Lee Rigby’s murder was an awful and barbaric crime. To make matters worse, it’s also been exploited shamelessly by the English Defence League to whip up hatred against Muslims. This is despite the fact that both Rigby’s family and his regiment have made it clear that they do not want his name used in such a manner.
Last night, I was debating this on Twitter with Marty Caine, a UKIP activist based in Poole. He gave a startling response to the family’s wishes.
Caine describes himself on his Tumblr as an entertainer and comedian, though I can’t imagine Rigby’s family will be laughing at being called idiots. Especially not for the sin of not wanting their son’s memory hijacked by a bunch of racist thugs. Caine’s Tumblr also has a long, rambling defence of the EDL. The gist of it seems to be that if it wasn’t for the malicious propaganda of Hope Not Hate and Anonymous, then everyone would realise what jolly nice people the EDL are. He ends, in a spectacular piece of unintentional irony, by stating, “There is no excuse for ignorance in a world that has Google.” Indeed there isn’t.
I had a long Twitter discussion with Caine last night. At no point did he offer a retraction or apology for insulting Rigby’s family. Mostly he engaged in lots of Whatabout and Will-You-Condemn-a-Thon responses, demanding to know what I thought of Unite Against Fascism (which I’m not a member of and don’t much like).
I wouldn’t endorse David Cameron’s famous description of UKIP as a bunch of “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”, but only because I’m not keen on mental health-themed insults. Their activists do, however, seem to have an impressive knack for exposing themselves as deeply unpleasant extremists.
Unsafe Spaces 
GOODNESS ME!
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Reblogged this on Dawn Willis .
This Marty Caine sounds delusional: he thinks he’s a dead Yorkshire comedian (who was born Lynne Denise Shepherd)!
I imagine that as an entertainer and comedian, this Caine character must be about as entertaining and funny as nuclear fallout.
Yawwwwn. Pretty much a non-story then.
Yes, it’s totally a non-story. That’s why it went viral all over the internet today.
So we have 2 issues:
Cameron does not dare to address the issues and those who dare are unwanted. Looks like the issues are to stay and grow.
See the real problem with people like you is you fail to see by twisting someones comment into something it isn’t, showed far more disrespect to a grieving family than anything that I said. Read the what I tweeted over a few time until it sinks in, “Because ‘LIKE’ a lot of idiots…” see that little word LIKE there, it is rather important. If I was to say you are acting like an American, that would not mean that I am calling you an American. Your own failure to understand the basics of the English language has not proven that I tried to call a grieving family idiots, it has only proven that you are in fact an idiot.
So, you accept that a lot of intelligent and reasonable people believe the EDL are far-right fascists then?
Also, what’s this about you mocking disabled people?
Well mocking disability is another story, Zarathustra aka Phil Dore, who started this malicious falsehood off in the first place. So I will leave that one alone as you would no doubt start accusing me of disablism. What I am really saying about the EDL is most of the things they are protesting about, they are right to do so, I agree with their reason though not the methods of some. We could have discussed this further on Twitter but you felt the need to block me rather than apologise for twisting my comment for your own agenda. All this because you did not like what I had said in my blog. http://martycaine.tumblr.com/post/51815510794/the-edl-hatred-spread-by-hope-not-hate
As I recall, we did indeed discuss it further on Twitter. At great length too, as I recall. The Storify is here:
http://storify.com/thus_spake_z/ukip-activist-marty-caine-defends-edl-insults-lee