'Casuals United' - English Defence League

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The Queen's EDLish Speech
All words taken from the illiterate ramblings of EDL members.

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My Hometown Fanatics

This was a BBC3 documentary on tonight about Luton, presented by someone called Stacey Dooley. In it she sets to explore why there is apparently such division between Muslims and non-Muslims in the town. At one point she says that she doesn't know anything about Iraq and Afghanistan being occupied - while purporting to have a balanced view of the problems... maybe she doesn't read 'the news'.

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Proud and Prejudiced, Channel 4, preview
Paul Woolwich, the executive producer of new Channel 4 documentary Proud and Prejudiced, on getting to know two of Britain’s most controversial protest leaders
Paul Woolwich
27 Feb 2012

When Time magazine named ‘the protestor’ as its person of the year 2011 its editorial staff had in mind protest movements that had sprung from locations across the globe: Tunisia, Tahrir Square, Wall Street, Athens, Moscow and more. They were not thinking of Luton in Bedfordshire.

But it was in Luton, 30 odd miles north of London, that we spent most of 2011, getting to know two of Britain’s most prolific and controversial protest leaders for a Channel 4 documentary (Proud and Prejudiced). Tommy Robinson and Sayful Islam are two men unlikely to find themselves profiled in Time: they do not lead mass popular movements, but bands of angry extremists. Tommy leads the far-right English Defence League; Sayful leads a group of Islamist radicals. Both men are roughly the same age, both grew up on opposite sides of the same provincial town and both have become two of the most notorious political extremists in Britain.

Sayful Islam used to be a taxman until he became involved with Al-Muhajiroun, a fundamentalist Muslim organization. The group was outlawed in 2004, but since then, it has engaged in a bizarre game of cat and mouse with the authorities, changing its name every time it is banned. Sayful has been instrumental in the group under various names, whether Islam4UK or Muslims Against Crusades. They have become known for outrageous, headline-grabbing protests from burning poppies on Armistice Day to threatening to disrupt the Royal Wedding.

Tommy Robinson is a tanning shop manager. In 2009, he brought two hundred or so Luton Town football fans to a rally in the town centre, protesting against Sayful’s activities in the town. Their placards read: ‘Ban Sayful Islam.’ It was to be the first of many protests for Tommy. Two years later and the English Defence League is now the biggest far-right protest movement this country has seen for a generation. Tommy has led his few thousand loyal followers into areas with large Muslim populations almost forty times, bringing town centres to a standstill and crippling police budgets.

We arrived in Luton in early 2011 in search of these two men, keen to understand how a small local feud had spilled so dramatically onto the national stage. Our search for Tommy began on February 5th, the day he brought the English Defence League back to Luton for the first time since it was born there two years earlier. By now the EDL was a national organization, with local groups or ‘Divisions’ across the country. Tommy was promising that this would be their biggest demonstration yet.

Luton was a ghost town: on a Saturday morning virtually every shop was boarded up and the town centre was abandoned. The only signs of life were the thousands of police officers, from 27 different forces who had been drafted in to keep the peace.

We found the English Defence League crammed into a road behind the station, awaiting the start of the march: a sea of England flags and skinheads. The protestors were spilling from the only pub in town left open, a tall, fortress-like establishment with no windows. The doorways heaved with EDL supporters, clutching pints of lager, drunkenly pushing in and out. It was 10 o’clock in the morning. We found Tommy inside, wandering through the bar with a small entourage of heavies, speaking to his followers. He flicked Churchillian ‘V’ signs at them as he passed; “Tommy Robinson!” they chanted back. One of the EDL lads paused in chanting his leaders name and shouted to us through the din: “This is better than England away, innit?”

You can’t understand the EDL without understanding football culture. Just like England away matches, the EDL rallies that Tommy has organized across the country are a chance for competing hooligan firms to put aside their differences and unite in hatred of one common enemy. In international football tournaments, it’s the Germans; at EDL rallies, it’s Islam. And with the notoriously well-organized hierarchies associated with football firms, Tommy has found himself with a ready-made army of followers, with a songbook of easily adaptable chants (“You’re not English anymore”,“No surrender to the Taliban”) who are ready to jump on coaches on a Saturday to travel half way across the country for a piss-up and a ruck.

‘Tommy Robinson’ is not his real name; it’s actually Stephan Lennon. When the EDL begans, he adopted the pseudonym of a local Luton Town football fan to protect his identity. The name has stuck. Tommy is unapologetic about the EDL’s hooligan roots: “You need a bunch of hard lads who aren’t going to back down,” he says.

Sayful Islam was easier to track down. His group is banned from most of the local mosques, so he takes his radical brand of Islam onto the streets. Every afternoon he can be found handing out flyers in Bury Park, the largely Muslim part of town. He wears a white robe and sports a long dark beard with a few flecks of grey. Radicalised in his mid-twenties, he quit his job to fight what he sees as a jihad against the West. He wants to overthrow democracy and replace it with Islamic law, Sharia. Like Tommy, he renamed himself for the fight. His birth name, Ishtiaq Alamgir, was dropped in favour of Sayful Islam, which means ‘Sword of Islam’.

On first meeting Sayful isn’t an obvious extremist firebrand. Whereas Tommy has been a self-confessed troublemaker since an early age, local people remember Safyul as being an unremarkable and shy teenager. He has a nervous laugh and an awkward habit of peppering his speech with the word ‘obviously.’ But these days he’s not lacking in a self-importance to rival Tommy’s. He tells us how he intends to marry a second wife. “Won’t your current wife be annoyed?”, “She’ll have to put up with it,” he says, puffing out his chest, “I’m Sayful Islam, innit?”

Like Tommy, Sayful is in his element at the demonstrations he organizes. Over the year we filmed perhaps a dozen of Sayful and Tommy’s protests. Both men like nothing more than to spend their Saturdays travelling across the country to make bombastic speeches to small groups of people who already agree with them. They both get a buzz from the camaraderie, the feeling of being united in a common goal and a common enemy. Both have a gift for rabble-rousing, and the same glint of excitement in their eye as they are passed the microphone on their makeshift stages. Our year following Tommy and Sayful, climaxed in two of the men’s most eye-wateringly offensive protests yet, staged within a week of each other in September.

First, Tommy led his supporters into Tower Hamlets, the most densely populated Muslim area in the country. Three thousand officers had to be drafted in to protect the local population. The protest descended into a farce. To avoid bail conditions that banned him from attending demonstrations (imposed after he allegedly head butted an rival at a protest in Blackburn five months before) Tommy came in disguise, arriving early and hiding in a local bar dressed as an orthodox Jewish rabbi. The subterfuge worked and he was able to sneak past the police to the stage where, drunk on his own power and half a dozen double vodka-lemonades, he tore off his false beard and made an invective-filled, off-the-cuff speech threatening the entire Muslim community.

Just a week later, Sayful led an equally audacious demonstration, as Muslims Against Crusades marched to the American embassy on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. As dignitaries and relatives of the victims gathered in the gardens of the embassy to remember their loved ones, Sayful made his own chilling speech outside. Promising their Jihad would never stop “until the American flag is under our feet” Sayful whipped his young followers into a frenzy. But their posturing as fearless religious warriors did not last long. As they left the demonstration the group was set upon by a band of EDL supporters, screaming ‘Scum! Scum! Scum!’ and throwing bottles. Cowering behind the few police present for protection, suddenly Sayful and his followers seemed less like committed Jihadists and more like vulnerable children.

This Tanning shop manager and ex-Taxman have found themselves with hundreds of loyal followers, a great deal of power and virtually no responsibility. It’s a dangerous cocktail, which results in demonstrations that are offensive, chaotic and extremely expensive to police. But both men thrive on the adrenaline of their demonstrations and revel in the notoriety that comes afterwards. And over the year, it became obvious that both men share more than just a love of the limelight.

A month or so after these demos, we found a placard we’d picked up from one of the protests at the bottom of a camera bag. Its slogan read: ‘Islam Will Dominate the World’. At first, it was hard to recall whether we’d found it at the EDL demo or the Muslims Against Crusades demo. It could have come from either.

The confusion says much about the two groups. Despite being sworn enemies, the way Tommy and Sayful see the world is actually remarkably similar. Both believe the implementation of Sharia law in the UK is imminent (it’s not) and that Islam and the West are locked in a centuries-old battle for supremacy. Both men inhabit the same fantasy world, where a medieval clash of civilizations is being played out day-to-day on the streets of modern-day Luton.

On its website, flags and official merchandise the EDL’s imagery is full of crusader knights retaking Europe from the armies of conquering Islam. They have even adopted as their own the Latin slogan of the Knights Templar: “In Hoc Signo Vinces,” which translates as ‘Under This Sign You Will Conquer.’ Sayful and his followers assume the opposite role. From the name Muslims Against Crusades to their websites and propaganda videos emblazoned with the iconography of Saladin, Sayful and his followers dream of the return of the medieval Muslim caliphate.

Both Tommy and Sayful’s fantasies sustain each other. It’s a phenomenon that Professor Roger Eatwell, an expert in far-right politics, has described as ‘cumulative extremism’. Supposedly opposing groups like the EDL and Muslims Against Crusades don’t check each other’s popularity, they fuel it.

During filming for this documentary Tommy and Sayful both knew we were filming with their rival. Far from being worried by this, they both encouraged it: each man believes the other proves his point. For Tommy, Sayful represents what he sees as Islam: an offensive ideology at odds with British values and determined to bring down our society. For Sayful, Tommy represents all that is wrong with Western culture: morally corrupt, valueless, violent and inherently Islamophobic.

Of course, there’s a certain silliness to all of this posturing. Tommy’s followers are more likely to be overweight, undereducated pub racists than knights of the realm, and Sayful’s followers are more likely to be disenfranchised, bookish young Muslim kids than Mujahedeen. And, despite their rhetoric, both Tommy and Sayful claim to reject violence.

But something happened during filming that was a stark reminder that these men’s rhetoric can be extremely dangerous. In July, Anders Breivik embarked on a devastating shooting spree in Norway. Breivik, a far-right extremist, imagined himself a crusader in a religious war and claimed his motivation for the attacks was to stop the ‘Islamisation’ of Europe. Tommy, who had originally presumed the attacks were the work of Islamist extremists, was soon informed that the real culprit was an EDL-sympathiser who had almost certainly attended one of Tommy’s demonstrations.

We filmed Tommy as he embarked on a desperate media campaign to contain the fallout of the revelations. From local radio, to Norweigan newspapers to a duel with Paxman on Newsnight, Tommy sought to distance the EDL from the murderous actions of the man Tommy called “that lunatic Norweigan”. But suddenly the EDL’s posturing as crusaders seemed far less frivolous.

As Tommy sat in his Luton tanning salon, answering questions about his links to Anders Breivik from one press agency after another, it was obvious that, despite the controversy - or perhaps because of it - Tommy was, once again, enjoying being centre stage. Sayful is the same. Both men thrive on the reputation for danger that surrounds them. Mounting controversy has not persuaded wither man to curb their rhetoric or tone down their protests, and in 2011 their spiraling feud has pushed police budgets and public patience to their limit.

Luton has always been an unlikely frontline in the clash of civilizations, and Tommy and Sayful have always been unlikely religious warriors. Despite its troubles, Luton is this year entering the running to be the only town awarded city status in honour of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Tommy has now given up his Tanning Shop after being unable to keep up with the rent and Sayful has begun applying for new accountancy jobs. It’s still hard to believe sometimes that these local men are two of the most dangerous extremists in Britain.


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I'll post the full doc later...

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Here we go - the EDL released a statement earlier saying that the programme had been re-edited on government demand in order to make them look bad.

As you'll see, it would be hard to show that bunch of twats in any other way...

EDL - Proud and Prejudiced

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My favourite part was when Stephen Lennon got slapped. I laughed for about three minutes without stopping. I wanted slow motion replays and different camera angles, and if Channel 4 had offered those things it would surely have been the best use of the red button ever.

The show itself was full of the EDL's pathetic attempts to distance themselves from racism, which is as transparent as their members are dumb.

In 2009 the Luton EDL burned a Nazi flag in a similar effort to appear sane. Less than a year later, the Welsh Defence League in Swansea tried to do the same... and... well...



...they ended up burning an anti-Nazi flag, because they don't understand the difference.

Stupid, stupid bastards.

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Great post & pic there. What I took from the doc was that their rank & file members are eager to "kick on", seemingly frustrated by countless "protest after protest". Eventually I think the so called E.D.L will eat itself. Or at least I hope so.
Oh & by the way, wasn't it very telling of the true nature of Tommy Robinson when he bumped into a very gracious Asian security guard after a night on the booze. Truth comes out when you've had a drink!

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My Hometown Fanatics[/align]

At times her akwardness was cringeworthy. To be fair though she's made some better docs on sweat shops & worker exploitation in the Far East.

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Pensioner head butted in extreme right-wing thug attack
Mark Chandler
newsshopper.co.uk
30th April 2012

TWO pensioners handing out anti-fascist leaflets were set upon by extreme right-wing thugs in a shocking high street attack. Activist Andrew Smith, 69, was helping man the regular Socialist Worker stall in Lewisham High Street on Saturday at around noon when he was head butted in the face, while his colleague, 67, was punched to the floor.

Mr Smith, a long-standing anti-fascism campaigner and retired teacher, needed laser surgery for a torn retina after the unprovoked assault but is hopeful his sight will be okay. He told News Shopper that before the attack, the gang made reference to Brighton, where anti-fascists faced-off with the March for England right-wing group earlier this month. Mr Smith said: "They were shouting something about Brighton and accused us of attacking women and children."

A group knocked over the men's table before coming back a short while later in a group of around 10 men and one woman. One man approached Mr Smith and began talking to him. Mr Smith said: "In the middle of the conversation I had an uneasy feeling and he head butted me - one blow to the face. I was on the ground and sort of remember crouching, like a boxer who's gone down in the ring. I was completely dazed. I think these were hardcore Nazis. They're very dangerous people and need to be opposed."

Mr Smith went on: "I'll continue to campaign. We were determined to stand our ground and that's still our attitude." Even before the incident, another campaigner, 42, was also assaulted and left with facial injuries.

Chairman of Lewisham Anti-Racist Action Group Jarman Parmar said: "The actions of these racist attackers is shocking and strengthens our resolve to unite everyone who opposes these kind of behaviours and ideas which have no place in our society." A spokeswoman for Lewisham police confirmed detectives were investigating the attacks but said no arrests had been made so far.

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A pretty comprehensive covering of events in Bristol on Saturday.

www.vice.com/en_uk/read/edl-fascists-an ... -gay-pride

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ZHC hack EDL facebook page
for the 3rd time

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Here's a fairly comprehensive list of EDL members who've appeared as criminals in the news over the past few years.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oCF ... edit?pli=1

And these are just the ones who've been prosecuted and reported on...

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King’s Cross staff threaten walk out in protest at EDL using station as demonstration rallying point
Kevin Rawlinson
31 August 2012
independent.co.uk

Passengers travelling to the Paralympics face major disruption today after staff at King’s Cross in London vowed to walk out in protest at supporters of the far-right English Defence League using the station as a rallying point for a demonstration in the north of the capital. Staff members have complained that they faced abuse at the hands of the EDL as they headed to a similar protest last year. A spokesman for the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) said staff would take the step – in a bid to close the Underground station - in order to protect themselves and the public.

“Staff will walk away from work on the grounds of safety, if nothing else,” said an RMT spokesman yesterday. He added: “we are talking about an organisation which has a track record of violence and our staff have reported problems in the past.”

RMT members have privately talked about shutting the station down. However, their bosses at Transport for London insisted yesterday that the station would remain open and said that their talks with the Metropolitan Police and British Transport Police indicated no immediate danger to staff or to the public. Police sought to ban last year’s march, which saw clashes between the EDL and their opponents, and staff at King’s Cross closed the entrance to the tube for around half an hour.

Staff are understood to be unhappy with the approach to last year’s EDL demonstration in Walthamstow. Some said they have decided to take action themselves to stop the group travelling from the station to Blackhorse Road tube station in north London, where this year’s march is due to start.

Some of those involved are also believed to be ideologically opposed to the EDL and will seek to block their march if possible. Plans seen by the Independent indicate that some staff at King’s Cross station are planning to “organise halting [the marchers] getting on to the system in the first place”. The plans continue: “The obvious point of exit is Blackhorse Road. We need to close this station down (as opposed to just withdrawing to places of safety) and then Walthamstow when the risk is transferred.

“We mustn’t do this too early because we’ll only hinder the counter demonstration that’s assembling at Walthamstow at 11. In other words, we close Blackhorse Road and Walthamstow stations at the point when the risk actually presents itself. We need to draft up a simple pro forma on refusal to work on the grounds of health and safety on account of the serious and imminent risk presented by the EDL to staff and passengers.

In an email, organisers said they planned to “refuse to work, close the station and insist that the service [does not stop there] as a result.” They said they expected around 500 EDL members to attend the demonstration and anti-EDL groups have vowed to hold counter demonstrations.

A TfL spokesperson said: “The safety of our staff and customers is our first priority. We have been working closely with the British Transport Police and Metropolitan Police and there is no known threat to our staff or our customers. We have no plans to close either King’s Cross or Blackhorse Road stations.”

EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon did not respond to requests for comment. However, the group has repeatedly insisted that it is non-violent but, since it does not have a formal membership structure, cannot control every member of a march.

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You'd think an organisation which pushes itself as 'of the people' would be embarassed that union people would be willing to strike against them - then again, it is the EDL.

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source

EDL humiliated as Walthamstow takes to the streets to stop them
Anindya Bhattacharyya
socialistworker.org.uk
1st September 2012

The racists and fascists of the English Defence League (EDL) were comprehensively routed on Saturday. Thousands of anti-fascists blocked their march route and stopped their rally in Walthamstow, east London. The EDL only managed to mobilise 200, mostly hardcore Nazis. The anti-fascist demonstration, in contrast, brought some 4,000 people together representing all the diversity of one of London�s most proudly multiracial areas.

�It�s been a brilliant day�we completely trashed them,� said Siobhan, a Waltham Forest resident. �We had a really united campaign that reached out to the whole community. We wanted to stop the EDL and that�s what we did.�

Police had planned to march the EDL down Forest Road from Blackhorse Road tube station to the town hall for a rally. But this route was blocked by the anti-fascist march, which staged a sit-down protest at a key junction between Hoe Street and Forest Road. This mass action sent the police plans into disarray. From that moment on it was downhill all the way for the Nazis.

Anti-fascists split into smaller groups at this point, some staying at Hoe Street with others breaking off to occupy other key points. The EDL march was rerouted through the back streets of Walthamstow, where they met abuse and hostility from local people. One group of around 400 anti-fascists broke through to occupy the EDL�s rally point outside the town hall. EDL leaders Tommy Robinson and Kev Carroll were there with a dozen or so supporters. They had to take down their sound system.

Robinson and Carroll were visibly shaken by the size and anger of the anti-fascist presence at the very place they had planned to hold their rally. The pair were later witnessed having a blazing row with each other.

Meanwhile local youths in small groups played cat-and-mouse with the police and harassed the EDL. The police announced that the EDL rally had been cancelled and ferried the despondent racists back home the way they came. There were no arrests on the anti-fascist side.

At points the uglier side of the EDL�s racism came out. A Socialist Worker journalist witnessed the EDL yelling �jump� as they passed a black resident looking down on them from his balcony. But as they slunk off they knew they had been beaten. They couldn�t even manage their characterstic grunting chant of �E-E-EDL�. Instead the air was thick with local youth jeering at them and chanting �Nazi scum, off our streets�.

The day had started with an anti-EDL rally nearby Walthamstow Central station, hosted by Unite Against Fascism and We Are Waltham Forest. �We live just round the corner and we feel strongly about this,� local resident Aftab told Socialist Worker. �It�s about for our rights in Walthamstow. I lived here in the 1980s and I�m not going back to that racism. So it�s good to see so many people here.�

Speakers included local MP Stella Creasy, alongside speakers from mosques, trade unions, faith groups and local activists. Mark Campbell from the UCU union at London Metropolitan University spoke about the battle there to stop the threatened deportation of up to 3,000 international students who have had their visas revoked by the UK Border Authority. �There�s a connection here,� he said. �Racist policies by the government give confidence to racist thugs on the streets. That�s why trade unionists have to stand up against racism and fascism.�

The mood was confident and upbeat, especially when protesters saw the size and diversity of those that had come out to try and stop the EDL. This mood grew as they day went on and the extent of the EDL�s humiliation became clear.

Weyman Bennett, joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism, told Socialist Worker, �We came, we saw, we defeated EDL. The magnificent alliance that brought together anti-fascists, trade unionists, faith and community organisations is a model that can defeat the racists.�

Vice did an article about the day, click here to read it

Excellent, well done to the locals of Walthamstow.

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EDL humiliated as Walthamstow takes to the streets to stop them
Anindya Bhattacharyya
socialistworker.org.uk
1st September 2012

The racists and fascists of the English Defence League (EDL) were comprehensively routed on Saturday. Thousands of anti-fascists blocked their march route and stopped their rally in Walthamstow, east London. The EDL only managed to mobilise 200, mostly hardcore Nazis. The anti-fascist demonstration, in contrast, brought some 4,000 people together representing all the diversity of one of London’s most proudly multiracial areas.

“It’s been a brilliant day—we completely trashed them,” said Siobhan, a Waltham Forest resident. “We had a really united campaign that reached out to the whole community. We wanted to stop the EDL and that’s what we did.”

Police had planned to march the EDL down Forest Road from Blackhorse Road tube station to the town hall for a rally. But this route was blocked by the anti-fascist march, which staged a sit-down protest at a key junction between Hoe Street and Forest Road. This mass action sent the police plans into disarray. From that moment on it was downhill all the way for the Nazis.

Anti-fascists split into smaller groups at this point, some staying at Hoe Street with others breaking off to occupy other key points. The EDL march was rerouted through the back streets of Walthamstow, where they met abuse and hostility from local people. One group of around 400 anti-fascists broke through to occupy the EDL’s rally point outside the town hall. EDL leaders Tommy Robinson and Kev Carroll were there with a dozen or so supporters. They had to take down their sound system.

Robinson and Carroll were visibly shaken by the size and anger of the anti-fascist presence at the very place they had planned to hold their rally. The pair were later witnessed having a blazing row with each other.

Meanwhile local youths in small groups played cat-and-mouse with the police and harassed the EDL. The police announced that the EDL rally had been cancelled and ferried the despondent racists back home the way they came. There were no arrests on the anti-fascist side.

At points the uglier side of the EDL’s racism came out. A Socialist Worker journalist witnessed the EDL yelling “jump” as they passed a black resident looking down on them from his balcony. But as they slunk off they knew they had been beaten. They couldn’t even manage their characterstic grunting chant of “E-E-EDL”. Instead the air was thick with local youth jeering at them and chanting “Nazi scum, off our streets”.

The day had started with an anti-EDL rally nearby Walthamstow Central station, hosted by Unite Against Fascism and We Are Waltham Forest. “We live just round the corner and we feel strongly about this,” local resident Aftab told Socialist Worker. “It’s about for our rights in Walthamstow. I lived here in the 1980s and I’m not going back to that racism. So it’s good to see so many people here.”

Speakers included local MP Stella Creasy, alongside speakers from mosques, trade unions, faith groups and local activists. Mark Campbell from the UCU union at London Metropolitan University spoke about the battle there to stop the threatened deportation of up to 3,000 international students who have had their visas revoked by the UK Border Authority. “There’s a connection here,” he said. “Racist policies by the government give confidence to racist thugs on the streets. That’s why trade unionists have to stand up against racism and fascism.”

The mood was confident and upbeat, especially when protesters saw the size and diversity of those that had come out to try and stop the EDL. This mood grew as they day went on and the extent of the EDL’s humiliation became clear.

Weyman Bennett, joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism, told Socialist Worker, “We came, we saw, we defeated EDL. The magnificent alliance that brought together anti-fascists, trade unionists, faith and community organisations is a model that can defeat the racists.”

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Tommy Robinson - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
It's interesting that he downplays his past membership of the BNP considering his position is a perfect reflection of their policies. As soon as he saw the woman he says "she can go"...