I've been reading Angry White People: Coming Face-to-Face with the British Far Right by Hsiao-Hung Pai that is an accidentally revealing but not very good book about the birth of the edl. The writer is an idiot but gives loads of space to those involved to have their say - importantly to Darren Carroll, Stephen Lennon's uncle and a key player in the early days who has since left due to the far-right gradually taking over - he was the one you always saw with the black and white banner and anti-fascist stuff.
In his telling the two key events that gave the early formation coherence and shape were the police response to the
first demo after the choudrey-linked groups led attacks on the anglians homecoming march (which the author believes was a white and muslim led protest, and she is utterly mugged by the man himself in the early pages of the book, then later by CAGE) which was violent and heavy handed, and which then led (in DC's telling) to the anti-asian violence on the
second march - the one that people remember.
The second one was the response of the 'anti-fascists' on the first march in birmingham (the one you'll remember that saw the birth of running man) that drew in football types beyond luton in significant numbers for the first time to prepare for attacks on the second brum demo.
There is a decent
review in datacide #16.