Posted on 09/04/2011 7:05:12 AM PDT by bayouranger
Sixteen people were arrested after far-right demonstrators clashed with police as they protested in east London.
Scuffles broke out and bottles and firecrackers were thrown by members of the English Defence League (EDL) as riot police, mounted police and dogs turned out on the streets in large numbers to maintain control.
By early evening 16 people had been arrested for a variety of offences including affray, drunk and disorderly and assault on a police officer.
Skirmishes broke out as EDL leader Stephen "Tommy" Lennon addressed the crowd, telling them he had broken his bail conditions to be at the protest. He was not one of those arrested.
The far-right group had told Scotland Yard it planned to lead a "static demonstration" in the wake of a 30-day ban by Home Secretary Theresa May on marching in six areas. There had been fears of potential unrest ahead of the protest, centred on the deprived inner city borough of Tower Hamlets.
Mrs May also banned marches in Newham, Waltham Forest, Islington, Hackney and the City of London.
More than 3,000 officers were made available amid fears of violence and clashes with opposition groups including Unite Against Fascism. Police vans from forces including Cumbria, Lancashire and Grampian could be seen on the streets.
Campaigners have been in ongoing negotiations with police chiefs in the wake of tough measures introduced by Mrs May. It is the first time since the Brixton riots 30 years ago that police have requested powers to stop marches in London.
Scuffles broke out as Lennon addressed the chanting crowd, many of whom were waving banners and flags. He said: "I'm meant to sign on at a police station on a Saturday, I'm not doing that. I'm not allowed to go to a demonstration, I'm not doing that.
"The credible outcome is I will be put on remand in prison for my democratic right. That's what's going to happen and when I go to court if they let me out of court with any bail conditions that restrict my democratic right to oppose militant Islam, I will break them the minute I walk out."
(Notice the writer can't help calling the EDL "far right" twice, a liable arising from fear so prickly they drop it twice?)
Amazing the dull "state" the tattered remnants of English elites are when reacting to anarchists and louts when compared to the vigilance, undoubtedly provoking "affray" with the EDL.
No thanks.
The EDL ARE a far right group with links to even more extreme British neo-nazi groups such as Combat 18, and organised soccer hooligans. Many of the leaders and followers have convictions for racial hatred and violence.
Many of the EDL have frankly racist and anti-semitic attitudes.
Yes, Islamic extremism is a problem, but please understand that the EDL are NOT the answer.
British freepers like myself and others have tried to explain the EDL to Americans like yourself who seem to think the EDL are a Tea Party like movement who should be supported just because they are ‘standing up to the Muslims’.
Well, that’s your choice.
Every group is going to have a fringe element and the EDL has addressed the ones you mentioned.
Also, when it comes down to the defense of your country I wouldn’t call extremism a bad thing at all.
In the end, you’re going to need those people when the fighting starts.
Since when did socialist become right wing?
I just watched a video of an EDL leader stand up in front of an EDL meeting and honor a Muslim for his words of wisdom when his son was killed during the riots. The EDL people he was addressing was in support of honoring that Muslim.
I am sure there are racist in the EDL but they are not the leadership or the majority.
BTW - The EDL is not the BNP. I thought I would throw that in.
OK, what alternate organizations do you have who are willing to oppose Islamism? If not the EDL, then who?
To paraphrase Hillel the Elder, if the British are not for themselves, then who will be for them? If not now, then when?
It seems like it would be easier for an influx of new members to tame the EDL's more obnoxious positions, than to construct an entirely new competing organization that is more to your liking.
The EDL are no more actual socialists than the National Socialists were in Germany.
I am afraid that yes many of the EDL are racist and antisemitic. I am British. I and other British freepers (all of us are conservative and rightwing and oppose unrestricted immigration) are more aware of what the EDL is than people here, we see them on our streets.
I know many Americans want them to be heroes because they are standing up to the Muslims, and think they are just a bunch of ordinary English/British men.
Frankly not far removed.
the scotsman has stated in other post that the Muslim brotherhood is not a serious threat. So if I may take that to the obvious conclusion there is no need to create an orginization to oppose them.
you really need to read some history.
First you are thinking of the BNP not EDL. They are the national socialist and yes they are socialists in every sense of the word.
Hitler was a fairly mainstream Leftist of his day. It must be remembered that he gained power by way of a democratic election, not by way of a revolution or a military coup. The country was far left wing at the time of the election.
Hitler and his criminal gang hated the rich, the capitalists, the Jews, the Christian Churches, and "the System". The Swastika was a socialist symbol long before Hitler became influential. It was worn by American Socialists as well as the soviet red army long before hitler came to power.
Some interesting points of the Nazi parties platform:
11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.
12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in life and property, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as a crime against the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits whether in assets or material.
13. We demand the nationalization of businesses which have been organized into cartels.
14. We demand that all the profits from wholesale trade shall be shared out.
Eugenics was and always has been a leftest dream. Mein Kampf talks about how Germany must stop the ultimate starvation from over population.
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions" -Hitler 1927
From what I am reading the EDL has been kicking out BNP members
There's one problem with that viewpoint: if you wait until the Islamists ARE a serious threat, then no organization opposing their agenda will be allowed to form.
As it stands, the Islamists and their supporters in government attempt to marginalize, threaten, and intimidate the EDL. Will that become less as the Islamists become more powerful? Or will the Islamists threaten more in the way of reprisals (both domestically and abroad) against British citizens and financial interests unless the EDL (or any other anti-Islamist that tries to arise) is vigorously suppressed by the Brit government?
What would the Brit government do when the Muslim population has doubled, and their ability to conduct terrorism on British soil has increased many-fold? What would the Brit government do when Muslim Brotherhood-controlled governments in Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere are in a position to nationalize or burn Brit corporate assets unless Britain obeys Sharia?
I said this in another thread to the scotsman: <br
We didn’t believe Chiang Kai-shek when he said Mao was a serious threat because our intelligence at the time told us to ignore the threat. As a result hundreds of millions of people have died and many more to come from a mistake we made decades ago.
No, what I said was, and I was actually agreeing with an earlier point from an American freeper who is conservative and ex-military and has vast experience of the ME and North Africa, that there is too much hysteria about the rebels and radical Islam, that there now seems to be a notion that all the rebels are secretly Muslim terrorists.
There seems to be an idea forming on FR that the whole of the Arab world will now become one giant terrorist state, from Spanish Morocco to Egypt, Sudan to Turkey.
What I said was that the Muslim Brotherhood IS a threat, but that ethnic/tribal makeups will mean that their power will be limited, esp in North Africa. In other words, their potential has and is being overexaggerated.
It was a flippant remark referring to a group whose ideology is based on physical violence/intimidation and race/religious hatred wrapping themselves in a political cloak.
Take a look at this video at Leicester October 9 2010:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GKW65ToaCM
I can only piece to together what took place. I wasn't there.
It is clear in this video that aggressors were not the EDL in this case. I am not saying they are not capable of being the aggressors but they were not the aggressors that day in October 2010. This is were the aggression started and blew into the restaurant and other actions after this attack. At 1:03 you can see some (more then one) of the EDL had their hands in their pockets at 1:05 you can see the opposition group pushed the guy with a white base ball cap with his hands clearly in his pocket. Then a large number of the opposition chased the EDL down the street when more EDL members shown up there was a second stand off. At about 2:06 you can clearly see the EDL was chasing the opposition. Then the police moved in and got between them and broke up what was clearly going to be a bad fight. The point is the original aggressors were clearly the opposition groups from this video. Also notice when the police shown up three of the EDL people put their hands up as an indication of "stop" even know two of them continued their counter aggression. Thank goodness for the police!
The media is giving you a load of bull don't eat it.
Sorry mate, but myself and other freepers like winniesboy and vanders9 are British. We KNOW what the EDL are. They live in our country.
Dont insult us by suggesting that I and the above Brits are sheep swallowing media hype. We are British and we have grown up with the National Front, the BNP, Combat 18 and various rightwing groups. And we were aware of the EDL long before you and your fellow Americans. We know better what they are, what their background and their links are.
Was the pre-WWII National Socialist of Germany a right wing or left wing party?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.