The EDL grows ever more difficult to fathom. This post is taken from elsewhere via M.
According to various sources there were between 200-400 people that turned up with for the counter demo against Islam4UK march which was cancelled due to “security reasons”. That number was a mixture of the usual football firm/casuals but also some presence from autonomous nationalists/NF/C18/BM/RVF. What apparently happened was taken from a post by the RVF (racialist volunteer force — how nazi? 
:
“Last night, without our knowledge, Islam4UK cancelled their march through London and we were left with a technical victory today. As the day went on people started leaving/moving to other places in London. We heard that the EDL were down the road singing anti German songs and singing songs with messages basically saying that the people of Dresden deserved what they got in the Dresden bombings. About 15 of us that was left went down there and got ourselves and pint and had a conversation with some of the EDL. The youth were there, including their leader Joel, and the older lot were there too. Somehow, something kicked off about the EDL being pro zionists and supporting Jews, and we opposed it, we were all outside and they started chanting “C18 Nazis”. We 15 ended up kicking off with about 50 – 60 EDL, who were throwing fire extinguishers, pint glasses, bottles, and various other things. We stood our ground to a point but had to disperse. After getting away through Trafalger Square we heard screams and looked around. One of our C18 brothers had been smashed around the back of the head and had fallen flat out on the road unconscious, drowning in a pool of blood. 10 minutes later coming back to the scene, he was still laying there and was cornered off with police tape.”
To some of us that have been following the rise of the EDL then it won’t surprise you to see this happening. As soon as an Israeli flag was displayed in Birmingham 80% of the boneheads in the UK denounced EDL as a “ZOG front group”. Make of it what you will.
18 Comments
November 2, 2009 at 9:00 pm
EDL response:
“Whatever the reasons, the edl were attacked first.
We (10 EDL) were outside the pub when around 15 blokes came out of the pub and started shouting ‘edl cunts’ and ‘jew lovers’, at least 3 of them sieg heiled at us and a bottle came over.
We squared up and they came at us, a ruck ensued and glasses and bottles were thrown by both sides aswell as punches.
Mid-fight more EDL came running out of the pub and joined us but there was never 40-50, maybe 25 at most.
The lads who attacked us ran across whitehall toward trafalgar square and left one of their lads who got cracked over the back of the head in the road and collapsed on the other side of the road and another got few slaps inside the theatre foyer.”
Sounds like Lord Moon on the Mall, Whitehall.
November 2, 2009 at 10:00 pm
“TOGETHER WE ARE WRONG” ..slightly altered from the rvf webshite
November 2, 2009 at 10:13 pm
As a regular internet warrior it should be known the EDL have a tedancy to go to all kinds of sites and make up bullshit if you find that original thread you can see that the poster whinging about his mate drowning in blood only had one post.
Also someone drowning in their own blood , probably would have got on the news.
November 2, 2009 at 10:14 pm
I’m not sure what the EDL are, but they’re not Nazis. A quick search on youtube is enough to establish that.
They seem more like a traditional football firm, with a multi-racial membership and their own kind of nationalist ideology – Sun readers on cheap whizz, export lager and KFC.
November 2, 2009 at 11:27 pm
“Sun readers on cheap whizz, export lager and KFC.”-Very fucking snobby Dora.
November 3, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Their events seem to attract an awful lot of Nazis though http://bit.ly/2j4rRO
November 2, 2009 at 11:47 pm
EDL are a fucking pain in the arse. They won’t fully stake their political position until they are big enough – its a bit like the modern BNP without the historical baggage to keep it weighed down by its racist history.
The EDL’s main enemy now is the UAF/left antifascists, though it seems that the white nationalist movement is also now an enemy.
November 3, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Won’t fully stake their political position?
What’s yours then?
November 4, 2009 at 12:06 pm
anarchist/anti-authoritarian i.e. against nationalism, states and the need for capitalism.
November 3, 2009 at 12:42 am
RE Leeds and the widder issue of class:
Yes we keep calling it a UAF protest, but they don’t really own it. Most of the people there were not UAF members, or particulay wanted to do what UAF did.
What’s sad is that i’d say 80% of people in the EDL are being used a pawns by a few far right players. After years of the mainstream media and political parties confusing Islam and Extermism these people are now doing the same. Danger is the more moderate amongst EDL will get drawn into politics of the far right.
Initially like others I felt the best tactic was to ignore them and not give them press coverage. However whatever UAF have done to give them publicity, it pales in comparison to the mainstream media. For years it’s been the government that has been all too happy to blame immigration, for the failings of capitalism. The government has pandered to the media scaremongering of radical Islam, and in doing so been happy to removes civil liberties and use it as a justification for everything from ID cards, to control orders, in an attempt to appease the press and look like they are doing something. The media’s scaremongering and the governments reactionary nature have created a climate of fear and Islamophiba. People on the streets blame Mulisms for everything from Housing problems, to lack of jobs. In response the Islamic community has become even more isolated and less integrated.
Take Birmingham, 10-15 years ago it had an integrated population, now thanks to scaremongering by the media and the establishment you have increasingly divided communities, and white flight. What the left should ideally be doing is engaged in bridging that divide, and pulling people together into positively improving their communities. Deep down people mostly want the same things after all.
In Leeds, most of the correspondence were there just in case it kicked off, as they are only interested in hyping things. Seeing the Daily mail calling them Patriots for instance, will have done far more for their cause then anything the UAF have ever done. The politics show on Sunday doing a vox pop section that suggested everyone in Barnsley supports the BNP, despite them losing the latest by-election. The Media and to some extent Labour love to hype EDL and the BNP, the former because it’s a story and the later as they use it to help bring out voters.
Yes the EDL do want to draw more people in by saying they just oppose radical Islam, but the general hatred of all Islam is rife throughout their movement. There are also numbers of far right groups moving amongst their ranks trying to exploit it. Personally though I do now think they need to be opposed on the streets. They have got too large, and if people don’t see a counter-protest then it makes their Islamaphoiba seem more justifiable. A friend said to me, “Wouldn’t it be bad if no one was protesting against them though”, – if there was no counter-protest yes it would be bad which is why I would attend a counter-protest.
If they were serious about tackling extremism, they would be working with the Islamic community, instead they are just demonizing an entire group of people in our society. Confronting the EDL is not really getting dangerous, as the anti group still outnumbers them. Seriously now I think there are going to be so much police at these events that there is not much chance of the protests meeting. The bigger worry, and the fear the establishment has is that it could spark race riots. You have to think if UAF are not going to be there then won’t the Asian youth be out there on their own? Isn’t it better that Asian youth are drawn into a wider unity protest, rather than thinking it’s just a them and us thing and that all English people hate them? At least UAF is bringing people together and preventing it becoming just an England vs Islam dichotomy.
You have to bear in mind not confronting them, as in Luton is equally dangerous, as they turned to trashing Asian cars and shops, which again could trigger a race riot. If they are they on the their own, the police might even let them march, whereas if there are two big protest then they will as in Leeds just keep people in separate pens.
What the left is failing to do is unite people in social struggle, the absence of people getting to grips with the real causes of problems Islam will be an easy excuse for problems. I think we need action groups where the left brings communities together to tackle problems together. As I said a day of UAF et all teaming up to pick up litter on an estate with a press line about the real problems being economic depravation caused by the failings of capitalism is going to do more good then shouting Nazi Scum. Sadly though this is a good tool for the SWP to recruit people, and boring stuff that works like tackling bread and butter issues isn’t.
A lot of the far right think EDL is a state setup to dilute their white supremacist cause (yes they are that paranoid), Other far right and some BNP think it’s a good recruiting tool.
A sizeable majority of the EDL hate the far-right as they think they are trying to get them all labelled as Nazi by turning up at their protests in an attempt to discredit them because they are non-racist and not homophobic. Then of course there are plenty of supporters of the far-right amongst the EDL’s ranks and we have to be watching them like hawks to ensure they are not really just a front (or Trojan horse), or to ensure that far-right are unable to turn them into one.
If the grouping within EDL that are genuinely anti-fash start turning against these nutters at their demos then it puts UAF and Antifa in a situation where they need to reconsider things. Already there is one fight where EDL have turned against the fash. Perhaps it’s actually possible to work with some factions within EDL against the extermist elements?
Really part of the long term strategic problem is that UAF should be tackling Islamic extremism too, if it had done earlier then EDL probably never would have formed and more working class people could have been brought into a class struggle rather than the arms of the BNP and facist ideology. Yes of course the state has hyped the threat, and used it to justify illegal wars and crackdowns on our rights and it seems naturally to oppose this spin. However maybe in denying to recognize there is a problem and offering our own solution we have simply allowed people to drift into the arms of the BNP, and fash. We need a more sophisticated message of condeming Islamic extermism, and the demonisation of Islam, and the justification of a fight against extermism to remove our liberty, and provide cover for resource wars.
Maybe its possible that EDL will become are more moderate organization, possibly the left needs to do more to reach out to members within EDL and drag them back from the influence of the far-right. General anti-Muslim feeling is again rife amongst their ranks, but not with everyone. Again I think some left-wing groups need to be educating EDL members, after all we should be against all forms of extremism including Islamic
It’s rumoured EDL are going to be putting out a statement about working with moderate Muslims, which could make things very interesting if they try to turn down the general anti-Muslim vibes they are giving off. Some also realize their whole Crusade imagery is rather problematic, and the wrong way of going about things.
What we have to realize, is just as the left is a fractured spectrum, so too is the EDL. Not all EDL are Nazi scum, and we should be intervening to reach out to these people and bring them into a united class struggle against extremism, and the real underlying problems such as break down in communities, housing and poor resource allocation.
November 3, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Ian has pointed out time and again that Orwell recognised a kind of English ‘patriotism’ (for want of a better word) that the left failed – and still fail to – understand.
“it wasn’t my generation of 1968 that were the true radicals but our boring old mums and dads in their stuffy clothes and values that were the truly radical generation – fighting the war, bringing in the Labour landslide of 45, voting in Communists, ILP ers and the almost anarcho-utopian Commonweal party in the war. As always Orwell summed up the Left’s problem with patriotism and derided how out of touch with our people they were. Orwell said it was the upper class and the working class who valued physical courage and bravery – the middle class sneered and mocked it…….check out how that pans out in our movement now comrades.For Orwell in 1940 that meant dismissing the leftie pacifists and turning the forerunner of the Home Guard into a revolutionary fighting force. He even imported Spanish anarchists to teach petrolbomb throwing in sedate OSterley Park! We need a similar sea change in our attitde to our Englishness and our recent history.”
We seem to fear positive comments about Englishness in case they’re confused with right wing nationalism or the evils of the British Empire. But we have an extremely rich radical/working-class history in England (from The Levellers to the residents of the Plotlands), and a vibrant tradition of anti-authoritarian folklore (from Robin Hood to King Mob), which largely undermines the nationalistic jingoism of the BNP.
If we ignore radical and working class history for the sake of some abstract ideological purity then we not only weaken our own movement, we also insult the many generations of English radicals that went before us.
November 3, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Class War-Barnsdale Brigade is dead right. Ian has been pointing out for a long time now that a love of place does not make you a bloody fascist. So what separates someone with my feelings about England (and more specifically, London) from not just the extreme right but even your average Mail reader? To my mind it’s the fact that my love of place is inclusive and also that I have no interest in the “nation” but rather in the thousands of small details that make my home “particular”. The sad thing is that all these years after Orwell’s death we still have to defend all this against right-wing nationalism AND the knee-jerk left.
November 3, 2009 at 2:36 pm
One of the most thoughtful and honest posts ive seen on this subject of the EDL and ‘extremist muslims’
EDL claim that they are against extremists Muslims only i.e. Anjum Choudry Al Muhajerun and the 8 or so looneys who protested in Luton. (The EDL also claim that the Luton protest was the catalyst when in fact a group which is exactly the same all but in name was set up in 2005 under the name of the United British Alliance UBA). The fact is these people and this tiny group who number less than 50 nationally are so hated by the UK Muslim community that they have been banned from every mosque and have been chased and beaten up literally SINCE THE 1990’s especially in the North and they will never get support from UK Muslims. It’s a shame that this has not been publicised and very few people except Muslims are aware of this. People really need to know that the UK Muslim community have been fighting this tiny vociferous Minority for the last 15 years! Out of over a thousand mosques in the country they were only able to preach at one i.e. Finsbury Park Mosque and that was only after they physically beat up the trustees and took it over. Thankfully the mosque is now back with the trustees after successful legal action. That’s why they are always on the streets or talking to the media who lap it all up, Anjum Choudry is not even a trained qualified Islamic Scholar in fact he did law at uni before he became a looney.
Many Muslims believe they are highly suspect maybe a honey trap or agent provocateurs. Ask yourselves this, why is Anjum Choudry never arrested??? Why do high profile MPs call for action against them and then nothing happens and you never hear about it ever again? Why do they only pop up at the most opportune moments cause extreme offence and then disappear again? Why are they on first name terms with the media/journalists? Why are they portrayed as if they have support from and speak for the UK Muslim community? This whole outfit stinks!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1051304.ece
Therefore the EDL have no reason to march but they use Anjum Choudry and his band of loons as an excuse for race hatred and to attack Muslims just listen to their chants and posts on the net which consists of P*** and N***** in reference to the huge numbers of Black Caribbean youths who joined the anti-Nazi protest in Birmingham and Harrow. The EDL are nothing more than street fighters for fascist political forces i.e. Black shirts or the brown-shirted Stormtroopers.
November 3, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Come on Ian, this isn’t a difficult one to work out!
The English Defence League are racist football fans with a pretty basic nationalist political philosophy (which in England involves hostility to Germany – ‘two world wars and one world cup’) while the few remaining numpties who identify with Combat 18 are unrepentant neo-Nazis (which involves nostalgia for a particular period in German history).
It’s not hard to see why they might not get along.
November 3, 2009 at 6:55 pm
What the fuck is this? Who are these wankers? Is this their idea of defending England; running around the streets like a bunch of school kids bashing the crap out of each other? EDL has about as much ideology as they do courage, that’s why they don’t promote it. Same goes for C18 and all other fascist cunts. Bet both sides got together afterwards with slaps on the back and big kisses for putting on such a good show.
If they were really interested in defending England that’s just what they should be doing, working with the oppressed instead of going around terrorising the public. That might involve some intelligence and bravery though, fucking pricks!
Small minded, ignorant, unimaginative, intolerant hateful twats!
I grew up on mostly white working class council estate in the 1970s’ (running battles with punks & skins in the playground, corned beef and chips for Sunday lunch) and I’d dread to be compared to these tossers.
Be proud of what you do with your time practically for others not the colour of your skin or which geographic nation you were born in. The first one takes effort, guts, will-power and stamina the second is pure chance you miserable snivelling babies.
All sounds a bit homo-erotic to me, bunch of lads all drinking together and then bashing another group of lads. (They wont like that).
November 4, 2009 at 9:19 am
The EDL are racists, who do have nazis within their organisation. They have choosen a really easy target of Islamic extremism to galvanise some working class people who have a bigger issue with Muslims and Asians.
Their politics are very much as the BNP, support for Israel against the Hamams Muslims, which has so out raged the C18 Nazis and their attacks on Islam and Islamic extremism which the BNP have successfully exploited with the help of the mainstream media scaremongering.
The EDL are really day trip organisers for right wing bigots!
November 6, 2009 at 11:41 am
This bollocks about C18 getting turned over by the EDL is misinformation, what in fact occured was an ever dwindling number of Chelsea were turned on by a larger group of Tottenham Yids, it was just inter-club rivalry, anyone who ain’t a middle class ponce will understand the underlying history between the two clubs.
November 6, 2009 at 8:48 pm
The Yid army fight with chelsea happened in Piccadilly earliar. No one doubts that that happened but it had nothing to do with the EDL. The EDL vs C18/Nazis was in Lord Moon in Mall in whitehall.