BFP Beat Cop to Beat Muslims?

A senior member of the English Defence League and the British Freedom Party has applied to become a police commissioner. To read about the EDL’s alliance with the BFP, read more here. In summary, the BFP is the legitimised political voice of the EDL, whereas the EDL are the street thugs backed by political muscle.

Before we start to talk about the “far-right” and their dwindling influence, let us look at what we can learn from history. The Nazi party were once a small fringe group and suffered a humiliating loss in 1923, during the Munich “Beer Hall” Putsch. However, what was a fringe group that drew massive crowds, eventually leading them to be a serious threat in Europe.

In the same way, the EDL may seem to have dwindling numbers, but we cannot take our eyes off the ball. The fact that they now have a legitimised political voice, via the BFP means they have muscle, whereas the Muslims have yet to support and string a unified lobby.

Now that they have the nerve to run as police commissioners, one can only hope the Muslims will actually do something to stop Kevin Carroll of the EDL-BFP alliance to succeed. Carroll believes that hate speech is among a list of “trivial offences” and will divert police resources to stop it. He is also using Islamophobic rhetoric to stir up trouble by saying in an email: “There should be no special favours for minority groups, criminals should feel equal force of the law – British law, not Sharia Law or any other kind of alien law.”

Let’s face it; we are yet to see true “Sharia Law” in any part of the world and Sharia 'taking over' Britain, is simply a myth propagated by Islamophobes for fear-mongering. This ignoramus couldn’t define Sharia to save his life: does he and his cohorts realise that Sharia also includes manners and etiquettes? Where are the imaginary police he is talking of that force “Sharia Law” onto people? Will Carroll categorise the Jewish Beth Dins among those that follow “alien law”?

As history dictates, this could be the start of a horrific domino effect. Muslims are already oppressed and this will not help their cause. Cases like Rizwaan Sabir show that the police are victims to institutional corruption and that they are not an apolitical organisation. Yet we Muslims are apolitical. What is it going to take for Muslims to take up action to stop bigots from becoming policemen?