The EDL and Bristol's Pride.

Despite me being forced to delve into the dark world of Twitter to follow events very little actually happened at today's (14/7/12) English Defence League (EDL)/anti-EDL/Gay Pride protest in Bristol. At most 300 EDL turned up while around 2000 anti-EDL protesters gathered in another part of the city. Close to 1000 police from 9 separate forces kept the two groups apart for most of the day. There was a few incidents of pushing, shoving and stone throwing and in the evening EDL members in a pub started throwing glasses after being taunted by passers-by. However with only 14 arrests I would say the whole thing was no more violent then you're average high profile football match.

As always with these sort of things though it was the spectacle and the questions it raised rather then the event itself that was the purpose. By holding a controversial protest during Gay Pride week the EDL were hoping to draw the attention of Bristol's gay community and recruit new members by reminding them that certain branches of Islam have a less then permissive attitude towards homosexuality. Britain tried the same thing with feminists in the run up to the invasion of Afghanistan and are still doing it through outrage at a recent execution of an Afghan woman and excitement over the women's boxing team that Afghanistan is sending to the 2012 Olympics. The latter is something that especially appeals to, shall we say, a certain type of feminist. It was also an attempt to encourage the EDL to put on a more presentable face. After all although they were there to appeal to Bristol's gay community a lot of people got the impression that they were protesting against them. This fits recent reports that the EDL is now trying to mould itself into a legitimate political party.

As for the Muslims who were arrested during UK "Terrorism Week" for plotting to kill members of the EDL I am totally confident that everything that happened in terrorism week was faked to some extent by the British government/state. However the reason why the men were stopped by police on the M1 motorway is because the drove past an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera which ran the car's registration through the national insurance database which showed the vehicle was uninsured - a crime in the UK. Now I'm not an expert on this sort of thing but I'm pretty sure that if I was transporting a quantity of illegally held firearms and explosives in order to commit mass murder making sure the vehicle I was using was road legal would be the first thing I would think of. Therefore the men arrested were either unbelievably stupid or were trying to get themselves arrested or had been set up by someone very close to them in order to promote discussion about ANPR cameras with which I've had some interesting experiences. Along with events in Libya and Syria those last two scenarios also raise serious questions about the role of Britain's Security Service (MI5) in the Islamic terrorism threat posed to the Olympics and other events.