An attempt to whip up anti-Islamic sentiment by the leader of the English Defence League has spectacularly backfired on Twitter on Monday.

On Sunday night, EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, tweeted a complaint about a picture of a “mosque” on the Twitter front page (it was actually the Taj Mahal), highlighting the image as another example of #creepingsharia.

However, rather than stoke far-right feeling, the Luton-based activist unintentionally started a comedy twitter trend.

Amid traffic about the start of Anders Breivik’s trial in Oslo, the Twitterati hijacked the tag, with #creepingsharia being blamed for everything from “algebra on the curriculum” to “no ham left in the fridge”.

Huffington Post, 16 April 2012

Update:  See also “How Twitter users turned the tables on the English Defence League”, Comment is Free, 16 April 2012