EDL Acronym Trouble: Forgetting Who They Are?

It seems the English Defence League (EDL) have been having an identity crisis. Their members, many of whom have trouble spelling their own first name, have got themselves confused over their own 'organisations' acronym. Recently heard chanting “E L D!” during a town centre smash up, it was speculated the organisation had changed their name, however, it turns out it's a simple case of them all being a bit thick.

It was thought the constant chanting of “E E E D L” for hours on end, was a battle cry of some sort, to make their presence known when vandalising town centres and intimidating shoppers. However, it now appears this is a method, introduced by the leadership, for helping the membership remember the complicated three letter acronym.

Facebook posts are a gold mine of EDL cock-ups, some of the best include; “ELD All The Way! No Surrender”, “ELD til I die!”, “E-On Yeah!! No to Islammyfication” and “DEL Forever, No Surrender”. Whilst some could possibly be put down to typos, a number of EDL supporters have been seen sporting ELD tattoos and wearing ELD clothing, and a source reported that the EDL leadership spent thousands manufacturing ELD merchandise, which is now for sale online.

Tommy Robinson, the leader, has blamed the crisis on the BNP's leader Nick Griffin. He said in a statement: “This is all his (Nick Griffin's) fault, when he started saying we were a state sponsored pressure valve, we had to sit down and think, what's a pressure valve? And we had to think, why a state sponsored one? We just didn't understand it, we still don't. All this thinking made us stop chanting and we forgot what the acronym was.”

Robinson later claimed the “new range of ELD merchandise” is for the new EDL French Division, he said “the French say things the other way round so you see it's actually quite clever”. This resulted in a backlash from EDL supporters, ranting via Facebook “them dirty frogs aren't even English so they can't join our defence league, if they want a French Defence League then fine, but no way are we having a French Division, it just isn't democratic!”.

When we phoned for comment, the spokesperson asked us what an acronym was and if it was poisonous, “I heard we've been having trouble with em and I don't want to get hurt or owt, tha knows, I ant even got me feet on the floor just in case".