While the left was sleeping the EDL enter party politics
Imagine the streetfighting thugs of the EDL joined forces with an organised and well funded far right political party, a terrifying prospect isn’t it? It has already happened and everyone seemed to miss the whole thing.
Last Saturday EDL leaders met in the West Midlands where they agreed a tie-up between their group and the British Freedom Party, with the EDL serving as the street wing and BFP as the electoral front.
You might remember the BFP from the recent limp ‘expose’ of Nick Griffin on Panorama, it’s a group full of disgruntled ex-BNP members, led by former UKIP member who believes white English people are being ‘ethnically cleansed’.
The BFP recently announced former UKIP candidate Paul Weston as its chair, but if you look behind the scenes you’ll find people like the BNP’s former legal eagle Lee Barnes, BNP fundholder John Savage and their old Cornwall organiser Peter ‘rivers of blood’ Mullins.
Chairman Weston can hold his own against these seasoned racists though, in one blog post about the supposed ‘ethnic cleansing’ of white people he explains; “many Muslim men in Tower Hamlets routinely have four wives each, all “legally” supported by the British State in order they may father up to twenty-eight children in a literal tsunami of polygamous demographic warfare”. Charming stuff.
You might scoff at this alliance of the far right, but the EDL are capable of mobilising in worrying numbers and have developed a serious appetite for scuffling with the police, anti-fascists and Muslim youths. For their part, the BFP have experience of running a far right party that has previously won more than half a million votes and seats in the European Parliament.
Reports indicate the alliance is already thriving. The BFP claim they are struggling to cope with the number of membership requests they have received and the EDL is supportive of the move towards contesting political power.
“We aren’t ruling it out. I think this country needs a party that’s not afraid to say things some would consider unpopular. We are a single issue group and at the moment we would rather have a dialogue with the other political parties – but that could change.”
Now things have changed. Robinson has explained the merger as “an opportunity for EDL members to move over to BFP and for the first time provide input and promote the views of the British working class within a British political party”.
Occupy Newcastle was one recent target of attacks by EDL thugs, while previously a gig by punk band the Oppressed in Leeds had been targeted along with a handful of SWP meetings. Earlier this month 179 EDL members were arrested in central London, they were thought to have been preparing to attack the Occupy London camp.
A number of EDL divisions have now declared that all left wing events regardless of their cause are legitimate targets for attack. Some have even set their sights on the November 30th strikes.
This new alliance is unlikely to last, but while it does it could do serious damage. Robinson has said in the past that he hopes the presence of the EDL will force parties to take a harder line: “My hope is still that the Tories will take a tougher stance.”
Commentators claimed the BNP was ‘defeated’ in Barking in 2010, they received 563,000 votes that year, some defeat. They didn’t take any seats but their constituency within the disaffected white working class remains - one the Labour left fail to engage but an EDL/BFP group could find fertile ground with.
This group could become very hard to ignore, some have already speculated Robinson could run for Mayor of London, he could never win but it would ensure the EDL and BFP grabbed the headlines and received a platform to spread their anti-Muslim agenda.
