Harry's Place bigots in EDL panic

I've been keeping quiet about the soap opera that is Tower Hamlet's first election for a mayor. It's impossible not to take an interest in what's being written about it, and that includes the painful task of reading some of the net's most unsavoury blogs.

And they don't come much worse than the hate-filled cesspit that is Harry's Place. The bigotry above the line is so entrenched it's hard for the nasty assortment of regular posters to be even more extreme in their views. Yet they try relentlessly and often succeed in spewing record-breaking levels of bile and hatred.

HP likes to portray itself as the 'decent left', though these war-mongers have no place on the left and not a shred of decency. In reality they are right wingers - and that's the far right, not your ordinary Tory types. Their main interest is defending every kind of Israeli aggression and persecution of the Palestinians, for whom they have utter contempt. This seems to go hand in hand with the flip-side of this interest, which is attacking Muslims. They try to pass this off as attacking 'Islamists', and keep pretending they have no problem with 'ordinary Muslims', but this is a lie. A damned lie.

There is an underlying approach to all that they do. Rank hypocrisy. See, for example, their Comments Policy; a disgraceful list of excuses for allowing every kind of vile excess on their site, all the things they would never tolerate from those they daily criticise. They claim they haven't got time to weed out the racism and bigotry, but the truth is they can't be arsed, not least because they mostly agree with it. They've got plenty of time to delve into the detail of every speech by every left winger or Muslim whose views they oppose. They don't hesitate to prevent posts that point out the gross errors in what they say - trust me, it's happened to me many times. When a contradictory comment does get through, it's often brushed off by accusing me of being a member of the SWP or of being a Muslim, depending on the topic.

In the last few days there's been a rush to post articles attacking the EDL. HP has panicked. They know that most of their contributors applaud the EDL's violence against Muslims, either publicly or privately. But now they're trying to pretend that the EDL's true nature is coming to light. Of course, the rest of us knew what the EDL were from the outset. The first time they began to emerge in public view was when they tried to march on the biggest mosque here in Tower Hamlets, aiming for the East London mosque at the end of a long pub crawl. Fortunately, the police stopped them at Whitechapel station. HP even blogged about this incident, and contributors defended the EDL and wished they could have marched with them.

Now Harry's Place is getting embarrassed by the EDL's violence as it gets posted to YouTube. Not that they care if Muslims get attacked, their real concern is if it damages their agenda, which is to undermine Muslims in Britain and supporters of Palestinians.

You see, it is only from blog's like Harry's Place that the EDL find out who their targets should be. Harry's Place provides the propaganda, targets and excuses that the EDL needs to function.

The EDL also draws heavily on an associate of Harry's Place, the egregious Andrew Gilligan whose shameful 'Dispatches' programme became an icon for the EDL on the front page of their website. And how telling it is that the Daily Telegraph's London correspondent, Mr Andrew 'Kennite' Gilligan, has failed to criticise the actions of the EDL even as they stood outside parliament. Gilligan is another extreme hypocrite and liar - see his blog for proof, or ask Keith Vaz!

The EDL presents a real and unwelcome return to anti-minority violence in Britain, rooted in bigotry and a corruption of patriotism. They are a menace and a danger to the innocent. But of far greater danger is the outpouring of propaganda and lies from Harry's Place, whose hatred breeds the violence that the EDL seeks to unleash in Britain's cities. They deserve to be ostracised, treated as the dangerous pariahs and bigots that they most certainly are.