One of Britain’s most secretive nazis and a key player in Patriotic Alternative, died this week aged 61.
Steve Blake was PA’s Eastern England regional organiser and was listed as PA treasurer when what was then the country’s leading far-right group wrote to the Electoral Commission supposedly aiming to register as a political party.
He was also one of three directors of the limited company that owns PA, the others being its leader Mark Collett and deputy leader Laura Towler.
When PA split in 2023 Blake seemed likely to join his old friend Kenny Smith in the Homeland Party but he decided to stay with Collett and Towler.
There were all sorts of conspiracy theories about Blake, especially because he sided with Smith against Collett back in 2007 during one of the most vicious BNP splits.
Leaked membership list
They were among the leaders of a faction that demanded the sacking of Mark Collett from all roles in the party, accusing him of bringing under-age girls back to his hotel room during a BNP conference.
This 2007 split led to several years of court action and contributed to Nick Griffin bankrupting himself for the second time. It also led to the BNP membership list being leaked.
Blake denied being responsible and pointed the finger at two of his fellow rebels, but as he was known to be an IT wizard not everyone was convinced of his innocence.
Dodgy financial schemes
He was also the architect of a number of dodgy financial schemes promoted by the BNP, one of which was designed to get round the law regarding foreign funding of British political parties, to get American donations into the BNP coffers. These fell apart when exposed by Searchlight at the time.
It surprised both anti-fascists and many on the far right when Collett recruited his old enemies Smith and Blake to PA and trusted them with some of the group’s most confidential IT work including membership databases.
And it was even more surprising when Blake seemed to take Collett’s side rather than Smith’s in the 2023 split.
We think the reason for this was that behind his pose as a respectable businessman, Blake was a hardcore ideological nazi. He feared that Smith would weaken his ideology to appeal to the racist wing of the Tory party and try to win defections from Reform and UKIP.
Four way split
By the time of Blake’s death the far right in the Eastern region was split at least four ways with Blake himself apparently loyal to PA, Adam Clegg as regional organiser for Homeland, former PA and Homeland activist Kai Stephens (aka Barkley Walsh) being one of the leaders of the latest Homeland split, and Stephens’ ex-girlfriend Sydney Jones, now in UKIP, working with her new partner James Harvey in several racist groups such as “Patriots of Britain”, and also linked to Britain First.
Steve Blake spent his schooldays in Ipswich before going to St Andrews University in 1982 to study chemistry. At about the same time he quit the NF to join John Tyndall’s BNP and while in Scotland for over twenty years worked with some of the party’s most committed nazis.
He also built international connections with some of the world’s most violent racists, including the National Alliance in the USA and Holocaust deniers including the exiled NF and National Party activist David McCalden.
Blake created a mail order business called Aurora Promotions, based at his parents’ house in Ipswich, where he imported and distributed extremist publications including The Turner Diaries, a novel written by NA leader William Pierce which inspired one of the world’s most notorious nazi terrorist groups, The Order, in a series of bank robberies and shootings including the murder of Denver radio host Alan Berg.
In 1999 Blake was among the majority faction in the Scottish BNP who supported Nick Griffin’s takeover of the party. He was rewarded with top spot on the 2004 European election slate for Scotland and, having by this time moved back to Ipswich, was put on the party’s payroll dealing with several IT issues.
In this role he quickly came into conflict with Collett, who at that time was trusted by Griffin with responsibility for most of the party’s leaflet design, artwork and printing.
Operating in the shadows
Although he was a committed nazi for more than forty years, Blake always seemed happier operating in the shadows, which is why he was sometimes accused (especially by Griffin) of being a state or Searchlight infiltrator.
Even in 2025 he remained one of the few leading nazis who was capable of high-level IT work and business administration. Collett will find it difficult to replace Steve Blake, even if he never fully trusted him.
