Ministers’ latest focus on extremism looks set to focus on Muslim groups and pro-Palestine organisations. But are the far-right being let off the hook? 

Last month, the Equality and Human Rights Commission threatened the neo-Nazi party Patriotic Alternative with legal action after their campaign ‘Operation White Christmas’ asked people to donate specifically to ‘white families in need’. 

Patriotic Alternative’s increase in support since their formation in 2019 has led The Times to dub the group "Britain’s largest far-right white supremacist movement”. 

The group defines itself as ‘a community-building and activism group.’ However, political commentators have at times described them as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and Islamophobic.

Their website states that they aim ‘to raise awareness of issues such as the demographic decline of native Britons in the United Kingdom, the environmental impact of mass immigration, and the indoctrination and political bias taking place in British schools.’ 

With a massive increase in votes expected for far-right political parties in June’s European Elections. Byline Times explored what influence the group’s emergence could have this crucial election year. 

The Rebirth of Britain’s Far Right 

Red Flare are a group of anti-fascist researchers, who use open source and investigative methods such as documenting activities and infiltrating events, to expose and oppose the far right in Britain. Byline Times spoke to Alan Jones from Red Flare about who Patriotic Alternative are and how significant their presence has become in British politics today.  

Jones told Byline Times how in recent years, Red Flare’s work has increased owing to the emergence of Patriotic Alternative. Before 2019, he said, “British Fascism was an extremely fringe movement that had been reduced to secret meetings in the backrooms of pubs”.

But since the Patriotic Alternative movement has gained traction, fascist activists have developed confidence to organise in communities and attend protests. Collett even described the 2021 Patriotic Alternative conference, held in the Lake District, as “the biggest nationalist conference of its kind this century”. 

The movement has also succeeded in bringing white supremacist conspiracy theories into mainstream political debate. This was most evident last year when a Patriotic Alternative activist managed to share her views on the British radio station LBC during an interview and phone-in with Keir Starmer. 

Phoning into the programme, the activist, referring to herself as "Gemma from Cambridge" (a false name), asked the Labour leader questions relating to the White Genocide myth. The conspiracy theory claims “elites” are using migration to make white people an ethnic minority in Europe.  Red Flare was later able to expose the caller’s true identity as Jody Swingler, a yoga teacher and Patriotic Alternative activist. Starmer was criticised in some quarters, for his perceived failure to challenge the caller. 

Mark Collett 

Mark Collett’s ascent to the top of far-right British politics has been an intrepid one. “He was previously the leader of the youth wing of the British National Party (BNP) and was sort of groomed by its then leader Nick Griffin”, Jones recalls. He first came into the public eye when he appeared on the 2002 Channel 4 Dispatches documentary Young, Nazi and Proud. During the documentary, he referred to Africans and homosexuals, as "aids monkeys".

In response to these comments, Collett was temporarily excluded from the party. 

But he was later invited back and aged just 25, stood in the 2005 general election for the constituency of Leeds Central. He came fourth with 4.1% of the vote. 

Jones is confident that Griffin saw him as a future leader of the party.

Yet in 2010, following reports of internal conflict in the BNP, involving a failed attempt at a leadership bid, and even questioning by Humberside police in relation to rumours of a threat to kill leader Nick Griffin, Collett was permanently expelled from the party. 

Jones explains how “Collett went quiet for a while”, but re-emerged as an online commentator and “a kind of Alt-right phenomenon.” 

Then, in 2019, Mark Collett used his newfound internet fame to start Patriotic Alternative and has served as the group's leader ever since. 

The Alt-right and Online Gaming

The Alt-right movement is an online, white nationalist movement primarily based in the United States, although Jones highlights that followers are now “global, or at least all over the Anglophone world.” 

He explains that the Alt-right “came to prominence alongside Donald Trump’s presidential nomination”, and  points out that one of the reasons the movement “has been allowed to flourish in the way it has, is the kind of anonymity afforded by the internet.”  

Patriotic Alternative has adopted this method and primarily communicates using the encrypted messaging platform Telegram. “Telegram is basically like WhatsApp,” he explains, “except you don't have your phone number visible.” 

Jones expresses concern about the lack of moderation of the platform, as very few channels get taken down or removed and highlights how the platform allows users to “hop from one chat to another” through hyperlinks that users send to one another, making it easy for potential extremists to find politically like-minded people. 

Another place where the far-right has been able to share their views relatively freely is in the online gaming world. Research conducted by the group Tech Against Terrorism reveals how right-wing extremists have started using online games to entice younger people to join their cause. Some games feature virtual worlds where players are able to share propaganda, recruit other players, and generate money online, which can be used for political campaigning. 

The virtual world creation-system Roblox has faced controversy after it was used by right-wing extremists to recreate playable versions of infamous terrorist atrocities such as Anders Breivik’s 2011 attack on a summer camp in Norway and the 2019 mosque shootings in New Zealand. 

This is another tactic which Patriotic Alternative seem keen to utilise. With the organisation hosting Call of Duty and Warcraft gaming tournaments for its supporters. On occasion, players have even been personally invited by Collett. 

Election Goals 

The rise of Patriotic Alternative is disturbing, not due to its uniqueness, but rather due to the fact that it is part of a broader trend throughout Europe in which the Far Right is convincing a greater number of people, predominantly young men, to become sympathetic to their cause.  

In Italy, the right-wing populist party Brothers of Italy has formed a government. Whilst, in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam party gained the largest number of seats in Parliament last year. With these examples in mind, Byline Times asked the question, is the far right in the UK is likely to have similar success in this year’s election? 

Jones thinks that although it is unlikely that Patriotic Alternative will stand for election this year, the group’s emergence has galvanized the “new generation of British fascist activists, and [the group’s] relative success will reverberate in British far-right politics for many years to come. 

“They do want to register as an electoral party and eventually contest elections. But [Collett] sees PA's role for now as being to enable a real-world movement of political activists [through] getting people off the internet and into the real world.” 

He adds, “Assuming his aim is to bring a new generation of ideologically committed fascist activists off the internet and into real-world organising, which I think it is, I would say he's been incredibly successful.” 

Remarkably we are now subjected to a ‘prevent’ idea that objects to ‘beliefs’ – including socialism! – but apparently not including neoliberalism or even Conservatism. These pseudo religious beliefs are always liable to attack. That is why knowing – not a belief, but a fact – where money comes from is so important. When you... Read more

What a very good idea: So that’s Keir Starmer who would also have to contribute…... Read more

I’m a great fan of jokes involving defective light bulbs. Here’s an example: how many climate change deniers does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: none, because they claim it’s too early to tell if the light bulb is really broken.

My all-time favourite in this series goes as follows: how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: only one, but the light bulb must want to be changed. For me, this is so much more than a punchline. It can apply to many everyday situations, like an alcoholic refusing to accept they have a drink problem.

It also applies to the UK, because the country seems to be suffering from delusions of democracy.

Gandhi was once asked what he thought of Western civilisation. He replied: "I think it would be a good idea." We can say the same thing about British democracy.

An unelected head of state, an unelected upper house, a lower house elected by an unfair voting system, no codified constitution, and the most centralised state in Europe is hardly a stellar CV for a modern democracy. Neither is a right-wing media establishment dominated by press barons who don’t even live in the UK. 

In my book, Fixing Broken Britain: A Blueprint for National Revival, I call for a major overhaul of our political institutions, including quitting Westminster for a modern Parliament building, replacing the Lords with a standing citizens’ assembly, drafting a codified constitution, adopting proportional representation (PR) for national elections, and giving local authorities much more autonomy.

These reforms are not ‘nice to haves’ but essential prerequisites for a vibrant democracy. Sadly, there is no sign that our leading politicians even recognise the country’s democratic deficit, let alone feel the need to urgently address it.

In fact, the two main parties are either ditching proposed reforms, or reversing ones already enacted. 

Less than two years ago, Labour promised to scrap the House of Lords and replace it with an elected chamber, as part of plans to “restore trust in politics”. The new house would retain the scrutiny and oversight role of the Lords but would be “truly representative” of the UK’s regions and the nations. Now the party has reneged on this radical commitment, settling instead for modest measures such as trimming the number of hereditary peers and introducing a new appointments process. 

At its 2022 Conference in Liverpool, the party approved a motion “to introduce proportional representation for general elections in the next manifesto” and committed a future Labour government to changing the voting system for general elections to a form of PR during its first term in office. However, Keir Starmer said he would ignore the vote, and there is next to zero chance of the party including a pledge to PR in its manifesto. 

Compared with Labour, the Conservatives are much less keen on reforming our political institutions. Nevertheless, it was David Cameron who introduced the Fixed Term Parliaments Act in 2011. This obliged governments to hold parliamentary elections every five years and brought the UK into line with neighbouring democracies like France and Germany, where election dates are not chosen on a prime ministerial whim to maximise their electoral prospects, but scheduled years in advance. The discipline the FTPA was meant to impose lasted exactly six years. First Theresa May in 2017, then Boris Johnson in 2019, circumvented the spirit of the Act to take the country to the polls at a time of their choosing. It was formally abolished in 2022. 

The Elections Act of the same year hit the headlines for its controversial voter ID requirements and attempts to rein in the independence of the Electoral Commission. But it also changed the voting system for mayoral contests in London and metropolitan areas like Birmingham and Manchester. It replaced the Supplementary Vote (SV) system with a return to First Past the Post. This opens the way for mayors to be elected on a minority of the vote and makes it much harder for popular independent candidates to compete. 

Perhaps mostly depressing of all, MPs intend to repair and restore the crumbling Palace of Westminster at vast public expense, rather than build a state-of-the-art, zero carbon Parliament for a fraction of the cost elsewhere. The cheapest renovation plan, involving moving everyone out for between 12 and 20 years, would cost between £7 billion and £13 billion. The most expensive solution, keeping the site active during the works, would cost up to £22 billion and take 76 years. 

Given that the price tag for a new-build Parliament would be unlikely to exceed £1 billion, the decision to mothball Westminster should be a no-brainer, combining financial common sense with more favourable political optics (do voters really want to see more spent on a single building than it cost to build Crossrail?).

A country whose parliamentarians prefer nostalgia and tradition to cost-effectiveness and modernity is unlikely to successfully navigate the huge challenges facing the UK in the 21st Century. 

Returning to jokes about light bulbs, here’s one of my own. How many British politicians does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: none, because they all agree that the light bulb is still working wonderfully well.

If that turns out to be true, then the joke really will be on all of us. 

Alun Drake is the author of Fixing Broken Britain: A Blueprint for National Revival