This is a guest post by Lucy James, a research fellow at Quilliam
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Last month, on the back of a paper entitled In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda (pdf), I called for Muslim communities, and the British public as a whole, to take a more united ideological stand against the BNP; one that systematically undermines their arguments in the British mainstream.
Last week we heard about Noor Ramjanally, a Muslim community leader in Loughton, who was allegedly kidnapped from his home late at night and taken to Epping Forest at knifepoint, where he was ordered to stop holding prayer meetings. A BNP campaign which distributed leaflets saying ‘No mosques in Loughton’ was held responsible for creating the tensions that led to the crime.
The local BNP councillor Pat Richardson bizarrely defended allegations of BNP violence saying ‘’Firebombing is not a British method. A brick through the window is a British method but firebombing is not a way of showing displeasure”.