Following their protest against “Muslim paedophiles” in Blackpool next Saturday, the English Defence League have announced that their next demonstration will be in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, which they describe as “the heartland of Islamic terrorism” (see here and here).

Comments about the Tower Hamlets protest on the EDL’s Facebook page have included a call to rip off Muslim women’s veils – from an individual currently on bail over charges arising from an attack on Kingston mosque – and even more explicit threats of violence such as this:

Expose draws our attention to a new Facebook page, set up by an EDL supporter to promote the forthcoming demonstration in East London, under the title “Bollocks to Calm Bring on Tower Hamlets Lets Fucking Ave It”.

It includes the following link to explain “why we’re going there in our 1000’s”:

The link is to an Evening Standard article from last year in which local Labour MP and then government minister Jim Fitzpatrick was quoted as claiming that the Islamic Forum of Europe was engaged in a conspiracy to seize political control of the borough. He had made the accusation in the course of his co-operation with Andrew Gilligan in the making of the witch-hunting TV documentary “Britain’s Islamic Republic“.

Fitzpatrick had earlier complained about being criticised by websites likes Islamophobia Watch: “I’ve spent my full adult life in the trenches fighting fascism. I’ve been on the streets against the National Front and the BNP and to appear on website pages next to them is insulting.”

Insulting maybe, but hardly inaccurate. Fitzpatrick may have resisted fascism in his youth (he is after all a former member of the Socialist Workers Party) but he has since moved on from fighting the far right to providing them with political ammunition.