Tag Archives: Lincoln

2015/08/14

EDL march against Lincoln mosque

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

On Sat July 25th, the EDL held a demo against construction of Lincoln’s first mosque.  This had been the subject of previous far-right protest in 2013, and the EDL have jumped on the issue in an attempt to boost their flagging support.

About 120 attended the EDL event, marching from The Anchor pub to Cornhill…

Another town, another pub, usual muppets

 

A counter-demo organised by Lincoln Against Racism and Fascism attracted about 100 anti-fascists, who marched to the City Square.

lincoln

Police kept the two marches apart, and there were no arrests.

 

Comments Off on EDL march against Lincoln mosque   |  tags: , , | posted in Lincolnshire

2013/07/04

Lincoln anti-fascist group relaunched

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

We’re pleased to announce the relaunch of Lincoln Against Racism and Fascism in response to EDL splinter group, the East Anglian Patriots. The EAP held a demo in the city last month at which they chanted “burn the mosque” and have threatened to return soon. They are also trying to jump on the Skegness anti-halal slaughterhouse bandwagon having announced that they will be demonstrating in the town on 27th August, following in the fascist footsteps of the National Front and BNP.

We wish the anti-fascist group all the best.

Comments Off on Lincoln anti-fascist group relaunched   |  tags: , | posted in Lincolnshire

2013/06/11

“Burn the mosque” chant East Anglian fascists

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

On Saturday the East Anglian Patriots bussed a couple of hundred fascists into Lincoln for a demo that threatened violence against Muslims and sought to deny freedom of workship in the city. An anti-fascist counter demonstration was also held. The fascists, led by a Lincoln Infidels banner, chanted “Burn the mosque” and “Allah is a paedo”. The Infidels are an openly Nazi splinter from the EDL.

Infidels

They also listened to speeches from people including “Wolfie” Smith, a man whose speciality seems to be inciting racial violence. He recently posted “DEATH TO ALL MUZZIES KILL THEM ALL” and “BURN EVERY MOSQUE IN THE COUNTRY … BURN THEM ALL WITH THE MUZRAT SCUM IN THEM”. He has also referred to Muslims as “SAND NIGGER[s]”. The local organiser was an EDL supporter called Alex Banos who has previously said that if the mosque is built it will be “coming down”.

wolf

WolfieSmith 220513

The march was organised by a group of former EDL members calling themselves the East Anglian Patriots. The EAP and their supporters clearly share Wolfie’s views. On hearing the news about the murder of Lee Rigby the EAP posted about Muslims that “THEY’VE KILLED ONE OF OUR BOYS IN WOOLWICH … KICK THE BASTARDS OUT NOW!” When reporting that Gillingham mosque had been attacked in revenge their followers posted “Throw boiling tar over them set fire to them” to which EAP responded “Happy days!”. “Great news keep on lads” posted another fan, “yes this is a start in the right direction” and “I would be out whipping some muzzie ass all over town tonight”. Other responses on the page included this from Wendy Wooley: “Kill the fucking lot off them if you want just give me a gun and I will do it point blank straight in the head”. Lj High: “march on the muslim areas and kill them all…..”

EAP 230513

EAP 220513 5

EAP 220513 3

These are people who support arson, murder and genocide as a response to the Lee Rigby murder. Just like how the men who killed Rigby saw all British soldiers as the enemy, these “patriots” see all Muslims as the enemy and would be happy to see them ethnically cleansed.

The EAP were pleased with the turnout in Lincoln and have said they will be back. They are also organising a demonstration against the Skegness halal slaughterhouse on Sat 6th July.

AndrewReynolds 110613

We cannot sit back and let these fascists gain support and win the argument simply by shouting the loudest. There has been a 10-fold increase in attacks against Muslims since the Woolwich murder, including numerous arson attacks against mosques. The threats being made by groups like the EDL and the EAP are not idle talk – these people mean to act on them.

We need a well-organised anti-fascist response to forthcoming demos by working in the local communities and linking up with wider anti-fascist networks for support to prevent these people getting a platform for their sick views and incitement to violence.

Comments Off on “Burn the mosque” chant East Anglian fascists   |  tags: , , | posted in Lincolnshire

2013/05/22

The racists behind Lincoln demo

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

We’ve been doing a little digging into the Lincoln mosque demo to find out what more about the people organising it. The original Facebook event was set up by a local man called Alex Banos who lists his religious views as “muslim bashing” and his political views as UKIP. He is a big fan of the EDL and it was his posting stating that “we all edl on here”. He has also made posts threatening to bring down the mosque if it gets built.

AlexBanos 060912

Alex Banos: Not the most English name in the world

Alex Banos: Not the most English name in the world

Since then a more organised far right group has picked up on the event. The East Anglian Patriots, led by former EDL webmaster, Anthony Bamford, and with an admin consisting of disaffected former EDL organisers like Andy Reynolds and Rob Stebbing, is promoting the event. In spite of the fact that Lincoln isn’t in East Anglia. Oh dear. There are plenty of actual EDL members involved as well. Members of the Stop the Lincoln Mosque group include EDL deputy, Kev Carroll, and Norwich EDL organiser Ivan Humble. Sam Burgess, who organised the Norwich EDL demo has said he is going. Other members of the East Anglian Patriots include EVF Midlands organiser, Wayne Ayers, Daz Healey and Ben Laight of Boston EDL and a familiar face who seems to pop up in everything far right around these parts – Dean Everitt. Everitt’s latest anti-immigration demo in Wisbech was deemed too extreme even for the strongly anti-immigration UKIP to attend so he obviously feels the need to move in more blatantly fascist circles these days.

MembersEAP

Things are not looking good for the far right mobilisation according to posts on their event page, demonstrating that, as we expected, local interest in the demo is non-existent. Interest from “Lincoln lads is embarrassing” according to Dave Gooderham,  who complains that “the locals don’t seem to care”. Rob Sawyer agreed: “the i don’t want a mosque brigade can’t get off there arse” and added that he’s “using the demo as a social and nothing more”. He concluded “the people of Lincoln don’t fucking care”. Which begs the question of why people from a different region are coming to protest a mosque that has nothing to do with them? It just looks like an attempt to stir up trouble where there is none, a social (i.e. heavy drinking) session for a few lads from Norfolk and an excuse to do a few racist chants as well as trying to intimidate the local Muslim community.

InterestEmbarassing

Fortunately, local Lincoln anti-fascists have calling for a counter-mobilisation against the racists. We will promote their plans once they’ve been made public and encourage anyone who is against fascism and nationalism to oppose the anti-Muslim demo.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Lincolnshire

2013/05/14

EDL splinter group to demonstrate in Lincoln

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

EDL splinter group, the East Anglian Patriots (not to be confused with the East Anglian Patriotic Front or the People’s Front of East Anglia), have announced that they will hold a demonstration in Lincoln on Saturday 8th June at 1pm. They are protesting the building of a mosque on the site of a disused dairy because they don’t believe in freedom of religion.

Just in case there’s any dispute about whether or not the organisers of the demo are EDL or not, here’s what they are saying on Facebook:

LincolnMosqueDemo

Unsurprisingly, the promotional material for their event is littered with factual errors and half-truths. To start with they state that the mosque will cost £0.5m to build whereas the actual figure is close to £1m (and it’s going to be paid by the local Muslim community anyway, so why do they care?) The former EDL members twist the truth mercilessly by saying that “Local residents have objected but as usual their pleas have been ignored.” In actual fact, local residents group Boultham Residents’ Association initially objected to the plans on the basis of the increased traffic that would be brought to the area, but came out in support of the final plan, which included 68 parking spaces for worshippers. Lincoln Council only received five letters of objection, “mostly about concerns over traffic congestion”, while six letters were sent in which backed the project.

Chair of the Boultham Residents’ Association, Jean Flannery had some very positive things to say about the scheme that seem to demonstrate that local people are accepting and welcoming of the mosque and the Muslims who use it:

We need to move forward together. Now, our joint task is to foster understanding and acceptance of one another.

Misunderstandings may cause difficulties and anxieties but they can be corrected.

We already live and work alongside one another.

Individual and working relationships are the norm for many. We have our differences but we also share more similarities.

By far the majority of us surely wish to live in harmony. To my mind the way to accomplish this is to develop and expand relationships to fully include the wider community, in which we all share.

It seems that it’s the far right protesters who are riding roughshod over the desires of the local community and trying to impose their own agenda.

The invaluable piece of English heritage that will be destroyed by the mosque

The invaluable piece of English heritage that will be destroyed by the mosque

“Our way of life, our faith, our very existence is under threat from this Islamic encroachment” the East Anglian Patriots’ poster shrieks hysterically, although it’s not at all clear how turning a derelict wasteland into a mosque is going to do that. The Lincoln Islamic Association has compelling reasons for needing a larger mosque, saying “We now have approximately 2000 Muslims in Lincoln and surrounding areas. Our current Mosque capacity is only 60.” The truth of the matter is the demonstrators are mostly anti-Muslim and racist people from out of town (Lincoln is not in East Anglia) who want to divide communities along lines of race and religion.

This demonstration and its politics of intercommunal violence should be resisted.

 

Comments Off on EDL splinter group to demonstrate in Lincoln   |  tags: , | posted in Lincolnshire

2012/11/26

Racist attacks in Lincoln and Bingham

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Earlier this month, a gang of drunken racists who attacked a student in Lincoln were found guilty of racially aggravated assault and harassment and jailed. The group shouted racist abuse at University of Lincoln student, Nadir Ali, before punching and kicking him. An Irish shopper who tried to intervene also received racist abuse.

Meanwhile, last Friday in Bingham a Muslim family had a cross wrapped in ham and set on fire left on their doorstep in a clearly religiously-motivated act of harassment. This is exactly the kid of spiteful childish act that the local EDL specialise in. After all, it’s not long ago that Nottingham EDL activists Chris Payne, Nicky Long, Wayne Havercroft and Robert Parnham left a pig’s head on a stick at the site of a mosque in Nottingham.

Chris Payne (2nd from left) and friends: Local specialists in pork-based hate crime

Anti-Muslim attacks are an increasingly prevalent “hate crime” and it is groups like the EDL and BNP who are inciting them and their supporters who are carrying them out.

Comments Off on Racist attacks in Lincoln and Bingham   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire

2012/09/26

EVF: The latest fascist brand

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

With the EDL disappearing faster than a pile of coke in front of Tommy Robinson, other far right groups are trying to steal the rats jumping the ship. Nick Griffin is making a concerted effort to woo disillusioned EDL members with Zionist conspiracy tapes made in his bedroom and numerous new splinter groups are springing up. Last week we reported on the New Patriots Alliance (NPA), a Bill “Muslim killer” Baker-led outfit that tried to poach Nottingham EDL’s Tony Curtis, until he decided they were too racist for him. One of its competitors is the English Volunteer Force (EVF) which has sprouted a handful of local ‘divisions’ including one in Lincoln.

Apparently, the EVF was started in July by “EDL co-founder John Sheridan with significant backing”. This “significant” backing amounts to around 180 likes on Facebook and 60 odd people saying they will be attending the EVF’s first event in February 2013 so it’s not exactly setting the nationalist world on fire. The “anonymous” leader excites EVF enthusiast Andrew Chambers who writes:

i think the main man should be invisable to the uaf,so can,t be continually brow beaten by leftwing scum,and if the lefties don,t know who to point the finger at the leader is,nt going to have to spend half his time defending himself from character assainations by the far left and treacherous mainstream liberal media

Unfortunately for Andrew, we know exactly who “John Sheridan” is. It is the alias of former EDL leader, Chris Renton. Renton was a BNP activist in Weston Super Mare before joining the EDL and tried to make links between the EDL and Combat 18. He was outed by another former EDL leader, Paul Ray, and since then the dreaded “lefties” have been digging all kinds of shit on him. According to Ray, Renton was the EDL’s enforcer on its web forums and Facebook pages:

The groups online presence is enforced with a strong hand and any comment or hint of debate is deleted and the person who questions EDL tactics denounced as a traitor, repeated ‘offences’ by an EDL member such as the crime of questioning EDL policy or suggesting new tactics for protests that do not involve fighting the police or UAF members are met with a vicious smear campaign led by none other than the Sheridan alias himself. One woman, a 57 year old Grandmother who will remain nameless decided she would email the EDL’s leaders to give her support and offer some ideas, she was then met with a barrage of hate mail including messages from the Sheridan alias himself, many of which had a crude sexual twist to them, all of which are too shocking to print here.

Sounds like the kind of chap a good wholesome patriotic movement needs!

Very naughty boy: Chris Renton AKA “John Sheridan”

Renton fell out of love with the EDL some time ago and is now busy promising to lead his Volunteer Force back to the fabled glory days:

We watch on with utter disgust the absolute implosion of the English Defence League, What the fuck has happened?! From thousands of die hard warriors to a couple of hundred pissed off people, EVF will mirror the early EDL of the days of stoke/manchester/nottingham, I absolutly promise this. No Surrender Ever!

The EVF seems to want emulate the EDL without police liaison, and without the British Freedom disaster (“The EVF think politics is not the way forward”) i.e. holding flashmobs and fighting cops, Muslims and anti-fascists. They have apparently forgotten that the EDL have never managed to get more than a few hundred to their flashmobs, numbers which were never anywhere near as high as their publicly advertised demos. They are also clearly not learning from the experiences of the Infidels, who tried to do something very similar when they split away from the EDL, and have failed to get significant numbers to their events.

The EVF are vowing that all the money from their £30 hoodies and merchandise is going back into the organisation. Let’s hope it’s not the leadership’s drugs and booze fund this time!

Bizarrely, for a group called the English Volunteer Force, they are going to a troops homecoming parade in Bridgend, Wales, in October. At least the EDL made up a Welsh Defence League before showing their faces west of the border.

The EVF are not shy about saying they are against all Muslims:

Whilst we stand against Militant Islam, We do however feel militancy is deeply embedded in Islam as a whole, Within their ideology and in the way practicing Muslims conduct their lives and by the way the vast majority choose to not integrate with our core values…

We are absolutly convinced this country is currently being Islamified.

…err, right. Their response to this “Islamification” is going to be a demo in Trafalgar Square next February, but we reckon the 65 boneheads who’ve agreed to turn up so far are going to look a little lost.

The EVF website’s “policies” section carries a fairly hilarious smear of their anti-fascist opponents as well:

We see the Far-left and the politically funded Anti-fa and Unite Against Facism (UAF) as a great danger to our country as we believe they have created the conditions that have permitted Muslim extremists to push our laws to their boundries.
These people have absolutly no morals whatsoever, They are simply deluded and extremly dangerous

This is a bit rich coming from a group that takes inspiration from the Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland that murdered over 400 civilians during it’s campaign of executions and bombings. They followed the maxim that if “you couldn’t get an IRA man you should shoot a Taig” according to their leader Gusty Spence. In 1971 the UVF carried out the McGurk’s Bar bombing which killed 15 Catholic civilians and in 1974 they planted bombs in Dublin and Managhan that killed 33 people and injured around 300. During the mid-’70s, a unit of the UVF dubbed the Shankill Butchers carried out a number of murders of Catholic civilians in which victims were abducted at random, beaten and tortured before having their throats slashed. In 1994, UVF members carried out a machine gun attack on a pub in County Down on the basis that its customers were watching the Republic of Ireland playing in the World Cup and were assumed to be Catholics. Six people were killed.

The UVF were also involved in dealing drugs within the Protestant community, and according to Alan McQuillan, assistant director of the Assets Recovery Agency, this dealing “is generally run for personal gain by a large number of people”. Ex-policeman Colin Robert Armstrong, whose luxury homes were seized in a high profile drugs case, had links to the UVF.

The EVF, then, is part of the move towards a more racist and violent mode of operation in the far right, following the collapse of the EDL. This realignment hasn’t worked for the Infidels and we fully expect the EVF to follow them into obscurity.

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Lincolnshire

2012/07/12

Lincoln Underground Collective skill share

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Lincoln Underground Collective are holding a skill share on Sat 28th July. As part of the day, there will be a discussion of anti-racism and anti-fascism. Here’s some information from their website:

Lincoln Underground Collective is pleased to announce its second Skill Share on Saturday 28th July 2012.

We hope to build on the success of last year’s event which featured workshops from Industrial Workers of the World, Anarchist Federation & Transition Lincoln, a report of which can be found here: https://lincolnundergroundcollective.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/luc-skill-share-report/

The event will take place at Croft Street Community Centre, a very well-equipped, accessible & spacious venue roughly 1/2 mile from the city centre. Venue website: http://www.croftstreetcentre.co.uk/

We are looking for local & regional groups who’d like to run discussions & workshops, so if you’d be interested in helping please contact us at lincolnundergroundcollective – at – riseup.net with details.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Comments Off on Lincoln Underground Collective skill share   |  tags: , | posted in Lincolnshire

2012/05/04

Bye bye BNP!

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Fascists had a bad night in local elections across the country. The BNP has, at the time of writing, lost all of the seats it was defending and failed to win any new seats. None of the smaller fascist groupuscles has fared any better.

In the East Midlands, the BNP lost their two seats in Heanor where their share of the vote was considerably reduced. Cliff Roper’s term as “the invisible councillor” obviously didn’t go down well with the electorate and his share of the vote has fallen to 19.1% from the 36.5% he won with in 2008. Beaten into third place, Councillor Roper has become simply another nationalist chancer, the Heanor Patriot. Lewis Allsebrook’s replacement, Adrian Hickman, also failed to impress and came last. In Heanor & Loscoe the BNP’s share of the vote was halved and in Ripley & Marehay it was reduced to a third of the 2008 result. Emma Roper did particularly badly, getting only 59 votes (4.2%) in Codnor & Waingroves. This is about a quarter of the share won by fascist farmer Alan Warner in 2008.

The National Front’s Amber Valley candidate, Timothy Knowles, only got 99 votes in Langley Mill, coming in last place.

Over in Lincoln, disgraced Nazi sympathiser and BNP candidate, Dean Lowther, got a pathetic 49 votes (2.8%) coming in last place. This is less than a quarter of the 12.2% he got last time around.

In Derby, the BNP did slightly less badly but their vote was still down on the 2008 results. Paul Hilliard’s black shirt campaign won him 14.7% of the vote in Chaddesden, but this was down from the 17.9% he got in 2008. The only good news for the party was that candidates in Derwent and Spondon beat the Lib Dems into last place, gaining 11.9% and 8.1% of the vote respectively.

Hope Not Hate are collecting the far right’s results on their website and you can compare them with the results from 2008 here.

It seems that electoral support for the fascists is well down from its peak. Nick Griffin’s troubled leadership of the BNP looks decidedly shaky and party activists and voters are leaving in droves. The new fluffier British Freedom Party, who are backed by the EDL, haven’t got off to a good start either. Their candidate in Basildon only managed to get 4% of the vote and none of the 4 candidates currently declared in Liverpool got more than 3%.

These are good results for anti-fascists but we should never be complacent. The BNP was still voted for by a little under 1 in 5 people in Heanor and they are consistently winning over 10% in parts of Derby. There is always the danger that the far right will rearrange itself around a new pole in the wake of the BNP’s plunge into obscurity and start building on these foundations. Their current failure is a cause for celebration. Let’s make sure they don’t come back from the dead.

Comments Off on Bye bye BNP!   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Derbyshire, Lincolnshire

2012/04/20

Local elections round up

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

With a little under 2 weeks to go until polling day, 3rd May, East Midlands Anti-fascists bring you a round up of local fascist attempts to jockey for power.

BNP

Having finally concluded the messy power struggle within Amber Valley (Lewis Allsebrook jumped ship before he was pushed), the blackshirts of Derbyshire BNP have put up 8 candidates in Derby and Amber Valley.

The “invisible councillor” Cliff Roper is fighting to retain his seat in Heanor East, which should be a struggle if reports that he barely opens his mouth in public are to be believed. Not so long ago Roper was having a strop and resigned the party whip in order to get his way in the local party, and there have  been plenty of accusations of backstabbing and being a “red” flung his way. Aging bonehead, Adrian Hickman, will stand in Allsebrook’s former constituency of Heanor West. “Inept” Emma Roper will hope to get slightly more than the 2.4% she polled last time in the Codnor and Waingroves ward. Ken Cooper (Heanor & Loscoe) and Alan Edwards (Ripley & Marehay) are also standing.

Cliff Roper: actively working for his Heanor constituents again

Admirer of Mussolini’s blackshirts and “Grand Dictator of Derbyshire”, Paul Hilliard is standing in the Chaddesden ward in Derby and is joined by Julie Fuller (Derwent) and Vanessa Griffin (Spondon). Let’s just say you wouldn’t buy a second-hand car from the man.

Paul Hilliard: Would you trust this chump with your vote?

The BNP’s only candidate in Lincolnshire is neo-Nazi Dean Lowther, whose campaign is in a bit of a pickle after his openly racist posts on Facebook became the subject of a police investigation and front-page news in the local paper. His posts included cartoons portraying the Obamas as monkeys and the insignia of violent and openly Nazi groups, the Racial Volunteer Force, the British People’s Party, Blood and Honour and Combat 18.  Lowther is standing in the Bracebridge ward of Lincoln.

 

English Democrats

The entire North-West Leicestershire BNP branch has recently defected to the English Democrats in the hope that they can do away with secret meetings and redirection points and gain a bit of respectability, something which seems unlikely given that about half of the English Democrats’ candidates across the UK are recent defectors from the BNP. Alan and Gaynor Bennett Spencer are standing for the half-fascist party in Daventry.

National Front

Fascist failure, Tim Knowles, who was so dim he managed to fuck up being elected unopposed is trying for a second crack of the whip in Langley Mill, Amber Valley. Last time round he failed to fill in the acceptance form or turn up to any meetings so was booted out. We hope the Front will sink further into irrelevance during these elections.

Comments Off on Local elections round up   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire