Former Britain First member builds bridges with faith communities

Categories: Latest News
Tuesday November 11 2014
The Huffington Post relays the story of a former member of far right group and political party, Britain First, who has denounced the group’s anti-Muslim behaviour and started on a new journey of bridge-building.
Matthew Lester, 25, joined the group six months ago but has since grown disillusioned with its media stunts telling the HuffPo that the group made no distinction between the ‘extremists’ it claimed to target and ordinary Muslims.
Lester told the HuffPo “They’re not just going after extremists, they’re going after Muslims.”
To make amends for some of the intimidatory antics performed by the group, particularly its ‘mosque invasion’ campaign, Lester visited a mosque in Crayford to apologise to Muslims there.
The mosque had previously been the target of a Britain First ‘invasion’ spurred by group leader, Paul Golding, earlier this year.
BF visited the mosque to protest at the separate entrances for men and women telling an elderly man at the mosque “We object to your signs that are outside, the signs for men and women… in this country we have equality.”
The elderly gentleman told the BF visitors, who entered with their shoes on, that shoes ought to be removed on entry and urged them to leave. Golding told the man, “When you respect women, we will respect your mosques and you got signs out there which segregate men and women”.
Lester in his tweets about his mosque visit, notes his observance of propriety saying “I went in there and took my shoes and hat off and they said Allah knows what’s in your heart and we can tell by the way you came down here and apologised.”
Lester tweeted further comments about his new found determination to build bridges with members of other faith communities.
HuffPo shares a selection of Lester’s tweets and the response of twitter users to his news.