Talk:English Democrats

EDP Banned

Norwich Labour has banned the EDP, the Green Party (Ecology Party) that has several councillors also wants the EDP not to stand in the area. Even though there is PO BOX address there is no EDP members in Norfolk. Lib Dems (Allliance) are against rascism. Norwich Labour have run the city council for decades and control the community so if they ban something it is definately banned. The EDP are crap anyway as you seem to be named after the Eastern Daily Press (www.edp24.co.uk) Norfolks main newspaper. Several of the parties do not like being their vote split including not mentioned parties.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.22.79.206 (talk • contribs) 02:08, 14 September 2010‎ (UTC)

The English Democrats have not used the abbreviation E.D.P. for at least 10 years. The accepted abbreviations are EngDem or ED. The idea that a competitive political party does not want the English Democrats to "stand" and has "banned" them is a ludicrous statement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EnglishPassport (talk • contribs) 00:42, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Far-rightness, and all that.

This issue came up at WP:AN/I because of a COI issue, and I took a look at it from a conflict of interest perspective.

This is a political issue. England has had a number of right-wing parties in recent years including the English Democrats, the British Democratic Party, Britain First, the British National Party, and the National Front (UK), all of which are to the right of the Conservative Party (UK), and none of which seem to have any current elected representatives above the local level.[1][2]. Which ones are considered "far right" seems to depend upon one's political perspective.[3] Several of the parties listed above are further to the right than the English Democrats. Sources seem to generally agree on who's to the right of whom, so the article might be adjusted on that basis to achieve a neutral point of view. Anyway, the POV fork has been deleted, the legal threat editor has been blocked, and normal editing will probably resolve the relative right-wing-ness of all concerned. Thanks. John Nagle (talk) 19:01, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Its all down to references and as you can see there are multiple ones - that tends to be the pattern on majority parties as the supporters try and mitigate the labels. Unless we have some new evidence and citations there is no reason to make changes ----Snowded ^TALK 19:57, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

It's pretty telling that two of the three supposed book references for the "far right" label do not describe the English Democrats as far right, whilst the Goodwin article (the highest quality source by a mile) classifies them as "radical right" - the same label the author uses elsewhere for the non-far-right UKIP - and explicitly describes how the party faces a potential identity crisis between longstanding members without far right sympathies and ex-BNP entrants. So of four sources supposed to validate the claim that the English Democrats are far right, one supports it and two effectively contradict it, and the other one doesn't mention the party at all except as an index reference. It's also notable that two other reliable sources which described the English Democrats as far right subsequently published retractions [4][5] (though they may also have been subject to legal threats...) It's difficult to source commentary on the political position of the EDs due to them being generally too inconsequential for reliable sources to bother writing them, and some of the highest quality discussion of the party not bothering to classify them at all [6] but I think applying such a contentious classification via such weak sourcing is a violation of NPOV. Simply describing the party as "right wing" - the most longstanding description that was in place when this got locked down around election time - would resolve that. The prominence of ex-supporters of a far right party members is and should be mentioned in the article, but it's not for Wikipedia's voice to make the decision on whether that shifts the party line along the political spectrum or not. Dtellett (talk) 20:15, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

I will point out that the editor (who claims to be an English Democrats party member) who issued legal threats against another editor did, in fact, claim that they took "legal action" against "the national newspapers", later listing those same two links that you gave as retractations. Bullied sources are not reliable sources. LjL (talk) 21:57, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

That was Ste.Morris who is Stephen Morris, Communications Director English Democrats, and who is now indefinitely banned from editing Wikipedia. Another editor pushing the same line is Mooregraham who must be Graham Moore, the ED's candidate at Erith & Thamesmead in the 2015 general election (188 votes, 0.4%) and a member of the ED's National Council. Emeraude (talk) 22:44, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• Think I can see the problem here. Some political commentators like to keep things simple for their readers. They just talk about the left, center and right axis. If one looks at fig. 8 of this political spectrum, one can see that the English Democrats are Center Right but to the south of this axis. To some political journalist wanting to keep things simple, may well refer to the ED as Far Right to differentiate between any other Right (although Radical could serve just as well north or south of the line). This leave me feeling a little bemused as to why the Communications Director of the ED (if User:Ste.Morris is really the same person) has made such a faux pas as to omit any explanation and jump to a legal threat, not this time on a newspaper but an encyclopedia? The mind boggles.</rant> Anyway, we can only go by verifiability. Therefore, it looks like the ED needs a new Communications Director that encourages publications to get it right (no pun intended)-so we have some new (and reliable) verifiable sources. --Aspro (talk) 22:32, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Well you have multiple fringe parties on the right with a lot of the same membership. The collapse of the BNP meant that there have been numerous startups/takeovers/repurposing of the fragmented far right. Similarly with Trotskyite parties on the far left that have been similarly fractious. If anyone gets round to a formal study then I suspect the far right label would stand. However the latest use of 'fringe' is fine as long as we have material on its origins ----Snowded ^TALK 23:09, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

The problem with Eysenck's work is that he was a psychologist, not a political scientist. He very usefully pointed out that an individual's political position could be measured in several dimensions, and then proceeded to place political parties and ideologies within that framework. He usefully provided a survey that readers could use to find their own place on his graph - great fun it is too. But it was written in 1957 and it shows. However, the fact remains that Eysenck was not a political scientist, and his scheme does not relate directly to the left-right spectrum. There is a further problem with the use of the term "radical right", as used by Ford and Goodwin, for example in their excellent study of UKIP. This is less to do with political position per se, and more about methods and presentation. "Radical" does not mean "left" by any stretch of the imagination.

So we now have a situation where the Conservative Party is right wing, and the English Democrats who are further to the right are.....er, right wing. Some mistake, surely. Emeraude (talk) 06:53, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Eysenck's studies are as robust to day, as the day he published them. Politics is rooted and derives from human psychology. Political Science is more of an ideology. Therefore, I can't take your point (?) seriously. Not at all - in any way. The disagreements are mostly within the sphere of political scientists rather than those that study the spectrum of human and societal behavior. Human nature and the desire an' lust to lord over others does not change. Just read the works of Niccolò Machiavelli. --Aspro (talk) 23:23, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

The Conservative Party is classed as centre right by Wikipedia, so the current label accurately positions them to the right of most Conservatives. As our current set of reliable third party sources seem to mostly argue that the extent to which EDs are influenced by far right politics is is open to debate, the most appropriate way is to describe relevant facts and attributed views somewhere in the body of the article. As I understand it the sources do generally agree that the party's platform is only moderately right wing, its membership includes a recent, entrist minority with significant far right links, and the party officially claims that it's strand of nationalism has nothing to do with the far right; nuanced arguments best discussed in further detail in the article rather than crammed into an infobox. Dtellett (talk) 17:59, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is nor a reliable source unfortunately! "Centre-right" is a misleading term: it does not mean in the cntre of the right wing; it means in the centre, but to the right of it. Emeraude (talk) 21:34, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

I think we should not use the field "position in the political spectrum" since it is subjective. But I do not mind describing the party as "far right", since that is the term used for its political family. They are in the tradition of the BUF, NF, BNP and EDL, whereas the Tories and UKIP are not. TFD (talk) 07:12, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

So that means three of us in favour of the long standing 'far right' label? ----Snowded ^TALK 10:31, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Sure. Far right is the term most often used to describe the political tradition in the UK which stretches from the BUF to the NF, BNP, EDL and EDs. And it links them to similar traditions in other countries, such as Golden Dawn and Jobbik. It also distinguishes them from the traditions of other more moderate right-wing parties such as UKIP and the Conservatives. TFD (talk) 22:41, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Uhm, @Snowded: the "restoring" you did changed my "extreme right", which was taken verbatim from one of the given sources and would roughtly match the agreed-upon "far right" above, into a milder "right wing", and not only that, but you removed the verbatim quotation I had added from the source. I don't think that's useful, as verbatim quotations are often explicitly requested on Wikipedia for verification. LjL (talk) 22:51, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Happy for extreme if others agreed, ditto the quote. What I did was to take it back to the original stable version pending an agreement here ----Snowded ^TALK 23:01, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Either "extreme" or "far" would be alright with me, but the source does say "extreme" after all, so maybe it would be safer to stick to it. I didn't have a problem with sticking "nationalist" on it either, which the totally-not-COI editor insisted so much about, since after all I doubt they are not nationalists (and it's source, I think). The quote shouldn't really need agreement to be given... LjL (talk) 23:05, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

"Extreme" is a bit too extreme, if you pardon me. While I would accept such a description for the NF, BNP etc, the EDs are not that far from the centre, though its influx of ex-BNP members could see that change; there's insufficient evidenc for that as yet. "Far right", i.e. what we had on here for ages, seems right. Emeraude (talk) 11:20, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Then again, do we use sources or do we use gut feelings? Just to make sure, do we have a source that spells out "far right"? --LjL (talk) 12:01, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

If we're going by what sources say, then a single summary of tens of political parties that classifies EDs as "extreme right" probably isn't the source to use, when other high quality sources which actually analyse the party's policies and prospects suggest a more nuanced position. We have a source that says ED's is "sometimes considered far right but.... [its manifesto isn't]"[7], we have a source that classes EDs as "far right" in the headline [8] but also "not fascist in origin" with the general tone being that the party might be becoming far right and of course we have two reliable sources that preferred to publish a "correction" rather than stand behind their previous categorisation of EDs as "far right". Seems easier, and more constructive to leave the infobox with the not-contended-by-reliable-sources classification of the party as being somewhere on the right wing see also [9] and further elaborate the substantial far right links, non-far right policy stance and tendentious claims to being an English SNP in the article. Dtellett (talk) 14:29, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I won't address your valid points individually but I will only stress that I really do not think we should consider the fact that "two reliable sources" did not "stand behing their previous categorisation" as a sign it was incorrect. In fact, the evidence we have about that change in categorization makes those two sources' new categorization immediately unreliable (we can't rely on it because we have valid reasons to suspect it was extorted). LjL (talk) 15:00, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Here's a couple of RSs: New Statesman; Janice Turner, The Times; Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain's Far Right, Daniel Trilling. I also note this PCC adjudication, after the Sunday Times described the English Democrats as extremist right-wing. The newspaper withdrew the description extremist. Consequently, the original piece could be used as an RS ref for “right-wing”. Daicaregos (talk) 14:35, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

We have some evidence that the Sunday Times (and The Economist) was made to retreat their characterizations through legal action, therefore, I believe we should at least mention their previous description and the fact they retreated it. LjL (talk) 14:55, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

a) The Guardian, 14 Jan 2015, "Support for British far-right groups hits 20-year low" includes EDs as a far right group, reporting on Hope not Hate's report.

b) The Guardian, 22 Oct 2012, "A boycott of the police commissioner elections could let in extremists" includes EDs and reports that "One English Democrats candidate – Steve Uncles, who is standing in Kent – has vowed to criminalise the supply of halal and kosher meat."

c) James Jupp, "Immigration and Race in the British General Election" in Australian Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 2, (APRIL-JUNE 2010), pp. 32-37, published by Australian Institute of Policy and Science, discusses the EDs under the heading "The Extreme Fringes". Emeraude (talk) 17:24, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

See The EDL: "[The EDL] may be superseded by a more respectable 'new far right' party, such as the English Democrats (which is also currently accommodating former BNP supporters."[10] That's a current academic source that ties the EDs with the NF, BNP and EDL. The source explains "far right" on pp. 6-7. Re-branding and softening identification with fascism does not remove them from the far right. TFD (talk) 18:18, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Removing sourced statements about party composition

@86.152.129.81: if you want to pursue your repeated attempts to remove sourced material, you must show that the sources currently given are not reliable and provide more reliable ones (which a party blog certainly isn't). You must do it here on this talk page, and you can bring the matter to WP:RSN for additional opinions, but you must not continue edit warring about it. LjL (talk) 19:13, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

The statement that there are "many" BNP members in the leadership of the English Democrats is misleading, and has been deliberately added to try to associate the English Democrats with the BNP (British National Party). The English Democrats is an English Nationalist Party, that has an inclusive membership policy, the BNP (British National Party) was/is a British National Party and at one time had a openly racist membership policy.

There is NO connection between the two political parties.

The 2015-2016 English Democrats National Council can be seen

Here >> https://plus.google.com/+SteveUnclesEnglishDemocrats/posts/fpxVJTjUezC and Here >> http://englishdemocrats.party/our-party/party-structure/

Out of the 17 people on the 2015-2016 National Council, the vast majority are ex-conservatives, only two members are ex-BNP, which in no way can be classed as "many"

Please do not change this back, as the statement that there are "many ex-bnp members" is wrong, and does not reflect the fact the biggest number of ex-members are ex-Conservatives. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EnglishPassport (talk • contribs) 00:35, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Changed back, you have to get agreement to contested changes and you have to provide references to support statements ----Snowded ^TALK 05:42, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

You have Zero evidence to support the statement that "many members are ex-bnp members" - I have already provided links to the composition of the English Democrats 2015-2016 National Council ... please give evidence as to which of these National Council members are ex-BNP ... there are many ex-Conservatives, not ex-BNP, this is a FACT — Preceding unsigned comment added by EnglishPassport (talk • contribs) 09:23, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Guardian is a reliable source. Give us some clear THIRD PARTY references that say otherwise and we can look at a change. Otherwise stop edit warring or you will end up with a block ----Snowded ^TALK 09:34, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Errors with this article

This article claims that the English National Party is "defunct", when this is misleading, as there is a registered political party, called the English National party, that is registered on the Electoral Commission Web site. It does not operate as the officers are current members of the English Democrats.

This article also claims that the "English Constituational Convention" is also defunct - this is also misleading. and untrue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EnglishPassport (talk • contribs) 00:50, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

references please ----Snowded ^TALK 05:41, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Snowded - it is not appropriate as a Welsh Nationalist for you to have anything to do with this Wiki Page - the "internet" is now fully aware of your activities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EnglishPassport (talk • contribs) 10:27, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

This is the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. An editor's race and politics are irrelevant. What is relevant is whether edits made are NPOV and referenced. Also, do not threaten other editors, whether veiled or not. Daicaregos (talk) 11:43, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Wow, the nerve you must have to say something like that... Don't say it again, though, because it's inane. LjL (talk) 14:18, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Wow, to not understand that an " encyclopaedia " should have some reflection of the truth rather then a politically biased, political slant is simply madness.EnglishPassport (talk) 15:11, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

See WP:TRUTH and feel free to make your own "true" encyclopedia. LjL (talk) 15:13, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

If possible, this article should be put under permanent semi-protection. GoodDay (talk) 18:49, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 10 December 2015

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The English Democrats welcome defectors from all Political Parties ie Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, UKIP and Green - the implication that the English Democrats focus on BNP defectors is a gross and unfair representation of the English Democrats.

EnglishPassport (talk) 15:09, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose inclusion without a reliable source corroborating the claim. LjL (talk) 15:11, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Source

Would you like a letter for the National Party Secretary of the English Democrats to confirm the ex-Political make up of the English Democrats National Council ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by EnglishPassport (talk • contribs) 15:17, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

That's not a reliable source, that's a party blog. You've been explained the difference before. Stop wasting everybody's time. LjL (talk) 15:44, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Edit request denied as source is not reliable -- samtar ^whisper 15:46, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

no apology?

After slandering the English democrats as "far right"/white nationalist with other junk about racism, this stuff was finally removed. Why no apology? And if this site had any deceny it would ban the anti-fascist troll Snowded who has used this site to slander and harass his political opponents for years. If you look at the edit history you will see snowden involved in adding the slanders about English democrats being "far right" and "white nationalist".

A white nationalist party with Winston McKenzie in it, LOL. Pehaps Snowded is an actual parody.PlayingTOMBRAIDER (talk) 16:26, 30 December 2015 (UTC)