It appears the roller coaster ride of a partnership between anti-Muslim activists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer and former English Defence League (EDL) co-leaders Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll, has finally come to an end.
Earlier this month, Robinson and Carroll announced their defection from the EDL after claiming the group had become overrun with far-right extremists and neo-Nazis. The two’s departure from the group was facilitated by the Quilliam Foundation – a counter-extremism think tank based in the UK. Following the announcement, Geller and Spencer both issued statements saying they respect Robinson and Carroll’s decision and hoped to continue working with them. Robinson also refused to denounce his association with the American Islamophobes, thus, it was assumed a new organization would be formed based on Geller’s organization Stop Islamization of Nations (SION), who both Robinson and Carroll were part of.
However, any rumors of a new group being formed were shattered last week after Geller and Spencer withdrew their support for Robinson and Carroll and announced the ex-EDL leaders are “no longer on the SION board.” Geller and Spencer claimed they were unaware that Robinson was allied with the Quilliam Foundation, who they believe are an organization of “false moderate Muslim deceivers.” Geller said their initial statements had come before they knew Robinson had been working with Quilliam and were shocked to hear the organization had spearheaded the removal of the EDL’s leadership. “We never would have come out in support of him if we had known that he would soon be parroting politically correct nonsense about ‘extremists on both sides,’” Geller wrote in her statement.
It remains to be seen whether this is a legitimate end to an alliance, or if this is only them putting on theatrics to later revealed they had orchestrated this from the start, and were always in cahoots. However for the moment, some assurance can be taken knowing that a major trans-Atlantic partnership within the organized Islamophobia movement has now been severed.