December 06, 2010

Welsh Defence League links with neo-Nazis are unmasked

Former football hooligan Jeff Marsh set up the Welsh Defence League
An undercover investigation by BBC Wales into a group campaigning against Muslim extremists has found links with neo-Nazi supporters.

Secretly-filmed footage in Monday's Week In Week Out programme also exposes criminal activity among some Welsh Defence League (WDL) supporters. Publicly, the WDL says it is a non-racist organisation. A judge who has examined the evidence in the programme said some were acting to "inflame racial hatred".

The WDL - aligned to the English Defence League - was set up last year by an ex-soccer hooligan and author Jeff Marsh in response to Muslim extremists abusing troops returning from Afghanistan. It has attracted hundreds of followers and held demonstrations in Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham.

Posing as a new member of the group, an undercover journalist accompanied a number of Welsh supporters to a protest. Some were caught on camera and online, making racist comments about Muslims. Two admitted involvement in racist violence at demonstrations organised by the defence leagues in other parts of the country. One invited other WDL followers to join him in burning a Koran and joked online about how best to kill black people. Another talks about driving Muslims out of the south Wales valleys.

Examining the evidence in the special programme, Judge Mark Powell QC said: "It's mindless, it's racist, the purpose of what they are doing is to inflame racial hatred. I think from what you have shown me it is criminal behaviour and no doubt something that the police would want to look at."

Shadow Welsh secretary Peter Hain, who has campaigned for years against racist groups, said: "I think every mainstream politician in Wales, wherever they are based, should make it a priority to talk to young people to explain the WDL is in a long line that goes back through the Nazis. And I don't say that lightly because, that is the exact political situation in which Hitler was able to come into power because mainstream politicians did not deal with the grievances in Germany.

"Now I'm not suggesting the WDL is anything like as powerful as Hitler's Nazi party became, the WDL is a tiny marginalised [group], but once you allow these groups to gain credibility that's where you could end up."

Jeff Marsh, who uses a variety of aliases and wears a balaclava to broadcast online, says he has disbanded the WDL because of the racist element. He has set up another organisation against Muslim extremists called The Welsh Casuals. He insisted that the group is non-racist.

Another group calling itself the Cymru Defence League has emerged out of the WDL. The English Defence League now has around 60,000 followers on the social networking site Facebook and thousands have attended protests around Britain.

Saleem Kidwai of the Muslim Council for Wales said most people were opposed to extremists.

"We have extremist groups and they are as ignorant as the Welsh Defence League, or the English Defence League," he said. "We can condemn them as much as anyone else. They are misguided youngsters being misinformed and used by extremist ideologues who want to use religion for their own political motives.

The programme also highlights the potential cost as police forces are called to marshall demonstrations, both by the WDL and the counter-demonstrations they could spark. It is estimated the bill to the taxpayer could be as much as £500,000.

Det Ch Supt Adrian Tudway, national co-ordinator for domestic extremism, advises local forces on the threat posed by the various defence leagues.

"I think it's a very significant threat," he said. "It's one I know the police service are taking very seriously, together with the Home Office and local authorities."

"Unmasked: Welsh Defence League" is on BBC One Wales at 2030 GMT on Monday 6 December.

BBC

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fancy a giggle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A_wMxqvkxw&feature=player_embedded

Anonymous said...

Re: the Photo

Another EDL prat with a UVF fetish!

UKF said...

The only reason the BBC could ever describe Jeff Marsh as a "former" football hooligan is because he's currently banned from football grounds for carrying weapons to matches - to imply that his hooliganism is in the past is just plain false - I hope the rest of the documentary is more reliable than this

Anonymous said...

Adrian Tudway was quoted by The Morning Star (OK, not exactly an unbiased source) as saying the EDL is not an extremist organisation. If he's changed his opinion on the basis of the info he's been sent by Anti-fascists since that statement, what that shows is how risibly inadequate police intelligence on extremism really is

Paul said...

Det Ch Supt Adrian Tudway, national co-ordinator for domestic extremism, advises local forces on the threat posed by the various defence leagues.

"I think it's a very significant threat," he said. "It's one I know the police service are taking very seriously, together with the Home Office and local authorities."

CHANGE OF TUNE!!!

NewsHound said...

EDL UNWANTED GUESTS AT THE TROOPS HOMECOMING PARADE: -

http://www.asianimage.co.uk/news/north_of_england/8719359.A_heroes____parade_was_no_place_for_EDL/

Antifascist said...

@NewsHound

Just for a change, we've beaten you to it. :-)

http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2010/12/heroes-parade-was-no-place-for-edl.html

Anonymous said...

Like them or not we cant deny they are growing faster than any other movement we have fought agaainst in the past, this is very concerning and I feel they will get a lot more support following tonights BBC1 show

UK Fightback said...

WDL founder Jeff Marsh was boasting that his Casuals United Blog got 3,000 hits over the weekend of the Poppy burning story, yet, as a result, his "new" Cymru Defence League attracted just 2 extra supporters on Facebook. As it happens, IMMEDIATELY after this programme went out both WDL's "Welsh Casuals" and "Cymru Defence League" pages seem to have disappeared from Facebook. It's too early to say exactly what the impact of this programme will be, but early signs are promising.

Federico said...

Worth noting that back in July "Tommy Robinson" issued this statement:
http://casualsunited.wordpress.com/2010/07/24/statement-from-tommy-robinson-edl/

"the leadership team of Myself, Jack, Trev and Marshy will get involved with Kev the leader of the EDL having the final say on anything."

So Jeff Marsh is in the EDL leadership team, by their own admission.

Anonymous said...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wbg99/Week_In_Week_Out_Unmasked_The_Welsh_Defence_League/

Den Nis said...

Alas the world now sees the EDL for what they are - a neo-Nazi organisation pure and simple.

Which is why Liam Pinkham and the BFF were invited by telephone by key EDL organisers to attend marches to give the racist thugs some pure authentic nazi muscle.

ModernityBlog said...

Bril post.

The more scrutiny that the EDL leadership get the better.

Anonymous said...

Tommy Robinson / Stephen Lennon's acknowledgment that Jeff Marsh is EDL leadership was also published on the official EDL website (although Robinson mis-spelled the name as "Geoff Marsh", which suggests he might also have been subconsciously thinking of The Daily Star reporter of the same name). As for the Adrian Tudway business, the picture that's emerging is that police intelligence about the EDL is based on falling hook-line-and-sinker for assurances made by Guramit Singh when the police have liaised with him, and having a quick look at the EDL website and believing every fucking word. The police admit the majority of EDL come from "football risk" groups, but are still in denial about a group founded and run by BNP members having BNP links!

My theory is the police do this deliberately in the belief they're reducing tension and helping avoid some sort of sectarian street war, but in fact they're making the problem worse by indirectly facilitating the growth of the group that's actually intent on starting that street war

Anonymous said...

My theory is the police do this deliberately in the belief they're reducing tension and helping avoid some sort of sectarian street war

Many in the Police are treating the EDL as they treat existing Hooligan football 'firms'. They are blind to (or choose not to see) the political/racial dimension. Big error.

Anonymous said...

The more the movers and shakers of the EDL are unmasked as nazis, the more we can educate the cops, the politicians and the newspapers that the EDL are like Moseley's blackshirts.

Help Searchlight's appeal to fight the fash scum of the EDL.

Visit the Hope not Hate website.

I'm sure the appeal is mentioned on another Lancaster unity thread.