Johnny Adair to Help Paul Ray and Nick Greger Take over English Defence League?

Paul Ray has posted a series of messages to his Lionheart blog, in which he and his friend Nick Greger announce their intention to take control of the English Defence League. Ray was the original mover in creating the EDL, although he quickly fell out with the other leaders and moved to Malta. Aside from a rumour that he was involved with the anti-mosque protest in Dudley, he has not apparently played any active part in the EDL’s various events, and he and Greger have instead focused their efforts on making Crusader-themed anti-Muslim promotional videos (1). He styles himself as the EDL’s “spiritual leader” and “Grandmaster“, and he and Greger have just issued an “expulsion” of the EDL’s leaders, along with a demand for control of the EDL’s websites.

Greger, wearing an IDF t-shirt, explains that direct control of the EDL in England is now in the hands of a certain “Deano Saint-Church” (see here at 6:30, not sure if that is the correct spelling or pronounciation), and he also tells us that (here at 1:44)

another well-known man will soon appear within the new leadership, a man from Ulster, who is also currently in exile…

This is almost certainly a reference to his friend Johnny Adair, a prominent Loyalist ex-terrorist who now lives in Scotland following an intra-loyalist feud. Adair’s friendship with Greger was the subject of a Donal Macintyre documentary in 2006, and Ray has also written positively about him. In his new videos, Ray makes the unlikely suggestion that  “IRA sympathisers” (here at 6:08) are leading the EDL, pointing out that “Tommy Robinson” is of “Irish Catholic descent”. Ray explains that he has no problem with the IRA, since the war is over, but he calls on “IRA godfathers in Luton to pull their people into check”.

Back in March I noted reports that the EDL had expressed an interest in taking part in the marching season in Northern Ireland, but that this had been “met by howls of derision from loyalists”.

Ray also makes various serious allegations against named EDL leaders, one of whom he accuses of threatening to set fire to his mother’s house, and another of allegedly promising to put Ray in “a wheelchair”. He also claims that there is “a price” on his head. As expected, there is also particular animus against Chris Renton, who has apparently left the EDL anyway.

(Hat tip: One Million United)

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(1) Most recently this one, which includes a reference to Eugene Terreblanche at 4:16; some sort of Serbian militia at 6:40; Jobbik at 7:43; and various shots of Charles Taylor.