It's time for LU to say goodbye

For seven years, first on my own server then on Blogger, Lancaster Unity (formerly Lancaster UAF) has been fighting fascism and racism as embodied in such groups as the BNP and the EDL. From originally being set up to accompany local anti-fascist activity, the blog spread itself wider until it became a national resource with, over the years, many excellent contributors and countless thousands of readers.

When LU began, there was a gap in the market for a continually updated blog that has now been closed by a number of anti-fascist organisations elsewhere, some of which are listed below. Also, the advent and popularity of Twitter and Facebook (both easily accessible and updatable via smartphones) has made the anti-fascist presence on the internet much larger and more effective than it has ever been before. While the bad guys use technology to humiliate and embarrass themselves, anti-fascists have used it to inform and organise.

Because of ongoing health problems which are drastically eating into the time I can devote to Lancaster Unity, it has gradually become a copy and paste blog with very few original articles. This is no bad thing because it's always useful to have one type of news that appeals to a certain group located in a single place. This role though, is rapidly being superceded by Twitter, which does the same job very well. Better, in fact, than we ever could. Thus, it's time for Lancaster Unity to stand down, though the blog as it is will remain here as an archive and a resource for anti-fascists.

It's not too bad a time to be going. The EDL, although it has political ambitions, seems incapable of keeping itself from fragmenting in all directions, while the BNP at the moment appears to be shrinking by the day while Nick Griffin spends half his time in the European Parliament participating in the gravy train that he once professed to despise, and the other half boring us all to death with his tedious stories about smoked salmon.

Even better, it's a real pleasure to be leaving in the week that two of the killers of Stephen Lawrence have finally been convicted. We look forward to the day that the rest of them get banged up.

Big thanks to Denise and John, both of whom helped make LU what it was, and very many thanks to our contributors: Andy Minion, Iliacus, Roddy, Larry and all the rest of them. Special mentions go to NewsHound and Zaahid, both excellent news-spotters who should get their own sites together and keep up the good work. Naturally, a site such as this is useless without readers, and we've had a loyal and feisty readership over the years whose contributions have easily been as interesting as ours. Thank you to all of you (except the nazis, who are just complete morons).

We've been helped since the blog began by a number of organisations. Principal among these are Searchlight (who gave us essential help to get started in the first place, and who we worked closely with on numerous occasions), Hope not hate and Unite Against Fascism. Special thanks to those three and to all the other people who have helped out in one way or another.

It's been (at times) great fun, interesting and bloody hard work (especially on the all-night election specials). Thank you to everyone for all your input.

Although I have a good deal less time and energy these days, I shall be posting occasionally at my own blog space on Searchlight's new website. Thanks to Searchlight for offering me both the opportunity and the space. John has moved over to Anti-Fascists Online.

Ketlan
Lancaster Unity

This is not a comprehensive list of anti-fascist resources. If you think I've left anyone out who should be included, email me or make a comment and I'll add them.

Searchlight
Hope not hate
Unite Against Fascism
Anti-Fascists Online
EDL News
Everything EDL
Malatesta's Blog
Love Music Hate Racism
Show Racism the Red Card
EDL Watch at Urban75
HateWatch
Indymedia
Love Music Hate Homophobia
Liverpool Antifascists
Kick It Out
ICARE

Calls grow for ban on Vergès

The Jewish Chronicle has reported Searchlight’s campaign to ban the visit of Jacques Vergès to London, where he has been invited to take part in a debate at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

The paper reports that Mike Freer MP, vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, hopes to raise the visit of French-Vietnamese lawyer Jacques Vergès with Home Secretary Theresa May.

Others are adding their voices to the campaign. A spokesperson for the Community Security Trust, which represents and advises the Jewish community on security and antisemitism, said: “It is hard to see how Jacques Vergès’ record of defending Nazis, Holocaust Deniers, mass murderers and terrorists can contribute anything worthwhile to a debate on international justice. This invitation smacks of the kind of attention-seeking sensationalism that can only damage the reputation of an institution like SOAS.”

And Karen Pollock, Chief Executive, Holocaust Educational Trust told Searchlight: “It seems perverse that any prestigious institution would welcome Jacques Vergès, a notorious figure, who over the decades has defended Nazi war criminals and Holocaust deniers with apparent relish – and whose extremely controversial views would surely undermine any serious academic debate.”

More information here

Searchlight

Ex BNP councillor condemned for campaign to free woman accused of racist tram rant

Paul Golding, who represented the St Mary's ward in Swanley, is campaigning to free Emma West

A former BNP councillor has been condemned for his calls to free a woman accused of a racist rant on a tram. Paul Golding, who represented the St Mary's ward in Swanley, quit the BNP in March to become chairman of a new group called Britain First.

The far-right movement, which operates from an address in Swanley, has launched an online campaign called Free Emma West. Emma West, aged 34, from New Addington, is charged with a racially aggravated public order offence and has been remanded in custody. Her arrest came after a video appeared on YouTube of a woman making racists comments to passengers on a tram. The alleged rant subsequently hit the headlines in the national media.

In the online campaign, Mr Golding, who is chairman of Britain First, said: "We call upon the Home Secretary, Teresa May, and the prison governors, Helga Swidenbank and Alan Thurlby, to be held personally accountable for any harm Miss West may suffer as a result of her incarceration in an ethnically-dominated prison."

The group emailed more than 70,000 British nationalists and have organised a rally for today (December 2) in support of West outside HMP Bronzefield in Ashford.

Gerry Gable, the publisher of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, said: "If they are trying to catch headlines they are going for the wrong ones. It just shows there's nothing new about them. They are the same old haters. If they think they can defend somebody like that it says it all."

Speaking about the YouTube video, Mr Gable said: "It says something very very good for this country that nobody actually laid a hand on her."

Labour councillor Mark Fittock, who represents Mr Golding's former ward, said: "I'm outraged that this should be going on. The Labour group would never support such action. We fully support the law as it stands in this country on the issue."

Mr Golding refused to comment.

This is Local London

HATE - Book Review

“I took the district line across London, squeezed into my little suit, with all of the other suits of Bengalis and Pakistanis. Sounds funny but racists never seem to notice other white people.”

Admittedly, I was a little sceptical about this book. Be it that Hate is an autobiography by ex-National-Front-administrator-turned-anti-fascist Matthew Collins, I had inkling that there was going to be an overly-apologetic and guilt-ridden feel to the writing, in an attempt to emphasise the author’s change of heart and alliance with the Searchlight organisation.

Although, expectedly, in odd areas there seems to be a swaying bias (“I’d fumbled and skirted around the issue when Searchlight asked me but now, having to think clearly, it’s obvious he was dangerous,” (pg.225)), thankfully, Collins refuses to dress up his involvement with the despicable NF throughout his younger years.

For the most part, his story intertwines his new-found beliefs with his old ones for some intriguing reading. His running commentary of violent confrontations with “Pakis” and blacks, and his developing hatred for minorities influenced by the thugs around him, is particularly shocking and brutally honest; as is his descriptions of the fascists preying upon the apathy of broken-down, working-class neighbourhoods that seemingly have no way forward.

Although most antifas are already aware that fascists are vicious psychopaths looking for someone to blame for their troubles, what’s perhaps most notable here is the differences between The BNP and NF, and the conflict between the two, which Collins touches upon with considerable insight. Though both organisations are equally as bad as one another, the author notes how The BNP disguise(d) its racism with pseudo-intellectual ideas on nationalism; while The NF was openly concerned with racism and anti-Semitism, and virtually disbanded as a result.

Whether The NF or BNP, Collins views the fascist organisation as an ensemble of violent, loudmouth, cocaine-snorting drunks, who are more concerned with instilling fear and anxiety within local communities than actual politics. His decisions to denounce The NF with cold, hard facts in the aftermath of the confrontations is convincing (“The National Front was only formed in 1967, how could it break into the political system that had only served two parties for hundreds of years?” (pg.38)) and serves as the main theme that fascism brings hope to no one.

Hearing that members meet with police and court disciplinary on a regular basis, and that their “masculine” actions are somehow democratic (“We were free to smoke and fart at will,” (pg.63)), may not come as a surprise or prove comfortable to all readers, but Hate is still a very commendable confession of one man who now seeks to make a positive difference within society.


(C) Andy Carrington 2011.

Cable Street memories: The day that every horse went down

Sir Oswald Mosley reviews his ‘troops’ before the
Cable Street stand-off, at which the fascists were defeated

For Cable Street veteran, Michael Sherbourne, the famous battle against the fascists in Whitechapel, 75 years ago next Tuesday, was a foregone conclusion.

"It was a deliberate provocation. We knew we were going to stop them."

The 94-year-old, who fought in Israel in 1948 and campaigned for Soviet Jews, doesn't consider his story of that October day to be unusual. "Every young Jew in London was there. I was 19 - to say that I was there is nothing special."

Few veterans of the Battle of Cable Street are still alive to recall the day when Jews, trade unionists, and Communists barricaded Whitechapel against the police-protected march of Sir Oswald Mosley's "blackshirts", forcing them out of the East End. This Sunday, members of Jewish, Socialist and Bengali groups will march from Aldgate to a rally in Cable Street to mark the anniversary. Speakers include members of the TUC, anti-racism group Searchlight, Labour councillors and original Cable Street participants.

Writer David Rosenberg, of the Jewish Socialists' Group, is one of the organisers and author of a book on Jewish responses to fascism in the 1930s. "I've been involved in anti-fascist activities for 25 years and demonstrated against the National Front as a teenager," he said. "I keep hearing new things all the time about what happened. But there are very few still able to remember it personally, which is why it is still important. The issues haven't gone away; there's still the BNP and the EDL."

One of the speakers at the rally will be Max Levitas, 96, a Jewish East Ender and former Communist councillor in Tower Hamlets. He was arrested in 1934 for daubing anti-fascist slogans on Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, against a Mosley-organised rally in Hyde Park.

He said: "What was happening in Germany made us determined that fascism should not take control in this country. On the day in 1936 when we heard they intended to come up Cable Street, we started to build barricades with rubbish and furniture. I was a runner, passing messages to the leadership. It went on for hours, until we heard the march was banned by the Home Secretary. You should have been there to hear the cry, and see people jumping and shouting in joy. People who had never drunk beer in their lives, drank a glass of beer. We had won."

But he added: "We had asked the Board of Deputies to represent us to the government, asking them to ban the march. And they wouldn't. They said all the Jewish people should stay at home. We disagreed entirely. The more you stay at home, the stronger they get."

Mr Sherbourne and his brother were caught up in different parts of the protest. "We were given brown paper bags, with about 100 glass marbles in each. We waited, and saw the police get on horseback, preparing to charge. As they did, we threw the marbles along the ground. And every horse went down."

His brother Cyril, now 88, watched the struggle unfold. "We heard choruses of 'they shall not pass' all day. If they had got through, it would have been a massacre. It was a great turning point."

Mr Levitas felt that today's East End has learnt from the Battle of Cable Street about standing up to racism, most recently opposing the English Defence League march through Tower Hamlets.

"The majority of people in this country are against racism. But you have to educate them to speak out, and in a united fashion."

Jewish Chronicle

Cable Street 75

On 4 October 1936 London’s East End took to the streets to stop Oswald Mosley’s fascist Blackshirts from marching through its then largely Jewish districts. Communists, socialists and trade unionists led one of the largest – and most successful – mobilisations of Britain’s working class ever to have taken place. The fascists came to the area to divide Jews and non-Jews but were faced with a community that united against the threat.

Come and join the march and rally to remember that historic victory and to send a powerful message of unity against the forces of fascism, racism and antisemitism today!

Assemble:
11.30am Aldgate East (junction of Braham Street and Leman Street)

Rally:
1.00pm St Georges in the East Park (Cable Street)



Speakers
We are pleased to announce our first list of speakers for the event:
Max Levitas Battle of Cable Street Veteran
Frances O'Grady Deputy General Secretary TUC
Matthew Collins Searchlight
Robert Griffiths General Secretary Communist Party
Bob Crow General Secretary RMT
Kosru Uddin Labour Councillor
Julie Begum Swadhinata Trust
David Rosenberg Jewish Socialists' Group
Gail Cartmail Assistant General Secretary UNITE
Diana Holland Assistant General Secretary UNITE
Akik Rahman Altab Ali Memorial Foundation

For a full list of speakers and supporting organisations visit www.cablestreet75.org.uk

Muslims criticise Scotland Yard for telling them to engage with EDL

Metropolitan police say English Defence League is 'not extreme', but sends 3,000 officers to planned demonstration

Scotland Yard has been accused of underestimating the threat from the English Defence League (EDL) after the head of the unit monitoring hate groups declared it was not an extremist organisation. In an email obtained by the Guardian, Adrian Tudway, National Co-ordinator for Domestic Extremism, said he formed the view the EDL were not extreme after reading their website.

Today the EDL, accused by Muslims of fostering hate against them, will stage a "static" demonstration in Tower Hamlets, east London, in one of their most potentially provocative displays so far.

The Metropolitan police obtained a ban against a planned march through east London by the EDL, fearing clashes with anti-fascist groups and also the prospect of British Muslim youths taking to the streets to defend their communities against feared racist attacks.

British Muslims have claimed police have not done enough to protect them against the EDL. In an email sent on 27 April 2011, Tudway told a Muslim group they should try opening up a "line of dialogue" with the EDL, who have been accused of staging attacks and directing hostility at British Muslims.

Tudway wrote: "In terms of the position with EDL, the original stance stands, they are not extreme right wing as a group, indeed if you look at their published material on their web-site, they are actively moving away from the right and violence with their mission statement etc. As we discussed last time we met, I really think you need to open a direct line of dialogue with them, that might be the best way to engage them and re-direct their activity?"

Last night Tudway's email was sent to the National Association of Muslim Police, which had been pressing him and his unit for tough action.

Zaheer Ahmad, president of the National Association of Muslim Police, said: "There is a strong perception in the Muslim communities that the police service does not take the threat of right wing extremism seriously. This perception is fast becoming reality when communities witness an inconsistent, somewhat relaxed police approach to EDL demonstrations resulting in very few arrests and prosecutions.

"The community perception is reinforced by the position of the National Domestic Extremism Unit which does not view EDL as right wing extremists. There is a considerable body of independent evidence, which is growing at staggering pace, to highlight the serious threat of EDL to our communities."

The national domestic extremism unit used to be run by the Association of Chief Police Officers. But this year it was moved into the Metropolitan police, where it is part of its specialist operations unit. Tudway's unit was charged with investigating any links between the right wing Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik and the English Defence League.

Defending Tudway's views, the Met police said: "The EDL are not a proscribed group. Police are committed to taking robust action against anyone who causes harm by crossing into criminality in support of any issue."

It did not answer whether the force shared his views that the EDL were not extremist.

Dan Hodges, from anti-fascism charity Searchlight, said the charity had been privately telling police more resources needed to be devoted to countering the threat of far right violence: "It's staggering given the EDL's record of violence, intimidation and the outspoken support of many of its members for far right wing politicians and politics."

He said police should classify the EDL as extremist and linked to violence and spend more time and effort trying to thwart their plans: "It's difficult to see what further evidence one would want to see them as extremist. Every EDL demo ends in disorder and physical violence."

The EDL emerged in Luton and has staged a number of demonstrations over the past two years – many of which have descended into violence. The group came under scrutiny earlier this year after Anders Behring Breivik repeatedly praised it in his 1,500-page manifesto, saying he had 600 EDL supporters as Facebook friends and had spoken with "tens of EDL members and leaders".

Members of the group deny any official contact with Breivik and insist their organisation is peaceful, non-racist and opposed to extremism. A Guardian investigation into the EDL found repeated racism and threats of violence among supporters.

Several hundred EDL supporters are expected to meet in two pubs in the Euston area of the capital from around midday on Saturdaybefore being escorted by police to a static demonstration in Tower Hamlets that is due to start at 3pm. Police chiefs said more than 3,000 officers will be on duty amid fears of violence and unrest.

After a police request, the home secretary agreed to a ban on marches for 30 days across five London boroughs and the City of London. It will cover Tower Hamlets, Newham, Waltham Forest, Islington, Hackney and the City of London.

Some anti-racist activists are planning to hold a counter demonstration. Unite Against Fascism is holding a static demonstration in Whitechapel with music and speeches from 11am.

Guardian

Activists: EDL is gateway to terrorism

Gun-toting EDL members

A British campaign group against racism and Fascism says the far-right English Defense League is a “conveyor belt for potential terrorists,” warning the Home Office of threats posed by the group.

Nick Lowles, director of the campaign group Searchlight, said the revealed links between EDL and Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian Christian terrorist that killed 77 people in Oslo last month should prompt officials to take a more decisive action against the far-right EDL. The terrorist has repeatedly admired the far-right extremists in his manifesto and has claimed he has hundreds of EDL supporters as Facebook friends.

The EDL has insisted Breivik's praise of the group is a one way matter and that the group does not endorse his views, a claim disputed by Lowles.

“Indeed, several EDL supporters have written approvingly of the car bomb that ripped through the administrative heart of Oslo. Even its leader, Stephen Lennon, while distancing himself from the murders of young people, claimed that Breivik was articulating legitimate concerns,” Lowles wrote in an article on Searchlight's webpage.

Lowles also said the Home Office has so far refused to classify EDL as a far-right extremist organization and is treating it with complete leniency as “a law and order issue”.

Lennon told the media in the aftermath of the Norway massacre that it is a sign of “growing anger in Europe”.

“People should look at what happened in Oslo and understand that there is growing anger in Europe,” he told the press. “You suppress people's rights you suppress people's voices and people will just continue to go underground - but that doesn't make the problem go away,” he added.

According to Lowles, the EDL are a “dangerous” anti-Muslim organization threatening the lives of Muslims in Britain.

“It opposes all new mosques and other Islamic buildings, its slogans and chants abuse the Muslim faith and its supporters have increasingly been involved in violent attacks,” he said warning that the group “shares much of the same ideology … with the Norwegian killer.”

Lowles said officials are letting the EDL get away with murder despite their “growing militancy” in recent months quoting the description of the group by Deputy Director of Communications at the Community Security Trust Dave Rich as a “gateway organization to terrorism” as evidence of mounting fears about the EDL threat to Britain.

Lowles said a number of EDL supporters have even “called for the taking of arms” against Muslims in Britain with others actively demanding a more confrontational and violent approach.

“A cursory study of the Facebook pages of EDL supporters reveals many posing with guns and other weapons,” Lowles said. “The EDL arguably presents the biggest threat to community cohesion in the UK today. Its strategy of provocative marches and physical attacks on political opponents is designed to increase tensions and divisions in communities with a large Muslim population,” he added.

Lowles said the Home Office needs to monitor EDL activities “as an extremist organization” and instruct the police to allocate “the same manpower and resources on monitoring its activity as they would in relation to other extremist groups.”

PressTV

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

English Defence League march through Tower Hamlets banned by Theresa May

English Defence League members listen to the group's founder Stephen Lennon

Home secretary agrees to police request for ban of march planned through one of UK's biggest Muslim communities

The home secretary has agreed to a police request to ban the far-right English Defence League from staging a march through one of the UK's biggest Muslim communities in east London. Theresa May said she would outlaw any marches in Tower Hamlets and four neighbouring boroughs – whether by the EDL or any other groups – for the next 30 days, having "balanced rights to protest against the need to ensure local communities and property are protected".

She added: "I know that the Metropolitan police are committed to using their powers to ensure communities and properties are protected."

Police sought the ban after the EDL – which has seen widespread public disorder at earlier rallies – planned to march on 3 September through Tower Hamlets, which has a significant Muslim community, many of Bangladeshi origin. In a statement the force said it made the request following information that prompted fears that the march could cause "serious public disorder, violence and damage". It added: "Tactically we believe this is the best option to prevent this."

Chief Superintendent Julia Pendry warned EDL supporters to stay away. "We have made this decision [to seek the ban] based on specific intelligence and information, and our message is clear: we do not want people coming into the areas to attend these events."

The march had been vehemently opposed by community leaders, among them the two local MPs and the borough's mayor, as well as a series of Muslim and Jewish groups. Fears that it could spark violence were exacerbated following this month's rioting in many parts of London.

The EDL emerged in Luton, another strongly Muslim area, in 2009. While it purports to oppose "Islamic extremism" the group insists it is not racist. However, its marches, aimed mainly at Muslim communities, have been seen as extremely provocative. A Guardian investigation into the EDL found repeated racism and threats of violence among supporters.

Nick Lowles, director of the anti-extremist campaign group Searchlight, called May's decision a victory for common sense. He said: "The EDL clearly intended to use the proposed march to bring violence and disorder to the streets of Tower Hamlets. Their plan has been foiled."

The veteran campaigner Peter Tatchell said that while he abhorred the EDL, he believed the blanket 30-day ban was a "complete overreaction" and would prove counter-productive. He said: "I'm not sure we can defeat anti-democratic groups like the EDL using anti-democratic methods like banning marches. A far better tactic would be mass counter protests and exposing the bigoted and violent views of the EDL."

Earlier this month May banned an EDL march through Telford, although the group was still able to congregate. Opponents urged the home secretary to follow suit in east London, particularly after links emerged between the EDL and the Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik.

The gunman repeatedly praised the group in his rambling manifesto and claimed he had hundreds of EDL supporters as Facebook friends.

The EDL insisted any admiration was one way and it did not condone his views.

The group has struggled for legitimacy, even amid evidence it has picked up supporters as the better established far-right British National Party has been beset by internal divisions. According to Searchlight, the EDL has active support from people involved in earlier far-right groups, including the even more extreme Combat 18 and National Front.

In February it attracted some unexpected support from the Daily Star, which tacitly endorsed its views and said 98% of its readers supported them. But this lasted less than a week, with the paper's owner, Richard Desmond, saying it had been done without his knowledge.

Guardian

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

Back from the Front: Inside the mind of a reformed UK far-right extremist

Matthew Collins is a leading anti-fascist campaigner - but in his youth he was at the heart of the National Front and the BNP. As his account of life in the far right is published, he talks to Ros Wynne-Jones about racism, rehabilitation and the Norway massacre

When Matthew Collins heard what was happening in Norway in the late afternoon of 22 July, he headed to the offices of his employer, Searchlight, the anti-fascist magazine. There, he and other staff sat up all night watching Twitter and the internet, talking quietly to their informants in Scandinavia.

It took time for a portrait of 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik to emerge, but it was a picture Collins recognised clearly. For six years, Collins was himself at the heart of far-right groups in the UK: the south London organiser of the National Front (NF), a close confidant of the leadership and seen by some as a potential future leader of the party. He was also a volunteer at the British National Party's (BNP) head office and active on the streets with the violent neo-Nazi street fighters Combat 18, whose numbers one and eight stood for "A" and "H" after Adolf Hitler.

"Breivik's concerns were on a different scale to mine," Collins says. "His manifesto is obsessed with global issues. Mine were much closer to home, more about the end of my street than the world. But essentially they had the same aim – acts of violence that will lead to a civil race war."

Collins' remarkable journey to committed anti-fascist campaigner from a Mein Kampf-reading racist – not just a white working-class boy who shaved his head and flirted with far-right politics, but an active and violent Nazi – is told in his new book, Hate: My Life in the British Far Right. Introduced by Billy Bragg and endorsed by Dagenham MP Jon Cruddas, it is a timely riff on the past 25 years of the UK far right.

As well as being a tale of very British Nazism – a story of smoky pubs, drunken punch-ups, mindless hooliganism and paranoid conspiracy – it also offers a powerful insight into the Norway massacre.

For Collins, 39, even the emerging portrait of Breivik – who writes in his manifesto about "the absence of fatherhood" – sounds a deep echo. "Breivik's father left when he was one," he says. "It's a common thread in extreme-right terrorists, looking for family and security. It usually involves blaming modern society for the breakdown of the family. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, and David Copeland, the Soho nailbomber, fit the same pattern. There is a shared sense of rejection."

Collins' own father left the family – with his teenage babysitter – when he was five years old. He looks up from his drink. "So, yes, I was one of those too," he says.

The National Front had the tough, violent, but often fatherly male figures Collins was looking for. "For me, there was always this search for male role models," he says. "We had excellent female role models who did all the cooking, cleaning, carpet fitting. But no men to look up to on our estate.

"The far right gave me a safe environment. There was lots of violence, but they elevated me. They took me into pubs at 15. I would be picked up from home in a car, taken to clubs. They taught me things. They treated me as if I was bright."

He shrugs. "The Labour Party never came knocking on our doors."

By 1987, at the age of 15, he was going door to door on mixed-race housing estates with a copy of the National Front newspaper The Flag in one hand "and a wheel brace in a plastic bag in the other". His favourite slogan was: "If you want a nigger neighbour, vote Labour." He shakes his head. "I'd only read one book – Mein Kampf – but that was more than most of them."

Most of all, being a Nazi gave Collins, one of Thatcher's children festering on a 1980s council estate without prospect of work or betterment, a feeling of intense power. "You would strike fear into people," he says. "You could feel how you physically intimidated someone."

His bitter hatred did not just extend to black and Asian people. The aim of a night's drinking would be to "smash glasses into the faces of anyone even remotely progressive, or with glasses or, worse still, a ponytail".

His bloody damascene moment is overwhelmed by shame. It came at a 1930s library building one summer evening in 1989, when the BNP disrupted a public meeting in Welling, Kent. In British fascist folklore, that night became known as the Battle of Welling and its "soldiers" were celebrated as heroes.

The truth, Collins says, is that a cowardly group of 40 or so fascists armed with hammers smashed up a room full of mainly women.

In his book he recalls "one man after the other laying into a small group of women, hitting them with chairs and hurling tables at them .... It was a bloody massacre. People were lying on the floor helpless, being stamped on, kicked and hit with objects picked off the walls and floor. A pregnant woman was locked in the toilet and the BNP were trying to kick their way in to get at her and her unborn baby."

Collins, a veteran of the far right at just 18, had taken part in violent attacks before, fighting men in pubs and on the football terraces. But the scene at Welling Library deeply challenged the nobility he associated with the far right's cause. "I couldn't see what freedom of speech and fighting for British democracy had to do with stamping on little old ladies' heads," he says. "It was real hatred. I began to see it was all about destroying people's lives. Violence was the only way they could affect change.

"I was standing in the library watching people getting their heads kicked in for attending a debate and discussion. I thought: I'm on the wrong side."

After Collins was hailed by his NF and BNP colleagues as a hero for the attack at Welling, he found himself in a phonebox calling Searchlight. One by one, he told the magazine the names of the people who had carried out the violence. A polite Geordie voice thanked him. "Everything sort of changed at the moment," he says. "But my intention wasn't to be a spy."

Over the next few months he rang Searchlight a handful of times. Some days, he became so confused he had to steady himself in front of the mirror with the words: "I am still a National Socialist, I am still a white Aryan, part of the master race."

Before long, Collins was passing secrets face-to-face that would lock away violent fascists and help cause the early 1990s far right to implode. Searchlight paid him in book tokens so he could educate himself.

His role as a mole led to direct threats to his life and a trip to Australia, hastily arranged by Special Branch, where he lived in hiding from 1993 to 2003. He came back to take part in Dead Man Walking, a BBC documentary that brought him back into the open.

In the eight years since his return he has worked full-time for Searchlight, where the deep friendships forged during his years as an informant are still very much in evidence. During that time, he has seen UK fascism turn full circle. By the late 1990s, the street fighters had begun to seek power through council chambers under the guise of outwardly democratic parties like the BNP. But with the collapse of the BNP following crushing defeat in the 2010 council elections, fascists are once more on the streets.

Searchlight has been voicing concerns for months about the English Defence League (EDL), the far-right street-protest movement Breivik enthused about in his manifesto. "This Government is not taking the EDL seriously," Collins says. "These are working-class people who have run out of hope and understanding. If it wasn't radical Islam it would be something else. Increasingly, they have been overrun by Nazis from the old BNP and NF seeing the opportunity to take street violence back to the old levels, seeking a civil race war, this time white Christians against Muslims."

Could the attacks in Norway happen here? Collins nods. "The EDL's leader Tommy Robinson says himself we are five years away from a Breivik in the UK. If a similar attack was to happen here I wouldn't be shocked."

How does Collins think the UK should deal with this returning threat? "The last thing we should do is to listen to their demands. But we do need to deal with the issues on which they thrive: identity, alienation, the emasculation of the white working class, job insecurity."

He shakes his head. "Everyone's talking at them and not to them. Reaching out to communities, that is such middle-class bollocks. We need to embed ourselves in communities, take on the lies, redress the inequalities that grate on people. And we have to discuss immigration properly without demonising asylum-seekers."

In Collins' story lies the hope that even committed fascists can change, but it is hard not to wonder what the group of women at Welling Library, battered with chairs and iron bars, make of his change of heart.

At his book launch last week, I found the community activist Dev Barrah getting his copy signed by Collins.

"I'll never forget Welling Library," Barrah says. "29th June 1989." He was the local campaigner who had called the public meeting against the BNP and hired the room. They'd been worried about an attack but there was a Tube strike and the men they'd asked to be stewards hadn't been able to make it.

"I remember him particularly well," Barrah says, indicating Collins. "He was the loudest of them, shouting 'BNP, BNP', smashing everything. People jumped from the first floor window they were so frightened, breaking arms and legs. They came with hammers and crowbars, beating up women. After a while, we managed to lock all the children and elderly in the loos and still they were attacking."

He's standing with Collins' book in his hand. What does he think of him now? "I believe people can change," Barrah says. He shrugs, a broad, generous smile crossing his face. "A bad person can be a good one, too."

As the two men shake hands, it seems a terrible sadness that Collins spent all those years looking in the wrong place for heroes.

'Hate: My Life in the British Far Right' is released on 11 August, published by Biteback (£14.99). To order a copy for the special price of £13.49 (free P&P) call Independent Books Direct on 08430 600 030, or visit www.independentbooksdirect.co.uk

Independent

BNP leader Nick Griffin isolated after election disasters

Key figures threaten to form breakaway group as party chairman faces second leadership challenge in less than 12 months

The British National party's dominance of far-right politics in the UK is under threat for the first time in a decade after a string of poor election results and a growing rebellion against its leader, Nick Griffin.

The BNP chairman, who has led the party since 1999, is facing a second leadership challenge in less than 12 months, a mass defection of key organisers and the prospect of a new "popular front" made up of other far-right groups and former BNP activists.

Nick Lowles from the antifacist organisation Searchlight, said: "There is a serious split within the leadership of the BNP. After another humiliation at the polls and massive debts, Griffin is isolated and his position is weak. We are likely to see a rival party formed, a BNP mark two, and Griffin will be left with little more than a rump of a party."

This week Richard Barnbrook, who was the BNP's sole representative on the London assembly until he was expelled from the party last year, said it was time for a realignment in "nationalist politics" in the UK..

"The chairman, Nick Griffin, who has been a long-standing friend in the past, has to go," Barnbrook said. "There is no question about it. He is creating more harm than anything else."

Barnbrook, who now sits as an independent on the London assembly, has written to leaders of four other far-right or nationalist organisations – including the English Defence League and the English Democrats – calling for the creation of "one strong, united, cohesive force".

Griffin is also facing an increasingly emboldened rebellion inside the party. Richard Edmonds, seen as a "BNP hardliner", has launched a formal leadership challenge and although it is unlikely he will win, his defeat is expected to trigger another wave of defections.

Andrew Brons, the BNP's second MEP and an increasingly significant figure, has distanced himself from Griffin and this week appeared to back the leadership challenge, prompting speculation that he is preparing to lead a breakaway group.

Griffin has been under growing pressure since the BNP's poor showing in last year's general and council elections, when it lost all but two of the 28 councillors up for re-election and was wiped out in its east London stronghold of Barking and Dagenham. And the rebellion has gathered pace since this month's local elections, when it again performed poorly, losing all but two of the seats it was contesting.

The growing rebellion has seen a growing number of BNP organisers either leave the party or defect to join other rightwing groups. Searchlight says dozens of BNP members – including several key figures – have left and joined the English Democrats recently. Lowles said there appeared to be a "concerted and orchestrated attempt by many of the BNP's most effective and competent former organisers" to establish a foothold in the English Democrats.

Matthew Goodwin, from Nottingham University, who has written a book on the BNP, said: "There are two key questions here. First, can the rebels depose Griffin, which in my view is unlikely given the BNP constitution.

Second, can they then form a credible alliance with other groups which appeals to the large number of voters who are anxious over immigration, insecure about their economic position and dissatisfied with the main parties. Whatever the outcome, it is clear that Griffin's leadership is under sustained fire."

The Guardian

Insecurity is fuel for the far right's hate

English Defence League members demonstrated in Bolton's Victoria Square at a
Unite Against Fascism rally in 2010. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Britain has resisted the far right but studies suggest cuts will harden attitudes. All parties need to rethink

A century of democratic politics teaches that economics and identity are the two most compelling calls to action. Their interplay can produce a dangerous brew. As Britain contemplates a parliament of austerity, we need to understand what makes for the politics of division, and fight it.

Compared to some other European countries, we in the UK can consider ourselves relatively lucky in our experience of extremist politics. There have been hard-fought battles. But serious extremist parties have not got a grip. However, research published...on behalf of the Searchlight Educational Trust shows how people can become lured towards more aggressive forms of identity politics. It shows we can't complacently assume we are exceptional in the European context. We are not.

Searchlight has been at the forefront of beating back the National Front and the BNP since the 1970s. But if the emotional extremism of the far right we have so far seen blends into something more calculating and more credible, then this run of marginalised extremism may become more difficult to sustain.

Groups like the BNP, the English Defence League and Islam4UK are only ever likely to appeal to a small minority: their violent rhetoric, aggression and warped politics provide the source of their downfall. But we should not understate their impact locally in creating a climate of division, fear and hatred. We have seen this in Leicester, Bradford, Barking and Dagenham, and Luton; areas where the pride and security of the industrial age has been replaced by a casualised economics of the rapidly shifting global age, and which have had high levels of immigration. That is why we need to build the resilience of local communities to reject the politics of hatred. A common life forged between different cultures with the same anxieties, hopes and pride is the most effective backstop against extremism.

We need a demanding pluralism with a common core of shared values. And what's more, people believe that such local community building is an effective bulwark against discord.

The Searchlight research has broken down attitudes to race, identity, immigration and nation into six groups. On the left are "confident multiculturals" and "mainstream liberals", comprising 24% of the population. On the far right sit "latent hostiles" and "active enmity" (totalling 23%), who share antagonistic attitudes to others and differ only in the degree of their antipathy and tolerance of extremism.

The centre of British politics are the "identity ambivalents" and "cultural integrationists". Cultural integrationists accept diversity as long as there is an integrated national culture, the rule of law, and respect for authority. This is the group to which David Cameron's call for a "muscular liberalism" is targeted. They are a quarter of the population. But the real swing voters are identity ambivalents (28%): economically insecure, worried about their local community, feeling threatened but open-minded and accepting of diversity – as long as their security is not threatened. So they feel more wage and job pressure from immigration, are anxious about their family's financial future, but are, for example, much less likely to think "Muslims create problems in the UK" than cultural integrationists.

Labour's vote is more weighted towards this group than any other. More black and ethnic minority voters are to be found here, and almost half of people who don't identify with a party are also identity ambivalent. And this is why the economics of austerity and fiscal consolidation is so dangerous. A long period of low wages, casualisation of work, unemployment, higher prices, fiscal cuts (many are receiving tax credits), and VAT and fuel duty increases will refract into greater identity anxiety.

Cameron's "muscular liberalism" has little to offer in giving identity ambivalents the greater sense of security they crave. The risk is that significant numbers in this group leapfrog to latent hostility or active enmity.

If Conservative rhetoric and coalition economics are an insufficient response, then what of Labour? This group is vital territory for Labour. Identity and economics are bound tightly together. A convincing economic response is necessary but not sufficient. An authentic sense of identity is just as important. Labour's politics must be suffused with both cultural understanding and meaning and a pragmatic economic mission.

Otherwise, the as yet unformed and unidentified party of English or British nationalism could begin to fill the space. The political mainstream needs more convincing responses – and fast.

David Miliband at Comment is free

The far Right is still miles apart from real voters

Should we be manning the barricades as a new generation of Blackshirts takes over the country? According to reports in yesterday's newspapers, "almost half the country would back a far Right party" that dissociated itself from violence and fascist imagery.

The reports - based on the results of a poll of 5,054 people conducted by the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight - stirred up a good deal of shock-horror as, I suppose, they were intended to. Searchlight is a campaigning organisation. Saying "Eek! Look out! Fascists! They're everywhere!" is - not to impugn the good work they do - slightly the point of its existence.

When you look at the question that this 48 per cent figure ("almost half the country", natch, rather than, say, "less than half") answered yes to, the story unravels. These interviewees were asked whether they would "definitely support" or "consider supporting" a non-violent political party that "wants to defend the English, create an English parliament, control immigration and challenge Islamic extremism".

Are these the four key indicators of fascism? "Defend the English" is an almost meaningless phrase - and could just as easily cover the people who bore on about celebrating St George's Day or campaign for authentic Cornish pasties as neo-Nazi boot-boys. The creation of an English Parliament is no more than the logical conclusion of New Labour's wet-blanket plans for a succession of regional talking shops. To "control immigration" was the stated aim of all three main political parties at the last election (well, duh: I challenge you to find the party that stands for abolishing passports and throwing the borders wide open).

And how many people do you see sticking up for Islamic extremism? The aspiration to "challenge" it is hardly a mark of the far Right, unless we're to imagine jackbooted hordes marching in lockstep down Whitehall threatening "firm words and a searching dialogue".

My guess is that 52% were put off supporting this blandly centrist imaginary political party only by the thought of finding unctuous English Assembly Members in cheap suits on their doorsteps at election time.

It is only by wilfully interpreting these things as code-phrases for "send them home", "outlaw Islam" and "kill all the Welsh" do you arrive at the idea that 48% of people would vote for fascists given the chance. And, of course, it's bollocks: they wouldn't and they don't.

A poll on actual parties of the Right gets conducted, for real, and with a much larger sample size, every time we have an election. The BNP is a far Right party that doesn't use fascist imagery and does its best to dissociate itself from violence - and its share of the vote remains more or less what it has always been: that is, pathetic.

London Evening Standard

Searchlight poll finds huge support for far right 'if they gave up violence'

Level of far-right support could outstrip that in France or Holland, says poll for Searchlight

Huge numbers of Britons would support an anti-immigration English nationalist party if it was not associated with violence and fascist imagery, according to the largest survey into identity and extremism conducted in the UK.

A Populus poll found that 48% of the population would consider supporting a new anti-immigration party committed to challenging Islamist extremism, and would support policies to make it statutory for all public buildings to fly the flag of St George or the union flag. Anti-racism campaigners said the findings suggested Britain's mainstream parties were losing touch with public opinion on issues of identity and race.

The poll suggests that the level of backing for a far-right party could equal or even outstrip that in countries such as France, the Netherlands and Austria. France's National Front party hopes to secure 20% in the first round of the presidential vote next year. The Dutch anti-Islam party led by Geert Wilders attracted 15.5% of the vote in last year's parliamentary elections.

Anti-fascist groups said the poll's findings challenged the belief that Britons were more tolerant than other Europeans. "This is not because British people are more moderate, but simply because their views have not found a political articulation," said a report by the Searchlight Educational Trust, the anti-fascist charity that commissioned the poll.

According to the survey, 39% of Asian Britons, 34% of white Britons and 21% of black Britons wanted all immigration into the UK to be stopped permanently, or at least until the economy improved. And 43% of Asian Britons, 63% of white Britons and 17% of black Britons agreed with the statement that "immigration into Britain has been a bad thing for the country". Just over half of respondents – 52% – agreed with the proposition that "Muslims create problems in the UK".

Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP who fought a successful campaign against the British National party in his Dagenham and Rainham constituency in east London, said that the findings pointed to a "very real threat of a new potent political constituency built around an assertive English nationalism". The report identified a resurgence of English identity, with 39% preferring to call themselves English rather than British. Just 5% labelled themselves European.

Earlier this month David Cameron delivered a controversial speech on the failings of "state multiculturalism". The speech was seized on by the anti-Islamic English Defence League, which said that the prime minister was "coming round" to its way of thinking. BNP leader Nick Griffin also welcomed the speech as a sign that his party's ideas were entering "the political mainstream".

The poll also identified a majority keen to be allowed to openly criticise religion, with 60% believing they "should be allowed to say whatever they believe about religion". By contrast, fewer than half – 42% – said "people should be allowed to say whatever they believe about race".

Observer

Caption Competition: Who ate all the pies?

Apparently, this is a picture of Kevin Smith, whose crowning achievement to date is putting a pigs head on Dudley Mosque. Captions please (and thank you to Searchlight for such a delightful image).

EDL has 'left BNP a mere sideshow'

The head of Britain's leading anti-fascist organisation has said the English Defence League has replaced the British National Party as the major force on the far right of British politics.

Nick Lowles of Searchlight said the BNP had become a "sideshow" since the crushing defeat of its leader Nick Griffin in Barking at this year's general election. In recent months, he said, the EDL's anti-Muslim message had given the party a wider appeal. At the same time, the violence EDL rallies attracted meant the organisation received a great deal of media attention.

He added that the BNP were stuck with an old-fashioned neo-fascist image which alienated many who were prepared to back the EDL.

Mr Lowles has made it clear that Searchlight will no longer limit its operations to the fight against traditional neo-Nazi organisations. In the new year it will launch a think tank to examine new forms of extremism such as the anti-Muslim politics of the EDL and totalitarian Islamism.

Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida, is the controversial cleric who was first invited and then "uninvited" by the EDL, allegedly on the grounds of his racism and homophobia. In August this year, giving a deposition in a court case in which he was a witness, Mr Jones described Judaism as "a religion of the devil", along with Hinduism and Buddhism.

Gainesville is best known as the home of the University of Florida, where there are about 2,000 Jews in the year-round community with three congregations, Conservative, Reform and Jewish Renewal to serve them. On the campus itself, Hillel and Chabad-Lubavitch cater for nearly 7,000 Jewish students.

According to Rabbi Berl Goldman, co-director of the Lubavitch Chabad Jewish Centre on campus, Pastor Jones is not even on the local community's radar. He said: "I've been here 10 years and I don't know of any formal ties or relationship between Jones and faith-based organisations. I've never seen him at any meetings of the Campus Ministry Co-operative which has representatives of all different faiths and denominations in Gainesville. The Jewish community is very distressed at his provocative actions."

Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Centre (the Montgomery, Alabama-based civil rights organisation) confirmed that Pastor Jones is extremely isolated. "I very much doubt if he has connections with anyone except a dozen or so followers."

Jewish Chronicle

'EDL not far-right,' says police extremism chief

The new head of police domestic extremist units was condemned today after denying that the English Defence League was a right-wing extremist group.

Detective Chief Superintendent Adrian Tudway, who took over the role of national co-ordinator for domestic extremism last week, claimed police had to walk a "tightrope" when targeting small groups which they believe are bent on violence.

Senior officers have gone on the offensive following the student protests and the resulting occupation of 30 Millbank two weeks ago, saying that more resources are being invested in identifying potential "flashpoints of disorder."

Mr Tudway said his officers were focusing on the "fringe" where protest "spills over" into violence and disorder. His comments came on the eve of tomorrow's wave of protests against rising university fees.

The National Public Order Intelligence Unit, National Domestic Extremism team and National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit employ about 100 people with a budget of £8.1 million. The police units, which are set to be integrated into the Met Police under a rebranding exercise, have come under fire for using intrusive surveillance tactics to identify hundreds of people who have attended protests and then sharing the information with other forces.

However Mr Tudway insisted that intelligence officials do not examine the work of trade or student unions and went on to say that the EDL was not an extreme right-wing group.

"The present particular challenge to us, constitutionally, is they are not extreme right-wing organisations," he said. "On the one hand, they are seen by many as the single biggest threat to community cohesion in the UK, but they are most certainly not extreme right-wing organisations."

Communist Party of Britain general secretary Rob Griffiths said that "nobody should be fooled" by the claim that the police to not monitor trade unions and student groups.

"It is well known from recent history that the intelligence services disrupt trade unions and the peace movement by targeting socialist and communist activists within them and making this the excuse for spreading the net across the whole organisation," he said. "If he does not know the fascist affiliations of leading and founder members of the English Defence League then we should club together and buy him a subscription to Searchlight magazine, where he would find these links set out in fine detail."

Morning Star

Is a storm brewing in Europe?

Click on image for full-size

On platform one at Bolton train station in England a mob of about 100 men punch the air in unison as a chant - "Muslim bombers, off our streets!'' - goes up. Their voices echo loudly, and as more men suddenly appear, startled passengers move aside. The protesters wave St George's Cross flags - the red and white English national emblem - and raise placards. Some wear balaclavas, others black-hooded tops. There is an air of menace.

These are some of the most violent football hooligans in Britain and today they have joined in an unprecedented show of strength. Standing shoulder to shoulder are notorious gangs such as Cardiff City's Soul Crew, Bolton Wanderers' Cuckoo Boys and Luton Town's Men In Gear: a remarkable gathering given that on a match day these men would be fighting each other. But today they are not here for football; it is politics that has drawn them. Their destination is Manchester to support a protest by the newly formed English Defence League.

The police are here in force, too. "Take that mask off," barks a sergeant to one young man. The man does so immediately but retorts: "Why are they allowed to wear burqas in public but we're not allowed to cover our faces?" The sergeant snaps back: ''Just do what you're told."

A man with a West Country accent standing next to me says: "It's always the fxxxxx' same these days. One rule for them and another for us. I'm sick of this fxxxxx' country." He draws on a cigarette before flicking it to the ground in disgust. He starts to complain again, but when the public address system announces the arrival of the train to Manchester Piccadilly, he raises his hands above his head and starts another football favourite: "Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves ..."

His companions join in singing, and as the train comes to a halt beside the platform the crowd surges forward. The carriages are almost full, so the men pack into aisles followed by police speaking into radios. A group of young men drinking beer at a table eye the protesters warily, but one protester wearing a baseball cap notices their fear and reassures them. "It's all right lads, nothing to worry about. We're protesting against radical Islam. Come and join us," he says, and as the train draws nearer to Manchester, the singing starts again. "Eng-e-land, Eng-e-land, Eng-e-land ..." the men sing rowdily. The English Defence League is in town.

A ready-made army?

The league seemed to spring from nowhere in 2009, but since its formation the far-right movement has held major protests in nearly all of Britain's cities. Although it claims to be a peaceful group, violence has erupted at most league demonstrations, with its supporters fighting on the streets against police, Muslim youths and a group called Unite Against Fascism, an umbrella organisation consisting mainly of students and trade unionists and formed in 2003 to oppose the far-right. During the fighting hundreds of people have been arrested, weapons have been seized and city centres have been brought to a standstill.

Britain has not witnessed such street violence for many years and there are growing fears that the league - despite its official multiracial stance - has become a ready-made army for neo-Nazis who for years have operated underground and that tensions will erupt resulting in major disorder.

All mainstream political parties in Britain have criticised the league, including John Denham, the former communities secretary, who compared the group to Oswald Mosley's Union of British Fascists, which ran amok in London during the 1930s.

Tinderbox northern towns such as Bradford and Oldham - which witnessed race riots in 2001 - have been among the league's targets this year and a countrywide police team set up to combat domestic extremism, the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit, has been investigating the movement.

I had met members of the league for the first time in a derelict building in Luton, near London, three weeks before the Manchester rally. They had agreed to talk on the condition that I did not identify them. Eleven men turned up. All wore balaclavas and most had black league hoodies with ''Luton Division'' on the back. A man using the pseudonym Tommy Robinson did most of the talking and explained the movement's background.

"For more than a decade now, there's been tension in Luton between Muslim youths and whites. We all get on fine - black, white, Indian, Chinese - everyone does, in fact, apart from some Muslim youths who've become extremely radicalised since the first Gulf War. Preachers of hate such as Anjem Choudary have been recruiting for radical Islamist groups in Luton for years. Our government does nothing, so we decided we'd start protesting against radical Islam, and it grew from there," he said.

With Islam Europe's fastest-growing religion - Muslim populations are projected to expand rapidly in coming decades - the group's fear that traditional British culture is under threat have been exacerbated.

Robinson could barely conceal his anger as he described radical Muslims protesting as the Royal Anglican regiment paraded through the town on its return from Afghanistan in May 2009. Following the incident, he and others set up a group called United People of Luton. After linking up with a Birmingham-based group called British Citizens Against Muslim Extremists and a group calling itself Casuals United, they realised there was potential for a national movement. Robinson said members wore balaclavas to protect their identities because league members had been targeted by Muslim extremists.

But although the league publicly espouses peaceful protest, there is growing concern over its secrecy and quasi-paramilitary appearance - as well as some of its membership. According to the international anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, far-right British National Party activists and other fascist extremists are at the core of the league. The publication's allegations have been backed by a former league member called Paul Ray who claimed that the group had been hijacked by the anti-immigration British National Party.

Then there is Casuals United. The group came to the fore about the time the English Defence League was formed. An unprecedented alliance of football hooligans, it was the brainchild of Jeff Marsh, a member of Cardiff City's Soul Crew who has been convicted three times for violent offences. This included a two-year jail sentence for stabbing Manchester United fans. Marsh has now taken a back seat, so the public face of Casuals United is fellow Welshman and Soul Crew member Mickey Smith.

Casuals United makes full use of modern communications and uses social networking websites such as Facebook to organise the 50 or so gangs that have been recruiting members around Britain. Other neo-Nazi groups, including the British People's Party and the British Freedom Fighters, have also participated in league protests, despite their opposition to the league's multiracial position.

A 'perfect storm'?

The high command of the league is much more astute than its foot soldiers, however, and distances itself from violence. In a Covent Garden pub I meet a computer expert from London called Alan Lake who runs a website called Four Freedoms. Last summer he contacted the league and offered to fund and advise the movement.

His aim, he says, is to unite the "thinkers" and those prepared to take to the streets. He describes this marriage as "the perfect storm coming together," adding that street violence is not desirable but perhaps inevitable. "There are issues when you are dealing with football thugs - but what can we do?"

He strongly criticises fascist organisations, however, and says that one of his conditions for backing the movement is that it does not associate with far-right groups. "There are different groups infiltrating and trying to cause rifts by one means or another, or trying to waylay the organisation to different agendas. The intention is to exclude those groups and individuals."

But while some league leaders may oppose fascism, there are others who seem to have no problem with extremism. At league protests in Swansea, Wales, skinheads chanted British National Party slogans and raised Nazi salutes. In Northern Ireland, according to Searchlight, loyalists have started an Ulster Defence League, backed by the former paramilitary group the Ulster Defence Association, while in Scotland, the hooligan Inter City Firm attached to Rangers football club helped set up a Scottish Defence League.

At an EDL protest in the city of Leicester, the movement's supporters pelted police officers with bottles, cans, bricks and coins resulting in 17 arrests. One police officer suffered a broken leg.

The EDL protest garnered the largest police deployment in Leicestershire since the miners' strike 25 years ago. Police deployed 1,400 officers from 12 forces to deal with around 1,000 EDL supporters and a counter demo of around 700 anti-fascists.

During the demo, the International Arts Centre Fabrika had to be evacuated, with journalists and staff making their escape through the back entrance as EDL protesters attempted to break into the building and smashed windows. The Leicester Mercury, a local newspaper, reported that there were also confrontations between the protesters and a group of Asian and black men in the Humberstone Road area, near St Matthew's, with pockets of fighting.

What is concerning many people in Britain is that the movement is becoming more organised and stronger and feeding off growing Islamaphobia. With its anti-Islam stance, the EDL has been gaining support from abroad. Pamela Gellar, the woman leading the protest against the Islamic centre near Ground Zero in New York, has backed the movement and EDL members were welcomed when they flew to the US to oppose the Muslim community's plans on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Leader Robinson was refused entry at JFK airport, however, and taken into custody and flown straight back to the UK.

Support has also come from Europe and on October 30, the EDL joined forces with the newly formed French and Dutch Defence Leagues at an event in Amsterdam. The meeting, organised by the European Freedom Initiative, was promoted as a demonstration for freedom and in opposition to Sharia. It was planned to coincide with the end of Dutch politician Geert Wilders' trial for hate speech and inciting racism.

The fears are, however, that European cities could soon be witnessing the widespread violence being experienced in Britain.

al-Jazeera

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

We must stand together on this

Last weekend 2,000 supporters of the English Defence League (EDL) invaded Leicester. They claimed to stand up for Englishness against Islamic extremism, but in truth they came for trouble. Almost as soon as they arrived they began fighting with police, putting four in hospital, and in the process throwing army issue smoke grenades, fire crackers and ball bearings at police horses and dogs

During one charge, which resulted in a police officer being repeatedly stamped on, others in the crowd chanted "let him die". As the event finished hundreds of EDL supporters rampaged through local streets indiscriminately attacking local Asians. These were not acts of patriotism but the destructive efforts of racist thugs and football hooligans.

On October 24 the EDL plan to hold a solidarity demonstration outside the Israeli embassy to which they have invited a little-known American rabbi, in a cynical ploy aimed at cultivating hatred between Jews and Muslims.

While many in the Jewish community have understandable concerns about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, it is important to remember that the EDL are not our friends. Searchlight has been running local campaigns against the EDL, in the same way that we work to defeat the politics of hate espoused by the BNP. We seek to mobilise communities to stand together around common values which unite us. In Leicester this meant over 6,000 local residents standing together against the hatred of the EDL. One Leicester, United Together. Next week it is the turn of the Jewish community to stand united against this hatred.

Extremism is extremism, whatever form it comes in, and the EDL is a genuine threat to social cohesion and peaceful communities. And extremism only breeds extremism. The EDL set out to whip up trouble and tensions, hoping to provoke a violent reaction from young Muslims. In the short term this divides communities, in the longer term it only pushes people to more extreme groups.

But with the threat comes an opportunity and we must use the concern over the EDL to bring people together. One of the most moving movements of our peace vigil in Leicester last weekend was when the leader of the Muslim community read out a message of support from the local Jewish community. "A rock thrown at a mosque is a rock thrown at a synagogue," the message read. This produced a massive cheer and highlights what is possible when we stand together against hatred.

Nick Lowles is editor of Searchlight magazine

Jewish Chronicle

Former Legionnaire leads BNP in Northern Ireland

When the BNP quietly announced it had appointed a new regional organiser for Northern Ireland it was clearly looking forward to an upsurge in its embarrassingly low membership in the province.

The previous organiser, Kieran Devlin, who used the alias Kieran Dinsmore, was a painfully camera-shy club doorman who organised party meetings in such secrecy that few of the region’s 50-odd members were told of them. Terrified of being caught up in the continuing media exposure of the BNP’s activities in the province, Devlin earned the nickname “Twitcher” from staff at the party’s Belfast call centre after the panicked telephone calls he made to them from behind the curtains of his Clandeboye Road, Bangor home, complaining that journalists were stalking him at his front gate.

One of the main reasons for the BNP’s recruitment problems is its lack of understanding of the political and religious geography of Northern Ireland. One of Devlin’s biggest stumbling blocks was his apparently Irish Catholic name, despite his English parents and military background.

Devlin is said to have complained about the lack of support for the local party from call centre staff. Very few of the people entrusted with running the party office in the six counties are local and those who are refuse to be associated with the party publicly. The staff who moved to Northern Ireland to work behind the now notorious steel shutters in Dundonald seem unwilling to leave the seclusion of the villages of Ballygowan or Comber, let alone venture into downtown Belfast, for fear of bumping into Republicans.

Devlin’s replacement is Steven Moore (pictured), an all-things-military-obsessed former French Legionnaire with a penchant for red wine and Liverpool football club. Moore was appointed after the party held an internal enquiry into how, in an area so wracked with racist violence and paramilitary history and tensions, it has failed to convert complimentary support into membership. Moore put himself forward for the job as some kind of “super-Prod”, claiming he could reach into loyalist communities and organisations and even stop the constant Searchlight exposés of the BNP in Northern Ireland by speaking to a “number of community groups”. This is common vernacular for paramilitaries.

Devlin’s departure was welcomed by local BNP members, not least because of his Catholic-sounding name. When the Sunday World with the help of Searchlight exposed Moore as the new leader of “Ulster BNP” and wrote a rather derisory epitaph for Devlin/Dinsmore in June, even the local BNP’s own blog joined in. “His [the Sunday World’s journalist] attack centred on the outgoing Organiser and to a certain extent i [sic] agreed with him,” wrote the blogger responsible for promoting the BNP in Northern Ireland.

Moore may claim to have all the Protestant credentials needed to run the BNP in Northern Ireland, but he also comes with the usual embarrassment of sectarian hatreds and relaxed attitude towards rape and violence.

In April, Moore joked how he had been arrested after raping a female work colleague for an April Fool’s joke and made unsavoury comments about the blind.

Moore gets a nod of approval from Devlin for his description of the pogrom against Roma families in south Belfast two years ago as an act against people who are “inherently criminal” and “Stinking Gypsy bastards”.

When Moore isn’t posting videos by white power bands such as Skrewdriver on Facebook, he reveals his fancy for all things “Third Reich” by sharing videos of Adolf Hitler with his online friends. One apparent favourite is entitled: “Why the world cannot forget Adolf Hitler”. He also has a penchant for songs and videos of the German Wehrmacht.

Elsewhere, Moore has thrown his energies into trying to stop a mosque allegedly being built in Ballymena, the heartland of Paisleyism. Like most BNP members, Moore calls Muslims “ragheads” and Catholics “taigs”.

What with BNP leader Nick Griffin’s daughter Jenny now beating the drum for hardline Protestants, perhaps “super-Prod” Moore will win the sort of support that eluded Devlin.

Searchlight