The Northampton Chronicle & Echo reports on the launch of the University of Northampton’s new study The EDL: Britain’s ‘New Far Right’ Social Movement.
Category Archives: UK
Matthew Goodwin on the popular appeal of the far right
“Muslims now find themselves at the core of a new and potent far right narrative, which vilifies Muslim communities while claiming to defend traditions of tolerance, gender equality and the rights of homosexuals. It downplays socially unacceptable arguments about race in favour of more acceptable arguments about the compatibility of values and cultures.”
Guildford council criticised over Islamic centre
A Muslim group has criticised Guildford Borough Council after it rejected an application for a new Islamic centre. Guildford’s Muslim Education and Cultural Association wants to convert a former garage in Recreation Road. The council rejected the plans because of possible disturbance to residents and concerns about parking.
Osama Khan, from the group, said the council had not understood the application and they would appeal against the decision. He said the town had at least 1,000 Muslims and the only meeting space currently available for prayer was a room at the university which had a capacity of 500.
Mr Khan said: “This would be basically an educational and cultural centre for the Muslim community who live in Guildford and around Guildford. We did mention very clearly that any community from the Muslim families will come to the centre through public transportation because any parking space on Recreation Road is actually dedicated to the residents anyway. There isn’t any [parking] space and we are very much aware of it and that’s why we actually bought that land because it’s central to the town and so that they are well connected to public transportation.”
A Guildford council spokesman said: “The council does not have a duty to provide accommodation or sites for any religious group or faith.”
Brendan O’Neill defends EDL’s right to intimidate Muslim community in Tower Hamlets
Over at his Telegraph blog, Brendan O’Neill of spiked, online journal of the tendency formerly known as the Revolutionary Communist Party, attacks Unite Against Fascism for issuing what he describes as “one of the silliest political statements of the year so far”.
The UAF statement opposes the home secretary’s decision to grant the Metropolitan Police’s application not just for a ban on the proposed march by the English Defence League in Tower Hamlets on 3 September but also for a blanket ban on all marches in five London boroughs over a 30-day period. This has resulted in the United East End march opposing the EDL being prohibited, along with an East End Pride demonstration next month and a march to commemorate the battle of Cable Street in October.
O’Neill sneers: “‘This is a huge attack on everyone’s civil liberties’, bleats UAF, which is weird, considering that they’re the ones who invited the Government to undermine people’s civil liberties in the first place.” He asserts that “UAF has no one but itself to blame for this extraordinary clampdown on the right to protest”.
Although O’Neill invites his readers to conclude that UAF campaigned for the EDL to be banned from marching through Tower Hamlets, he must be well aware that this was not in fact the case. The Socialist Workers Party, which is a major component of UAF, opposes calls for state bans on far-right demonstrations, so a common line on that issue within UAF was impossible. One of the arguments the SWP advances in support of its position is as follows: “When the state gives itself extra repressive powers it will use them against the left. The government brought in the Public Order Act in 1937 supposedly to counteract the rise of Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts. It didn’t stop fascism – and was used against left wing and workers’ protests for decades afterwards.”
This is a reasonable point. But it isn’t what O’Neill is arguing at all. Quoting UAF’s complaint that “it is our human right to peacefully march in Tower Hamlets”, he demands: “how come UAF has a ‘human right’ to march, but the EDL does not? Are EDL members not human? … What UAF is effectively saying is: ‘We should have the freedom to march, but they shouldn’t’.”
Well, yes, that is indeed what UAF is arguing. O’Neill just can’t see the difference between a march by far-right racists intended to intimidate the Muslim comunity of Tower Hamlets, and the UAF-backed United East End march in which a broad coalition of forces planned to express their opposition to the EDL’s violent anti-Muslim bigotry. From O’Neill’s standpoint, if United East End, East End Pride or the Cable Street commemoration are allowed to march, then the EDL should have that right too.
It’s not very often this website finds occasion to quote Martin Bright favourably, but as he wrote on his Spectator blog in opposition to the blanket ban: “The whole point for those of us advocating a ban on the EDL was that there was a specific threat of violence associated with this extremist view. This new draconian measure suggests the police and government are suspicious of all protest…. While I accept that these are particularly difficult times for the Met in the aftermath of the riots, I can’t accept that all street protest should be off limits. Would I support a march in protest at the ban? Yes, I probably would.”
Predictably, the EDL have posted an approving link to O’Neill’s article on their Facebook page, while Casuals United have reproduced it in full. But it is unlikely that O’Neill will have any qualms about that. Earlier this year spiked published an even more egregious defence of the EDL by Patrick Hayes, who strenuously objected to the imposition of Criminal ASBOs on two EDL members – one of whom had attacked a left-wing photographer at a far-right demonstration against Harrow Central Mosque, while the other had subjected an Asian family to racist abuse as they waited for a train at a railway station he was passing though on his way back from an EDL protest. For spiked, these individuals are not racist thugs whose victims have the right to be protected by the law but rather, as O’Neill puts it, “cranky EDL types” who are fully entitled to express their opinions.
Some of us are old enough to remember the days when the RCP regarded the struggle against racism as one of the central issues facing the Left and set up its own sectarian front organisation, Workers Against Racism, to address it. Along with the RCP’s transformation into spiked, their ultra-leftism has now evolved into right-wing libertarian individualism and today their sole input into the struggle against racism is to defend the “human rights” of racists.
As for the police, the Met’s motives can only be guessed at, but it was clear from the start that they were opposed to applying for a ban on the EDL, and only did so after the mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, threatened legal action. So you might be inclined to see their insistence on a blanket ban as an attempt to deter further calls for action against the EDL. It will also be revealing to see how the Met polices the EDL’s static protest. They have the power under Section 14 of the Public Order Act to insist that the protest is held on the outskirts of Tower Hamlets, well away from the East London Mosque and the neighbouring Muslim community against whom the EDL’s protest is aimed. On present performance, however, it seems highly unlikely that the Met will use that power. More likely they will escort the EDL to a protest area near the centre of the borough, so that the EDL effectively get to stage their march through Tower Hamlets anyway.
The West Yorkshire Police have set an example of how the EDL should be dealt with. Not only has the Chief Constable, Sir Norman Bettison, lobbied the government for increased powers to use against the EDL, but when the EDL demonstrated in Dewsbury in June he refused to let them hold their protest outside the town hall and used his authority under Section 14 to keep them penned in the station car park, away from the town centre and the Muslim community they hoped to intimidate.
It is disgraceful that the police force in the UK’s capital have proved so reluctant to take similar effective action against a gang of violent racists who are invading London in an attempt to threaten Muslims and poison community relations. It is also shameful that neither the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, nor his deputy mayor for policing and chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Kit Malthouse, have provided any lead at all here. If Ken Livingstone was still mayor you can guarantee he wouldn’t have sat back and allowed the Met a free pass over this issue.
‘Peacefully protesting against the North East Infidels’ – EDL leader head-butted critic
The leader the English Defence League launched a verbal attack on a member of the far-right group before head-butting his victim, a court has heard.
Stephen Lennon, founder of the EDL, “goaded” a crowd of followers during a rally by 2,000 supporters in Blackburn on April 2. The 28-year-old, from Luton, launched a tirade against Alan McKee, who was accused of putting messages on the internet about police informers and “grasses”. He called Mr McKee a “degenerate mug” before trouble broke out in the crowd amongst EDL members, Preston Magistrates’ Court heard.
Mr McKee, 33, was pulled from the crowd by stewards for his own safety and taken away by police officers. But he later confronted Lennon about his speech as the rally continued with other speakers. Lennon, who was surrounded by his own security guards and EDL stewards, then allegedly lunged or stepped forward and head-butted Mr McKee.
EDL thugs jailed for attack on Redbridge Islamic Centre
Four thugs who smashed up a Redbridge mosque before hurling a brick at the imam have been jailed for a total of 12-and-a-half years today.
The gang shattered the windows of Redbridge Islamic Centre, Eastern Avenue, before trying to storm their way inside while taunting worshippers with sickening chants.
Rocky Beale, 19, of Purleigh Avenue, Woodford Green and Eliot Jones, 19, of Keswick Gardens, Redbridge, pelted the centre with bricks, along with 18-year-old Matthew Stephenson, of Burrow Road, Hainault. Harry Deluca, 16, whose name can now be revealed after an order was lifted by the judge, also pelted the centre and repeatedly screamed “EDL” throughout the assault on March 24. All four denied violent disorder but were convicted by a jury last month after just 90 minutes of deliberation.
Mayor of Tower Hamlets hosts Cable Street event
Nazir-Ali on meeting the English Defence League
The report about Blackburn EDL acclaiming a talk they attended by Michael Nazir-Ali, and posting a photo of themselves with him on their Facebook page, has been taken up by Riazat Butt at the Guardian. She contacted Nazir-Ali’s office and asked them:
“Was the bishop aware that EDL members were in the audience? Did he know he was posing with EDL members in the photograph? What does he have to say about posing with EDL members and the positive comments he got from EDL members?”
Also: “Does he regret being photographed with them? Would he have had his photograph taken with them if he had known they were members of the EDL? Is he concerned that his views have led EDL members to think he is ‘on their wavelength’?”
Nazir-Ali replied that he had no idea that the people he was photographed with were EDL: “These pictures were requested at a public meeting by individuals who were not known to me and have been published without my consent.” He also refers to a couple of articles he wrote attacking the BNP. But the question “Is he concerned that his views have led EDL members to think he is ‘on their wavelength’?” didn’t receive an answer.
Religiously aggravated criminal damage at two Milton Keynes mosques
An investigation has been opened after three suspected acts of religiously aggravated criminal damage took place in and around two mosques in Milton Keynes.
Between 10.30pm and 11pm on Saturday (September 24), graffiti was sprayed on Granby Mosque, Peverel Drive, Bletchley, and a shed to the side of the building was set alight and destroyed. Detectives believe this incident is connected to two other acts of criminal damage at the mosque in North Street, New Bradwell, and on a white Mercedes Sprinter van in Harwood Street, New Bradwell, overnight between Saturday and Sunday. In all three incidents offensive messages were sprayed.
DI Richard North, investigating officer, said: “I am appealing to anyone who was in the area around this time of these offences, or who has any information to contact my officers. Did you see anyone acting suspiciously near the mosques? Have you heard someone discussing this before or after Saturday night?
“These messages were highly offensive and designed to cause maximum upset to the Muslim community. We have increased our patrols in the areas and I would like to reassure everyone that we are doing all we can to catch those responsible.”
Anyone with information should contact DC Dave Phipps on 0845 8 505 505.
Via ENGAGE
EDL supporter avoids jail after hitting critic in face with bottle
A pub attacker who left his victim with a one inch scar on his head has been spared jail. Liam O’Keefe, 22, hit the victim John Lindsay in the face with a bottle, leaving him bleeding profusely in the sudden outburst at the Station Hotel, Helmshore, in January.
Mr Lindsay was said to have “mildly” told the defendant he needed to sort out his attitude and grow up after he started talking about the English Defence League and made comments about immigration, Burnley Crown Court heard.
O’Keefe was immediately thrown out of the premises by the landlord, who was shocked by what he had seen as there had been no build up. The hearing was told the victim suffered a 3cm laceration to his forehead.
The defendant was arrested and questioned and told police he had had too much to drink. He said he had rowed with Mr Lindsay, but didn’t know what it was about. He he did not think he would have made racist comments.
O’ Keefe, of Hall Street, Haslingden, admitted wounding. He was given 12 months in jail, suspended for 18 months, with a curfew on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, between 7.30pm and 6am. He must pay £750 compensation.