ESSEX: Right-wing group English Defence League setting up new division in county

A controversial right-wing group linked with violent protests across the UK is setting up an Essex division.

Members of the English Defence League, who often wear masks or balaclavas, publicly protest against militant Islam, with many of their protest marches ending in violent clashes. The group, which stirs up anger through racist chanting and inflammatory placards, has already been banned from several towns across the UK.

Organisers recently met in Chelmsford to discuss plans to expand the group by setting up a new division in Essex – and an online forum has been launched, which is already recruiting members. However, despite repeated attempts to contact the EDL leader, no one from the group, who often keep their identities secret, was willing to talk to the Chronicle to put forward their point of view.

The group claims it is not anti-immigration and has no issues with moderate Muslims, but it has been blamed for damaging community relations in areas where it is active.

Chelmsford police chief inspector Joe Wrigley told the Chronicle he had heard whisperings of the EDL setting up locally and had informed Special Branch, the police unit responsible for national security and the threats of terrorism and extremism. He said: "A group with such racist views is not welcome in Chelmsford and we will work hard to protect the public, and particularly minority groups, from such extremism."

The EDL started life in Luton as a reaction to radical Muslim groups chanting anti-war slogans during a homecoming parade by the Royal Anglian Regiment.

At a demonstration in Birmingham last August, EDL fanatics clashed with left-wing members of Unite Against Facism, with 35 people being arrested. The EDL was later banned from marching through Luton by police, who feared their presence would be damaging to race relations.

Chelmsford MP Simon Burns said: "Fortunately, Chelmsford is a reasonable place where there is no significant polarisation and the community lives in harmony together. I do not think it is necessary or helpful for the establishment of an organisation of this nature, which has the potential to upset that harmony."

Faheem Akhtar, a Muslim who has lived in Chelmsford since he moved from Pakistan in 1959, and worked as a senior engineer at Marconi for 48 years, said: "These people have the wrong idea about Islam. Extremism is not a part of Islam and our religion tells us that when we live in a foreign country we must obey the laws of that country."

The group is shunned by fellow right-wingers in the British National Party, which claims the EDL's confrontational tactics are not compatible with the BNP's attempts to position itself as a legitimate political party.

The EDL did not respond to the Chronicle's requests to speak about their plans.

Essex Chronicle

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up.

From Welshpool with love...

Do you remember the ludicrous story the BNP tried to inflict on a weary public back in April 2006 in which Nick Griffin was alleged to have been the target of an assassination attempt? It doesn't really matter if you do or not because the story wasn't true, as we explained here. In the same article, we referred to another work of fantasy - the story that, in February 2007, Griffin had been attacked by a bunch of thugs on his way to a meeting but that his assailants were fought off by his heroic, if steroid-bound, bodyguard, Martin Reynolds. That one also never happened.

We referred to these flights of fantasy as a couple of the top-ten list of classic BNP lies and up until today I personally would have expected the fake assassination attempt to make the number one spot. Now though, we have a new contender...

Simon Bennett, supposedly some kind of computer whiz (though he seems to have made a real dogs dinner of the BNP site), has, it is alleged by the fantasists at BNP HQ, been approached by Special Branch, who not only asked him to provide them with information on what went on at branch level but also offered him £200 in used notes as an incentive.

According to the report on the BNP's website, Bennett had just returned from a 'business trip' to Northern Ireland when he was stopped and held by the police, the offer being apparently made at that point using the pretext that SB was keeping an eye out for potential extremists inside the party.

If this is the case, why on earth would Special Branch approach a known Griffin-loyalist who makes money out of the party (and apparently has his own business) to take him on as an informer and, a rather better question, why would they offer him an amount like £200 which, to the likes of Bennett, who can afford to gallivant to and fro across the Irish Sea, is a pittance?

Although highly improbable, the story isn't that bad so far - or at least until the BNP try being clever in the report and go just a little over the top.

Having told Nick Griffin and several other key officials about the approach, Mr Bennett was given the ‘OK’ to continue and to see how long it took them to get down to their real business. He met them several times over the following few weeks and, once again, they didn’t do anything other than say how much they agreed with large amounts of BNP policy.

When they called him to another meeting in a local pub, however, one of the two handed Mr. Bennett a menu. Inside were several photos of individuals and he was asked if he could identify any of them. He said that he couldn’t and gave the menu back, only to have a roll of twenty pound notes shoved into his hand...the SB men told Mr Bennet that they had prepared a safe house for him because he had to “be protected.” Mr Bennett was given the code name ‘Nicky Price’ and told to text in a message to the agents every night “to let them know he was safe.”

“The safe house story was obviously made up,” Mr Bennet said. “They said they were on their way back down from Windermere, which told me that they had gone up there to carry out surveillance on the premises where the meeting was to be held, and most likely to bug it with a listening device.”

(The meeting went ahead as planned, but the attendees, all warned in advance, were careful to ensure that they did not discuss anything indoors which they did not want the Special Branch to know.)

“That’s far enough for me. I’ve donated their bribe to the party, and am going public so they know that they have no hold on me. I think it’s disgusting that, at a time when they still haven’t caught the Islamic extremists who groomed and duped a Special Needs youngster into trying to bomb the Giraffe restaurant in Plymouth, the secret police are wasting time and taxpayers’ money trying to subvert the British National Party.”

Oh dear. A safe house? A menu with photo's tucked away inside? A fake name? All this on a pay-off worth a measly £200? I suppose we should only be grateful that the whole thing didn't take place on a bench in Kew Gardens. You know the kind of thing. Scene opens with man sitting at bench eating an ice cream, another man sits on bench putting newspaper down beside him, second man leaves a couple of minutes later without newspaper, ice cream man picks up newspaper and wanders off, inside newspaper are plans for secret Russian submarine base in Norway, world is saved from encroaching threat of Communism, play music, roll credits, fade out. Ian Fleming, eat your heart out.

So let's take a quick look at Simon Bennett. Is he the serious kind, who would risk all to play the role of James Bond within SPECTRE SMERSH the BNP? No, because he's a childish idiot. Look at this tosh. And it seems he runs three websites that one would have assumed to be completely independent; those belonging to the BNP, NLP and Third Way. Bennett is a strange and dodgy character and is, I would have thought, a very unlikely candidate for Special Branch to select as an informer. On the other hand, he seems to be trusted by Griffin, as witness his trip over to Northern Ireland where he was, we are told, negotiating a new rental deal for the Lie Lorry - the vehicle the membership of the BNP raised money to purchase, not rent.

Special Branch must be on overtime if the BNP is to be believed, for it claims that there has been a second recruitment attempt, this of one Kieran Dinsmore, the party's Northern Ireland organiser. Dinsmore, it seems, was followed home from work but was not offered a safe house, a false name, a fake moustache or a tiny spy camera the size of a molecule. That'll teach him not to watch James Bond films.

Just to drive the point that we are actually in the middle of a film set and that the BNP is in fiction a good deal more exciting than in real life, the party claims that a further two attempts have been made to recruit for Special Branch.

We can also report that we are already aware of two other BNP members — one of them not even a local official — who have been approached by Special Branch officers under the guise of making inquiries into people’s safety after the List leak, in an attempt to recruit them as informers.

We wondered what had caused this attack of fantasy mania - but the end of the article suddenly makes everything clear.

“In all probability there are other individuals out there right now who have been sucked in completely and are now wracked with guilt over letting down their friends and colleagues. Fortunately, there is no need for anyone to bear that burden...All anyone who has been groomed by the Special Branch into becoming an informer has to do to put it all behind them is to come and tell us...We’re not worried about what Smith’s Snoops have been told, or how long it’s been going on. We want to get their snouts out of our lawful business, and will not hold anything against anyone who comes clean. We’re not even going to shout about it, but we do need to be told.

Nick Griffin, no doubt encouraged by his South African spook-run 'Intelligence Team', is on his annual paranoia kick. Last year it was Searchlight moles and December rebel supporters; before that was the furore over the party's treatment of Sharon Ebanks and its obsession with kicking her and her supporters out, and this year it's Special Branch recruiting wholesale - all of which leads us to the final and most important part of the story.

Finally, for the large numbers of non-member readers who may not have come across this sort of thing before except in novels, please ask yourselves if you are happy living in a country where a politicised police force spies on opposition parties and arrests their activists, MPs and leaders. And, make up your mind to do something to help restore the democracy for which so many of our people have sacrificed so much...You could make up your mind to join the British National Party right now, or at least make a donation to help our fight back against Labour’s creeping tyranny. Persecuted BNP teacher Mark Walker needs £3,000 in legal fees URGENTLY to get his appeal finalised. Civil Liberty has already found £500 but it’s up to us to give him the rest...Mark has a young family to look after this Christmas, so it wouldn’t be fair to leave him to find that money. He’s at the frontline of our fight, at the frontline of the struggle to preserve your freedom. Please hit back by helping him now. Thank you.

Yes, that's what all the James Bond rubbish leads to - yet another piss-poor attempt to screw a load of money out of the BNP membership, by making use of the party's corporate persecution complex and using Mark Walker's case (and a mention of Christmas) as a final twist. Why does Walker need money? Isn't he represented freely by Solidarity? Isn't he taking legal advice freely from legal whiz Lee Barnes?

The truth is he doesn't need the money any more than any of us do - but what's the betting that the next payment for the Lie Lorry is around £2500-3000?

The BNP's stories and lies get more extravagant all the time but it's difficult to know how they'll get better than the rubbish they've used on this occasion. Perhaps next time, the story will involve Batman in some way. Or possibly Jack Bauer. The only thing we can be absolutely sure of is that it won't involve the truth.