By Paul Gale

Searchlight readers won’t be the least surprised that the first reaction of Britain’s far right groups after the dreadful murders of three young girls in Southport was to try to make political or financial capital from the atrocity.

But in 2024 this also meant several rival factions pursued radically different analyses, whether in genuine disagreement or in pursuit of the biggest headline on social media.

The simplest divide was over the riots that broke out almost immediately after Southport. Leaders of the various factions struck very different notes over whether these were good or bad for the far right.

Those openly stirring up violence tended to be anonymous Telegram accounts, though one or two racist and Islamophobic “citizen journalists” are now facing the full force of the law, and some big names on the scene, include Steve Laws (who was a parliamentary candidate for the English Democrats just a few weeks ago) must surely be under very close scrutiny, since his inflammatory posts have at the very least come close to breaking the law.

Even the apparently respectable Traditional Britain Group found its Telegram account overflowing with incitements to violence. Unlike some others on the right, TBG’s moderators were wise enough to purge the worst content and began closing down their comments section overnight.

As previous Searchlight articles have noted, Paul Golding’s increasingly desperate Islamophobic gang Britain First sent its “battle bus” to Southend, Blackpool, and other potential trouble spots, hoping for a scrap that might generate useful video for their next fundraising appeal.

After years of pretending that he is a Christian anti-Islam campaigner, Golding is starting to return to his racist BNP roots and is jumping on the “great replacement” bandwagon, writing about “African war zones”, “Third World ghettos”, and “gangs of ferals”, as well as his usual baiting of Muslims.

One reason is that the fugitive Tommy Robinson and his ex-EDL goons have sewn up the Islamophobic side of far-right fundraising. Open racism on the other hand is a wide-open political marketplace. Golding’s old rival Mark Collett and his Patriotic Alternative have lost control of the racist agenda due to multiple splits.

Collett used to advise against far-right activists travelling to Tommy Robinson’s London demonstrations. His ostensible reason was that these were likely to lead to arrests, with no political benefit. His real objection was that these events boosted the profile of a political rival.

When it became obvious that most racists in his target audience were ignoring his advice, Collett changed his tune. In recent months he has tried to play the issue both ways, giving up on the idea of opposing confrontational demos.

And within hours of the Southport atrocity, Collett could smell money. For almost a month now he has incessantly played the same tune about “two-tier policing” and “political prisoners”, conveniently ignoring the fact that almost none of the rioters were significant political activists, and few would be likely to support his brand of barely disguised nazism.

Close analysis of photographic evidence has shown that several convicted thugs had previously attended EDL, PA or other right-wing events. In some cases, they had even promoted Reform UK. But none were household names – almost none were even known in the Collett or Melia households, until rallying support for these convicts became politically convenient.

As others on the far right have pointed out, many of the rioters were simple thugs, thieves, and drunks. At most they shared a football hooligan level of racism. Collett and those anywhere near the inner circles of his fellow nazis have been canny enough to steer clear of the streets. Their role is to milk publicity and attract donors.

Collett and his deputy Laura Towler have shamelessly set up fundraising operations for “political prisoners” jailed after the riots. Unlike some of PA’s rivals on the right, Searchlight wouldn’t suggest that this money will be embezzled or diverted to other uses. We have no doubt that Collett and Towler are more subtle than that. They hope that in addition to donating to the “political prisoners”, racists around the world will put PA on their Christmas present list, or better still their monthly donation list.

Tthese international fundraising campaigns are another reason for PA not registering as a political party, as this would mean its finances and internal structure being regulated and scrutinised by the Electoral Commission.

The Homeland Party, founded by Collett’s former right-hand man and fellow BNP veteran Kenny Smith, usually tries to present itself as being more serious about building a genuine political party. Homeland has suffered two serious setbacks. Firstly, when failing to continue its early momentum. After recruiting several of the best and brightest (or should we say the least dim) from PA, Homeland failed to gain the support of Smith’s old friend Steve Blake, who stayed loyal to Collett and kept some waverers onside.

Then in May’s local elections, after making the elementary error of talking up the chances of Homeland’s sole local election candidate, ex-BNP organiser Roger Robertson, Smith struggled to explain why Robertson failed so badly at the ballot box.

Since then, Smith and his colleagues have tried to stay away from the most vicious forms of infighting (typified by the spats between Collett and Towler from PA, and Yerbury and Fanning from what is now the National Rebirth Party).

After the riots, Homeland’s online crew of commentators (who are especially active on X) have tried to walk a fine line. They don’t wish to be seen as deserting fellow racists in their hour of need. But they aim to distance themselves slightly from Collett, and make themselves appear more of a ‘serious’ political party.

That’s why when writing about the case of one jailed racist, Tyler Kay, Homeland pointed out that Kay had retweeted a post calling for arson attacks on refugee hostels, and had advised readers to “mask up” when committing these offences. Rather than taking the Collett line of hysteria about ‘political prisoners’, Homeland pointed out:

Kay’s “actions were illegal. This isn’t a new law—it’s been in place for a long time. You cannot post calls for violence online, which, on the surface, seems reasonable.”

Homeland has argued that the prosecutions and sentences are disproportionate and politically motivated, but that it is both wrong and counter-productive to portray this as a Starmerite police state. A recent Homeland article insisted:

“Never call for violence, even in jest. Never target people based on race, religion or any other characteristic, even in jest. Stick to that, and no harm should come your way.”

Yerbury has gone even further than Smith in disparaging the Collett strategy of non-stop online streaming and social media ‘activism’. While his partner Fanning explicitly attacked PA for grifting on the back of the riots, Yerbury conveyed similar criticisms in more measured language:

“What is the point of all this endless doomposting about people being jailed, persecuted etc? It’s almost never accompanied by any discussion or organisation of solutions. It’s just spreading outrage for the sake of it, telling us what we already know. What is the point of that? Is there a point beyond social media views?”

In a recent X and Telegram post, Yerbury wrote:

“If every nationalist YouTuber, social media personality, and influencer switched to organising political party branches, or standing as candidates, we’d already have a movement bigger than the BNP at its height.”

Readers can probably guess who Yerbury sees as the leader of this resurgent BNP-style party. But so far, his progress seems limited to branches in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

It’s not yet been explained how Yerbury hopes to leap from occasional branch meetings and food banks, to putting up parliamentary candidates or winning power on the streets. He has already ruled out standing in local council elections, which at least gets him off the hook for the next four or five years, since he will not be required to show tangible evidence of political progress.

Smith and Collett aren’t so lucky. Smith has made good local election results a barometer of success, though he insists that he will not put up candidates just for the sake of it, and will only campaign where he feels he has a credible candidate.

Collett seems to be torn between continuing his so far failed strategy of electoral pacts with the English Democrats, and an alternative strategy of turning his back on the ballot box entirely in favour of undefined schemes for building “White communities”.

The most blatant condemnation of the riots came from two parties and leaders who in other ways are opposites, including in their attitude to elections. James Lewthwaite, the former BNP councillor who leads the British Democrats, was unequivocal:

“The British Democrats, as a law-abiding party, condemn the rioting and violence against the police during the last week. Frustration with decades of uncontrolled immigration and the duplicity of this political-journalist class is no justification for thuggery. Anger, however righteous, is no substitute for clear, calm, rational thinking finding its expression in democratic political activism. At its worst, it plays into the hands of a political establishment rabidly denigrating millions of peaceful Britons as far-right thugs and will be used as a pretext to suppress legitimate debate.”

Nick Griffin, who led the BNP while Lewthwaite was a councillor but whom the BDP leader now despises, also condemned the rioters. But Griffin added his own typically paranoid and conspiratorial spin:

“The demos called for tonight by anonymous fedposters and simple idiots are honeytraps. The police, prisons and state-licenced MDL militias are all ready for those daft enough to attend. STAY AWAY! That doesn’t mean give up, it means don’t walk into a trap.”

He added that even posting slogans about “mass deportation” is:

“…a Tommy Robinson slogan, designed to raise tensions by manipulating you into helping the MSM, Antifa and the MDL into scaring non-whites … juvenile posturing to make maximalist demands from a position of chronic weakness.”

…Fantasy politics ‘solutions’ [are] a dangerous distraction from discussing and experimenting with practical steps to begin to rectify our peoples’ present powerlessness.”

Griffin also took a shot at his former friends Larry Nunn and Mark Collett, implicitly blaming them for the creation of the now-banned terrorist group National Action:

“Thanks for nothing, Larry and Mark, for ‘training’ these youngsters to self-destruct and then walking away…..”

Readers shouldn’t imagine that Griffin has suddenly been converted to mainstream politics. He is now just as hostile to the ballot box as he was in his earlier ‘radical’ phase as a leader of the NF’s ‘political soldier’ faction in the 1980s. Griffin’s arguments about both the riots and NA terrorism are solely designed to differentiate his position from those of his rivals. The big difference now is that very few people are listening to Griffin.

At the end of September, Homeland will hold their annual conference, followed by PA’s equivalent three weeks later. We can expect to see their respective leaders refining their positions for and against the ballot box. But also hovering on the edge of illegality, trying to recruit on the back of the post-Southport riots without putting themselves (or their bank accounts) at risk.

These people truly have no shame. Thanks to the essential decency of the vast majority of our people, the racist strategy of incitement failed. But the racists haven’t gone away. That’s why we shall be monitoring the various factions and frustrating their schemes.

Top photo: race rioters attack police defending a Rotherham hotel housing asylum seekers (PA/Alamy).