Category Archives: Nottinghamshire

Bulwell EDL supporters guilty of racism

Two men who subjected an Asian family to racist abuse were jailed for 10 months on Friday. Kelvin Barratt of Courtleet Way, Bulwell, threatened the owners of a store with a knife and said “I’m EDL” and asked them “What religion are you?” Stefan Davis of Bromley Close threatened to smash and rob the shop.

Both men admitted racially aggravated harassment and using threatening words or behaviour. Barratt additionally pleaded guilty to having the knife. Davis said that alcohol was a factor in his behaviour.

 


Tony Curtis is making it up

Because Nottingham’s Tony Curtis has recently risen to become an unofficial third in command of the EDL after Tommy & Kev, we thought we’d better take a bit more notice of him. Seeing as these days Tommy seems to prefer appearing as British Freedom Party deputy, Steven  Lennon, to bothering to turn up to EDL demos, and Kev Carroll is standing for police commissioner in Bedfordshire, Curtis might get a promotion any day now.

So you don’t have to, I’ve sat through Tony’s speech from the EDL’s latest demo in Bristol to see what he’s all about.

What struck me immediately was how Curtis’ speeches make all kind of vague emotional claims, designed to whip up anger, but are totally free of any factual information. He makes all kinds of outrageous statements without once backing them up with any concrete examples because he doesn’t need to. The crowd he is playing for has already made up its mind. It blindly follows the men on the platform because questioning is not encouraged. A lot of the anger and hatred that EDL demos thrive on is manufactured by its leadership who willfully overlook the wider context and fall back on prejudice and bigotry. Curtis’ speeches are just a tick list of EDL clichés for the crowd to reaffirm with a drunken burst of singing at the appropriate moment.

Curtis’ Bristol speech starts with a rant about other EDL members who have accused him of being “Old Bill”. “When you’ve got evidence”, he challenged, “come and see me”. We could say the same about pretty much every single thing he said in his speech.

He went on to make the following statement about Islam:

This is the same religion of peace that shot a woman dead last week for adultery. They shot a woman dead. She was on her knees. We have a right to say we’re not having this in our country. We have a right to say no without being opposed by individuals that can’t be bothered to have a wash.

We are left completely in the dark about who he’s talking about, where in the world this incident happened, and why “the religion of peace” rather than the individual who shot the woman is to blame. But we know she was on her knees – we are painted an emotional picture to make us angry about the supposed perpetrator, Islam itself. Then we are supposed to ignore the fact that murder is already prohibited by the law and custom in the UK and think that it is only the EDL who are preventing this situation from happening here. Anyone who opposes the EDL is to be derided with the tired old fascist cliché of being a soap dodging dole scrounger (“unwashed students who can’t be bothered to get a job”).

This kind of gibberish only makes sense if you’ve been following the EDL’s mythical narrative, that Islam is the cause of all evil in the world and only the crusading knight of the EDL can stop it. Anyone who tries to stop them is siding with evil (and probably smells as well).

This massively heightened sense of their own importance, and a growing sense of insecurity, leads to Curtis making preposterous statements like this: “Remember, what you’re doing today you’re doing nothing wrong. History will be written on events like today.” This was said about a 10 minute march by 300 people around an area totally barricaded off by the police from the general public. It was hardly the Battle of Britain, however addled by booze and coke you were.

Now Curtis switches to a new line of attack:

In every city in this country there are Muslim only areas. The frightening thing is the local government are letting them get away with it. They’re saying ‘We can’t go down there because it’s a Muslim only area.’ Bollocks! I’m an Englishmen, I can walk down any street I like. I’m an Englishman and I’m a taxpayer and I can walk down any street I like.

This is a popular EDL myth, the idea that there are Muslim only areas where presumably any non-believer is descended on by a pack of zombie Muslims and has their brains eaten on sight. It’s total bollocks of course. I mean, if these areas exist, I challenge Mr Curtis and his comrades to tell me where these areas are in Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln and Northampton? I’ve been able to travel freely around the city I’ve lived in all my life without ever being hit by a muslamic raygun. I think you’re making shit up to scare people.

I also want to know the source for the ridiculous claim that “local government” are refusing to go to certain areas because they’re Muslim only. It sounds pretty unbelievable that local authorities the length and breadth of the UK are leaving entire neighbourhoods of their cities without services because the “Islamics” have taken over. I suspect there is no source. It’s just another myth to scare the easily-led.

But there’s more rather unlikely and unsubstantiated rumour-mongering to come:

How can they cut police numbers when the crime rate is so high? Especially in Muslim areas. How can they do that?

“Especially in Muslim areas”? Do you have any statistics for that Mr Curtis? I think you’re making it up.

But here’s the truly breathtaking one:

Three years ago Islamics weren’t being arrested for child grooming, nobody was interested. We even had senior police officers telling their constables ‘Don’t stop Muslims in cars because we’ll get called a racist’, and all the time these Muslims are cruising for young girls to abuse and rape. But now it’s no longer happening because the English Defence League has said that if it continues we will organise demonstrations in those areas. It’s not happening any more, and you are part of that. You can go home today and say all those scumbags that are in prison for abusing young girls, I was partly responsible for putting them there. Because 20 years ago they weren’t interested and now they are and the only reason they’re interested is because of the millions it would cost them if we went to that city.

Here Curtis is claiming that the successful prosecution of the Rochdale grooming gang was down to the EDL, a truly mind-bending claim. The far right, including EDL members, almost caused the trial of the men to collapse by holding demonstrations outside the court in Liverpool at which barristers were attacked. A far more convincing case could be made about the role of the incoming Muslim chief prosecutor for the region, Nazir Afsal, who overturned the previous decision not to prosecute the gang.

The claim that senior police officers told their forces not to stop Muslims seems to be an embellished version of a quote from the mother of a child abused by paedophiles in Rochdale. In a Telegraph article on the case, Miss F said “A police officer did tell me, and a social worker has told me since, that they’re frightened to do anything with the Asians because they might be accused of being racist against them” (not that they were ordered not to do anything). But, interestingly, the first reason Miss F gave for why the police didn’t investigate was that “They knew all about my daughters from late 2002, but they just put it down by my girls being really bad kids.”

If we actually look at the facts of the case, it seems that gender and class rather than race were where the problems lay. The police were reluctant to protect “bad kids” and the CPS originally decided not to prosecute because the girls were not considered to be credible witnesses. Credibility in the eyes of middle class lawyers often involves a judgement based on the social standing of the witness. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that young, working class girls don’t figure very highly on their scale. In rape cases, it is also very difficult for women to be believed, as evidenced by the extremely poor conviction rates, a result of the patriarchal structure of society. Indeed, many commentators with experience working with victims of sexual abuse blamed misogynist and patriarchal attitudes for the rapes.

And before we consider the EDL to be crusaders against paedophilia, let’s remember all of the cases of rape of young girls by members of the EDL.

The idea that the only reason that police forces are acting on cases of paedophilia by Muslims (it seems the EDL aren’t interested in white paedophiles) is because otherwise the EDL will do a demo in their city, only makes sense to a believer in the cult of EDL, especially now that their demos are so small and easy for the police to contain. But these are the myths that need to be told so that the faithful will keep returning.

In between the bombast, there was a lot of tacit admission of their defeat in Curtis’ message. “Let’s get these defence leagues restarted” he pleaded and “Let’s see you all in Walthamstow because this has got to get bigger.” “The English Defence League is here to stay,” he said “even if I have to go into every city on my own.” “We are coming down the road in every city in this country until somebody listens to what we have to say.” Still no new ideas then.

Curtis’ conclusion is that “We are the only organisation to stand in defiance of the Islamics. We are the only ones and no one else.” I’m sure the BNP, Infidels, National Front, British People’s Party, English Democrats and UKIP say that too! It’s another example of how blind he is to everything outside of the EDL bubble.

Tony, when you have got some evidence for your bullshit claims, come and see us.


Nottingham BNP’s Olympic journey

Nottingham BNP have been watching the Olympics with conflicting emotions. First there was relief that there were some “white events” like swimming. Then there was outrage against the “British ‘regime'” for “bashing up amateur cyclists” as the repression of London Critical Mass got underway. This quickly turned to disgust on the realisation that the victims of police aggression were “Uk indymedia jobless dreadlocked unwashed pricks”. And finally, never far away with the BNP, was hate: “So why was vermin Doreen Lawrence at the opening ceremony – hang the bitch”.

As we’ve previously revealed, Nottingham BNP’s Twitter feed is a brain dump for unhinged fascist, Bob Brindley. These are the thoughts of a man who wants to run for Police Commissioner in Nottingham this Autumn. Seeing as he can barely control his own irrational hatred, I can’t imagine many people would trust him with the local constabulary.


I think I see a pattern here!

From top left, clockwise: Blackburn (Apr ’11), Bristol (Jul ’12), Cambridge (Jul ’11), Rochdale (Jun ’12), Luton (May ’12), Hyde (Feb ’12)

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The crazy world of Bob Brindley

Things are looking bleak for Nottingham BNP. Hit by the shockwaves of the national BNP meltdown, members have been leaving in droves. Former organiser, Chris Bell, has stepped down and left the sinking ship in the decidedly shaky hands of Bob Brindley.

Bob’s the man who used to do lonely leafleting sessions outside the Royal Centre until he was chased off by a lone anti-fascist earlier this year. His tweets on the Nottingham BNP account have ranged from the bizarre to the paranoid to uncensored fascist braindump (and usually all three at once) and have given us a chuckle or two over the past months. Here’s a few selected highlights from his spittle spattered keyboard:


Stop and search – not a fair cop

A report by Nottinghamshire police reveals that their uses of stop-and-search powers in 2011/12 have fallen disproportionately on black people, who are nine times more likely to be stopped than white people.  This is of course nothing new; although the extent of disproportionality has varied in recent years, it’s been an ongoing reality for some years that you’re more likely to be stopped in Notts if you’re black.  A recent national report (for which Notts police did not provide data) showed that the same reality exists – with varying degrees of disproportionality – nationwide.

As Notts police say on their own website, “Racist harassment is a crime…..Racist harassment is any offensive conduct or behaviour motivated by prejudice against a person because of their skin colour, nationality, ethnic origin or cultural background. ”  Unfortunately, it seems like the best way to get away with this particular crime is to wear a police uniform whilst doing it.

 


What’s a racist Forest fan to do?

The recent news that Nottingham Forest is in advanced talks concerning take over by the wealthy Kuwaiti Al-Hasawi family has been met with a bit of a mixed reaction from xenophobic and anti-Muslim fans. They are happy to take the Kuwaitis’ money, of course, but less keen on the Islamic association with their club.

For Leicester City fans the situation is much easier. They’re pissing themselves laughing.

You may remember that back in January we reported on racist chanting by Forest fans at the Forest v Leicester match. Racist Forest fans have long taunted their local rivals with the claim that Leicester is a “town full of Pakis”, in reference to Leicester’s large Asian population. Now Leicester fans are getting their revenge.

Craig “Leicester” Elliott, organiser of Leicester EDL, wrote a post taking the piss out of racist Forest fans hoping that Al-Hasawi “makes all the pies halal, bans beer from the ground, turns the club shop into a mosque, replaces your matchday program with the quran and erects a model of the 5 pillars of islam at the trent end.” He specifically targeted Nottingham EDLer Jack Stevens for abuse.

Stevens was unapolagetic: “At least our muzzie putting money into us what r all the muzzies in lesta doin 4 ya … Still a town full of pakis !!!”. Nottingham EDL organiser, Richard Carroll agreed:

Craig they don’t chant “town full of pakis” cos of your ownership… Or cos your stadiums called prawn kung pow… It’s cos “your a town full of pakis..”

Good to see that there’s no relationship between racist Forest fans and Nottingham EDL then!

These idiots are fortunately a small minority. The majority just want to see our teams do well and good football being played. Only muppets like the EDL care about the race and religion of the people involved.


Easy meat

Blink and you’d miss them but 500 EDL members turned up in Rochdale yesterday to try to make further capital from the Rochdale grooming case. As I’ve said in a previous post, the far right have ignored a lot of the factual evidence and just followed their prejudices in “making sense” of this case, helped along by mainstream politicians like Jack Straw with his statement that some men in the Pakistani community “view white girls as easy meat”.

Given that the EDL say that they are so opposed to this mistreatment of girls and what they view as Islam’s mistreatment of women in general, you might think that they would be squeaky clean themselves. This is not the case. Another EDL member was outed for a paedophilia conviction recently, adding to the already extensive list. Experts suggest that male paedophiles flourish in environments where there is strong male bonding and an atmosphere of misogyny. The EDL is such a place.

Less than 10% of EDL members are female. The vast majority are men and the culture is correspondingly laddish and sexist. Indeed, EDL leader Tommy Robinson is a keen fan of the twitter feed of True Lad, who regularly tweets boorish sexist rubbish about “slags”, “fat girls”, making wagers for blow jobs from his girlfriend and even sexual assaults: “sneakily brushing against girls arses as they walk past in clubs. #covertarseratingLAD.” But then, girls are just easy meat to these people.

These offensive, sexist values are present throughout the male EDL (and are often considered normal and acceptable by the women as well). We have already covered the “lock up your daughters” attitudes of local members, the rape jokes and the perception that women should be domestic servants. There is plenty more abuse of women where that came from.

The most common perception of women is that they are sexual and domestic slaves, as summed up in this post by Adam Repton (Nottingham EDL member): “A real woman never lets her man leave the house hungry or horny”.

This is an attitude shared by Craig “Leicester” Elliott, Leicester organiser, who had this Mothers’ Day wish for Leicester mums: “Happy mothers day to all mums!  A little explanation to Leicester mums though! It’s such a special day for you on this day every year so this year we thought a special dinner was in order. In fact this dinner has got to be so special that were all off out to watch the footy whilst you cook it so we don’t get under your feet!”

Chris Conroy (Newark EDL organiser) is a man who clearly thinks a woman’s place is in the kitchen and nowhere else. “Why do women try to talk football? Do you see me in the kitchen discussing dishwashing strategies? No, you don’t.” When questioned by a woman who objected to his stance, he wrote “you fail as a proper female”.

These lads think that lounging around playing football is a “proper” man’s role whilst “proper” females should be happy to cook and clean.

Oh and be perved at by them of course, as demonstrated by Martin Wealthall of Nottingham EDL:

Any women who disagree with this servile role are just trying to spoil men’s fun. Steve “Bod” of Leicester EDL reckons “men were brought into this world to enjoy there life. women were brought into the world to make sure they dont”. Or as Chris Conroy puts it “Fucking females… lol! dont have a clue… text you with abuse before they even know the crack…get real cunt.” Lee Tams (Leicester EDL) adds “FK UM USE AND ABUSE”. After all, they’re just easy meat.

Not content to joke about rape and sexual abuse of women, the lads also like to fantasise about extreme physical violence and murder of their female partners. Ian Humphries of Leicester EDL likes to “joke” about breaking his wife’s jaw (the “sound barrier”) and burying her under the house.

All of this should demonstrate how hypocritical these EDL members are every time they complain about Muslims abusing women or the inferior status that Islam confers on women.

Anti-fascists are against the abuse of all women and children, not just when it is politically convenient for us. We want a world where women and men are equals, not one where women slave in the kitchen whilst their menfolk relax in front of the footy. Whether it is paedophile grooming gangs or the misogynists of the EDL, violence, sexual abuse and threats of abuse against people based on their gender need to be eradicated.


212: Another sad little nationalist gang

The latest vehicle for frustrated nationalist street fighters (now that the EDL is sliding down the shitter and who are the infidels again?) is cryptically calling itself 212. There are already Leicester and Nottingham branches of the group “dedicated to defending our City, our Country and our People”. Calling themselves “Proud enemies of extremist Islam, Defenders of England, it’s history, culture and its People” they aim to “end the Muslim stranglehold of our land and our government, expose Islam for the depraved fake religion that it is and to support other pro-English-anti Islamic groups throughout the Country.”

That should give you some idea of how connected to reality these people are. Not only do they think that a religion with over 1bn followers is “fake” (no doubt all the “so-called” Muslims are actually computer-generated shape-shifting lizard people from the moon) but they also think it has a stranglehold over our government. You know, the one that regularly goes and invades Muslim countries so that it can plunder and control them and has spent millions trying to infiltrate, spy on and control its domestic Muslim population too. But what would I know – I’m just a cultural Marxist-indoctrinated sheeple after all.

Unsurprisingly, given that they subscribe to exactly the same brand of paranoid anti-Muslim nonsense, they have “met up with local #EDL lads” and found that “were all on the same page”. Indeed they’ve pledged their “support for #EDL”. Quite a few prominent EDL members have liked their Facebook pages, including Leicester organiser, Craig “Leicester”.

UK “boss” of 212, Jay Butcher, says he is “Sick to death of weekend warriors around the pub table” and reckons the solution is to “Fight!”. A graphic illustration of what they are in favour of is given in the cover for the 212 Poison page which depicts a mosque in flames whilst dispossessed Muslims watch. This is a group clearly going for the Kristallnacht vibe. Indeed, some of the recent offerings cross-posted on the Leicester and Nottingham pages show that they are more of an attack dog for the British state than a rogue cell. For example, they have posted a link to the UK Border Agency’s contact page, encouraging members to grass up suspected “ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS”. Apparently, “High turnover of staff in Takeaways is a sure sign, any Muzi sweat shops no doubt will have a few as well. EYES OPEN PEOPLE. Smoke out the Rats.”

212, just like the EDL before them, are riding alongside the state’s crackdowns on Muslims and migrants and using them to build their vigilante gang. They threaten and maybe even carry out the work on the streets that official agencies don’t want to get their hands dirty with. Although they could well be another sad little nationalist gang that is more in love with its own butch image than actually doing anything, a change in the political environment towards a more hardline state could empower them to make their threats a reality.


Jay Clark bows out

Fresh from threatening to wipe Indymedia clean out of Nottingham, Jay Clark is now desperately trying to dissociate himself from the EDL. His supporters claim he hasn’t been actively involved in Nottingham EDL for over a year and we should stop picking on him.

The “over a year” is a bit of an exaggeration. Jay was prominently involved in the St George’s Day event in Clifton last month, an event which was organised and stewarded by Nottingham, Newark and Leicester EDL members and which was MCed by Tony Curtis. Tony is a Nottingham EDL member who has spoken from the same platform as Saint Tommy at a number of national demos including Luton at the start of this month. Jay also marched with other EDL members in front of their massive Nottingham division flag on the Nottingham march. If Jay was really looking for a fresh start, he could’ve tried harder.

That said, he is clearly not as involved as he once was and doesn’t go to demos any more, so calling him the Nottingham organiser is inaccurate. That’s a title that would be better to give Richard Carroll AKA Richard Nottingham, who is currently dealing with the logistics. Another important figure is Tony Curtis, who seems heavily involved with the national leadership and was making international links at the Luton demo.

Richard Carroll

Tony Curtis

The Nottingham division once boasted of being one of the largest divisions in the country but it’s a shadow of its former self. People like Jay have realised that being prominent in the EDL is a thankless task: being targeted by anti-fascists, getting hassle from the OB, being publicly associated with a drunken rabble of racist hooligans, and then getting shit from your own footsoldiers when you try to instill some discipline. When it is clear that the EDL has nothing new to offer and no real sense of direction, you might as well give up all that shit and go fishing.