It was another day of futile effort by UKIP as Nick Tenconi’s party and its Yorkshire Patriot allies were outnumbered and outchanted in Leeds city centre by hundreds of anti-fascists and anti-racists. Britain’s fastest shrinking political party, marching alongside the British Democrat-supporting Yorkshire Patriots and calling for mass deportations, had called supporters to City Square […]
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No evidence, no shame – the far‑right lie machine that terrorised Epsom
For nearly two weeks, far-right agitators and local racists fomented hate in a Surrey commuter town, driven by lies and disinformation about an alleged rape. But the only actual crimes committed involved individuals who joined the fraudulent anti-immigrant protests. On Thursday, Surrey Police announced it was closing its investigation into reports of a rape outside […]
The 43 Group – when Jewish veterans took the fight to Britain’s fascists
In April, eighty years ago, a British anti-fascist organisation was founded by Jewish ex-servicemen in the aftermath of the Second World War. It was called the 43 Group. Its origins lay in the anger of men and women who had fought and defeated fascism in Europe returning home to find it resurrected on the streets […]
From Searchlight 20 years ago – putting a brake on Griffin and the BNP
This item from the Searchlight archive, an editorial published in April 2006, is self-explanatory. In the early 2000s the British National Party were doing increasingly well in local elections in certain parts of the country. The fear was that they would break through on a national scale. In 2004, Searchlight launched Hope Not Hate as […]
‘Her party is full of fascists’ – Meloni, Italy’s far right and the defeat they never accepted
Paolo Berizzi has spent 25 years tracking Italy’s neo-fascist underground. He tells Searchlight why the movement has never been more dangerous – and why Giorgia Meloni handed it the legitimacy it always craved. Berizzi is a special correspondent for la Repubblica, and is Italy’s most prominent investigative journalist covering the neo-fascist and neo-Nazi movements. Police […]
Fiore and Griffin head up fascist gathering at Mussolini’s shrine
On the 25 April, the quiet, picturesque town of Predappio in Emilia Romagna, the birthplace and burial place of Benito Mussolini, will become a gathering point for Europe’s radical far-right. Among the better-known attendees will be Nick Griffin, the former leader of Britain’s now-defunct British National Party (BNP). The meeting is rather optimistically titled ‘The […]