Nobody has done any different - we have declared war on these types of people and even this week we're investigating the Muslim Brotherhood for this exact reason, which has pretty much 100% popular support, and rightly so.
Nobody at all is scared about speaking about Islamic extremism - what people dislike is the application of the values of those extremists to the entire Muslim population when it's abundantly clear that it's ridiculous to do so. Not saying you do, as what you have typed there is fine, but the likes of Nik clearly adopt that sort of irrationality.
You'd honestly find that the vast majority of the population would welcome open discussion on Islamic influence in the UK - but that discussion can't include those who are, simply put, idiots, like the EDL, who have hijacked the discussion with their braindead antics.
If people who have even the remotest concerns about extremist Islam want to have progressive debate on the subject, they should actually despise the EDL more than even the most vehement left-winger.