The English Defence League (EDL) has attacked the Labour Party for supporting “rent-a-mobs” in advance of the group’s march in Bristol tomorrow.
A spokesman for the EDL told Bristol24-7 the group was expecting trouble from “idiotic communist types” who wanted to provoke a violent confrontation.
But in responding to the condemnation from Bristol’s two Labour MPs and the party’s candidate for mayor yesterday, the spokesman said Labour has “sold out its English constituents”, adding the group had no interest in what the party said.
Barriers are already in place for the EDL march yesterday, which will begin at Redcliffe Wharf before ending in Queen Square.
Up to 1,000 police officers are due to take to the streets to prevent a confrontation between the EDL and a counter-demonstration of anti-fascist groups, unions and community organisations.
He said he was confident the police could handle the situation, adding both the police and Bristol City Council had been “very accommodating”.
Speaking after Bristol24-7 reported the Labour Party’s condemnation of the march, he told us: “We expected something like this to come from Labour. They [Labour] have sold out their English constituents and forgotten them. We are not interested in what they have to say. It’s their fault the country is the way it is. Let them bury their heads in the sand. All we do is raise awareness about radical islam, and are attacked by Labour-funded rent-a-mobs.
“We are saddened by the counter-demonstration. Normal do-gooding folks are sucked in by violent groups who want to antagonise and provoke a reaction out of us, so they an say to the public ‘we told you so, look at the violent thugs’.
“We expect some resistence but nothing the local constabulary won’t be able to handle. We encourage our supporters to not rise to the silly chants of “waycist” from idiotic communist types.
Asked what he hoped the EDL was hoping to achieve with its march, Mr Witter said he wanted to highlight the issue of a “new kind of homopobia which has swept up and down our country”, in reference to the case of five Muslim men from Derby who went on trial earlier this year for allegedly handing out leaflets calling for gay people to be killed.
“We particularly would like to extend hands of friendship to the LGBT community, because they are experiencing a new kind of hate,” he added.
The comments came after Dawn Primarolo (Bristol South), Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) and Marvin Rees said yesterday there was “no place for the EDL in Bristol”.
In a joint statement this week, the Labour group said: “We reject entirely the aims, philosophy and method of the EDL. At a time when decent people from all backgrounds are working together to improve their communities, the EDL seeks to cause division, fear and hatred.
“On July 14, thousands of Bristol residents will be celebrating the Bristol we know – a proud and welcoming city that celebrates our differences and rejects totally any attempts to divide us. Bristol is much stronger than a motley collection of EDL members, bussed in from far-flung corners of the country.
“By Saturday evening, the EDL will have left Bristol. They will find little support for their dangerous views and we hope, and expect, that they will never return.”
It seems the EDL protest event in Bristol yesterday has highlighted a serious problem of left wing extremism, Anarchists and law breakers that are a threat to Bristol community cohesion in the same way that the extremist Islam community is also a threat. While the EDL had a clean and precise liaison with the Bristol police liaison team, where the EDL supporters complied with police requests and respected the local community, this was not the case with the UAF, HnH & Bristol Antifa organisations, who had purposely intended to create trouble with planned attacks on the police and destruction of property and City facilities. One must also congratulate the local EDL organisers for the protest event which not only highlighted the concerns of English Citizens in the failed Bristol community, but exposed the willingness of labor and anti government supporters to call on whatever fail means necessary to undermine police efforts to maintain peace.
So what ya reckon infidels n dols, Did we get this one bang on or what?
The EDL have consistently protested against Muslim extremism, the burning of Poppies, the insults to our troops, grooming, homophobia the colonisation of our towns and cities, the no go areas that are springing up, political corruption (Tower Hamlets), Muslim terrorism, unprovoked violence against innocent people and the Islamisation of our nation.
The Left are the new fascists. They tacitly support islamist homophobia, anti semitism and treating women as second class citizens.
If the UAF were really "anti-fascists", they would make it a priority to investigate how Labour betrayed British people and set up this whole situation in the name of importing votes.
Will be playing cricket tomorrow (weather permitting) which is a shame as would love to come and have a laugh at the motley disparate collection of dimwits marching against who knows what. Sort of hoping the game is off.
Don't you have the wit to look up what the 'who knows what' is that the EDL demonstrate against?
Just like our Bolton March in 2010, when unions put on free coaches for far left radical drones to be bussed in that were encouraged by to attack us and police by Weyman Bennett and Martin Smith. @uklabour also supported that event
Well judging from this article and other web blogs, it seems the Marxists and Anarchists are hell bent on attacking the police and the English patriots no matter what. Lets hope the police give a few of them a couple of decent 'baton welts' to remind them of law and order
Solidarity with Bristol Antifascists! Every community should seek to oppose and organise against its reactionary elements. While extreme Islam is a real problem, the EDL has no interest in solving it. Rather than working with, strengthening and raising the profile of anti-wahabi/salafi/jihadist muslim groups, i.e. the people who actually have the ability to influence young muslims and guide them away from reactionary ideology, the EDL would have you declare war on all foreigners and any englishman who opposes the explosive growth of the ultra-right in his country and his continent. This is only pushing young muslims towards the extreme islamists, because it gives their message that the western world is waging a war against Islam a sense of legitimacy. This is a typical fascist tactic, using fear to turn a problem with small extremist minority in both our communities in to an all out conflict between entire peoples.
Hello May 1st Committee,
So you claim that the EDL has no interest in solving extreme Islam and do not work anti-wahabi/salafi/jihadist muslim groups, i.e. the people who actually have the ability to influence young muslims and guide them away from reactionary ideology
Would you be so kind as to explain this article then?
Zaheer Shabir, Chair of Building the Bridge – an organisation whose aim is to encourage and support the Muslim community within the communities of Bristol – said the city’s Muslim community “will not support any act of aggression or a breach of the peace”.
He added that the organisation has met with EDL representatives “to create a pathway for future dialogue”, but the 'We Are Bristol group' organising the counter-demonstration had “not proactively engaged with the Muslim community leadership”.
http://www.bristol247.com/2012/07/13/edl-in-brist…
Could you possibly have got your facts wrong?
Seriously, are these people stuck in the eighties? (we know their views on race are) but seriously, I have not met any commies for a couple of decades. Do they know what communists are? Saying that though, when you are far right extremists, anyone to the left (which includes most of the population) could be misconstrued as 'commies'.
Anyway, onto tomorrow, judging by poor recent attendance figures, I would quote the EDL as being lucky to get 250 with 90% of those having to be shipped in from outside the area. They are really not going to have a good day. If they think the welcome they got in Brighton was bad, god help them.
It is pretty obvious that they have little to no support in Bristol so I have no idea why they are are planning to humiliate themselves so badly.
well if any1 who happens to criticize islam is deemed far right, then u and ur masters are definetly commies. are you actually on the payroll at uaf or hnh or 1 of the other publicly funded groups?? or are you just one of the suckers who fell for their rubbish that any1 with an opinion is racist. so u go out their and push their their views for them. why do you think they never oppose racist muslims ?? because by having the edl as an enemy and cryin racism at every chance. it keeps the multi million £ a year industry of racism going and justifying their cushy well paid jobs sat there doing not a lot other then firing up people like you to go make things more difficult and cause trouble so they can get their 2 mins of fame in the paper the day after slagging the edl off
I'm a patriot and proud of our nations' heritage. My late grand dad served in the 8th Army and fought his way across Egypt, North Africa, Sicily and into Italy. He lost his arm in the Battle for Monte Cassino and was invalided out of the war. He fought alongside Welshmen, Englishmen, Scots, Irish, Sikh, Muslims and Hindus from what was then Imperial India and Gurkhas
On the otherside of that fight were Fascists.
I'm also Chair of the Bristol Labour Party. I know what side we were on back in the 40s and the side we are on now. We stand for a united and diverse community. Stronger still by the strength of our collective endeavour. I am proud of the stance Marvin, Kerry and Dawn have taken.
I respect those Labour members who choose to stay away from the city centre to avoid trouble. There will be Labour members an the anti fascist demo and there will be Labour members at Pride because someone must say very clearly to the people the EDL are bussing in: Fascism isn't welcome in our city.
And it is so sad to see you actually support the fascist tactics of those your Grand father fought against in trying to silence the EDL's right to protest. We all had grandparents that fought in the war and many of us have sons and daughters fighting in the forces now against Islamic forms of fascism, people that were on the side of Hitler during the conflict and the same people you Marxists side with now. EDL has support from people from a wide variety of political aspirations who see the threat of Islamic extremism as real problem in England, even if people such as yourself wish to bury their heads in the sand and ignore the threat. I am sure your grandfather would be ashamed of the fact that our Country is no longer our own and the principals what he fought for have been eroded by Marxist Doctrine and anti English values that espouses from Unions and global socialists and fascists of a religious nature.
Afternoon 'patriot'. As someone who had a grandfather who fought against those trying to demonise certain sections of our society (swap Jews for Muslims), I suggest you have a good long hard look at this fringe movement you are involved in and stop insulting all of those that gave their lives fighting against what the EDL stand for.
Britain is a welcoming society and your far right movement is tiny. If you had any support for your paranoid delusions you would be able to get sizeable amounts of people on street. You last two demos have attracted no more than a few hundred and most of those only went out for the day to get dunk and racist.
The only people we hear constantly whining about how awful this country is are the self appointed 'patriots' who would probably be better off leaving the country and leaving the rest of us to get on together is peace.
An interesting post 'Mr TurningBristolRed'. So you claim your Father fought against Fascism and you claim you are also fighting against Fascism, and you do this by opposing a multi-racial, multi-religious group that opposes Islamism.
You may find this article of interest: http://www.meforum.org/1870/mohamed-sifaoui-i-con…
stop rewind…so what you trying to say that the edl would of fought with the germans. dont think so pal.edl would of been the 1st lot to sign up and fight for the country they love. unlike these anachasits/commies who are always after making things worse and the muslims they defend they would be the 1st lot to jump ship. i know both my grandads would be turning in their graves if they could see the state of this country what they fought for now.which labour and the other lefties have ran into the ground
While giving out so much rhetoric and accusing the EDL of violence, it might be wiser for the Marxist leaders of the Bristol reds to consider reigning in the ANTIFA activists who are threatening violent confrontation constantly. Patriots have a right to march whether you agree or disagree with them politically or not and they also have the right to defend themselves if attacked. Take away the right of public protest and you will create far more sinister objection in underground movements and such. Also it should be for both groups to respect the police officers on duty as they are the ones who bear the brunt of the idiotic behavior on both sides who go looking for trouble. The EDL will have stewards in place to stop trouble makers invading their ranks. The left have ''political & legal observers' who are there to record how many of their number are arrested so they can give them legal assistance which I believe only encourages the anarchists to break the law.
We have seen the laughable lack of capabilities of EDL stewards before.
[Patriotism] …is a word which always commemorates a robbery. There isn't a foot of land in the world which doesn't represent the ousting and re-ousting of a longline of successive "owners" who each in turn, as "patriots" with proud swelling hearts defended it against the next gang of "robbers" who came to steal it and did — and became swelling-hearted patriots in their turn.
- Mark Twain's Notebook
Definition of patriotism
The quality of being patriotic; vigorous support for one’s country
Oxford English Dictionary
"In a joint statement this week, the Labour group said: “We reject entirely the aims, philosophy and method of the EDL. At a time when decent people from all backgrounds are working together to improve their communities, the EDL seeks to cause division, fear and hatred."
According to EDL website, they are for human rights, equality and against sharia law; does this mean Labour are against the first two and in favour of sharia?? I think they should come clean!!
If the EDL really cared about the Bristol LGBT community, they wouldn’t have scheduled the EDL demo on the same day as Pride Bristol. They could have had a demo on any other day but they wouldn’t change the date. They’ve distracted attention from a great community event, disrupted normal city centre trade, and cost the taxpayers lots of money. I know who I’ll blame if there’s any trouble – EDL supporters.
We had already set a date and moved it because it clashed with an event. We settled on this date after talks with Police, Council and the LGBT.. We hd said suggested we would move but were told that it was ok
Fair enough – but in this article the EDL spokesman says that ‘he wanted to highlight the issue of a “new kind of homophobia which has swept up and down our country”’ which suggests a motive for having the event on the same date as Bristol Pride. I believe in free speech but I really can’t see any justification for the EDL to demonstrate in Bristol.
They are right in that UAF is basically a commie rentamob… But pot kettle black, EDL is a fascist rentamob! All of them need to grow up and rejoin society
Care to explain what is fascist about EDL fella?
"Fascism seeks to eradicate perceived foreign influences that are deemed to be causing degeneration of the nation or of not fitting into the national culture."
You lot are constantly moaning about "integration". What's not fascist about that?
Care to explain exactly how you are "defending" England?
Hello OiPolloi, you failed to include the full quote, let me do that for you
'by supra personal connections of ancestry and culture through a totalitarian state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through discipline, indoctrination, physical training, and eugenics'
The complete quote rather discredits your accusation doesn't it!
Picking bits and pieces to fit your agenda doesn't work. You seem to be another apologist for Islamism, please see my reply to 'turningbristolred'.
Cor I'm sure that we'd love to see some of the funding from the Labour Party! The EDL are a bunch of BNP rejects, with a massive list of convictions for all sorts of crimes (easy to find examples of this in the press). Just because a tiny minority of the Muslim community subscibes to extreme views means that they target the entire muslim population, they have attacked muslims and people who 'look muslim' on the streets and are the hiers of the National Front and Oswald Mosley and the British Movement of Fascists. They will be outnumbered by the police and massively so by thecounter demonstrators.
Have you forgotten the long list of Labour offenders from assaults committed by Eric Joyce and Lard Prescott, and the fraud committed by the councillors in Doncaster (Donnygate), Baroness Uddin, Jim Devine, David Chaytor , Eric Illsley, Elliot Morley, Margaret Moran. There are additional examples but the above spring to mind immediately.
BTW, what does 'look Muslim' mean?