Predecessor | Reclaim Australia |
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Formation | 2015 |
Dissolved | 2019 |
Purpose | Islamophobia Australian nationalism White supremacy |
Location |
Part of a series on |
Far-right politics in Australia |
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Part of a series on |
Antisemitism |
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Category |
Part of a series on |
Islamophobia |
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The United Patriots Front (UPF) was an Australian far-right extremist group [1] that opposed immigration, multiculturalism and the religion of Islam. Formed in 2015, the group has been largely dormant since their Facebook page was deleted following the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. [2] [3] [4] [5]
Based in the state of Victoria, UPF was a nationalist group that formed following a schism in the anti-Islamic Reclaim Australia group. The group has been described by a number of media outlets and journalists as a hate group. [6]
The group also had an antisemitism agenda and several members were neo-Nazis. [7] [8] In 2015, its leaders discussed Jewish conspiracy theories, with Neil Erikson stating that "My personal opinion is stick to the Muslim shit and Cultural Marxism for max support, do Jews later. You don't need to show your full hand." Blair Cottrell replied that it was his "current attitude as well. It will take years to prepare for the Jewish problem. If any of us came out with it now we would be slaughtered by public opinion." [9]
In 2014, several people who would later become the UPF attended the Bendigo mosque protests, opposing the construction of a mosque and Islamic community centre in the Australian regional city of Bendigo. [10] [11] The United Patriots Front was formed in May 2015 when founding members split from Reclaim Australia, due to a dispute that links to the extreme-right group Australian Defence League were giving an unwanted image of Reclaim Australia. [12]
In May, UPF members clashed with anti-racism protesters on the steps of Richmond Town Hall in Melbourne, when about 70 UPF members were met with a counter-protest of around 300 protesters from the group Campaign Against Racism and Fascism. Anti-racist protesters chanted "Muslims are welcome, racists are not" and one man from the UPF was charged with weapons offences. The UPF was protesting against an anti-racism forum organised by local councillor Stephen Jolly of the Socialist Party. Protesters from Campaign Against Racism and Fascism called the members of UPF Nazis. [13]
In June, the group protested Zaky Mallah's appearance on Q&A , a television programme, by roasting a pig outside the Melbourne office of the ABC in an apparent attempt to deliberately upset Muslims.
On 23 July, Victoria Police Commissioner Graham Ashton confirmed a firearm was seized in Sydney from a man who was travelling to the rally on 18 July.
In August, Fairfax Media reported that Erikson was under investigation for alleged conversations with an unknown person threatening councillor Stephen Jolly.
In September, the group announced that they would contest the Senate at the upcoming 2016 federal election. The group also distributed pamphlets to municipal, state, and federal government figures that attacked the Bendigo mayor. The pamphlet was interpreted as a threat by one official. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]
In October, Blair Cottrell replaced Burgess as chairman of the United Patriots Front. [9]
In October, the group beheaded a dummy outside the Bendigo City Council chambers to protest the 2015 Parramatta shooting and approval to construct a mosque in Bendigo. A leader of the local anti-mosque group disassociated from the UPF. They later held a demonstration in Rosalind Park which attracted around 1,000 supporters in conjunction with the World Wide Rally for Humanity, which was a global anti-Islam rally. A Victorian police officer said that most protesters who came to protest in Bendigo travelled from other Australian states. On the eve of the proposed 10 October rally in Bendigo, the group was belittled by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who said that most of them "wouldn't be able to spell Bendigo". [21] [22] [23]
In November, the group stated its intention to start a political party called Fortitude. However, it failed to sign up the 500 members needed for registration. [9]
Author John Safran said that members of the 19CC Motorcycle Club had been associating with the UPF. The club's patch featured a red crucifix with the words "No FGM". The 'CC' in the club's name reportedly stood for Citizen Crusaders. An administrator of the group's Facebook page was featured in a video with Australia First Party chairman Jim Saleam. Cottrell told Neil Mitchell his organisation would "only be violent if they needed to defend themselves". [24] [25] [26] [27]
In February, leader Blair Cottrell was mocked after being photographed purchasing a meal from a halal-certified fast-food restaurant, despite his vocal opposition to halal certification and support for boycotts of certified businesses and products. [28]
On April 1, United Patriots Front was criticised for unfurling banner with the words "Stop the Mosques" at an Australian Football League match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Football officials condemned the UPF supporters, for action described as being "offensive", "disgusting" and "racist" for their involvement with the banner. On 10 April, the banner was displayed at another Australian Football League game in Perth. The UPF members were removed from the grounds and the banner confiscated. [29] [30] [31] [32] [33]
In September 2017, members Blair Cottrell, Neil Erikson and Chris Shortis were found guilty by a magistrate of inciting contempt against Muslims after they had enacted and made a video of a fake beheading, in order to protest against the building of a mosque in Bendigo. Each was fined $2,000. [34] [35]
On 5 September, UPE members disrupted a meeting of the City of Yarra council in protest of their decision to stop referring to January 26 as Australia Day. [36] [37] [38]
In January, the UPF attempted to arrange vigilante patrols after federal politician Peter Dutton falsely claimed that people in Melbourne were "scared to go out to restaurants" because of "African gang violence". [39] [40]
In August, News Corp news outlet Sky News Australia was heavily criticised for providing a platform to Cottrell in a one-on-one discussion about immigration. Sky News reporter Laura Jayes took offence at his appearance on the program due to the fact that he has expressed admiration for Hitler and claimed to have manipulated women "using violence and terror". She described Cottrell as a "fascist" and an "arsehole". The political editor of Sky News, David Speers, was also critical of Cottrell's appearance on the show, stating: "I have just arrived back in the country tonight to be met with the understandable outrage over this... as News Director Greg Byrnes says, it was wrong to have this guy on Sky News." Sky News commentator and former Labor Party minister Craig Emerson resigned in protest after the interview was broadcast, stating that "My father fought Nazis in WWII and was interned in a German POW camp," and that the decision to give Cottrell a platform on Sky News was "another step in a journey to normalising racism & bigotry in our country" During the fallout and criticisms over the interview Cottrell tweeted about raping reporter Laura Jayes, saying via Twitter that "I might as well have raped @ljayes (Sky News political reporter Laura Jayes) on the air, not only would she have been happier with that but the reaction would've been the same." Jayes responded stating that Cottrell is "not just a fascist. He's down right dangerous". Activist groups called on advertisers to pull advertising campaigns off Sky News in the wake of the channel's interview with Cottrell. [41] [42] [43] [44] [45]
In January 2019, UPF leaders, Erikson and Cottrell, promised to unleash a Cronulla-style race riot on Melbourne. [46] On 5 January, around 100 far-right protesters turned up at St Kilda beach to stage a rally and were confronted by about 200 anti-racist protesters and a strong police presence. [47] [48]
On the 16th of March, Several UPF members were captured on video assaulting a 17-year-old boy, after the boy crushed an egg on the back of Senator Anning's head while he was speaking at a political meeting in the Melbourne suburb of Moorabbin. The teenager reportedly egged Anning in response to comments made by the senator about the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, claiming that Muslim immigration had led to the attacks. [49] Anning threw two punches at the boy. Erikson and a number of other UPF members tackled the boy to the ground, putting him in a headlock and repeatedly kicking and punching him. [50] The teenager was arrested and later released pending further inquiries. Victoria Police said the incident would be being investigated "in its entirety", including Anning's actions. [51] [52]
On the 23rd of March, in the wake of the Christchurch mosque attack, it emerged that the alleged perpetrator, Brenton Tarrant, had three years earlier given fulsome praise to Cottrell as a leader of the far-right movements. He made more than 30 comments on the UPF and True Blue Crew Facebook pages, singling out Cottrell for praise and disparaging Erikson and Burgess as "useful idiots". [53]
Scott Moerland, a senior figure in the United Patriots Front, contested the 2019 Federal Election running as a candidate for former Queensland senator Fraser Anning's Conservative National Party. Anning had previously stated that he would not endorse anyone associated with UPF; [54] however, he had spoken at the UPF rally in January. [55]
Shermon Burgess is a former council worker from New South Wales, who was a founding member of the UPF. Burgess quit the group in October 2015 after being mocked by other UPF members online, naming Victorian leader Blair Cottrell as the new leader. [56] [57] [58]
Burgess, formerly described as a neo-Nazi, was also a member of Australian Defence League and Reclaim Australia. He converted to Islam in 2023. [59]
Former leader Cottrell is a convicted criminal and has been described by numerous media outlets and Australia's Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, as a neo-Nazi. [60] [56] Besides other run-ins with the law, in September 2017, UPF leaders Cottrell, Neil Erikson, and Christopher Shortis, were found guilty by a magistrate of inciting contempt against Muslims, and each was fined $2,000. [34]
In October 2015, Blair Cottrell replaced Burgess as chairman of the United Patriots Front. [61] Cottrell stirred controversy over his criminal convictions (which include arson, stalking, making threats to kill (Offences against the Person Act 1861), violating the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 by inciting contempt against Muslims and breaching intervention orders), and for several of his public statements, including a desire to see a portrait of Adolf Hitler hung in Australian classrooms and for copies of Mein Kampf to be "issued annually" to students. Cottrell has denied supporting Nazism. [62] [56] He announced the formation of a political party, Fortitude, which folded after failing to muster enough members to register. [63] Cottrell was the leader of the UPF until the group split in 2017.
Erikson was one of the founders of UPF, and came to national prominence for a verbal attack on former Labor senator Sam Dastyari in a Melbourne bar, in which he called the Iranian-born Dastyari a "terrorist" and a "little monkey" and telling him to "go back home". [64] [65]
Erikson is a neo-Nazi and convicted criminal whose convictions include assault, inciting contempt against Muslims, stalking, affray and riotous behaviour. Along with Cottrell and Shortis, he is associated with the secretive far-right fight club, Lads Society. [66] [67] [68] [69] [70]
In 2014, Erikson was convicted of stalking after calling Rabbi Dovid Gutnick and threatening him to "Give me the money Jew or else I will get you". [71]
Chris Shortis was one of the founding members and often referred to in the media as one of the group's leaders. A convicted criminal, Shortis is also a member of the Australia First Party. [72] [73] [69]
Kyle Chapman is a New Zealand far-right political activist and the former national director of the white nationalist New Zealand National Front (NZNF). He has stood unsuccessfully three times for the Christchurch mayoralty: first for the NZNF (2004); then for the National Democrats Party (2007); and then for the Resistance Party (2013).
Sky News Australia is an Australian conservative news channel owned by News Corp Australia. Originally launched on 19 February 1996, it broadcasts rolling news coverage throughout the day, while its prime time lineup is dedicated to opinion-based programs featuring a line-up of conservative commentators.
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.
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.
The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 is an Act of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia, that makes behaviour that incites or encourages hatred, serious contempt, revulsion or severe ridicule against another person or group of people, because of their race or religion, unlawful in Victoria. The Act was passed during the premiership of Steve Bracks and went into effect on 1 January 2002.
Reclaim Australia is a far-right Australian nationalist protest group which is associated with nationalist and neo-Nazi hate groups. The group was formed in 2015, holding street rallies in cities across Australia to protest against Islam. It has protested in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Newcastle and Canberra. Reclaim Australia has also been described as a loose collective of groups.
The English Defence League (EDL) is a far-right, Islamophobic organisation in England. A social movement and pressure group that employs street demonstrations as its main tactic, the EDL presents itself as a single-issue movement opposed to Islamism and Islamic extremism, although its rhetoric and actions target Islam and Muslims more widely. Founded in 2009, its heyday lasted until 2011, after which it entered a decline.
Counter-jihad, also known as the counter-jihad movement, is a self-titled political current loosely consisting of authors, bloggers, think tanks, street movements and so on linked by beliefs that view Islam not as a religion but as an ideology that constitutes an existential threat to Western civilization. Consequently, counter-jihadists consider all Muslims as a potential threat, especially when they are already living within Western boundaries. Western Muslims accordingly are portrayed as a "fifth column", collectively seeking to destabilize Western nations' identity and values for the benefit of an international Islamic movement intent on the establishment of a caliphate in Western countries. The counter-jihad movement has been variously described as anti-Islamic, Islamophobic, inciting hatred against Muslims, and far-right. Influential figures in the movement include the bloggers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer in the US, and Geert Wilders and Tommy Robinson in Europe.
The Q Society of Australia Inc. was a far-right, anti-Islam and homophobic organisation that opposed Muslim immigration and the presence of Muslims in Australian society. Q Society described itself as "Australia's leading Islam-critical organisation" and stated that its purpose was to fight against the "Islamisation of Australia". The Q Society was so named because it was founded at a meeting in the Melbourne suburb of Kew in 2010.
The Identitarian movement or Identitarianism is a pan-European, ethno-nationalist, far-right political ideology asserting the right of European ethnic groups and white peoples to Western culture and territories claimed to belong exclusively to them. Originating in France as Les Identitaires, with its youth wing Generation Identity (GI), the movement expanded to other European countries during the early 21st century. Its ideology was formulated from the 1960s onward by essayists such as Alain de Benoist, Dominique Venner, Guillaume Faye and Renaud Camus, who are considered the main ideological sources of the movement.
Islamophobia in Australia is highly speculative and affective distrust and hostility towards Muslims, Islam, and those perceived as following the religion. This social aversion and bias is often facilitated and perpetuated in the media through the stereotyping of Muslims as violent and uncivilised. Various Australian politicians and political commentators have capitalised on these negative stereotypes and this has contributed to the marginalisation, discrimination and exclusion of the Muslim community.
Blair Cottrell is an Australian far-right extremist and neo-Nazi. He is the former chairman and founding member of the United Patriots Front (UPF) and the Lads Society. He has been convicted of several charges, including stalking, arson, steroid dealing and burglary, and has spent time in prison.
William Fraser Anning is an Australian former politician who was a senator for Queensland from November 2017 to June 2019. Anning is known for holding far-right, nativist, and anti-Muslim views, and has been criticised for his use of the Nazi euphemism for the Holocaust, when he proposed a plebiscite to be the "Final Solution" to "the immigration problem" in his maiden speech. Anning also generated controversy for his statements shortly after the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand, in which he blamed the attacks on "the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate".
The Australian Defence League (ADL) is a militant far-right, white nationalist street gang. The group is anti-Islam, and has been involved in making terrorist threats, abusing, doxxing and stalking Muslim Australians. The gang was founded in Sydney in 2009 as an offshoot of the English Defence League.
The True Blue Crew (TBC) is an Australian far-right extremist group. Members and supporters have been linked to right-wing terrorism and vigilantism, and members have been arrested with weapons and on terrorism-related charges. Experts who have studied the group say it appears to be "committed to violence".
Neil Erikson is an Australian far-right extremist and self-proclaimed neo-Nazi.
The Lads Society is a far-right, white nationalist, Islamophobic extremist group founded by several former members of the United Patriots Front (UPF) in late 2017. It established club houses in Sydney and Melbourne. The Lads Society came to national prominence after it staged a rally in St Kilda, Victoria, targeting the local African Australian community. Attendees were seen making the Nazi salute and one was photographed wearing an SS helmet.
Far-right politics in Australia describes authoritarian ideologies, including fascism and White supremacy as they manifest in Australia.
Thomas Sewell is a New Zealand-born Australian neo-Nazi and convicted criminal. He is the leader of the National Socialist Network, the European Australian Movement and founder of the Lads Society. The groups led by Sewell focus on promoting White supremacy and far-right activism in Australia. He is known for associating with other prominent neo-Nazis and for controversial public stunts.
Far-right terrorism in Australia has been seen as an increasing threat since the late 2010s, with a number of far-right extremist individuals and groups, including neo-Nazis and other hate groups, becoming known to authorities, in particular the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP). In early 2021 the first far-right extremist group was added to the list of proscribed terrorist groups, this group being the Sonnenkrieg Division.
New editorial directors have been appointed at Sky News and a show suspended after an interview with convicted arsonist and neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell.
"The decision to allow neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell onto the channel was another step in a journey to normalising racism & bigotry in our country," he tweeted.
New editorial directors have been appointed at Sky News and a show suspended after an interview with convicted arsonist and neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell.