Amongst a number of the well-known far right characters standing as independents in the general election we find this choice specimen: veteran thug Joe Owens, a former minder for Nick Griffin with admitted links to Merseyside gangsters, in Liverpool Wavertree.

In 1982 Owens was jailed for posting packages containing razor blades to members of Liverpool’s Jewish community, and he served a further jail sentence twelve years later for possession of illegal weapons while working as a club doorman linked to organised crime.

Now he is a habitual online far right activist, describing himself as a ‘social media influencer’ trying to preserve Liverpool’s ‘unique character, traditions and cultural identity… No to cultural change’.

Owens is most famous for being charged in 1998 with the contract killing of George Bromley, a leading Liverpool gangster. After one of the main prosecution witnesses against Owens withdrew his evidence, the case collapsed, and Owens still maintains his innocence. Bromley’s murder remains unsolved.

Lucky old Wavetree…

When Nigel Farage made his screeching U-turn from ’There’s no chance that I will run in this election’ to ’I am the candidate for Clacton’ a few people will have thought: How odd, that the seaside town that actually elected a UKIP MP (twice!) should have been left vacant by Reform, and thus be available for the egomaniac in chief to fill the breach at short notice. The answer was that it hadn’t. Clacton already had a Reform candidate. And not just a wandering someone-or-other but Tony Mack – an actual native Clactonian.

So, Farage had, in the blink of an eye, not only elbowed aside Richard Tice as party leader. but shoulder-barged away the Reform candidate for Clacton with barely so much as a ’This looks like a plum seat. Buzz off, I’m having it!’ Mack was duly wheeled out in front of the Farage-fawning Daily Express to proclaim that he was delighted to have been thus usurped and would be doing everything possible to get the carpetbagger elected. One can only assume that he carried out this interview with a loaded kipper held to his head, because come close of nominations Mack was still on the candidates’ list – but as an independent.

Yes, the bruised local is actually standing against the milkshake magnet. Farage behaves like a dictator… Farage barely even knows where Clacton is… Farage is just playing for time while he waits for a job offer from Trump. Who knows what barbs Mack will come out with. But you can bet that it will be pretty vitriolic. And that it won’t find its way into the Daily Express.

Leaders of UKIP are privately offering up prayers of thanks to Nigel Farage for digging them out of a calamity-sized hole. There they were, wondering how on earth they were going to assemble a respectable number of candidates for the election, when good old ‘Dodgy’ Nige comes along and throws them a lifeline. Within 24 hours of him lobbing his hat into the Clacton ring, they announced they would not now be standing candidates in seven constituencies where Reform stood a chance of doing well. All in the interests of right-wing unity. Of course.

There are just a couple of problems with this. Firstly, in most of the constituencies where they claim to be standing down, they did not actually have candidates lined up in the first place. One of them, Hartlepool, had a declared candidate up to a few weeks ago, but she, the odious Ann Marie Waters, has since withdrawn from party affairs – including resigning as a director of UKIP Ltd – citing personal reasons. Her real motive is believed to be that she realised her candidacy for party leader in the recent election was going to be spiked by Chairman Ben Walker, whom she planned to sack immediately if she was elected.

And there’s another little problem: two of the constituencies from which they claim to be withdrawing don’t actually exist anymore: Barnsley Central and Barnsley East were both abolished in the recent round of boundary changes.

Rumours abound that the UKIP leadership (Leader Lois Perry, Deputy Leader Nick Tencone and Chairman Ben Walker) are all frit at the prospect of having to stand themselves and risk facing public interrogation about, for instance, Walker’s control of the party through a mysterious trust, or allegations as to his libidinousness by former Deputy Leader Rebecca Jane. And, of course, there is the issue of his rank when he served in the Royal Navy, which has been curiously misrepresented in the media (albeit not by him) on a number of occasions, but never corrected.

Perry has been dropping hints all over the place that she will be running in the east of England somewhere as an “Essex girl” but so far, no firm declaration. Just pictures of her outside The Bull pub, in Brentwood, apparently waiting for a lunchtime meeting with her election agent. We await developments …

By Paul Gale

While most attention turns to Nigel Farage, an Essex solicitor is trying to reshape the far right and may, unexpectedly, dominate the far right’s campaigning efforts in the election.

Even before General Election nominations close on Friday, Searchlight has learned that (outside Reform UK and increasingly extreme Tory factions) the largest group of right-wing candidates standing will come from the alliance between the English Democrats and UKIP, formally registered with the Electoral Commission as the Patriots Alliance.

ED leader Robin Tilbrook (above), a 66-year-old Essex solicitor, has spent years waiting for the day when UKIP collapses and Farage leaves the political stage. Now he seems content to be senior partner in a pact with the fast fading and discredited UKIP. But it looks like he will also be assisted in the election by both Patriotic Alternative and the Homeland Party.

Unlike many of his fellow far right leaders, Tilbrook puts his own money into his party rather than lining his pockets at the expense of members and donors. The EDs were created by a small group of founding investors. One of these was Tilbrook’s close friend and ally Steve Uncles, who was jailed for election fraud in 2017.

And unlike some other far right parties, the EDs are not explicitly racist, relying instead on Powellite dog whistles.

But Tilbrook’s recent political alliances have been based partly on conspiracy theories, and partly on a small group of associates with deep roots on the most extreme fringes of the right.

We now know that in last month’s Police & Crime Commissioner elections, Tilbrook’s own campaign leaflets were partly produced by Mark Collett, one of Britain’s leading neo-nazis. Members of Collett’s group, Patriotic Alternative, several of whose leading officials have been jailed for offences including terrorism, were active in Tilbrook’s campaign.

Another ED candidate last month, Henry Curteis, was assisted in his campaign for West Mercia Police & Crime Commissioner by Collett’s bitter rival Kenny Smith, a former leader of the BNP in Scotland who has moved to the Midlands. Smith last year broke away from Collett’s PA and created the Homeland Party.

How UKIP’s announcement (which we report elsewhere) that it is ‘standing down’ in seven constituencies to give Farage and Reform a free run will impact on Tilbrook’s plans is yet to be seen.

Neither PA nor Homeland will have candidates at this General Election, and Searchlight understands that several of their leaders will again back Tilbrook and his ED-UKIP alliance.

We used to think that Tilbrook’s only interest was in an English Parliament. Now we know that he doesn’t care about factional splits on the far right. The EDs are happy to bring every faction on board, whether Hitlerite, Powellite, or just crazy conspiracy theorists obsessed by chemtrails, fluoride and vaccines.

If Farage fails to return to the Commons and Reform UK collapses, which is the opportunity that Tilbrook has been waiting for, will this coalition of extremists be the basis for a new far right?