New Anti-Islamic Working Class Group Rattles British Government

A new working class Anti-Islamic grass-roots organization has got the British government seriously rattled within months of its formation. The English Defense League (EDL) has generally been ignored by the UK's mainstream media who have seemingly followed government policy by under-playing the organization's influence, in the hope of starving it of the oxygen of publicity. This is similar to Margaret Thatcher's attitude toward the IRA, but this time appears to be failing in the face of new social networking channels on the Internet which weren't available during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Since its formation less than six months ago in the town of Luton, approximately an hour north of London, the group has succeeded in holding a number of noisy street protests with hundreds of participants. These have attracted counter-demonstrations and subsequent clashes involving scores of people, resulting in dozens of arrests and police authorities forced to take extraordinary steps to identify potential ring-leaders and core followers.

The EDL has so far largely defied classification despite efforts by the authorities and mainstream media to paint its members as being primarily racist soccer hooligans and right-wing thugs. In reality, it appears to be an odd mix of frustrated, disenfranchised, mainly young white working class males. Their spontaneous and poorly organized reaction is to calls by UK-based Muslim fundamentalists who want to implement Sharia Law and ultimately turn the country into a Muslim nation.

The EDL appears to be a single issue movement in a new pseudo-religious war against extreme Islam. The organization claims to welcome members from all races & religions but odd publicity stunts and video footage of street protests reveal the group is much more fragmented and complicated than it first appears - much like the rest of British society (...)