Dominic Ashton reports on last weekend's English Defence League rally in Tower Hamlets.
Dominic Ashton reports on last weekend’s English Defence League rally in Tower Hamlets
Last weekend’s English Defence League rally, though garnering a significant amount of media attention, reportedly attracted an unimpressive 600 participants, who were handily outnumbered by rival protestors.
This has prompted some onlookers to question why the left occupies itself with such a small, insignificant group and others to laud the superior turnout of opposition rallies as a sign that the EDL’s flavour of prejudice is receding.
Yet triumphalist conclusions, when viewed from a broader perspective, may be premature.
Whilst true that preoccupation with the EDL flatters their rather modest levels of support, the group’s lack of success does not efface the need for constructive debate on the arguments they speak to. What hinders the EDL, in common with many attempted far-right incursions in recent memory, is not an infertile breeding ground for their ideology, but what Tommy Robinson, displaying a rarely deployed capacity for understatement, once described as “a bit of an image problem”.
Not often accused of knowing too much, Robinson is at least accurate on this point- with 84 per cent of those who are aware of the EDL professing that they would never join the group and only 6 per cent (down slightly in the wake of reprisals for the murder of Lee Rigby in Woolwich) willing to consider joining the organisation.
Scenes from the rally- featuring a keynote speech from Robinson which merged, as best it could, disparate themes of unfair treatment at the hands of the authorities, opposition to military action in Syria, the transgressions of Muslim grooming gangs, female genital mutilation and supposed Muslim controlled ‘no-go’ areas – are unlikely to persuade public opinion to the contrary.
Whilst the EDL has from its inception attempted to co-opt the language of human rights, even having the temerity to pose as a champion of women’s rights on occasion, its appeals to be taken seriously are seldom answered. Even it’s mission statement – which is carefully worded to present the organization in a benign light – lapses into identitarian politics as it asserts the importance of “respecting tradition” and insists that “the onus should always be on foreign cultures to adapt and integrate”.
‘Cultures’ – conceived as obstinate, ossified entities – are the arbitrarily defined groups creating the spark of conflict by the EDL’s account. Broadly adapting Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations thesis has become something of a hallmark for the modern far-right.
These portents may be ominous, but the thin barrier between central leadership and ordinary members makes the group’s challenge of winning support even more unlikely.
Unsavoury elements can easily join through the porous mechanisms of social media and lend their unphotogenic presence to public gathering without formal subscription. The cruder biological racism and associations with street violence that these members entail are enough to further dispel any notion that the EDL can successfully mobilise potential sympathisers who manage to overlook the controversies surrounding the leadership itself.
Yet complete complacency over the EDL’s platform risks conflating message and messenger: anti-immigrant sentiment and in particular anti-Muslim attitudes have remained at steadily high levels in spite of the EDL’s inability to capitalise on it. Statistical confirmation can be found in the British Social Attitudes survey, which concluded that “no other group elicits so much disquiet” among the British population.
Even more starkly, hate crime statistics indicate the effects of this prejudice in its more active form: 50-60 per cent of recorded anti-religious hate crime estimated to be directed against Muslims.
The discrepancy between potential and realised support for far-right movements is redolent of the UK’s encounters with the far-right in its more familiar electoral guise; the repeated poor performance of which is derived not from any exceptional cultural insulation from European trends, but from the lack of sophistication, and general incompetence, of our respective far-right parties.
The EDL has proven so far to be the social movement inheritor of this unsuccessful legacy. It is unclear what effect the street-based anti-fascist demonstrators have had in hampering their efforts, but it has to be noted that question marks remain over Unite Against Fascism, who have been accused of harbouring extremists of a different stripe.
Whilst it may be too trite and reductive to say that UAF are as bad as the EDL, the increasingly mutually dependent relationship of Islamist and far-right extremists should make selective opposition to extremism increasingly untenable. Nonetheless, the accumulated opposition to the EDL did ensure a sense of numerical embarrassment for the anti-Muslim group.
The unsolved attitudinal drivers of far-right sympathisers remain, however, and so the ideas that fuel the EDL’s marginal street presence are still obstinately active among the wider population.
The weekend’s skirmish may be seen as a defeat for the organised far-right on the streets, but the task of convincing a sceptical population of the benefits of immigration – particularly by engaging in the more difficult cultural, as well as economic, arguments – will have to be taken up elsewhere.
46 Responses to “The EDL fails to attract support, but anti-Muslim sentiment remains widespread”
Fedup Voter
Your reply is simply a bucket of whitewash. 75% of the UK population have concerns regarding Islam for many reasons:
1.The continual attacks and terror plots that are generally under reported in the UK media.
2. The general level of religious intolerance in Muslim countries. They rank highly in PEW Foundation surveys on religious intolerance.
http://www.pewforum.org/2012/09/20/rising-tide-of-restrictions-on-religion-findings/
3. The day to day stories regarding pork in schools, niqabs etc. that signal an unwillingness of Islamic culture to bend and adapt to the UK.
People are not stupid, they may only see a small proportion of these articles but it is more than enough to fuel general suspicion of Islam. That most certainly is not groups looking around saying, “right, who shall we hate today”
Fedup Voter
Also of interest in defining Islamism is this article from ConservativeHome. Possibly a bridge between left and right on this issue
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2010/11/sharia-is-the-touchstone-for-recognising-and-combatting-radical-islam-part-2.html
Fedup Voter
Whilst recognising that there are extremists in other faiths, you singularly fail to address the question of the proportionality of the threat posed to the UK and UK interests by each group. Excepting the IRA(who are a much diminished threat compared with the 1980s), none of the others you mention pose any real threat. True the Christian abortionist idiots in the US require monitoring to ensure their baleful influence does not extend here but the stark truth is that is only faith group that currently poses a threat here is Islam. The truth of this can be seen in the arrests/imprisonment for terror convictions as is evidenced here
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/terrorism-arrests-analysis-of-charging-and-sentencing-outcomes-by-religion/terrorism-arrests-analysis-of-charging-and-sentencing-outcomes-by-religion
with approx 57% being Muslim. The true figure is probably higher as there is an unknown category. When you juxtapose that to Muslims being 4.8% of the general population, it throws the threat level into stark relief. Add into that the numerous lower levels issues such as the ‘hate preachers’ on UK airwaves as evidenced here:
http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2013/07/muslim-tv-station-fined-for-allowing-contributor-to-incite-murder
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9698967/Muslim-radio-station-fined-for-saying-gay-people-should-be-tortured.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9859804/Preachers-of-hate-who-spread-their-violent-word-on-British-TV-channels.html
http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2013/09/islamic-tv-channels-fined-for-hatemongering
and the threats to free speech plus gender segregation:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie/2012/01/17/you-can-expect-threats-if-you-discuss-sharia/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/debate-on-islam-and-evolution-has-to-be-called-off-after-revolt-by-student-societies-8418022.html
http://west-wight-sangha.blogspot.com/2011/03/iman-threatened-over-evolution.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/channel-4-cancels-controversial-screening-of-islam-the-untold-story-documentary-after-presenter-tom-holland-is-threatened-8125641.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9107689/Mark-Thompson-BBC-director-general-admits-Christianity-gets-tougher-treatment.html
http://freethinker.co.uk/2012/01/18/muslims-murderous-threats-stop-sharia-lecture-at-a-london-university/
All this paints a rather disturbing picture. You say that Islamism is a much greater threat in the Middle East but fail to explin why Islam should be any different in the UK to elsewhere. We live in a global, interlinked world and it is reported that ME preachers often video link into mosques here plus their views are easily found online. Add to that oil money funding for mosques and community centres and it is easy to see how ME attitudes can be propagated in the UK. Your view, whilst undoubtedly honest and rooted in the Jewish experience in history, fails to take any account of the way Islam has expanded in the past as is evidenced here by an ex-Muslim:
http://www.islam-watch.org/books/islamic-jihad-legacy-of-forced-conversion-imperialism-slavery.pdf
Metasham Crystilic
Although I’m not a muslim I have been a student of islam for some years. I go by the Quran and 1400 years of islamic history to research to make my assumptions, not liberal appeasers lip service.
chris heath
Why are people concerned about Islam?
Perhaps its because Islam’s prophet, Mohammed was a warlord and conqueror, and to emulate him is considered the duty of every Muslim. And they follow the Koran, the Holy word of God, which in itself contains violent, intolerant texts, with commandments to kill.. But do they follow such examples? The source is ‘thereligionofpeace ‘.
Islamic fanatics burned nuns, slit the throats of dozens of students at a school, murdered members of a polio vaccination team, bombed restaurants and markets, massacred over a hundred villagers and even waded into a train station to stab over thirty Chinese commuters to death – all in the past week.