Some Other Groups and the EDL

An item from 3 September posted at Demotix by a photographer named Peter Marshall has details of an “Alternative Action Anti-Sharia Protest in London”:

AA brings together a number of “patriot activist groups” which have previously demonstrated with the EDL but now want to dissociate themselves from the loutish behaviour, violence and racism that has attended many EDL protests. They include the English Nationalist Alliance, the British Patriotic Alliance, the Combined Ex Forces, the Ex EDL Association and the National League of Infidels.

The event involved only 20 or so persons, and centred on the Cenotaph:

This small protest was in marked contrast to the events taking place in the City of London, where later police arrested around 60 of the EDL. Here the protesters made their protest in a quiet and generally dignified manner, apart from one small incident where English Nationalist Alliance leader Bill Baker got out his megaphone to shout at the Syrians demonstrating opposite Downing St against the repression of dissent in Syria. Apparently under the misconception that they were Islamic extremists he told them to go back to Syria and make their protests in their own country.

Baker previously featured on this blog here.

Details about “Alternative Action” are scarce – there’s no designated website, although Baker’s ENA website has been rebranded as the organisation.

One group that isn’t involved is March for England, which on its Facebook page instead emphasises its “unity” with the EDL and its opposition to Baker. However, the ideological difference appears to be slight: browsing MfE’s picture album, it’s very clear that, despite the occasional positive reference to Iranian dissidents in London, the distinction it used to make between Islamic extremism and ordinary Muslims has collapsed.