The guns of The EDL

Joel Titus: EDL Youth Leader

When right wing extremist Anders Breivik went on his murder spree in Oslo last month, attention predictably turned to England and the far-right extremist English Defence League (EDL), the organisation that inspired the killer.

Despite claiming that his organisation had no official contacts with Breivik and that he condemned the actions of the mass murderer, EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon claimed in a number of interviews with journalists that in his opinion, the UK was only five years away from the same sort of right wing outrage happening here.

Up and down the country for the last two years we have witnessed dozens of attacks on Muslim and progressive communities as Lennon’s private army of racists grew further and further out of control even encouraged fleetingly, by sections of the national media.

News broke last week that finally, the EDL was to be monitored by the same counter terror unit set up after the 7/7 terror attacks. Hope Not Hate has long called for the EDL to be monitored in the same way that Islamic terror groups are.

We are now publishing these photographs of senior EDL members and activists to prove once and for all for any doubters, that the EDL are not just a pressure group with legitimate concerns about radical Islam. They are the flip side of the same coin.

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon says we are five years away from a Breivik styled massacre here. We believe they are already a terror group in the making.

Jonathan Simon: London EDL