Tag Archive for EDL

Social Services confiscate EDL supporter’s children for thoughcrime

June 17, 2012 Police State 8 comments

A court has ruled that social services can remove three children from their mother and her unborn child when it is born because they find her views unacceptable.

1984 thinkpol posterThe woman is a former supporter of the English Defence League and is now believed to be a member of a splinter group called North West Infidels.  She has convictions for violence and is banned from owning dogs after setting a pitbull on a former partner.  Interestingly, though, it isn’t this past history of violence (none of which have involved children) that led social services to take her children off her but her views on Islam and immigration.

According to the Express, social services are concerned that her children will become “radicalised with EDL views” and a judge has agreed, on that basis, to permanently remove her three children from her care and to have her unborn child taken away and put up for adoption as soon as it is born.

The social worker report says:

Toni clearly needs to break away from the inappropriate friendships she has through either the EDL or break-off group in order that she can model and display appropriate positive relationships to the baby as he/she grows and develops.

Toni has been a prominent member of the EDL. They claim they are a peaceful group, however, they have strong associations with violence and racism.

This makes me particularly angry.  While there are undoubtedly racists in the EDL, the organisation itself is not racist.  This woman may be racist but that is not a good enough reason to take her children off her.  The association of violence with the EDL is the product of a compliant media and vested political interests (many senior politicians on the left and the right are members of UAF which is a front for the SWP) that refuse to truthfully report the cause of most violence at EDL marches: the left wing extremists of Unite Against Fascism and the Socialist Workers Party.  It’s bad enough that this dishonesty results in the far left getting away with some quite vicious attacks on EDL protesters but it’s something else when it means a woman loses her children.

Who this woman chooses to associate with (as long as they’re not people who would put children in danger) and whatever her views on immigration and Islam are is not a good enough reason to take her children off her.  Freedom of association and freedom of expression are human rights.  Taking this woman’s children off her for associating with the “wrong” people and having the “wrong” views is a breach of her human rights.

The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed—would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper—the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.
– 1984, George Orwell

Trades Unions counter-protesting against EDL in Telford

August 6, 2011 Come the revolution, Protests 2 comments

The English Defence League are coming to Telford next weekend to protest in Wellington, motivated by the (alleged) muslim paedophile gang currently standing trail for grooming teenage girls.

Labour councillors have come out in opposition to the march and are getting behind Councillor Mike Ion’s campaign to deny the EDL their right to peaceful protest on the basis that he doesn’t agree with them, rather than concerns about them causing trouble.  Councillor Ion does, however, express concerns about violence erupting if fascist left wing thugs like UAF come out to hold their usual violent counter-protests.  Councillor Ion’s campaign has even attracted the support of the new leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, Kuldip Singh Sahota which doesn’t bode well for the next four years.

Now Shropshire & Telford Trades Union Council has organised a “unity” counter-protest to celebrate multiculturalism which will be held in another part of Wellington at the same time.  Most members of the vicious left wing fascist group, UAF, are union activists as well and will undoubtedly be out in force in Wellington to incite violence.

I have three questions about this counter-protest:

  1. What the fuck has this got to do with workers’ rights?  Trades unions are there to promote workers rights, not organise protests against activities that have nothing to do with workers rights.
  2. Is this kind of activity compatible with the constitution of the unions represented by the trade union council or the council itself?
  3. Have union members voted to support the action?

The EDL have a legal right to peaceful protest – it’s in the Human Rights Act.  Similarly, union members, UAF, Socialist Workers Party and other left wing fascists have a right to peacefully protest against them.  But trades unions?  If it’s not in their constitution then the organisers of the protest are acting ultra vires and are leaving themselves open to prosecution from any union member who opposes their action.

Complaint to the BBC about “far right” label

April 15, 2011 BBC Bias 10 comments

I was browsing the BBC News website this morning and started to read an article on the “far right” English Defence League (EDL).

The BBC has an obsession with the term “far right”, applying it to any organisation that speaks out against unfettered immigration and criticises Islam or multiculturalism.  In general, I think the BBC is a good thing but their institutional left wing bias really gets on my tits so I’ve sent this complaint:

It is increasingly common to find protest groups and political parties referred to by the BBC as “far right” when they hold views that are not mainstream.

The term “far right” is not a synonym for “different” or “extreme”, it refers to an extreme right wing ideology.  In Europe, the right wing of politics is conservative, liberal, generally christian and monarchist.  Racism is considered to be a trait of far right politics (although the same is equally true of the far left) but by no means the sole or overriding defining criteria.

The BBC labels the BNP as “far right” yet the BNP is a nationalist socialist party advocating nationalisation of industry and illiberal curtailment of freedom of the press.  Yes, they are racist but they are not conservative or liberal.  They have some traits of the far right but their core ideology is a national socialism which is very much a left wing ideology.  In reality, the BNP are a far left party.

The BBC also – bizarrely – refers to the EDL as “far right”.  The EDL is not a political party, nor is it a political organisation.  It has no political ideology at all and campaigns only against Islamification and unfettered immigration.  Whilst the cause of, and answer to, Islamification and unfettered immigration is politicial, so is the cause and answer to high fuel prices and food prices yet the motoring organisations and charities campaigning against those aren’t given left/right wing political labels.

Finally, why do you not use the term “far left” in the same way that you do far right?  I appreciate that the BBC is awash with Guardian-reading communists but there are prominent organisations like the laughably named fascist group “Unite Against Fascism” who are quite evidently far left extremists bent on violence and the suppression of freedom of speech and suppression and advocates of the sort of far left society that George Orwell warned about.

So my complaint is three-fold really and there are therefore three questions that I want an answer to:

1.  Why do you mis-label left wing organisations such as the BNP as “far right” when they meet only peripheral right wing criteria that can be equally applied to the far left and their core ideology is left wing?
2.  Why do you label apolitical organisations like the EDL as “far right” when they have no political ideology?
3.  Why don’t you label left wing extremists like UAF as “far left” in the way you label what you insist on calling right wing groups as “far right”?

EDL protest marred by UAF violence

August 29, 2010 Come the revolution, England, Free Speech, Police State, Propaganda 3 comments

The English Defence League (EDL) held a “static protest” in Bradford yesterday which was typically marred by violence.

The original plan was for the EDL to hold a march through Bradford but the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, Sir Norman Bettison, successfully got the Home Secretary, Theresa May, to ban any protest marches in Bradford this weekend so they held a “static protest” instead.

UAF Leader arrested for conspiracy to organise violent disorder

UAF Leader arrested for conspiracy to organise violent disorder in March 2010

But wherever the EDL go, of course, the extreme left wing fascist group, Unite Against Fascism (UAF) follow to wreak havoc.  The order to ban the EDL from marching no doubt came from her boss, David “Cast Iron” Cameron who is a supporter of the UAF fascists (the list of MPs supporting the UAF was removed after it was splashed all over the papers but nothing ever disappears forever on the internet).

Yesterday’s EDL protest was met with opposition from both the UAF fascists and The Muslim Community.  The two factions – the EDL and the UAF/Muslim Community – were supposed to have been kept at a safe distance from each other but the UAF/Muslim Community protesters mysteriously made it to within a few yards of the EDL protesters.  The UAF/Muslim Community gathering place was half a mile away from where the EDL were allowed to protest.

There is a lot about yesterday’s protest that doesn’t add up.  Why were the UAF thugs and Muslim Community allowed to get so close to the fenced in EDL protesters?  If the EDL were the trouble makers, why did the UAF and the Muslim Community have to be stopped from getting at the EDL protest by a physical blockade of police vans and a line of mounted police?  Why have the police told the media that EDL protesters threw a smoke bomb at the UAF/Muslim Community protesters when this video clearly shows the trail of smoke from the smoke bomb being thrown from the UAF/Muslim Community protesters at the EDL protesters?

The media’s coverage of the protests is equally suspect.  Sky News provided live coverage which apparently showed the smoke bomb being thrown at the EDL protesters but they continued to report it as being thrown by the EDL.  And despite there being two separate protests yards away from each other – the EDL and the UAF/Muslim Community – the rotating banner said “English Defence League Demonstration in Bradford”, implying that the EDL were the only ones kicking off when clearly they weren’t.  Another strapline was “Smoke bombs, bottles & stones thrown during English Defence League demonstration” – but who threw what?  It was both sides but the strapline revolving underneath says “English Defence League Demonstration in Bradford”.  Another said “One EDL supporter taken to hospital after injuring his leg” – how did he injure it?  Was it an accident or was he hit by a brick or a bottle?  There’s no interest from Sky, it’s all part of the “English Defence League Demonstration in Bradford”.  What about the EDL supporter with cuts on the back of his head from what looks like a bottle injury?  How was he injured?  Again, no interest, it’s part of the “English Defence League Demonstration in Bradford”.

One of the arguments used by the UAF thugs and The Muslim Community as an excuse to ban the EDL march and whip up anti-EDL hatred in Bradford was that the EDL protest might see a return to the Bradford of 2001 when The Muslim Community and non-muslims rioted after David Blunkett, as Home Secretary, banned a National Front march but allowed a march by the extremist left wing Anti-Nazi League (now merged in the extremist left wing UAF) to go ahead.  Sound familiar?  The Muslim Community dictates the agenda in Bradford because the authorities can no longer control them.

The EDL have a right to protest, yes, but we must not allow them to provoke us into violence.
– Ratna Lachman, Bradford Women’s Peace Project

I’m surely not the only person who sees something wrong with this comment?  If The Muslim Community turns to violence – which they did yesterday and have done at every EDL protest – then it’s because they’ve been provoked into violence.  How has this been allowed to happen?  Why have the Brits allowed extremism in The Muslim Community in Bradford to reach such epidemic proportions that a protest march by people opposing Islamic extremism could “provoke” them into violence?

We thank people for their patience and support so far and we hope to have protesters removed from the city as soon as possible.
– West Yorkshire Police “spokesman”

Again, I’m sure I’m not the only person to see something wrong with this comment either.  It is the job of the police to keep the peace and enforce compliance with the law, not to run people out of town like a wild west sheriff.  The EDL have a right to free assembly and peaceful protest.  They also have a right not to be harassed or attacked and the police have an obligation to protect those rights.  But instead, the objective of West Yorkshire Police was evidently to deny them their rights and to remove them from Bradford as soon as they could in case the EDL’s presence in the city provoked The Muslim Community into violence.

So what now for the EDL?  Almost a year ago I wrote about the EDL following their march in Manchester and again in April this year following a protest in Dudley.  At both protests the EDL were portrayed as the trouble makers with little mention of the UAF thugs despite the ratio of arrests to protesters being 1 in 250 for UAF and only 1 in 1,333 for the EDL – 3 arrests from 4,000 EDL protesters and 6 arrests from 1,500 UAF thugs.

I said that I had no interest in ethnic nationalism and I still don’t but I wonder if perhaps I’ve misunderstood the EDL?  Their website says they’re only interested in opposing Islamic extremism and the creeping influence of Sharia and not race so maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt?  Some of their members are clearly more interested in white supremecism than opposing Islamic extremism but then that’s the same of any organisation that is even vaguely involved in any type of nationalism.  Even the Campaign for an English Parliament – a group that is extremely defensive of its non-partisan civic nationalism – has had problems with members or supporters who have developed an unhealthy obsession with race politics (we’ve rooted them all out to the best of my knowledge) and the English Democrats have some very unsavoury characters in their ranks despite being a primarily civic nationalist party.  The EDL have no control over who chooses to support them and the beliefs those people hold and it’s unreasonable to expect them to filter out the undesirables from the thousands of people that turn up to their protests.

The problem the EDL have is that they are a porous organisation.  They have to be to attract the kind of support they get at their protests.  The downside of this is that they are open to infiltration from all sides.  They have obviously been infiltrated by the likes of the National Front, the BNP and other ethnic nationalists and it is inconceivable that the police and security services haven’t already got people in the EDL chain of command.  The trouble that both lots of infiltrators cause at protests is bringing the day the EDL is proscribed closer.  One of their protests has been banned now, that sets a precedent for suppressing them.  Banning one of their marches establishes them as “wrong”, the next step will be to ban them from having any sort of protest and then to ban the group altogether.  The violence at protests will be cited as justification for banning them and the cost to the taxpayer of policing their protests will be used to convince the general public that banning the EDL is a good thing.  The UAF fascists and The Muslim Community will be exempt from the bans despite them being the cause of most of the trouble at EDL protests because they’re not “wrong”.

The media has already been mobilised against the EDL – a collective blind eye is turned to the UAF fascists and The Muslim Community whilst the violence and thuggery perpetrated by the extreme left is blamed on the EDL.  Despite being apolitical, the EDL are described as “far right” by politicians and the media, following the “right is wrong” mantra that the left have managed to implant into the collective psyche.  The left have managed to convince most of the population that the left wing nationalist socialist BNP are “far right” whilst the forces of anti-fascism are exclusively left wing which of course makes right wing bad and left wing good.  The truth is that the BNP are a left wing party, fascism is a centrist ideology incorporating both left and right wing ideologies and there are as many – if not more – anti-fascists on the right as there are on the left.  Opposing radical Islam and unfettered immigration does not make you a fascist, no matter what the vicious thugs in UAF and failed communists in the Labour Party say.

England is not Britain

England is not Britain

Not only are the EDL not “far right” but they are not English nationalists either.  English nationalists know the difference between England and Britain.  Glaswegian muslims are not English nationalists and they don’t ask “Why are they against the United Kingdom?”  England is not Britain and the English Defence League is not English.

So, back to my question a few paragraphs up: should we give the EDL the benefit of the doubt?  I am inclined to believe that the core few people that started the EDL and probably the majority of their supporters are not ethnic nationalists.  I agree that radical Islam has to be dealt with and I agree that Sharia is a cancer that needs to be excised and most people will agree with the EDL’s stated objectives and raison d’être.  What the English people need is a leader – someone in tune with English public feeling and clever enough to take on both the media and the British establishment.  The EDL and its leader, Tommy Robinson, have done a lot in a short amount of time but they aren’t going to lead an English revolution because the EDL is a tainted brand and the danger is that the EDL will end up tainting English nationalism as a whole through guilt by association, just as we are starting to win the war against Englishness.

I certainly won’t be supporting the EDL for the simple fact that they are British nationalists and I am an English nationalist and because I have no desire to get my head caved in by some psycho communist or a member of The Muslim Community for being on the “wrong” side of the police line.  That said, I would still be interested in observing an EDL protest first hand and if anyone from the EDL wants to arrange that, feel free to get in touch.

Recommended reading on the EDL and UAF:
Nourishing Obscurity
The Anger of a Quiet Man

The English Defence League’s … robust … report on yesterday’s protest is here.

Is it any wonder people are turning to the EDL?

April 5, 2010 General 6 comments

Is it any wonder English people of all colours and religions are supporting the English Defence League?

Over 4,000 people gathered at an English Defence League demonstration in Dudley to protest against the planned £18m muslim mosque which over 20,000 locals previously objected to in a petition.  The protesters were herded into a large fenced-off car park surrounded by police whilst local fascists and muslims threw bottles and bricks over the fence.  The police stood and watched them do it right up until the EDL protesters pushed over the fences at which point the police ran away.

I’ve read on another website that an EDL marshal was stabbed and another had a glass bottle put in his neck.  The EDL website reports that a marshal was hit by a bottle, which would appear to give some legitimacy to the story.

I’m still not interested in ethnic nationalism or race politics and I’m not about to march with the EDL but it pisses me off that English people exercising their constitutional right to free assembly are treated this way and put in danger by the police while violent left wing fascists and muslim extremists are allowed to roam the streets, incite violence and murder and attack people who oppose them.  I’m half tempted, next time they’re in the area, to go along to one of these protests with a camera and see what happens first hand.

And just in case you’re wondering, there were 9 arrests at the protest: 3 EDL supporters (out of 4,000) and 6 UAF fascists.  The UAF arrests were for possession of offensive weapons and drugs.

There’s nothing English about the EDL

December 27, 2009 General 5 comments

The Daily Mail has an article on the English Defence League with the snappy title “This is England: Masked like terrorists, members of Britain’s newest and fastest -growing protest group intimidate a Muslim woman on a train en route to a violent demo”.  It used to be called “This is England: On the trail of the English Defence League” but that’s not nearly prophetic enough for the Daily Mail.

English Defence League

The English Defence League with their British flag

It’s quite a lengthy article written by a reporter who went on the same train as some EDL protesters to a protest and is therefore an expert on the EDL.  It makes much of the fact that their core activist base seems to be football supporter gangs and therefore EDL supporters are thugs.  It mentions Cardiff City’s “Soul Crew” but doesn’t make the connection that it’s a Welsh football club’s supporters gang in the supposed English Defence League.

The article starts with a picture of a bemused looking muslim woman in a hijab who was on the same train as some hoodie-wearing EDL supporters.  The caption under the picture says:

Some of the most violent football hooligans in Britain head towards Manchester to support a march by the burgeoning English Defence League (EDL), while a woman dressed in a black hijab appears intimidated

Perhaps the photo was taken when she wasn’t looking intimidated but as I said, she looks more bemused than intimidated.  And notice the word “Britain” in there – the word is used interchangeably with “England” throughout the article.  Further down the article, where the connection is less unlikely to be made, the reporters notes that a protester singing “We had joy, we had fun, we had muslims on the run” was told to shut up by his mates because of the woman in the hijab and that none of the other protesters joined in.

The article recounts an incident where a protester is told to take off a mask by a policeman.  The protester ask “Why are they allowed to wear burkas in public but we’re not allowed to cover our faces?” and is told “Just do what you’re told”.  It’s a valid point though, why is it acceptable for a muslim to be covered head to toe with only their eyes on show but a non-muslim can’t cover their face in public.  According to the article, the same protester then launches into one of the EDL’s favourites – Rule Britannia.  Again, the reporter fails to point out the bleedingly obvious: no Englishman would sing Rule Britannia, it’s a British song.

The reporter says that the EDL is linked with “far right” organisations such as Combat 18, Blood & Honour, the British Freedom Fighters and the National Front because their members are believed to have attended EDL protests.  No doubt members of a great many organisations attend EDL protests – there have been muslims at EDL marches protesting at radical Islam who probably belong to local mosques and other groups that promote the advancement of Islam in England.  Again, the reporter fails to point out that it’s the English Defence League and the British Freedom Fighters are … British.

The British English Communities Secretary has compared the EDL to the British Union of Fascists (ironically supported by the Daily Mail in the 30’s), a political party formed by a former Liebour government minister, Oswald Moseley.  The BUF was banned by the British government in 1940 and Moseley, along with most of its prominent members were interned during the second world war.  A vision of things to come for the English Defence League, perhaps?

The leader of the EDL started the group as “British Citizens Against Muslim Extremists” and many of their senior officers are member of the British National Party but the reporter again fails to point out the British/English thing.  The EDL’s youth wing apparently has over 300 members across the UK and their 18 year old leader, Joel Titus, says “We want to hit every town and city in Britain”.  Again, the British/English thing is ignored by the reporter.

A Home Office advisor, Professor Matthew Goodwin, says:

The EDL is now well-organised and not just a minor irritant. It has become a rallying point for a number of different groups and to have them marching through sensitive areas is a major concern.

What I find more concerning is that any area should be so sensitive that a group protesting at muslim extremism should be a problem for the British government but that muslims who want to preach racial and religious hatred and intolerance or left wing fascists like Unite Against Fascism who turn up at EDL marches to cause riots are acceptable.  Not only are they acceptable but UAF actually get funding from the British government and senior members of the British establishment are members.

The truth is, there is nothing English about the English Defence League.  Why they decided to call themselves the English Defence League and then go about singing British songs and waving the British flag is beyond me but it is important that the schizophrenic nature of the British/English Defence League and the media’s reporting of them is exposed and challenged at every opportunity so that moderate civic English nationalists are not incorrectly associated with the EDL.