EDL: Who are they?
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It appears that everybody (including us, when we debated the issue at our Delegate Meeting in October) has got it wrong about the composition of the EDL. According to this Chatham House report:
Quote:The study found the image of young unemployed people alienated by tough economic times and turning to the anti-Muslim and anti-immigration group was a myth.(…) almost one in five is university educated and more than two thirds own their own home (…)
(…) 53 per cent of sympathisers were in professional, management or non-manual jobs and another quarter were in skilled work.
Only three per cent were unemployed and 60 per cent were aged over 45
(…) supporters are also not anti-democracy and are more likely to vote than the average citizen.
I am not sure what the implications of this are. One would be that they are not "fascists" and that fascism is not the threat that some on the left claim and devote their efforts to combatting.
They would seem to be militant xenophobes, and that xenophobia is the much more real danger with the rise of UKIP and anti-Europe sentiment and with the mainstream parties all campaigning against Rumanians and Bulgarians. So that, rather than picking out the EDL for special opposition, socialists should be challenging the xenophobia promoted by all parties.
I suppose this will be grist to the mill of the left who see fascism as a "Middle class" affair., though these days a lot of workers do have degrees (indeed, a major driver in the Arab spring was the super abundance of qualified people with no jobs to go to). I suppose the message is that they are people who have something but who feel threatened, and are finding patriotism as a route to protest.
Tommy Robinson has just found out that the neo-Nazis are like the Trotskyists: they infilitrate other organisations and try to take them over (only they regard themselves as a "spearhead" rather than a "vanguard")::http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24442953
Or another interpretation is that he and fellow leader, Carroll, of the EDL have found the State quango, Quilliam Foundation, to be better payers for their services. But i am a terrible cynic and i should trust more in peoples' ability to actually change their belief systems and take them at their word. According to Wiki the model for Quilliam is Egyptian and Saudi de-radicalisation of Islamists. hmmm??? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quilliam_(think_tank) BTW, Are socialists the avant-garde?
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