The EDL radicalise the young but they are doing it with patriotism not religion
JAILED RIOTER ON WHY HE TURNED HIS BACK ON THE EDL
Crime Reporter JAILED English Defence League rioter Anthony Webster has revealed why he has turned his back on the far-right group.
The 42-year-old quickly became a prominent member of the EDL after joining following the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby.
But he was jailed in 2015 along with more than 50 other members after a riot in Birmingham.
Following his release, the former heroin addict has vowed to turn his back on both drugs and crime.
From his Newcastle home Anthony has told how he was sucked into the EDL – and that he wants nothing to do with it.
He said: “It became an addiction to replace the drugs. I’m angry with myself that I was sucked into it.
“People talk about ISIS radicalising young Muslims, but at the same time the EDL are doing exactly the same thing. They radicalise the young but they are doing it with patriotism not religion.
“I was there for the right reasons, there were others that weren’t. 90% are probably racist, but it didn’t start out that way. I do not consider myself to be racist.”
Anthony, whose life has been dominated by crime and drug addiction, discovered the EDL after he was released from prison.
While inside, his partner Carrieanne Downs and baby daughter Zeva Tia had died.
“When Lee Rigby was beheaded it influenced me in a big way,” Anthony, who gained a sociology degree while in jail, explained.
“That’s when I started looking into the groups. Then when the EDL had a march in Newcastle I thought, ‘Who are these people?’
“I started to look into them and find out about their ethos and I agreed with it. I still agree with that ethos now, and if they had stayed true to that I would probably still be a member.”
Anthony began attending local EDL meetings and quickly rose through the ranks.
“I felt as though I had to be a speaker for the EDL,” he said.
However Anthony, trying to recover from his heroin dependency at the time, now admits he may have been swapping one addiction for another when he threw himself into the EDL.
And when the group planned a demo in Birmingham in July 2013, the dad was determined to attend.
“I wanted to be there on the front line,” he said. “I wanted to be a part of it. Probably for the wrong reasons. It became an addiction to replace the drugs.”
But once he was at the rally Anthony says he saw a lot of people that did not seem to be there to promote the EDL ethos he had signed up to.
And he believed many members simply wanted to act like hooligans and take on riot police. Anthony was among more than 50 people charged with violent disorder in connection with the march, during which EDL members ran riot in Birmingham’s Centenary Square, hurling missiles and injuring a number of police officers. As he awaited sentence, Anthony ran into local Muslim councillor Dipu Ahad in Newcastle’s West End. Coun Ahad offered to write the judge a letter of support if Anthony vowed to turn his back on the EDL. Anthony agreed, and the reference helped knock three months off his prison sentence when he was jailed for 21 months. But associating with Coun Ahad made the EDL turn on Anthony, who was accused of fraternising with the enemy, he said. “I still get abuse for that now,” he said. “I always thought of him [ Coun Ahad] as the enemy. We thought he was the enemy and the Chronicle and the media were the enemy. But it was literally a twosecond conversation. He offered to write a letter, but I didn’t know what it said.
“But it did make it easy for me to leave the EDL. I was told I had ‘broken bread with the enemy’. People thought I had been working with Dipu all along, and I can understand why they thought that.
“The far-right had a lot to say about it. They questioned my loyalties and my views.”
During his time inside, Anthony began to feel as if the EDL was no longer true to its original ethos.
He believes the group preys on people’s loneliness and insecurities, and now wants no part of it.
Since leaving prison, Anthony says he has been asked to front-up other far-right groups.
But he has decided organised groups, marches and riots are not the way to get his views heard.
“I’m still going to speak on these issues when I see them,” he said. “But I’m going to do it on YouTube being myself.”
Anthony does however still support former EDL leader Tommy Robinson, who was recently jailed for contempt of court.
“If he’s true to his word I think, ‘What a guy’. He’s opening people’s eyes to a lot of things.”