EDL Solihull Demo

This afternoon an EDL demo has been taking place in Solihull, the first of 2013. According to various reports on Twitter, anywhere between 40 and 60 supporters took part. One estimate even placed their numbers as low as 25. Although billed as a ‘regional demo’, the numbers are small. There seems to be little other information circulating about the demo, although its detractors have asserted that its organiser – Matthew Pile – had been involved in a violent racist attack on a fellow bus passenger last October. Press coverage of the protest was limited to an article in the Birmingham Mail, which claimed that there were circa 60 demonstrators in total and whilst hostile in tone noted that the demonstration was peaceful. There was no counter-demonstration.

With Stephen Lennon/Tommy Robinson having recently been sentenced to a ten-month custodial sentence for having entered the US on someone else’s passport, and the EDL seemingly having passed its high watermark in terms of numbers attending demonstrations, some observers have been touting this as signalling the demise of the anti-Islamist campaign group, although in reality the picture is rather more complex. Lennon himself had assumed a high-profile role in the BFP alongside Kevin Carroll in April last year, but left in October, announcing that he was to transform the EDL itself into a political party. Carroll however stayed in the BFP whilst remaining a high-profile member of the EDL. To the surprise of many, Carroll became BFP Chairman earlier this month when Paul Weston stepped down from the role after a little over a year in the position. Adding to the confusion was the fact that the BFP became deregistered as a political party in November 2012 following its failure to pay its annual registration fee. The current status of the party is therefore unclear.

With Kevin Carroll having become BFP Chairman and his cousin now sitting in prison for the best part of this year, will Lennon’s intention to transform the EDL into a fully-fledged political party remain, or will he rejoin the BFP now that Weston has stepped down? It seemed that one of the primary reasons for Lennon’s departure was linked to a failure to see eye-to-eye with Weston’s political agenda despite the party's near monomaniac obsession with Islam, but with Carroll in control, this difference will now in all likelihood have been removed. If the BFP is to continue, it would appear that it will now be the electoral arm of the EDL, although this poses questions both for the BFP’s existing membership and for many EDL supporters who are averse to involvement in electoral politics. It is unlikely that there will be any clarity on this score for quite some time to come, and it seems probable that those EDL protests that do take place in the coming months will be organised by local divisions rather than by the national leadership. 

EDL Solihull Demonstration

EDL Walthamstow Protest: Banned, but will it go ahead?

This Saturday, the EDL plan to return to Walthamstow to demonstrate following a not so successful visit on 1 September when a large number of counter-demonstrators turned out to oppose them under the aegis of SWP-front group 'We are Waltham Forest' (WAWF). On Tuesday the Metropolitan Police applied to Home Secretary Teresa May for a banning order on marches in the borough, claiming that they had received intelligence that the protests could result in 'serious public disorder, violence and damage.'

Minister for Policing Damian Green this afternoon announced a ban on marches in the following areas for the next 30 days: Islington, Newham, Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets. The EDL have instead been offered the opportunity to protest outside if Parliament this Saturday, but it is thought that they will instead opt to try and hold a static protest in Walthamstow. Green's decision has also irritated WAWF, so it would seem likely that at least a number of its supporters are likely to ignore the banning order.

This comes at the end of a turbulent week for the EDL, insofar as its leader - Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (Tommy Robinson) - was arrested on Saturday as one of a group of 53 EDL supporters who were en route to east London. He was arrested for the alleged assault of Sayful Islam in Luton on Saturday morning; 'suspicion of conspiring to cause a public nuisance' (this is why the 53 were detained) and for illegally entering the USA in September, allegedly using forged documents. Kevin Carroll, subsequently released, was also amongst the 53 detainees. According to the Gates of Vienna blog, Yaxley-Lennon's former political colleague Paul Weston was also arrested outside of Wormwood Scrubs on Monday when attempting to ascertain whether the former was being held at the prison, the pretext for his arrest being stated as 'a breach if the peace'. What has happened since then is not clear, as no information appears to have been forthcoming.

It thus seems that whatever happens on Saturday, the EDL leader will not be at the demo, wherever it takes place. His recent announcement that he was to turn the EDL into a political party and leave the BFP of which he had been joint vice-chairman for a number of months, underscored Yaxley-Lennon's desire to reconnect with the EDL support base, having ascertained that leading the movement was where his strength lay. The EDL's opponents will doubtless view this week's developments with a certain malign glee, but although they would wish that it were finished, it doubtless has life left in it yet.

EDL Walthamstow Demo: 1 September 2012

The Odd Couple: Stephen Yaxley-Lennon and Nikki Sinclaire

Yesterday’s announcement that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, alternatively known as Tommy Robinson, was leaving his position as joint Vice-Chairman of the BFP to focus on his leadership of the EDL came as a surprise to many. Quite what precipitated his decision is unclear, but this announcement comes only a fortnight after an unsubstantiated rumour circulated that Paul Weston had resigned from his position as BFP Chairman, a rumour that was swiftly rebutted. It begs the question as to who started this rumour and why?

In his interview with The Independent yesterday, Lennon (for the sake of brevity I shall avoid the double-barrelled formulation) stated:

"I am looking at how to change the EDL into a genuine political party but we can't put a time on it at the moment. We are looking at the 2014 elections in Europe.

"It [the BFP] just isn't for me, I want to stick to the EDL. I wanted to make this decision before I committed myself to campaigning for the BFP. I have not been involved in an election campaign for them yet, so it is the right time."

What was it about the BFP’s policy platform that caused Lennon to take this decision, if indeed it was a matter of policy that caused his departure? Whatever the underpinning cause happened to be, attempting to turn the EDL into a political party is an utterly pointless venture, being as it is a single-issue protest group. Lennon would be better off re-evaluating his movement’s aims, objectives and tactics, transforming it into a more tightly focused and effective campaigning vehicle independent of any particular political party. Although it has managed to establish itself in the public consciousness, the EDL has not, generally speaking, projected an image that would exert electoral appeal to anything other than a small hardcore of supporters. Irrespective of the fact that there are certain widely-recognised negative behaviours exhibited by Islamists in this country which the majority of the general public find abhorrent, voters are not going to cast their ballots for a party that makes tackling Islamism its number one issue, although they would of course be happy to vote for a party with a comprehensive policy platform that dealt appropriately with the Islamist problem as part of its wider policy mix. Voters are primarily concerned about the economy, public services, education, housing and immigration, not Islamism, no matter how much distaste they may possess for it.  

Does Lennon intend to transform the EDL into a political party with such a broad policy mix? This seems doubtful. For all of its flaws and fixation upon the Islamic issue, the BFP does at least profess to possess objectives other than tackling Islamism and Islamisation; the EDL does not. In this respect, Lennon’s move brings to mind the recent announcement by former UKIP MEP Nikki Sinclaire in connection with the creation of a new political party named ‘We Demand a Referendum’ (WDAR), which possesses no policy other than to secure a referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the EU. For some reason, The Sun threw its backing behind this venture last month, presumably because Murdoch no longer finds Cameron’s Conservative Party to his liking.

How peculiar it is, that both Lennon and Sinclaire have decided to leave single-issue fixated parties and establish new splinter parties focused purely upon Islam and the EU respectively. This is not the stuff of electoral politics, but of pressure group agitation, and given the obsession of both figures with these single issues, they would be best advised to keep out of electoral politics and instead concentrate upon building up convincing arguments and campaigns in support of their respective positions. A vote for either will be a wasted one; both parties will fail, and badly at that. Voters need to be presented with a credible alternative to which they can lend their support; a party that genuinely tackles both of these concerns alongside the pressing need to address those issues that are central to the winning of any campaign. The EDL will not be such a party, and neither will the WDAR.

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon: Leader of the EDL

  Nikki Sinclaire: Leader of 'We Demand a Referendum'

Death Threats made against EDL Members

This is Bristol reports that Avon and Somerset Police have issued two EDL members with Osman warnings ahead of the group’s protest in Bristol this Saturday. Such warnings are issued when intelligence is received relating to credible death threats, but the police do not have sufficient evidence to arrest the suspect(s). The names of the two individuals who have been threatened have not been revealed. However, it is probable that one of them is Mickey Bayliss who had a concrete slab thrown through the windscreen of his car recently whilst out campaigning. News of these threats follows the recent arrest of the Dewsbury bomb plotters who had allegedly been planning to attack the EDL’s last demo in Dewsbury on Saturday 30 June. The arrest raises the question as to whether this will increase turnout at the EDL’s 14 July demo, or whether it will deter people from coming out.

Speaking in Brussels on 9 July, Tommy Robinson/Stephen Lennon made it clear that he thought that the discovery of the Dewsbury bomb plot represented a turning point in the country. Although relieved that the plotters had not succeeded in unleashing carnage on the day in question, he voice his opinion that were such an attack to be made upon the EDL, its impact upon national sentiment in England would be very much akin to that experienced by Irish republicans following Bloody Sunday: “I believe England would rise up” he stated. His speech was delivered as part of the Brussels Process sponsored by the International Civil Liberties Alliance at the EU Parliament which has been extensively covered at the Gates of Vienna blog. Comment on the conference will be forthcoming her tomorrow. 

 

Tommy Robinson's Rochdale Speech 9 June 2012

The two videos below were shot outside of Rochdale Town Hall yesterday at the EDL demo. In them, Tommy Robinson/Stephen Lennon attacks the failure of the social services and the police in acknowledging and facing up to the problem of Muslim paedophile gangs, differentiating between the rank-and-file police officers, who he thinks do a good job, and their politically correct superiors who have prevented them from effectively protecting young girls from this pattern of abuse not only in Rochdale, but in many other towns and cities across England.

A tweet by a BBC journalist yesterday led to unfounded rumours about Lennon setting fire to a Qur’an. Instead, he initially held it aloft in a plastic bag “because supposedly, I’m not worthy enough to touch it. You can pass 47 of our youth around your community and rape them and abuse them, but I can’t touch this book.” He then proceeded to remove it from the bag and hold it next to a cigarette lighter, stating that children are being brainwashed by schools into believing that Islam is a religion of peace. Given that allegedly only 3% of the population is Muslim, why is it then that are 80% of grooming cases are perpetrated by Muslims? “Why are they so overrepresented when they are raping our youth?” He made reference that another nine men had been arrested in connection with the Rochdale case, but stating “That is the tip of an iceberg.” He stated that 60 girls in Derby and 100 in Blackpool had been victims of such crimes, and that cases had also occurred in Huddersfield, Rotherham. In “[e]very single city that has an Islamic community, they are raping, pimping and abusing our youth.” He then went on to state that “There is a court case next month in Oxford with another seven Muslim men and another 50 of our kids aged 11 to 14.”

Following this enumeration of cases of Muslim paedophile grooming, members of the crowd chanted “burn it”, urging him to set light to the Qur’an. However, he desisted from doing so, citing as the reason his unwillingness to offend decent, peaceful Muslims belonging to sects such as the Sufis and Ahmadiyyahs who wish to coexist with us. An Ahmadiyyah EDL supporter named Abdul was then invited to join him in front of the crowd: “We accept that there are some Muslims who are proud to be British” stated Lennon, who also pointed out that Abdul found verses such as Surah 4 Verse 3 objectionable. Instead of burning the Qur’an, Lennon urged supporters to read it so that they could become acquainted with its negative content, reiterating that you can hate a religion and an ideology, but not a group of people.

One surprise that emerged from the speech (perhaps some readers will already be aware of this) is that Lennon claims to have a Muslim second cousin who was also a victim of multiple rape.

In closing, he drew attention to the fact that Muslim gangs targeted all non-Muslim girls, not just English girls, for such a pattern of abuse has occurred with young Sikhs being targeted. Lastly, he stated that “we have to form a movement in every town and city where we can defend ourselves.”

 

EDL Luton March Coverage: Lennon and Carroll join BFP

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.

 

EDL Luton Demo: Saturday 5th May 2012

Tommy Robinson to appear on Jeremy Kyle?

An anti-British campaign blog has today claimed that Tommy Robinson/Stephen Lennon will shortly be appearing on the Jeremy Kyle show together with the Chairman of the British Freedom Party Paul Weston. Is this true? It may be a popular show (I must confess to never having watched it), but is this really the right forum for people who wish to elicit support from the general public? Does this not run the risk of seriously backfiring, with these two participants, given the type of people normally said to feature in the programme, coming to be perceived as just another addition to Kyle's dysfunctional circus sideshow?

Rhetorical Question: Is Jeremy Kyle patronising or smug?

Russia Today has hitherto been a rather more reliable news source with respect to its treatment of Islamism and Islamisation in Europe, but in the video below it would seem that it has been infected by the Breivik meme being vigorously peddled by none other than the anti-British 'Hope not Hate' campaign. As someone elsewhere has commented, blaming the EDL for Breivik as 'Hope not Hate' and this report do is akin to blaming The Beatles for Charles Manson (although of course it has to be said that The Beatles produced rather better music than the EDL).

Luton in ‘harmony’, or Luton in discord?

“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. 

The Sound of Confusion: another “Freedom Party”?

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.

EDL protest against Luton’s Discover Islam Centre

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 Today reports 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.

Review: ‘Proud and Prejudiced’, Channel 4 Dispatches

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?

Video of Tommy Robinson’s Hyde Speech

In his speech at today’s EDL demo in Hyde, Stephen Lennon (Tommy Robinson) laid out his thoughts on the widespread phenomenon of Muslim paedophile gangs and how the time has come to tackle them if the authorities continue to tread carefully for fear of the race card being played. Unsurprisingly, the content of the speech has not been publicised by the mainstream press or electronic media, as has proven to be the case with respect to that of the speech made by Kevin Carroll. The following quotes provide a flavour of its tenor.

“We are entering a new era. An era of counter-jihad. That’s what’s happening.”

“What happened to this boy, and what’s happening across this country is the religious persecution of non-Muslims across.”

“The reason for the attack, the reason for all the hostility, is because they are non-Muslim. It’s not racial it’s religious.”

“If you look at what is happening in our country, especially with these Muslim paedophile gangs, it is like an invading ideology; an invading ideology that’s come to our country and started raping our women and nobody is doing nothing. That’s how it seems.”

“For thirty years there has been a conspiracy of silence from police leaders to religious leaders to facilitate the rape of our kids in every single town and city that has a Muslim community. And that’s what’s happening.”

“What happened in Rochdale is inevitable.”

Preview: ‘Proud and Prejudiced’, Channel 4 Dispatches

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.

‘My Hometown Fanatics’ on BBC3

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?

 

Videos and Commentary: EDL Leicester Demo, 4 February 2012

The phrase “no news is good news” possesses much merit, and the absence of “news” about arrests in Leicester yesterday must surely be adjudged to be “good news”. Congratulations are therefore in order for the organisers of the EDL demo and their supporters, as well as for the police in ensuring that this protest passed off peacefully, contrary to the shrill propaganda that emanated from UAF, the SWP and kindred groups in the run-up to the event. 

This EDL demo marked something of a shift in tack for the protest movement, insofar as that its focus was not on Islamisation but upon “anti-White racism” and the neglect of this phenomenon by the judiciary and the mass media, sparked of course by the recent furore surrounding the Rhea Page case and the failure of the Judge to classify the attack upon Page and her boyfriend as a case of anti-White racism. As almost all mainstream media coverage of the EDL tends to be highly negative and Leicester yesterday proved to be bitterly cold, the EDL turnout can be adjudged to be a modest success. Estimates as to the numbers as ever vary, with their opponents in the SWP providing the lowest at 450, whereas Suzy at the pro-EDL Casuals United blog gave the highest at 1,200. The BBC and Capital FM cited figures of 800 and 700 which, being in the middle, are probably closer to the mark. What is clear however is that claims by the SWP that UAF protesters outnumbered those on the EDL side are false. UAF did not draw 700 “activists” as claimed, but somewhere in the region of 200.

Trotskyist agitator and leading ‘light’ of the SWP and UAF – Martin Smith – made a risible speech in which he made the following comment: 

“The EDL are David Cameron’s monkeys. The Tories are cutting our wages and pensions, and to do that they need someone else to blame.”

Poor Martin Smith appears to live in an alternative reality in which when it comes to Islamism, Islamisation and anti-White racism his motto appears to be that of the three wise monkeys: “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” What had the EDL’s protest to do with cuts to wages and pensions? Nothing. Perhaps as a riposte to Smith’s inapt characterisation the EDL might wish to start singing “Hey, Hey We’re the Monkees!” on their marches? If they did so however, UAF could well start demanding a ban on Monkees show reruns and their ‘racist’ psychedelic pop. 

Martin Smith's Three 'Wise' (Brass) Monkeys

 

The EDL is coming up to the third anniversary of its foundation, and in the time it has existed it has certainly succeeded in generating media attention, which has unfortunately been almost exclusively hostile in tone. To have sustained itself for this time is thus something of a feat in itself, but it does seem that in terms of the numbers of protesters that it can get out onto the streets, the peak appears to have come and gone. A shift in focus and re-evaluation of tactics is thus required to propel it forward and to ensure that momentum is not lost. The recent protest against the sale of halal meat at a Rochdale Asda involving supporters of the EDL and other concerned members of the public seemed to be on the right tracks, although an Asda spokesman seemed perplexed by the protest and missed the point altogether. Whilst the Tommy Robinson endorsed tie-up with the British Freedom Party was backed by some EDL members, it did not win universal assent, and although it appears that there has been some crossover in personnel in recent months with a number of EDL joining the BFP and contributing towards its organisational structure, the two organisations remain very much separate entities, which is probably right for both of them.

Returning to yesterday’s demonstration in Leicester, the main speaker was leading EDL member Kevin Carroll. However, from what can be seen in the video of his speech below, for some reason he chose not to focus upon anti-White racism, but instead upon sending a message of support to British forces in Afghanistan and directing criticism at the Government for cuts to military expenditure that have left us without an aircraft carrier. David Cameron was singled out for personal criticism for  “dismantling our armed forces whilst we’re at war.” Although valid points in themselves, it seems odd that this occasion was chosen to make them. As indicated earlier, the EDL needs to be more focused with respect to its campaigning. Tomorrow’s EDL demonstration in Liverpool appears to be an example of this more specific approach, one which could help in winning the movement a more sympathetic hearing from the public. The EDL states:

On Monday 6th February eleven men will appear at Liverpool Crown Court charged with operating a child sex ring.The men, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, targeted exclusively local white girls in what is becoming an all-too-familiar pattern.

Shockingly, an anti-English hate group calling itself ‘Liverpool anti-fascists’ is planning to counter-protest against the EDL tomorrow. It shares the anti-democratic inclinations of the trades union funded UAF, Searchlight and Hope Not Hate, that together function as the semi-official enforcers of Britain's contemporary controlled 'democracy', in which certain topics that threaten to reveal the truth about the diversity dogma are deemed taboo. The EDL is breaking such taboos, which is why its supporters and activists have been targeted by these groups. I wish its supporters in Liverpool a peaceful and successful demonstration tomorrow. 

British Nationalism on the Web: Who's up and Who's down

As mainstream media outlets are intrinsically inimical towards nationalism it is not surprising that the Internet has become the medium through which nationalists have in recent years sought to propagate their message and to establish channels of communication with others of a similar outlook. To members of the public at large who do not take it upon themselves to investigate this area of politics beyond reading what is printed in the press or broadcast on the airwaves, ‘nationalism’ in the contemporary United Kingdom is associated with two parties only: the BNP and UKIP, although the latter would not primarily define itself as a nationalist party. At the level of local media, the English Democrats have received minimal and fleeting coverage, but the other micro-parties that would seek to assume the mantle of nationalism are practically invisible. The British Freedom Party evinced momentary media interest when Tommy Robinson announced the EDL’s tie-up with the former, but since then, it has slipped from public purview back into the nationalist mists.

Nick Griffin’s catastrophic mismanagement of the BNP has reduced the party from a position in which it was on the verge of achieving an electoral breakthrough, to one in which it is caught in a terminal tailspin. This is well-known both in nationalist and anti-nationalist circles, but not to the general public, which is why opinion polls keep citing a residual 2% of respondents as intending to vote BNP at the next election. This of course does not in reality represent support for Griffin’s corrupt machine, but for the idea of a democratic British ethno-nationalist party. Nonetheless, it is to the world of British and English nationalism that I turn my attention in this piece, and to the relative visibility and strengths of the different contenders for the nationalist crown. The BNP is dead, long live . . . which party exactly?

Before looking at the statistics associated with the smaller contenders for the nationalist crown (taken from Alexa Rankings on 9th January 2012), it is worth bearing in mind that despite its many troubles the BNP website commands a very respectable amount of traffic allowing it to clock in as the 2023rd most popular in the UK. Likewise, it has a considerable Facebook following, with some 78,437 followers. Although far more successful electorally and possessing much greater media coverage and financial muscle than the BNP, UKIP’s presence on the internet is by contrast rather modest, with its party site clocking in as the 17,345th most popular in the UK and its Facebook page commanding a paltry 2,111 followers. Given the high average age of UKIP supporters though, this shouldn’t perhaps be such a great surprise.

Although not a political party, the EDL has been rightly trumpeted as the most successful nationalistically-inclined grassroots movement to have emerged in recent decades. It therefore seems fitting to include statistics relating to its web presence given this popularity and its wider influence on the nationalist scene. Its website attracts a significant amount of traffic, more than UKIP’s in fact, clocking in at number 12,064 in the UK and 234,946 globally, whilst its Facebook page has 27,111 followers. However, when considering the EDL’s presence on Facebook, it should be borne in mind that previous pages have been hacked and rendered defunct on more than one occasion, so it is possible that had this not happened the total would now be considerably higher. Clearly though, as with all nationalist sites, it will also be attracting visits from its opponents as well as from its supporters. Its high hit rate could thus also be an indication of the EDL’s unpopularity. There are also a number of Facebook pages associated with the EDL’s divisional structure which are in themselves popular, such as Leicester that boasted 3,123 followers when I last checked the statistics.

Another significant factor to consider when looking at the popularity of the EDL is Tommy Robinson’s recent endorsement of the British Freedom Party. Although both he and the BFP leadership anticipated that this would lead to a sizeable segment of the EDL’s membership lending its support to the party, debate on the EDL Forum indicates that opinion on this alliance is far from united, with a majority of those expressing their views on this subject backing UKIP rather than the BFP. It would take something significant on the part of the BFP to change this preference. Nonetheless, since the party’s relaunch last November its web traffic has received a noteworthy fillip, edging slightly ahead of the EDL clocking in at 9,666th in the UK and 223,423rd globally.

In contrast, traffic to the BNP Ideas site – attracting contributions and support from the thoughtful and democratic members (or recent ex-members) of the party outside of the Griffin clique – is higher in the UK at 7,645 but lower globally coming in at 239,166th position. Nonetheless, it strikes me as preferable for a British nationalist site to seek to attract most of its traffic from within the UK rather than from without. Quite what will happen to BNP Ideas now that Andrew Brons has announced the formation of the Centre for Democratic Nationalism and the abandonment of the idea of setting up another ethnonationalist party remains to be seen. According to Brons “The primary aimof the Centre for Democratic Nationalism will be to facilitate the emergence of a united British Nationalist Movement.” The only party to have affiliated to it thus far is The Democratic Nationalists, and it is clear that this recent announcement has driven traffic to the party’s rather basic website taking it to 74,025th position in the UK. 

Another party to have emerged from a BNP breakaway is the Freedom Democrats formed from expelled members of the BFP. Despite claims by the Freedom Democrats to be the true British equivalent of the European freedom parties and to enjoy positive relations with its continental counterparts, the figures do not seem to lend this assertion credibility. The Freedom Democrats website doesn’t possess a UK Alexa traffic ranking, but clocks in at 24,336,810th globally, and its Facebook page features 16 ‘friends’. Evidently, the party is a non-starter and has less political clout than my blog, which isn’t saying much. Its members, if they wish to be involved in politics, would be advised to stand as independents or to join another party. Despite what some disaffected BNP members may mutter, the National Front is effectively dead, commanding no UK traffic ranking and a global position of 3,006,831. Its Facebook page boasts 457 friends.

Although having some electoral representation – including the Mayor of Doncaster – the English Democrats possess a modest web presence, despite their recent website revamp which has left it looking far more appealing and professional. At the time of writing, the EDs’ website ranked at 1,540,656th globally, a little behind my blog which enjoyed a ranking of 1,508,640th globally and 85,579th in the UK. The EDs are certainly ahead of Durotrigan on Facebook though, for Durotrigan has no Facebook presence; in fact, they score relatively well with 6,149 ‘friends’, coming in ahead both of UKIP and the BFP.

Lastly, turning to Britain First (I couldn’t find a site for its spinoff National People’s Party) championed by the Green Arrow, I was surprised to see that despite the trumpeting their internet presence appears to be weaker than the BFP, BNP Ideas and the EDL. UKIP manages to outstrip them on Facebook, but not in terms of its British traffic. The figures for the Britain First website are 13,524th in the UK and 352,736th globally; Facebook – 1,170 followers.


Conclusions
What does all of this say about the different nationalist parties, factions and movements operating in Britain today? Evidently, it serves to underscore the seriously fragmented nature of the nationalist scene, and the possibility that any one of a number of what could be termed “post-BNP parties”could emerge to eclipse the BNP. Will it be whatever might emerge from the Brons plan with his Centre for Democratic Nationalism? Will it be Paul Weston’s BFP, or the English Democrats or Britain First/National People’s Party? What implications could Scottish independence have for the whole of the nationalist spectrum?

Evidently, UKIP will for the foreseeable future continue to be the most publicly visible and least pilloried of the parties and movements mentioned above, but it remains an Atlanticist Tory party rather than a nationalist party, and thus whilst a UKIP administration would be less damaging than any put in place by the current big three in British politics, it is not what we need in the long run to turn our country around. We need a single credible and viable party to emerge in the very near future and for nationalists to agree to unite around whichever vehicle it may be. Time is growing short. Websites, blogs and general internet activism will have their role to play, but this is only part of the story if a viable nationalist politics is to be born in our country. Some bloggers/website contributors have already taken their views to the comment threads on major national newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph so as to attempt to sneak nationalist views past the moderators, and in some instances, this appears to be enjoying some success. Will it work? If we don’t try, we won’t know.

A later post will look at the internet presence of the major campaigning foes of nationalist parties and politics, and I am sure that you’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn that in terms of traffic, the nationalists appear to be winning. However, given that the web is the only place where a nationalist position is freely articulated this should not be a surprise, for those of a multiculturalist pro-mass immigration bent have plenty of mainstream media organs, as well as political parties, advocating and pushing their message in every sphere of life.