EDL using concerns about gangs to fuel anti-Islam agenda and share tactics with other far-right groups, says university

The English Defence League (EDL) is exploiting concerns about sex-grooming gangs to fuel its anti-Islam agenda and help forge networks with far-right groups across Europe, according to a university report.

The EDL has used recent cases, such as that of nine Asian men jailed last year for grooming girls in Rochdale, to build support, King's College London found.

Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens of KCL's International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, one of the report's authors, said: "The EDL has successfully exploited concerns about the sex-grooming gangs in the north of England, turning the issue into one of Islam versus the west."

Tommy Robinson, the EDL's leader, is considered a "rock star" by activists across Europe, Meleagrou-Hitchens said.

"They want him to help their own organisations to become like the EDL. There's a danger that the UK will export this kind of vicious, far-right activism to the rest of the continent."

The EDL and its partners have worsened community tensions and further promoted ideas that helped inspire the Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik, the report said. One theme used by the EDL to try to boost its support is that of rape allegedly committed by Muslim men as evidence of the "Islamisation" of the west.

"This 'rape jihad', as it has become known, is a significant concern for the EDL," says Melagrou-Hitchens. "Interest has risen since revelations in the British media about the existence of sex-grooming gangs made up of Muslim men of south-Asian origin."

The EDL demonstrated in Rochdale in June last year to try to pressure police to refer specifically to gang members as Muslim so that a link between the religion and the crime could be inferred, the report said.

The far-right group is sharing these tactics with partners in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and other countries, the report found. The EDL has had an online presence for some time but it is making efforts to move to the physical world, according to the report.

"Although the leading members and organisations rarely, if ever, directly call for violence in response to Islamisation, they are unable to control how their fellow travellers will decide to act upon the information they provide.

"The attacks in Norway were the first example of an individual inspired to pursue terrorism in direct response to perceived Islamisation, and they are unlikely to be the last."

The report, A Neo-Nationalist Network: the English Defence League and Europe's counter-jihad movement, will be launched at a conference on Wednesday, with a keynote speech to be delivered by the minister for crime and security, James Brokenshire.