Patriotic Alternative

Last updated

Patriotic Alternative
AbbreviationPA
Leader Mark Collett [1]
Deputy leaderLaura Melia [2]
FoundedJuly 2019 (2019-07)
Ideology British fascism [3]
Neo-Nazism [4]
White nationalism [5]
Political position Far-right
Colours  Red   Blue
Party flag
Flag of Patriotic Alternative.svg
Website
www.patrioticalternative.org.uk

Patriotic Alternative (PA) is a British far-right, fascist, neo-Nazi and white nationalist hate group which states that it has active branches nationwide. [1] [6] [7] [3] The Times described it in 2023 as "Britain's largest far-right white supremacist movement". [8] Its stance has been variously described as Islamophobic, fascist and racist. [9] [3]

Contents

History

Patriotic Alternative was founded in July 2019 by the British neo-Nazi [10] and, according to Hope not Hate, antisemitic conspiracy theorist [6] [11] Mark Collett, the former director of publicity of the British National Party. [1] In September 2019, PA held its first conference, with Edward Dutton and Colin Robertson giving speeches, among others. [6]

In October 2020, counterterrorism experts reported that extremist far-right groups including Patriotic Alternative were using YouTube to try to recruit people, including children "as young as 12". [12] Later that month, Patriotic Alternative members delivered leaflets to over 1,000 homes in Hull, England, claiming that white British people will be a minority in Britain by the 2060s and that the COVID-19 lockdown was an attempt to "take away our freedom". [13]

In December 2020, it was reported that Patriotic Alternative's London regional organiser was Nicholas Hill, a 50-year-old former Liberal Democrat councillor from Catford in South London, known by the online pseudonym "Cornelius". [14] That month, during an appearance by the Labour Party leader Keir Starmer on LBC, a caller referring to herself as "Gemma from Cambridge" put forward the white supremacist Great Replacement conspiracy theory. Starmer was criticised by some for his perceived failure to challenge the caller, who was revealed by investigative group Red Flare to be Jody Swingler, a yoga teacher and Patriotic Alternative activist. [15]

A group called the Antifascist Research Collective infiltrated Patriotic Alternative Scotland's private Telegram group. Working with The Ferret , the Telegram group of around 60 people was found to include individuals who have been members of, or expressed support for, the Scottish Defence League, the neo-Nazi group Blood and Honour, the British National Party, the New British Union, the British Union of Fascists and the Scottish Nationalist Society. [16]

In February 2021, it was reported that Patriotic Alternative was looking to recruit teenagers through Call of Duty: Warzone gaming tournaments. [5]

Tabatha Stirling of Stirling Publishing [17] wrote a series of articles for Patriotic Alternative as "Miss Britannia" describing her son's school as "a hellhole for sensible, secure White boys" and claimed "there is one member of staff who is openly gay, and I mean RuPaul extra gay". [18] On 14 March 2021, author Julie Burchill announced that, with Stirling, "I've found someone who's JUST LIKE ME", who were now publishing her book after the Little, Brown Book Group had dropped Burchill. This came after Burchill had made defamatory statements about the Muslim journalist Ash Sarkar. [18] However, Burchill parted with Stirling Publishing when she found out that Stirling was associated with Patriotic Alternative. [18]

Patriotic Alternative's social media accounts on Facebook , Instagram and Twitter were suspended in February 2021, but some of its regional pages remain. [7]

In October 2021, Tim Wills, a councillor in Worthing, was suspended from the Conservative Party over allegations of secret support for Patriotic Alternative, after Hope not Hate published results of an investigation into him. [19] Wills resigned from the council on 15 October. [20] The same month, in a district of Borehamwood, the Hertfordshire Constabulary increased patrols after leaflets calling for the banning of kosher and halal food were posted in the letterboxes of several Jewish homes. While it was not considered a hate crime, it was considered a hate incident, and was condemned by local representatives of all three major political parties. [21]

On 9 August 2022, Patriotic Alternative held its annual White Lives Matter activism day, coinciding with the United Nations designated International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. [22]

A joint investigation by The Times and the anti-fascist investigative group Red Flare in September 2022 revealed the identity of a Patriotic Alternative supporter and "Britain's most racist YouTuber", known as "The Ayatollah", as James Owens, a 37-year-old journalism graduate from Hixon, a village in Staffordshire. [23]

Patriotic Alternative helped the British Democratic Party during the 2023 local elections. [24]

In February 2023, Patriotic Alternative supporters showed up at riots at hotels in Liverpool and Glasgow. [25]

In March 2023, Patriotic Alternative delivered leaflets to homes in the Welsh town of Llantwit Major, warning about the possibility of migrants moving there, as part of its response to local plans to build a site for asylum seekers. The leaflets used the term "white genocide". [26]

In June 2023, a Patriotic Alternative member, Kristofer Thomas Kearner, who had already pleaded guilty to charges of disseminating terrorist publications on a Telegram account, including the manifestos of Brenton Tarrant and Anders Behring Breivik, was imprisoned four years and eight months. [27]

According to Searchlight magazine, in 2023 Alek Yerbury left Patriotic Alternative and formed a new militant group named the National Support Detachment. [28] Within a month, PA national administration officer Kenny Smith had also left and formed a new organisation called Homeland, attracting many members of Patriotic Alternative to join. The organisation's inaugural meeting was held on Adolf Hitler's birthday. [29] [30]

On 14 March 2024, Michael Gove, the secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, speaking in Parliament, named the organisation as one of several regarded as "a cause for concern" under a newly introduced official UK government definition of extremism. [31]

The Times reported in October 2021 that Mark Collett had attended combat training with former members of the now-proscribed neo-Nazi organisation National Action. [32] The investigation also revealed that Kris Kearns, who leads Patriotic Alternative's "Fitness Club" initiative, was active in National Action before the group was banned. [32] [33] In August 2022, it was reported that Kearns faces extradition from Spain to the UK, and up to 15 years in prison on terrorism charges relating to the sharing of far-right terrorist manifestos on the encrypted messaging app Telegram. [34] Sam Melia, a regional organiser for PA, has previously been affiliated with National Action. [35] Alex Davies, the jailed co-founder of National Action, had been active within Patriotic Alternative for more than two years. [36]

Political views

Patriotic Alternative promotes a white nationalist ideology and aims to combat the "replacement and displacement" of white British people by migrants who "have no right to these lands". They support the deportation of people of "migrant descent" and would offer financially incentivised repatriation for "those of immigrant descent who have obtained British passports". Patriotic Alternative opposes all immigration unless immigrants have a shared cultural and ethnic background or can prove British ancestry. [6]

According to Hope not Hate, members of Patriotic Alternative have supported Holocaust denial, political violence and the white genocide conspiracy theory. [6] [37] They have also targeted the LGBT community as being a danger to young children. [6] Patriotic Alternative opposes Black Lives Matter and has displayed White Lives Matter banners around the UK, including on the top of Mam Tor, a hill in Derbyshire. [7] The group also includes a "cohort of anti-vaxxers". [3]

Related Research Articles

Neo-fascism is a post–World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration sentiment, as well as opposition to liberal democracy, social democracy, parliamentarianism, liberalism, Marxism, capitalism, communism, and socialism. As with classical fascism, it proposes a Third Position as an alternative to market capitalism.

Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and racial supremacy, to attack racial and ethnic minorities, and in some cases to create a fascist state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Far-right politics</span> Political alignment on the extreme end of right-wing politics

Far-right politics, or right-wing extremism, is a spectrum of political thought that tends to be radically conservative, ultra-nationalist, and authoritarian, often also including nativist tendencies. The name derives from the left–right political spectrum, with the "far right" considered further from center than the standard political right.

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The Australia First Party (AFP), officially known as the Australia First Party (NSW) Incorporated, is an Australian nationalist political party founded in 1996 by Graeme Campbell, a former member of the Australian Labor Party. The policies of the party have been described as nationalist, anti-multicultural and economically protectionist, advocating for strict immigration controls, the prioritization of Australian citizens in employment, and the promotion of Australian culture and values. The party's logo includes the Southern Cross of the Eureka Flag.

Mark Adrian Collett is a British neo-Nazi political activist. He was formerly chairman of the Young BNP, the youth division of the British National Party (BNP), and was director of publicity for the party.

Ecofascism is a term used to describe individuals and groups which combine environmentalism with fascism.

Far-right politics in the United Kingdom is a recurring phenomenon in the United Kingdom since the early 20th century, with the formation of Nazi, fascist and antisemitic movements. One of the earliest examples of Fascism in the UK can be found as early as 1923 with the formation of British Fascisti by Rotha Lintorn-Orman. It went on to acquire more explicitly racial connotations, being dominated in the 1960s and 1970s by self-proclaimed white nationalist organisations that opposed non-white and Asian immigration. The idea stems from belief of white supremacy, the belief that white people are superior to all other races and should therefore dominate society. Examples of such groups in the UK are the National Front (NF), the British Movement (BM) and British National Party (BNP), or the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Since the 1980s, the term has mainly been used to describe those groups, such as the English Defence League, who express the wish to preserve what they perceive to be British culture, and those who campaign against the presence of non-indigenous ethnic minorities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Right-wing terrorism</span> Terrorism motivated by right-wing and far-right ideologies

Right-wing terrorism, hard right terrorism, extreme right terrorism or far-right terrorism is terrorism that is motivated by a variety of different right-wing and far-right ideologies. It can be motivated by Ultranationalism, neo-Nazism, anti-communism, neo-fascism, ecofascism, ethnonationalism, religious nationalism, anti-immigration, anti-semitism, anti-government sentiment, patriot movements, sovereign citizen beliefs, and occasionally, it can be motivated by opposition to abortion, tax resistance, and homophobia. Modern right-wing terrorism largely emerged in Western Europe in the 1970s, and after the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it emerged in Eastern Europe and Russia.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Action (UK)</span> Banned British far-right neo-Nazi terrorist organisation

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atomwaffen Division</span> International Neo-Nazi terrorist network

The Atomwaffen Division, also known as the National Socialist Resistance Front, is an international far-right extremist and neo-Nazi terrorist network. Formed in 2013 and based in the Southern United States, it has since expanded across the United States and it has also expanded into the United Kingdom, Argentina, Canada, Germany, the Baltic states, and other European countries. The group is described as a part of the alt-right by some journalists, but it rejects the label and it is considered extreme even within that movement. It is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and it is also designated as a terrorist group by multiple governments, including the United Kingdom and Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patriot Front</span> American white nationalist group

Patriot Front is an American white supremacist and neo-fascist hate group. Part of the broader alt-right movement, the group split off from the neo-Nazi organization Vanguard America in the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally in 2017. Patriot Front's aesthetic combines traditional Americana with fascist symbolism. Internal communications within the group indicated it had approximately 200 members as of late 2021. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the group generated 82% of reported incidents in 2021 involving distribution of racist, antisemitic, and other hateful propaganda in the United States, comprising 3,992 incidents, in every continental state.

Colin Robertson, known as Millennial Woes or simply Woes, is a Scottish former YouTuber, white supremacist, and antisemitic conspiracy theorist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iron March</span> Neo-fascist and Neo-Nazi web forum

Iron March was a far-right neo-fascist and Neo-Nazi web forum. The site opened in 2011 and attracted neo-fascist and Neo-Nazi members, including militants from organized far-right groups and members who would later go on to commit acts of terror. The forum closed in 2017. Subsequently, former users moved to alternative websites and social networking services, such as Discord. In 2019, an anonymous individual leaked the database that hosted all Iron March content.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Action Zealandia</span> New Zealand white nationalist group

Action Zealandia is a white nationalist group in New Zealand that emerged following the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019 as the successor to an earlier group called the Dominion Movement. According to Newshub, Action Zealandia has restricted its membership to "physically fit, tidy European male[s] of sound mind and good character." In addition to its online activities, the group has plastered stickers, posted banners, and networked with other far-right and neo-Nazi groups in New Zealand and abroad. Action Zealandia has also attracted media attention after members made an online threat against Christchurch's Al Noor Mosque, attempted to start a terror cell, purchase weapons, and participated in the 2022 Wellington protest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Flare</span> British anti-fascist research group

Red Flare is a British anti-fascist research group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homeland Party (Britain)</span> British nationalist party

The Homeland Party is a British far-right nationalist political party founded by Kenny Smith.

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