Author Archives: Searchlight Team

Violent Australian nazi allowed into UK to speak at rally

A year ago, then Home Secretary Suella Braverman came in for heavy criticism when notorious Spanish neo-nazi Isabel Peralta was allowed in to the UK to address a nazi rally. Now, Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has equally serious questions to answer, as a violent Australian nazi with multiple criminal convictions is allowed into the country to address the Patriotic Alternative conference this weekend.

Blair Cottrell has several criminal convictions and has called for a portrait of Adolf Hitler to be displayed in every Australian school. Yet this weekend he will be speaking at a conference packed with impressionable young people, to an organisation that has seen several of its leading Hitler-worshipping activists imprisoned for inciting racial hatred and terrorist offences. Why does the Home Office – now under a Labour government – persist in allowing violent nazis into the country?

Blair Cottrell first became known in 2015 as Melbourne organiser for an anti-Muslim street gang, United Patriots Front. He took over from founder Shermon Burgess as UPF’s national chairman later that year, and soon became leader of the most extreme nazi wing of Australia’s anti-immigration movement.

Violence regularly broke out at Cottrell’s anti-mosque rallies. Some fellow racists saw him as too extreme, but Cottrell succeeded in publicity stunts including being photographed with the right-wing Queensland MP Bob Katter.

Cottrell has also been one of the leaders of the Lads Society, an early version of the far right’s current strategy of recruiting and training young men through martial arts clubs and survivalist camps.

The Lads Club attempted to recruit Brenton Tarrant, who went on to murder 51 people in terrorist attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in March 2019. Tarrant praised Cottrell online as “Emperor Blair Cottrell”.

Though Cottrell distanced himself from Tarrant’s terrorism, he has his own record of criminality and violence, both personal and political. In 2012 and 2013 he was convicted and jailed after arming himself with a tomahawk, stalking his ex-girlfriend and her new partner, and setting fire to their home.

He has displayed his violent misogyny several times since learning nothing from these convictions (including drug trafficking and burglary offences). In 2018 he posted on what was then Twitter, sneering at a Sky News political reporter: “I might as well have raped Laura Jayes on the air.”

Cottrell leads the street gang arm of Australia’s nazi movement, while its ideologists include Thomas Sewell, Jacob Hersant and Joel Davis. All these men are in their 20s and 30s. Davis spoke at PA’s conference last year. Now Cottrell’s appearance further cements the links between PA and Australia’s vilest nazis, built up during several years of PA leader Mark Collett’s video streaming.

Have UK border security and the Home Office learned nothing from this summer’s racist violence on British streets? Why are nazis with serious criminal records being allowed into the UK to address extremist conferences?

Sacked Farage spin doctor weaves tangled tale of anti-fascists vetting UKIP members

There’s been a whole lot of outrage on far-right online feeds about a claim made recently by former Reform UK (and Farage) PR man Gawain Towler. He claimed that back in 2010, UKIP, then led by Nigel Farage, asked Hope Not Hate to vet prospective members and candidates who might have extreme far right backgrounds. At that time, of course, HNH was the campaigning arm of Searchlight, splitting away in late 2011.

Towler was, for many years, PR guru to UKIP, and then the Brexit Party and was very close to Farage. Unfortunately, his chum turned on him recently and fired him as Director of Communications for Reform UK. Which may or may not have some bearing on this story. Who knows…?

Whatever the motive, it’s certainly prompted fury on the far right. Most recent to get themselves all worked up are the foul creatures who publish Heritage and Destiny, house rag for self-styled neo-Nazi intellectuals:

 “Reform UK showed its true colours this week when one of Nigel Farage’s chief lieutenants – veteran spin doctor Gawain Towler – admitted that Farage’s old party UKIP had shared information with the ‘anti-fascist’ organisation Hope not Hate.”

And H & D doesn’t stop there: the anonymous author (likely either editor Mark Cotterill or his errand boy Peter Rushton) goes on to accuse Searchlight of all sorts of nefarious deeds. But more of that later.

The trouble with Towler’s claim about us vetting UKIP members is that it is, well, in a word…bollocks.

Or, in two words, total bollocks.

Here’s what he said in an online interview online with the Spectator’s James Heale:

“Many years ago, we worked with Hope Not Hate to winkle out the fascists from our own ranks. At that time, when we were ripping them out of our system, there were times when one of the guys in the press office was in touch with them, just to double check: ‘We think this guy’s dodgy, is he on your list?’”

He amplified the claim later when challenged online about this gross act of betrayal by racist activist Steve Laws:

“In about 2010, one of the staff would run names past a HNH staff member. UKIP was riddled with former NF and BNP fanatics, we didn’t want racists then or now.”

Well, for the record, let us state here: it never happened. And, for the avoidance of doubt: it never happened.

But there’s something else spun by the H & D lie machine that never happened either. It alleges, based on a claim made in Simon Heffer’s biography of Enoch Powell, that “during the 1970s Searchlight obtained private papers and other documents from a burglary at the home of Powell’s political secretary Bee Carthew”.

So here’s what did happen. In 1968, Enoch Powell’s notorious “Rivers of Blood” speech had inflamed racist sentiment across the UK. Prime Minister Edward Heath sacked him from the Tory front bench but even four years later, Powell divided the Tory party. He dominated its annual conference, and there was much debate as to whether he would split and form a new party.

There was an unofficial, arm’s length operation working on his behalf, building a potential membership base among his supporters. It was called Powellight and was run by a nasty racist piece of work called Bee Carthew. She was not, we might add, Powell’s political secretary.

Bee Carthew (left) marches to Downing St in 1972 to present petition against immigration. With her, left to right: Joy Page, Harvey Proctor and former Deputy Director of MI6, George Kennedy Young. (Photo: Mike Cohen)

And Powellight did indeed hit a bit of a problem. In his biography of Powell, Simon Heffer writes this:

“The divisions within the party, which Powell was doing so much to heighten, may or may not have been behind a burglary at the flat of Bee Carthew, Powellight’s secretary, shortly after the conference…

“Most of Powellight’s files, listing details of members and their addresses, were stolen too, as well as some Monday Club files – Mrs Carthew was its meetings secretary at the time. She had written to The Times about Powellight, a letter that had generated a huge response, but which had also given Powellight’s address.

“The police soon came to the view that the burglary was political; and it set the group back, since among the files stolen was one containing names of would-be applicants for membership…

“Some of the material was published later in the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, and Powellight’s organisers drew their own conclusions about who had been responsible…”

This, needless to say, is an outrageous calumny. At no time was Searchlight involved in a burglary of Bee Carthew’s flat or any other premisses used or controlled by her. The suggestion is outrageous.

We got the files by a completely different route…

Yaxley-Lennon floats tie up with UKIP

The clearest sign yet that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, and UKIP are planning to link up was given in an online interview with Yaxley-Lennon posted yesterday.

Speaking on Tousi TV, the online channel of right-wing commentator Mahyar Tousi, he was asked what he thought of UKIP and its leader Nick Tenconi. He said:

“UKIP are far stronger than any other political party. I believe that Nick has shown great leadership, …

“You need a people’s party that is not going to kick the working class and not going to deem them as racist and far right which Nigel Farage has done multiple times.

“I like UKIP. I actually messaged the lads. It’s just… my life has gone chaotic.  I face prison this week, I’m trying to finish a film.

“I messaged Nick, and I messaged Ben Walker, to have a discussion with them”

Robinson makes clear he has no time for Reform UK because leader Nigel Farage does noit oppose ‘demographic replacement’ and is not committed to ‘mass deportations’.

“I thought let Reform be the political party and us be the cultural movement But I saw Nigel Farage’s cowardice in the week of taking over, saw him select the Muslim who funded him the most money, to be the chairman and I thought ‘Well you’re never going to deal with the Islamisation of this nation’.

“So there does need to be a political party that pushes them so maybe UKIP’s that solution.

“I hope to meet the boys when I get back if I’m not in jail.”

UKIP posted the clip online, welcomed Yaxley-Lennon’s endorsement, and said, laughably, “UKIP stands firmly with Tommy and the British working class”.

Searchlight first suggested the possibility of such a link up back in August. There were a number of indications, the main one being a warning from Lois Perry, when she resigned as leader during the general election campaign.

She claimed that there was something “sinister” going on “at the very top of the party” where some people, “wanted to go after quite an extreme viewpoint”. Specifically, she said, they wanted a tie-up with Yaxley-Lennon.

UKIP leadership figures were also involved in a planning meeting for Yaxley-Lennon’s 27 July ‘Uniting the Kingdom’ march and rally in London, where other future co-operation was also discussed.

At that event, Tenconi was allowed to pose at the head of the march, looking for all the world like he was leading it.

Earlier, in March, Yaxley-Lennon was warmly welcomed to a UKIP event in Llanelli by the fraudster Dan Morgan and the former trade union buster, Stan Robinson, local UKIP activists who also run the extremist Voice of Wales online channel. Robinson is the Party’s Lead Spokesperson for Wales and was a candidate in the general election.

The irony, of course, is that in 2018 UKIP was plunged into crisis when then party leader Gerard Batten appointed Yaxley-Lennon as the party’s ‘grooming’ adviser. Batten, who had only recently become leader, was passionately anti-Islam and wanted to move the party firmly in that direction. The association led to a wave of resignations – including most of its 24 MEPs – from the party before Batten was removed and the plan abandoned.

Ironically, UKIP’s present chairman Ben Walker was heavily involved in engineering Battens’ removal but is now a key player welcoming the likes of Yaxley-Lennon and other extreme right wingers and Islamophobes back into the party.

Traditional Britain Group’s low rent conference in posh hotel

The Traditional Britain Group conference held yesterday in a posh London hotel has turned out to be a rather low rent affair. Not in terms of the venue – hiring the St Ermin’s Hotel in Victoria will have set them back a few bob to say the least. No, it’s the speakers we’re referring to.

We reported last week that the panel would include David ‘Clueless’ Clews of the online Unity News Network, Ed Dutton (below, left), the anti-woke academic, and climate change denying fanatic Niall McCrae. And, of course, TBG’s usual suspect, Rhodri ‘Get me a hitman’ Phillips, aka Viscount St David. (More on them here: https://searchlightmagazine.com/2024/10/traditional-britain-group-to-welcome-speaker-who-tried-to-hire-hitman/… )

But these are all pretty small beer, and we assumed that amongst the anonymous speakers they hinted at, TBG must have someone a bit more notable up their sleeves. Well, not so, apart from the predictable speaker from the German AfD who seem to turn up at most far right conferences these days (they were at Homeland’s a couple of weeks ago) and British Democrats Chairman Jim Lewthwaite (above, right), it was all a bit of a damp squib from a group which in the past has had prominent Tories grace its events. Jacob Rees Mogg, was of course, the most notable example.

Perhaps the way that TBG allowed its Telegram feed to be used by the most deranged nazis and pro-rioters during the August riots put more respectable contributors off.

UKIP conference fiasco sparks another high level resignation

By Tony Peters

Hard on the heels of its catastrophic annual conference last weekend, UKIP has suffered another high-level resignation. And, as Searchlight predicted back in July, it’s Paul Campbell (above), the party’s Wales Regional Officer who is the latest to decide enough is enough.

Campbell’s resignation – both as Regional Officer and as a UKIP member – has not been made public yet, but he communicated it to the UKIP leadership on their confidential ‘Smoked Herring’ WhatsApp group on Monday.  Campbell says he is, “disappointed at recent events in particular the leadership election fiasco. I was supporting Bill Etheridge and expected him to win easily”.

In this, Campbell was not alone. Virtually the entire membership expected UKIP veteran Etheridge, a former MEP, to be elected leader in May, and were astonished when newly-recruited Lois Perry swept the board with almost 80% of the vote. Actual voting numbers have never been published by UKIP Chairman Ben ‘Rogue Builder’ Walker, the party’s Returning Officer.

Perry lasted only a few weeks, before dramatically resigning during the general election campaign, to be replaced by another recent recruit, Deputy Leader, Nick Tenconi. Tenconi is now Leader having been elected to neither position but simply put in post by the now omnipotent Walker. The timing of Campbell’s decision, however, suggests that events around the conference, albeit added to other concerns such as last May’s leadership election, triggered his departure.

Tenconi’s new direction for UKIP as a party of the Christian far right has also made Campbell unhappy; while he acknowledges that Tenconi is a dynamic leader, he says he “cannot get totally on board with the heavy Religious dialogue”.

Campbell, who doubles up as an unlikely Elvis Presley impersonator, suggests that the Wales party organisation should be taken over by Stan Robinson (above right), the Llanelli gobshite and former trade union buster. With the convicted fraudster Dan Morgan (above left), he runs the Voice of Wales online operation which is long on abusive talk, but rather short on ability or action.

Recent months have seen the resignations of Deputy Leader Rebecca Jane, Party Director Pat Mountain and her successor, Lester ‘Jeff’ Taylor, Bill Etheridge, Health and Social Care Spokesperson Dr Chris Ho, Defence and Veterans Spokesperson former Squadron Leader Peter Richardsson, Home Affairs Spokesperson Steve Unwin, and Education Spokesperson Julie Carter. The National Executive Committee has also been denuded by departures and is now thought to be so small that it cannot even muster the required quorum to meet.