Co-founder of far right group quits over snub
THE founder of the far-right English Defence League dramatically quit yesterday to join up with an anti-extremist think-tank.
Tommy Robinson, 30, said he was shunned at his children’s school because of his ties to the nationalist group.
His EDL co-founder, Kevin Carroll, walked out with him. The pair have stunned their former allies by joining a leading Muslim to work for greater tolerance.
Maajid Nawaz, formerly of hate group Hizb ut-Tahrir, now runs think-tank Quilliam, which was set up to ‘challenge extremism’.
Last night, with an unfortunate choice of words, Mr Nawaz boasted of ‘decapitating’ the EDL. He said: ‘What is commonly perceived as the UK’s largest anti-Muslim street movement – the EDL – is being decapitated.’
Mr Robinson and Mr Carroll, who set up the EDL in 2009, said they could no longer control its extremist elements.
Mr Robinson told the BBC: ‘When some moron lifts up his top and he’s got the picture of a mosque saying “boom”, and it’s all over the newspapers, it’s me – it’s when I pick up my kids from school, the parents are looking at me – judging me on that.’
He said he aims to ‘counter Islamist ideology . . . not with violence but with better, democratic ideas’.
He added: ‘Whilst I want to lead a revolution against Islamist ideology, I don’t want to lead a revolution against Muslims. I believe that needs to come from within the Islamic community.’
An EDL spokesman insisted the group ‘would not die’ because its founders had left.