Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carroll’s surprise announcement that they have left the English Defence League has been enthusiastically welcomed by Pamela Geller.
Geller writes that she and Robert Spencer – recently banned from the UK because of their record of inciting hatred against Muslims – both “strongly endorse” Lennon and Carroll’s decision. It has become “clear to all of us that the best way to proceed is to leave the EDL behind and move forward in new directions”, says Geller, and she and Spencer “look forward to working with Robinson and Carroll in the future as we continue this great struggle for freedom”.
Meanwhile, Spencer has just published an article by Geert Wilders, entitled “The specter of Islam is haunting the free world”, which would appear to have been specially written for Jihad Watch. In Wilders’ world-view every Muslim organisation, from al-Qaeda to the OIC, is engaged in the same struggle to destroy western civilisation. He explains:
“Like the specter of Communism in the past, the danger of Islam is political. Islam is mainly a political ideology because its aim is political. What the London and Boston killers, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and other individuals and groups, causing pain and misery all over the globe, have in common is that, inspired by the Koran, they want to impose Islamic sharia law on the whole world. They share this goal with an organization that is being held in the highest esteem by Western governments: the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).”
Wilders concludes: “A specter is haunting the free world. Let us have the courage to call it by its name: It is the radical ideology of Islam with its political aim to abolish our freedoms and our democracy. It is by far the most serious evil afflicting the world today. And it is a much bigger threat to our civilization than all the other problems our politicians currently worry about and devote so much attention to.”
Three years ago Wilders publicly dissociated himself from the EDL when they held a demonstration in Amsterdam to show their support for him during his trial for hate-speech against Muslims and migrants. And as Geller and Spencer mention, they have had their own problems with the EDL in the past. But now, with Lennon and Carroll having broken organisationally from the thugs and fascists who make up the rank and file of that organisation, the obstacles to closer collaboration have been removed.
This, then, would appear to be the actual result of Lennon and Carroll’s supposed break with the far right, which the self-styled “counter-extremism” experts at Quilliam are so proud of having helped to engineer. It has cleared the way for increased international co-operation between the former EDL leaders and their fellow “counterjihadists”.