4 March 2000

The infiltration of the EDL

As of 02.06 this morning Friday 5th March, the EDL: St George division ceases to exist, with the leadership of what once was the division having no responsibility for any EDL activities, endorsement of the movement, and we are no longer connected to them in anyway whatsoever.

We have absolutely nothing to do with Chris Renton's basterdised English Defence League.


A full statement will be posted in due course.



Written by Michael Ryan

(Disclaimer: Not once has it been mentioned anywhere in this article that I have any links whatsoever to the U.B.A (United British Alliance) or that the UBA have any links to me or the EDL: St George division. What is stated in answer to a question is my own personal belief, based upon my own perception gained through personal experience and knowledge over 4 years. After all when I first set up my blog 4 years ago I was in communication with a loyal UBA member which gave me my first insight into the street protest movement. Saying I know who someone is doesnt mean I know them it just means I must know something, Im sure the UBA are big enough to step up to the plate if something does happen otherwise they wouldnt have been outside Finsbury Park mosque protesting while everyone else was sitting at home watching TV - Ive always had respect for the UBA so that respect is reciprocated - Time is the greatest revealer of truth remember that!)


In Europe the anti Islamisation movement has been steadily gaining support for several years now led by organisations such as the SIOE (Stop Islamisation of Europe) and more recently branches of this organisation have sprung up across the continent. The SIOE has always been well marshalled and well organised. Racism and any hint of National socialist style extremism have not been tolerated. But what of the English Defence League? Last year tensions between sections of the community in the English town of Luton boiled over when Islamic extremists with links to the now banned “Islam for UK” staged a protest at a homecoming parade for soldiers of the Royal Anglian regiment of the British army. Placards calling the soldiers “Butchers” and “Baby murders” were held high but the people of Luton countered them and marshalled these extremists into a corner. The police were then forced to protect them. Of course, as always the only people arrested on the day were Englishmen.



In response to this outrage and insult the people of Luton sprung into action forming an action group called “UPL – United people of Luton” they planned and staged a St Georges day march against Islamic extremism which was then broken up by the police for fear of upsetting ‘Community cohesion’. Several weeks later the people of Luton again went on the march, though this time they were joined by the Casuals, men from football club hooligan firms. Unfortunately this march was infiltrated by the far right and violence ensued, a muslim owned restaurant was attacked, Police were fought and one gentleman of Indian decent was physically attacked. Already at this early stage the far right was creeping onto the scene of what would eventually become the English defence league. Present at this Luton event was a key figure Mr Chris Renton a BNP activist from the town of Weston super mare in the West of England. Renton, a fully paid up “Gold member” of the BNP and his brother attended this march under aliases. Since then Chris Renton under the alias of “John Sheridan” has risen to the position of second in command of the EDL, and now since the arrest of the alias “Tommy Robinson”, is the de facto commander of the EDL as a whole.

On every Facebook group, which appears to be their main recruiting and planning centre along with the EDL forum this same John Sheridan is either a co or full administrator and seems to be actively leading EDL policy. Sheridan/Renton's public vision for the EDL calls for the protection of free speech as the corner stone of the organisations manifesto however the reality is rather shocking. The groups online presence is enforced with a strong hand and any comment or hint of debate is deleted and the person who questions EDL tactics denounced as a traitor, repeated ‘offences’ by an EDL member such as the crime of questioning EDL policy or suggesting new tactics for protests that do not involve fighting the police or UAF members are met with a vicious smear campaign led by none other than the Sheridan alias himself. One woman, a 57 year old Grandmother who will remain nameless decided she would email the EDL’s leaders to give her support and offer some ideas, she was then met with a barrage of hate mail including messages from the Sheridan alias himself, many of which had a crude sexual twist to them, all of which are too shocking to print here. Another lady, again a middle aged mother asked some challenging questions and was the subjected to a barrage of hate mail.

EDL enforcers known as "Troll hunters" travel the social networking sites such as Facebook acting as Sheridan’s personal nightwatch. These draconian and almost Gestapo tactics are not in any way related to the best traditions of freedom of expression of English politeness and debate. The very worst tactic however is Sheridan’s issuing of chilling ‘Hit lists’ online. Several days ago, a list of names was posted on the EDL’s main and official Facebook wall by the John Sheridan profile, the update stated that these people were “Traitors and should be considered hostile” it also, unjustly accused them of crimes against children and women, the post was then naturally commented on by members asking for proof of this. The Sheridan profile then posted that he had this proof in the form of ‘newspaper cuttings’ when members again asked to see it, the update was deleted. This leads one to believe there is friction among the ranks and that not all members of the leadership council are as corrupted as the Sheridan alias.

It should be noted however that while the EDL do not confirm nor deny that John Sheridan is in fact Chris Renton, they do make it public that Renton is no longer a BNP member and has not been for several months. Paul Ray, a well know anti-Islamisation activist from Luton who was under arrest for 18 months and then released without charge because of his Lionheart internet blog claimed in several media pieces that there has been a hijacking of the EDL.


"The English Defence League that was originally built over many months and eventually set up by myself and others, was hijacked over the last couple of weeks leading up to tomorrow by a bunch of 'pirates' led by Chris Renton." – Paul Ray



Ray, who now lives in an un-disclosed location outside of the UK, and who attended the First UPL march, was shortly afterwards issued with an ‘OSMAN’ warning, which implies an imminent threat to your personal safety, following the warning he decided to leave the UK but has agreed to speak with us today to state his position and views.



Paul thanks for taking the time out to speak with me, first can I just ask you how did you first get involved in the counter –jihad and anti-Islamisation movement?


Thanks for wanting to speak to me for your readers. I’ve lived in and around Luton my whole life and I became actively involved when I had my life threatened by Pakistani moslem drug gangs aligned to Al Qaeda from Bury Park Luton threaten my life. Luton for those who don’t know took centre stage on the morning of 7/7 with the Emir of the bombings a local Luton Pakistani. It also took centre stage in operation crevice which was the biggest anti-terror operation in British history up until that point, with the Al Qaeda bomb maker a local Luton & Dunstable taxi driver who along with his cell and 1 ton of fertiliser planned to blow up the Bluewater shopping centre and the ministry of sound night club. Al Qaeda’s commander the hook handed Abu Hamza lived in Luton for around 10 years and Omar Bakri had his headquarters for Al Majaroun in Luton.


I had information of a Pakistani moslem plying his Al Qaeda heroin into my community so passed that information onto the police. I have no shame in passing this information along because heroin is being used as a war front against the people of Britain and in this case against people within my community, so it’s a National Security issue and not normal criminality. The Al Qaeda drug gang found out and subsequently issued me with death threats. The rest from there has been well documented on my blog www.lionheartuk.com and by other anti-jihad activists around the world who have covered my story from the beginning.


What was it like to be under arrest for 18 months for Incitement, was it a hard time for you and how did you manage to get through that period?

So that your readers know. I was arrested on suspicion of 'stirring up racial hatred' through written material on my blog. Yes it was a very hard time for many reasons, too many to go into detail here because the arrest left me in a situation of facing many consequences. I was in America when I found out about the arrest warrant and was going to seek political asylum there but decided to return home and go through the arrest process. I had some very good and kind support from many Americans, not least the family who didn’t know me who took me in and gave me a safe refuge, of which I am eternally grateful for, and know I have a kind of second family in America now who I will always be indebted too.



Not knowing whether you’re going to be charged and put on trial for 18 months or not is the hard part, having to run around answering bail while you have Al Qaeda In Britain hunting you to kill you is hard work. But I’m still here which is the main thing, and after 18 months of being chained to the British State, they released me with no charges to answer.


You were issued an Osman warning, how seriously did you take this threat and is there still a serious threat to you even now?


The Osman warning came 3 years after my initial death threats and what I had gone through for the past 3 years so it wasn’t new news, this just confirmed that the authorities had acknowledged the threat, or that the threat had become so serious they had no alternative but to issue me with the legal warning, thus covering their own backsides if anything happened to me. The Osman warning was created after the Osman case where the police had information someone’s life was in danger and then the person ended up dead. The family sued the police for negligence so now they issue them to cover themselves legally just in case something happens and they had the information to warn the person so they cannot be sued again.



Covering their backsides legally.


It’s commonly accepted that you were a founder member of the EDL, what were your aims and hopes for the organisation when you helped to develop it.


To raise awareness in the public eye about what is happening in our country with regards to militant Islam, that most do not know or choose to ignore. The situation is severe in Britain now; with us even taking top spot as being the number one threat to the American homeland. Must be pretty serious don’t you think? But most people do not realize what is truly going on because they are being lied to by the new political class. So it is us, in our communities who are faced with the reality of life in modern Britain now the armies of Jihad are here and there is nobody there to help us, with us being the ones targeted as racists by the State if we say anything about the threat that we now face.

The radical moslems are against us trying to kill those who oppose them and convert our country into an Islamic State ruled by sharia, and the State support them by targeting those who disagree with being killed by moslems and their country taken over.

How do you feel when you see the EDL marching under the cross of St George and the Star of David especially when there is trouble with the UAF, Police or Muslim youth?

To begin with it was good to see the Cross lifted up due to the significance of it, the meaning of it and because it is what I had been using as my signature for my work. Now though it has become an abomination to sit back and watch, now that a hard core neo-nazi has control over the movement.



If you notice, at the first protest and during interviews the Star of David was lifted up in support of our Jewish friends and allies who are the No.1 target of the global Jihad. But now the movement has been taken over by a hard core nazi you do not see any support at all.

The UAF are justified in protesting against the EDL due to this neo-nazi factor, which is why I told the EDL leadership to remove Chris Renton and neutralize their argument. Removing him would have sent out a clear message about the motives of the EDL. They refused and turned on me instead. With the vast majority of EDL members being on the street for the right reasons, they are all branded Nazi’s because one of their leaders, leading them is one, and has the support of others who have now joined the ranks of the EDL and taken over. Wolves in sheep’s clothing!

The UAF now do the bidding on the streets for the militants, they just have to sit at home watching the TV laughing at the EDL/UAF as the EDL is no longer a threat to them.



You previously backed Chris Renton during a Talk Sport interview why have you now changed your position?


I never got involved with the street protest movement to make enemies from my own kind, or what I thought to be of my own kind and I always speak the truth from my perspective which is what I did during this interview.

It was only after this interview did the truth start to unravel, and then Chris Renton with the moral support of others disregarded me, hijacked the movement and then went on to protest in Birmingham on 8/8. Anyone with the slightest bit of knowledge about neo-Nazis knows the meaning of 8/8 which is why I pulled out of any active participation. Now 9 months later the truth can no longer be hidden.



How damaging to the EDL’s public relations was the 8th of August in Birmingham?


It was a pivotal moment, not just for me pulling out but the movement as a whole because going out onto the streets in protest on 8/8 was always going to bring Nazis onto the streets, which it did. Photos of EDL Nazis are all across the internet now, with the EDL now branded a neo-nazi movement because of this. I advised the leadership group not to go out onto the streets this day, to postpone it for 1 week which would have sent a clear message to everyone. The UAF, the Jewish community, the police and the British public, but those calls went unheeded, and the rest is history.



I know the EDL in most part is not a Nazi movement, I know the majority of the core leadership are not neo-Nazis, and most of the membership are not but the general public don’t know, and when they see what they see on the internet and through the media, its hard getting away from the fact of what it looks like, so 8/8 was a PR disaster of the very worst kind. Especially now the level of Chris Renton’s control over the EDL has come to light. I chose to stay silent for the sake of the EDL movement as a whole in the hope that the core leadership would do the right thing but they refused. Now after Chris Renton’s attempted character assassination on me I have no choice but to speak up in defence, not just of myself but of the EDL as a whole.



The allegations that have been made about you appear to be false, as no evidence has been brought forward to substantiate them. Have you considered legal action against the people who have spread them?


Of course they are false, I’ve been here for 4 years now with my name and face to everything I have said or done in the anti-Jihad movement, I do not hide behind masks or aliases unlike those spreading the lies. My name has been linked in the newspapers numerous times and if there was any basis of these disgusting lies then I’m sure the newspapers would have loved to have told everyone. Due to the nature of the lies and the extreme damage they can do, obviously legal action is in my mind, but I hope that the new core leadership will do the right thing and expel Chris Renton over this affair.

I don’t hold my breath though as Chris Renton has too much control over the EDL now which is why he has been the one directing things behind the scenes. He owns the EDL forum, has his name as admin or creator on pretty much all of the EDL Facebook groups, he owns the.Co.uk website and is now closely aligned to the Judas EDL media website, who I put in place through my contacts.



Due to this control over the EDL, is the reason why my name has been defamed over the past months. Chris Renton spreads his lies about people across this platform and the gullible EDL masses who do not have a brain to look for themselves listen to him. I have a list of people who have been targeted for character assassination through this type of smear campaign.



People questioning where the money is going is the favourite for the targeted smear campaign.


What are your views on “Tommy Robinsons” arrest and detainment?


I obviously feel sorry for him and his family and hope and pray for the best outcome for him, but he chose not to listen and endorsed the smear campaigns against people. When Chris Renton sends out memos under the name ‘EDL admin’ this means he endorses what has been written. He also told our loyal female commander that she was not welcome at the demos, and spoke negatively about myself and close friends. I worked with Tommy Robinson from the beginning and know he is a genuine, nice guy, involved for all the right reasons, he is from Luton after all so knows everything I have stated on my blog for the past 4 years is the truth, he has just been directed the wrong way by forces he had no control over. He knew the control Chris Renton has, the same as all the other core leaders, so they are all stuck between a rock and a hard place.


EDL do you see the violence on the streets escalating against the UAF and Islamic youth?


No comment as I have my own thoughts on this.


Certain members of the EDL’s 12 person command structure have criticised you for being a “Keyboard warrior” because you have not attended any of the EDL gatherings or protests. How do you feel about that?


Unlike pretty much all of the 12 I was at the first EDL protests, which included directing Whitechapel when the EDL first went out onto the streets. I removed myself to carry on with my involvement where hopefully the British State cannot arrest me for allegedly stirring up religious hatred. It seems they are too stupid to see that though.


Everyone knows Antifa? Antifa is the extreme left wing anarchist movement aligned to militant Islam. In 2006 I infiltrated their training ground in Jericho the West Bank of Israel. They go there under the guise of the International Solidarity Movement, and I came back with proof they are a terrorist supporting group who only go there to be trained up so as to return back home to their host countries to cause civil unrest on behalf of their Islamist masters, which is why they are now aligned against the EDL. Tell me any of the EDL leadership who have done anything of this nature, then I will listen to those accusations of ‘Keyboard warrior’, until then its more smear for the EDL membership to discredit me.

Do a google serch: The ISM Terror connection by Lee Kaplan



They call me a keyboard warrior but you can be sure they have all watched my video messages and it was these that got most of them involved with the EDL in the first place, and anyway, what’s wrong with keyboard warriors, we all have a part to play, so respect to all keyboard warriors out there, we will not win this war without you. The battle is for hearts & minds, “The pen is mightier than the sword”


The main EDL is argued to have over 15’000 members, while your own St George division numbers at around 1300 people. Why did you choose to concentrate on the London Islam 4 UK protest and why did the main body of the EDL concentrate on Leeds?


I would rather have 1300+ loyal members aligned to my leadership team than 15,000 with a core group of traitors and backstabbers leading them, that is a fact, and the 1300+ members have proven that point because they have all stood firm throughout so respect to each and every one of them. We are one. United we stand – Divided we fall. There was no alternative but to step up to the plate when Choudary called for an Islamic revolution and planned on walking to Buckingham Palace calling for the overthrow of our Queen.



How could anyone expect anything less from the English Defence League?

Chris Renton’s directed EDL decided instead to go to no man’s land on the day London was unfolding and fight with the police and UAF which proved without a shadow of a doubt what was really going on. That the EDL had become nothing more than a battering ram against the UAF, and the leaderships motives for leading the EDL membership were completely wrong or had been distorted.



The EDL youth leader at that time didn’t even endorse a protest in his home City, instead wanting to go under the name ‘Casuals United’ which again proves the motives of those who have been leading the EDL. I know who the true heir of London youth is and it’s not Joel Titus.



Chris Renton’s directed EDL did not even endorse the London anti-Choudary protest until the very last minute, with a completely hypocritical statement as to why they were not attending, and then when we succeeded in halting Choudary and forcing him back home to a park in Walthamstow with the support of England United and other anti-Jihad groups and human rights activists they then claimed victory on their website. We exerted everything at our disposal through the EDL: St George division that day against Choudary with a handful of people present and 1 Knight from our division on the streets. With Choudary even admitting himself that it was because of our EDL division why he stopped his march. We along with others can claim victory for that day and the videos are out there as proof.

What do you see happening with the EDL now members have been arrested and an alleged Neo-Nazi is leading it is a ban by the government an inevitable now that the right wing element has infiltrated the movement?



If the EDL does become a banned organization then I believe the United British Alliance will take up complete command and responsibility of the street protest movement against the Islamisation of Britain. They are the founders of today’s movement, the EDL and other groups are just a continuation of the work they started. These London Patriots were on the streets protesting outside Finsbury Park mosque in London whilst Abu Hamza was there preaching Jihad against us and the West, and today’s EDL were not even looking at what is happening to their country.

The National infrastructure for the street protest movement is in place now so if a ban does happen then the EDL will fracture with each division becoming its own independent group.

I know who the leader of the UBA is, and he is, or will be, the overall General of the street protest movement. He has the respect of people from all walks of life so will lead the movement into what it should be – “A voice for the silent majority” peacefully protesting against the Islamisation of Britain.

Lets hope and pray though that the English Defence League doesnt become a banned organisation though.

Considering the march in support of Geert Wilders is taking place in London tomorrow March 5th, you can be certain the UBA will be in attendance, and I am sure you will see news of a peaceful days support in support of Mr Wilders by London EDL.

One last thing; the http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/ website as far as I can see it, no longer has any affiliatation to Chris Renton, although some of the names putting out memos from there are still a part of Chris Renton’s leadership team.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with your readers and put the record straight on a few things. God bless you




Thanks for your time Paul.
Compiled and written by Michael Ryan.