Rise of Britain’s Nazis
Groups’ techniques are radicalising people online
than 10 years ago. I could say some things in that pub there that I couldn’t say a few years ago.”
Mark Rowley, the former head of the Metropolitan police’s counterterrorism unit has described National Action as “right wing, neo-Nazi, proudly white supremacist, portraying a violent and wicked ideology”.
It was banned under anti-terror laws after celebrating the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox, but last week Adam Thomas, 22, Claudia Patatas, 38, and Daniel Bogunovic, 27, were found guilty of being members.
Thomas and Patatas looked like any other young couple with a baby. Yet their baby had the middle name Adolf and his parents used to dress him in Ku Klux Klan clothing. The couple’s fridge had a National Action poster saying “Britain is ours, the rest must go”. On their sofa were swastika cushions and under their bed was an axe and a Nazi-style dagger.
“These people are not just neoNazis, they are into terrorism for terrorism’s sake,” says Collins. “They are into violence for violence’s sake.”
As a teenager growing up on a deprived estate, Collins had found power in violence and acceptance in membership of the National Front. But he says today’s “bedroom Nazis” are of a different order.
“The EDL and the BNP are about pubs and being noisy, sh**ging, drinking, drugs,” he says. “These boys don’t like that – they are loners, who sit in their bedrooms on the internet. They don’t like the ill-discipline. There seems to be a pattern of young men, often on the autism spectrum who are deeply disturbed, often have no father, geniuses who have talent but no social skills. Unsociable bedroom Nazis.”
There are ongoing inquiries into people associated with National Action. Its founders Alex Davies, 24, and Ben Raymond, 29, disbanded the group when it was banned and have never been prosecuted.
Collins says former ideas about radicalisation are becoming outdated for a younger generation of Nazis.
“These young men can continually access far-right material that reinforces their views,” he says. “When I decided I wanted to be a fascist as a teenager in the 80s I got out three library books and read them.
“They can look at millions and millions of articles online that confirm hatred of Muslims or Jews. You don’t have to leave your house.”
The Community Security Trust has recorded record levels of anti-semitic abuse in the last two years.
“This is why we have security at synagogues and Jewish schools and other Jewish buildings,” says the trust’s head of policy Dave Rich.
“The threat has increased and the amount of security has also increased.”
FAR-RIGHT extremists spreading their poison are a growing threat to public safety and good community relations.
Lurking on the internet to ensnare the unsuspecting or twisting facts, these loathsome fanatics are dangerous.
Radicalising the disaffected with tactics adopted by jihadis, the hardcore are small in number, but their reach is potentially explosive unless they’re outed, confronted and stopped.
Hardline groups such as Britain First, the EDL, the Football Lads Alliance, the Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka “Tommy Robinson” industry and banned National Action are as far away from British values as it is possible to be.
Britain stands for fairness, decency, liberty, democracy and the rule of law. These groups represent extreme, often violent, prejudice.