Does the EDL still exist?

Keir Starmer has chaired an emergency Cobra meeting today in an effort to quell a wave of far-right violence following a mass stabbing in Southport

Serious unrest over the weekend saw "police clashing with protesters, shops being looted and hotels containing asylum seekers being attacked" in towns and cities across the UK, said the Financial Times.  More than 400 people have been arrested in connection with the unrest, and the number is expected to rise, leading some commentators to call for groups such as the English Defence League (EDL) to be banned under UK terrorism laws.

'Ceased to exist' 

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said they will "be looking at" whether the far-right, Islamophobic group the EDL could be proscribed under UK law, after Merseyside police identified the group as playing a key role in the disorder which broke out in Southport – then spreading to London, Hartlepool, Manchester and Aldershot – after the murder of three children at a Taylor Swift themed dance class. 

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

But experts say the EDL hasn't been an official organisation for more than a decade. While there are people who do describe themselves as EDL supporters the organisation "ceased to exist in any formal sense" after its founder, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who frequently goes by the alias Tommy Robinson, "focused on spreading his message on social media platforms, where he has a sizeable following", said the BBC.

"But its core ideas – in particular an opposition to illegal immigration, mixed with hate predominantly aimed at Muslims – are very much alive," said the broadcaster, and those are "loudly and widely spread among sympathisers online".

'Like a school of fish'

Efforts to quell the disorder have been "complicated by the way the far right has evolved from the more formally organised racist outlets of old" – such as the British National Party or the EDL – into  "more fragmented, personality-driven splinter groups", said the FT. The ability of these splinter groups to " whip up spontaneous protests" and "spread disinformation" has only been helped "by viral online posts and recommendation algorithms on TikTok and X, as well as dedicated Telegram channels" – as happened in the wake of the Southport murders, where false information about the identity of the attacker was spread online.

Police now face an "amorphous" adversary rather than a single entity to ban or sanction, said Paul Jackson, a professor specialising in the history of radicalism and extremism at Northampton University. Social media allows for a "wider mesh" of splinter groups and personalities to find common cause and organise, he said.

Indeed, while it has been difficult to "pinpoint" exactly who began the calls for protest and disorder online, "there was a clear pattern – multiple influencers within different circles amplified false claims about the identity of the attacker", said BBC Verify. These claims "then travelled across social media platforms, reaching a large audience", said the BBC, which also included "ordinary people without any connection to far-right individuals and groups".

"There's not been a single driving force," said Joe Mulhall, head of research at anti-racism research group Hope Not Hate, speaking to the broadcaster. "That reflects the nature of the contemporary far-right. There are large numbers of people engaging in activity online but there's no membership structure or badge there are not even formalised leaders, but they are directed by social media influencers." 

"It's like a school of fish rather than traditional organisation," he said. 

'Missing the target'

It is unclear, therefore, if groups such as the EDL were proscribed "what difference this would make", said Sky News.

"You may end up missing the target if you proscribe the organisation," said Lord Walney, a government adviser on political violence, speaking to the broadcaster. The priority should be going after "individual ringleaders who are currently stirring things up and moving from area to area", he said.

"If proscription can be seen to be part of an effective tool in enabling us to get to those individuals, then yes let's try and do it quickly. But because of that complication, I'm not sure whether it is the first thing you go to."