A key strategist and funder behind the English Defence League has been suspended from his management post at a major international development bank.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development suspended Alan Ayling after he was named as the EDL founder who uses the alias ‘Alan Lake’.

The powerful bank was set up by international treaty to fund development and privatisation schemes in Eastern Europe and Central Asia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Reveal

We can reveal that Ayling is the manager in charge of the team that runs the EBRD’s Oracle databases – a post in which he is believed to earn around £70,000 a year, plus bonuses.

He was suspended after his ‘Lake’ identity became public at the end of last year.

‘Lake’ was named in the Sunday Times in December as 57-year-old Alan Ayling, who until January 2011 was a director of City investment fund Pacific Capital Investment Management, which was wound up in August.

He lives in a plush £500,000 flat in London’s prestigious Barbican development.

Well paid

But Ayling has a well paid City job as well as his former company directorship – and his political activity as a key figure in the shadowy network of far-right and Islamophobic groups who call themselves ‘counterjihadists’.

Ayling is no stranger to multiple identities. In 2009, he told a seminar organised by leading members of the fascist Sweden Democrats party:

You’ve got to have pseudonyms, you’ve got to have, you know, five email addresses, one for your friends, one for your counterjihad, one for your really extreme counterjihad comments, and all the rest of it.

As ‘Alan Lake’, Ayling has hosted and spoken at EDL demos. He has admitted funding the EDL, telling Norway’s TV2 channel: ‘I have given some money to help some EDL things happen.’

It was at Ayling’s Barbican flat that the EDL was established in 2009, according to disaffected founder member Paul Ray.

The founding meetings brought together Lake and the counterjihadists together with Ray, Stephen Yaxley Lennon – AKA ‘Tommy Robinson’, the former BNP member who now leads the EDL leader – and his cousin Kevin Carroll.

Breivik inquiry

Ayling has also been interviewed as a witness as part of the Norwegian police investigation into the massacre by fascist gunman Anders Behring Breivik.

Although Ayling/Lake denies having met Breivik, he has admitted meeting the deeply Islamophobic Norwegian blogger ‘Fjordman’ – real name Peder Jensen – who is cited repeatedly in the manifesto issued by Breivik.

‘Alan Lake’ has described Breivik’s massacre of 76 people, mainly members of a socialist youth camp, as chickens ‘come home to roost’ on his 4Freedoms website – remarks that sparked a bust-up with EDL leaders in August.

He has also used the site to issue predictions that the UK would fragment into ‘Islamic enclaves’ in 20 to 30 years’ time and discussed the possibility of executing prime minister David Cameron, his deputy, Nick Clegg, and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Ayling’s employer, the EBRD, has a sensitive position as an international agency charged with a political remit to encourage democracy as well as privatisation and market development.

The database manager’s suspension comes as the bank takes steps to expand into Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco – all with mainly Muslim populations.

A spokesperson for the bank said:

The EBRD became aware of various allegations made about a member of the bank’s staff in mid December.

The bank immediately launched an investigation into these allegations. The member of staff was suspended from duties pending the outcome of this investigation. The investigation is still ongoing.

Leeds

Meanwhile, Leeds City Council has suspended Chris Knowles from his post in the children’s services department after he was identified by UAF as ‘Aeneas’, another key “counterjihadist” backer of the EDL.

We revealed Knowles was director of the well funded US-based organisation, the Centre for Vigilant Freedom, which exists to promote Islamophobia internationally.

The CVF operates as the International Civil Liberties Alliance, whose website is run by Knowles in his ‘Aeneas’ guise. Knowles coordinates the CVF/ICLA’s European work from his West Yorkshire base.

Ray names Aeneas/Chris Knowles among the clique who met to set up the EDL. And Knowles has remained an important behind-the-scenes figure and a link between the EDL, the moneyed CVF strategists and other racist and far right groups internationally.

A Leeds City Council spokesperson said the authority was committed to equality and diversity and opposed to all forms of discrimination. She added that allegations against a member of staff were being taken very seriously.

A member of staff has been suspended while we undertake a thorough investigation. If there has been any breach of the council’s policies or code of conduct we will take appropriate action.

The EDL thugs want to stir up racism and division among the city’s diverse community. But people in Leicester have already shown the EDL is not wanted in Leicester – thousands turned out to show their opposition to the EDL and in October 2010.

Now black, white and Asian people are set to show their unity against the EDL again at a ‘Love Leicester, Hate Racism’ demonstration organised by UAF in the city centre on 4 February.

Details

The protest against the EDL will assemble at 11am on Saturday 4 February at the Clock Tower, Leicester City Centre.

The antiracist, antifascist event is supported by CWU Leicestershire branch, Leicestershire County Unison, PCS Leicester and Leicestershire branch, Stoneygate Labour Party, Unite 0168M branch and Leicester District Trades Council.

Please join the protest against the EDL – bring your banners!

>> Get leaflets here

Last week, a packed public meeting heard UAF speakers, local trade unionists, community leaders, youth activists and Labour councillors urge unity against the EDL.

UAF supporters will be joining events around the country to remember the Holocaust – see below for listings.

Remember

We believe it is important to remember the reality of what it means when fascists take power – so we can redouble our efforts to drive back the fascists today.

When Hitler’s Nazis came to power in Germany, they smashed working class organisations, political opposition and civil institutions – right down to the Boy Scouts – paving the way for the Holocaust.

In the Holocaust, the Nazis murdered six million Jews, along with millions of others who the fascists considered to be “undesirable” or “inferior”, including Roma people, socialists and communists, trade union members, gay men and lesbians, disabled people, black people, and non-Jewish Polish and Russian people.

The mass murder of the Holocaust was carried out on an industrial scale and has been called killing “by assembly line”, with death camps linked by the European rail network.

Today’s targets…

Today, in Britain and across Europe, fascist parties are again attempting to grow. They range from the serious electoral threat of the Front National in France to Hungary’s Jobbik, with its huge paramilitary wing. New groups such as the racist and fascist street thugs of the English Defence League have emerged.

While in the 1930s and 1940s the Nazis’ main targets were Jews, in recent years the fascists’ main targets have been Muslims and, especially in Eastern Europe, Roma people.

Holocaust deniers, such as BNP leader Nick Griffin, want to pretend the Holocaust didn’t happen and to disguise the reality of fascism. They try to pose as respectable politicians and slip into the mainstream of political life. The millions murdered by Hitler mean nothing to the likes of Griffin.

That is why events like Holocaust Memorial Day are important. We remember the Holocaust in order to learn the lessons of history and redouble our campaigning against racism and fascism today.

We cannot let Muslims, Roma or anyone else be scapegoated, isolated and murdered the way Jewish people were under the Nazis.

When we remember the Holocaust, we say: ‘Never again!’

Find out more

There are many sources of information about the Holocaust, but for a quick, concise guide with facts, figures and dates, you can view or download this very useful wallchart produced by the University and College Union (pdf file). It includes a section on resistance to fascism in more recent times.

Holocaust Memorial Day events

Here is a brief selection of events taking place on or around Holocaust Memorial Day this year. You can find a full listing on the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust website. Most events are free but booking is sometimes required.

London

North London Thursday 26 January 2012, 7:30pm
Eve of Holocaust Memorial Day Meeting – Questions and Answers, with Auschwitz survivor Anita Wallfisch, Rabbi Bernd Koschland – Kindertransport and child survivor, Ulrike Schmidt from Amnesty International speaking about the threat to Roma people in Hungary, UAF joint secretary Weyman Bennett and others. Organised by UAF. Muswell Hill Library (off the Broadway), 1 Queens Avenue, London N10. Free. >> Download leaflet

East London Sunday 29 January, 3pm-6pm
With speakers Jean Lambert MEP, Weyman Bennett (UAF), Sandor Szoke (Hungarian Civil Movement), Ladislav Balaz (Roma representative and advocate, Czech Republic), Amnesty International, plus music by Pjotre Jordan & Dunajska Kapelye. Organised by Amnesty Insternational and UAF. 10 Harmony Hall, Truro Road Walthamstow, London E17 7BY. £4/£2.>> Download leaflet

>> more on these events and others in London

North East

Newcastle Sunday 29 January, 3pm
Newcastle Holocaust Memorial Commemorative Event “Speak Up, Speak Out”, with speakers Ed Vulliamy, Nerma Jelacic and Ruth Barnett, plus performance by Ouseburn Young Voices and personal testimonials from students who took part in the ‘Lessons from Auschwitz’ project. Newcastle Civic Centre. Free, but please register.

Newcastle 27 January to 2 February
Anne Frank exhibition at Gosforth library, Regent Farm Road, Gosforth, NE3 3HD.

>> more details of these and other North East events

North West

Barrow in Furness Thursday 27 January, 7pm
Remember the Holocaust – Speak Up, Speak Out. An evening of commemoration for the victims of the Nazi Holocaust, with survivor testimony and a presentation entitled ‘Sophie Scholl Fighter Against Nazism’ by Professor Frank McDonough. Speakers include John Woodcock MP. Organised by UAF. Trinity Church Centre, Warwick Street, off Abbey Road, Barrow.

Manchester Monday 30 January, 5.15pm
Speak Up, Speak Out: Survivor Story. We are honoured to welcome back Holocaust survivor Arek Hersh MBE, with special screening of a film about his life, followed by a question and answer session. Imperial War Museum North, The Quays, Trafford Wharf Road, Manchester,M17 1TZ. Free, but booking required.

>> more details of these and other North West events

Yorkshire and Humber

Kirklees Tuesday 24 January, 7.15pm
Speak Up, Speak Out: Conversations in Kirklees. With Mayor of Kirklees, Cllr Eric Firth, plus Thornhill Junior School Choir and Hungarian Roma children sharing song, Ice & Fire Theatre Co presenting testimony, Holocaust survivors and Muslim students sharing stories. Huddersfield Town Hall, Ramsden Street, Huddersfield HD1 2TA. Free.

Barnsley Sunday 29 January, 6pm
Barnsley Holocaust Memorial Day Service. Speakers include Holocaust survivor Iby Knill, Dan Jarvis MP, Karen Dyson, Mayor of Barnsley, plus students from Barnsley College, Wombwell Mixed Voice Choir and a speacial guest speaker Milo Milinkovic. Barnsley Baptist Church, Sheffield Road, Barnsley S70 1JJ. Free.

>> more on these events and others in Yorkshire and Humberside

East Midands

Northampton Monday 30 January, 6.30pm
Holocaust Memorial Day Event. Performances and short presentations by children, young people and adults; candle-lighting and traditional prayers. With Lumbertubs Primary School and Northampton Youth Forum. The Great Hall, The Guildhall, St Giles Square, Northampton NN1 1DE. Free.

Derby Thursday 26 January 2012, 11.20am
Talk by Holocaust survivor Simon Winston who, as a young child with his parents and younger brother, lived on the run from the Nazis for two years. Followed by a Q&A session. Multi-Faith Centre, University of Derby, Kedleston Road, Derby.

>> more on this event and others in the East Midlands

West Midlands

Shrewsbury Friday 27 January, 5.15pm procession, 6pm event.
Speak Up, Speak Out. Candlelight procession from Shrewsbury College of Ats and Technology, London Road to the Shirehall. The event at the Shirehall includes drama an mime by students, a Klezmer band and a Malenka singing group. Free but please book for the event as space in the council chambers is limited. Contact contact Kal Parkash on 01743 252056 or email.

Redditch Sunday 29 January
Redditch Speaks Up, Speaks Out. Annual Holocaust Memorial event.
11.30 am – Procession from Holocaust Memorial Marker, Church Green.
12 noon – commemorative event with readings and music in Worcester Square, Kingfisher Shopping Centre, Redditch. 1pm – Holocaust survivor Simon Winston tells his story – Ecumenical Centre, Evesham Walk, Redditch.

>> more on these events and others in the West Midlands

South East

Romford, Essex Thursday 26 January, 6pm
Living Memories. With Holocaust survivor George Vulkan. Gidea Park Library, Balgores Lane, Gidea Park, Romford
RM2 6BS. Free but donations requested for the London Jewish Cultural Centre.

Southampton Thursday 26 January, 6pm
Speak Up, Speak Out – Southampton Holocaust and genocide memorial event with slides and music from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and speakers, plus students from Itchen College reflect on Holocaust testimony and students from Southampton Solent University perform a short work based on the testimony of Holocaust survivor Alice Sommer. Sir James Matthews Building, Southampton Solent University, Above Bar, Southampton. Free.

>> more on these events and others in the South East

South West

Bath Thursday 26 January, 6pm
Bath and North East Somerset Council’s Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration, with survivor of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Professor Ladislaus Lob. Please respond to Cllr Sarah Bevan by email. Guildhall, High Street, Bath
BA1 5AW. Free.

Taunton Friday 27 January, 12.30pm
Speak up, Speak out Holocaust Memorial Day event – including readings, music, candle-lighting and the laying of a wreath. Event supported by Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council, Somerset College of Arts and Technology, trade union UNISON and the Church of St John the Evangelist. People of all faiths and none are welcome. The Church of St John the Evangelist, Park Street, Taunton, Somerset TA1 4DG. Free.

>>more on this event and others in the South West

East of England

Cambridge Friday 27 January, 6.30pm
With speakers Martin Bell, the former BBC war correspondent and now UNICEF ambassador and Zuza Vrbova, the daughter of Auschwitz escapee Rudolph Vrba who prouced a detailed eyewitness account of what he had seen in an attempt to warn the world. Zuza will be assisted by a group of sixth form students who have helped create an exhibition about his escape. The Guidhall, Guildhall Street, Cambridge. Free.

>> more on this event and others in the East of England

Wales

Swansea Open now, runs until 5 February 2012
Jewish Refugees in South Wales, 1933-1945. West Glamorgan Archive Service has prepared an exhibition on the history of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany who came to South Wales, and their thought-provoking, poignant but inspirational histories. In the foyer of the Civic Centre, Oystermouth Road, Swansea SA1 3SN. Free.

>> more on this event and others in Wales

Scotland

Glasgow Monday 30 January, 7pm
Speak Up, Speak Out. Short film, drama production and talk by sixth year students who have visited Auschwitz. Eastwood Park Theatre, Eastwood Park, Rouken Glen Road, Giffnock G46 6UG. Free.

>> more on this event and others in Scotland

Pics: Nazis round up Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, and the remains of the railway line into Auschwitz (modern photo)

The racist and fascist EDL has announced plans to come to Leicester on 4 February.

Last night’s meeting of around 170 people – white, black and Asian – showed a determination to stand up in unity against the EDL.

Banners from the East Midlands regions of the Unite and Unison unions decorated the walls of the Highfields Community Centre, where community leaders, local councillors, trade unionists and local young people came together.

They heard Sital Singh Gill, general secretary of Indian Workers Association, Priya Thamotheram from the community centre, local youth activist Az and UAF’s Simon Assaf speak from the platform, along with Councillor Lucy Chaplin, who brought greetings from Leicester West constituency Labour Party and from former council leader Ross Wilmott.

Leicester councillor and Communication Workers Union branch secretary Andy Connelly also sent a message of support.

The meeting discussed the planned counter-demonstration against the EDL.

This will assemble in Leicester City Centre on Saturday 4 February – more details to follow. The antiracist, antifascist protest is supported by CWU Leicestershire branch, PCS Leicester and Leicestershire branch, Stoneygate Labour Party, Unite 0168M branch and Leicester District Trades Council.

Speaking from the floor, councillor Patrick Kitterick told the meeting:

This is my city, these are my streets. We need to draw a line and say no further to the EDL.

Huge counter-mobilisations against the EDL in Leicester in October 2010 showed the racists and fascists were not welcome then – now Leicester is set to unite against the EDL once again to drive the message home.

Only around 100 EDL supporters turned up for what was billed as a regional mobilisation in Barking – although the racists and fascists had obviously mobilised from much further afield.

Contrast

In contrast, around 80 people, overwhelmingly from the local area, came to an emergency counter-protest called by UAF at just two days’ notice. The antiracist and antifascist protestors included black, white and Asian people.

Ten local Labour councillors joined the counter-demo, along with trade unionists including Steve Hedley, London regional organiser of the RMT railworkers’ union, and reps from the PCS civil servants’ union.

Some of the demonstrators had earlier staged a vigil for Stephen Lawrence, after two of his racist killers were finally jailed this month.

Boosted

The antifascist numbers were boosted by local youth and people who had gone shopping in Barking market and were horrified to find the EDL there. Many made their feelings clear by joining the antiracist protest.

Market stallholders and other locals thanked the UAF protestors for being there.

Barking voters kicked the fascist British National Party off the council at the 2010 elections – and the EDL, which includes many former BNP members, is just as unwelcome.

Councillor Darren Rodwell told the antifascist protest he wished the EDL would ‘stop shipping themselves into Barking and Dagenham’ because local people hated them for trying to divide the community.

Local people have seen the EDL’s vicious racist hatred at previous demonstrations in Dagenham against a proposed mosque.

In September, three thugs were jailed after they tried to smash their way into a mosque in the neighbouring borough of Redbridge, attacking the imam. One of the thugs screamed ‘EDL’ during the violent attack.

UAF joint secretary Weyman Bennett said:

We have beaten BNP leader Nick Griffin in Barking and Dagenham and we will beat the racists an fascists of the EDL as well.

We will have pictures from Barking online soon.

UPDATE note new assembly point: the emergency protest against the EDL will assemble at 12 noon, at Barking market, junction of Ripple Road and East Street on Saturday 14 January.

The EDL is an organisation of racist and fascist thugs, who particularly target Muslims.

They plan to march through Barking as part of its attempts to stir up racism and division in the area. EDL supporters have aready staged a series of demonstrations in Dagenham against a proposed mosque.

In September, three thugs were jailed after they tried to smash their way into a mosque in the neighbouring borough of Redbridge, attacking the imam. One of the thugs screamed ‘EDL’ during the violent attack.

But people in Barking and Dagenham have shown they are fed up of racists and fascists trying to spread their poison in the area. In the 2010 elections, Barking and Dagenham voters kicked out the fascist British National Party’s 12 councillors and sent BNP leader Nick Griffin packing, with a crushing defeat in the Barking parliamentary seat.

Now former BNP members are draining into the EDL – and local antifascists are determined to show that the EDL’s racist and fascist thugs are not welcome in Barking either.

The emergency protest against the EDL will assemble at 12 noon, at Barking market, junction of Ripple Road and East Street on Saturday 14 January.

The Unite Against Fascism 2012 conference on 25 February is a chance for antifascists and antiracists to plan our campaign for the coming year.

Antifascists have staged successful mobilisations against the English Defence League around the country and this year also saw a successful campaign to boot the fascist British National Party out of Stoke-on-Trent and other key areas at the local elections.

But the threat of the EDL – now turning its violence against trade unionists and the left as well as Muslims – has not gone away. And now it has teamed up with BNP splinter group the British Freedom Party, creating a new alliance with both an electoral wing and a street thug movement – the classic two-pronged fascist strategy.

Hundreds of antifascist and antiracist activists, campaigners and trade unionists will come together at the conference to discuss our strategy for 2012.

Details

The conference takes place on Saturday 25 February from 10am to 4.30pm at Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. The nearest tube Holborn.

Conference themes include…

* Campaigning against the English Defence League
* The British Freedom Party — the new fascist electoral threat
* Mobilising the antifascist vote in the May elections
* How the BNP were defeated in Barking and Stoke
* EDL attacks on trade unions and the Occupy Movement
* Racism and the global economic crisis
* Islamophobia and hate crimes against Muslim communities
* How the EDL was defeated in Tower Hamlets

Elections

Conference delegates – who must be members of UAF or approved delegates of an affiliated organisation – will also elect members of the UAF officers’ group.

Affiliated organisations can send up to 12 delegates.

If you would like to nominate someone to the UAF officers’ group, please download the nomination form here and return it to us by 18 February.

Not yet a member?

If you would like to join UAF or affiliate your union branch, community organisation or campaign, you will be entitled to delegate status if your membership or affiliation reaches us by 18 February.

If you are not a UAF member or representative of an affiliated organisation, you can still register for the conference but you will have observer status and will not be entitled to vote.

EDL leader 'Tommy Robinson' (Stephen Yaxley Lennon) in the foreground, with 'Alan Lake' (Alan Ayling) and 'Aeneas' (Chris Knowles) filmed for Australian TV in March this year

By Tash Shifrin

The network of shadowy strategists behind the English Defence League is now under the spotlight as the identities of its leading figures are revealed.

The group of viciously Islamophobic ideologues supports and brings together far-right racist and fascist groups across Europe.

It has been centrally involved in the EDL from its beginnings in 2009 and has overseen the alliance announced last month with the British Freedom Party – a splinter group of former British National Party leaders – and its chair Paul Weston.

'Alan Lake' – now known to be wealthy Alan Ayling

‘Alan Lake’, the mastermind behind the strategy to unite football hooligan firms into the EDL’s army of anti-Muslim racist thugs, was exposed as wealthy investment fund director Alan Ayling by the Sunday Times this week.

The paper also named the influential figure known as ‘Gaia’ and ‘Dominque Devaux’ as Ann Marchini, who runs a buy-to-let property empire from her £1.6m mansion in Highgate, north London.

Reveal others

Now we can also reveal the identities of others in the anti-Muslim racist network – whose members call themselves ‘counterjihadists’.

They include Chris Knowles, known by the alias ‘Aeneas’, who has run the EDL’s media operation and is central to its links with European and US far-right groups.

Ayling, who under his ‘Lake’ alias described Anders Behring Breivik’s Norway massacre as ‘chickens coming home to roost’, was until January a director of Pacific Capital Investment Management, a City investment fund that was wound up in August.

EDL founded

It was at Ayling’s £500,000 Barbican flat that the EDL was established in 2009, according to disaffected founder member Paul Ray. The founding meetings brought together Lake and the counterjihadists together with Ray, Stephen Yaxley Lennon – AKA ‘Tommy Robinson’, the former BNP member who now leads the EDL leader – and his cousin Kevin Carroll.

Dominique Devaux/Gaia – named by Sunday Times as Ann Marchini

‘Gaia’, named by the Sunday Times as Ann Marchini, was also at the founding caucus.

Marchini coordinated the European wing of a well funded US organisation, the Center for Vigilant Freedom, now folded into the International Civil Liberties Alliance, which exists to promote Islamophobic organisation.

It backs the EDL and organises its links with far-right and fascist groups across Europe and the US.

Marchini’s lawyer has denied she is ‘Gaia’ or ‘Devaux’ but confirmed she is a BFP member and friend of Weston. Ann Marchini, with a Highgate address, is on a list of EDL donors leaked last year. She was also named as the contact on a CVF press release announcing a 2007 Counterjihad conference, although it was ‘Devaux’, who was the CVF’s public face in Europe at the time.

The CVF/ICLA was formed from a discussion group – ‘the 910 Group’ – around the deeply Islamophobic website, Gates of Vienna run by Edward May (‘Baron Bodissey’) who is now a director of CVF.

Substantial donations

It is not just an internet group, however. CVF has received substantial donations, including on at least one occasion a single helping of $70,000, which it uses to fund its work beefing up the Islamophobic far-right in the US and Europe.

Paul Weston, Chris Knowles/Aeneas and Robert Bartholomeus in Amsterdam last year

Another CVF director is Christopher Knowles, a key player in the EDL although unknown to most of its supporters. Under his alias, Aeneas, however, he has been in contact with Ray since 2007.

‘Aeneas’ runs the CVF’s ICLA website and coordinates its European work from his West Yorkshire base.

Ray names Aeneas/Chris Knowles among the clique who met to set up the EDL, and he has remained an important behind-the-scenes figure and a link between the EDL, the moneyed CVF strategists and other racist and far right groups internationally.

The third director of CVF is Christine Brim, whose day job is chief operating officer for the multi-million dollar, right-wing and Islamophobic US think tank, the Center for Security Policy. She is prominent on US anti-Muslim demonstrations.

Breivik

The Gates of Vienna website also hosts other well known Islamophobic ideologues. They include the former UKIP candidate Paul Weston who last month was hurriedly installed as chair of the BFP. Weston is fond of unleashing predictions that war between ‘native Europeans’ and Muslims is ‘inevitable’ unless Europe ‘wakes up to the danger it is in and expels all its Muslims’.

And the site published the poisonous racist outpourings of a blogger known as Fjordman – real name is Peder Jensen – who was named by killer Breivik 111 times in his manifesto.

Alan ‘Lake’ Ayling says: ‘People ought to read him, he is good,’ while on the BFP website Weston says Fjordman ‘should be required reading’.

They show no compunction in championing the ideologues who inspired Breivik’s murderous hatred of multiculturalism, Muslims and the left.

Conferences

The CVF/ICLA organises Counterjihad conferences and other international activities that bringing together supporters of Geert Wilders’ Islamophobic populist PVV in the Netherlands with fascists from the Sweden Democrats and the Belgian Vlaams Belang – and now the EDL.

A photograph shows Weston (left) with Knowles (centre) in Amsterdam last year, when the EDL staged a miserably unsuccessful attempt to get a ‘European Defence League’ off the ground.

The third man pictured is Robert Bartholomeus, who admits that he is not Jewish but has been a Facebook admin for the EDL’s so-called Jewish division – although his support for a US group called the ‘Jewish Task Force’, led by convicted terrorist bomber Victor Vancier has proved an embarrassment, even for the EDL.

BFP lash-up

It was at Counterjihad summit in London in September that the lash-up between EDL leaders Yaxley Lennon, Carroll and ‘Jack Smith’, the BFP and Weston appears to have been hammered out.

They were all there, along with Marcini/Gaia, Knowles/Aeneas and May and far-right strategists from Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the US.

‘Gaia’ reported approvingly for both the BFP and EDL websites when the move was officially announced at a meeting of EDL regional organisers and activists on 19 November.

The alliance gives the EDL-BFP the classic two-pronged attack of fascism: a street army and a suit-wearing, electoral wing.

State of flux

It also illustrates the rapid development and state of flux both within the EDL and across Europe.

The EDL’s move to ‘go political’ in alliance with BFP has not been popular with all its street thugs. And Lake and his fellow ideologues are distrusted by the cadre of football hooligans and many of those with backgrounds in the BNP, National Front or Combat 18.

But as the BNP collapses, UK fascists are looking for a new home. Activists and supporters are drifting between the BNP, British Freedom, the EDL and its splinter ‘Infidels’ group.

And throughout its existence, the EDL’s frequent internal splits and realignments have allowed the racists and fascists – and their strategists – to try out new formations and harden the organisation’s politics. It has moved increasingly towards fascism, and now violently threatens and attacks trade unionists and the left as well as Muslims.

The ‘counterjihadist’ network also creates a meeting point for different currents on the far-right. In Europe, these range from hard-core Hitler-style fascists like Hungary’s Jobbik and the cleaned-up suited ‘Eurofascists’ of the BNP or French Front National to Islamophobic populists like Wilders and the EDL’s street thugs.

Realignments

This creates the potential for new realignments, cross-fertilisation and hybrid organisations to develop.

'Devaux' with then newly elected BNP London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook in 2008

The CVF’s ‘Devaux’ is certainly no stranger to British fascism. She was hobnobbing with Richard Barnbrook at an Islamophobic demo in Cologne, Germany, just a few months after his 2008 election as a BNP London Assembly member (see picture).

And Christine Brim suggested back in 2007 on the now defunct (but archived) CVF website that the BNP and Le Pen’s French FN might be included in ‘counterjihad’ loop if they ditched their traditional antisemitism and Holocaust denial.

Racists and fascists in Britain and internationally are seeking the best way to capitalise on the economic crisis a rising tide of Islamophobia that has been encouraged by mainstream politicians, such as David Cameron and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy.

Antifascist mobilisations across the country over the past two years have helped hold the EDL back, and its internal tensions are often on display. But its backers are serious and although there may be more realignments to come, the threat is not going away.

>> UPDATE: Read more about the network behind the EDL here

Lake is the strategist who boasted of how he has brought football hooligan firms together to create the EDL’s army of racist street thugs.

He is a vicious anti-Muslim racist and open in his support of fascist organisations such as the Sweden Democrats and Hungary’s Jobbik party, whose uniformed paramilitary organisation terrorises Roma communities.

Lake described the massacre of 69 innocent people in Norway by fascist Anders Behring Breivik as “chickens coming home to roost”.

And on his 4Freedoms website, he has discussed the merits of killing prime minister David Cameron, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams.

He has admitted funding the EDL, telling Norway’s TV2 channel: “I have given some money to help some EDL things happen.”

City fund

Lake’s real name is Alan Ayling and he was, until January, a director of City fund Pacific Capital Investment Management, the Sunday Times reported. The fund was wound up in August.

Ayling, born in March 1954, lives in a luxury £500,000 flat in London’s Barbican Centre, where the founding meeting of the EDL was held in 2009.

That brought together Stephen Yaxley Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson), now the EDL’s leader, and members of the shadowy “counterjihad” network of vicious anti-Muslim racists of which Lake/Ayling is a key part.

Ayling has now been quizzed by police as part of the investigation into the Breivik massacre.

“Lake” had a falling out with the EDL back in August.

Property tycoon

But his fellow “counterjihadist”, a woman known by the pseudonym “Gaia”, is still closely connected to the EDL – and part of steering it in the direction of its recent alliance with the British Freedom Party, a fascist group that splintered off from the British National Party.

The BFP-EDL tie-up brings together the two elements of a classic fascist organisation – an electoral, suit-wearing BFP wing and the EDL’s army of street thugs – in an open alliance of linked organisations.

“Gaia” – named in the Sunday Times as buy-to-let property tycoon Ann Marchini, who lives in a £1.6m Highgate mansion – is also understood to have been at the 2009 founding meeting. She is reported to also use the alias Dominique Devaux.

BFP tie-up

Gaia was also at the EDL’s 19 November “Way forward” meeting, where the street thug cadre assembled to hear news of the tie-up with the BFP, and reported on the event for both the EDL and BFP websites.

Marchini and the counterjihadist clique, who have substantial international connections, believe that “going political” with the BFP will help bring money into the organisation.

A lawyer for Marchini told the Sunday Times: “Ann Marchini does not operate under the alias of either Dominique Devaux or Gaia. She is a member of British Freedom but joined only to support her personal friend Paul Weston.”

Weston is the former UKIP candidate hurriedly shunted into the position of BFP chair last month, when the fascist group carried out a cosmetic clean-up, moving its most prominent former BNP leaders discreetly off its executive committee.

Ann Marchini’s name and address in London N6 (a Highgate postcode) appear on a list of EDL donors released after the EDL’s website was hacked last year.

The pair started a fire on the ground floor of the Regent Road mosque in the Hanley area of Stoke-on-Trent and also ran a gas pipe from a neighbouring property into the building last December.

Beech, who was a serving British Army soldier at the time of the arson attack, told the court he was a member of both the BNP and the EDL.

The attack follows activity by the fascists and racists of the EDL and the BNP in Stoke-on-Trent over a long period of time.

Chanting

And EDL supporters were filmed singing “Burn a mosque down” in Preston, Lancashire, just a week before the Stoke mosque was set alight.

The then soldier Beech, who is from Stoke, was arrested at an Army barracks in Preston.

Beech’s Facebook page was full of vile racist ranting directed against Muslims. The Stoke Sentinel reported:

Beech posted comments including “Let’s start bashing skulls, dirty, rotten rodents, they breed like rats here, they need to die like rats” and “I say we need to start taking things into our own hands because they are running the place”.

The next day he posted “Get as many heads as we can, go and smash some skull and take over Shelton”.

And Beech said he “liked” a comment someone else posted – ‘Nuke all mosques’. He also posted comments including “Time we took things into our hands,” and “I say we put a stop to it before it’s too late.”

Also on November 11, Beech said: “The time has come we burn their place, burn the lot of them.”

Targeted

Hanley, where the arson attack took place, is the area of Stoke where the EDL went on the rampage in January last year, chanting offensive anti-Muslim slogans and lashing out violently, as this video by photojournalist Jason N Parkinson shows.

BNP

Stoke has also been a target area for the BNP – although campaigning by antifascists succeeded in making the city council Nazi-free at the May elections, when the BNP’s five remaining councillors were kicked out.

BNP councillors and candidates publicly opposed the building of the Regent Road mosque, the first purpose-built mosque in Stoke, which had been newly opened when Beech and Foster set it ablaze.