English Teabaggers: The EDL vs “COMMUNISM!!!!”

A couple of left-wing websites have noted the English Defence League’s new target: union power and Communism. A couple of days ago the EDL’s site told us that

The EDL know that unions have a part to play to protect workers’ rights, to ensure that employees are treated fairly in the workplace. However it would seem that these unions have become more powerful, more influential and more militant in the political sphere, this is where vested interests infringe upon a democratic political platform, so much so that democracy seems to be ebbing away right before our eyes and its replacement………COMMUNISM!!!!

Great Britain doesn’t do Communism, it never has, yet Communists are afforded more influence and more power as the Labour party look to fund its upcoming election campaign.

Lenin’s Tomb and Barrykade suggest that this is the organisation’s “true colours”, and this is shows that the EDL has an agenda beyond simply opposing “Islamic extremism” – attention is drawn to the fact that the EDL has a millionaire businessman sugar-daddy.

There are, though, a couple of other factors: It’s clear that the EDL would rather people support parties such as UKIP or the English Democrats over mainstream parties, and Labour’s association with the Unite union is a topical knocking-point. Perhaps we are also seeing the importing of rhetoric from the USA, where the crudest 1950s-style anti-Communist posturing has enjoyed a renewed lease of life over the past year or so. I recently noted Pamela Geller’s reference to Obama as the “mad Commie clown”, and this kind of thing is now commonplace among the “teabaggers” – Geller has written posts commending the EDL to American conservatives, and the EDL in turn has directed traffic to her site.

More widely, Communist groups have shown up at Unite Against Fascism anti-EDL events waving around hammer-and-sickle iconography, and the Trotskyist SWP looms large within the UAF. Naturally, just as the UAF denounces the EDL of having semi-hidden far-right links (a subject I have also written on), so the EDL will point to the UAF’s far-left links, as a matter of tit-for-tat. There are also, of course, actual links between far-left groups and Islamists.

Meanwhile, EDL members are also planning a rally on a “Not Compatible with Britain” theme, attacking the BNP along with neo-Nazis and Communists. Anarchists don’t get off lightly, either…

Bartholomew's Notes on Religion

Journalists' fury over BNP ad in South Wales Evening Post

Journalists at the South Wales Evening Post have reacted with anger after discovering an advert for the BNP was to be published in the paper.

One insider told Press Gazette: "As journalists we find it abhorrent that the paper can carry an advert from the BNP and take their money, especially when we have put out editorial opposing this. We want to disassociate ourselves from this advert and from the views being put across by the BNP."

The advert shows a picture of a family next to the BNP's logo, encouraging voters to choose the BNP in this week's Welsh election with quotes including: "... because the politicians are wrong turning Wales into a foreign country without ever asking us."

The advert concludes: "That's why you know there will be so many people like you voting BNP on 3 May."

A sub-editor found out about the advert on Monday and it was published on Tuesday. Journalists have sent emails to South West Wales Media managing director Chris Rees and editor Spencer Feeney expressing their opposition.

The National Union of Journalists looked into taking out a similar-sized advert in the paper opposing the views put forward by the BNP and was told it would cost £1,000. The plan was scrapped on cost grounds and because the ad would not have appeared until after the election.

An NUJ member on the paper said the union enquired about writing a letter for publication instead, but they were told the paper had a policy of not publishing such letters during elections.

NUJ assistant organiser for the North and Midlands, and former organiser for Wales, Jenny Lennox said: "As far as the NUJ is concerned we don't think anyone should be putting out that kind of advert in the press. In Swansea, race relations have been quite tense and it is likely to make things worse. Journalists were so angry they wanted to walk out of the building yesterday, but the Post is a Northcliffe paper which is very anti-union and it is difficult for them to do that.

"We argue that when we have elections we should have balanced and fair reporting, but letting them take out an advert is effectively not letting any other side be seen. It's not putting a balanced argument forward at all."

The company declined to comment.

online press gazette