They claim to oppose Islamism and I think many are sincere about the "threat"-whether it exists or not and whether they over-react or not is debateable
Here is what would be effective as a method of direct action against Islamists and Islamic extremists in the UK:
(a) Counter-demonstration against targetted groups and meetings - al Muhajiroun and their reincarnations, Hizb ut Tahrir, and others, whenever and wherever they hold public meetings or demonstrations. By as wide a coalition as possible - non Muslims and Muslims.
(b) Public debate and refutation of Islamists, both of the most extreme kind, and of the 'less extreme' MCB kind, especially regarding the issue of sharia in all its manifestations. The kind of thing that Maryam Namazie and the One Law for All campaign currently does, but the more who take this on board, the better.
(c) An organised lobby of concerned citizens of all backgrounds who collectively work to contact politicians and respond to the media and challenge the presumptions and assertions of the Maududi / Qutb activists in our society, and to repudiate the Ummah identity-politics that manifests itself in different ways in politics and media and journalism. This is the nitty gritty work of sending letters, e-mails, drafting manifestos, doing research, challenging Islamists online, learning the specificities and details of this ideology and its proponents in British society, and exposing them and their ideas to the public and influential people in society.
(d) Focussing most acutely on issues like womens rights, the apologia for jihadism, and the rights of Muslim apostates, and raising these issues in the media, through MPs, and in wider society. No quarter must be allowed to the jihadis. Monitoring them across the country, in local government, their apologists and soft-soapers, high-lighting their entryist tactics.
(e) Challenging Islamic extremism and radicalisation and jihadism on British university campuses, a very real problem.
So, these are just some of forms of direct action that can be taken. My gut instinct is that the EDL is a literalist response to the obscenity of a couple of decades of open outrage of the most vile Islamic extremist rhetoric in our society that culminated in the abuse spat at soldiers during a parade by Anjum Chaudhry and his crew. I think it may be harsh to tar them with the brush of racism or nazism - but I do believe they are naive in the extreme, and are either on the verge of being, or already have been infiltrated by the far-right, including white supremacists, extreme nationalist NF types.
Ultimately their actions in not restricting their direct action to counter-demonstrations against specific Islamist extremist groups marks them down as reckless and agitators themselves. To be most charitable, I would say they are hopelessly naive and literalist and do not have clear eyes and clear minds about the issues. At the worst, they are about to implode and are running a severe risk of becoming a vessel for far-right extremists, and their presence on the streets makes matters worse. Naievity is at the core of their decent spokesmen like Arthur. For someone whose posts are intelligent and concerned, his naievity is very very worrying.
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