/Lennon's background, the 28 year old was described as“Luton born and bred”. He was pictured at his business (a tanning salon) donning a bullet-proof vest before venturing out onto the streets of Luton. The reporter questioned the need for such apparel, evidently viewing it as a piece of unnecessary posturing, but Robinson claimed that both his house and business had been attacked by Muslims and that his personal security was under real threat.
Not only does Luton possess links to the intercepted Fertiliser Bomb Plot and the 7/7 bombings, but since the EDL came into being another Luton resident Muslim became a suicide bomber and blew himself up in Stockholm. Moving on, the report then drew attention to the increasing pressure being placed upon police forces by EDL demos (although no emphasis was placed upon the expense incurred in policing the frequently violent UAF counter-demonstrations).
In an effort to tap into the motivations of ordinary EDL members and supporters, the reporter visited a Birmingham pub to which Robinson had been invited to address members of a newly-formed division.
Women, children and non-white members were also present, and understandably some of those in attendance were uncomfortable with the BBC cameras. Robinson made clear throughout that he had no problem with West Indian, Sikh or Hindu youth; the problem was specifically with doctrinaire Muslims (although he did not use this term which could have helped him out in his sparring with Paxman).
The EDL is a genuine working-class protest movement that has grown out of the frustrations of ordinary people tired of being ignored by members of the political and media elites who insist on stigmatising them as 'bigots' and 'racists' at every opportunity, even though they are not. We often hear politicians moaning that working class people are disengaged from politics, and yet when they do form there own movement as in the case of the EDL, they are turned upon by these very same individuals. Mainstream politicians have little relevance to the lives of ordinary English working class people and possess no real understanding of their lives and their problems. Little wonder, as the more affluent in our society (such as Paxman) have the money to buy themselves out of undesirable neighbourhoods. If they think that certain areas of Luton, Burnley, Tower Hamlets, Bradford and Dewsbury are so marvellously culturally 'vibrant' and 'enriched', why is it that they don't flock to live in these places? We know the real reasons why.
Returning to the Newsnight report, one woman interviewee drew attention to the exceedingly rapid growth of the Muslim population in her locality and the fact that non-Muslim children were getting picked on at school. Of course, the privileged middle-class interviewer (and by middle class I'm not referring to a humble office worker, but someone sheltered from the unsavoury aspects of contemporary life by a fat BBC salary) could not get her head around such a perspective, for she did not have a clue what it must be like to live in such a situation.
Instead of fading into oblivion, the EDL has grown in strength and has even, the report noted, acquired an international dimension, sending delegates to the anti-Ground Zero Mosque Rally in New York and to Amsterdam to support Geert Wilders. Guramit Singh was also interviewed, and quite rightly noted that “Islam [as a doctrine] is disgusting”. The EDL Nottingham Deputy Leader declared that he was against what was in the Qur’an, i.e. the doctrine, and not against Muslims.
Tommy Robinson Interviewed
As expected, Paxman treated Robinson in a condescending manner, swooping down from his sheltered eyrie with claws extended. The EDL founder outlined that he and the EDL stood against Shariah Law and Islamism from which many of our towns and cities are under threat. He declared it to be incompatible with Western democracy and to be against the rights of women, homosexuals and infidels. Islamisation is a real and ongoing process. Paxman did not understand. He attempted to pour scorn on Robinson's position and ridiculed the notion that England was 'under threat' from Shariah Law or Islamisation. Robinson countered by illustrating that Islamisation was concentrated in those areas where Muslims constituted the demographic majority.
Unfortunately, there was no time to touch upon the questions of immigration and differential birth rates, but in truth, Paxman would have been equally dismissive of those arguments, as his bloated bank account will forever protect him from the negative consequences of such processes. Paxman is as out of touch with the reality of the lives of ordinary English folk living next to Muslim enclaves as Mubarak is with the mood of the Egyptian demonstrators. Neither of them understand that things have changed. The fact that Paxman resides in a bubble was vigorously underscored by Robinson.
“Could a Muslim join the English Defence League?” fires off Paxman. “Of course they could, yeah”, replies Robinson.
Paxman inferred that Robinson had never read the Qur'an, but from Paxman's verbal and facial expressions of incredulity (a prime piece of gurning) in response to Robinson's concurrence that the contents of the Qur'an were vile, it's evident that Paxman most certainly is unacquainted with anything but a bowldlerised qur'anic primer.
The problem of twenty years of Muslim pimping gangs and paedophilia covered up and not dealt with because of political correctness and fear of offending the Muslim 'community' led to more gurning from Paxman and childish assertions that "white men do that too!" Jeremy old boy, you really don't understand do you? One thing that a Cambridge education (good as it is) will never provide you with is an insight into the lived experience of working class people in areas of our town and cities that you'd never dream of spending five minutes in out of choice, unless you were there on a journalistic assignment.
The interview drew towards its close: “Aren’t you worried by what you’ve set off?” asked Paxman.
“Ours is a righteous cause” replied Robinson.
Make your own mind up. I'm not a righteous man, but I do know which of the two aforementioned men know about the real problems engendered by the implanting of doctrinaire Islam in our country, and in this instance it is the man with knowledge born of experience rather than of educated wishful thinking who has the better measure of this matter. Being an educated man, perhaps Mr Paxman ought to take note of the Oxford Dictionary definition of a ‘bigot’: noun – ‘a person who is bigoted’: bigoted (adjective) – ‘obstinately convinced of the superiority of one’s own opinions and prejudiced against those who hold different opinions’. Doesn’t sound a bit like Jeremy, does it? Ahem!
