Global ambitions  AfD co-leader Alice Weidel  Pic credit: Alice Weidel/Facebook

At the beginning of September, municipal elections were held in Nordhausen, in the state of Thuringia. This is not the first time that Searchlight has discussed this eastern German state – over the past few years it has become a hotbed for Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) activity.

In the first voting round, AfD mayoral candidate Jörg Prophet finished about 20% ahead of five other contenders. The turnout was 56.4%, according to dw.com, but Prophet then faced a run-off against the independent incumbent, Kai Buchmann.

Despite polling high in the first round, Prophet failed to gain the mayoral chair. However, in June the AfD was successful in getting its candidate, lawyer Robert Sesselmann, elected to a district administrator post in Thuringia for the first time.

This political climate can be viewed against a backdrop of attacks on memorials throughout Germany. In August, there was an alleged anti-Semitic attack on a mini-library that formed part of a memorial in Berlin. Another attack was reported to have occurred at the Ohlsdorf Peace Festival. There was also a suspected arson attempt on a monument in Berlin’s Tiergarten Park. This is where members of the LGBTQIA+ are specifically commemorated for their persecution during the Nazi regime. A suspect has been apprehended and, according to reports, is known to authorities for committing other hatred category crimes.

Looking at the broader picture, however, it is not entirely clear why there is an increase in intolerance that can tip into violent acts. In historian and researcher Karsten Uhl’s view, as reported by dw.com, right-wing extremists have become emboldened by the political space now occupied by the AfD in mainstream politics, which can extend to carrying out acts of violence. Uhl states that, as the party’s popularity grows – with some polls putting the AfD on a 20% share of the vote – this has the potential to make it the strongest party in some eastern German states.

Strange bedfellows

AfD officials have been on their travels – this time to China, with suggestions the visit was in response to an official invitation. AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, along with fellow AfD Bundestag members Peter Felser and Petr Bystron, spent one week in Beijing and Shanghai this summer. This has strengthened the AfD’s oppositional stance to the German government’s current critical policies towards China. It shows that the AfD is trying to position itself as critical of the USA geopolitically. At the same time, the AfD glosses over any criticism of human rights issues in China.

European Parliament

The AfD’s choice of candidate for the 2024 European Parliament elections is Maximilian Krah, an AfD member of the European Parliament. He is aligned with the right wing of the party and seeks to strengthen relations with China.

It is interesting to note that, in the past, the AfD criticised China, opposing the use of Huawei communications technology and the introduction of 5G across Germany. Michael Kaufmann, AfD spokesperson on research policy, also spoke out against espionage by the Chinese at German universities.

Unsafe for teachers

Teachers across the east of Germany are facing threats from the far right. They have been confronted by students giving the Hitler salute, and targeted with graffiti and discriminatory comments. This has been enough for some teachers to quit and find work elsewhere, reports dw.com. The increase in this far-right activity has occurred in Burg, where the AfD’s popularity is growing.

The rise in AfD popularity appears to have given the German far right carte blanche to target people with hostile and violent actions. This is a concerning time for German society.

This article was first published in the Autumn 2023 issue of Searchlight magazine

Lawbreaker A billboard in Times Square, New York, scrolling through the list of Trump’s felony charges. It was displayed in September as part of the Republican Accountability Project campaign to highlight Trump’s contempt for the law Pic credit Elvert Barnes Photography

Former President Donald Trump has been indicted for crimes in four different courts, and future trial dates are sure to come during his campaign to be re-elected in 2024. While his core base of supporters holds steady for the time being, it may break away and become the dominant force on the anti‑democratic far right.

At the same time, some Republicans are trying to subvert the impact of Trump’s legal battles, while others are mounting a legal campaign against his presidential re-run.

In New York State, Trump has been indicted on business fraud, for illegally portraying his reimbursement to Michael Cohen, his lawyer, for $130,000 in ‘hush money’ to Stephanie Clifford, known as Stormy Daniels. The cash was supposedly paid to keep quiet the affair she had with Trump. The trial is currently scheduled for 25 March 2024.

In Florida, there is a federal indictment for keeping classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club home. The trial will be held at US district court Fort Pierce, and the trial is currently scheduled for May 2024.

In Georgia, there is a state indictment for election interference in Fulton County. Prosecutors are using the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) conspiracy laws. Eighteen others have been indicted alongside Trump, with two requesting a speedy trail. That may begin this October.

In Washington DC, there is a federal indictment for a scheme to interfere with peaceful transfer of power. There are four counts:

1) Conspiracy to defraud the US

2) Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding

3) Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and

4) Conspiracy against rights.

This trial, the most important case against Trump, is currently scheduled for 4 March 2024.

The election season officially begins in January 2024 with primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire – and it will conclude with the presidential election in November. Republicans in the House of Representatives have opened an ‘investigation’ of President Biden, hoping to impeach him and quieten the noise about Trump’s trial. Similarly, Georgia’s Attorney General has used the RICO laws to indict more than 60 leftists who protested a planned Atlanta police and fire training complex known by its critics as Cop City.

At the same time, Republicans in Colorado have filed a suit arguing that Trump cannot run for office at all because of a section of the 14th Amendment originally written to prevent Civil War Confederated officers from running for election after that war. And the list of Republican Party officials opposed to Trump begins with former President George W Bush and is growing every day.

Nevertheless, an August 2023 opinion poll showed that Trump and Biden are essentially neck and neck in the presidential election. The many other Republican Party candidates are all polling at least 40 points below Trump. We are still a long way off from the 2024 election, and the polls are more a reflection of Biden’s current weakness.

Nationalist core

The core of Trump’s strength is in the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. The slogan was made widely popular by Trump during the 2016 campaign. The movement is often described as ‘populist’, perhaps because of its anti-establishment bearings. In reality, it is nationalist: America first nationalist. It is anti‑immigrant, racist, misogynist, homophobic and sometimes anti‑Semitic. Its origins lie in the Tea Party movement of the Obama Administration years, not in the Republican Party.

The MAGA participants regard themselves as opposed to those they view as ‘elites’ in American society, as well as those they view as beneath them on the social scale: black people and other people of colour. They think that the elites bow to the demands of poor black people and make them pay the price. They feel they are squeezed in the middle.

Unlike conservatives of the Reagan era, they are not afraid of a strong state – if it works for them. Unlike in years past, they now are a self-contained phenomenon, with their own news sources, websites and think-tanks. With control of the Republican Party now in its hands, MAGA adherents have institutional power. While Reagan-era conservatives still have the ability to limit their growth, there is no readily available social bloc to break MAGA up.

The looming trials may wash Trump out of American life, but the MAGA movement is likely to remain in place. In the end, it is more likely than Trump himself to damage and deter motion towards democracy and equality.

Leonard Zeskind is the founder of the Institute for Research and Education of Human Rights, www.IREHR.org

This article first appeared in the Autumn 2023 issue of Searchlight magazine

Costello – jailed for inciting racial hatred

Mark Collett and Patriotic Alternative are running scared following the jailing last week of James Costello for multiple offences of inciting racial hatred. Costello, whom they are describing merely as “a member of our community” despite being a leading member of the organisation, was sentenced to five years for 18 race hate charges and one of perverting the course of justice. But evidence was produced by the prosecution showing his links with a jailed nazi terrorist.

Costello was arrested after members of the public in Liverpool reported to the police stickers bearing the name ‘Creativity.com’ and saying, “Proud to be white?” which appeared on lamp posts in 2021. When police investigated the website it led them to Costello, and when they raided his home, they discovered large quantities of race hate material.

Costello professes to be a “reverend” in the so-called Creativity Movement, originally named the Church of the Creator, a notorious US-based white nationalist, antisemitic group established in 1973 by white supremacist Ben Klassen, who originated the idea of “racial holy war”. Its current leader Matt Hale is serving 40 years for attempting to incite the murder of a US federal judge.

Trying to distance themselves from Costello, PA are now whining that his offending predated him joining the organisation and had nothing to do with them. Though strictly speaking true, this skates over the fact that when he joined PA last year, he was already charged with eighteen race hate charges; they knew full well what he had been up to but were nevertheless quite happy to welcome him on board – and straight into the group’s leadership.

Costello (r) with PA leader Mark Collett at PA annual conference, October 2023

In fact, so highly regarded was he by PA’s leaders that he was allowed to address numerous public activities and in October was made chair (or ‘master of ceremonies’ as they put it) at their annual conference.

What is making them nervous now is evidence produced at his trial showing recent connections with National Action terrorist Jack Renshaw, currently serving life for plotting to murder Labour MP Rosie Cooper and threatening to kill a police officer.  Costello is known to have been involved with NA before it was banned, and to have trained with former members of the group at a “survival camp” in 2017, after the ban, but when he was raided by police they found more recent letters and postcards exchanged between him and Renshaw. This has upset PA leaders like Collett as it brings with it the prospect of further attention from the police and security services.

Mark Collett and other leading PA members were linked to NA before it was banned in 2016 under the Terrorism Act 2000. These former links have been a source of ongoing difficulty for PA, and anything which causes them to resurface makes the group very twitchy.

Only last June, Kris Kearns, also from Merseyside, a prominent PA and former National Action activist, was jailed for almost five years for terrorism offences. Kearns organised PA fitness clubs and online forums and contributed to Mark Collett’s many video streams and broadcasts.

Kris Kearns – five years for terrorism offences

In March, he admitted posting terrorist documents on his social media account, including the manifestos of mass murderers Anders Breivik and Brenton Tarrant.

When James Allchurch, another PA activist, was jailed earlier this year for inciting race hatred on his Radio Aryan podcast station, the prosecution pointed to the fact that one of the people he had interviewed was Mark Davies, a co-founder of National Action who got eight years in 2022 for secretly belonging to the group after it had been banned.

James Allchurch – hosted National Action terrorist.

Cases like these continue to underscore just what kind of organisation PA is: a natural home for violent white supremacists.

UKIP leader Neil ‘Liar and Cheat’ Hamilton, with anti-migrant campaigners at Stradey Park Hotel in Llanelli

Having stirred up the racist pot in Llanelli, which they claim now hosts their largest branch in the country, UKIP is trying to capitalise by holding a ‘general election hustings’ in the town at the end of the month and has issued a challenge to other parties to attend.

Well, firstly, it’s fair to say that even given their recent growth in the town – centred on a  campaign against asylum seekers being housed in the Stradey Park Hotel –  they really don’t have the weight locally to insist that other parties trot along at their beck and call – and so far, it looks like none will.

They have been put off, amongst many other things, by UKIP’s choice of venue: they are back at Stamps, a city centre bar for which, as we wrote a few weeks ago, they seem to have a fondness. It hosted their “Unite the far right” meeting last August, when Ann Marie Waters spoke along with party leader Neil ‘Liar and Cheat’ Hamilton.

But it’s a place with a bit of a reputation as well: Ethan Smith, its Director, had difficulty re-opening the place after the Covid lockdowns. He tried to bring in his chum Jordan Parry as bar manager. That fell apart when it was discovered that Parry’s probation conditions wouldn’t allow it: he was fresh out of jail for his part in a major cocaine importation conspiracy.

Then Smith tried to transfer the license to another friend, Aaron Coelho, but police objected on the basis that Coelho’s sister had also been involved in the cocaine importation and was, in fact, the girlfriend of the principal villain in the case.

Ethan Smith himself has 12 convictions for various offences, though he was not involved in the drugs case and claims to be “a reformed character”.

All the same, UKIP clearly feel at home there.

An additional embarrassment, arising since UKIP’s success in milking anti-migrant fears in the town, is the court appearance of Voice of Wales (VoW) founder Dan Morgan. VoW is little more than a UKIP surrogate, and Morgan was being touted as the party’s Llanelli candidate in the next general election. Until, that is, his recent conviction as one of the main culprits in a massive PPI-refund call centre scam which robbed hundreds of victims of many hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The trail judge described the call centre operation as a “deliberate, planned fraud carefully structured and fraudulent from its inception”.

Voice of Wales website, unashamed, still features Dan Morgan (left)

Morgan, to widespread surprise, was sentenced only to 6 months in prison suspended for 12 months. UKIP have, so far, remained silent on the matter.

And no survey of UKIP in south Wales would be complete without an update on activist and former councillor Paul Dowson, from Pembroke. Dowson, a regular feature in the party’s racist campaign just up the road in Llanelli, was recently convicted for working as a security guard at a pub in Tenby without a license.

Not the most serious offence in the world, you might think, but in sentencing him to over £3000 in costs and fines, the magistrates may have had an eye to his previous convictions, which include assault causing actual bodily harm, possessing a controlled drug (twice), driving whilst disqualified, obtaining property by deception and possessing a class B drug.

His career as a UKIP councillor came to a sorry halt in August 2022, when he was disbarred from holding public office for three years for spreading false and scurrilous allegations against his opponents.

All par for the course in the increasingly sordid world that is UKIP…

Further afield, preparations are in hand for UKIP’s upcoming Patrons’ Dinner in London on 9 December, where the guest speaker is none other than Talk TV right wing gobshite Andre Walker.

Walker is best known for his role in the investigation into the suicide of Tory activist Elliott Johnson in September 2015. Johnson, who was in a relationship with Walker at the time, took his own life after being bullied by another Tory activist, Mark Clarke, a former Parliamentary candidate.

In a suicide note he accused Clarke of bullying him and Andre Walker of “betraying” him. Walker was secretly recorded telling Johnson that he was a ‘fucking dickhead’ for making a complaint about Clarke’s behaviour to the party.

A few years earlier Walker had been forced to resign as a political adviser to the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead after a fellow train passenger recorded him having a phone conversation where he talked of organising a smear campaign to get rid of the deputy leader of the council.

All round nice chap, then…

So, after the hysteria whipped up by (now former) Home Secretary Suella Braverman and others that the pro-Palestine march on Saturday would disrespect the nation’s annual commemoration of its war dead, it was those mobilised by her inflammatory rhetoric that defiled the occasion – and how!

Braverman deliberately provoked a far-right mobilisation on Saturday by firstly accusing the organisers of the pro-Palestine march of disrespecting remembrance weekend, and then accusing the police of handling such marches with kid gloves while taking the gloves off in dealing with right wing demonstrations and football gangs. That was the cue for Tommy Robinson to send out a call to his thuggish, ex-EDL, Football Lads Alliance mates to turn out and “protect our monuments”, in this case the Cenotaph, from those threatening it. After all, they were only echoing the sentiments of the Home Secretary. If the police were not going to do the job, someone else had to.

Robinson knew it would kick off and went to great lengths to get his excuses in early by broadcasting appeals on social media for his followers to behave properly and with dignity.

Fat chance. He knew full well the sort of people he was calling out: violent, coked-up racists who would be spoiling for a fight. And that’s exactly what happened: first with the police when the mob stormed police lines in Whitehall to get to the Cenotaph and then, later in the afternoon, when many of them went looking for confrontation with pro-Palestine marchers.

Having charged their way to the Cenotaph they made their shameful presence known during the ceremony of remembrance being conducted there by the Western Front Association, chanting ‘Ingerland, Ingerland…’ as soon as the two minutes silence ended, then singing Robinson’s name during the prayers.

There were some 150 arrests during the day, the vast majority being from Robinson’s mob, some of whom were found carrying weapons and class A drugs. A large contingent was kettled and detained in Tachbrook St, in Victoria, for trying to ambush the Palestine march. At least 90 of those arrested across the day were from the far right contingent.  Met Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said that many were “already intoxicated, aggressive and clearly looking for confrontation”.

Robinson, of course, was nowhere to be seen when it kicked off: the Grand Old Duke of Talk had marched his men up to the top of the hill, then scarpered in a taxi at the first sign of trouble.

Political responsibility for the shameful events at the ceremony on Saturday, however, lies entirely with Suella Braverman who, in the aftermath, displayed not an ounce of regret or remorse for what she had unleashed, and tweeted that she deplored the violence “on both sides”.

This was dishonest, disingenuous garbage. Braverman is shamelessly positioning herself as the leading spokesperson of the Tory party’s extreme right wing in preparation for a leadership bid when, as is expected, Sunak has to stand down after the next election. She calculates that as long as she can get onto the final two shortlist in any leadership election, the grass roots will rally behind the most right-wing, reactionary candidate, and that is going to be her. Unless, of course, the plan being hatched by some on the party’s right wing to get Nigel Farage back into the fold comes to fruition.

Sunak himself took far too long to dump her, and by the time he did much damage was done. If he had any spine, he would remove the Tory whip from her and spike her chances of even being re-elected at the next election. Many liberal Tory MPs suffered exactly that fate under Boris Johnson for simply going up against him on EU membership.

She deserves no less.