‘NEO-NAZIS PLOTTED RACE WAR IN WARRINGTON WETHERSPOONS’ Court told machete plot foiled by whistleblower

A NEO-Nazi plotted to murder a Labour MP on behalf of the banned extremist right wing group, National Action, a court has heard.

Jack Renshaw, 23, bought a 19-inch machete, did research online and revealed his plan at a meeting in a Warrington pub in July 2017.

He wanted to kill MP Rosie Cooper for National Action and “white Jihad” while taking revenge on Lancashire Police who he thought was persecuting him, jurors were told.

The plot was foiled by a whistle-blower who reported the danger to Hope Not Hate, an organisation set up to combat right-wing political racism, the Old Bailey heard. TARGET: MP Rosie Cooper

Duncan Atkinson QC told jurors: “It is important to recognise from the outset that these defendants are not being prosecuted for their racist or neo-Nazi beliefs, however repulsive they may be, but for their participation in a banned organisation that sought actively through fear, intimidation and the threat of violence rather than through free speech and democracy to shape society in accordance with those racist and neo-Nazi beliefs.”

An important part of the evidence concerned the plan devised by Renshaw to engage in “politically motivated violence of the most serious kind”, he said.

Mr Atkinson added: “It is clear from the attack that he planned and the target that he chose that this was to be politically motivated violence and a putting into deadly practice of the objectives and beliefs of National Action.

“There is no dispute that Renshaw was planning to do this, he has pleaded guilty to preparing for an act of terrorism, for politically motivated murder.”

Convicted National Action leader Christopher Lythgoe, 32, and his close associate Matthew Hankinson, 24, were present at the Friar Penketh pub along with the defendant Clarke when Renshaw outlined his plan, yet none of them tried to talk him out of it, he said.

The other defendant, Trubini, had been at the pub beforehand but left before Renshaw arrived, the court heard.

Mr Atkinson told how National Action had been engaged in a “campaign of virulently racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic propaganda” aimed at starting a “race war” since 2013.

It actively sought to recruit and radicalise young people through violent imagery and hate-filled language on social media and in provocative demonstrations, he said.

It was banned over its support for the murder of Batley MP Jo Cox in 2016. ON TRIAL: Jack Renshaw

But Mr Atkinson said the defendants continued as active members after proscription in December 2016 and their arrest in September 2017.

The evidence against them included material found at their homes, on their PCs and phones and communication between them.

Disenchanted ex-member Robbie Mullen also passed information to Hope Not Hate, jurors heard.

Mr Atkinson told jurors: “The defendants continued to meet as before, to train together as before, to discuss the same matters as before, to seek together to advance the same goals as before.”

Clarke, of Prescot, Liverpool, Trubini, of Warrington, Cheshire, and Renshaw of Skelmersale, Lancs, deny being members of National Action after the ban.

The trial continues.