Category Archives: English Defence League

Exeter group formed to counter EDL march

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Exeter TogetherA group has been set up to counter the planned national protest being organised by the English Defence League in Exeter.

The EDL have announced their intention to stage a demo in the city on Saturday, November 16 and – despite the resignation of leaders Tommy Robinson and Kev Carroll – said it was still going ahead as planned.

City councillors have now joined with several local organisations in supporting a statement that condemns the proposed demonstration.

Exeter Together is an umbrella group that was formed two weeks ago after a meeting of 30 people. It is launching a statement that has already been backed by both Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors, as well as by many local faith groups, trade unionists and community organisations.

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West Yorkshire PCC in call for greater EDL powers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

West Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner is calling for forces to have more power to ban demonstrations such as those held by the English Defence League (EDL).

It follows an EDL rally in Bradford on Saturday that cost the force about £1m to police. Mark Burns-Williamson wants the government to allow chief constables to have the power to ban such demos. One EDL supporter at the rally told the BBC it was “the only way” to be heard.

About 1,000 police officers from several forces were involved in policing Saturday’s protest between the EDL and We are Bradford. Police said it involved about 700 EDL supporters and 120 counter protesters. Eleven people were arrested for public order offences.

At present, static protests such as those held by the EDL cannot be banned. Mr Burns-Williamson said he would be writing to the government “clearly setting out” that it “needs to review the legal framework”. He said he wanted more powers given to the chief constables, who in consultation with police and crime commissioners and other organisations, could make “informed decisions” about such protests.

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The EDL after Bradford

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Bradford October 2013

After yesterday’s English Defence League protest in Bradford, the first since the resignation of its leaders Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carroll, some anti-fascists have been keen to write the organisation off. EDL News, for example, reported the demonstration under the title “EDL drags its twitching corpse to Bradford”, while Hope Not Hate reported that a mere 300 EDL supporters joined a march that was only 11 metres long.

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Sunday Times interviews Stephen Lennon

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tommy Robinson: For you, Tommy, the war isn’t over

By Rosie Kinchen

Sunday Times, 13 October 2013

Tommy Robinson likes getting something for nothing. He walks into the lobby of the hotel and asks if he can have a full English on The Sunday Times. And one, too, for the cameraman who is filming him for a documentary. Having informed me it will cost £20 a head, he unselfconsciously ploughs through his baked beans and bacon until the hotel staff become so agitated by his presence they ask us to leave. Robinson wipes his thin mouth with a napkin, turns to me and brimming with pride says, “Welcome to my world.”

Robinson is a short, frantic man who smells of Lynx, hair gel and bravado. A former tanning salon owner, he seems to have spent the past four years transforming himself into the poster boy for British racism. He founded the English Defence League in 2009 in response to protests by extremist Muslim groups in his home town of Luton, Bedfordshire, and has helped build a base of 25,000-35,000 followers, although the only people who openly associate with the group are skinheads, yobs and opportunistic football hooligans looking for a fight. They march through city centres with large Muslim populations, wearing pig masks, chanting racist anthems and being offensive to Muslims and non-Muslims.

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EDL supporter daubed graffiti outside Leicestershire mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims at a mosque feared an attack after a teenager daubed graffiti outside the building following the killing of soldier Lee Rigby, a court heard.

Worshippers at Oadby Central Mosque believed they could be assaulted after “EDL” – a reference to the English Defence League – was scrawled on a charity clothing bin outside the building.

Prosecutor Safina Desai told Leicester Youth Court yesterday how the 17-year-old graffiti vandal wrote “EDL” on the bin in Sandhurst Street days after the attack on Mr Rigby in London on May 22.

In a victim statement read out in court, Muhammed Katib, chairman of Oadby Central Mosque, which is also a community centre, told how Muslims were in fear of being attacked. He said: “This really rang alarm bells.” After the killing of Mr Rigby, mosques had been set on fire.

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Why the English Defence League is not ‘an irrelevance’: A response to Mehdi Hasan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Al-Rahma Islamic Centre fire (3)
Muswell Hill’s al-Rahma Islamic Centre ablaze – with the letters “EDL” visible on the wall of the burning building

“Who needs Tommy Robinson and the EDL, when Islamophobia has gone mainstream?” The question is posed by Mehdi Hasan at the New Statesman and Huffington Post.

He provides some good illustrations of how the bigoted rhetoric of former English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) is barely distinguishable from the anti-Muslim propaganda of the mainstream media. Mehdi of course has a point here. Indeed, it has long been obvious that, in addition to the inspiration provided by the international “counterjihad” movement, a large part of the EDL’s ideology derives from right-wing newspapers like the Mail, the Express and the Daily Star. However, Mehdi concludes from this that Lennon “is an irrelevance. So, for that matter, is the EDL. The hate-filled antics of these balaclava-clad thugs have distracted us from a much bigger issue: Islamophobia went mainstream long ago, with the shameless complicity of sections of the press.”

This seems to me to be a false argument. That the existence of mainstream Islamophobia is often either underestimated or denied outright is undoubtedly true. And Mehdi is correct to stress that “the denialism about rampant Islamophobia, on the left and the right, has to stop”. But this shouldn’t lead us to ignore the fact that the EDL, and Lennon personally, have played a distinct role in inflaming the Islamophobic sentiments of a thuggish minority among the population and encouraging them to translate their anti-Muslim hatred into violent action.

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Quilliam’s real role – witch-hunting and blacklisting Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hasan Lennon Nawaz and Carroll
The Quilliam press conference at which Lennon announced his break with the EDL

An excellent article by Yvonne Ridley exposing the McCarthyite methods of Quilliam, the organisation that got itself into the news last week over its role in promoting former English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon’s fraudulent claim that he has broken with far-right extremism.

Ceasefire, 11 October 2013

Far-right activists admit Gloucester mosque arson

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Masjid-E-Noor arson

Two men have admitted an arson attack on a Gloucester mosque. Clive Michael Ceronne, 37, and Ashley Henry Juggins, 20, both pleaded guilty to arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered.

The pair attempted to set fire to the Masjid-E-Noor in the city’s Ryecroft Street on June 18 this year. Ceronne, a former security guard of Redwood Close, in Gloucester and Juggins, of Brooklyn Road in Cheltenham will be sentenced at Gloucester Crown Court on November 18.

The court previously heard the pair had bought lager, vodka and a petrol can of fuel from a London Road garage before using the fuel to set fire to the place of worship by owned by the Muslim Welfare Association. A passer-by saw the fire and helped put it out, before severe damage was caused. The attack came in the wake of the death of Drummer Lee Rigby.

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Muslim community leader’s car vandalised and racist note left claiming to come from EDL/BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muhammed Abu Sayed AnsareyA spate of racist vandalism has hit Brentford in recent weeks sparking local condemnation. The crimes started when a shocked father found his number plate defaced and a racist note on his car claiming to come from the English Defence League.

Muhammed Abu Sayed Ansarey went to his Honda Civic in the public car park in Coates Walk, Brentford, on September 28 to find a note under his windscreen wiper telling him to “park in your own car park at the top or else”, accompanied by racist swearing and signed off supposedly from the English Defence League (EDL) and British National Party (BNP). His car number plate also had permanent marker pen on it joining up letters and numbers to form different ones.

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Nazi-obsessed teen had ‘shopping list of ingredients for a bomb’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Nazi-obsessed teenager drew up a shopping list of bomb ingredients and wrote out a detailed plan for his Columbine-style school massacre, the Old Bailey heard today (Thurs).

The 16-year-old college student planned to shoot dead teachers and unarmed police before taking hostages in the deadly attack, it is said. He allegedly wrote a plan to kill students with explosives and chain the exits shut, ending his note with the words “good luck” and a smiley face.

The teenager, now 17 who cannot be named because of his age, is accused of plotting terrorist attacks on his former school in Loughborough, Leicestershire, as well as his college, the council offices, Loughborough university, and even the local Reel cinema.

He had been stockpiling knives, air guns, petrol and pipe bombs, and explosives in his bedroom in preparation for the attack prior to his arrest in February, the court heard.

Prosecutor Gareth Patterson today showed jurors the teen’s handwritten notes on “Operation New Columbine” from a Che Guevara book daubed with EDL and Nazi slogans.

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