Reclassify the EDL

Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to learn any lessons of the appalling events in Norway to ensure that this country is "more secure against horrific outrageous like this".

He could make a start by ordering the Home Office to reclassify the English Defence League. Despite the violence and racial hatred whipped up by this street gang the authorities refuse to label the group as "far-right extremists". As a result the police do not monitor the group like they do dozens of Muslim organisations and take little interest in its activities. One police officer who has responsibility for monitoring extremists recently told us that the EDL was only an issue when it had a knock-on effect on Islamist extremist groups.

With evidence pointing to Anders Breivik's admiration for the EDL and an increasingly militant tone being taken by EDL units across Britain, surely it is time for the authorities finally to take this threat seriously.

I'll be writing more about this shortly but let's hope it doesn't take an atrocity for the authorities finally to act against the EDL.

Thanks to Nick Lowles at HOPE not Hate/Searchlight