Opposition to the English Defence League

Police with police dogs in attendance at an EDL demonstration

The government regarded the EDL as a major threat to societal cohesion and integration,[24] and there were fears that the group was seeking to spark racial-aggravated urban disturbances akin to those which had broken out in parts of Britain in 2001.[25] In September 2009, the UK's Communities Secretary John Denham condemned the EDL, comparing its tactics to those used by the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s.[26] To combat the white working class resentment that was feeding into support for the BNP and EDL, he invested £12 million into the "Connecting Communities" programme.[26] During the campaign run-up to the 2010 general election, the Conservative Party leader—and subsequent Prime Minister—David Cameron referred to the EDL as "terrible people" and added that "we would always keep these groups under review and if we needed to ban them, we would ban them or any groups which incite hatred."[26][27] The Home Office minister Phil Woolas stated that the EDL deliberately engaged in "division and provocation, to try and push young Muslims into the hands of extremists, in order to perpetuate the divide. It is dangerous."[28] In 2011, the Conservative Party suspended one of its local Southend councillors from the party after they attended an EDL rally.[29]

Various police officers reported that the EDL's activities hampered their own counter-terror operations among British Muslim communities.[24][30][31] Robert Lambert, co-director of the University of Exeter's European Muslim Research Centre (EMRC) stated that the EDL undermined efforts by British Muslims to tackle terrorism and extremism.[32]

The EDL's events attracted a varied range of counter-protesters, the foremost among them being Unite Against Fascism (UAF).[33] The UAF organised to combat the EDL on both an intellectual and physical level, in this way mirroring the actions of the Anti-Nazi League in countering the National Front in 1970s Britain.[34] Dominated by the Socialist Workers Party, the UAF understood the EDL through a largely Marxist interpretation, regarding its members as "fascist, racist thugs" and believing that it represented an "embryonic pogrom movement".[35] The UAF believed in the need to oppose the EDL at every juncture, countering it with larger numbers at every opportunity and thus demoralising it; like the EDL, it stressed that protests should be peaceful, and blamed the arrest of some of its own protesters on heavy-handed policing.[36] At counter-protests, the UAF's common chant was "Fascist scum off our streets".[26] Copsey suggested that the UAF's approach of directly countering the EDL during its marches gave the EDL exactly what it wanted, enhancing the opportunity for violent confrontation and providing it with the oxygen of publicity.[37] He further argued that such a strategy risked serious injury or death and that in such a scenario it would contribute to further radicalisation on all sides.[37] Jackson similarly thought that the UAF's approach was likely to result in "tit for tat radicalisation".[38]

Another anti-fascist group, Hope not Hate, differed from the UAF in not believing that every EDL rally must meet forceful opposition.[38] It expressed the view that "demonstrations and pickets have their place but they should be a tactic not dogmatic rule", instead arguing that anti-fascists should discuss what tactics might be appropriate for a certain locality with members of its local community before the EDL held their protest there.[36] Hope not Hate foregrounded the need to establish long-term strategies to counter the EDL and far-right politics, establishing links with Labour and to a lesser extent other political parties and focusing on reconnecting disenfranchised people with the established political process.[38] When it has helped to organise counter-protests against the EDL, Hope not Hate often focused on bringing together different sectors of a local community in peaceful protest; in Bradford in August 2010, for instance, it helped organise a counter-protest featuring members of the Christian, Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu communities.[38] Online, various leftist websites have also played a role in monitoring the EDL's activities, including Indymedia, Lancaster Unity, 1 Million United, and IslamophobiaWatch.[38]

Counter-protest to the EDL held in Leicester in 2012

Britain's Islamic community was divided on how to deal with he EDL. In some cases, Muslims joined in with UAF counter-protests; when the EDL planned to march in Birmingham in September 2009, the head of the Birmingham Central Mosque, Muhammad Nasee, urged Muslims to do so against police advice.[36] Other Muslim voices have called for the Muslim community to stay away from the protests, and to keep their young people off the streets while they are going on. When an EDL protest was planned in Leicester, for example, the Federation of Muslim Organisations issued a statement saying that "Our strong advice is that people stay away from the EDL protest and any counter demonstration and rallies that may take place in the city."[36] Another response was the formation of the Muslim Defence League in January 2010, the stated purpose of which was to oppose Islamophobia and counter misinformation about Islam. In various instances, it supported UAF counter-protests against EDL marches.[39] In 2013, six Islamists pleaded guilty to plotting a bomb and gun attack on an EDL march in Dewsbury.[40]

In response to the involvement of some Sikhs in the EDL, an organisation known as Sikhs Against the EDL was formed; it condemned Guramit Singh as a "traitor" for not opposing the "racism and fascism espoused by the EDL".[34] After the EDL founded its Jewish Division, the Board of Deputies of British Jews expressed disappointment; its chief executive Jon Benjamin stated that he EDL's support for Israel was "empty and duplicitous" and that his group rejected the EDL's "Islamophobia and hatred".[41] In 2010, the Association of Pakistani Lawyers asked the government to ban the EDL outright, although this was not done.[26] As noted by Copsey, this would have been difficult, for the EDL did not openly glorify terrorism and thus could not be proscribed under Britain's counter-terrorism legislation; additionally, he thought that were the EDL to be banned, a very similar group would have simply taken its place.[26]