Pause a moment to register two unloved anniversaries. This spring marks a decade since the first anti-Muslim street movement, the English Defence League (EDL), emerged on British streets. Slowly but surely, the Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA), now a year old, has followed in similar footsteps – making many of the same bad decisions. This plus ca change isn’t the whole story though, and merits some revisiting, as is made clear in our forthcoming report on the new ‘Football Lads’ for Faith Matters.
Sparked by abuse from Islamist extremists in Luton on 10 March 2009 toward 200 parading Anglian regiment soldiers returning from Iraq, what became the EDL by spring of that year took most observers completely by surprise. Looking back, the direct-action challenge the EDL and its successor movements – local and national variations, like the Scottish and Welsh defence leagues, through to Pegida and the Yellow Vests today – has posed is substantial, both in Britain and abroad. It demands fresh responses from civil society to policing agencies, and much else besides.
These direct-action social movements have piqued more established far right groups, such as the now-moribund British National Party, which banned members from attending EDL marches. In large measure, this was due to the EDL’s initial novelty. Led by football casuals and (mostly) disaffected, white working-class Britons, the EDL offered an ‘in your face’ political challenge organised almost wholly via internet and mobile phone. As is now clear, the street-based challenge it represents continues to be one of anti-Muslim hostility. The latter has been documented extensively by the leading third sector monitoring organisation, Tell MAMA, which has been at the forefront of combatting anti-Muslim prejudice in Britain.
