EDL logic bypass...

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EDL logic bypass: "Lets duff up this guy who nicked my photo..." "Yeah, I'd recognise his face anywhere!"

Cheers to Everything EDL for the screenshot

The 'non-racist' EDL 'Dreaming of a White Christmas'.

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Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

Motherwell fans' sickening Nazi salutes at event to launch book on 'SS' hooligans

Grinning fans did Nazi salutes outside an SPL ground to mark the launch of a book glorifying football hooligans.

The notorious Motherwell Saturday Service - who call themselves the “SS” - organised the stunt on the steps at Fir Park. Last night, club bosses were examining the sick images and discussing whether to launch an investigation.

The SS initially hired a room at Fir Park for the launch of the book Dressers. But club bosses got wind of it and cancelled the bash. The ragtag bunch still managed to hold the event at the independent Fir Park Social Club, opposite Motherwell FC’s ground. Around 140 of the group posed for photos on the steps outside the Phil O’Donnell stand, with some doing “sieg heil” salutes.

Motherwell FC stressed that the event took part in the social club, which has no links to the football club. A spokesman said: “We are trying to be Scotland’s premier family andcommunity club and we are trying to portray a message that this the club is all welcoming to everybody – families and children. We condemn football violence in the highest possible way.”

The club do not know if the people at the event were regular fans. The spokesman added: “We don’t know any of these people. Because it’s outside the ground, it makes itdifficult for us to do anything. People can walk up and do anything.”

The spokesman added that the event was booked simply as a “book launch”. He said: “The club found out what the book involved was and cancelled the booking and told them to seek alternative premises. That was in the middleof the week leading up to the event.”

The Motherwell SS were named in tribute to Hitler’s ruthless Schutzstaffel squad, who carried out some of the worst atrocities of World War II. SS is also the initials of the name given for the book’s author, Stanley Smith. Promotional blurb for the book brazenly tells how it “chronicles the rise of one of Scotland’s original football casual groups, pioneering the fashion that was to become central to the Saturday afternoon fracas in town centres and at football grounds all over Scotland”.

Fir Park Social Club did not respond to repeated requests to comment.

Daily Record

Thanks to Anon for the heads-up

Attack of the EDL zombies

Click on image if you're a masochist

Thanks to Paul for the image

What the Royal British Legion thinks of the English Defence League

EDL News

Tales of terrace warfare told in hooligans book

The violent world of Bolton’s football hooligans has been exposed in a controversial new book.

Walking Down The Manny Road tells the story of Bolton’s various “firms” or gangs, uniting under the name of The Cuckoo Boys, and their clashes with rival groups attached to other football clubs. It also describes the hooligans’ links with the English Defence League and their presence at EDL rallies, including the protest in Bolton town centre in March last year.

The book is written by Doug Mitchell, who claims to have been a member of The Cuckoo Boys for 30 years. He describes how mobs such as the Tonge Moor Stanley Boys, The Horwich Casuals, The Halliwell Cutters Crew and the Billy Whizz Fan Club united under The Cuckoo Boys banner.

A story in The Bolton Evening News, from May 19, 1990, is quoted in the opening pages, describing the hooligans as “Thugs who peddle terror in the name of Bolton Wanderers”.

Mr Mitchell moved to Bolton from Edinburgh when he was eight, and grew up in Farnworth. He first found a taste for “recreational violence”, he says, when he took part in organised fights between schools — as a pupil at George Tomlinson’s he says he regularly fought with groups from St James’s and Harper Green.

The book charts hooliganism from several decades ago, right up to the present day While the book defends the EDL, claiming it is not a racist organisation, it also describes some of the hooligans who support the organisation as openly racist.

A spokesman for Bolton Wanderers said he had not heard of the book. Bolton Wanderers Supporters Association secretary Christopher Peacock said: “Hooligan is a prehistoric and outdated phenomenon and anything that glorifies it should be considered with the same disdain as hooliganism itself.”

Bolton News

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

English Defence League Join Rioters and attack the Police

A two hundred srong mob of middle aged English Defence League members threw bottles and fought with Police in Eltham in south London last night. Many were drinking from cans bought from the supermarket, EDL slogans were chanted and bottles were thrown at Welsh police wjo were draffted in from other parts of south London to deal with the disturbances. The far right organisation has a long history of violence at their demos

Video has emerged on the Telegraph website of EDL members attacked a group of black kids on a bus. We also understand that there have been multiple EDL arrests in Leicester lasst night. Leicestershire Police say they have arrested the EDL's regional organiser.

Today Clive Efford, Labour MP for Eltham, south London asked in a recalled parliament about far right groups using the riots to further their own agenda. Prime Minister David Cameron replied by stating that he spoke of 'sick individuals in society and none are as sick as the English Defence League'.

On the tuesday night, Efford spoke of the people who had spent the day working on operation #riotcleanup and EDL members took to the street of Eltham, the group had been drinking all day and tied up much needed police presence in a time when we needed all the police we can on the street.

The trouble in Eltham comes only two weeks after their Plymouth Division attacked a family-run restaurant and several members were arrested

Further information and more video from the Telegraph.

'Riot police were hit with missiles including bottles as more than 1,000 officers battled with dozens of middle-aged men on the streets Eltham, south-east London.

Witnesses reported that many of the 200 men were chanting in support of the English Defence League, the controversial Right-wing group. The group had promised to defy police orders and mobilise their own forces to protect their families and businesses from mobs of looters.

Last night hundreds of police from eight separate forces tried to restore calm from the mainly white men. Earlier they had claimed they were “protecting” local shops and businesses for a second consecutive night. With shops and pubs in the high street shut, the group brought carrier bags containing beer and drank and sat on benches.

Riot police eventually restored order after charging at the crowd. At least one person was arrested.

Around 60 EDL supporters had gathered in the square in the town drinking cans of beer and chanting "We love you England".

“Officers had missiles thrown at them this evening,” a Scotland Yard spokesman said. “Police have dealt with the disorder and the group has been dispersed. Police remain on the scene.”

Local police denied the group were comprised of EDL members.

But furious locals vented their anger at what they described as “outsider vigilantes” arriving in the area and sparking fights, particularly with police. Over the past few nights, residents in London have taken to the streets with baseball bats, swords and hockey sticks to defend their property after the police lost control.

There have been concerns that far-Right organisations had tried to take advantage of the social tensions by hijacking the “vigilante” armies. The EDL claimed that about 100 of its members were helping to protect the streets of Enfield on Tuesday night.

The league was also encouraging people to join a group of men in Eltham planning to guard their high street.

As many as 1,500 Sikhs, some in their eighties, had patrolled west London neighbourhoods around temples in Southall and Hounslow on Tuesday night, chasing rioters away. In Dalston, east London, Turkish shopkeepers armed with bats and pool cues saw off a gang of masked men. In Hackney, east London, Kingsland High Street was lined with Turkish and Kurdish men on Tuesday night, some carrying sticks. In Enfield, north London, an estimated 300 locals turned out to protect property on Tuesday after two nights of rioting.

Police said anybody taking the law into their own hands, however well intentioned, would divert police resources away from the looters and arsonists.

Steve Kavanagh, the deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said: “What I don’t need is these so-called vigilantes, who appeared to have been drinking too much. These are small pockets of people. They’re frustrated, they’re angry, and that’s totally understandable.

“But the support that we need is to allow those officers to prevent looting and crime.” He said it was “ironic” that media pictures showed looting in areas where there were “no police available” while officers were being diverted to stop vigilantes elsewhere.

“That needs to stop,” he said.

Under the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, home owners who use “reasonable force” to protect themselves should not face prosecution. However, they must not use more force than necessary. Experts say this can come down to a subtle difference, with anyone who chases an attacker likely to be at risk of committing an offence.'

EDL News

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

Racist vigilantes on the loose

This is terrifying. I did tell you the Right was going crazy. Now, the racists have an opportunity to go on the rampage. In Enfield, dozens of white men aged between 30 and 40 were out earlier, chasing down Hertford Road yelling "Get the pakis". Paul Lewis reports:

"It was only a minor skirmish, but a potentially bad sign for community relations. Police, who have flooded the streets, were quickly on the scene when about 70 men started chasing local youths.

I wouldn't mention their ethnicity, but it seemed to be relevant. The men were white - in their 30s and 40s - and shouting that they wanted to get the "blacks" and "pakis". Lots of them seemed drunk. One man being held back by police shouted: "They're rats, they mugged my Auntie the other night."

Jay Bradley, 30, a witness, told me: "What happened here? What I just saw - everyone from this area aren't gonna have any looting. What I saw was a couple of ethnic lads, if you can call them that, black lads, and they chased them away.

A lot of it is alcohol - I don't think the kids were doing anything. They were just on bikes and in masks.

But no-one around here is going to stand for any looting. What are we supposed to do. The Co-op is closed and we're running out of food."

I don't believe that this is just a spontaneous response to looters. When the BNP membership list was leaked, it emerged that there were a number of members scattered around the lower middle class areas, and I wouldn't be surprised if they, along with local EDL supporters, were among those out tonight. The emergence of racist vigilantism is not unique to Enfield. It's also emerged that racist Millwall fans are supposedly 'protecting' Eltham tonight. Apparently, the EDL have been marching through the area. [Update: local residents and Millwall fans both assure me that this is untrue, and that it's just locals protecting themselves. Which, if true, is a relief - but one is still uneasy about vigilantes in football gear posing as defenders of the community.] This is why we urgently need a political response to these riots that organises communities around the issue of justice for victims of police violence. The IPCC have said tonight that Mark Duggan did not shoot at police officers. This, to me, suggests that his death was an execution, and that the bullet in the police radio may have been post-mortem framing. Either way, the police certainly lied about the circumstances of Mark Duggan's death, and this is a major cause of the anger in black communities, as it should be everywhere. There urgently needs to be an intervention on this by anti-racists and the Left.

Update: Given that there are lots of unsupported rumours flying about, I think it's important to add a couple of important qualifications to this post. A lot of the rumours going about are originating from the far right themselves - part of their propaganda about being men of action, etc. And some of them could result in people getting hurt. Naturally, I have no wish to contribute to either, so I'm just being cautious. First of all, I have heard conflicting things about the far right being involved in Enfield, but as yet no proof of this has emerged. It may well be just local racists. Guardian journalist Paul Lewis is being careful to say he only witnessed a brief skirmish (though, from the footage I've seen, it was a really nasty, scary event). Second, loads of people have been tweeting me to say it's not the EDL in Eltham. (There is some footage of what appear to be EDL being kettled there, but not the 400-strong mob that the casuals were bragging about). I'm still not okay with vigilantism, but there are degrees of danger. I'm not arguing for complacency. There are some real fascist efforts at stirring. Most of it has been kettled by the cops so far, however. So, I would bear these points in mind when you're scanning social media for updates.

Lenin's Tomb

Thanks to NewsHound and others for the heads-up

EDL youth facing jail over brawl

A teenager from north-west London who is a prominent member of the English Defence League (EDL) is facing jail over his role in a pre-arranged fight between football hooligans.

Joel Titus, 18, took part in the bloody brawl between Brentford and Leyton Orient supporters outside Liverpool Street station in central London in May last year. The A-level student was captured on CCTV hurling objects at rivals and fighting over a wooden pole with another thug.

Titus had previously been cautioned for battery after punching a journalist at a right-wing demonstration against the "Islamification of Europe" in December 2009, the Old Bailey heard. Earlier this year he was found guilty of threatening behaviour after snarling "f*** off" at a police officer who tried to break up a fight.

He is reported to be a youth organiser for the EDL and has appeared on the BBC Newsnight programme talking about his role in protests.

Titus, of North View, Pinner, appeared in court alongside five other men, all of whom admitted a charge of affray at earlier hearings. They are: Dean Wells, 24, of Isleworth, west London; Steven Donovan, 20, of Hayes, Middlesex; Andrew Hudson, 26, of Hornchurch, Essex; David Mitchell, 19, of Littlehampton, West Sussex; and Thomas Armstrong, 24, of Woodford Green, Essex.

All six were remanded in custody to be sentenced on Wednesday.

Copyright © 2011 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

Press Association

Thanks to Abu for the heads-up

Brewery moves to ban EDL meetings

A leading brewery has banned a right wing group from holding meetings at a Stafford pub, following an investigation by the Post.

We have learned the English Defence League (EDL), which has founded a local division, has met at least once this year at the Princess Royal on Sandon Road. And last week its 90-strong Facebook page, ‘English Defence League Stafford Division’, was calling for ‘the people of Stafford’ to meet there again. But after the Post informed Marston’s, the owners of the pub, of the EDL’s plans they told us there would be ‘no further meetings of this kind’ there.

Last week, we reported how the EDL, which opposes what it sees as the spread of Islamism, Sharia law and Islamic ‘extremism’ in England and is infamous for its protest marches, had been infiltrating the borough. In January last year 17 protestors were arrested following an EDL march through Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.

As well as holding meetings in Stafford, local school pupils had signed up to a separate Facebook group supporting the EDL’s cause. Local heads voiced their concern over the on-line group and it has now been shut down.

This week, a spokesperson for Marston’s told the Post the group had once again been ‘shut down’ in the town: “Marston’s has no political affiliations, nor do we condone the actions of their parties. However, we have over 1,700 pubs in our tenanted estate and cannot regulate all meetings that take place within them. In this instance we can confirm that there will be no further meetings of this kind at the Princess Royal.”

Ward borough councillor for the area, Bill Simpson, welcomed the move: “It was rather a surprise to hear they were having meetings there but I am very pleased that the brewery have taken positive action to remove them from the premises.”

A recent posting on the ‘English Defence League Stafford Division’ reads: “Stafford division had a meeting the other day and it went well...we can only grow in strength and support. EDL [is] a way of life, no surrender.”

The pub is currently begin run by an agency appointed by Marston’s while a new tenant is sought.

icStafford

Three sentenced for their parts in EDL protest disorder in Leicester

Three men were sentenced yesterday for their part in the public disorder which accompanied the English Defence League protest in Leicester

Two of the men, who denied having any official political affiliation with the EDL, were among a group hurling missiles at the Independent Arts Centre Fabrika, in Humberstone Gate.

Christopher Chapman (22), of Armdale Drive, Netherhall, Leicester, was handed a 12-week suspended prison sentence, by city magistrates. Unemployed Chapman pleaded guilty to causing £1,000 worth of damage to doors and windows at the venue and using threatening words and behaviour which caused people to fear for their safety. At a previous hearing, Chapman's solicitor said he was "politically naive" and was still "suffering the effects" of the previous night's drinking.

Andrew Millard (27), of Bradmore Grove, Birmingham, was ordered to do 100 hours unpaid community work. Millard, who has a five-year banning order from football grounds for hooliganism, admitted a charge of attempting to damage the arts centre with a large wooden pole. Ian Johnson, prosecuting Millard, said the group attacked the building after spotting members of the media covering last October's protest from first floor windows. CCTV cameras filmed Millard picking up a large wooden pole, throwing it at the building but missing.

Chris Stewart, in mitigation, said: "It was a pathetic and half-hearted attempt."

Ryan Stapleford, of Ashby Road, Ibstock, was ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work in the community after admitting to launching a "flying kick" on a Muslim man on the afternoon of the EDL demonstration. The 18-year-old, who was filmed on CCTV attacking the man outside Benny's Chicken, in Granby Street, claimed he had been defending a friend who had persuaded him to accompany him to the protest.

Leicester Mercury

Killers were known to police for links to far-right group and football violence

Daryll Jones, left, and Mark Jackson

Two murderers of a vulnerable Lincoln man had links to the far-right English Defence League, according to police.

Daryll Jones, 17, and Mark Jackson, 21, were two of the top targets in Lincolnshire Police's attempts to ban people from the Sincil Bank area on Lincoln City match days. They were identified by football intelligence officers along with ten others in Operation Argyll.

As reported in the Echo, this operation aims to use civil football banning orders to stop people hanging around with suspected troublemakers. But the cases against Jones and Jackson, of Yarborough Road, Lincoln, were put on hold after they were arrested on suspicion of killing football enthusiast Shaun Rossington.

Asperger's sufferer Shaun, 21, of Dunkirk Road, was found to have suffered more than 40 injuries. He was punched, kicked and stamped on during the attack on grassland, off Searby Road, on June 3. Jones and Jackson were found guilty of his murder, along with two others, at Nottingham Crown Court on Friday.

Lincolnshire Police football intelligence officer PC Karl Williams said: "When we initially started Operation Argyll, Jones and Jackson were quite prominent. If they had not been charged with murder, they would have been on the scheme. We started to get information on these two every time Lincoln City had a game and there were some indications they were connected to the English Defence League."

In September 2009, Jones and Jackson were banned from entering Lincoln City's Sincil Bank stadium and Lincoln United's Ashby Avenue. Police issued the warnings after the pair were identified in a group that caused disorder at Ashby Avenue and Lincoln train station on August 22, 2009. Jones pleaded guilty to one public order offence related to these incidents last March.

PC Williams said: "The ultimate aim of the operation is to target those youths not only causing problems at the football, but in the city centre and at night on the estates. It was a case if we are able to ban them from the football, it's taking away the chance of them getting convicted of more serious offences. We were compiling the cases on Jones and Jackson and they were quite strong. They were two of our strongest ones and I have no doubt whatsoever we would have got them banned."

Nicolas Shelbourne, 27, of Laughton Way, Lincoln, and Jordan O'Rouke, 17, were also convicted of Shaun's murder. Jurors found a 17-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, guilty of manslaughter. A 16-year-old boy was cleared of all charges. A 14-year-old girl was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Lincolnshire Echo

Young hooligans given match ban

Two Preston North End fans have been banned from football matches for three years

Ryan Parker, 19, of Moorside Avenue, Ribbleton, and Craig Billington, 22, of Newfield Drive, Blackburn, were allegedly involved in disorder at games, Preston Magistrates’ Court was told. Police say the pair were members of the Preston Foot Patrol (PFP) gang, made up of around 30 people aged between 16-22.

Parker was allegedly involved in violence or disorder around matches. Police said he had “caused or contributed” to the trouble between March 2006 and September 2010. And Billington was allegedly involved in disorder between July 2007 and September 2010, the court was told.

Officers applied for civil banning orders for the pair, meaning police have to prove to the court that the pair are “likely to engage in violence and disorder” and a banning order would prevent them from doing so. Both Billington and Parker have been convicted of violent disorder over a brawl in the Academy pub on Church Street, Preston, on St George’s Day, for which they will be sentenced on December 23 along with three other defendants.

PC Paul Elliott, Preston police’s football intelligence officer, said the Academy incident was a “trigger offence” which led to police applying for the bans. He added: “They are in relation to lads who were part of the PFP risk supporters.Over a period of two to three years they have been profiled by myself in relation to their activities at football matches, associating with that risk group and they have previously been involved in disorder in Hull and Staffordshire.”

He said that the PFP group are “fairly well organised.” But because of the powers of civil banning order, which stop hooligans going into the city centre for four hours before or after a match and prevents them from going to Deepdale or any other ground, the activities of the PFP at football have reduced.

Some of the group attached themselves to the English Defence League, which held a protest in the city last month.

PC Elliott added: “They have declined over the past 18 months since we started getting these banning orders. We have not really seen them. At the last Friday night game against Hull on November 12 there were 20-25 Preston Foot Patrol lads out in the New Hall Lane area handing out EDL leaflets for the Preston EDL event. They have moved away from football because of the restrictions we have placed on them. It has been years since there has been disorder at Deepdale stadium itself.”

Lancashire Evening Post

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

English Defence League and the hooligans spreading hate on the High Street

Masked menace: The EDL now has almost 40,000
supporters on its Facebook page. A year ago, it had just 1,500

They call themselves ‘patriots’ and wear masks emblazoned with the red cross of the Knights Templar.

But behind the inflammatory propaganda and war paint of the English Defence League (EDL) — the ­far-Right ‘anti-Islamic extremism’ group that is fast becoming an even more pernicious influence than the BNP — we find such men as Jeff Marsh.

Like all the other EDL ‘patriots’, Marsh — or ‘Marshy’ as he prefers to be known — insists he is not racist. And he is absolutely true to his word in one respect: he was happy to stab or stamp on anyone, black or white, during his career as a football hooligan. ‘Marshy’ wasn’t bothered about colour; violence was the thing. To him, ‘it was better than sex’. So proud is he of his exploits during his heyday in the Seventies and Eighties with the Cardiff City Soul Crew that he has published his ‘memoirs’ on the internet. It would be hard to imagine a more disturbing glorification of sadistic brutality.

‘As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a hooligan,’ he recalls. First match: Millwall. Mass fights. ‘I actually loved it. I was hooked. I’d never been interested in football and I wasn’t interested now, but I could see that football was an opportunity to involve myself in the ultimate gang war. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.’

He describes ‘systematically picking off Gooners’ (Arsenal fans), and ‘Stanleys [knives] glittering in the moonlight’ as they ‘slaughtered’ drunken Geordies. His trademark was ‘a stab wound or two in the leg, and I was famous for it’.

Just posturing? No doubt there’s some of that. But Marsh, now 44 and a father-of-four, has served three jail terms for violence, including a two-year sentence in 1989 for stabbing two Manchester United fans. But now Marshy’s back, and his pernicious influence is being felt — not on the football terraces, but on the streets of towns across Britain.

Marsh, it can be revealed, is not just a rank-and-file member of the EDL. He is one of the key figures in the organisation which has invited anti-Muslim preacher Terry Jones to address a demonstration in Luton early in February. The U.S. pastor caused outrage with plans to burn copies of the Koran at this year’s anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Though the Home Office has indicated that it’s unlikely Jones will be allowed to enter Britain, the news of his proposed visit comes as Adrian Tudway, the head of the police intelligence unit on domestic extremism, revealed that the EDL and related splinter groups have become his biggest concern. He says: ‘We look at the extreme Right and Left, but currently our biggest single area of business is the various groups which call themselves defence leagues.’

Certainly, no one should doubt the group’s intention to bring race conflict on to the streets. The last time the EDL marched through Luton, 250 of them went on the rampage in an Asian area of the town. Shop windows were smashed, cars overturned and a number of people were attacked.

The EDL — and sister groups such as the Welsh Defence League — have been stirring up trouble for the past 18 months by exploiting legitimate concerns over Islamic extremism. At the weekend, it was Peterborough’s turn to experience the face of prejudice when an EDL protest ended in a string of arrests for alleged public order offences, affray and possession of offensive weapons. In October, it was Leicester. Before that, Blackburn, Dudley in the West Midlands, Bolton, Stoke and Nottingham. In all, the EDL has held around 16 marches since being formed in 2009 — and the majority have ended in violence and invariably incur huge policing costs.

Some 1,000 officers from 18 forces were called in to police last Saturday’s Peterborough protests, which Cambridgeshire Constabulary said involved about 500 EDL members.

The aim of the EDL — to counter what it perceives as the Islamification of Britain — is just a cover. The members can’t fight in football stadiums any more because of increased security, so they have united and taken the fight somewhere else and found a new, convenient enemy. Of course, Britain already has one neo-fascist organisation in the BNP. But alarmingly, the EDL believes the BNP doesn’t go far enough. And this rhetoric is underpinned by a disturbing statistic: support for the EDL is increasing.

Though the organisation has no formal membership, it now has almost 40,000 ­supporters on its Facebook page. A year ago, it had just 1,500. It is also developing regional ‘divisions’.

Birmingham, the scene of previous EDL violence, is listed as a ‘division’ of the EDL along with Portsmouth, Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds and so on. Each ‘division’ is represented by the badge or emblem of the local football club. Next to the Millwall division, for example, is the club’s lion crest. Thugs and former thugs, then, under one EDL banner — if anyone can really tell the difference between the past and the present in men such as Jeff Marsh. So who are the other leaders of the English Defence League?

One leading light is Stephen Lennon, 27, a carpenter from Luton. Father-of-two Lennon was jailed for a year for actual bodily harm after punching and kicking an off-duty policeman during a domestic incident in 2004. Lennon is understood to have been one of the founders of the EDL.

The EDL’s spokesman is Trevor Kelway, of Portsmouth. They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. If so, Kelway’s Facebook page is particularly revealing. Among his friends, until recently, was someone who uses the emblem of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich as his screen avatar. The unit became infamous for its massacre of a French village in the aftermath of D-Day, when 642 men, women and children were shot or burned to death in Oradour-sur-Glane, Limousin.

Among Kelway’s other ‘friends’ is someone with a Sunderland ‘Vote BNP’ symbol prominently displayed. Another man in the set-up who has a BNP link is shaven-headed Chris Renton, 31. Curious how all ‘patriots’ seem to have shaven heads. Renton works in the construction industry and lives with his Spanish girlfriend in a flat in a Victorian house with views over the Severn Estuary.

He declined to comment when approached by the Mail. But he had plenty to say during a recent demonstration in Birmingham. Renton was pictured confronting black and Asian protesters, his face contorted in visceral rage, having been corralled on to a bus by anti-riot police. He later gave a two-fingered salute from the window.

Before being put on the bus, he was standing next to an EDL banner which advertised the group’s claim of being neither racist nor affiliated to the BNP. Yet when the BNP’s membership list was recently leaked, it showed Renton had been a BNP activist since 2002. (The group claims that he has now been forced to relinquish his membership.) And Renton is not just a rank-and-file member of the EDL. Internet registration forms reveal this is the same Chris Renton who set up the EDL’s website.

But not all members of the English Defence League are men. There is a small group of women, such as 42-year-old Leisha Brookes. Brookes, who has tattoos and works in ‘security and promotions’, lives in an ex-council block in Southend. She was not in when we paid her a visit.

But at the Birmingham riot, she told reporters: ‘If an English person went to an Arab country they would be expected to dress appropriately, and all we are asking is for them to do the same. We are protesting against Sharia law and the acceptance of our government of Muslim extremists.’

Few people would disagree with this. But less appealing was her Facebook profile, where Brookes — a Tottenham Hotspur fan — had posted a link to the author of a book called Life As A Chelsea Headhunter: It’s Only A Game. The Headhunters are the hooligans who associated with the National Front and its ultra-violent Combat 18 offshoot. Leisha Brookes has also been an administrator on the EDL website. But it is Jeff Marsh who is perhaps the most astonishing figure.

Marsh claims he is not — and never has been — an organiser of the EDL. Until recently, however, he was listed as the ‘global moderator’ of the EDL’s website — the gatekeeper, if you like — controlling access to its ‘inner circle’ forum, where members, vetted by a moderator, are trusted with details about meeting points before demonstrations.

After one such demo in Birmingham last year, which resulted in 90 arrests, one posting warned: ‘Next time we will be bigger. We’ll arrive unannounced and neither the police or the scum will know any details.’

In July, Marsh was also named as one of the leaders of the organisation in an EDL statement. Marshy is also frequently referred to in communications between EDL members.

Before a recent demonstration in Blackpool, this message appeared on the internet: ‘Me and 10 boys comin from wolves [Wolverhampton]. Day out then a protest before we go clubbing and strip clubs. what a f****** crackin day this will be. when will information on meetin times go out? Me and Marshy been speaking with Old Bill final details should go out tomorrow probably.’

All anyone really needs to know about Marshy, though, is contained in his online ‘biography’. One passage reads: ‘To a lot of us, putting a knife in your back pocket was as much a part of getting dressed as gelling your hair. You couldn’t leave the house without one. This was designer violence.’

Designer violence of the kind that, many would argue, is now infecting any town or city where the EDL rolls in. As Marsh said in one rallying cry on the internet: ‘The most ruthless street army in the ­country is arising and uniting in solidarity in the face of a threat that is now posed to the future of our Nation. Did people think that “Casuals” [slang for football fan or hooligan] would stay silent whilst their families, friends and the neighbours’ lives were endangered?

‘This coming football season will see the “truce” work itself out, and the brothers and sisters throughout the land unite in their common cause, against their common enemies, foreign and domestic. What has started cannot be stopped now. It has begun ...’

In other words, mindless terrace violence by any other name.

Except this time there is a different ‘enemy’ — one chosen by these Right-wing yobs specifically to­provoke far more damaging and troublesome consequences.

Daily Mail

Sunday Mercury unveils face of leader of EDL, whose group has cost taxpayers £2 million

Taxpayers have been left with a £2 million bill after violent protests by the English Defence League brought terror to the Midlands. And today we can identify the leader of the right-wing group as Tommy Robinson, photographed for the first time at the recent Dudley protest.

The cost of policing the EDL’s anti-Muslim extremist demonstrations has hit an estimated £2 million – which does not include losses to businesses forced to close. The group claim they are campaigning against the rise of militant Islam, but their critics argue they are nothing more than football hooligans.

Robinson is a reclusive figure who shuns the spotlight. He can often be seen marshalling EDL supporters while wearing a mask and hoodie at demonstrations. Little is known about him other than he is from Luton, where he supposedly works as a carpenter. Sources say Robinson has been a key player in the organisation since it was set-up following sickening Muslim protests against returning soldiers in the town during early 2009.

The EDL first targeted Birmingham last September, but protesters from rival group Unite Against Fascism turned up to oppose them. Cops fought running battles as thugs ran through the city centre, brandishing sticks and hurling bricks at massed ranks of riot police. Over 90 people were arrested as terrified shoppers were barricaded inside stores to save them from the violence outside. At the height of the violence, yobs laid siege to Bennett’s pub on Bennett’s Hill, where cops had controversially corralled more than 100 boozed-up protesters.

The two groups have continued to stage a rolling war across the region since then, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage and using up hundreds of hours of valuable police time.

The EDL have returned to Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Nottingham and most recently to Dudley to protest over plans for a controversial mosque. Police sources say the Dudley protest cost £400,000 to staff, with each of the other four rallies costing up to £200,000. Cost to councils for each protest is estimated at £150,000, taking the total taxpayer bill to £1.95 million – without including the huge losses to businesses.

One insider said: ‘‘People have the right to protest but this group is costing us millions of pounds and stretching our resources to the limit. They are also damaging the fragile balance of our communities and taking us back to the kind of violence we witnessed in the dark days of the 1970s. The truth is we don’t want any protesters from any group fighting and causing damage on our streets, now or in the future.”

The Sunday Mercury managed to get a brief interview with Robinson on the eve of the Dudley protest, which passed off peacefully compared to running battles witnessed in Birmingham. He was defiant about the loss of earnings local traders would suffer due to street closures, which virtually shut the town down.

Robinson boasted: “We’re happy for the disruption to go ahead and we apologise, but feel people will thank us in the long run. Losing a few days’ business will be worth it. We just want our chance to have our voices heard and we’re going to have our voices heard.”

Sunday Mercury

Revealed: the secret links between the Scottish Defence League and the BNP

An SDL supporter at a recent demonstration in Glasgow

Despite party expulsion threat, some individuals have joined both camps

Links between the BNP and the right-wing Scottish Defence League can today be exposed by the Sunday Herald. Both groups have publicly tried to distance themselves from each other, with the BNP claiming it would expel members found to be active in the Scottish Defence League (SDL) and its English counterpart, the EDL.

But one long-standing BNP member in Scotland told the Sunday Herald the party and the SDL shared many members and supporters, adding that the threat of expulsion was merely “a publicity thing” designed to placate the media. He said: “I am a member of the BNP and a supporter of the Scottish Defence League. A lot of the supporters are the same.”

On the threat of expulsion, he added: “That is a publicity thing. We both have the same views on radical Islam and we both don’t want Sharia law in Britain. We created our group [the SDL] to support what was happening down south with the English Defence League. I couldn’t say that the SDL was set up by BNP activists, but I was one of the early ones to support it.”

The leagues are loosely organised groups which claim to campaign against Muslim extremism in the UK but are widely perceived to be racist organisations. This charge has been denied by the groups, as have suggestions that they are linked to the BNP.

Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, alleged the claim about the publicity stunt of the expulsion threat had been made by a “liar”. He said: “I can imagine that there will be people with really no understanding of our position who support both organisations, but that would be an incredibly misguided position.”

He said that “not for one moment” did he believe a “genuine” BNP member would support the SDL or EDL.

“That is because they would be more aware of our position on these organisations. There are clear, sensible, mainstream political ways in which to make points about issues such as radical extremism rather than parading in the streets. We have very little in common with the EDL and the SDL. We understand their opposition to radical Islam … [But] there are simply no connections between [them and] the BNP. We wouldn’t want any. The EDL are doing something that we abandoned nearly 10 years ago. We don’t want to spend time stomping up the street making a nuisance of ourselves.”

When asked why it was so dangerous for the BNP to be linked to the SDL, Mr Griffin said: “These organisations are very provocative. One day they will spark an almighty riot and the Left will try and demonise us for that.”

Gary Raikes, national organiser of the BNP in Scotland, said yesterday that every party member in Scotland received a newsletter informing them that anyone found to have links with the SDL or to have attended any of their demonstrations would be expelled from the party.

The claim that the expulsion threat was a publicity stunt was dismissed as “preposterous” by the party’s national press spokesman, who questioned the authenticity of the member who made the allegation. However, information gathered by David Miller, a professor of sociology at the University of Strathclyde and a co-founder of the campaigning website Spinwatch, alleges that at least three BNP members are also Defence League supporters. One is BNP Scotland member John Wilkinson. He leafleted on behalf of the party in the run-up to the European Elections, and is involved with running the SDL website.

SDL supporter Iain Brooks, from Glasgow, is also listed on a leaked BNP membership list. And Adam Lloyd, the BNP organiser for Bridgend in Wales, is another listed as an SDL supporter, according to Prof Miller. The Sunday Herald contacted all three via email.

The SDL protested in Glasgow last month, their demonstration tightly controlled by police. Officers stopped the SDL marching into the city centre. South of the Border, English Defence League marches have ended in arrests and violence. The English Defence League was set up following Muslim extremist protests at the homecoming parade of the Royal Anglian Regiment troops in March this year, during which soldiers were branded the “Butchers of Basra” by a small number of demonstrators.

EDL members were then mobilised from within football hooligan groups – it is understood that football intelligence officers from Strathclyde Police have been used to pinpoint activists in Scotland.

Aamer Anwar, a high-profile lawyer who led the Scotland United anti-racism and anti-facism march last month, said that “he was not surprised at all” that the SDL was linked to the BNP. He claimed that the extremist group was simply creating a “street army” for the political party, which polled more than one million votes in this year’s European election, winning two MEP seats, and has 58 councillors.

Mr Anwar said: “The BNP denied they had links [to the EDL/SDL] because they were trying to win electoral respect. What they can’t get away from is that at the root of their politics is fascism and racism. It is the same scenario as Adolf Hitler and the Brownshirts. Hitler denounced them, but they were central to the organisation. The whole thing is trying to mould a street army from racists, football hooligans and groups such as Combat 18. If the group was open and democratic it … wouldn’t operate in the way that it does. The whole basis of the SDL is simply to create street terror.”

The Sunday Herald was unable to reach the Scottish Defence League yesterday. Supporters have consistently refused to identify themselves by name to the media.

Sunday Herald

Fascist EDL Football Hooligans To Invade Stoke on the 23rd of January

The nice and cuddly EDL - off for a piss-up at Stoke in January

The neo-Nazi EDL have announced on their website they are to hold a violent racist gathering in Stoke on Saturday the 23rd of January 2010

With a sizeable number of far right representatives on the council from the BNP, despite all claims to the contrary, by bringing their violent football hooligan bandwagon to Stoke, their idea is to forment rioting and conflict which the fascists are hoping will be blamed on minorities, increasing support for the BNP future elections, a tactic used by the national front nine years ago when they helped ignite racial tension in the Midlands and the North, paving the way for the BNP to progress in the ballot box.

Everywhere they meet, the EDL (WDL & SDL) always claim they are simply "protesting against Islamic extremism", and their army of trolls led by Trevor Kelway have conducted a major propaganda assault on online newspaper forums, posting reams of lies, contortions and misinformation centred around the rights of free speech, while playing down the obvious unpleasant facts about the organisation - the 90% plus of racist football hooligans in the EDL, it's strong but denied links to the BNP, and the many captured photos and filmreels of Hitler salutes, violence and hardcore racism.

Most damning of all, in a recent visit to Wales, EDL came out in their true colours, forty EDL Bolton Wanderers hooligans making massed Hitler salutes, capped with the theft and burning of an ANTI-nazi flag, behaving just like old-fashioned Combat18. Despite numerous photographic evidence, the neo-Nazi denied everything, just as they always do, giving hollow promises to stop their members saluting Adolf at future events.

With big-money millionaire European islamophobic backers supporting the EDL, there is plenty at stake for the racist orgnisation and its secretive aims, (whatever they may be), therefore the EDL acts like a corporation rather than a ragtag far right fighting gang in terms of PR and media spin, learning from the political subterfuge of New Labour in spinning a web of deceit and lies across the length and breadth of the internet.

However much Alan Lake and Trevor Kelway fret about the public perceiving the EDL as a neo-Nazi organisation, once their football hooligan footsoldiers are on the streets, after a dozen or so pints in fascist-friendly a JD Wetherspoons pub, the law of the jungle takes over, and their hardcore neo-nazis and dangerous soccer thugs very much please themselves, spitting at passers-by, making Hitler salutes, chanting racist slogans, throwing missiles at police and anti-racist demonstrators.

Whereas a bonafide commercial organisation can be held to account over its corporate responsibilities, like the BNP and the NF before it, the EDL time after time washes its hands of the criminal behaviour of its followers, via slick television interviews, incessant trolling, claiming time after time that the racism and extreme violence is the result of "infiltration" not just by other fascist grups but by leftwingers and anarchists, even though any anti-racist protestors of substance would much rather be run over by a ten-tonne lorry than pay homage to Adolf Hitler.

The BNP say the EDL are a state-controlled operation, and reciprocate the tokenistic "proscription" of their rival group, whilst key BNP members continue to be involved behind the scenes of the EDL. The EDL website was designed by a BNP man Chris Renton, and their website links to fake BNP charity for war veterans, Nick Griffin fundraiser "Soldiers Off The Street" and plenty of experienced BNP personnel are giving them advice behind the scenes, but in public, the cherade of not linking each other continues for PR purposes.

Before the EDL visit, the BNP councillors on Stoke Council will be vying for point-scoring by speaking out against the EDL, showing just how hypocritical the BNP are, painting themselves as the good guys, and likewise the EDL will keep on reminding you via newspaper trolls that they are nothing like the BNP, as the war of propaganda reaches epic proportions.

One of the greatest lies of the EDL is that they are multiracial and antiracist, giving the impression not only that they might not be nazi, but they are an all-inclusive discussion group working with communities to tackle Islamic extremism. Alas! When the EDL's finest racist soccer hooligans leave Wetherspoons, the footsoldiers idea of speaking out against Islamic extremism is to scream and shout vile obsenity and insult against Allah and calls for all Muslims to leave the UK. As for being multi-ethnic, a handful of uncle toms reported to be five or six non-white heritage EDL members fails to lend any crediblity to this ridiculous lie. No matter how many times Trevor Kelway posts under a flurry of non-de-plumes, the sickening truth about the actual neo-Nazi nature of the EDL is plain for all to see.

Check YouTube, press photographs, blogs and EDL facebook accounts to get the true picture. Notice the extreme racism of official EDL members and organisers, and open support for Combat18, the NF and the BNP on Facebook walls, and hate remarks so sickening and extreme against Muslims, black and Asian people. Only a fool after reading all this could continue to believe that the EDL are not a violent racist,fascist organisation.

And yet the keyboard warriors from the EDL's misinformation department continue to plague not only local newspaper comments pages, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail, but Indymedia itself. Recent articles about the EDL's assault on Nottingham have been bombarded by comment after comment distorting facts and distracting threads from being critical of the EDL, inacting lies and distortions that Goebels' would have been proud of. Indymedia administrators need to be aware of the tactics used by troll-in chief Trevor Kelway and chums, and to act accordingly, neutralising any infiltration of both straightforward EDl support and cryptic undermining of anti-fascist moral authority. Pitting anarchists against socialists is a regular ploy, pretending to be one or the other to destroy Indymedia through in-fighting.

Antifascists and antiracists, anarchists and liberals of must remain united against the EDL, and refuse to allow Stoke to become the national home of ignorance and race hate in a dignified and steadfast manner, informing people what the EDL are really about. Black, white, young, old, Easterm European, traveller, gay and lesbian, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and Athiest, student, employed, unemployed, we are everybody and all, and despite the government's stubborn refusal to inact anti-race hatred laws to curtail this bandwagon of drunken soccer hooligans from wrecking communities under the premise of "protesting against Islamic extremism", we will send the EDL peacefully packing from our diverse and thriving city.

Communities United at Indymedia

Piss-Poor EDL Defending England's Heritage

The EDL's finest turned up in Nottingham on Saturday
aiming to do battle like street-fighting knights of the realm

After downing medieval refreshment in a Wetherspoons tavern, they set off on their march to Nottingham Castle to show once and for all how much they love England and its historic heritage - by protecting the castle from dastardly multicultural visitors by unleashing an almighty torrent of smelly urine across the castle keep.

The picture reminds me of the yobbish student from Sheffield who like this excremental neo-nazi outfit, got drunk and pissed on a war memorial.

These neo-Nazi EDL cretins just can't help themselves. If chucking bottles and scuffling with the police was not bad enough, they decided to expose themselves in broad daylight, urinate in public en-masse, while women and children walked by. An army of racist football hooligans behaves like an army of racist football hooligans which is why the EDL will always be loathed not just amongst anti-fascist demonstrators and the general public, but amongst fellow members of the far right.

Trevor KKKelway and chums thought they were so big and clever assembling a ready-made army of travelling fighters on a shoestring budget, who would turn KKKelway into the next Nick Griffin, to take over from the BNP when it fades into insignificance, and move into the national far right political scene and the election circuit, but with a bunch of ignorant uncouth soccer hooligans who after a pint or two of cheap lager don't give a shit about Britain's cultural heritage, the EDL make the National Front seem professional.

Gordon Brown and the police chiefs of Britain's largest cities allow the EDL to incite racism and violence on the premise that they are practicing free speech, but free speech does not mean chanting racist slogans, making Hitler salutes, chucking missiles and scuffling with the police, and most certainly does not mean the freedom to spray one of Britain's most historic castles with foul-smelling piss.

Whether or not the EDL are working with the state as some people suggest, or are merely KKKelway's ego trip, they have earned a reputation of racism, fascism, yobbish and ignorant behaviour that will be impossible to shake off. Having initially been championed by American neo-conservatives as a useful tool of pushing the British political agenda rightwards, they are now regarded internationally as a joke.

The laugh is on the EDL, and so long as they continue to use football hooligans and BNP/BPP members its marches, they will never achieve their aims of dividing and conquering the United Kingdom along racial and religious lives, turning community against community, when its army's elite commanders cannot control their bladders!!!

The EDL are a piss-poor excuse of a far right organisation.

Bladder Wrack at Indymedia

Violence in Birmingham - authorities to blame

Racist and violent hooligans, the English Defence League, complete with BNP T-shirts

BBC video of the demo can be seen here

DCI Sue Southern of West Midlands police has tonight described the trouble on the streets of Birmingham as “unexpected”. Unfortunately it wasn’t and over 2,500 people who wrote in to protest to Birmingham City Council knew as much.

Violence in Birmingham – authorities to blame

Unfortunately violence erupted on the streets of Birmingham this afternoon as the hooligan followers of the English Defence League descended on the city centre. While reports are sketchy, it seems that the hooligans ignored agreements with police and ran through New Street. According to press reports at the height of the trouble over 250 were involved in the trouble.

Sadly it was all too predictable. For several days Searchlight and others have been warning the authorities of the potential trouble. The English Defence League is a collection of racist football hooligans from around the country and their sole intention is to whip up hatred. With several of its leaders already well known to the police as football hooligans it is hardly a surprise that violence has erupted today. However, despite the obvious the authorities repeatedly told us that they had the situation under control.

They did not and they should be held accountable. West Midlands Police and Birmingham City Council have failed the people of Birmingham and should be held to account.

Hope not hate

Their lies, our strength

BNP leader Nick Griffin went on air last month to distance the BNP from the hooligan protests. As usual what he did not admit was that many of the leading figures in the Luton protest are BNP supporters. Just like Oldham in 2001, Griffin denied responsibility while his own followers were inciting hatred and violence.

When the English Defence League announced its intention to hold a protest in Luton we were faced with two options. We could have called a counter-protest and mobilised the local community and anti-fascists to occupy the streets or we could call on the authorities to ban the march.

In normal circumstances we would have preferred the first option. Mobilising communities can be an empowering process but these are not ordinary times and the stakes are too high. There was a very serious risk of major disorder in Luton if the march had gone ahead – be it from the hooligans and fascists or the local community, which quite understandably wanted to defend its neighbourhoods.

We decided that any disorder would have been a disaster. It would have driven a firm wedge between communities in Luton and also had national ramifications. With the strength of the BNP and Islamophobia it is trouble we could least afford.

Anti-fascists must accept that we too have a responsibility to the people we claim to represent. Yes the fascists must be challenged wherever they raise their heads but it is also important that we are sensitive to the consequences of our actions. Stopping the fascists holding a meeting is pointless if we then have to endure three days of adverse publicity which leaves local people – the very people we want to keep away from the BNP – feeling sympathy for them. Likewise, burning the Union Jack in a city centre is hardly likely to win over ordinary shoppers.

It was precisely because of our concerns over the consequences of a march that we called for the protest to be banned. However, the manner in which we did it mobilised and empowered people. The Home Office banned the march because of the actions of thousands of people who got involved in our campaign. Over the coming months the hooligans and BNP will again try to whip up hatred and division. They need to be opposed but in a responsible manner which gives thought to the consequences and empowers people along the way.

Hope not hate

Hope not hate is campaigning to get Saturday's equally-dangerous march in Birmingham cancelled. Despite an amazing 1427 letters objecting to it landing in the Council's inbox, it seems that they're still unwilling to budge.

We have received information that football hooligans from across the West and East Midlands, the South West, Wales and the Home Counties are preparing to descend on Birmingham on Saturday. They will be meeting outside the city centre and marching in as a mob. We cannot allow this to happen.

To ramp up the pressure on the Council, Nick Lowles of Searchlight/Hope not hate is planning to send a letter to each of the Councillors, and the local media, in the next 24 hours demanding they put a stop to it. But to make the impact we need, we need a headline number. We're aiming for 2000 letters to be sent to the Councillors before Nick sends his. we'd like your help in meeting this goal - can you invite your friends to contact the Council about the march as well?

We've set up an easy-to-use tool to help you reach out to your friends - with your help we can get over 2000 people involved. We've had great success stopping these types of marches before. But this didn't happen by chance. It happened because people like you and me were willing to stand up and make a difference. Please contact your friends and get them to put pressure on the council.

To send a message yourself, click here.
To enlist the support of your friends, click here.