I've just fallen in love with England again. I never thought it would happen, but after filming two dangerous and notorious men from Luton over the past year, I'm glad I live here. Tonight Channel 4 screens the film I shot and directed: Proud and Prejudiced.
The two men are Tommy Robinson - the founder and leader of the English Defence League - and Sayful Islam - leader of a group of fundamentalist Muslims. Both are Luton born and bred. Tommy is the manager of a local tanning shop; Sayful was a tax inspector before he gave it up to bring Islam to the streets of Britain.
These guys are dangerous because of their ideas. Tommy believes he is fighting the creeping Islamification of his community (though he started out as only condemning Islamic Extremism) and Sayful wants democracy in the UK overthrown and replaced by Sharia Law.
Both know how to create media events: Sayful's troupe burnt poppies on remembrance day and Tommy closed down the City Of London as the EDL marched on Tower Hamlets with him dressed as a Rabbi (more of that later).
The reality of what they are doing has serious consequences. Communities feel deeply threatened and a wedge of separation is locking community against community. Imagine the police locking down your town centre and a thousand or so people turning up, most drunk, and shouting "scum, scum, scum", while Sayful and his guys are whipping up outrage by deliberately provoking people. "We just want to wake people up from their slumber," he says. Maybe. Both want England to be a mirror image of themselves.
We filmed the notorious leader of the EDL on a drunken night out in Luton Town centre before he disguised himself as a Rabbi to get through a cordon of thousands of police at the edge of Tower Hamlets. Tommy was on bail for head butting what he believed to be a National Front racist trying to usurp his leadership of the EDL. The bail conditions meant he couldn't give speeches at EDL demos, write emails on behalf of the EDL. He says they were political bail conditions, he has a point there.
He couldn't give his speech without being arrested, so he bought a £20 beard and hat and went in disguise, it was like something out if an Ealing comedy. When he jumped the stage and ripped off the Rabbi disguise, giving his speech, the police tried to rush in. He got away with us in tow, escaping finally on a double decker bus with a bus ticket costing £2:20. Only in England, only in England. Funny as this might have been, the population of Tower hamlets felt under threat that day and the anger and hatred meted out by the EDL was palpable.
A month later, Sayful's group was banned by Theresa May. The group has been banned a number of times and they just re-appear under a different name.
But this time the authorities got serious. With May banning Muslims Against Crusades, a group called the United Umah (undoubtedly the same people) declared a static demonstration outside the American Embassy in London. About 30 people turned up. I was told that a policeman warned them not to mention America. One of them started talking about drone bombing. How civilians were being killed. How America thinks it can just take out anyone in the world at anytime. The police, heavily outnumbering the protestors moved in and arrested them all. Now they are on bail. If charged they could face prosecution with 10 years maximum sentence. Are these guys terrorists? I don't think so. Their Jihad is a Jihad of words. Their anger at UK foreign policy is understandable, in my view.
What I've learnt from filming Tommy and Sayful is that we should not suppress them. That serves nothing; it just puts a pressure cooker on things that, as Tommy Robinson says, "one day will just blow up". Democracy is messy. It's expensive - policing these people is costing millions. Maybe we just have to put up with a whole bunch of stuff that is annoying, distasteful (maybe), offensive (definitely). That's Democracy. That's freedom.
I'm glad Britain is, in the end, tolerant and this needs to be protected. By all means confront words with words, ideas with ideas, but I don't think we can solve anything by banning, restricting or arresting these people. There needs to be a debate going on properly in government about the feelings that are so acute in the film. It's a debate that's not happening.
Too hot? Maybe so. But if its not debated, and seen to be debated, it will just get hotter methinks.
Proud and Prejudiced is showing tonight on Channel 4 at 10 am. It will be on 4OD soon after.
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"By all means confront words with words, ideas with ideas" - the last time I tired this with members of the EDL I barley got away without being beaten.
Go to the lower class areas where immigration has flooded communities and that is where this problem started.You cannot force people to accept outsiders,especially when the minority has more rights than the majority.
This appears to be part of the EDL's message (though the group's members appear to have hijacked it for other ill-conceived means). Tommy states he would allow people of all faiths to observe whichever religion they choose privately and peacefully, does not wish to encode his own morality (or christian morality) in law.
It appears that in the case of extremist islamic groups, however, the aim is not peaceful pluralism; as Sayful states, there will not be harmony until there is Islamic dominance and until Sharia law has replaced UK law. This implies an unwillingness to work within the system to implement change via reform. More importantly his is an ideology which requires that everyone think and behave as he does, obeying the moral code which Islam requires. This is not an ideology of tolerance. This is fascism.
This does not mean he should not be allowed a platform. So long as he does not incite harm, he can take the stand and try convince me of the virtues of Islam or Sharia law converting as many as he can though reason (and where reason runs thin, through scripture), but not through force.
Suppression of such speech will only feed extremist action, forcing hatred to manifest itself in non-verbal expression.
My one reservation would be that the EDL's stated mission may differ somewhat from the aims of its members, most of whom are every bit as intolerant and fascistic as their Islamic counterparts.
Given the FACT that the ranks of the EDL are open to all colours,races,gender(trans),faiths sexual preference and political beliefs could you tell us in exactly what way the EDL is fascist ?
Councils and Government have given the immigrants the upper hand by bending over backwards to please them.Regardless of our customs,traditions or beliefs ...to have them steam rollered to make way for the customs of others is wrong.We don't have to adapt to their ways, if they want to live here they should adopt our ways.English shouls be learned. NO funded interpreter's,wasting precious resources.
Allow people to express their concerns and get a Government that actually values the great British worker.
I appreciate there are some (well-publicised) exceptions, but please don't tar them all with the one brush.
"The two men are Tommy Robinson and Sayful Islam. Both are Luton born and bred."
Sayful Islam is NOT Luton "bred", and to suggest he is offends me and the English people.
You get in a Huff and our posts are gone in a Puff !
Our own misguided USA 'poodle' orientated foreign policies are not helping us either.
I could also point you to many of the world's trouble spots and indicate a path to them back either to our own (UK) or some others' darker colonial pasts' too.
As to a 'bigger picture' this is all to often so obscured as to be all but indecipherable..