The arrest of over 53 people in the United Kingdom is the beginning of the end for once-great Britain.  The leaders of the English Defence League (EDL), Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll, were among those arrested, as well as Paul Weston of the British Freedom Party (BFP).  I spoke with Kevin Carroll about his recent arrest and that of Robinson and Weston, and he told me the appalling details.

Carroll told me that British authorities tried everything in the book to stop him from running for police and crime commissioner (PCC) for the Bedfordshire Police Authority.  Nonetheless, he officially won the right to run for PCC last Friday.  But then, the very next day, British authorities carried out these mass arrests of EDL and BFP members, stripping them and forcing them to wear white paper overalls like those given to incarcerated terrorists.  They were allowed no phone calls.

Meanwhile, British police raided the homes of Carroll, Robinson, and three others who had been arrested.  "They absolutely ransacked mine," Carroll told me.  "They smashed the door off and wrecked my home.  They took my only vehicle, with all the tools of my trade inside, and impounded it, as well as Tommy's car."  The police, the bomb squad, forensics teams, and sniffer dogs spent seven and a half hours stripping Carroll's van to the bone.  "When they finished," he said, "they found nothing!  They loaded it up with bugs and GPS monitors and threw everything in the back; it looks like it's been in a blender."

After smashing the door to Carroll's home off its hinges, police officials repaired it, got a locksmith to put on a new lock, and left with the new keys, leaving Carroll locked out of his own home.  When Carroll was released, still wearing his white paper prison suit, it was dark and raining; true to form, police officials offered him no transportation, even though it was late at night on a Sunday.

Robinson is being held in Wandsworth prison, an old and antiquated structure with a large population of Muslim prisoners.  Weston was arrested and later released without charge for refusing to leave a reception area without information about Robinson.  And it is clear why officials would not want that information to get out: not only has Robinson been placed with the general prison population instead of segregated for his own protection, but prison officials have even put him in a cell with hostile Muslims.  He was allowed to call his wife Jenna, and he told her that he knew it was going to be "lively" in the cell.  That was an understatement: prison officials have deliberately put Robinson in physical danger and even imperiled his life.  Carroll contacted a high-ranking police official to request that Robinson be segregated, and she received a promise that he would be, but it hasn't happened yet -- and Robinson has even been denied bail.

"They are really coming at us with everything," Carroll told me.  "I'm even on police bail at the moment for 'conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.'"  This is a politically motivated and trumped up charge, but in Britain it can carry a life sentence.

According to Carroll, Robinson was incarcerated for leaving the United Kingdom and entering the United States fraudulently for our September 11, 2012 Stop Islamization of Nations free speech conference in New York City.  Robinson could get twelve to eighteen months in prison just for that.  "They are really turning up the heat here, Pamela," said Carroll.  "They are going after all of us, especially Tommy and me."  The EDL said in a statement: "Tommy has been dragged from one court to another -- almost always without any serious chance of conviction -- simply in order to help disrupt our activities and to prevent us from voicing our legitimate concerns about the spread of Islamic extremism."

Carroll's bail hearing is set for November 30, which gives him just two weeks after the November 15 elections to prepare his defense.  Anyone who can vote for Bedfordshire police authority commissioner and who loves freedom should vote for Kevin Carroll; it could be your last hope to preserve the freedom of speech and the principle of the equality of rights for all people in Britain.

Clearly the establishment elites in Britain are extremely worried that Carroll might win and upset the entrenched culture of accommodation to Islam and sharia; in fact, one of the briefs in Carroll's case actually stated that this was why he was arrested -- because he is running for PCC.  The dhimmi elites understand that this could be the beginning of their end.  "The police," said Carroll, "are out to finish us on behalf of the establishment."

This is a defining moment in British history, as significant as any major turning point.  It is in many respects like the Night of the Long Knives, which marked the point of no return from Nazism for Germany.  With these outrageous and politically motivated arrests, Britain has entered a dark and dangerous new era.  Said Weston: "The full power of the State appears to be concentrating on shutting down any political dissent.  This does not really feel like a democratic country anymore."

Carroll is organizing a demonstration outside Wandsworth prison this coming Saturday morning.  All free citizens in Britain should be there.  And is there no one is the political establishment in the U.K. who has any decency, integrity, or spine?  No one who will stand up against these outrages?

Pamela Geller is the publisher of AtlasShrugs.com and the author of the WND Books title Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.