Britain First – Faith Matters

Former leader of Britain First to stand against First Minister

Faith Matters — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 11:47:56 +0000

The former leader of Britain First is standing for election in the same constituency as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.

Jayda Fransen was confirmed as an independent candidate in Glasgow Southside when nominations closed on Wednesday.

Ms Fransen had announced earlier this year that she planned to stand against the “SNP commie, Marxists, naughty people”.

Although a member of the British Freedom Party, documents from Glasgow City Council show Ms Fransen will be running as an independent.

She has previously been convicted of a number of religiously-aggravated crimes, including harassment in both 2016 and 2018 – the latter of which saw her sentenced to 36 weeks in prison.

Ms Fransen has also been pictured outside the constituency office of Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf holding a sign saying “It’s okay to be white” and “All lives matter”.

Speaking outside the city chambers in Glasgow, Ms Fransen, along with Joe Finnie – described as the Glasgow organiser of the British Freedom Party who will be standing in Glasgow Pollok against Mr Yousaf – said: “We can’t wait for this election, we’re really excited and now we can really kick-start the campaign.

“There’s a lot coming guys and as Joe said: Bring it on.”

Ms Fransen was the deputy leader and leader of Britain First before her departure from the party in 2019.

She stood in the Rochester and Strood Westminster by-election in 2014, winning 56 votes.

Meanwhile Jim Dowson, a founding member of Britain First, is standing in the Airdrie and Shotts constituency.

In a video on the British Freedom Party channel of online video platform Purged.tv, Mr Dowson said: “I’m really looking forward to the people of Airdrie at last having the chance to vote for one of their own, because I don’t mince my words and I’m not there to represent everybody, which all the politicians say, I’m there to represent our people, British people, everybody else can go and take a run and jump.”

Mr Dowson will be standing against former SNP MP Neil Gray, who has vacated his Westminster seat to run for Holyrood.

In a request for funding during the video, Mr Dowson described himself, Ms Fransen and Mr Finnie as “machine guns” and donations as “bullets”.

He added: “Your pound notes equate into weapons of war against our enemy.

“Against the people who are trying to destroy our country and in turn our people themselves.

“We have to get behind this and we have to get wired into this.”

The Changing Face of Hate in Poland: From Antisemitism to Anti-Muslim Racism

Faith Matters — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 01:35:51 +0000

Faith Matters launches a ground-breaking paper looking at worrying levels of far-right anti-Muslim racism in Poland and anti-Muslim activism in the UK in Polish Communities

The full report can be downloaded HERE.

Faith Matters is proud to launch a new briefing paper to outline some of the key dynamics and drivers of far-right narratives between the UK and Polish far-right.

The new report, titled ‘From antisemitism to anti-Muslim racism: the evolving face of the far-right in Poland’, highlights how extremist groups like Britain First have continued to sow division by exploiting the religious sentiments of Poles in Britain to further their anti-Muslim agenda. This includes failed attempts to bring over antisemitic and anti-Muslim speakers, and the leadership of Britain First, namely its deputy leader, Jayda Fransen, has travelled to Poland to engage with such individuals like the antisemitic former priest Jacek Międlar.

Faith Matters intends to use this report as a springboard to engage with Polish communities in Britain to start an interfaith dialogue that includes Christian, Muslim, and Jewish voices that will seek to counter the exclusionary and dehumanising narratives of the far-right with a dialogue that will not only seek to address more painful aspects of Polish history but also celebrate the contributions of its Muslim minorities.

By identifying key voices both in Britain and Poland, the report will seek to expose their views, in the hope of marginalising their voice, and empowering Poles to challenge attitudes online, in the home, or in community spaces.

It took the combined efforts of voices within the Polish community to translate materials from the far-right politician Marian Kowalski which Faith Matters passed to authorities to prevent him speaking at a restaurant in London. Our concern remains that some will seek to use community spaces to push anti-Muslim or other hateful narratives away from media scrutiny.

Other, more extreme neo-Nazi groups, like the National Rebirth of Poland (NOP), coordinated activities with both National Action and the National Front to do ‘whites-only’ foodbanks in Scotland and London. The NOP has also targeted NHS centres in small anti-abortion protests.

Steve Rose, the author of the report, said: “It’s clear that Britain First continues to exploit the religious sentiments of Poles to push an extremist narrative which mythologises a Christian Europe in opposition to very dehumanising anti-Muslim narratives which tap into wider anxieties towards cultural and national identity.

This report seeks to challenge that, and highlight that antisemitism remains a key driver of far-right ideology, with anti-Muslim racism seeking further division in a country where Muslims have accounted for less than 1% of the population.

What’s clear is that many Poles want to challenge this form of politics and this project will help provide a collaborative partnership to help build dialogue and see the contributions of Muslims historically and in Poland today.

Additional research in this field of work will expand beyond the scope of this report and encourage more forms of counter-speech online and through community events in the months ahead.”

Fiyaz Mughal OBE, Founder and Director of Faith Matters said:

“We have been seeing far right extremist groups like Britain First actively tout key activists in Polish communities in Poland and the UK. Yet, during the national Brexit referendum, these very groups were promoting hate against Eastern European communities. This shows the cynical posturing of these far-right extremist groups in the vain hope that they will gain support.”

KEY FINDINGS OF THE REPORT

Key findings of the report, which will be accessible on the Faith Matters web-site, state that:

A chronology of Islamophobic incidents in Poland demonstrates how some have exploited international events to attack Islamic institutions, including an attack on a mosque in Poznań, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks in Paris in January 2015,
Polling of European countries in 2016 found that negative views of minorities and refugees were commonplace. Negative views of Muslims were widespread in Italy (69%), Hungary (72%), and Poland (69%). It is perhaps unsurprising that almost a quarter of Poles interviewed expressed negative opinions towards Jewish communities. Ideological leanings to the right were indicators of increased unfavourability towards Muslims.
Anti-refugee sentiment remains stubbornly high in Poland, even though the country has hardly taken in refugees post the Syria civil war. For example, just over half of Poles polled who expressed favourable views of Muslims had agreed that refugees pose a threat, though this jumps to 81% amongst the Poles who expressed unfavourable views of Muslims. Outside of Hungary, Poles expressed the most concern (71%) that refugees will increase the risk of domestic terrorism. Almost of a third of Poles agreed that Muslims in their country support ISIS, as a similar number declined to answer this question. As with other countries, Poles also overwhelmingly agreed that refugees were ‘drains’ on the welfare system.
Perhaps these factors help explain how many Europeans uniformly overstate the size of their respective Muslim populations. In Poland, researchers found that on average, Poles believed that of every 100 people, seven are Muslim. The reality is that this figure is under 0.1%.
Regarding population shifts, Poles believed that Muslims would make up 13% of the population in 2020. Pędziwiatr (2016) attributes this perception gap to the misinformation presented in sections of Polish press and by certain public figures.
Social researchers, Gawlewicz and Narkowicz (2015), highlight how the rich Islamic history of the region is ignored, demonstrating how this panic is a modern problem, and reflective the political shifts in Poland in recent years. Some of the key social agitators, highlighted in the Faith Matters report are based in the UK and Poland.

The history of the Polish Muslim Tatars is completely overlooked by social commentators who promote anti-Muslim hate, as though hundreds of years of engagement with Muslims that have shaped and made up a part of Poland’s history, simply do not exist.

KEY PURVEYORS OF ANTI-MUSLIM BIGOTRY

The report lists these to be:

Miriam Shadad: Miriam Shadad was behind the attempted settlement of fifty Christian Syrian refugees in Poland in 2015, but most would leave Poland within months. She made various anti-Muslim remarks when interviewed in the Financial Times which included the claim that many who practice Islam are ‘criminals’.

Shaded has expressed support for Viktor Orbán’s proposed ban on Islam in Hungary. In other media, she said that the Qur’an is a book that calls for ‘hatred and violence’ and that the concept of Jihad is one of force and submission. She appeared on the cover of the Polish weekly magazine Wprost in 2016. She used this interview to call for a ban on Islam in Poland, to praise the Assad regime for its liberal protection of Christians, including her relatives, and to warn that if ‘Europe does not quickly wake up, it will become Islamized.

Piotr Ryback: The extremes of an ethno-nationalist fringe in Poland have gained notoriety in recent years, most notably in the actions of Piotr Rybak, of the Wielka Polska Niepodlegla movement. In November 2015, during an anti-Muslim protest in Wroclaw against Poland accepting Syrian refugees, Rybak burned an effigy of an Orthodox Jewish man. During the protest, most of which was captured on video and uploaded to YouTube, Rybak said, ‘we will not bring a single Muslim into Poland, Poland is for Poles.’ He then set fire to the effigy, which featured an EU flag.

The National Radical Camp organised the protest and presented Rybak with the effigy to burn, but the courts rejected his claim that the effigy was of Hungarian-American Jewish philanthropist George Soros, finding him guilty of ‘public incitement to hatred on the grounds of religion and nationality to an unspecified group of Jews by burning an effigy’. The prison sentence given to Rybak fell to three months after an appeal.

Jacek Miedlar: The notoriety of the disgraced former priest Jacek Międlar grew after he was detained at Stansted Airport to prevent him from attending a Britain First rally in Telford, Shropshire in February 2017. Międlar, 28, is an important fixture in the extreme right-wing political scene in Poland, and in Wrocław in west Poland. Two years earlier, Międlar spoke at the far-right organised nationalist demonstration which marked the anniversary of Poland’s independence after the First World War. Organisers claimed that 50,000 attended but police put the actual figure at 25,000 people.

On the Polish Independence Day march on 11 November 2016, Międlar is alleged to have publicly called for hatred against Jews and Ukrainians. During the march, he is alleged to have said, ‘We must be strong in spirit, body, in our mentality and knowledge, because only we will be able to win with the left, with Jewry, and with communism, which is still in our homeland’. Months earlier, prosecutors dropped a hate crime investigation against Międlar, when during his sermon, he described Jews as a ‘cancer’. He is also alleged to have uploaded a photo of Poles performing a Nazi salute during a pogrom in the southern town of Myślenice in 1936 which resulted in non-lethal violence and property damage to Jewish-owned businesses.

Marian Kowalski: Marian Kowalski came to prominence in the English-language media in 2015 following a series of counter-protests following his speaking tour in Ireland during his failed presidential campaign in Poland. Hotels in Dublin and Cork cancelled speaking events for Kowalski, who represents the far-right National Movement (Ruch Narodowy).

Kowalski’s views towards the building of new mosques in Poland reflects how anti-Muslim racism is often anti-Arab in focus. In a 2016 speech, he is reported to have told a crowd that Arab-funded mosques are ‘breeding grounds’ for terrorists. On Facebook, he shared a meme about how Poland violently dealt with the ‘invasion’ of Islam on 20 May 2017. On Twitter, Kowalski compared Islam to a ‘trojan horse’. On 25 September 2016, he photographed a small rally in Trafalgar Square in London which called for the release of Janusz Waluś, a Polish white supremacist, who, in 1993, murdered the anti-apartheid hero and SACP leader Chris Hani. Waluś was a member of the leading neo-Nazi group in South Africa, the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, who hoped his actions would trigger a race war in the final days of apartheid.

Kowalski has also gained a reputation for his provocative stunts which included the burning of a rainbow flag in July 2015 following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to legalise same same-sex marriage.

Weronika Kania: The self-styled reporter Weronika Kania, who has contributed one hundred posts to the Polish-language anti-Islamisation website NDIE, was active in interviewing members of Britain First before her videos disappeared from YouTube. She spoke at a Britain First rally on 28 July 2017. On Facebook, she briefly updated her cover photo in praise of Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán in 2015. Recent Facebook posts have promoted Tommy Robinson’s controversial new book and linked to a YouTube concerning the paedophilia and Islam. She has also regularly interviewed Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First.

Piotr Szlachtowicz hosts the online radio show ‘The Nowy Polski Show’. It sponsored an event in Slough which listed Jacek Międlar as a keynote speaker. The event celebrated the underground Polish army which fought in anti-communist resistance movements. Międlar, of course, was denied entry into the UK.

Another event promoted by his radio show featured the Polish MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke, who, in 2015, was suspended from the European Parliament for ten days after performing a Nazi salute. He has also claimed that Hitler ‘probably’ did not know about the Holocaust and the murder of millions of people was not his ‘goal’. Korwin-Mikke used racial the epithet ‘n—–‘ in 2014 and was suspended this year after making sexist remarks in parliament. An interview with Korwin-Mikke was uploaded by Mateusz Jaronski on 18 July 2017. The Twitter feed of the Nowy Polski Show, has, on multiple occasions, posted tweets favourable of the leadership of the far-right political party Britain First.

‘Operation Lionheart’ by Britain First Shows the Level Far Right Extremists Will Stoop To

Tell Mama — Thu, 05 May 2016 01:05:35 +0000

The latest circular for money by Britain First is another frenetic set of calls for money, though on this occasion it is to, “devastate Sadiq Khan’s campaign and alert hundreds of thousands of Londoners to his Islamic extremism.”

So what is new for this group which attempts to use the public as its ongoing purse in order to run bizarre schemes and to promote its extremism and anti-Muslim bigotry? Well, according to Britain First their media team have come up with “a short powerful video exposing Sadiq Khan and his Islamic extremism.” Have we not heard this campaign tactic used before? It is a tactic that we believe Londoners dislike – negative campaigning.

The ‘media team’ that Britain First talk about, is probably a man who has spent his life alone and who has watched too many of their extremist videos spending nights in with his computer and Airfix model set. So their e-mail pitch for last-minute cash states:

“Specifically, we want to push the video as an advert on Facebook, with a budget of around £2,500.

Doing this will cause Khan damage, real damage.

With a budget of around £2,500 we can hit hundreds of thousands of London voters.”

Let us hope that Londoners do cause damage to fascists tomorrow, by ensuring that they elect in a candidate who will do everything in their power to maintain the diversity of London and the heritage of different communities in our trail-blazing city. That is the best response we can give to fascists when we see, hear or smell them.

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How Britain First uses ‘victim narratives’ to boost support

Tell Mama — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 18:13:35 +0000

Britain First deploys ‘self-victimisation‘ to reinforce group identity and support online. This strategy extends to a recent outrage with the Electoral Commission.

On March 9, an article headlined ‘Electoral Commission: “Keeping London British! Is Offensive Slogan’ made bombastic claims of censorship. But it sounds familiar.

The party made similar claims against Royal Mail in 2014. Royal Mail can refuse to deliver election materials if they consider it threatening or abusive. Paul Golding ignored this detail as Britain First were ‘victims’ of a greater perceived injustice.

Under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (Section 29 2b), the Electoral Commission can reject ballot emblems if they deem it ‘obscene or offensive’. The Electoral Commission reiterated this point to the party. But Britain First accused them of acting as the “Commissar for Political Correctness” in elections. Again, the party reinforces accusations of censorship to party faithful.

This strategy serves a dual function: policies in the age of multiculturalism and ‘PC culture’ have a detrimental impact on the party and its supporters. Britain First rejects the label of ‘racist party’. And argues that they are victims of ‘job stealing’ and ‘welfare stealing’ migrants. Britain despite Muslims making up less than 5 per cent of the total population in England and Wales. These contradictions are never addressed. Britain First tailors their language and output to reflect the anxieties of those who ‘like’ their page. Reinforcing these anxieties are not always enough. Presenting solutions can build group identity and raise the potential of donations.

A strategy of targeted donations has paid off in the past. Britain First topped the Electoral Commission’s donations league table for smaller parties last year. In 2014, the party had tripled its donations from 2013 to £159,516 – but spent most of it on campaign work. This is a strategy that extends to supporters in Australia, Canada and the United States.

Like other far-right parties, Britain First seeks mainstream credibility. Jayda Fransen, deputy leader, sought that in the Rochester and Strood by-election. It mattered little that the party achieved just 56 votes. Fransen had posed for a photo with the BBC’s Nick Robinson (who later apologised for his error). The extra media attention had little to do with local issues in the Rochester and Strood area. Britain First wanted national attention for their anti-mosque campaign in the neighbouring constituency.

Jayda Fransen also admitted that the mayoral campaign is a PR move to increase their public profile. Fransen wrote:

‘The benefits to standing in the London Mayoral Election will be immense: Each Mayoral candidate is entitled to a two-page spread in a booklet that is delivered to 10 million people in London, 45% of which are still ethnically British.

Each Mayoral candidate will no doubt receive a lengthy Daily Politics interview and a plethora of other high profile media attention.

Contesting this election will cement Britain First as a powerful force on the “Right” of politics and will massively increase our public profile.’

Some of the top comments from some Britain First supporters to Electoral Commission story had the intended outcome. And it included:

‘OFFENSIVE? I don’t live there but such an insipid attitude offends me. If London isn’t British, then what is?’

‘London IS British. Whoever objects to that slogan is obviously some left-wing pond life.’

‘well if you guys don’t tell people to say it you are not breaking the law … so … Keep London British … stop the dismantling of the Westminster system and only recognise British law …’

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Britain First Send out Libellous Statements Against Labour Hopeful Sadiq Khan

Tell Mama — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 03:26:00 +0000

Not to be out-done in the scraping the bottom of the political barrel, extremist group Britain First sent out circulars by e-mail stating that self-appointed Britain First leader, Paul Golding, would be standing for the Mayor of London.

The circular hyped up the publicity that individuals and political parties will get through a two page platform in which to highlight their positions. The booklet will be delivered to homes in London. What is interesting is that the Britain First bulletin also played on issues of race by suggesting that,

“Each mayoral candidate is entitled to a two-page spread in a booklet that is delivered to 10 million people in London, 45% of which are still ethnically British.”

The bulletin also suggests that mayoral candidates will receive a ‘Daily Politics’ interview, though our call to media outlets will be to investigate comments and statements made by individuals like Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen and to hold them to account for them. Media outlets cannot give these individuals an easy ride so that their messages of separation, based on race and religion, be allowed to resonate within our united capital.

You would also think that any group would carefully consider the statements it made against other mayoral candidates. Yet this is the statement made against Labour hopeful, Sadiq Khan MP.

“Labour has chosen a Muslim career politician with strong sympathies for his fellow radicals and extremists, – Sadiq Khan.”

The statement not only opens up Britain First and its leaders to potential civil legal action, it shows the kind of dog-whistle politics that they are playing and no doubt, if the Labour hopeful did take any legal action, Britain First who rail against ‘the politics of victimisation’, would then simply play out this position.

The e-mail bulletin finishes with a call for £30,000 for the campaign. Anyone even considering donating, should think carefully about supporting a group who seek division rather than a united London. That is the choice ahead, whether we support the politics of hope or the politics of hate.

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‘Christian Patrols’ Just as Divisive as ‘Muslim Patrols’. But Where is the Outrage?

Tell Mama — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 00:53:37 +0000

Do you remember January 2013 when members of a ‘Muslim Patrol’ were handing out morality advice to passers-by in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. They also harassed members of the public commentating on how they needed to cover up and members of this group also went on to be convicted and jailed in December 2013.

Well, if you don’t remember it, you certainly missed a media circus where press journalists were commentating on the actions of a handful of men who were shaming couples holding hands and suggesting that women were inappropriately dressed. One of these individuals was the convicted extremist Jordan Horner, who later apologised for his actions.

At the time, we made clear that any ‘faith-based’ patrol or any vigilante group was contrary to the rules and criminal and civil laws of this country and that such groups of individuals were a serious risk to community relations. We stated that they could possibly spark off serious unrest in areas and that action needed to be taken to send a clear message that the State would not tolerate any behaviour which intimidated citizens walking our streets. The ‘Muslim Patrol’ was neither Muslim nor required and many Muslims saw these actions as running contrary to their faith and further denigrating Islam in the eyes of many.

Well, cut to the 23rd of January 2016 and we have Britain First conducting another of their Christian Patrols. This is not the first time that Britain First have attempted to inflame tensions in areas.

However, this time it was conducted in Bury Park in Luton and was intimidating and meant to inflame tensions which would then be captured on film and create the notion of ‘them and us.’ Just as predictably, young Asian men rose to the bait with Britain First activists agitating and further adding to the growing tensions because of this extremist far right group.

Sadly, it is now 2016 and these inflammatory actions continue with Britain First trying to paint themselves as ‘defenders’ of Christian values, something that they are far from. They continue to walk into areas, stir up unrest and walk away leaving local communities to pick up the pieces. It is also interesting to note in the video of their agitation, that their actions lead to a young female policewoman finding herself in the middle of groups of testosterone laden young men looking to fight. Is this really the ‘patriotism’ that our country needs – the answer is a resounding no.

Lastly, it is high time that action is taken against Britain First and the way that it seeks to create and foment disturbances in communities. We are very concerned that their actions may lead to serious unrest or physical assaults and this is the last thing we need for our country and our communities.

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Extremist Far Right Group Britain First State ‘London is Finished as a British City’

Tell Mama — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 02:29:01 +0000

Just when you thought that they could not top their bizarre rhetoric any more, along comes the following comment which Britain First’s Paul Golding circulated today in an electronic flyer. It seems that being ‘patriots’ does not stop them abusing the capital city of our nation – so much for their deeply held pride in our country? It seems to extend to when it suits them and yet, like true National Socialists, they turn against our nation when they want to promote the politics of fear and division.

The electronic flyer, another in a monotonous campaign to obtain donations from members of the public, are becoming more and more bizarre and desperate. Could Britain First be having real problems raising funds for their ‘campaigns’ which usually consist of turning up at town centres, parading around for a few hours and getting back onto coaches to warm up their cramped calves and the chilblains on their feet?

The flyer then goes onto state that a:

“…..conquest by the cradle is engulfing our country,”

It seems that Britain First believe that we are in serious risk of being taken over by toddlers and if that was not bizarre enough, they go onto suggest that:

“…native British people now make up only 75% of the total population.”

Well there you have it, off comes the veneer of attempted respectability and back comes the politics of race driven by this fascist group. Apart from fixating on ‘wombs’, ‘cradles’ and ‘native British people’, Britain First is not far forward in its political evolution from the banality of race politics and the amoeboid simplicity of its arguments.

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Why extremist groups want you to ban their online content

FM — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 17:56:10 +0000

Facebook briefly banned Britain First’s page on 30 November, sparking momentary cries of celebration on social media. But within an hour, the far right organisation’s page was restored, claiming Facebook’s censorship to be a ‘fascist attack’. Britain First currently has over 1 million likes on its Facebook page—more than Conservatives and Labour combined. Its page on average generates hundreds of likes for posts. Immediately following restoration, likes spiked into the thousands. Despite their inflammatory material, banning social media sites like Britain First is a highly ineffective approach.

Research points to the negative consequences that arise from exercising bans. The International Centre for Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) found through in-depth analysis that a systematic blocking of sites with extremist material is both impractical and counterproductive. It found that strategies which include removing websites, filtering content for accessibility, and hiding search engine results, have little to no effect hindering such networks. This is due to the particular challenges of internet regulation. The scale of website traffic makes identifying and monitoring content extremely difficult, as well as resource-intensive. Even when web page takedowns do occur, sites and forums tend to re-emerge rapidly.

The far-right website, Gates of Vienna, was taken down twice in 2013 on grounds of racial incitement. It has since moved to a self-hosted site. As of December 2015, gatesofvienna.net has witnessed a 13 per cent increase in global website rankings within the last three months. It features in the media spotlight for promoting controversial matters, including a (later cancelled) London exhibition on cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Leader of the radical right Dutch PVV party, Geert Wilders, was one of the planned attendees.

A similar study on ISIS Twitter accounts reveals comparable findings. Although mass suspension campaigns produce a significant decrease in online activity, it also results in a more internally focused network. This poses dangerous implications such as potentially alienating supporters even further whilst not actually preventing new members from joining. In some cases, new accounts are created with a more intense following and concentrated material output.

Extremist politics has historically been at the forefront of using innovate communication technology to mobilise support. Stormfront.org, the first major white supremacist website, was founded in the 1990s as a means to circumvent mainstream media channels. Al-Qaeda similarly was an innovator in cyberspace, initially disseminating propaganda on forums and chat rooms and eventually on social media platforms. Yet while the internet aids extremist networking, it is not its primary driver. Social media sites merely create a space to express and reinforce shared sentiments. They promote a sense of collective identification, but do not spark the initial desire to join an extremist network.

Banning these online echo chambers signals a reactionary rather than proactive move. Instead, approaches should be comprehensive in responding to extremism. This includes all users, not just those targeted as the most vulnerable to extremist messages. A holistic strategy takes into account critical thinking skills of social media users. For instance, claims of a racist comment, while indicative, fails to interrogate what makes such a comment ‘racist.’ It favours a dogmatic approach that shuts down any possibility for exchange. By encouraging social media users to question the meaning behind phrases rather than at face value, this is a significant step towards balancing the national conversation. Agency is the most resilient form of counter-speech.

Importantly, proscription is problematic not only due to proven adverse effects. It is fundamentally at odds with democratic values. Beyond free speech advocacy, banning runs counter to principles of engagement and dialogue. This simultaneously applies to social movements and political parties with views or courses of action outside mainstream opinion. An unpopular agenda should not be delegitimised because it is incompatible with personal beliefs. Doing so neglects extremist perspectives as symptomatic of trending issues within everyday politics. Such blindsiding often fails to recognise complex socio-economic debates at the expense of shallow labels. When simplified narratives become common practice, this comes at the expense of determining what is extremist content (let alone ‘extremism’).

What we are witnessing now is the upsurge of reactionary politics. Far-right views are increasingly influencing mainstream agendas on issues of immigration, employment, housing, and security. Yet somehow we do not tolerate radical beliefs, preferring to ban spaces where they are most vocal. At the same time, social media platforms amplify our inability to distinguish boundaries of extremist speech.

By choosing to ban, we are pushing away a value integral to democracy—pluralism. Isolating extremists only makes it more difficult to challenge alternative views. We risk reproducing an ‘us versus them’ logic that continues to polarise society.

Eviane Leidig did her Master’s Degree at the University of Bristol, with an MSc in Sociology (Ethnicity and Multiculturalism). Her dissertation looked at ‘Visualising Violent Nationalism: A Comparison of Far Right and Islamic Extremism’. She tweets at @evianeleidig and writes in a personal capacity.

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Britain First Electronic Bulletin Shows Young Girls Promoting Far Right Material

Tell Mama — Sat, 28 Nov 2015 16:19:59 +0000

The latest circular from the extremist far right group, Britain First, can only be described as intimidating and more worryingly, where minors are being used to promote this extremist far right group.

The circular which was sent to subscribers makes the usual call for ‘donations’ and openly suggests that far right Britain First sympathisers are

“happy to go into the most militant Muslim areas and carry out dangerous Britain First operations.”

Are these the same ‘militant Muslim areas’ that has seen them previously go into the boroughs of Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets and stand outside the East London mosque, whilst posturing and being abusive to worshippers? To describe Tower Hamlets as a ‘militant Muslim area’ shows how deluded this group has become and how they are part of the problem and not a solution for communities in our country.

The bulletin goes onto highlight a video of Paul Golding undertaking a ‘self defence’ class and with the bulletin suggesting that,

“our activists have stood in the face of mad Muslims and crazed leftists.”

This extremist group simply seems to have forgotten that its actions have been instrumental in creating fear and counter-extremism in some areas.

However, there are two elements in the circular bulletin that are deeply worrying. The first is that two young girls are shown wearing the extremist far right sweatshirts of Britain First. This is deeply worrying and raises into question safeguarding issues. We will no doubt be passing on the pictures to the relevant authorities, given that young children are included in material related to this extremist far right group.

The bulletin goes onto suggest that Britain First will be providing martial arts training to its activists in Krav Maga and Thai boxing. The end of the bulletin makes a chilling call showing the extremist far right rhetoric and mindset of this group. It states,

“The fact is that our people are not breeding.”

“The situation is only going to have one outcome: civil war.”

Given that Britain First is becoming more militant and aggressive in the make-up of its material, we urge authorities to continue to look carefully at this material and to act against the group where appropriate. The only thing that will make ‘Britain First’ globally is hard work, communities working together for a better social and economic future and where citizens value and safeguard our collective safety. Groups like this are a hindrance to these laudable objectives and simply serve their own deluded extremist ideologies.

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Why the far-right consider Vladimir Putin their Christian vanguard against Islam

FM — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 11:34:17 +0000

More than 40 Syrian rebel factions have condemned the Russian involvement in a war that almost brought President Bashar al-Assad a “crushing defeat”. The United States views the Russian bombing of CIA-backed rebel forces as an intentional act.

Nor can Russia stop ‘volunteers’ fighting in pro-Assad ranks. For some, this is a continuation of an old alliance. Russia’s ties with Syria deepened when the Soviet Union forged a military alliance with Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez. As Charles Lister argued “Russia’s claim that its forces are there only to target Islamic State should be taken with a large grain of salt”.

In spite of this continued crisis, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to draw support from the British far-right. Britain First wrote “We say well done Russia and good luck!” when news of the first airstrikes broke.

The party accepts the Russian narrative without question – including the annexation of Crimea. Britain First extends a measure of support to Assad’s regime as a buffer against the competing totalitarianism of ISIS.

A recent pro-Assad Facebook post read “TYRANTS DON’T VOLUNTARILY OFFER TO STEP DOWN. ASSAD HAS BEEN FIGHTING ISIS AND AL-NUSRA FROM DAY ONE. THE WEST’S ACTIONS IN SYRIA HAVE ONLY FACILITATED TERRORISM”.

In the Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt argued that totalitarian ideologies seek “the transformation of human nature itself”. Jasmine Roman observed this transformation in Syria when writing for The National in Australia.

In recent weeks, Britain First has used its online echo chamber to promote Russian intervention in Syria. Fascist movements seek consensus by exploiting a fear of difference. Facebook allows consensus to grow through ‘likes,’ which pushes pro-Putin or extreme messages upwards. The ‘asynchronicity‘ of the online world helps individuals steer discussions towards toxic disinhibition. This toxicity often drowns out alternative voices.

But this pro-Putin stance is not born from a violent desire to eradicate ISIS. Britain First published an article in July headlined “Vladimir Putin: the man who could save the west?”

Putin’s moralistic anti-Western rhetoric mirrors that of the Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin, who warned that “Having lost our bond with God and the Christian tradition, mankind has been morally blinded, gripped by materialism, irrationalism and nihilism”.

Ur-Fascist psychology requires a plot to ensure supporters feel besieged and threatened. That threat concerns Islam and multiculturalism. Under Ur-Fascism the only uniting social privilege is that of the nation state. Yet, Christianity transcends any traditional notion of the nation state. A fusion of religion and nationalism creates a pan-European identity for the far-right. It must also appeal to racist and xenophobic sentiments. Hence why Britain First argue that:

“the biggest problem for our western, leftwing elites, hell bent as they are on imposing “multiculturalism” on Europe and North America, is a patriotic Christian Russia still existing when the fabric of our societies is destroyed by immigration and Islamification”.

Britain First believe that “Putin and Russia will be a major source of help when civil strife breaks out in Europe”.

The British National Party (BNP) took a similar line last year: “The anti-British, anti-Christian, wealth obsessed elites and Establishment apparatchiks that rule us, hate Christianity and Christians. But most of all they hate Russian Putin because he is a tough, strong, God-fearing Christian – and because he stopped a gaggle of Zionist oligarchs from looting Russia”.

At a far-right conference in March of this year, Jim Dowson, who founded and later quit Britain First, praised Putin’s hyper-masculinity. He told the audience in St Petersburg that “Obama and America — they’re like females! They’re feminized men. You have been blessed by a man who is a man! And we envy that.”

The ex-leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, also attended the conference. He argued that “the survival of Christendom” is “impossible without the rise of the Third Rome: Moscow”. Other attendees included representatives from Forza Nuova in Italy, Gold Dawn in Greece, and the German neo-Nazi NPD.

Participants later signed a resolution which took a pro-Kremlin line on NATO and the Ukraine. The resolution also stated that “every effort will be made to protect our conservative values, that are based on Christian traditions and the common ideals of humanism”.

In a separate pro-Putin article, Britain First lifted large chunks of text from to the Washington Times. The final paragraph read “All hail Mother Russia, the new beacon of nationhood and Christianity!”

On two occasions last month, Britain First shared a hoax Vladimir Putin quote. Hoax Slayer exposed the fraud in April 2013; yet it did not prevent the BNP from sharing it a month later.

Others have documented the pro-Kremlin connections of various European far-right parties.

Eco understood that the cult of heroism underpins Ur-Fascism. For the European far-right, Vladimir Putin embodies this heroism. He remains their hyper-masculine, moral, cultural and patriotic vanguard against Islam.

This post first appeard on Byline.

The post Why the far-right consider Vladimir Putin their Christian vanguard against Islam appeared first on Religious Reader.