I don’t understand. If the English Defence League are, as described on BBC news, an “ultra-nationalist” group, what does that make Sinn Fein/IRA, who killed more than two thousand people over 25 years for such crimes as holding a dying soldier or shopping in Warrington ? I don’t think I ever heard the BBC talk about anything but ‘Irish nationalists’.
I’m not an EDL expert, but I understand they were founded as a protest against radical Islamism – the sort of activity that manifests itself in insulting soldiers in Luton or beating up veterans in Manchester (a story you’re unlikely to hear on Today). In other words, they were ‘anti-extremist’, albeit a very narrowly-focused anti-extremism. Whether that declared aim is in practice maintained, or whether on the street it merges into a more general anti-Islam sentiment, is certainly a topic for debate. But at the same time as the EDL are described as “ultras”, the organisation Hope Not Hate is described on Today as ‘anti-extremist’, when in practice their ‘anti-extremism’ is very narrowly focused on one political party. You won’t find HnH protesting against ‘preachers of hate’ in mosques.
One other stick used to beat the EDL is that, in the presenter’s words “the English Defence League is associated in people’s minds with demonstrations that turn violent“. So is the National Union of Students, but the BBC haven’t exactly gone out of their way to investigate the many left extremist groups associated with the protests – perhaps because so many of their staff were members of those groups in their student days. In BBC-speak “activist” = “left-wing activist”, “extremist” = “right-wing activist”. And to be fair, much of the trouble at EDL demonstrations is caused by counter-protesters – whereas the violence and vandalism at student protests is all self-generated.
And while we’re on “activists”, I didn’t realise the rehabilitation of the Sydney Street killers was under way. BBC correspondent Sanchia Berg tells us how “after the failed Russian Revolution in 1905, many activists came to Britain“. “Activist” seems a mild word to describe revolutionary killers like Jacob Peters, controversially acquitted of the Sydney Street killings, who went on to increase his body-count exponentially as a senior member of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police who “policed labor camps, ran the Gulag system, conducted requisitions of food, subjected political opponents (on both the right and the left) to torture and summary execution, put down (peasant) rebellions, riots by workers, and mutinies in the Red Army“.
The hypocrisy of the BBC is in the language used to describe those they disagree with as against those they agree with. Anyone expecting balance from the BBC in their coverage of the political left and the political right would be sadly disappointed. But should it be really too much to expect?
Why is there no alternative to Radio 4? Or even, why is there no competition for the Today programme. If there was, I’d listen to it.
If you can get Radio Scotland it’s a bit better. The World Service can be ok for news, but not so great for features.
Laban,
I also heard the “ultranationalist” labelling of the EDL. As you point out, the hypocrisy lies in their use of words, how they nuance to achieve the required bias. Sickening.
It’s an odd label, this “ultra nationalist” one, if only because you don’t see the Beeboid Corporation using the same sort of tag for the equivalent on other sides of the spectrum. Thus, we didn’t see them applying it to the Labour government, as ultra anti-English government or “ultra multi-cult” government, or Islamic groups such as the MCB as ultra Islamic supremacist group or Lib Dems as ultra pro immigration party, or Eco party as ultra warmist party.
I think the key to the EDL is in the name: English Defence – I don’t know if it is concerned only with Islam or if it comes from something much broader than that, even though Islam is a major concern and perceived as the most visible and greatest threat. I would think it’s a response to the wholesale attack on, denigration and denial of Englishness that has taken hold over the last 15 years especially, when it became official government policy and people like Jack Straw and Thug Prescott even thought it acceptable to go around saying that there is no such thing as the English and the English (and Scots etc) category was removed from official forms etc. The EDL are reflecting the concerns people feel about this erosion of England /Englishness in official and cultural life and saying (and doing) collectively what other people say on blogs like this and elsewhere in daily life.
Also interesting to hear them roll the “demonise Terry Jones” campaign out of the blocks with a Thought for Today by John Bell, whose leftist political views (Jesus would have been a socialist etc)are widely known, then on Today interviewing Jonathan Bartlett of Eklesia, which is the Respect party at prayer. Interesting to hear that Bartlett tried to get away with porkies (Jones has burned books etc – no he has not, in this country it’s only muslims who do that sort of thing). And to think this is for someone who has threatened nothing more than to burn a book, when those who want to burn bodies are allowed to enter the UK, or even welcomed here. No Today campaign for the latter, I hasten to add. BTW, I think Jones is a bit thick and the attention he is getting is ridiculous, but the BBC need to be careful that in their crusade to rid our island of the likes of Jones, they don’t end up swelling the ranks of the EDL with those who get fed up of the way much worse from extremist Islam is given a free pass b y ourt national broadcaster.
I have just joined the EDL forum to see what type of people are involved and what are their aims. From what I gather so far they are Patriots of all different persuasions. The thing that they are all in agreement on, is that the country is being Islamified and they are angry about it and want to make a defence against it.
Sure there are some people who are football thugs in its ranks and some people may have been connected to the BNP. I served for 9 years in the Army and can say the same about them. The overwhelming majority of people though are just working class patriotic Brits who have had enough and are sick and tired of the lies and cowardice of the Establishment and have decided to do something about it to make them listen.
There are quite a few on there who despise the BBC too.
They are English, though.
There are English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, American, Polish, Germans, Dutch, Sihks, Jews, Gays, Lesbians from what I’ve seen on there. Check it out if you think I am making it up. I was quite surprised.
Interesting. I don’t think you are making it up; making the point, rather, as it’s name suggests, that it is an English movement started in England by English people and it’s about England and Englishness primarily.
No, the EDL are a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, apolitical single issue protest group. The English part comes from the fact they are based in England and wish to preserve it from Islamic extremism.
From what i am seeing, there is little to the EDL with which I would have much truck (despite noting, though not sympathising with many outlets they have, in BBC parlance, chosen for their sense of disenfranchisement and consequent frustartions), but the reporting standards being adopted here seem more ‘two wrongs make a left, and a further left’.
I am finding the likes of the BBC almost complicit in creating extremist viewpoints from all sides or various arguments, by often providing overt succour to some and either trying to sideline or demonise counters that may well be niche, but often have greater support than Aunty’s finest happen to agree with.
My solution would be to ditch the opinion, and the emoting, and the understanding, and simply report the facts… equally and objectively.
A major start in this would be to quit with the addiction to ever more colourful selective labeling of groups to frame consequent narratives. It might help focus minds back on reporting rather than feeding prejudices.
Dame Nikki interviewing Pastor Jones this morning bowled the old duffer a googly by informing him that ERL had links with BNP (possibly, & possibly meaning nothing to Jones) and the Ku Klux Klan – improbable?
Unfortunately Dame Nikki was making that bit up, the EDL are a proscribed organisation to the BNP.
To be fair to Hope Not Hate aka Searchlight they have recently decided to focus equally on the Islamists.
The EDL are not in any sense in the same category as Islamic extremists, when they fly planes into buildings, blow up tube trains and buses and drive cars with gas canister and nails strapped to them at airport doors along with beheading gays and stoning adultresses you might have a point. Until then HnH are just window dressing their campaign to cover the publics revulsion at poppy burning.
When you consider that the then Home Secretary was Churchill who was a Liberal at the time and that Peters went on to work for one of the BBC’s favourite “activist” regimes, are you surprised that reports concerning this thug are muted? Burgess (of Burgess & Maclean) was a BBC broadcaster http://www.oocities.com/layedwyer/guy.htm and the BBC was criticised by Oleg Gordievsky (and he should know) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1427405/Former-KGB-colonel-attacks-BBCs-Cambridge-spy-lies.html of parrotting the KBG line re the Cambridge spy ring.
What was unusual at the time of the Siege was the exception to the rarity of foreign terrorist scum sh*tting on their own doorstep while being given political asylum (or the equivalent thereof) in the UK. Nowadays, of course, the foreign scum who are apologists for terrorism or actual terrorists and who sh*t copiously on our doorstep are the BBC’s poster boys http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7906381.stm
Funny that the left don’t seem to have a problem with violent protest when THEY are kicking off do they?
The more the media interviews the Rev Jones the more it makes itself look absurd. The more the interviewer tries to provoke an apocalyptic response, the more the Rev manages to appear oddly reasonable, moderate and respectful.
Sky was as guilty as the BBC of citing the koran-burning that never was to fullfil their duty to condemn ‘Islamophobia’. Criticism of Islam, even ‘extremist’ Islam, is off limits in most of the MSM. There’s a theory that criticising Muslims in any way at all is “not helping”. Sleeping dogs.
There is some recognition that there’s a problem though.
It’s astonishing to watch the squirming that goes on in the media as the conflict between emerging awareness of Islamic-inspired subversion and the ongoing denial of it grows ever more absurd.
Glaring anomalies appear every day, for example the juxtaposition of pretend puzzlement about why anyone would plant a bomb, with the recorded message “it’s the Jihad stupid.”
I know little about Terry Jones or the EDL, but the reporting on the issue has been agenda-driven to the point of counter productiveness.
What the BBC refuse to accept, because of their own condesending champagne socialist ways, is that the very people they pretend to champion have had enough of people precisely like them.
Exercising bias at it’s best, don’t mention Luton, just the county – Bedfordshire (thank-you Aunty) you are the greatest recruitment officer the EDL could wish for.
Your precious working class have had enough and will soon give you (The BBC) a Network (1976) moment – “I’m as mad as hell and can’t take it any more”.
And quite frankly you bitch aunty, it’s been coming for some time !
Well said, Laban.
The EDL demos would not be in any way violent if the UAF street thugs were absent. Not that the BBC/NUJ allies of the UAF street tghugs will ever make that clear, the BBC will present a very particular view of the EDL from a very particular perspective.
Heres how it works, the EDL demostrate, the UAF street thugs call up the rent a rabble gang who come armed with bottles catapults, acid in various containers, darts and rocks. The UAF call the NUJ/BBC supporters to attend the demonstration and they then report on the violence as emanating from the EDL as they attempt to cheat and deceive the viewer into believing that the EDL is responsible for the violence.
The UAF have contacts within government and uses its influence to pervert the attitude of the policing authorities, the UAF gains special protection for its street thug operation and the police apply pressure on the EDL and force the EDL crowds into a confrontation. The UAF thugs are able to approach the EDL with police protection to throw missiles and provoke defensive violence. The allied MSM reporters are then able to smear the UAF in their respective publications, its a very slick operation.
The planning that goes into the persecution of the EDL is detailed and the UAF have a great deal of influence via police authorities and quangos like the one headed by that well known racist and UAF race baiter Trevor Phillips.
In effect the BBC is not there to report the news as factual, the BBC ethos is to report a political perspective decided behind closed doors in secret with the UAF and the NUJ. The BBC has freely decided to become a political mouthpiece of a political organistaion, thats why you will never ever see a dissection of the UAF activities, they are immune from investigation and they are able to operate in the shadows secure in the knowledge that they have influential allies.
The BBC has nothing against nationalists per se, only English ones.
“Former South African president, Nelson Mandela, has led tributes to the veteran Zimbabwean nationalist leader, Joshua Nkomo, who died on Thursday, aged 82.
Mr Mandela, who first met Mr Nkomo in the 1940s, described him as a comrade in the black liberation struggle.
“He was one of those freedom fighters who stood up for justice at the most difficult time in the course of our struggle,” Mr Mandela said.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/382604.stm
The world watches the unfolding drama as the man who has become the symbol for Palestinian nationalism seems to hover between life and death. Though full of uncertainties, Mr Arafat’s life has been one of sheer dedication and resilience.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3966139.stm
The EDL is a coalition of BNP and football thugs with a smattering of extremely deluded people.
These nasty yobs do not deserve an ounce of support.
That sounds very de haut en bas.
How about dealing with the bias issue – that the BBC routinely demonises the EDF and never attacks the “thugs” and “nasty yobs” of the UAF – including many crazed Islamists ?
Yes there have been violent incidents around EDF events – but how many were provoked or carried out by the UAF rather than the EDF ?
And if the BBC is so sniffy about aggressive attitudes or actions in some EDF demos – why don’t they apply the same strictures to the violence of the mix of students yobs and anarchists who are behaving far worse than the EDF ever has ?
A lot of the posts here are apologist for the EDL. Any support or sympathy for an intrinsically fascist organisation like the EDL can only discredit this site. I go back to something I’ve said previously about BBC bias against the BNP; its a left-wing bias, not a democratic one. That’s why they dont address the extremists of the UAF. I dont support the UAF against fascism and I dont support the EDL against Islamism. Neither should any self-respecting democrat I respectfully submit.
Virtually all of the violence at EDL demo’s has been caused by the UAF and their militant Islamist supporters. Of the various arrests at demo’s the percentage of UAF etc to EDL runs at about 10 to 1. Even the police admit (on the inspector gadget blog) that the EDL will obey police instructions on demo’s unlike the UAF and their far left agitators.
All in all I think you’re deluding yourself from the MSM on who and what the EDL are, a multi ethnic, multi religious, gay friendly single issue protest group.
I disagree with H. Your cryptic comment is like a BBC-NUJ soundbite.
The negative role of the UAF, which the BBC-NUJ is politically committed to supporting, should not be ignored here.
Tommy Robinson on the BBC
What UAF- supporting BBC-NUJ doesn’t report:
“Conference against Islamophobia – EDL woman assaulted”(inc. video)http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/31260
I’m a little late to this party and I’ll pin my “I support the EDL even though I fled Islam in the UK to live in Israel badge” right at the top.
EDL, fascist? Having a laugh. It’s so pro personal freedom sometimes it hurts like when someone with access to the facebook page thinks its a great wheeze to unilaterally accept an invitation from a US Pastor before a few of the more knowledgeable people can check him out (I didn’t need to check, I knew he was not for the EDL about a millisecond after I saw his name). And yes, I helped write the press release explaining why Pastor Jones would not be speaking to the EDL.
What I’m finding through talking to many back in the UK is that membership of the EDL is a strong antidote to the slow poison of the BBC they’ve been ingesting for years.
Realising that they’ve been lied to about Islam starts people looking at all the rest of the lefty loony crap the BBC peddles: global wa… sorry, climate change, Palestinianism, Anti-Americanism, the infallibility of the UN, Europe etc…. Once one of the dominos fall, the rest do. The final straw is going on a demo, seeing the incitement from the UAF, aided by the NUJ and then seeing what the BBC and the rest of the media do and don’t report.