I caught this when it was on the other night; hadn’t seen it posted here. I took a look for it on YouTube…and couldn’t figure out which channel to view it on. Derptastic options aplenty.

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More: Help for Heroes Rejects English Defence League Cash

Forces charity Help for Heroes has announced that it will not accept any donations raised by the leader of the English Defence League Tommy Robinson.

The EDL leader started fundraising following last week’s murder of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, south-east London, but a spokesman for Help for Heroes said the Just Giving page set up by Robinson would be closed down and all donations would be refunded.

The charity will check for any further donations from EDL members and said they would not accept any donations from the group.

A Help for Heroes spokesman said: “He is the only one that has come to our attention but tonight we will be doing a cross-count to make sure that anyone else saying they are EDL will not be allowed to fundraise for us.

“It is the same for any political party, we do not allow political fundraising. As a charity, we are non-political.”

Robinson’s Just Giving page shows that the EDL leader has raised more than £3,300 so far and was aiming to raise £5,000 with a sponsored walk across London.

Read more at Guardian.

The paper notes that the society has also hosted Khalid Fikry, who claims that “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel-Rahman is the victim of a conspiracy, and that its Facebook page has promoted videos by Abu Usamah (blogged here), who has expressed inflammatory anti-gay views.

According to the Times Higher, Michael Adebolajo studied at Greenwich from 2003-05, although there are no records for Michael Adebowale.

Naik (last blogged by me here) is President of the Islamic Research Foundation, and a former student of the late Ahmed Deedat; Deedat was a prolific author of English-language tracts opposing other religions and attempting to prove the Koran through scientific arguments, and Naik follows the same method (here he is having a chat with Turkish creationist Harun Yahya and others). He’s also a 9/11 Truther.

Naik’s Wikipedia entry has a discussion of the “every Muslim should be a terrorist” comment, with links to original sources including a YouTube video where he discusses Osama bin Laden:

If he is terrorizing America - the terrorist, biggest terrorist - I am with him. Every Muslim should be a terrorist. The thing is that if he is terrorizing the terrorist, he is following Islam. Whether he is or not, I don’t know.

More: » Spotlight on Greenwich University Islamic Society in Wake of Murder Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion

I do not support the persecution of old men. The manipulation of the rule of law by the Savile Inquisition - otherwise known as Operation Yewtree - and its attendant zealots poses a far graver threat to society than anything Jimmy Savile ever did.

Now even a deputy speaker of the House of Commons is accused of male rape. This is an unfortunate consequence of the present mania for policing all aspects of personal life under the mantra of ‘child protection’.

We have been here before. England has a long history of do-gooders seeking to stamp out their version of sexual misconduct by force of the criminal law. In the eighteenth century, the quaintly named Society for the Reformation of Manners funded prosecutions of brothels, playwrights and gay men.
… .

Touching a 17-year-old’s breast, kissing a 13-year-old, or putting one’s hand up a 16-year-old’s skirt, are not remotely comparable to the horrors of the Ealing Vicarage assaults and gang rape, or the Fordingbridge gang rape and murders, both dating from 1986. Anyone suggesting otherwise has lost touch with reality.

More: Yewtree Is Destroying the Rule of Law

Madeleine

The measles outbreak in Wales may have claimed its first victim.

According to the Guardian, a 25-year-old man was found dead in his apartment in Swansea Thursday. Gareth Colfer-Williams was known to have measles at the time of his death. What’s not clear is what the actual cause of death was; he was an ill man, apparently suffering from severe asthma. We’ll know what the exact cause of death was soon enough, I imagine. But his having measles at the time is very, very suspicious, and more tests will be run next week.

Either way, this tragic death has focused attention again on what’s happening in Wales. More than 800 people have been diagnosed with measles in Swansea in this recent outbreak. People are lining up to get their vaccinations, and a campaign has been started to get more people vaccinated, which is a good thing; I just hope it’s in time. But with so many people contracting the illness, serious repercussions are almost inevitable.

Wales has had low Measles/Mumps/Rubella (MMR) vaccination rates for some time … since about 1998, in fact, when Andrew Wakefield published his bogus study in the Lancet falsely linking the MMR vaccine to autism.

It’s easy to lay all this misery at Wakefield’s feet, but there’s plenty to go around. The Lancet should never have published it (many of the co-authors later withdrew their names from the paper). Tony Blair, then prime minister of Britain, declined to reveal whether his own son had gotten the MMR vaccine, prompting rumors it wasn’t safe.

More: Measles Epidemic: Outbreak in Wales Tied to Andrew Wakefield’s Discredited Work

Ding Dong.

This is how exactly half of Britain is reacting-

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This is the other half -

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No matter how hateful this miscreant is, he deserves free speech and hate speech laws are counterproductive when combating bigotry.

A notorious British neo-Nazi has been arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred after he was accused of posting racist and inflammatory material on the internet.

Darren Clifft, 23, from Walsall, West Midlands is believed to have been one of the ringleaders behind last month’s far-right rally in Swansea, when around 50 white supremacists were confronted by a crowd of around 500 anti-racism campaigners.

Clifft, who also goes by the name Daz Christopher, is known to police having previously voiced support for the Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting spree in Norway in 2011.

Breivik was jailed for 21 years last August, but used his trial as a platform to promote his extreme anti-Islamic, anti-feminist and anti-Marxist views

Cliift, a kickboxing fanatic who has coached youngsters in the sport, has threatened similar violence in the UK, and set up an online petition to free Breivik.

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“At least Breivik achieved something with his life,” wrote Clifft. “He killed as many left-wing liberal loonies as he could. He is truly an inspiration. He sacrificed his life so that Europe might be free once again from the clutches of Islam.”

More: UK Neo-Nazi Darren Clifft Arrested After KKK-Style Mock Hanging at Rally - IBTimes UK

A British police force will now treat violence and abuse against punks and goths as hate crimes.

Offenses committed on grounds of disability, race, religion or sexual orientation are already recognized across the U.K. as hate crimes. But now, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) will record crimes against “alternative subcultures”—which include goths, punks, emos, and metallers — in the same way.

In a statement heralding the “major breakthrough,” Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan, GMP’s lead on hate crime said:

“We are able to officially recognize that people who wish to express their alternative sub-culture identity freely should not have to tolerate hate crime - something that many people have to endure on a daily basis.”

Skaters, skinheads, bikers, and bodybuilders would also be recognized as victims of hate crime, as Shewan told Channel 4 News.

More: Goths and Punks Can Now Be Hate Crime Victims in the U.K.

Voters in Scotland will head to the polls in September 2014 to decide whether to go it alone as an independent country or remain in Great Britain with England and Wales.

The referendum could lead to the biggest political shakeup in the British Isles since Ireland achieved independence nearly a century ago.

Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, unveiled the date of the milestone vote Thursday in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. The plebiscite is the sine qua non of his Scottish National Party, or SNP, which swept to power in an election two years ago.

“I’m honored to announce that on Thursday, the 18th of September, 2014, we will hold Scotland’s referendum, a historic day when the people will decide Scotland’s future,” Salmond said to applause from fellow SNP lawmakers. “That day … is the day we take responsibility for our country, when we’re able to speak with our own voice, choose our own direction and contribute in our own distinct way.”

The date requires ratification by the Parliament, but since Salmond’s party controls the body, such approval is a formality.

The referendum will ask: “Should Scotland be an independent country?” A victory for the “yes” side would dissolve a sometimes happy, sometimes rocky political marriage sealed in 1707.

Salmond, considered by some to be the savviest politician in Britain, said that “two futures” for Scotland would be on offer.

“A ‘no’ vote means a future of governments we didn’t vote for, imposing cuts and policies we don’t support,” he told legislators. “A ‘yes’ vote means a future where we can be certain, 100% certain, that the people of Scotland will get the government they vote for.”

But he has his work cut out for him. Virtually no credible poll has ever shown a majority of Scots to favor independence - greater autonomy, perhaps, but not outright secession from Britain.

More: Scotland to Vote on Independence in September 2014

Far-right extremism is a “worrying phenomenon” which poses a “real” threat to UK security, Home Office minister James Brokenshire has claimed.

In a speech, Mr Brokenshire said one in 10 cases referred to a government radicalisation reduction scheme now concerned the far right.

He condemned groups such as the English Defence League (EDL) for “inflaming tensions” with ethnic minorities.

Downing Street has added far-right extremism to its anti-terror strategy.

Speaking to experts at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence in London, the minister for security said that, while not as well structured as Islamic terror groups such as Al Qaeda, the terror threat posed was valid.

‘Same vulnerabilities’

Mr Brokenshire said: “The far-right threat is not as widespread or systematic… and operationally there are vast differences.

“But… at its core the far-right appeals to people who share many of the same vulnerabilities as those exploited by Al Qaeda-inspired extremism. It feeds off the same sense of alienation and questions around identity.

“It has the same ambition to reshape the world in an impossible way. The threat is real, and our response must be effective.”

He added that in 2011, some 17 people were in British prisons for terror offences associated with the far-right movement.

More: Far-Right Extremism ‘A Real Threat’ Says UK Security Minister