After the Greek debt crisis, Europe may be headed for its next nightmare

As if the economic ramifications of a full-blown Greek default were not terrifying enough, the political consequences could be far worse. A chaotic eurozone breakup would cause irreparable damage to the European integration project, the central pillar of Europe’s political stability since World War II. It would destabilize not only the highly indebted European periphery, but also core countries such as France and Germany, which have both been the architects of that project.

The nightmare scenario would also be a 1930s-style victory for political extremism. Fascism, Nazism and communism were children of a backlash against globalization that had been building since the end of the 19th century, feeding on the anxieties of groups that felt disenfranchised and threatened by expanding market forces and cosmopolitan elites.

Free trade and the gold standard had required downplaying domestic priorities such as social reform, nation-building, and cultural reassertion. Economic crisis and the failure of international cooperation undermined not only globalization, but also the elites that upheld the existing order.

As my Harvard colleague Jeff Frieden has written, this paved the path for two distinct forms of extremism. Faced with the choice between equity and economic integration, communists chose radical social reform and economic self-sufficiency. Faced with the choice between national assertion and globalism, fascists, Nazis and nationalists chose nation-building.

Fortunately, fascism, communism and other forms of autocratic ideologies are passé today. But similar tensions between economic integration and local politics have long been simmering. Europe’s single market has taken shape much faster than Europe’s political community has; economic integration has leaped ahead of political integration.

The result is that mounting concerns about the erosion of economic security, social stability and cultural identity could not be handled through mainstream political channels. National political structures became too constrained to offer effective remedies, while European institutions still remain too weak to command allegiance.

It is the extreme right that has benefited most from the centrists’ failure. In Finland, the heretofore unknown True Finn party capitalized on the resentment around eurozone bailouts to finish a close third in April’s general election. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom wields enough power to play kingmaker; without its support, the minority liberal government would likely collapse. In France, the National Front, which finished second in the 2002 presidential election, has been revitalized under Marine Le Pen.

Nor is the backlash confined to eurozone members. Elsewhere in Scandinavia, the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots, entered parliament last year with nearly 6 percent of the popular vote. In Britain, one recent poll indicated that as many as two-thirds of Conservatives want Britain to leave the European Union.

Political movements of the extreme right have traditionally fed on anti-immigration sentiment. But the Greek, Irish, Portuguese and other bailouts, together with the euro’s troubles, have given them fresh ammunition. Their Euro-skepticism certainly appears to be vindicated by events. When Marine Le Pen was recently asked if she would unilaterally withdraw from the euro, she replied confidently, “When I am president, in a few months’ time, the eurozone probably won’t exist.”

As in the 1930s, the failure of international cooperation has compounded centrist politicians’ inability to respond adequately to their domestic constituents’ economic, social, and cultural demands. The European project and the eurozone have set the terms of debate to such an extent that, with the eurozone in tatters, these elites’ legitimacy will receive an even more serious blow than it already has.

Europe’s centrist politicians have committed themselves to a strategy of “more Europe” that is too rapid to ease local anxieties, yet not rapid enough to create a real Europe-wide political community. They have stuck for far too long to an intermediate path that is unstable and beset by tensions. By holding on to a vision of Europe that has proven unviable, Europe’s centrist elites are endangering the idea of a unified Europe itself.

Economically, the least bad option is to ensure that the inevitable defaults and departures from the eurozone are carried out in as orderly and coordinated a fashion as possible. Politically, too, a similar reality check is needed. What the current crisis demands is an explicit reorientation away from external financial obligations and austerity to domestic preoccupations and aspirations. Just as healthy domestic economies are the best guarantor of an open world economy, healthy domestic polities are the best guarantor of a stable international order.

The challenge is to develop a new political narrative emphasizing national interests and values without overtones of nativism and xenophobia. If centrist elites do not prove themselves up to the task, those of the far right will gladly fill the vacuum, minus the moderation.

That is why outgoing Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou had the right idea with his aborted call for a referendum. That move was a belated attempt to recognize the primacy of domestic politics, even if investors viewed it, in the words of a Financial Times editor, as “playing with fire.” Scrapping the referendum simply postpones the day of reckoning and raises the ultimate costs to be paid by Greece’s new leadership.

Today, the question is no longer whether politics will become more populist and less internationalist; it is whether the consequences of that shift can be managed without turning ugly. In Europe’s politics, as in its economics, it seems there are no good options – only less bad ones.

Dani Rodrik, Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University, is the author of “The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy.” THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate © (www.project-syndicate.org).

(Lebanon) Daily Star

EDL’s Dutch Courage Runs Out!

Well, what a wash-out. After months of trumpeting and blether the English Defence League’s band of hooligans and ‘chav scrotes’ were humiliated in Amsterdam yesterday, attacked by antifascists and Ajax fans and harried by the cops. At least they didn’t have time to fight amongst themselves as they usually do. There is some interesting YouTube footage, involving some shaky camera work, of them running around cluelessly, pursued by Dutch Antifa and plod. At one point there seemed to be more photographers than EDL all believing the hype that this was going to be another Bradford ‘little big one.’ In the end it was ‘the little little one.’ The images show a faintly confused bunch of fat blokes in hoodies wandering about. One of the EDL vans was trashed and there were 34 arrests. They had a little stage and Tommy Robinson AKA Steven Yaxley-Lennon, ex-BNP and jailed for assaulting a copper, gave a ‘rousing speech’ to his mates and then they went home. No surrender? They did. Completely.

According to Hope Not Hate about 60 turned up to ‘support’ Geert Wilders, the anti-Islamic Dutch MP who has publicly distanced himself from the lager swilling, loud mouthed hooligans for obvious reasons. So if that is the case, why did the EDL bother? So they can get their necessary media injection and show their mates in the pub how famous they are. This kind of behaviour shows the EDL as a vanity operation, boosting the egos a of a few nobodies with criminal records.

Battered

A poster on the EDL website said a group of EDL turned up on Friday night and the following day were attacked by Ajax fans who told them to go away in no uncertain terms. The EDL are now making threatening noises about revenge should Ajax come to the UK. We shall see … One hapless EDL got battered and ended up with a shattered leg. He had the misfortune to have no travel insurance either and had to travel back to the UK in considerable discomfort. The ‘Malatestas’ have had a whip round and will be sending 50p to the EDL as fast as possible. The poster admits that the public were also opposed to the EDL presence – which comes as no surprise. The EDL seriously think that ALL the ‘public’ and ALL football fans have the duty to support them. Well, they don’t: lots of people despise them or are merely bored by their posturing. The Dutch authorities didn’t want them there either and throughout the week the demo was moved about and they ended up with an out of town spot at the Western docks. In his ‘rousing speech’ Yaxley-Lennon criticised the mayor for moving the demo – as if a gang of drunk hooligans with a violent reputation should be welcomed with open arms wherever they go. The Dutch will have seen what the EDL have done in place like Stoke, Bradford and Leicester and have the absolute right to move them wherever they want. Would the EDL like the Ajax fans to demonstrate in the middle of Luton?

A Successful Failure

The Gates of Vienna website has declared the event a success but this is difficult to reconcile with the facts. The EDL had a poor turn out. The local football supporters attacked them. The person who they were ‘supporting’ publicly rejected them. The general public were hostile. The media coverage was negative. And the hope of uniting with other anti-Islamic factions and footie fans did not materialise. Well done. They had difficulties in getting the numbers for various reasons, mainly that the DSS won’t pay for ‘chav scrotes’ to go abroad on a jolly. One poster wrote: ‘I’m going, most people will be meeting round the red light district where the bars are next to the canals. I’m going on my own my mates cant afford it or aren’t allowed by there Mrs.’ Which just about sums them up.

What Price Fame?

What is more alarming than the EDL’s ‘international mobilisation’ is the relationship between Tommy Robinson and Katie Price. There was a picture of them schmoozing widely circulated on the net but now Katie is doing a desperate PR job distancing herself from the EDL. Meanwhile on the EDL web forum there is anti-Katie consternation and it is difficult to tell who is disowning whom. Both seem embarrassed by the turn of events. As they should be.

Anyway…

Despite all the photos of the EDL seig-heiling, and the dual membership of fascist groups by key members – Jeff Marsh, Steven White, Luke Pippin (Combat 18) etc. – they are still going on about being non-racist and this process of denial is sounding politically weak. The next ‘big one’ scheduled is in Preston on 27th November but there could be a few flash’ demos on the way.

Malatesta

Wilders denounces EDL demo

A scheduled demonstration in Amsterdam by the far right English Defence League in support of anti-Islam campaiger Geert Wilders should be cancelled if there is any threat of trouble, the MP says in Monday’s Telegraaf.

The EDL has applied to hold a demonstration in the city on October 30, as have a number of anti-racist organisations. Amsterdam mayor Eberhard van der Laan and the police are currently discussing how to deal with the demonstrations because of fears they will deteriorate into violence.

‘This demonstration means nothing to me. It is nothing to do with me, nor is the EDL,’ Wilders said. ‘I only know the group from the newspapers and I have never had any contact with them.’

Dutch News

Nothing Flash: The EDL’s New Strategy

Flash Demos?

Reading English Defence League’s forum may give one the impression the EDL is taking over the WORLD but in fact they are in a wee bit of trouble.

Jings! Over the weekend they attempted various mobilisations and publicity stunts that tended to either backfire, or like Bradford, disappoint.
In London 100 turned up at the US embassy and then were escorted under heavy police escort to the Saudi embassy where they stood and shouted for a bit. Rumours that the Saudi’s immediately renounced Allah are yet to be confirmed.

In Nuneaton about 50 EDL caused a bit of consternation after waving at the homecoming troops parade. They were shepherded to a boozer by plod and were subsequently surrounded by 200 people from the local community. If the EDL really want to ‘fight militant Islam’ why don’t they all go down the Army recruiting office and sign up for Afghanistan? Or are their criminal records and membership of far right groups going to be a problem?

In Oldham about 120 EDL, casuals and BNP members assembled for a ‘flash demo’ and according to the EDL forum the local cops were anamused and responded in force. There were several arrests.

Of course, the news media picked up on all 7 EDL members in New York. ‘Tommy Robinson’ AKA Steven Yaxley-Lennon was turned back by customs and claims that the motives were political but ‘Tommy’ was jailed for assaulting a policeman and this is the real reason for his expulsion.
Embarrassing. The EDL are also claiming their hotel rooms were turned over when they were out. This confirms how ‘dangerous’ they are. Which is the point. Without the attendant publicity the EDL cease to exist. Politically they have achieved nothing. They have caused several very negative media splashes at their demos but apart from filling their scrapbooks their gains have been exactly nowt.
They need the press and opposition to make themselves feel important but apart from allowing them to let off steam gets them nowhere. All they get is bad press. Some may say ‘all publicity is good publicity’ but not if your Gary Glitter.

Plod Bother

The EDL’s new strategy of flash demos is not going to please Old Bill in the least.
They are illegal and plod will respond with force. As shown in Oldham.
Some are saying that they should just turn up in Leicester rather than liaising with the authorities because they are sick of hanging around at the RV point for hours then being marched to a site to be kettled in for hours with scant facilities.
Which has caused problems in the past.
At Bradford, ‘chav scrotes’ attacked stewards and fighting broke out with the police. Liaising with plod has caused dissent with many as has the leadership deciding everything (but that’s what leaders do lads!).
Many EDL would rather have a straight fight with the cops and anyone else who opposes them and whilst the flash demos will certainly provide an opportunity to do this, it also means heavier policing, more arrests and diminishing numbers at each demo.
As Bradford showed they are contracting in size. The confrontational approach will attract more Nazis, hooligans and ‘chav scrotes’ but how this will be politically expedient is unclear.

Dutch Courage?

The EDL will be hoping to get to Leicester on October 9th but there are moves to ban the demo. However, the government banned marches in Bradford but it still kicked off on their static demo. They are also hoping to mobilise at Nuneaton again soon.
They intend to go to Amsterdam on 30th October to support right winger Geert Wilders.
A further concern is the influence of the EDL on hooligans across Europe who will copy their tactics and appreciate the opportunity for a scrap and to voice overt racist sentiments with little state repercussion.
Many in the UK see the demos as a good day out on the beer and this will be attractive to Euro-hooligans as well.

Conclusion

The EDL have proven, time and time again, that they are politically naïve in the extreme.

They are genuinely perplexed when the police attack them for illegally assembling.
They still pretend they are ‘not racists’ despite the continued and increasingly noticeable presence of known fascists on their demos.
On the EDL forum, others complain about the Nazis and racist chanting and there have been several notable resignations by prominent members.
They pile into potentially volatile areas – Bradford, Bolton – and then wonder why there are hundreds of people there to oppose them.
Their understanding of the opposition demonstrates their naivety the most: their logic goes ‘we oppose militant Islam so anyone who opposes us therefore supports militant Islam.’
Wrong. That the Muslim communities despise the EDL’s provocation tactics is well documented but there are a great many others who counter-demonstrate because they dislike pissed up racists marching through their towns claiming to represent the majority of British people.
The EDL define themselves by what they oppose, not what they stand for.
They sing ‘English till I die’ but their idea of England does not reflect the reality.
The majority of British people dislike drunken racist hooligans causing violent disturbances and would rather live peacefully.

Thanks to Malatesta

English Soccer Hooligans at Ground Zero

Among the non-New Yorkers who traveled to Lower Manhattan on Saturday to protest the neighborhood’s decision to allow an Islamic community center to be built were seven men who came from England bearing flags with slogans and the cross of St. George — a symbol of their nation and of the Crusades.

Those flags are often seen at soccer stadiums, when ultranationalist fans of England’s soccer team gather to cheer (and to fight fans of other nations), but they have been cropping up regularly at anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim protests in English cities over the past year.

That is because the men are members of a the English Defense League, formed last year to counter what the men see as the threat posed to their national identity by immigrants to England and British-born Muslims who are neither white nor Christian.

As the British anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate explained last month, the E.D.L. is led by a former member of the British National Party, whose leader has made common cause with the Ku Klux Klan, and has “mushroomed from a coalition of former football hooligans into an enormous street army with the propensity for large-scale disorder and city center confrontations with the police.”

After spending months working undercover on an 11-minute documentary about the group, Matthew Taylor reported, “A Guardian investigation has identified a number of known right-wing extremists who are taking an interest in the movement — from convicted football hooligans to members of violent right-wing splinter groups.”

The fact that the E.D.L. channels the rage of hardcore soccer fans into racist demonstrations against foreigners and Muslims in England is no secret. A post on the group’s Web site described the scene before a rally in London last month:

More and more lads started to arrive at the pub, Pompey, Southampton, West Ham, Arsenal, Tottenham, Millwall, Chelsea, Brentford, QPR all drinking together, a bit of banter, but no hassle whatsoever. Top lads all there for their country.

The group’s official statements make much of the fact that their membership includes a number of Jewish, Iranian and gay activists and deny charges that it promotes a fascist or racist ideology. The E.D.L. report on the same rally said:

The ‘fascists’ from the various patriot groups are now stood, football rivalries forgotten, side by side with Jews and Iranians, proving once again that these movements are not racial, they are ideological. Islam is not a race, it is a religion. A religion that promotes violence against nonbelievers this induces certain Muslims into a rabid frenzy, these Muslims must be challenged wherever they raise their evil heads.

At the rally on Sept. 11 in New York, the group’s banners and T-shirts carried the Israeli flag along with the cross of St. George.

In a report on the group, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz asked, “What are Israeli flags and Jewish activists doing at demonstrations sponsored by the English Defence League?” The newspaper answered the question this way: “Call it a struggle against a common foe: Islam. Or a journey into the heart of darkness. Or perhaps further proof that Europe is starting to lose its mind again.”


Despite the protestations that the group’s members are not racist, The Guardian’s undercover investigator encountered a very different reality. Mr. Taylor reported:

[A]t each demonstration I attended while making an undercover film for the Guardian’s investigative film unit, Guardian Films, I was confronted by casual — often brutal — racism, a widespread hatred of Muslims and often the threat of violence.

It was only possible to film some of the most alarming scenes with a hidden camera. Inside a pub in Stoke in January about 3,000 E.D.L. supporters gathered for the first demonstration of the year. They had spent the past four hours drinking. The balcony around the top of the cavernous pub was draped in flags bearing the names of different football clubs — Wolves, Newcastle, Aston Villa — and the chants, “We all hate Muslims,” and “Muslim bombers off our streets,” filled the air. The atmosphere was tense, and not just because of the growing anti-Islamic rhetoric. The pub was packed with rival football gangs from across the Midlands and the north of England. Twice, fighting broke out as old rivalries failed to be subdued by the new enemy — Islam. “They’re just kids,” said one man. “That is not what we are here for today.”

As we moved outside for the E.D.L. protest — during which supporters became involved in violent clashes with the police — a woman asked me for a donation to support the “heroes coming back injured from Afghanistan.” I put a pound in the bucket.

“Thanks love,” she said. “They go over there and fight for this country and then come back to be faced with these Pakis everywhere.”

The woman also used another racial slur, using language we cannot repeat here.

This clip from a BBC documentary on the group includes footage of some members denying that they are racist, and other making racial slurs during a rally in London in support of the anti-immigrant Dutch politician Geert Wilders last year:


Other Guardian video reports on E.D.L. rallies in London and Bradford in recent months illustrate that it is not hard to hear similarly racist, anti-immigrant sentiments from members of the group.

Their approach to Islam is similarly aggressive. Here is how members of the group who did not make the trip to New York marked the Sept. 11 anniversary in London — by burning pages of the Koran and chanting, as they have at other rallies this year in Britain, “Allah is a pedo’!” (Note: This video, like that of other E.D.L. rallies, includes strong language and racial slurs.)


On Sunday, Robert Booth reported in The Guardian that the group’s leader was denied entry to the United States when he landed in New York last week. Other members of the group — which has clashed with British police this summer — claimed that they were subject to harassment by the authorities in New York.

One of the E.D.L. leaders, Ronnie Burgess — described by The Daily Mail as a 31-year-old bodyguard from Liverpool — wrote in a poorly spelled entry on his Facebook page from New York:

its all fun and games here fedral agents have turned are rooms over last ngt while we were out…. hotel are saying they know nothing but the fact is are rooms have been turned over

One of the organizers of the Sept. 11 rally in Lower Manhattan, the blogger Pamela Geller, has defended the group in the past, writing in February, before it was reported that the E.D.L. is led by a former member of the British National Party:

I share the E.D.L.’s goals…. We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the West and not leave it solely to fringe groups like the B.N.P., whose growth has sparked because of their opposition to the encroaching Islamization of the U.K. (their racial position is reprehensible).

Like Ms. Geller, the E.D.L. has strongly supported Geert Wilders. Mr. Wilders also traveled to New York from Europe for the rally on Sept. 11 and began his remarks by leading the crowd in chanting, “No mosque here!”

New York Times

Football hooligans to launch 'European Defence League' in Amsterdam

The English Defence League (EDL), the anti-Muslim 'street army' composed largely of football hooligans that burst onto the front pages of British newspapers in the last year as a result of its often violent protests, is to hold a rally in Amsterdam in October, EUobserver has learned.

The EDL is to demonstrate in support of Geert Wilders, the Dutch anti-immigrant firebrand, with a recently launched French Defence League and Dutch Defence League, modelled on the English group, to join them along with other anti-Islamic militants from across Europe.

Formed in 2009, the EDL has held over a dozen often rowdy marches and demonstrations in cities across Britain over the last year. Protests that attracted only a couple hundred militants at the end of last year are now bringing thousands out. On Saturday (28 August) a rally in Bradford, West Yorkshire, home to the second-largest community of south Asians in the UK, turned ugly when members clashed with police and pelted anti-racist activists with bricks, bottles and smoke bombs. Thirteen were arrested, according to media reports.

Anti-racist watchdogs call the EDL one of the most worrying developments on the far-right scene in the UK since the 1970s and the days of the National Front, an openly white supremacist and neo-Nazi political party. The group now appears to be meeting with some success in exporting its novel brand of nativism to the continent, a combination of anti-Muslim vitriol, agressive street marches and attempts to rope in football hooligan gangs by holding rallies around the same time as matches.

Graeme Atkinson, European editor of Searchlight magazine, a UK anti-fascist journal, says that the group is "tapping into a widespread and growing Islamophobia in society," in a way that other far-right groups, weighed down with explicitly fascist iconography and discourse, have not been able to. He warns against panic regarding the new group, but says authorities should not be blind to the growth of such movements, describing the new formation as "an utterly socially divisive, politically toxic ideology."

New kind of far-right outfit

Distinct from the traditional far right, the EDL, which originally grew out of the "football casual" subculture, claims to be multi-ethnic, to target "jihadism" rather than Muslims, and employs a rhetoric more in keeping with the fringes of neo-conservative anti-Islamism than the nostalgia for Nazism of other far-right formations.

The group's mission statement declares that anyone is welcome, so long as they are "integrated:" "We are non-racist/fascist and anyone is welcome if they want to live under English values and fully integrate into our way of life."

"English Defence League members recognise that this threat is one that must be stopped at all costs. Our Christian, Jewish, Sikh, and Hindu friends all have tales to tell with regard to Islamic Imperialism," the group's "Exposing the myths" page reads.

One of its leaders is Guramit Singh, a Sikh born in Britain, and it says it is, like Mr Wilders, strongly pro-Israel and maintains both Jewish and LGBT "divisions" while backing a ban on the building of mosques and seeking the burqa to be outlawed. Its LGBT wing was set up after the Dutchman visited the UK in March when he had been invited to show his short anti-Islam film, Fitna, in the House of Lords. At a demonstration in Bolton in March, a man held up a pink triangle alongside anti-Islam placards and banners. Its LGBT division has 107 members at the time of writing.

In what would normally be anathema to traditional, antisemitic far-right outfits, the group has taken to brandishing the Israeli flag at rallies and, according to the Jewish Chronicle, its Jewish division had signed up hundreds of members on its Facebook page until the page was recently deleted, though Jewish leaders in the UK actively discourage young people from joining, with the Board of Deputies of British Jews describing the organisation as "built on a foundation of Islamophobia and hatred which we reject entirely."

Links to BNP, Swedish Democrats

As with other formations in Europe that far-right monitoring organisations describe as "far-right-lite," notably Mr Wilders, Denmark's People's Party and the late Pim Fortuyn, some in the EDL try to distance themselves from, in the words of the group's website, the "Adolf-worhipping neanderthals."

But these same monitors say that while the EDL is not an outright "fascist" or neo-Nazi formation, links with the traditional far right remain, with many leaders being ex-members of the British National Party. Its leader, Tommy Robinson, is an ex-BNP activist. One of the organisation's main strategists is 45-year-old IT consultant Alan Lake, who has advised the far-right Swedish Democrats on tactics.

Meanwhile, at every demonstration but two in the last year, dozens have been arrested. The group's marches regularly involve anti-Muslim sloganeering and frequently descend into violence. At a rally in Dudley in July, a Hindu Temple was attacked as well as a number of shops, restaurants, cars and homes.

Figures for the size of the organisation and its supporters are hard to pin down and no figures have emerged for the new continental franchises. The group claims it has "thousands" of supporters and has spawned a Scottish Defence League and a Welsh Defence League, both of which have held rallies in their respective countries, as well as an Ulster Defence League. Police meanwhile reckoned that 1,500 to 2,000 EDL demonstrators marched in Newcastle upon Tyne in May this year, one of its bigger rallies.

Ground Zero 'Mosque'

The EDL has received endorsements from Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, two of the main agitators behind the right-wing movement opposed to a Muslim community centre being built two blocks away from the site of Al Qaeda's attacks on New York in 2001, the so-called Ground Zero Mosque. Geert Wilders, for his part, is scheduled to speak at a protest in Manhattan on 11 September this year by Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) against the building of the community centre.

Although Mr Wilders is not thought to have direct links with the EDL, SIOA is an affiliate organisation of Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE), which has marched alongside the English hooligan movement. SIOE itself was founded in 2007 by Anders Gravers, previously the leader of a tiny Danish party called Stop the Islamisation of Denmark (Stop Islamiseringen af Danmark), in reaction to the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoon controversy. On 11 September 2007, the SIOE staged a demonstration in Brussels.

Other affiliate organisations have been created in 10 European countries including Denmark, Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Sweden and the United States of America. Mr Gravers is reportedly on friendly terms with Mr Wilders, is his "friend" on Facebook and will be speaking alongside him at the anti-Mosque rally in New York.

The demonstration in Amsterdam is due to take place on 30 October, according to the EDL website. Mr Wilders heads to court at the end of next month on charges of inciting racism. The case begins 5 October, with a verdict expected 2 November.

Joining them there will be members of the recently formed Dutch Defence League' and French Defence League, both modelled on the EDL. The latter draws its members from the ranks of far-right supporters of the Paris Saint Germain football club, known in France for long harbouring a far-right element among the club's supporters, although elsewhere on the continent, according to EDL spokesman Steve Simmons, not all the defence-league-linked groups have their origins in football hooliganism.

Paris Saint Germain supporters

The French Defence League, which employs both an anglophone version of its name and "Ligue Francaise de Defense," founded in May and more latterly takes the name Ligue 732, after a group of Paris Saint Germain supporters, that, according the outfit, "tries to unify all French Casuals, Ultras and French Fans to fight against Radical Islam."

The 732 figure references the year that the French king Charles the Hammer, the grandfather of Charlemagne, won a victory at the Battle of Tours halting Islamic expansion in western Europe.

Mr Simmons told EUobserver that militants from the "anti-Jihad movement" in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and "other European states" will join them in Amsterdam for the launch of what is termed the "European Defence League" or, alternately, the much cuddlier "European Friendship Initiative."

"I would also like to take this opportunity to announce a new demonstration that is to take the English Defence League global," Tommy Robinson, the pseudonym of the group's leader, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a former member of the BNP, wrote on the EDL website in a missive in July.

"You may be aware that the great man Geert Wilders is in court for race hate charges," he continued. "The EDL has been in contact with our European brothers and sisters and we have decided that on Saturday, 30 October the European Defence League will be demonstrating in Amsterdam in support of Geert. We hope that all of you will be able to join us for this, what promises to be a landmark demonstration for the future of the defence leagues."

"We feel that freedom of speech is being eroded and a lot of appeasing of radical muslims and Islam in general. Geert has the courage to take this on and we want to support him," the group's spokesman, Steve Simmons, told EUobserver.

Counter-Jihad conferences

In June this year, the EDL sent two representatives to Counter-Jihad 2010 - a conference in Zurich held by the International Civil Liberties Alliance, which does not focus on civil liberties at all but is instead an anti-Muslim movement. It was the fourth such pan-European conference in as many years.

The Zurich conference may have been where the idea for a European Defence League originated. According to an EDL report back from the meeting, which attracted "counter-Jihad" activists from Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Norway, Austria, Switzerland, the UK and the US, the conference "built on the important work that had already been done as well as doing the groundwork for new initiatives and the inclusion of new organisations and activists in the work of the global counter jihad."

Mr Simmons for his part in a slight detour from the announcement of Mr Robinson, told EUobserver that the Amsterdam rally will see the launch of the "European Friendship Initiative," and that a "European Defence League" will be just part of this broader alliance of "Defence-League"-branded movements.

He said that talks are ongoing with in particular German, Dutch, Belgian and French groups ahead of the Amsterdam demonstration. Already, in April this year, the EDL took part in a small pro-Wilders rally of 100 people in Berlin outside the Dutch embassy, organised by the Burger Bewegung Pax Europa (Pax Europa Citizens' Movement).

He also explained why the EDL and allied groups are heading to the Netherlands: "We feel that freedom of speech is being eroded and there is a lot of appeasing of radical muslims and Islam in general. Geert has the courage to take this on and we want to support him."

He downplayed the group's rowdy reputation: "We want to turn it into a sort of celebration rather than a protest, with food, drink and entertainment."

He claimed that off-duty serving UK, Dutch and German soldiers which had joined "Armed Forces Unite," (which grew out of "Armed Forces Defence League," a Facebook group for EDL-supporting soldiers and sailors) have offered to help Dutch police to steward the event.

The city of Amsterdam government for its part is aware of the plans for a demonstration and is tracking developments, but will not discuss details of preparations due to "security considerations."

In Bradford over the weekend, in what was a massive police operation, some 1,600 officers from 13 forces took part.

euobserver

Geert Wilders to spread his anti-Muslim movement west

An anti-Muslim populist in the Netherlands is forming an international alliance to spread his message across the west in an attempt to ban immigration from Islamic countries, among other goals.

Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom party, told the Associated Press that he would launch the movement late this year, initially in five countries: the US, Canada, Britain, France and Germany.

"The message, 'stop Islam, defend freedom', is a message that's not only important for the Netherlands but for the whole free Western world," Wilders said at the Dutch parliament.

Among the group's aims will be outlawing immigration from Islamic countries to the west and a ban on Islamic sharia law. Starting as a grassroots movement, he hopes it eventually will produce its own lawmakers or influence other legislators.

Ayhan Tonca, a prominent spokesman for Dutch Muslims, said he feared Wilders message would fall on fertile ground in much of Europe, where anti-Islam sentiment has been swelling for years.

"So long as things are going badly with the economy, a lot of people always need a scapegoat," Tonca said. "At the moment, that is the Muslims in western Europe." Tonca called on "well-meaning people in Europe to oppose this."

Known for his bleached-blond mop of hair, Wilders is a shrewd politician who has won awards in the Netherlands for his debating skills and regularly stands up for gay and women's rights.

But he rose to local and then international prominence with his firebrand anti-Islam rhetoric that has led to him being charged under Dutch anti-hate speech laws and banned from visiting Britain until a court there ordered that he be allowed into the country.

Wilders said he hopes to position the alliance between traditional conservative parties and far-right wing groups, saying that in Britain there is "an enormous gap" between the ruling Conservative party and the far-right BNP: "The BNP is a party that, whatever you think of it, it's not my party I think it's a racist party," he said.

Wilders, who calls Islam a "fascist" religion, has won increasing support the Netherlands in recent years even while he has been subjected to round-the-clock protection because of death threats.

His Freedom party won the biggest gains in a national election last month, coming third with 24 seats in the 150-seat parliament, up from the nine before the election.

However, mainstream parties will not form a coalition with Wilders, leaving him on the margins of Dutch politics for the next parliamentary term.

Wilders is due to stand trial in October on hate speech charges stemming from his short internet film Fitna, which denounced the Qur'an as a a fascist book that inspires terrorism. The film aroused anti-Dutch protests around the Muslim world, and he was banned for several months from entering Britain.

But he is unrepentant and said he now wants to take his message outside the Netherlands. "The fight for freedom and (against) Islamisation as I see it is a worldwide phenomenon and problem to be solved," he said.

Wilders declined to name any of the other founders of the organisation he is calling the Geert Wilders International Freedom Alliance. He has been criticised for running his party as a one-man show.

Guardian

Dutch poised to elect rightwing liberals as economic fears dominate

Polls suggest VVD win but raise questions over inclusion of anti-Islamic Geert Wilders in possible coalition government

Dutch voters are expected to elect their first liberal prime minister in almost a century tomorrow in an election dominated by the age of austerity looming over Europe.

As in Britain and Germany, the liberals are tipped to prosper at the expense of the two big parties that traditionally command the centre-right and the centre-left in the Netherlands: the Christian Democrats (CDA) and Labour (PvdA). Opinion polls indicate a triumph for the VVD, rightwing free-market liberals campaigning for swingeing public spending cuts, tighter rules on immigration and pragmatic scepticism towards the EU.

The election was called a year early after the collapse of the Christian Democrat-led coalition in February over the presence of Dutch troops in Afghanistan. But neither the Afghan war nor the explosive issue of Muslim immigration has played a prominent role in the campaign, meaning the anti-Islamic populist Geert Wilders has failed to capitalise. Wilders and his Freedom party are nonetheless predicted to double their share of seats to 18 in the 150-seat second chamber in The Hague, while coming in fourth. Only a few months ago, he was being tipped to win the election.

There was little doubt in The Hague today that Mark Rutte, the VVD leader, would be the new prime minister. In a highly fragmented proportional representation system, however, he will struggle to cobble together a coalition of the right. [Today's] vote will be followed by weeks, perhaps months, of horse-trading over possible coalitions.

One big question is whether the maverick Wilders will be offered a cabinet seat for the first time. Rutte's party is predicted to get 36 seats. His logical coalition partner, the CDA, are polling at 24. They need 76 for a majority. Wilders' seats would enable a majority for a rightwing coalition. Unlike in neighbouring Flanders, in Belgium, there is no cordon sanitaire erected by the mainstream around the extreme right, but the Dutch centre-right remains reluctant to go into government with Wilders.

The Islam-bashing leader wants a total stop to Muslim immigration and mosque-building, and a tax on Islamic headscarves. He has offered tacit support in parliament for a VVD-CDA minority government in return for tough immigration policies. A similar arrangement exists in Denmark, where the far right props up a rightwing government.

While Rutte looks certain to be the big winner, the main loser is expected to be the prime minister, Jan-Peter Balkenende. The CDA leader has headed three governments since 2002, all of which fell. The polls suggest a heavy defeat for his party, from 41 seats to around 23. The PvdA, under the new leadership of Job Cohen, the former mayor of Amsterdam, is also expected to lose a couple of seats.

The election is the first national ballot among the 16 eurozone countries since the eruption of the Greek debt crisis, which then escalated into a full-blown single currency emergency. The campaign has highlighted the degree to which voters' economic worries have hijacked the agenda. Rutte is promising spending cuts of €20bn (£16.5bno) euros to balance the budget over four years from a deficit currently of almost 7%.

In what has become almost routine in Dutch politics, he is also bashing Brussels, demanding, British-style, a slimming down of EU powers and their repatriation to member states, the possibility of British-style "opt-outs" from areas of EU legislation and a British-style big fight over the EU budget when it comes up for review from next year.

Guardian

Fascists in profile: Karen Otty

As we approach the council and parliamentary elections on 6th May, a fair few up-and-coming fascists will receive exposure by standing in elections. Who are they and what, if anything, distinguishes them from the far-right’s old guard? Liverpool Antifascists takes a look. First up is Anfield candidate Karen Otty.

Full name: Karen Gillian Otty
DOB: 12th January 1974
Role: Secretary, Merseyside BNP
Standing: Anfield, prospective city councillor

Karen Otty [pictured, left, outside her delightful Anfield des res, with Jamie Luby and Peter Tierney] has been described by Merseyside BNP organiser Peter Squire, on the laughably illiterate Merseyside BNP blog, as a “female activist warrior Queen.” As far as we can tell, this is the “feminine” equivalent of the self-aggrandising title of “super activist” given to Peter Tierney and Tony Ward, essentially for seeking out confrontation and trying to intimidate the public.

However, on her Facebook profile, she describes herself thus;

'I have read an extensive amount of imaginative literature (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Horror) and I have also been avid fan of many Sci-fi programs. I found that such material stimulated my mind and allowed for new and creative ways of thinking. However, more recently I have developed a great appriciation for my own British History and am reading extensivly in this area. I completed my undergrad degree at Liverpool Hope in 1999 (Theology and Religious Studies 2:1). I also took courses in psycology and sociology. I then took up a place at Lancaster University to follow a Masters in Religious Studies. At Lancaster I was involved in extra-curricula Politics and Religion group. This presented an opportunity for staff and students to discuss related material of interest. I also participated in a post-graduate seminar group. This was designed as an informal arena for students to practise writing and presenting a lecture and chair the post-lecture discussion. I graduated from Lancaster in 2000 with a view to proceed to PhD. However after 3 years of trying for funding this did not happen! I decided to teach instead and in 2004 left Edge Hill with a PGCE in RE and Citizenship. Of course this never worked out either and I spent 2 miserable years on supply. I now have a ‘proper’ job that I could have got 10 years ago with 5 GCSE’s.'

Riveting stuff.With the BNP being her sole social outlet for the past 18 months, Otty has risen through the ranks quickly. As well as attending events such as the BNP’s Red, White & Blue scumfest, she has written articles for the BNP’s Identity magazine, and her day-to-day work for the party involves admin, paperwork, and sending out letters to members.But, it seems, the life of an activist warrior Queen and dedicated party apparatchik is not all paper-packing and envelope-licking.Here she is in London, during the recent public announcement of their membership rules changes;

Merseyside BNP at party election headquarters, London, 13/2/10.
Left to right: Karen Otty, Gary Lucas, Peter Squire, London Assembly
Member Richard Barnbrook, Terence Oakes, two unknowns, Andy Leary

Here she is at a protest outside Liverpool Crown Court, where BNP demonstrators made a holy show of themselves;

Left to right: Veronika Martel (face half-cut off picture),
Hazel Hesketh, unknown, Karen Otty, two unknowns, Peter Stafford Snr

And here she is at an English Defence League demonstration outside the House of Lords in support of Geert Wilders;

The BNP’s stance on the EDL is extremely clear. According to Nick Griffin, “the English Defence League is a dangerous and obvious “honey trap” fake organisation and is completely proscribed for any members of the British National Party.” But it is well known that this “proscription” isn’t enforced to any noteworthy degree and their marches remain well attended by members of the BNP and other assorted fascists.

Obviously, we cannot take this as concrete proof that Otty is in the EDL. Attending a demonstration they have held does not prove that she holds any kind of membership. It does prove that she is refusing to follow the proscription order and keep her distance from them.

The likelihood is that the combination of visceral racism and the desire for confrontation is to much for a half-hearted ban of one fascist organisation is not going to stop those from another fascist organisation coming along for kicks. For example here is what BNP member, and friend of Otty, Jamie Luby posted on his brother Eddie’s Facebook wall on the day of the EDL demo in Bolton;

Even if it turns out that Otty is not a member of the EDL, this is neither here nor there. What we do know is that she has attended at least one of their demonstrations and that she (not to mention our old friend, “super activist” Peter Tierney) maintain a close comradeship with Jamie Luby, who has openly professed his willingness to fight with “Pakis”.

Clearly, she is not of the new school of BNP activists, who would at least make pretensions to dissasociate themselves from such people. More than that, she remains a committed activist for the BNP, whose racist and anti-working class credentials are well established.

She wants your vote on 6th May, claiming to stand up for the local people of Anfield. It is worth remembering not only that she is a member of the party which stands opposed to organised labour and the idea of workers standing up for their rights, but she is the friend and colleague of seasoned fascists who are only too happy to use violence and intimidation against antifascists and trade unionists.

There are many ways to respond to the elections on May 6th. You may want to vote for a workers’ alternative, such as the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, for the Greens as an antidote to the pro-business politics of the big three, or you may view voting as an unneccesary distraction from organising within our own communities.

Whatever the case, that is up to you and Liverpool Antifascists will not patronise you by telling you what to do with your vote.What we will say is that Karen Otty and her fellow fascist goons do not deserve it.

A vote for the BNP is not a protest vote – it is a vote for FASCISM.

Liverpool Antifascists

'English Defence League' stifle free speech they claim to protect?

The EDL is an 'anti-Islamification' group which was formed in UK in 2009.

Regular contributors to the EDL forum have recently been BANNED for requesting action against an EDL member filmed by News of the World undercover journalists using the word "paki". Ordinarily, all EDL news (good or bad) is posted on the forum by members for open discussion. Not this time it seems.

The EDL leadership have objected not just open discussion of the video, but any discussion whatsoever. All attempts to discuss the video have been buried by Admins, anyone insisting on discussing it has been banned from the forum. Even the EDL's published 'response' to the News of the World article was cleverly absent of any mention of the video, or even a link for people to judge for themselves if the EDL member in the video was out of order.

So what has happened to free speech at the EDL? What happened to freedom of opinion on their forum? This recent attitude is somewhat ironic, from a group who staged a demo in London recently to welcome a free speech advocate, the Dutch Politician Geert Wilders.

A regular user of the forum who was banned for standing up to dictatorial admins was 'KnightofStGeorge'. He said:

'I was in the forum every day, it was a regular part of my daily routine. I lived the EDL, the group still does mean a lot to me, but there is something wrong with the leadership. I am not a racist and never have been. I am just concered about the UK being overtaken by Sharia law and being subject to islamification. I wanted the video to be discussed as something for us to be ashamed of and learn from it.

I wanted it to be an EDL training video of how NOT to conduct act [sic]. Instead I was banned. I want an apology and I want my account re-instated'

Has the glorious EDL been infiltrated by the BNP? One wonders!

Before it's news

'Patriotic' English Defence League exposed as racist, violent thugs

Welcome to ED-Hell: Fan of EDL during London demo

The repulsive race-hate face of the English Defence League is unveiled today by the News of the World

A three-month probe by our undercover investigators exposes the TRUE nature of the organisation that claims to be patriotic, non-violent and non-racist. In reality the EDL is backed by a bunch of bigots, football thugs, and BNP defectors dedicated to promoting race war on Britain's streets.

Our reporters witnessed the EDL's sickening booze and drug-fuelled protest marches across Britain. As well as disgusting abuse directed at Asian and black Britons, our team also unmasked a leading figure declaring his hatred of "Pakis". A teenage youth leader also bragged about his role in footie violence while members boasted of snorting cocaine before protests.

Earlier this month, 400 EDL supporters were on hand to welcome reviled right-wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders during his trip to London. He was promoting his 15-minute film, which urges Muslims to rip up the Koran. As Wilders spouted anti-Islamic messages, EDL members - hidden behind scarves and hoodies - cheered in support. Later, scuffles broke out between EDL supporters and protesters from Unite Against Fascism (UAF), resulting in 50 arrests.

The EDL insists it is a "multicultural organisation" which has "no issues with Muslims who wish us no harm". Yet its appearance on the streets of Luton, Birmingham, Nottingham, Stoke and London in recent months has resulted in trouble.

One of EDL's leading figures Gurjamit Singh, 28, has previously declared in public: "We are not here to be anti-Muslim." Yet in private, our investigators found Singh, a British-born Sikh, failed to practice what he preaches. Stood with a group of beer-swilling EDL supporters shortly before the recent London march, Singh spat: "I f*****g hate the Pakis. India needs to go to war with Pakistan."

Menacingly, Singh told our undercover man he could "sort" any problems he was having with local Muslims. He said: "Let's say you've got a problem with Islamification in your area. Let me know and I will try and sort it out. That's my own little thing - know what I mean?"

When approached by News of the World last night, Mr Singh insisted he wasn't a racist but admitted: "Yes, I said that. It was a comment made in the heat of the moment."

There is also a rapid growth of football hooligans in the EDL - typified by Joel Titus, an 18-year-old Arsenal and Brentford yob. Titus told our investigators he was recruited by Casuals United, a far-right group of football hooligans led by Jeff Marsh, a thug who served two years in jail for stabbing two Manchester United fans.

In January, ahead of a demonstration in Stoke, we filmed EDL members on a coach drinking and boasting of using cocaine. We watched as the booze-fuelled yobs then clashed with police. Toasting the trouble in a pub afterwards, Titus bragged: "One of the policewomen had her hat taken off and she got smashed to f***."

Worryingly, EDL is attracting disaffected members of the BNP too. One of their co-founders is Chris Renton, a former BNP supporter. Before the Stoke march, he wrote an uncompromising message on EDL's website. It read: "If Stoke o.b. (Old Bill) bus us out of town, we'll declare war and come back next Saturday."

We have made our dossier, which includes video footage, available to the authorities.

NotW

EDL yobs urinate on Westminster Abbey

If desecrating Nottingham Castle was not enough, on Friday the 5th of March, whilst in London to pay homage to their far right extremist prophet Geert Wilders, the "patriotic crusaders of England's cultural heritage" paid their respect to one of England's most historic sacred Christian sites, deluging Westminster Abbey with gallons of filthy urine

Engaged in a tsunami of continuous racist chanting, the EDL's (in denial) neo-Nazi "defenders of England's Christian heritage" made a beeline for one of London's most famous place of worship, unzipping their floppy pink mitres in majestic unison, baptising walls, doorways and memorials with an almighty torrent of pungent hops-tinged English excreta.

Given a free reign to do what they pleased, while sober anti-fascist demonstrators were kettled, jostled, arrested, and released later without charge, the drunken racist thugs of the so-called English Defence League were allowed to do just whatever they wanted in Britain's capital, free to roam the streets of London without censure, inflicting conflict and hatred upon anyone and anything as they pleased.

Scuffling in city pubs, drinking in the streets, racially abusing passers-by, intimidating shoppers, threatening anti-racist campaigners with violence, the very worst of England's binge-drinking yob culture was on display in the nation's capital last Friday. Rampaging through the streets, disturbing the peace in the Tate Gallery, was not enough to keep the violent fascist yobbos occupied. Once they had paid lipservice to wildeyed Wilders, they set off on their most hypocritical mission yet.

Their Hitler salutes and incessant racist chanting hardly demonstrating to the world the EDL are not bigots, by displaying the same contempt towards Christianity as they openly display towards Islam. Stopping off at a sufficient number of drinking holes along the way, paying homage to cheap fizzy Australian, Danish and Belgian lagers, the self-styled "defenders of England's native culture", slurped, stumbled and vomited until their bladders were ready for the big one, the defining moment for the english nationalist hooligans to leave their mark upon one of Britain's most historic churches.

Making a pissing pilgrimage to Westminster Abbey, the usual suspects including the same lout dressed like St George captured urinating on Nottingham Castle (they never learn), ran in desperation towards the historic church, disproving the sceptics who thought they only defiled mosques with racist valdalism after dark, by doing their utmost to show the world what the EDL truly thinks of Christianity. The Metropolitan Police, church officials and embarrassed tourists looked away while the filthy louts of the riot-igniting EDL (including some of their ringleaders) sprayed walls, doors, commemorative plaques, and anything they could land on including a medieval doorway.

Westminster Abbey was used as a toilet by the thugs of the EDL.

Urinating in public always has been a criminal offence. In this CCTV era, so much as dropping a bus ticket onto the pavement can warrant a hefty fine and even a court appearance, but even though the recognisable culprits had been captured many times on camera, none of the despicable fascist scrotes who thought it funny to behave like tomcats on one of London's most visited sacred places of Christian worship have so much as been interviewed by the boys in blue.

Try pissing not in broad daylight but late night, down some hidden rubbish-strewn alley of no importance, and expect to be arrested, handcuffed and rushed to the nearest nick to spend the night. The EDL regard themselves as untouchables since the bail terms for their leaders were overturned in court, but this fails to explain why the capital's bastians of law and order see fit not to apply the letter of the law to these lawless racist football hooligans, when law-abiding social workers, students and humanitarian anti-racist campaigners are jostled, harassed, and even arrested without charge for peacefully opposing fascism, is beyond explanation.

Given a licence to chant offensive slogans, pick fights with opponents, and indecently urinate in broad daylight on Britain's historical tourist sites willy-nilly, beyond their curtain of spin and internet trolling, the so-called English Defence League" are nothing more than the shamelessly moronic dregs of society, a gang of uncontrollable racist louts unable to control their bladders who bring nothing but hatred, fear and shame to the country they claim to love.

Armitage Skanks at Indymedia

Extreme right on the march in Europe's most tolerant nation

Geert Wilders speaks to supporters in Almere, where his
far-right Freedom Party was declared the surprise winner in local elections

Geert Wilders triumphs in Netherlands local elections

The anti-Islamist party led by Dutch firebrand Geert Wilders has triumphed in municipal polls in The Netherlands, opening the way for a political breakthrough for the far-right in general elections in June. Mr Wilders, known for his blond mane and due in London today to show his anti-Islam film in the House of Lords at the invitation of a Ukip peer, has campaigned for an immediate freeze on immigration and a ban on the wearing of Muslim headscarves in public. His Freedom Party was declared the surprise winner yesterday in Almere, a city just east of Amsterdam with a large immigrant population. It came second in The Hague, the only two cities where it chose to participate in the polls.

Wednesday's vote, in which the two main parties in the ruling coalition, the Labour Party (PvdA) and the Christian Democrats (CDA), suffered heavy losses, was the first electoral test since Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's government collapsed last month.

Tensions between the two sides and the recession played into Wilders' hands, while he refused to depart from his uncompromising stance on Muslim immigration or engage in mainstream political debates. If the local results were to translate nationally on 9 June, 46-year-old Wilders, who faces criminal charges for inciting hatred, could emerge as a kingmaker. An opinion poll yesterday also showed that the Freedom Party could take most seats in the national parliament in June.

Many Muslim residents in Almere were deeply shaken by the outcome, which gave the Freedom Party 21.6 per cent of votes. "I will stand here until my toes freeze," said Ayse Bayrak-de Jager, a Muslim student taking part in a silent protest outside the town hall. Her friend, Zaitoon Shah, added: "It's just appalling to think that I might not to be able to go to the library soon."

Kadriye Kacar, a 35-year-old IT student of Turkish origin, said: "I don't normally wear a headscarf but I decided to today as a sign of protest. Others are doing the same, until Wilders leaves. It's terrible. People are looking at us differently today, as if to say 'we won and you're going to leave'."

Celebrating in a rowdy local café late on Wednesday, a beaming Wilders told the city's Muslims not to be afraid "as long as they don't break the law", but he insisted that his party would refuse to go into talks with any parties that did not support his views. "We've always maintained that it would be unthinkable for us to work with them. We can talk about a number of policy issues like education and finance, but upholding the basic rights of all the people living here is non-negotiable," said Labour councillor Alphons Muurlink.

Many shoppers at the local market told Dutch television they felt ashamed for their city. "It's a big black stain, I don't even want to talk about it," said one elderly woman. The Dutch Muslim Party, which failed to gain any seats, said it was "a sad day" for the country. Leader Henny Kreeft said Wilders had traded on "baseless fears".

The collapse of the Dutch government was triggered by a deadlock over whether to keep some Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan after December, when a parliament decision to withdraw from the country comes into effect. The debacle was the last in a series of crises to have plagued the coalition, with the Christian Democrats locking horns with their Labour colleagues over retirement age and budget reform.

Independent

Blond bombshell Geert Wilders returns to Britain, looking for a fight

Geert Wilders - divisive, racist, Islamophobic and over-styled

Boyish, topped with a bouffant mane of bleached blond hair, cheerful and cherubic, Geert Wilders is the unlikely new face of the far Right in Europe. But appearances are deceptive. The leader of the Dutch anti-immigration Freedom Party has emerged as one of the most divisive politicians in Europe, the purveyor of a virulent brand of anti-Islamic rhetoric that calls for a tax on Islamic headscarves and a ban on the Koran, which he likens to Mein Kampf.

Mr Wilders is facing trial in a Dutch court for “inciting hatred”. Last year he was banned from Britain and turned away at Heathrow when he arrived here planning to show his short film, an incendiary anti-Islamic diatribe that the Dutch Prime Minister described as serving “no purpose other than to offend”.

On Friday, after successfully appealing against the Home Office ban, Mr Wilders will return to Britain at the invitation of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) to show his controversial film to an invited audience at the House of Lords. The English Defence League is expected to demonstrate in his support and Muslim groups are all but certain to mount protests.

To his enemies, the 46-year-old Dutchman is an old-fashioned racist demagogue in a new suit; a bottle-blond bigot. To his growing ranks of supporters he is a champion of free speech, a bulwark against what he calls “the Islamic invasion of Holland”. He may be dismissed by some as a crank but he is an increasingly powerful and popular one. On February 20 the Dutch centrist coalition Government collapsed, deeply divided over keeping troops in Afghanistan, paving the way for a general election in June in which the Freedom Party is expected to do extremely well. Polls suggest that the party will triple its tally of seats, becoming at least the second-biggest parliamentary party and quite possibly the overall winner. Mr Wilders is likely to be a key player in any coalition, with a profound impact on the political agenda.

Nicknamed “Mozart” on account of a platinum hairdo that looks strikingly like an 18th-century wig, Mr Wilders has played on the discords in Dutch society with virtuoso skill. As in Britain, many Dutch voters are alarmed by the scale of immigration, battered by the global economic crisis, culturally anxious and increasingly receptive to his grim warnings about a “tsunami of Islamification”.

The political heir to Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch populist politician who called for a halt to Muslim immigration and who was murdered in the 2002 election campaign, Mr Wilders has portrayed himself as the only politician in his country brave enough to stand up to militant Islam, a threat that he has compared to Nazism. “A century ago there were approximately 50 Muslims in the Netherlands. Today there are about one million. Where will it end? We are heading for the end of European civilisation,” he predicts. Promising strict limits on immigration, he has also called for a “head-rag tax” of €1,000 (£922) a year on Muslim women wearing headscarves.

In 2008 he released a 15-minute film entitled Fitna (the Arabic word for “strife”) which provoked outrage across the Muslim world: it opens with an image of the Koran, followed by footage of terrorist attacks and a litany of stonings, beheadings, honour killings, homophobia and child marriages. It ends, predictably, with the Danish cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked fury in 2006. Al-Qaeda is believed to have ordered the killing of Mr Wilders after the film was released. Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, has described the Dutch politician as “offensively anti-Islamic”. His most incendiary remarks are aimed at the Koran, which he calls a fascist book. “The Koran incites to hatred and calls for murder and mayhem,” Mr Wilders told the Dutch Parliament. “It is an absolute necessity that the Koran be banned for the defence and reinforcement of our civilisation and our constitutional state.”

In January a Dutch court ordered the public prosecutor to try Mr Wilders on charges of fomenting hatred and discrimination. Mr Wilders indicated that he would call witnesses in order to prove Koran-inspired violence, including Mohammed Bouyeri, the man convicted of murdering the Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh in 2004.

Although he faces 16 months in prison if convicted, the trial represents a political goldmine for Mr Wilders and helps to explain his recent rise in opinion polls. If he is convicted he will paint himself as martyr to political correctness; if he is acquitted he will claim vindication. The trial has been suspended until after the election.

Inadvertently, Britain also did much to boost his standing in February last year by banning him from entering the country as an “undesirable person”, citing EU laws enabling member states to exclude someone whose presence could threaten public security. Mr Wilders loudly condemned Gordon Brown as “the biggest coward in Europe” and some 84 per cent of Dutch voters objected to the way that Mr Wilders had been ejected by Britain. The ban was later overturned by an asylum and immigration tribunal. On Friday, at the invitation of the UKIP leader Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Baroness Cox of Queensbury, he will show Fitna to MPs, peers and guests before giving a press conference at Westminster.

“The issue of militant Islam is the greatest issue facing our Judeo-Christian culture,” Lord Pearson said. “I don’t agree that the Koran should be banned but we want it discussed ... mild Muslims should stand up and debate their militant co-religionists.”

Mr Wilders has sought to distance himself and his party from the traditional standard-bearers of the extreme Right in Europe, such as Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front in France and the late Jörg Haider of the Freedom Party in Austria. He has made no contact with the BNP. “My allies are not Le Pen and Haider,” he says. “I’m very afraid of being linked with the wrong rightist fascist groups.” His prime political role models are said to be Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill.

The son of a printer, Mr Wilders was raised Roman Catholic but is now an atheist. He worked in a Dutch social insurance agency before becoming a speechwriter and then MP for the liberal People’s Party, which he left in 2004 to form his own party. As a prime terrorist target he lives under 24-hour police guard, changing his location nightly. He is seldom seen in public and gives few interviews. Even contact with his wife, a Dutch-Hungarian former diplomat, is limited by security concerns, This way of life, under constant threat, is “a situation I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy”, he once remarked.

“They are trying to shoot him all the time,” says Lord Pearson, noting that Mr Wilders will be coming to Britain with five state-hired Dutch bodyguards. “He has a really, really tough existence.”

Mr Wilders opposes expansion of the EU, most particularly Turkish membership, and Dutch military deployment in Afghanistan, but the core of his message lies in an appeal to defend traditional Dutch culture against perceived encroachment by Islam. “Islam is the Trojan Horse in Europe,” he told the Dutch Parliament. “Stop all immigration from Muslim countries, ban all building of new mosques, close all Islamic schools, ban burkas and the Koran ... Stop Islamification. Enough is enough!”

Some polls suggest that after the June elections Mr Wilders may lead the biggest single parliamentary party, raising the prospect that a former fringe provincial politician with extreme views and peculiar hair could end up leading the country. “At some point it’s going to happen and then it will be a big honour to fulfil the post of prime minister,” he says. If that comes to pass it will mark both the triumph of a new, more subtle brand of right-wing politics in Europe, and the final demise of the stereotyped image of the Netherlands as a nation of bland liberal views and easygoing tolerance.

Itinerary

9am Geert Wilders will arrive at Heathrow, his second visit to Britain since overturning a ban by the former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. He declared his trip in October last year “a victory for free speech”

11am Screening of his film Fitna in a committee room of the House of Lords. The 17-minute film, which has been shown in the US Capitol, presents verses from the Koran alongside footage of terrorist attacks. The screening has been organised by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, leader of UKIP, and Baroness Cox, a former Conservative peer

12.30pm Press conference near Parliament. UKIP organisers are expecting protests

1pm The far-Right group the English Defence League plans a demonstration to welcome Mr Wilders to Britain. A UKIP source said: “That is what horrifies me more than anything else. Bring protective clothing.”

Times Online

Emergency protest this Friday

Protest this Friday 5th March, 12pm at House of Lords, Westminster.

UAF demo against the rally called by the EDL to greet and support Gert Wilders, the Islamaphobic Dutch MP. Wilders has been invted to the House of Lords by Malcolm Everard MacLaren Pearson, Leader of UKIP, to show his racist film Fitna.

Wilders was banned from coming to the UK before due to his racist remarks. He has described the Netherlands as facing a “tsunami of Islamification” – the Netherlands Musilim population is 6%. Also, he has said that a “head rag tax” should be issued on Muslim women who wear headscarves.

Protest against this racist coming to whip up race hatred and bolster the BNP.

The Wilders/EDL final solution...

Click on image to see it full-size

Here's an interesting proposal that you might have missed, apparently from the Dutch Freedom Party's Geert Wilders, he of the golden locks and rabid Islamophobia. Wilders suggests nuking Mecca as a 'rational deterrent to radical Islamists bent on using weapons of mass destruction against America and the west'.

Wilders' rationale for such an action - if there could be said to BE any rationale at all - is that Muslim's would find their faith so shattered by such an event that they would cease to be the problem that he perceives them to be to the future of the known universe.

Personally, it's a long time since I've heard anything quite so patently lunatic, but I would have expected the Muslim world to be galvanised into similarly lunatic responses instantly and possibly endlessly, and frankly, who could blame them?

Naturally, there are supporters of the idea and, on this occasion, it's members of the English Defence League - or at least, members of the EDL's forum. Here are a few responses:

'without getting all philosophical or going into numerous negatives as to why we shouldn't & scaremongering with the typical left-wing 'consequences' speeches........I'm all for it, my own personal studies into terrorism and guerrilla warfare is that the type of people we are up against only understand power, force, brute strength.'

'I'm not making this big speech on we gotta get real tough and nasty but initially in Iraq we we're treated with dubious respect by the locals, but as soon as the majority of the anti-westerner's see with their own two eyes just how soft we we're towards them {from their viewpoint}, the liberty's towards our troops started....'

'unfortunately force is something that some people understand more than others..'

'Nuke em all thats what I say.'

'I can't see the muzzies in this country going quietly into the night if we blew the crap out of that s**thole. But one well placed submarine would make it very difficult to find out who launched it...'

'I say the only way we will find out what will happen is to give it a try!'

'The best way to do this job, would be to pack a Boeing747 with high explosives and fly the plane by remote control right into the middle of mecca during the height of the hajj. I know that there is a flight restriction over mecca, but by the time the alarm was raised it would probably be to late. Remember the twin towers. Just fly it over as a normal shedualed flight. A 747 could carry one hell of a lot of explosives and the just deny any knowlege. Just another airline disaster. The effect would be apsolutly caterstrophic.'

The EDL claims not to be racist but simply opposed to extremism. One wonders then how it can justify allowing posts on its forum that advocate destroying millions of completely innocent members of a faith of which they disapprove, that just happens to be one practised mainly by immigrants and the children of immigrants.

Or perhaps the EDL is just what we've been saying it is all along - a bunch of violent racist nutters.

Thanks to gah gah for the heads-up.

Wilders strikes first blow for European extremists

Fears that low turnout and gains by far right will be repeated across the EU

The first killer punch of the European election campaign was struck yesterday by the maverick Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, who scooped 17 per cent of the vote and almost a fifth of his country's seats in the European Parliament running on a populist, anti-immigrant, law and order agenda.

The Dutch result, released two days early – before most Europeans had even cast their votes – sent jitters around a continent fearful that a miserably low turnout will help extremists on both the left and right.

Mr Wilders, refused access to Britain as a rabble-rouser earlier this year, has perfected a form of tolerant intolerance with his Freedom Party and its smartly-suited, middle-class, anti-Islamic and "pro-liberal" values. While the Christian Democrats of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende managed to keep hold of the largest share of the votes (albeit with the loss of two seats and a mere three-point lead), the Freedom Party romped home in second.

The platinum-blond maverick shot to international prominence for branding the Koran a "fascist book" and releasing a film, Fitna, which depicted Islam as inherently violent. "This is fantastic, a great day for the people who crave another Netherlands, another Europe," declared a triumphant Mr Wilders who won four of the 25 seats up fro grabs. Having beaten the Labour party, the other main bloc in the Prime Minister's coalition, into third place, he claimed the government no longer had a mandate. "The cabinet should step down, the sooner the better," he told Dutch television, although analysts said that was wishful thinking.

In another worrying sign from this founding EU member, turnout in the Netherlands was reported to be down to 36.5 per cent for Thursday's poll, three points lower than the 2004 elections. With that in mind and with the majority of the 27 member states still to vote this weekend, European leaders urged people to the polls. "Everyone must understand that Europe is very important to daily lives," the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, pleaded.

At European Commission headquarters in Brussels there was anger that the Dutch, in clear breach of the rules, released their results before most of the continent was able to vote. It did "not comply with the spirit" of the EU vote, said spokesman Amadeo Altafaj Tardio. But the low turnout and the resurgence of extreme parties are expected to be familiar themes when the official results start coming in from the rest of the continent tomorrow night.

With the exception of Britain, Ireland and Spain – where those in power are expected to get particularly bloody noses – most ruling parties can expect to follow the Dutch pattern, seeing their support siphoned off by the extreme flanks but managing to eke out a limp endorsement from the electorate.

Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany, President Sarkozy in France and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Italy will escape the battering which seems certain for Gordon Brown and the Irish PM, Brian Cowen.

Europe-wide trends towards the left and right, pro or anti-Europe, will be difficult to discern. Most national campaigns, in so far as they have stirred popular or media interest at all, have been fought on national themes. Even the low turnout has no Europe-wide explanation. In some countries, such as Poland, it reflects a vague contentment with the EU; in other countries, such as Greece or the Netherlands, there's growing disenchantment.

Here is the great European paradox. European voters complain that the EU is too distant and too abstract; the more power their elected representatives in Brussels and Strasbourg are given, the more the voters shun the European elections. In 1979, turnout was nearly 62 per cent. In 2004, it was 45 per cent. Yet the European Parliament has acquired considerable new powers to amend European legislation. The newly elected assembly will – unless Irish voters reject the Lisbon Treaty again – become virtual co-legislators with governments across the spectrum of EU policy and law-making.

Country by country: How battle shapes up

• Germany: Like Gordon Brown, Chancellor Angela Merkel has campaigned as a "safe pair of hands" for hard times – only she has succeeded. Interest in the election has been low, but Ms Merkel's coalition is forecast to win up to 39 per cent of the vote, despite severe recession and a German habit of turning left, or to extremes, in times of difficulty.
• France: President Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right UMP will top the poll with about 25 per cent, after stressing law-and-order issues and opposition to Turkish membership. However, the widely forecast meltdown of the divided main opposition party, the Socialists, has failed to materialise. The great winner may be Daniel Cohn Bendit, the student leader in the May protests of 1968, whose ecological, pro-European list may sneak into third place.
• Italy: Despite revelations about his friendship with a teenage girl, and a very public "no" vote from his wife, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will probably top the poll. The centre-left Democrats, founded only two years ago, have failed to impress, even with the recession.
• Poland: The centre-right party of the Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, (Civic Platform) is expected to take over 40 per cent. The Eurosceptic Law and Justice party of the President, Lech Kaczynski, and his twin-brother Jaroslaw, the ex-prime minister, is forecast to score only 30 per cent. The great paradox will be the turnout. More than 80 per cent of Poles say they are content with EU membership; less than 20 per cent may bother to vote to prove it.

Independent

Anti-immigrant and Europhobic – far right parties ride populist wave

Members of Jobbik, a far-right Hungarian party which has
been using Auschwitz slogans in its attempt to pick up votes.

In Europe's biggest port, where nearly half the population of 600,000 is of immigrant origin, Geert Wilders appears to be knocking on an open door.

The platinum-blond, Islam-baiting populist is soaring in opinion surveys in the Netherlands, hammering the anti-immigration message to double his ratings this year to the point where his Freedom party is challenging to be the strongest in the country, according to a leading weekly tracking poll.

Wilders' acolytes are also poised to enter the European parliament for the first time after elections for the EU's sole democratically elected institution, covering 375 million people across 27 countries, take place next week.

"He's a clown, crazy," said Aarjen Heida, a Rotterdam banker, of the ­iconoclast banned from Britain for "hate speech" and facing trial in the Netherlands. "But he's dangerous. A lot of people will vote for him. People are unhappy with the way things are going here and often that has to do with foreigners."

Hans Oole, a retired Rotterdam food engineer, insisted he would not vote for Wilders next week. "I don't like the way he says things. But sometimes he's right. Most Dutch people are really afraid of Islam and it is coming all over."

According to city statistics, ethnic Dutch residents will be a minority in Rotterdam within a few years. At present just over one third of children under 14 are ethnically Dutch. Wilders, who likens Islam to fascism and the Qur'an to Mein Kampf, exploits such figures to argue that the Netherlands is being swamped by immigration. He also hates the EU, pledging to try to abolish the European parliament when his party ­colleagues take their seats in July. He hopes to win five of the 25 Dutch seats.

Wilders' success represents, in part, a souring of traditional Dutch enthusiasm for the EU. It also appears symptomatic of a broader insurrectionary mood across Europe that is expected to favour extremists, mavericks and populists in the voting taking place over four days from next Thursday. Overt racism and the calculated use of Nazi language are featuring in what is otherwise a lacklustre campaign.

In Austria, the hard-right Freedom party of Heinz-Christian Strache, tipped to take up to 20% of the vote, is pandering openly to antisemitism. "A veto of Turkey and Israel joining the EU," declare the party posters despite the fact that Israel, unlike Turkey, is not negotiating to join.

Last week in the Czech Republic, state television broadcast a campaign slot from the small, fascist National party calling the large Roma community "parasites" and echoing Nazi formulation of the Holocaust policy from 1942 by demanding "a final solution of the Gypsy question".

The party is not expected to get into the European parliament, but in ­Hungary the far-right Jobbik, which boasts black-shirted paramilitaries and maintains relations with the British National party, has been using Auschwitz slogans and running a lurid anti-Gypsy campaign. It, like the BNP, could make an electoral breakthrough and win a seat in the parliament which is sited alternately and at great cost in Strasbourg and Brussels.

If the far right is making inroads, the hard left, too, may benefit from the disenchantment with mainstream parties, notably in two of the core EU countries, Germany and France.

The new anti-capitalist party of a postman Trotskyist, Olivier Besancenot, is predicted to win around 10% of the vote in France, while the New Left in Germany – former East German communists allied with West German social democratic defectors – could do likewise. Both parties' gains will hurt the mainstream social democrats.

The chances of the Europhobic extremists entering the parliament are strengthened by the wretched turnout expected next week.

"The low turnout means that those who do vote have very strong opinions. That will bring in more extremist politicians," said Sara Hagemann, a Danish analyst at the European Policy Centre in Brussels. "You'll see a lot of protest voters in Europe and a lot of apathy towards political elites."

The lack of interest in the election, or protesting by abstaining, could spell a crisis of legitimacy for the parliament and of credibility for the EU more broadly. It is virtually certain that voters will stay away in record numbers, making participation the lowest since voting for the parliament started 30 years ago.

A Eurobarometer poll predicts a turnout of 34%, more than 10 points down on 2004, but that may prove to be optimistic since the pollsters have consistently overestimated participation rates. A poll-tracking study being run by the London School of Economics and ­Trinity College Dublin predicts a turnout of around 30%, meaning that more than two out of three voters across the EU will boycott the ballot.

"The risk of abstention is that it allows Eurosceptics and extremists to take over our debate and our future," José Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, warned recently.

Mobilising voters is made more difficult by the fact that the election does not decide a government, nor are the 736 MEPs elected able to initiate European laws, reinforcing the popular notion that the parliament is a remote, irrelevant talking shop.

In fact, voter turnout is in inverse proportion to the parliament's growing powers. Turnout has fallen in each of the seven elections since 1979, while every treaty reshaping the way the EU is run has increased the parliament's clout. It now has a say in shaping around 75% of European law.

From next year, if the Lisbon treaty is implemented following a second referendum in Ireland in October, it will be empowered to "co-decide" almost all European laws, making the parliament one of the big winners of the Lisbon streamlining reforms.

In what already looks like a doomed attempt to combat indifference and drum up interest in the ballot, the parliament itself – as opposed to the competing parties – has hired a German PR firm and spent some €18m (£15.6m) of European taxpayers' money trying to sell the election.

"Come on! It's just a few minutes, maybe you can combine [voting] with a walk in the park or a drink in a cafe. Not much effort to tell Europe what you want," pleads the parliament propaganda. It is falling on closed ears. The lavish spending only compounds the ­parliament's problems, reinforcing the conviction that MEPs are either wasting taxpayers' money or pocketing it.

With around 9,000 candidates running for the 736 seats and with each national ballot turning on the idiosyncrasies of 27 vastly different countries, variations in voting behaviour will be marked. In Germany, for example, the poll will be analysed closely for what it portends for the general election in September, Europe's most important political contest this year. In France, it is likely to be seen as a referendum on two years of President Nicolas Sarkozy, while in Italy, the election will be scrutinised to see if Silvio Berlusconi's marital breakdown is damaging his popularity.

Despite the national variations, trans-national trends are discernible as voters look like venting their anger on incumbents because of the economic crisis, and growing unemployment.

The French, Italian, and Polish governments may be the big exceptions to this trend. But Euroscepticism, previously a British and, to a lesser extent, a Scandinavian characteristic, is spreading even into the historical heartland of the EU, such as the Netherlands.

"The Dutch have become very cantankerous. It's very sad," said a senior EU official. "They've gone from being the most pro-European country to one of the most anti-European."

While Wilders pledges to destroy the EU "from within", the hard-left Socialist party's pitch is for "more Netherlands, less Brussels". And among the centrist parties in government in the Netherlands, there is little positive being said about Brussels or the EU. "Even among the non-extreme parties, scepticism has crept in," said Hagemann.

Leading this new movement of Eurosceptics and seeking to establish it as a more powerful transnational political force in Europe are David Cameron's Conservatives, who are pledged to end two decades of alliance with the mainstream European centre-right (the European People's party) and form a new caucus of European Conservatives.

The entry of several dozen extremists and populists will make the parliament a more raucous, bad-tempered place, but will not substantively affect the balance of power between Christian Democrats, social democrats and liberals.

But Cameron's move should have more impact. He has been helped by the entry of central European countries in 2004. He will depend on rightwingers from Poland and the Czech Republic and a few other countries to set up the new grouping, which will signify the biggest change in the new five-year parliament.

The LSE-Trinity College study predicts more than 60 seats from up to nine countries for the new Conservative caucus, making it the fourth biggest in the parliament. It will be loud in its condemnation of the Lisbon treaty and will campaign for the "repatriation" of powers from Brussels to national capitals.

"We will be very united in limiting European power," said Konrad Szymanski, a Polish MEP from the rightwing Law and Justice party which will supply the second biggest bloc of MEPs after the British.

The election will usher in a busy few months at the top of European politics – Barroso's expected renomination as head of a new commission a fortnight later at a European summit; a German election; an Irish referendum; and probably a contest for the two plum posts of first European president and foreign minister.

But the low turnout and predicted gains for anti-Europeans will get this burst of high-powered politicking off to a bad start.

Guardian