Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SUMMER CAMP
Banners of bile displayed at a far-right get-together
A GROUP with neo-Nazi members waved racist banners at a family “summer camp” hours before some of its members posted vile abuse about English black football stars.
Signs emblazoned with the words “We will not be replaced” and “White lives matter’” were proudly displayed by members of Patriotic Alternative in the Peak District last weekend.
Shockingly, children were taken along and “had a waterbomb fight and played football and hide and seek” at the hate-fuelled event.
Just hours later some PA supporters took to social media platform Telegram to spew racist abuse at Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, whose penalties were either missed or saved in the Euros final.
Far-right watchdog Hope not Hate said PA “preaches an ideology that leads to violence”.
Researcher Joe Mulhill explained: “Patriotic Alternative preaches this gospel that white people are under attack and being replaced.
“Some people listen to that message and say, ‘I need to go on a march or do a banner drop.’ Others hear it and say, ‘We need to get active.’ It means engaging in hate speech.”
But PA’s deputy leader Laura Towler claimed the group is a “family-focused organisation” that “gives young nationalists a positive direction in life”.
The open critic of the Black Lives Matter movement also insisted: “There is no such thing as hate speech.”
But after England’s defeat on Sunday, she shared a post saying: “Diversity quite literally lost them the cup.”
Other PA supporters also vented their views online after Italy won the match. One with the pseudonym Ayatollah posted a racist slur.
Another, called Charlie Big Potatoes, shared vile racist imagery about 19-year-old midfielder Saka.
People at the Derbyshire summer camp “cooked over fire pits, played games and sang songs around a campfire”, according to PA’s blog.
The group is led by Mark Collett, 40, a Holocaust denier and former chairman of the British National Party.
In Channel 4 documentary Young, Nazi and Proud, he said he admired