Calling the EDL what it is

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Wednesday, 30 September 2009, 07:06

Over the last few days I have been inundated with emails and blog replies from supporters of the EDL telling me that my description of them as ‘hooligans’ was unfair. I will take this point up when I have a bit of time over the next few days but I do use this word precisely because that is what most of them are. Just look at the facts. Nearly all their key people are football hooligans – many with related convictions and banning orders. Most of the people they are mobilising around the country are from the football hooligan networks. I do not call the EDL a fascist organisation because it is not (though this doesn’t make any less dangerous and of course there are many active fascists within it and at a senior level) but organically linked and driven by football hooligans it is. I should add racist and Islamophobic as well.

It’s certainly been a busy few days. I’ve been enjoying the sunshine down in Brighton this week, using the Labour Party conference as an opportunity to meet old friends and make new ones. At the same time I’ve been putting the finishing touches to our Organisers’ Academies, which kick off this weekend, launching our activist events in London, Manchester, Yorkshire and the West Midlands, and lobbying for the Home Office to take the threat of the English Defence League more seriously.

Last Friday’s fundraising appeal on the back of Barnbrook’s guilty verdict has been phenomenal. Over £9,000 has been raised, which has not only allowed us to pay for 150,000 leaflets to distribute across London but also helped us fund our next national weekend of action on 7/8 November. Over 750 people donated, of whom 424 did so for the first time to our campaign.

The English Defence League’s planned protest in Manchester has been taking up much of my time. I think this event – which EDL supporters claim is the ‘big one’ – is going to set the tone for similar protests over the next few months. Just how a group of racist football hooligans, some linked to the BNP, can be allowed to whip up trouble and tension in communities around the country is beyond me. The EDL protest is clearly an attempt to provoke and the sooner the authorities understand this the better. I have to say that some do – but others clearly don’t.