That extremists on the other side of the Atlantic have always had an eye on Ireland is nothing remotely new to those who have been paying attention. The anti-abortion lobby in Ireland has found great support from various groups in the US over the years for example. But with the proliferation of the Internet and […]
News
Britain First declares ‘massive victory’ after buying back their ‘battle bus’ at auction
Britain First have got their ‘battle bus’ back and are hailing it a “massive, massive victory” over Manchester police. It really isn’t: in fact, they had to fork out thousands at a police auction to retrieve it from the consequences of their own stupidity. Playground insults The saga began when party leader Paul Golding decided […]
Obituary: Sir Geoffrey Bindman (1933-2025), an extraordinary lawyer and a friend of Searchlight
Everyone at Searchlight was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Sir Geoffrey Bindman, who passed away on 4 November. Geoffrey was a towering figure in British legal and human rights circles. Over a career spanning more than six decades, he championed civil liberties, racial equality, and justice for the marginalised, leaving an indelible […]
Twice as many far-right referrals to Prevent as Islamist cases
Searchlight has argued before that the threat from far-right extremism in the UK now outstrips that coming from radical Islamists. Latest Home Office figures from the Prevent programme support that view. They reveal that the number of individuals referred to the programme for concerns over far-right extremism is more than double those flagged for Islamist […]
Artur Gold: the violinist of Treblinka
In the summer of 2013 I interviewed Samuel Willenberg, at the time the last surviving participant of the Jewish revolt at Treblinka, the Nazi death camp in Eastern Poland. During the interview, he reminisced about Artur Gold, the famous Jewish violinist, and leader of the Treblinka orchestra. He told me: “As we stood during evening […]
‘They’re eating the dogs!’ – Tenconi migrant rant sparks ridicule
UKIP leader Nick Tenconi has plumbed the depths of idiocy, even by his own cretinous standards, posting online a video filmed in Calais in which he speculates that razor wire surrounding a dog training park is intended to protect animals from being eaten by migrants. This time, not even his own supporters are coming out […]
Murderous arson attack on Irish refugee centre
A potentially deadly blaze at at an Irish refugee centre on Friday evening was deliberately started by masked men who broke into the building, set the fire and tried to prevent residents from escaping. The fire was started at an International Protection Accommodation Services (IPAS) centre in Drogheda, Co Louth, housing asylum seekers including families […]
College Vice-Chair who marched with fascists resigns
The Vice Chair of Exeter College of Further Education has resigned from its board after being seen marching with fascists in Exeter last weekend. Patrick Tigwell, who was appointed to the Exeter College Board as a governor in 2022 and became Vice Chair two years later, was pictured on Saturday draped in a union flag […]
Farage, Reform and the ‘Russia question’ that won’t go away
In the wake of Nathan Gill’s guilty verdict on multiple counts of bribery for taking payments in exchange for pro-Kremlin messaging, attention inevitably turns to Nigel Farage and Reform UK. For reasons both historic and structural, the case serves as a spotlight on the deeper question: how far have Russian influence operations penetrated British politics, […]
Mike Cohen: The anti-fascist whose camera was his gun
Mike Cohen was one of Britain’s great Jewish anti-fascists, whose significant contribution to the movement came through his camera lens. He passed away in October 2002 at the age of 67, and with the passage of time I often think of Mike, convinced that he deserves to be remembered. Mike came from a time when […]
Danny Tommo’s wet weekend in Southampton
It was a wet weekend for the Southport riot-inciter Danny Tommo, one of Tommy Robinson’s closest mates. After doing his level best to wind things up in Southampton he ended on Sunday distinctly the worse for wear – soaked in urine and pepper sprayed by the police. Riot inciter Tommo – a convicted kidnapper – […]
Unholy alliance as Reform UK in Exeter cosy up to Britain First
Reform UK’s Exeter branch is under growing pressure to explain itself as some its most prominent local figures are associating – both online and on the ground – with the openly fascist Britain First. Last Saturday Exeter witnessed the first far-right mobilisation in the city since the English Defence League’s appearance in 2013. Though the […]
The Russian spy network that targeted Brexit Party MEPs
When Anton Shekhovtsov, a Ukrainian researcher of Europe’s far right and a former Searchlight contributor, published his forensic 2021 study “The Niedźwiecki case: The Rise and Fall of a Polish Agent of the Kremlin Influence”, it appeared at first glance to be a niche story about a Polish activist accused of espionage. But also featuring […]
The ego and the echo chamber: ‘Taco’ Tenconi’s London flop
They came promising a show of strength. What unfolded instead was a pitiful spectacle. In Central London this afternoon, Nick ‘Taco’ Tenconi’s so-called “remigration” march proved not just a failure, but a farce – underwhelming even its own participants and costing the taxpayer dearly in policing. Having been banned by the Met Police from marching […]
The lies and lies of the ‘Pink Lady’ child abuser
Gemma Mattinson, the vile ‘save our kids’ Pink Lady with convictions for child cruelty, is a liar. She’s posted a sickening, exculpatory defence of the crimes that got her jailed, minimising the seriousness of the cruelty inflicted on the children she had in her care. This is what she says: So, just to be clear, […]
BNP rump faces allegations of corruption and fraud
The British National Party (BNP), for years the pre-eminent force in British far-right politics but now an irrelevant rump, is at the centre of an entertaining row as a group of former members and activists claim they are mounting a campaign to wrest control from current leader Adam Walker. The campaign, described by its organiser […]
Police authorise destruction of Britain First battle bus
As we predicted , Britain First leader Paul Golding has found it very difficult – in fact impossible – to get new insurance for his ‘laughably named ‘battle bus’ which languishes in a police pound in Manchester. As a result, we are moving close to the time when the police will simply crush or auction […]
Obituary: Antonio Tejero (1932-2025), Civil Guard officer who led failed fascist coup in Spain
European fascists are mourning the death of the last man to attempt an old-school fascist coup, Lt Col Antonio Tejero of the Spanish Civil Guard, who died this morning aged 93. Veteran Searchlight readers will remember him as, resembling Peter Sellers, he stormed into Madrid’s parliament on 23 February 1981 with heavily armed fellow Guard […]
Smirking Robinson wrecks chances of Israeli football fans watching Aston Villa game
When the Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv visit Villa Park on 6 November for a Europa League fixture, there will be no away fans in the stands – not because of football rivalry, but because of fears that extremists could hijack the event. And at the centre of the controversy sits Tommy Robinson, whose […]
Huge opposition leads to police ban on UKIP march
Try as he might to feign anger as he announces that his planned march in Whitechapel this coming weekend has been banned, you can almost sense the relief in Nick Tenconi’s voice that he doesn’t have to go through with it after all. And that in Sir Mark Rowley and “two-tier policing” he has someone […]