Far-right planning Manchester protest

probably in the same way as people in birmingham did

A bit of local solidarity is needed. Man City and MUFC firms need to unite against them, then they won't stand a chance. City have plenty of excellent overseas players, so the days of an all-white team attractiev to the far right have long since gone.

Fucking Luton Town aren't even in a decent league.

They are shit!

NO CONTEST!

The BNP connection is a red herring. The EDL's supposed aims are:

1. Remove Islamic Fundamentalists/Extremists from our streets (which im sure most Muslims want)

2. Stop imposing Shari'ah law

The first point means what exactly? That on a Saturday when the Christians, Muslims, socialists, communists, single issue campaigners are putting forward their views and literature to the shopping public, that 'Islamic Fundamentalists/Extremists' are banned? That devout Muslims cannot walk around without being attacked by freelance defenders of England or imprisoned by the government? Do you not think they are criminalised enough already?

The second is just a nonsensical scare. Stop who imposing Shari'ah law? Whatever any zealous Muslim may want, no-one is imposing Shari'ah in this country. This is just tabloid crap.

like they did in Birmingham on Saturday:

 http://j15committee.baylott.org/2009/08/09/the-8th-of-august-fascism-and-anti-fascism-on-the-streets-of-birmingham/

How many times do you need telling that the English Defence League is not racist or facist? Our aim is purely to campaign against Islamic extremism in Britain and is open to people of all races! We are also not anti-muslim just anti-Islamic fundamentalism!
 http://englishdefenceleague.org/

Whether the EDL are racist/fascist cannot be determined on the say-so of one person, and it is not clear that EDL are sufficiently unified in purpose to have a "policy" anyway. An EDL spokesman was yesterday posting on Stormfront - and reaching out to that awful, white-nationalist grouping. He wasn't very welcome there - apparently not racist enough - but if you post on Stormfront suggesting a co-operation then you really do have a problem.

Even on the Lionheart blog, there is a caricature of a Muslim woman with a bomb under her burqa. This kind of lampooning easily fits the definition of racist, as it implies that all Muslim women are either terrorists or at least support it. There is no get-out clause that it is only targetting Muslim extremists: were the strongly anti-semitic cartoons in European newspapers in the 1930s only targetting Jews with big noses? Elsewhere the blog regularly conflates the Palestinian cause with terrorism - a hardline perspective made attractive to the author by his anti-Islamic views.

The question of what the EDL believe is made more complex by previous instigators objecting to a hijacking by racist elements within the group - and abandoning the enterprise. YouTube has videos of anti-Muslim slogans chanted by a group of football thugs - with links to one or both of these groups.

Islamic fundamentalism does exist, and it is right to challenge it politically. But the sum total of the Casuals/EDL output thus far seems to be unreconstructed football violence linked to reactionary, sweeping generalisations that are racist in practise, whatever the denials of spokepeople. And even if the "central committee" were to magically become exemplars of race relations and advocates for multiculturalism, their followers would be most unlikely to.

Why would a demo be called for 6pm if not to be a riot i.e. when the lads have had a chance to get beered up all afternoon. In that article someone above linked to the author asks why the UAF demo was called for 5pm when the English Defence League were not due to be there until 6. Clearly, to get the numbers up to prepare for a big group of violent thugs that's why.

Am I right to say this group have had 3 marches and every one has turned violent? Could the police not ban them?

Since the EDL is not "racist" you will be joining in the demonstrations agains the BNP where and when they arise? You will be exposing the BNP strategy of encouraging Islamic Fundamentalism as a means to foment tension in communities? You will be unafraid of Antifascists being present when you make your opinions known because you are not fascists?

Thought not. Maybe Chris Renton wants to put out a press release on the EDL Website. He can cut and paste it from the BNP website. Or perhaps the EDL will be publicising the interview with Stirrer editor Adrian Goldberg, on Talksport, where spokesman Paul Ray admitted their links with the BNP. Or even where Ray says this:

"I did see Nick Griffins Easter message and thought it was very very good and inspirational.
It seems that they are the only ones willing to defend and uphold Christianity in this country, as for me i will trust in God to bring about the changes within them to make them the people He wants them to be. As you know there is nothing impossible with Him, and you should not judge these people who God is doing a work with and through."

He actually only means the Christian bits when he was Lionheart.

Perhaps the EDL will be ousting the Fascists and Racists from their ranks in order to oppose extremism and the roots of extremism. Or perhaps Ray and the EDL are simply the tools of the Troughing Down One Eyed Holocaust Denier who once said:

"The proper enemy to any political movement isn’t necessarily the most evil and the worst. The proper enemy is the one we can most easily defeat."


The EDL is the most easy to control and direct to the "proper enemy" it seems.