“These stunts help drive up their party funding. The stunts are deliberately provocative,” Rose said, adding that the group has "a track-record of doing these outlandish stunts where they are trying to provoke.”
On January 16, in response to 'Sharia patrols' in the United Kingdom, Britain First relaunched its 'Christian patrols' campaign. Members of the movement were driving through London in a former British Army Land Rover and giving out "anti-Islamization" leaflets in Brick Lane and Whitechapel in London on Friday night.
“Although it is hard to clamp down on, it is a police matter. It is a worrying development because this is a group that positions itself as a street organization that uses this extreme far-right rhetoric, driving down Brick Lane [a long thoroughfare in East London] in an armored vehicle looking for confrontation,” he said.
Britain First’s leader, Paul Golding, told Sputnik earlier on Tuesday that the areas, where "Christian patrols" were conducted, were endangered by the so-called 'Sharia patrols', violating the rights of local citizens and tourists.
Golding also added that the patrols were extended across the United Kingdom and that Britain First is not linked to any other Christian group and was acting independently.
Britain First's campaign has been condemned by Rushanara Ali, parliamentarian for the Greater London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow where the patrols have been carried out.
Last week, the UK Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles issued a letter to the country's Muslim leaders following the recent terror attacks in Paris, saying there was an opportunity to explain "how faith in Islam can be part of British identity."
