CAIR Chicago has posted an article by Ben Small which provides an analysis of the EDL for an American audience, making some interesting comparisons with the role of the Tea Party in the US.
Category Archives: English Defence League
No surrender? EDL LGBT division calls off tomorrow’s Manchester protest
Liam Wood, the convicted drug dealer – and also, it turns out, football hooligan – who heads the English Defence League’s LGBT division, had planned to hold a demonstration in Manchester tomorow, including leafleting Canal Street to warn the LGBT community about the threat from “Muslim homophobia”.
Alas, it would appear that the fight against the “Islamafactation of this country”, as Wood describes it, has suffered a setback. The self-proclaimed “gay Tommy Robinson” has bottled it and postponed the protest.
EDL drunks disrupt Muslim meeting in Reading
Drunken protesters disrupted a talk from members of an Islamic information group in Reading last weekend.
Police were called to Rivermead Leisure Centre after a group of men who said they were members of the English Defence League started shouting abuse at members of the Berkshire Islamic Information Group at around 12.15pm on Sunday.
Police dispersed the group because some of its members were drunk and their actions were considered to be committing a public order offence.
Officers remained at the event, which was a lecture entitled “The Purpose of Life” until it finished. No arrests were made and the rest of day passed peacefully. Around 400 people attended the talk.
EDL man gets suspended jail sentence for pig’s head and racist graffiti at mosque site
A man who was involved in placing a pig’s head on a pole outside the possible site of a mosque in Nottingham has been given a suspended sentence.
Christopher Payne, 25, from Beardsmore Grove, Hucknall, admitted racially aggravated public order offences after the incident on 23 June. Nottingham Magistrates heard Payne failed to stop others placing the pig’s head and had also left racist graffiti. He was sentenced to 6 weeks imprisonment, suspended for a year.
The court was told Payne had taken delivery of a pig’s head, that was later pinned on the pole outside waste ground on Collington Way, in the West Bridgford area. Payne also admitted writing “no Mosque here, EDL Notts” on the pavement near the site of the proposed mosque.
He admitted causing racially or religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress and racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage.
He was also ordered to pay a £250 fine with £85 costs, complete 100 hours of community service and stay out of West Bridgford for 12 months.
A letter from Payne was read out in court in which he said he regretted his actions, and now understood and accepted it was wholly irresponsible. He also told the court he had left the English Defence League.
In sentencing, District Judge Morris Cooper told the court he had reduced Payne’s sentence by a third because he pleaded guilty.
“Left the English Defence League” – whatever happened to “No Surrender”? How can the EDL hope to succeed in repelling the Muslim hordes if its members show such a lack of backbone whenever they appear in court?
EDL applauds Russian neo-Nazi murderers
Exposing the English Defence League draws our attention to this Facebook post by the EDL’s Wigan Division applauding the Russian neo-Nazi group who were recently imprisoned after being convicted of a series of racist murders in which they specifically targeted Muslims.
EDL protestors who armed themselves with stolen pool balls meant no harm (according to their lawyer)
Two English Defence League supporters who armed themselves with pool balls stolen from a pub have been ordered to do unpaid work.
Michael Riley, 23, and Peter Craven, 28, travelled to Halifax from their homes in Hull for the far-right group’s town-centre demo in April. They were arrested after the landlady of the Beehive and Cross Keys pub reported the balls stolen from the premises.
Prosecutor Niall Carlin told Bradford Crown Court the men were part of a group that had gone into the King Cross Street pub, near the predominantly Asian Park ward. They were chanting racial slurs and breaking pool cues, making the licensee and regulars nervous, he said. The men were stopped and searched after leaving the pub, and Riley and Craven were found with the missing pool balls.
Riley, of Binbrook Garth, and Craven, of St Aidan’s Way, both admitted theft and possessing an offensive weapon. Ian Brook, mitigating, stressed they were supporters of the EDL, but not members, and there was no evidence they had been involved in any public disorder or breaking of pool cues.
Mr Brook said a group of Asian males had come towards a police cordon near the pub but neither group had made any attempt to get to the other. He said: “The defendants and their group were moving away from them, and it would appear they had wrongly stolen the pool balls and taken them up as weapons in case they needed to use them. There was no suggestion they were going to use them offensively against any of the Asian youths.”
Recorder Amanda Rippon said: “Nonetheless it was theft, first of all, and you armed yourself with a potentially dangerous weapon.”
The men, who have no previous convictions, were each sentenced to a 12-month community order with supervision, and must complete 80 hours of unpaid work.
“Stressed they were supporters of the EDL, but not members”? The EDL has no formal dues-paying structure, so all of its members are technically just supporters. Why are EDL protestors so pathetically eager to dissociate themselves from their own organisation whenever they get hauled up in front of a magistrate? Perhaps from now on they should sign off their racist Facebook rants with “NFSE – unless of course we find ourselves in court”.
‘Why do people call us racists?’ EDL supporters debate the state of the nation
From a current discussion thread on the English Defence League’s Facebook page:
For the meaning of “1488” see here.
EDL discusses Tower Hamlets demonstration
Expose draws our attention to a post on the EDL’s Facebook page yesterday under the title “EDL MASSIVE GOING TOWER HAMLETS”.
The comments feature the usual vile anti-Muslim abuse:
At one point in the “discussion” a Muslim provoked the EDL supporters by posting a comment (which was immediately deleted). Note how the EDL admin intervenes to defend the threat of violence:
Goodbye EDL – and don’t come back
City leaders have condemned English Defence League protesters who marched through Portsmouth – telling them: “Don’t come back”. The clear message came after hundreds of EDL members snaked through the city centre on Saturday as part of a planned protest.
Organisers had promised a peaceful event and deny their campaign has racist undertones. But there were ugly scenes at times as the event threatened to spill over into violence. At the very start of the march police had to stand firm to stop EDL members surging forward before the official start time.
Some of the group of around 500 marchers were heard spouting vile racist abuse and making insulting references to Allah. At one point some of the marchers paused to jeer at an Asian family who had stepped onto their balcony to see the parade pass by.
Some EDL members made a beeline for a scaffolding van in a bid to grab poles, but were thwarted by police. And at the end of the event police averted a potential clash as marchers tried to get into Guildhall Square where anti-fascist protesters had gathered for their own rally in defence of multiculturalism.
Saturday saw seven arrests of EDL supporters on suspicion of crimes ranging from public order offences to assaulting a police officer. Two “counter protesters” who were among 150 people taking part in the demonstration in Guildhall Square were also arrested but released without charge at the scene, Hampshire Constabulary said.
EDL marchers travelled from all over the country to take part in the march, the first of its kind in Hampshire. Supporters came from divisions including those in West Yorkshire, Berkshire, London, Plymouth, Essex, Brighton and Colchester. Hampshire police mounted a huge operation involving around 400 officers after similar events elsewhere in the country had sparked trouble.
After the march, MP Mike Hancock said he did not ever want to see the group in Portsmouth again.
“I don’t want to see them here at all,” said the Liberal Democrat MP for Portsmouth South. “I would much prefer if they came nowhere near us. But sadly they have persisted in doing it. I think they are pointless.
“I hope they will now leave Portsmouth and not come back. What I don’t get is how people want to come all the way from Plymouth to demonstrate on the streets of Portsmouth. It must have been five or six to one people from outside the city.”
His views were echoed by city council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson, who was in the city centre on Saturday as he watched the protest unfold.
He said: “We don’t want it here. I wish they would leave Portsmouth alone. On the whole people get on well between communities. They all mix up pretty well. In lots of other cities there are areas where different communities live. We have a well-integrated city and that’s how we should remain.”
See also “Portsmouth antiracists take over square in protest against EDL”, UAF news report, 17 July 2011