Supporters Labeled the Organizers “Ridiculous” and the Event a “Shambles”.
By Indeed. At least I rest easier knowing that the English racist / fascist set couldn’t organize the proverbial piss-up in a brewery. Some further internal dissent can be found here.
The title above appears in The Times coverage of this event, where the English Defence League kicked off their promised season of anti-Muslim demonstrations in the center of Birmingham.
Only, those against whom they were “protesting” (protesting what, exactly?) and their allies were considerably better organized. Reports in the MSM are sketchy and inconsistent, with The Times referring to the group as the English Defence League, while the Independent refers to them as the more broad-minded English and Welsh Defence League. Both indicate that the Casuals United were possibly involved, possibly not. To wit, from the Independent:
Discussion and planning on online social networking sites led police to believe the group involved was the English and Welsh Defence League, or Casuals United.
The Times also suggests that both groups were in cahoots. Casuals United seem to be an umbrella organization of various football hooligan firms (so I guess in IR parlance it would be more the UN of hooligans rather than a NATO of hooligans . . . they’ll stop beating up on each other only when a more threatening foe arrives).
What interests me here is the alleged ties to, and denials from, those lovable non-racists in the BNP. Again, from The Times:
The English Defence League claim not to be a racist group and say that they have no ties with the British National Party. One of the websites linked to the League is believed to have been set up by a known BNP member, but that has now been taken down in an apparent attempt to conceal any link.
There is evidence to suggest a connection between the BNP and this new English (and Welsh!) Defence League. More indirect evidence can be found here. It’s heartening to see the non racist BNP (see my earlier post here outlining their lack of racism) embracing the globalization concept of outsourcing, and thus outsourcing their racism. A couple motivations spring immediately to mind for this from the BNP perspective. More likely and obvious, they want to raise the spectre of further racist clashes in order to draw attention to the salience of their “cause”.
Less likely (because I don’t think that they are this clever) but more problematic due to the inherent efficacy of this approach is a reading of behavioral economics. If the BNP are outsourcing the more radical elements of their appeal to a new organization / party positioned to their right, according to the principle of the “decoy effect” this would make the BNP more appealing when contrasted to a context where this more radical decoy doesn’t exist. The first chapter of Dan Ariely’s eminently readable book Predictably Irrational covers this concept (and there’s a blog of the same name here).
I can see the BNP and their even less racist cousins UKIP making further inroads in local elections in England and Wales. Thankfully, local counsellors have very little power to do anything about anything.
