Since the first video appeared on YouTube in the spring of 2009 of the unmasked "Tommy Robinson", followed up later that year in the autumn by EDL co-founder Paul Ray giving the name Stephen Yaxley Lennon, intrigue and subterfuge has always accompanied all discussions about the wider purpose of the EDL amidst a world of dirty tricks, state collusions and conspiracy theories.
The judge surprisingly called Tommy's "Paul Harris" passport "his real passport", whilst jailing him in the name of Stephen Yaxley Lennon. And then he went onto imply that his "real name" might not be known inside the public realm.
This is probably the first case of its kind in modern legal history when a UK citizen born in the United Kingdom, known to the tax system as a self-employed businessman, has had the shadow of doubt cast upon his actual identity in a UK court of law. This does make everybody wander what, who and why did Tommy Robinson set up the EDL and under whose instructions.
If you subscribe to Hitler-worshiping fansite Stormfront, the answer will of course be a global Zionist conspiracy designed to subvert the true essence of the far right. Well they would say that, calling the EDL as a tool of the mythical and mysterious "ZOG". Yes, the EDL are funded by American neo-conservative types who heavily promote Israel, but most people believe the American-based Global Islamophobic Movement linked up with Israel simply to "curry favour" with tea party Republican party senators, as conservative US foreign policy has, since the 1970s, regarded Israel as a close ally of the US. Flying Israeli flags at EDL marches also served a dual purpose of opposing everything that most British Muslims stand for, such as freedom for Palestine and its people.
Jewish mavericks might have thought it was useful idea to help promote a far right person with less candid anti-semitism, to take the heat off an intolerant world where more and more Jewish graves are vandalised by neo-nazis, but the EDL was established long before Golden Dawn or the financial crisis that predated it, which blows this particular conspiracy theory out the water.
So, if the Hitler worshippers of the BNP and NF are talking racist bollocks as always, and yet, the judge in the fake passport trial points the finger at Tommy Robinson having more than one official identity, what other sorts of conspiracy might be happening, ones powered by feasible logic not ten foot lizards at Bilderburg get togethers???
The four most believable conspiracies for a state-controlled fascist group, which leap off the page, are as follows: -
Conspiracy One: - Set up when troops were moved from Iraq to Afganistan, another unpopular war also opposed by most taxpayers, the EDL was set up to instill American-style patriotic fervour which would lessen opposition to British Foreign Policy amongst the working classes.
Conspiracy Two: - Gordon Brown was ahead at the polls when the EDL came to prominence, so it might have been assumed the Labour Party were all-set for another term in office, the worry to the Establishment being the danger of Labour rediscovering its left wing heritage put in hibernation by Tony Blair, (or "Tony Bliar" as he was known at the time). A British secret service operation answerable to nobody yet loyal to the old school tie, could have foresaw "reds re-emerging from under the beds" and acted decisively, just as they did by tarnishing Arthur Scargill's reputation to keep Maggie Thatcher in office during the Miners' Strike, creating an ugly xenophobic underbelly of Alf Garnets especially designed to tilt taproom gut-reaction public opinion towards the right, by getting thousands of "muggy mushrooms" to march repetitively up and down town centres tanked up with brains firmly switched-off, in the pouring British rain.
Conspiracy Three: - Since Tony Blair and his friend George Bush had been publicly exposed as liars by public inquiries for the reasons Britain went to war in Iraq, the dying embers of leftwing radicalism were reborn at the point of extinction. 2009 was like the birth of the Sixties happening all over again, as people began to see the real story of New Labour and all its failings. What was starting with the man in the street questioning public foreign policy, would have soon began questioning poverty, NHS cuts, and even the necessity of paying the Royal Family out of the public purse. Mobilising a ready-made army of football hooligans and fascist thugs with Yaxley Lennon, Paul Ray and Alan Ayling's help, was the ultimate distraction tactic to keep radical British left wingers preoccupied with time-consuming, immediate anti-fascist concerns.
Conspiracy Four: - The Public Political Chess Game: i.e., by creating a chess game in which Anjem Choudary and Stephen Yaxley Lennon were both rabble-rousing, and bringing people out onto the streets, unmasked before TV cameras, both pro and anti, was an invaluable exercise for the state to keep tabs upon both left and right. Like setting up cheese on the mousetrap, both Choudary and Lennon helped to expose the secret identities of radical Islamists, neo-nazis, and anti-capitalist anarchists, in one fell swoop, adding names and photos to databases. When thousands of EDLers used to turn up into cities such as Manchester with its state-of-the-art surveillance, once the police made people take their masks off, every last participant could be photographed, tracked and manipulated from the comfort of a police control centre.
Whether one particular conspiracy theory is true, they are all true, or portions of them are true, one thing is for sure, once David Cameron entered Number 10, and the Coalition started to cut back on public services, whilst it was not beyond the realms of possibility that hardline Islamophobia and violent extreme rightwing street thuggery might have notionally been welcomed by the "Monday Club" set, suddenly, almost overnight, the EDL became unwanted by the state. As with the Northern League in Italy, Britain's post-BNP far right had done their job (by whatever means) of helping getting a conservative prime minister elected to office.
Their official role (whatever that was) was now over, and Stephen Yaxley Lennon would have got a handsome payout from manila envelopes for many years to come, but greedy as he was, he saw merchandising opportunities forevermore. Thus the state-controlled EDL continued as a commercial enterprise, causing splits, ill-feeling and discontement amonst the ranks, whilst the Sun and the Daily Mail, from the point of David Cameron entering office, began to take a robustly anti-EDL stance.
As with the National Front, who in the 1970s, had colluded with racists in the Metropolitan Police to intimidate, bully and harrass liberals and leftwingers, once the Tories enter office, any state collusion and funding of fascism, is almost automaticaoly decomissioned. The hate stories about Muslims and asylum seekers still continue in the rightwing press under the Coalition (despite running occassional Searchlight / Hope Not Hate press releases about the EDL), but purely as a lobby tool, to keep wooly politicians under check.....
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