{"id":15694,"date":"2010-04-04T02:46:15","date_gmt":"2010-04-03T16:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=15694"},"modified":"2010-04-05T09:14:13","modified_gmt":"2010-04-04T23:14:13","slug":"merrie-old-england-defence-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=15694","title":{"rendered":"Merrie Old England&#8230; Defence&#8230; League"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul><strong>Update<\/strong> : <a href=\"http:\/\/www.demotix.com\/news\/293291\/edl-demonstration-dudley\">EDL demonstration in Dudley<\/a>, Russell Pollar @ Demotix. The EDL is unhappy about the construction of a mosque in Dudley, one which they claim is being financed with funds from Saudi Arabia, and hence likely to support the doctrine of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/pages\/frontline\/shows\/saudi\/analyses\/wahhabism.html\">Wahhabism<\/a>. <em>See also<\/em> : <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dudley.gov.uk\/welcome\/news-in-dudley\/edl---council-statement-and-faqs\">EDL &#8211; council statement and FAQs<\/a>.<\/ul>\n<p>A week prior to the debut of the <a href=\"http:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=15429\">Australian Defence League<\/a> in Melbourne on <a href=\"http:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=15644\">Friday April 9<\/a>, in Dudley the English Defence League has staged another rally. <em>See<\/em> : <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/uk_news\/england\/west_midlands\/8601520.stm\">Seven arrested over rival protests in Dudley<\/a>, BBC.<\/p>\n<p>Seemingly chastened by the previous counter-rally in Bolton, at which several score counter-protesters were arrested, on this occasion the UAF\/SWP has organised a rally &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uaf.org.uk\/news.asp?choice=100402\">\u2018One Dudley Many Cultures\u2019 celebration rejects the hatred and division of the EDL<\/a> &#8212; well away from the EDL&#8217;s, with speeches (by all the usual suspects) supplemented with entertainment provided courtesy of the SWP&#8217;s musical front <a href=\"http:\/\/lovemusichateracism.com\/\">LMHR<\/a>. At the same time as this tactical shift has occurred, the SWP\/UAF has also altered its rhetoric, from SMASH THE EDL (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.socialistworker.co.uk\/art.php?id=20617\">Smash the racist EDL in Bolton<\/a>) to STOP THE EDL RIOTING (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.socialistworker.co.uk\/art.php?id=20773\">Stop the EDL thugs rioting in Dudley<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>In both cases, most observers appear to agree that the police have a definite advantage over the UAF\/SWP in this area.<\/p>\n<p>What the shift from confrontation to competition on the part of the SWP\/UAF means for the EDL is a good question. Insofar as what attracts the moar apolitical hools to the cause is the potential for some violent fun and games, the UAF\/SWP&#8217;s absence may serve to dampen their enthusiasm. The same applies to the hool&#8217;s desire for notoriety, which would seem to require at least some imgs of League members clashing with their Muslim and leftist opposition. Still, something like 1,000 EDL are reported to have stood around in a car park surrounded by police in Dudley, and something like that number did much the same in Bolton a few weeks earlier, so maybe they&#8217;ve reached a certain threshold already. As for Australia, it&#8217;s difficult to imagine a mob consisting of even 1\/10th that number taking to the streets to &#8216;defend&#8217; the country from Muslims. On the other hand, no Australian city has experienced the equivalent of London&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/in_depth\/uk\/2005\/london_explosions\/default.stm\">7\/7<\/a>, so it&#8217;s perhaps not all that surprising.<\/p>\n<p>As for the BNP, its leadership is going through troubled times, only a few weeks away from the next UK general election. Thus Mark &#8216;Young, Nazi &#038; Proud&#8217; Collett is one of several senior figures to have been <a href=\"http:\/\/norfolk.unitywebring.com\/?p=1583\">dismissed<\/a> from the party in recent days. Supposedly, Collett had been discovered to have been using his position to his own financial advantage. MEP for North West England and <strike>F\u00fchrer<\/strike> Chairman of the British National Party Nick Gri\u00a3\u00a3in, who would never do such a thing, is pitting himself against millionaire Labor MP Margaret Hodges in the seat of Barking.<\/p>\n<p>On the BNP ~versus~ Labour, <em>see<\/em> : <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iwca.info\/?p=10149\">Too late for Labour to stop the BNP<\/a> (IWCA, February 4, 2010). Also relevant is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iwca.info\/?p=10150\">National Equality Panel confirms that class is the main issue<\/a> (IWCA, March 16, 2010). <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/UKfightback\">UKfightback<\/a> has republished a BBC radio documentary about the EDL, BNP, and other far right groups <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=UIoX0wpt7dU\">here<\/a>. It dates from October 2009, but provides good background material.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Update : EDL demonstration in Dudley, Russell Pollar @ Demotix. The EDL is unhappy about the construction of a mosque in Dudley, one which they claim is being financed with funds from Saudi Arabia, and hence likely to support the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=15694\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[651,49,304],"class_list":["post-15694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-fascism","tag-australian-defence-league","tag-british-national-party","tag-english-defence-league"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6AyE-458","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15694"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15717,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15694\/revisions\/15717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}