"There will be speeches from every defence league in Europe," said Isak Nygren, the spokesman for the Swedish Defence League. "I hope we can show that there's resistance against Islamisation of Europe, that we can inspire each other."
The EDL has held one European rally before, sending members to Amsterdam in 2010 in support of Dutch anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders, who was in court accused of insulting religious and ethnic groups. Mr Wilders, who has moved to distance himself from the EDL, is not expected to attend the event.
Stephen Lennon, the former football hooligan who formed the EDL three years ago, however said he was inspired by the Amsterdam gathering to link up with other far-Right groups in Europe, setting up the European Freedom Initiative.
He described the planned gathering, in Aarhus on March 31, as the "first proper European event". "We're hoping this will be the launch of a wider European Defence League," he said. "We don't expect it to be big, but our first event wasn't that big, and they're just going to get bigger and bigger."
Matthew Goodwin, an expert on the far-Right at Nottingham University, said that the EDL's move into Europe is worrying. "It shows us something that I don't think British commentators have grasped, which is that elsewhere in Europe, the EDL is seen as being quite a significant movement," he said. "When you look at guys like Anders Breivik and the Danish Defence League, we can see how groups in Europe are looking at Britain and the EDL as a model."
Weyman Bennet, a spokesman for Unite Against Fascism, said: "Everywhere they've called a demonstration there's been violence. Across Europe, the Sweden Democrats and the Danish People's Party, all of them are growing by using this rhetoric. We see them as a group of people who will try and encourage fascist politics. They've simply swapped anti-semitism for anti-Islam."
Meanwhile, I notice that the European Freedom Initiative is welcoming support from Tehmina Kazi of British Muslims for Secular Democracy for the anti-sharia bill promoted by Geert Wilders' admirer Baroness Cox. Perhaps BMSD should consider forming an alliance with the EDL?
