Author Archives: Searchlight Team

Behind the new iteration of an age-old plot – Martyn Lester examines GB news presenter, Neil Oliver

Following an on-air diatribe delivered by GB News host Neil Oliver, Martyn Lester mulls over the possible source for the latest variant of the conspiracy theory that there is a sinister group bent on imposing a ‘one-world government’

First published in the Spring 2023 issue of Searchlight magazine

Back in February, in what have been described as ‘highly unusual statements’, both the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the All Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism (APPG) issued warnings to the television channel GB News that areas of its output seemed to be flirting, at least, with the kind of conspiracy hunts that have, over decades or even centuries, run closely in parallel with the idea that the planet is secretly controlled by a Jewish cabal.

Although the right-wing news-and-opinion broadcaster is no stranger to airing views that some might consider conspiracist rather than controversial, the broadcast that particularly rang alarm bells among the Deputies and MPs was a monologue in which presenter Neil Oliver railed against ‘those in pursuit of centralised power – of a one-world government’. Oliver asserted that these mostly unnamed people ‘hate, with every fibre of their being, sovereign nation states’. Their aim is ‘total control of the people’.

Insofar as there was a singled out target for his ire, it was billionaire Bill Gates and, what Oliver repeatedly refers to, as his ‘so-called vaccines’. Otherwise, these supposed wannabe global overlords were identified in broad terms such as ‘parliament’ and ‘governments elsewhere in the West’.

Much of what Oliver had to say was alarming – or perhaps we should say ‘alarmist’ – but not exclusively far right or even novel. Concern that national interests are often overridden by powers outside democratic control is arguably the main theme of the anti-globalist movement, which few would describe as being, on balance, right wing. And vaccine scaremongers are, although rife in ‘libertarian’ circles in the USA in particular, not confined to the right wing of politics. One of Britain’s best known anti-vaxxers is Piers Corbyn, who was once an International Marxist Group and then a Labour Party activist.

‘Neo-liberal elite’

What undoubtedly raised red flags for the Jewish Deputies and MPs of various parties will have been Oliver’s use of the phrase ‘one-world government’ to describe the objective of the grand plot that he perceives as pervading politics. In parallel with (though not precisely the same as) the concept of a New World Order, variants on this conspiracy theory have been in play in one form or another for well over a century, with the cast list of conspirators shuffling according to the latest political fashions.

Sometimes particular rich and/or powerful families are cited. At other times the Freemasons will be on the list – or the more secretive and insidious (though likely mostly fictional, in modern times) Illuminati. In the 21st century, the finger tends to be pointed more often at a vaguer ‘neo-liberal elite’. Or, at the wildest fringes, it is pointed to the Priory of Sion (yes – the one from The Da Vinci Code!) or to shapeshifting transdimensional aliens who ‘walk among us’. But, although the composition of the supposed cabal is reasonably fluid, the list of conspiracists often terminates with ‘and the Jews’ (sometimes dressed up as ‘the Zionists’).

The theory arguably reached its zenith (or do we mean ‘nadir’?) with the ‘discovery’ in 1903 of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – supposedly the minutes or summary of a secret international conference of Jewish leaders intent on taking over the planet, while destroying European culture/ civilization en route. The Protocols were, in fact, an elaborate forgery. But, despite being comprehensively shown to be a hoax during the early 1920s, they were deployed by the Nazis as ‘evidence’ to help indoctrinate German schoolchildren and the military against Jews – Hitler having argued in Mein Kampf that the debunking of The Protocols was in itself ‘the best proof that they are authentic’.

Murky document

We need to be clear here that Oliver’s GB News monologue had nothing to say specifically about Jews, either collectively or individually, and was certainly not a précis of The Protocols. In reporting on what Oliver had to say for himself both The Guardian and The Jewish Chronicle pointed instead to what they perceived as references or similarities to another murky document: Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars. (Oliver/GB News even flagged the opinion segment with the echoic title ‘A Silent War’.)

Like The Protocols, Silent Weapons purports to be a manifesto or manual (for total economic and social control) which somehow escaped its ‘top secret’ classification and slipped out into the wild.

Some versions in circulation say that it was found, intact, inside a second-hand photocopier in the mid-1980s (a sloppy error by the supervillains that might seem comical even in a James Bond movie). Others assert that it had at least passed through the hands of the CIA, and yet others that, like The Protocols, it was in part a summary of an international symposium of moneyed world domination conspirators – in this case the first meeting of the Bilderberg Group, back in 1954.

It is a very odd document, intent on seeing economic and social controls as analogous to electronic systems (complete with circuit diagrams). As such, it is something of a thicket to comprehension, but it appears to propose that large volumes of more or less worthless promissory notes can be issued as though they were actual currency, provided the banks/reserves ensure that populations are periodically devastated through war or genocide. To which you can add – as do some ‘Covid sceptics’, who are the latest avid readers of Silent Weapons – pandemics that kill millions.

While there’s no overt ‘we are a Jewish cabal’ specification to the conspiracy outlined in Silent Weapons, the document does explicitly (and at fair length) attribute the origins of its core theory to Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), founding patriarch of the still very much extant Jewish banking dynasty.

The Rothschilds feature as villains in countless right-wing conspiracy theories, even if a more unpopular figure in recent times, especially among conservative US conspiracists, has been Hungarian-born – and, of course, Jewish – billionaire George Soros.

Dangerous

‘GB News abhors racism and hate in all its forms and would never allow it on the channel,’ the broadcaster told The Guardian when the paper followed up on the complaints.

But the Deputies’ and the APPG statements did not allege any incidences of bare-faced racism. As Conservative MP Nicola Richards phrased it: ‘These developments should be of concern to GB News editors, owners, and producers and I hope they will be carefully reviewing them … there is a responsibility not to open the door to conspiratorial anti-Semitism or other misinformation.’

In other words, with this talk of a plot to impose a one-world government, there is a danger that the channel is at minimum nudging that door ajar. The complaints are not so much a shot across the bows of GB News as a warning along the lines of ‘Hey! Are you aware that your ship may be drifting towards a dangerous reef?’ And with an explicit call on Ofcom to keep an eye on the situation.

Frene Ginwala, 1932–2023 Activist who helped expose genesis of plot to kidnap ANC leaders

Obituary by Andy Bell – originally published in Spring 2023 Issue of Searchlight magazine

Searchlight was saddened to hear, just as our last issue went to press, of the death of Frene Ginwala, the veteran ANC activist and first Speaker in the post-apartheid South African parliament [National Assembly] who has died aged 90 years. Searchlight had worked closely with her in the late 1980s, when she was based in London.

Frene was of Indian South African descent and became involved with the ANC as a young woman organising underground escape routes for activists on the run. She had to leave South Africa in the late 1960s and, with Oliver Tambo and Yusuf Dadoo, set up ANC offices in exile in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). Later she moved to London, where she was head of research in Tambo’s office and lived openly, and bravely, in Dulwich.

In 1987, three men, formerly connected with the South African or Rhodesian military, were arrested in London and charged with conspiring to kidnap leading members of the ANC based in the capital and transporting them to South Africa by boat.

The arrests were fortuitous: one of the men was seen by police acting suspiciously in a men’s toilet in central London. He produced ID claiming to be a chief constable in the Ministry of Defence police, but officers realised it was a fake and raided his home. There, according to a Foreign Office report, they found ‘an explosive device, a number of passports, invoices for arms purchases/uniforms including British police uniforms and military uniforms with UN badges’.

It was, according to prosecution lawyers, ‘a well thought-out plot’ to kidnap leading ANC members; police had recovered a hit list reported to include the names of Oliver Tambo, Solly Smith, PalIo Jordan, Brian Bunting, Ronnie Kasrils and future South African president Thabo Mbeki. Also on the list was Ginwala, who contacted Searchlight for help in obtaining information on the men arrested. Over the next few weeks, we worked with her investigating the individuals concerned and those behind the plot.

Then, out of the blue and without proper explanation, the prosecution dropped the charges. Attorney General Patrick Mayhew told the House of Commons that there was insufficient evidence to proceed. This, however, came after the men’s defence lawyers had threatened to identify a government minister and senior intelligence figures whom they alleged were also involved in the plot. The suspicion was that rogue members of MI6 were implicated.

A senior South African intelligence officer, Johan Niemoller, operating in London, left the country hurriedly. Many years later he was revealed to be the European Head of Operations for South Africa’s Civil Cooperation Bureau, which organised assassinations of anti-apartheid activists in the 1980s.

Frene returned to South Africa in 1991 and in 1994 was elected to the first post-apartheid South African Parliament and became its first Speaker, a position she held until 2004. She also played a leading role in writing the South African constitution.

Soon after her appointment as Speaker she was again in contact with Searchlight, for help investigating mercenary companies active in southern Africa. We are proud to have worked with her.

Nazi split update – The blame game begins

During the first ten days following a disastrous drubbing for the entire far right at England’s local elections, each of the fractious PA factions has interpreted these results as a vindication.

Alek Yerbury’s barmy army took the results as confirmation that traditional politics offer no hope for fascist politics. All the usual reasons apply. The system is rigged, sinister forces are in control behind the scenes. Anyone reading Searchlight at any point during the past fifty years would be able to predict the street gang leader’s analysis, almost word for word.

Kenny Smith’s Homeland Party and Mark Collett’s remaining PA podcasters argue that low turnout in these elections proves public disillusionment with the system. Homeland add the extra twist that PA let their fellow racists down by failing to register as a political party.

In a late boost for Homeland, one of Collett’s online stars – Barkley Walsh from Norwich – has quit PA to join Kenny Smith’s rebels.

Since the age of 13, Walsh has been one of Collett’s acolytes, and was promoted as a rising ‘talent’, speaking at PA conferences and regularly appearing as a guest in online streams as part of the group’s leadership cadre.

But during the past year Walsh became disillusioned with the man he once hero-worshipped, and he has now publicly denounced Collett.

He told followers of his online stream Renew Britannia that “I no longer have faith that PA is the vehicle to drive the serious change we need in this country to save our people. Frankly I am disgusted by the behaviour of the PA leadership over the past week. Specifically, but not limited to, in regard to the unrelenting untruths propagated by them to save the face of their now doomed organisation. The smearing of decent and hardworking people who I have known for years is unforgivable.”

Walsh concluded: “The damage which has happened within the organisation and the direction the leadership will take it, means it simply cannot return to a healthy state with longevity; it is unsalvageable. …The PA leadership damage control and spin can only cover up the gaping holes for so long.”

Walsh’s attack is especially pertinent when readers bear in mind that his regional organiser is Steve Blake, one of Collett’s main allies in the “smearing” of his old ally Kenny Smith and Co.

Conspiracy theorists on the British fascist scene are already speculating that Blake might be playing a double game, and that Walsh will act as a bridge for Blake’s own eventual public defection to PA.

Collett’s deputy Laura Towler has joined in the “smears” by implying that people close to the top of Homeland have been leaking information to Searchlight. In an online stream last week she wondered why we had such detailed advance knowledge of the developing split.

Naturally, we can’t confirm or deny the sources of our information. But if Laura wishes to keep informed about the next defections from her own party, she should keep reading Searchlight.

Britain’s biggest Nazi group fractures – The Patriotic Alternative split and where it leaves Britain’s far right

By Gerry Gable

As Searchlight has already reported, the UK’s largest nazi organisation has split down the middle. Of the 54 organisers in Patriotic Alternative (PA), 32 deserted its founder and leader Mark Collett in late April 2023 and defected to a new breakaway movement, the Homeland Party, led by PA’s national admin officer Kenny Smith.

A few weeks earlier, a smaller breakaway was led by Alek Yerbury, a former PA activist in Yorkshire to create the National Support Detachment (NSD). So the already fragmented PA has split three ways within a month.

Searchlight’s sources inside PA have been expecting this split for months, after hearing persistent complaints about Collett’s notorious arrogance and disregard for basic leadership responsibilities.

Much of the trouble stems from bitter hatreds within the British National Party (BNP) more than 15 years ago, when Collett was the main target of a dissident faction whose leaders included Smith and his then partner Nicholla Ritchie.

At a 2006 BNP organisers conference in Blackpool, Smith was one of the main critics of Collett, and his then ally Dave Hannam, for inappropriate behaviour with 14- and 15-year-old girls. It was Smith who obtained video footage from one of the girls. While persuading them not to go to the press, he used the footage to urge disciplinary action against Collett.

When BNP leader Nick Griffin eventually sided with Collett over a series of scandals, Smith was co leader of an attempted coup that split the party in December 2007. Many observers inside and outside PA were surprised when Collett and Smith buried the hatchet, and Smith accepted the same job title in PA (national admin officer) he had held in Griffin’s BNP.

What this actually shows is not Collett’s magnanimity, but a continuing lack of talent and experience within the British far right. In fact, the real surprise of the latest PA split is not that Smith has proven disloyal, but that (so far) his old ally from BNP days, PA’s Eastern region organiser Steve Blake, has remained loyal to Collett.

Also backing Collett are his deputy Laura Tyrie (alias Laura Towler) and her husband, Yorkshire regional organiser Sam Melia, as well as another PA power couples, Newcastle auctioneer Phoebe Hoare and fellow North East England regional organiser Steven Wilson.

The Collett team also has support from some of London PA’s officials, although the region has been divided, heavily infiltrated and sometimes shambolic ever since PA’s creation. The North West England region is similarly split and badly organised.

Homeland breakaway

Elsewhere most PA organisers have gone over to the new Homeland Party. The split has been characterised as ‘content creators’ (podcasters, streamers and social media stars) on the Collett side, versus ‘serious’ political activists on the Smith/Homeland side.

Regional organisers defecting to Homeland include Smith’s right-hand man Simon Crane in Scotland; Connor Marlow, regional organiser for West Midlands; Anthony Burrows, regional organiser for East Midlands regarded as a cybersecurity expert; and Jerome O’Reilly, a Cardiff-based graduate and regional organiser for Wales; Fraser Patterson, regional organiser for South East England; and Laurence Parsons, regional organiser for South West England.

For some reason his fellow nazis are keen to disguise Parsons’ identity by calling him ‘Laurence Somerset’.

Another Homeland supporter using various names is the independent candidate for Cannock South in the 4 May local council elections, David Hyden, also known as David Hyden Milakovic. His regional organiser, Connor Marlow, is an important backer of Kenny Smith’s argument that PA’s leadership has failed to put enough effort into election campaigning and building a serious party organisation.

Collett has claimed for years that he is being obstructed in efforts to register PA with the Electoral Commission as a political party. Without such registration, PA/Homeland supporters such as Hyden cannot have a party name on the ballot paper. But his many critics have often argued that he has other reasons for failing to register: either because he has been more interested in subcultural activities such as fitness clubs, video gaming and online streaming, or has a reason for preferring to avoid the financial transparency and constitutional accountability to PA members as required by the Electoral Commission.

Smith and his Homeland allies have also criticised Collett for not giving enough support to Smith’s reforms of PA security. In its first year or two, PA was notorious for leaks to anti-fascists and the press. Collett’s enemies accuse him of caring more about self-publicity and fundraising than the security of his members or making political progress.

Criminal trials

Both sides in the split are likely to contain violent street activists. After losing middle class graduate Jerome O’Reilly, Collett’s Welsh operation relies heavily on the notorious Cardiff City football hooligan Joe Marsh alias Joe Butler, who has several convictions for violent offences. Marsh was co-founder of two political alliances of football thugs, Casuals United (closely linked to the English Defence League and the Pie and Mash Squad). Within days of the latest split, he publicly aligned himself with PA.

It might be no coincidence that this split took place during serious criminal trials involving leading allies of Collett. After several years in the political wilderness, PA grew out of efforts by former BNP organiser Larry Nunn to pursue alternatives to electoral politics. Nunn argued election campaigns were a waste of time, money and effort. He tried to persuade a diverse collection of far-right activists to invest in plans to buy properties and set up businesses to create self-sufficient white communities.

Partly inspired by US extremists, he also backed survivalist training schemes, including several camps in the Welsh countryside. Early organisers of these included former Young BNP official Matt Tait and the Russian operative Denis Nikitin, whose true loyalties are doubted by fascists and anti-fascists alike.

These camps influenced Collett, who recruited several activists from the banned terrorist organisation National Action. Collett led some of their fitness training programmes. Photographs and video show Collett with prominent PA members at the camps, such as Michael Woodbridge, a retired schoolteacher who has been active in British nazi groups for more than 50 years, and ‘James Mac’ from Merseyside, leading British member of the Creativity Movement. This is a pseudo-religious racist sect whose leader Matt Hale is serving 40 years for attempting to incite the murder of a US federal judge.

Like another of PA’s ideological mentors Kai Murros, a former Maoist from Finland, Nunn has made several speeches at gatherings such as the London Forum, which call for violent revolution. But in recent years his public activism has receded. One of his few regular outings is as a contributor to Radio Albion, an internet station formerly known as Radio Aryan, with PA activist James Allchurch, alias Sven Longshanks. Allchurch was convicted in April of multiple offences of inciting racial hatred. He will be sentenced on 15 May and can expect several years in prison.

In May 2023, an even more prominent PA and former National Action activist will be sentenced at the Old Bailey for Terrorism Act offences. Kristofer Kearney (alias Kris Kearns) organised PA fitness clubs and online forums, and contributed to Collett’s many video streams and broadcasts where he was sometimes known as Charlie Big Potatoes. One of his online channels was known as ‘Fascist Fitness’. Kearney was extradited from Spain last year to face terrorism charges. In March, he admitted posting terrorist documents on his social media account, including the manifestos of mass murderers Anders Breivik and Brenton Tarrant. An Old Bailey judge will assess Kearney’s motives for committing these offences before passing sentence.

It is likely Collett’s rivals will exploit his links to members of a banned nazi terror group. But there is a lot of hypocrisy. During his BNP days Smith had extensive ties to the most violent nazis in Griffin’s party, and has promoted one of the UK’s most hardline national socialist publications, Heritage and Destiny.

The second breakaway from PA, the NSD, that criticises both the Collett and Smith factions, presents itself in quasi-military style and is led by ex-soldier Alek Yerbury, who until this year was a PA activist in Yorkshire. He now calls himself ‘Commanding Officer’ of the NSD.

All three factions seek to stir up racism in British towns and cities by protesting outside venues used to house asylum-seekers. PA is also obsessed by homophobic and transphobic campaigns, which might be a case of Collett being oversensitive to questions about the exact nature of his relationship in his early twenties with Nick Griffin.

As with so many splits within the National Front, BNP etc down the decades, these three fragments of the old PA will fish for recruits in the same foetid waters of racism, nazism, misogyny and homophobia.

The state of the far right

To the extent that there are perceptible differences between the various active factions and parties, Searchlight would expect the following slight differences of emphasis and character.

Patriotic Alternative

Heavy focus on online activity, as well as demonstrations. Will struggle to register as a political party if Mark Collett insists on avoiding a transparent and accountable constitution, and running PA via a limited company run by himself, Laura Towler and Steve Blake.

Homeland Party

Might try to avoid some of PA’s more obviously wild rhetoric, although in reality has a similar hardline nazi ideology. Will make serious efforts to register as a political party and will probably collapse if this fails. Has potential to become the main electoral force on Britain’s far right.

National Support Detachment

Blatantly rejects electoral politics in favour of demonstrations, unexplained ‘practical’ actions and military-style training. Criticises both PA and Homeland for being dominated by middle-class cliques, but this reflects the chip on founder Alek Yerbury’s shoulder, not any serious analysis.

Britain First

Led by Collett’s old rival in the Young BNP of the early 2000s, Paul Golding. Succeeded in registering as a political party and achieved one credible local council vote last year in Salford, Lancashire. But it has mainly recruited low ability street activists who enjoy harassing Muslims, and has more potential for violence and general trouble-making than for political growth.

British Democratic Party/British Democrats

Despite having superficially high-calibre founders/leaders including ex-MEP Andrew Brons, barrister Adrian Davies, and ex-councillor James Lewthwaite, its progress has been patchy. Likely to be involved in unification discussions with the remnants of Patriotic Alternative before long.

British Movement

A tiny nazi sect with strong connections to the semi-illegal international music empire of Blood & Honour, although BM-linked bands now use various other labels to avoid the growing legal troubles attached to B&H. Both PA and Homeland will compete for support from some BM activists, who unlike many others on the British far right are seen as trustworthy by their comrades.

British Freedom Party

Despite its name, the latest version of the BFP is not an active political party in any usual sense. It is an online fundraising operation supposedly led by Paul Golding’s former partner Jayda Fransen, but in reality run by Nick Griffin and his business partner Jim Dowson from a base in Northern Ireland, where they also operate pseudo-religious cash cows with names like Knights Templar International.

Election disaster may mean nazi groups unite

Andrew Brons, British Democrats Mark Collett, Patriotic Alternative

The 2023 local elections were a disaster for the entire spectrum of Britain’s far right. The last remaining openly fascist councillor, Julian Leppert lost his seat, and votes for other high-profile extremist candidates were down on last year. Even the populist right-wingers of Reform UK and other Brexit campaigners achieved little support at the ballot box.

From an anti-fascist perspective, the short-term danger is no longer that councillors from a modern equivalent of the BNP will be elected. Today’s realistic danger is one or more of the following:

1.Far right candidates will attempt to be elected by stealth, either by infiltrating a more mainstream party or by standing as independents. This approach was tried by several National Front activists after the NF fragmented at the end of the 1970s. Searchlight played a leading role in exposing far right infiltration of the Tory party, including the parliamentary candidature of ex-NF organiser Tom Finnegan in a winnable seat.

2.This year’s election disasters will shock Britain’s bitterly divided far right into reorganising itself under more credible and effective leadership. It took a decade after the 1979 general election for the BNP to rise from the wreck of the NF. Given modern social media, political transformations could happen much more rapidly in the 2020s. What once took ten years could now be achieved in less than two.

3. A generation of racists and fascists who lose faith in the ballot box might turn to violence, whether in confrontational street demos or terrorism. The UK has already experienced its first officially-banned nazi terrorist group with National Action and its many offshoots. Irresponsible behaviour by social media companies could facilitate more groups of this kind.

Before this year’s elections Searchlight identified two council wards as the main far right targets. In Epping Forest’s Waltham Abbey Paternoster, Julian Leppert was attempting to be re-elected, a year after jumping ship to the British Democrats.

Leppert was the BNP’s London mayoral candidate in 2004, and BNP councillor for Hainault, Redbridge, from 2006 to 2010. Nine years after losing Hainault, he won this Epping Forest seat with 321 votes (40.7%) in 2019 as part of the For Britain party. This was an alliance of an Islamophobic section of UKIP, led by former UKIP leadership candidate Anne Marie Waters, and a mainly Essex and Kent based faction of the BNP who split from Nick Griffin.

The latter group was led by Eddy Butler, whose fascist activism dates back to the early 1980s NF. Leppert’s ward was once safe Tory, but an active BNP branch run by Butler managed to take 33.5% in 2007, and UKIP gained the seat in 2014, but collapsed to 8% in 2018.

It wasn’t surprising that Butler identified Waltham Abbey Paternoster and some other Epping Forest wards as targets. Leppert’s failure this year, finishing in third place with 25%, is especially significant because he had no opposition from other right-wing parties. Turnout fell to 22%, and unlike some past years there was no great rallying of the right-wing vote behind the Tories, who only just defeated Labour in Leppert’s ward.

It would be tempting for anti-fascists to hope that this and other results on May 4th showed that most British voters reject the Tories’ divisive dog-whistle policies as well as Leppert’s overt racism. But far right analysts are already pinning their hopes on that very low turnout, believing they still have a chance to energise disillusioned voters.

The other main fascist target at this year’s election was Walkden North, Salford, where Ashlea Simon of Britain First was trying to build on her 508 votes (21.6%) last year in a traditionally safe Labour area. This year Simon’s vote fell to 405 (18.2%), and the decline could not entirely be blamed on the intervention of Reform UK, who took 3% after not standing here last year.

As with Leppert’s failed campaign in Epping Forest, Simon and her fellow Islamophobes in Britain First failed to turn out even those voters disillusioned with party politics. Turnout in Walkden North was 23.6%.

Simon’s partner Paul Golding, who was a paid BNP official during the Griffin years in the early 2000s, sees Britain First as a cash cow, but this year’s results will not convince his donors to continue subsidising his failing party. Britain First had only eight candidates across the whole of England. Apart from Simon’s vote in Salford, their votes ranged from 3.6% to 15%.

Leppert’s colleagues in the British Democrats suffered even heavier defeats. They had only five candidates in total, and aside from Leppert their highest vote was 5.1% for party leader James Lewthwaite in Bradford’s Wyke ward. Lewthwaite was a BNP councillor here in the 2000s, and as recently as 2019 he was runner-up with 24.5%.

The lowest British Democrat vote was 1.9% for David Haslett in Saffron, Leicester. Haslett’s campaign was backed by local members of the troubled neo-nazi group Patriotic Alternative. His ward had some right-wing potential, having given UKIP 16.1% in 2015, and this year Haslett had no competition from any other party to the right of the Tories, which underlines the scale of another fascist failure.

According to Searchlight’s sources, during the next few months there will be discussions over a possible merger of PA and the British Democrats, though several BDP leaders are suspicious of PA leader Mark Collett’s autocratic character. One of BDP leaders is veteran nazi Andrew Brons, whose pedigree goes back to Colin Jordan’s National Socialist Movement in the 1960s. There will inevitably be disputes over any merged party’s constitution and these could sink the project before it’s launched.

Several tiny parties have pursued their own versions of racism, Islamophobia and/or neo-nazism. These usually involve ex-members of the BNP, including Andrew Emerson’s one-man-band Patria party in Chichester, where he took 6.4%. Emerson might see this as progress, having taken only 3.6% four years ago in a different Chichester ward, but no-one is expecting other British fascists to flock to join Emerson’s party.

Three candidates stood this year from the National Housing Party. which is the latest attempt to turn the English Defence League street mob into a political force. Their activists include former Merseyside BNP activists Gary Bergin and Paul Rimmer, known for his conspiracist raving on social media.

Bergin moved to the NHP when Anne Marie Waters closed down the For Britain Movement, but he achieved only 4.1% in Wirral’s Claughton ward. Other NHP candidates were eccentric anti-Muslim ranters Callum Leat in Dodington, South Gloucestershire (10.3%), and John Lawrence in the old BNP stronghold of Hollinwood, Oldham (7.6%, down from 10.1% last year).

This year several far right candidates (including the NHP campaigns) hoped to benefit from multi-vacancy elections where councils were elected en bloc, but they totally failed to exploit these opportunities. In several council areas where the BNP or smaller fascist parties won council seats during the 2000s, such as Stoke, Burnley and Blackburn, there was no far right presence at all this year.

The National Front is barely alive, following the deaths of its last two credible veterans, Richard Edmonds in 2020 and Michael Easter in 2022. This year there was only one NF council candidate, Tim Knowles in Amber Valley, who took only 40 votes (1.8%).

As part of the split between Patriotic Alternative and the new Homeland Party, former PA activists in the East Midlands who are now with Homeland supported an independent candidate, David Hyden in Cannock, but his result was no better than more openly fascist candidates elsewhere. Hyden won just 81 votes (5.7%).

Among an older generation of former NF and BNP members, two perennial candidates again stood as independents: Graham Partner with 15.9% in Hermitage ward, NW Leicestershire, and Gary Butler with 7% in Shepway North, Maidstone.

On 25th May PA activists in Yorkshire who have stayed loyal to the Collett regime will be supporting Scarborough nazi Tim Thorne in a county council by-election for Eastfield, North Yorkshire.

As part of desperate propaganda responding to their former friends who have defected to Homeland, PA leaders posted on social media during the last week of this year’s election campaign, claiming to have backed friendly candidates from several different parties, including the nominally non-racist English Democrats. Just as he did when welcoming ex-BNP nazis such as Eddy Butler and Chris Beverley ten years ago, English Democrat leader Robin Tilbrook was happy to accept support from PA, but he took only 34 votes (10.3%) in Shelley ward, Epping Forest. His fellow EDs’ results were even worse, even though the party had only five candidates nationwide, ranging from 2.9% to 7%.

The biggest danger for anti-fascists right now is complacency. We must remember that there are active nazis such as Mark Collett, and even older allies such as Andrew Brons, whose commitment to the politics of hate dates back decades and includes both overt and covert national socialism.

Far right ex-Tories who had pinned their hopes on Brexit will not all give up on politics. Some are likely to be attracted to any fascist party that recovers the credibility that the BNP had in the 2000s. Several far-right strategists, even while they lick their own wounds, are already celebrating the imminent collapse of Reform UK, UKIP, and other pro-Brexit parties.

Aside from six Reform UK councillors re-elected in Derby, the entire UKIP wing of politics performed very badly in this year’s elections, in several cases even worse than outright fascists.

A handful of ex-BNP members are already active in some of these UKIP splinters, including 80-year-old Oldham businessman Colin Burrows, who stood in Royton as one of a slate of three Alliance for Democracy and Freedom candidates, obtaining 9.5%. Royton seems to be one of the ADF’s very few functioning branches. They had only 22 candidates nationwide.

Old BNP members like Burrows are worth monitoring during the next few months, as the many factions and fragments of the British far right attempt to reorganise themselves.

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Only nine far right candidates/slates polled over 10% in this year’s local elections:

Julian Leppert (British Democrats), Waltham Abbey Paternoster, Epping Forest, 25.2%

Ashlea Simon (Britain First), Walkden North, Salford, 18.2%

Graham Partner (Independent), Hermitage, NW Leicestershire, 15.9%

Philp Green & Anne Townsend (Britain First), Bideford South, Torridge, 15.0%

Paul Harding (Britain First), Hockley & Ashingdon, Rochford, 13.1%

Nick Lambert (Britain First), Ballard, New Forest, 12.6%

Callum Leat (National Housing Party), Dodington, South Gloucestershire, 10.3%

Robin Tilbrook (English Democrats), Shelley, Epping Forest, 10.3%

Nick Scanlon (Britain First), Darenth, Dartford, 10.2%