Faith Matters has raised its concerns with the Home Office after a member of the Polish community made us aware of their intention of a woman (Marta Czech) linked to a speaking event at a community venue on the 31st of May 2026. Faith Matters has continued to observe speakers from Poland who are attending events within settled communities of Polish heritage in the U.K. and who have made troubling statements in Poland that can affect the social cohesion of the United KIngdom.

Faith Matters raised its concerns with the Home Office that Marta Czech of the far-right Confederation of the Polish Crown (Konfederacja Korony Polskiej), intended to speak at a community venue in London on 31 May.

A member of the Polish community reached out to share their concerns with us in Faith Matters.

It should, however, concern communities that Czech appeared in a photograph with the notorious far-right extremist Janusz Waluś during his speaking engagement in September 2025. The South African government deported Waluś in 2024 after he spent 29 years in prison following the brutal, racist murder of the anti-Apartheid political activist Chris Hani.  Waluś belonged to the militant neo-Nazi Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging movement.

Dr Rafal Pankowski, a political scientist who leads the Never Again anti-racism group, told South African media last year that Waluś enjoyed “a hero’s welcome among the worst racists, the far-right nationalist groups in Poland.”

In November 2022, Czech attended a Confederation press conference captioned Janusz Waluś na wolności! Koniec komuny? – “Janusz Waluś is free! Is this the end of communism?”

On X (formerly Twitter), Czech has posted AI-generated content depicting Black men as an existential danger, captioned “Stop the migrant invasion!” and the inclusion of a goat in the image evokes debasing and racist tropes about bestiality.

Czech has attended other anti-migrant events in Poland with similar inflammatory rhetoric of “invasion”.

On Facebook, Czech uploaded a photo from an engagement event alongside a woman in a t-shirt that appears to show someone blocking Star of David symbols under an umbrella.

On Facebook in December 2024, Czech wrote: “It’s either Hanukkah or Christmas! There is no third option, and anyone who thinks otherwise is as mistaken as Speaker Szymon Hołownia! The Confederation of the Polish Crown calls on the Speaker to cease sectarian, occult, anti-Polish, and anti-humanitarian practices associated with Hanukkah in the Sejm. And if the Speaker has not yet learned what he is participating in and what he is allowing, President Grzegorz Braun will gladly educate him on the matter. Jews—hands off Gaza, and off our Sejm!”

Other inflammatory and concerning social media posts include comparing LGBT+ communities to “deviants”.

Czech has also promoted pro-eugenics content.

Read More: Why the Home Office Must Stop These Polish Far Right Politicians from Entering the U.K.

Faith Matters and the ‘Never Again’ Association are concerned that a failure to vet speakers with anti-Muslim, xenophobic and other bigoted views undermines the importance of the Polish-British Belvedere Forum, which is being hosted at Chatham House today and tomorrow.

The event, which brings together dignitaries, civil society leaders, academics, business, media, and diaspora voices, covers topics like of dual Polish-British identity, climate change, and Polish-British relations in a post-Brexit world.

A speaker listed at tomorrow afternoon’s breakout session is Stefan Tompson, who has hosted the far-right extremist Tommy Robinson at his house when he visited Poland, and in an interview with wPolityce, spoke of “Muslim rapists” and the alleged negative consequences of multiculturalism in parts of the UK.

Stefan Tompson has made several appearances on the far-right online TV station in Poland, Wrealu24, including spreading conspiracy theories of so-called “white genocide” in South Africa.

He also referred to Nelson Mandela as a “red terrorist” and an “an almost entirely negative figure”.

Another speaker, Agnieszka Kolakowska, dubbed the “Polish Katie Hopkins” was invited at the behest of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, had pulled out of speaking due to personal reasons after Byline Times contacted them, highlighting the above views. This was only exposed thanks to the efforts of Professor Rafal Pankowski of Never Again, who has now withdrawn from the event, despite having participated at previous forums.

Such individuals do not represent the views of the vast majority in attendance, but by affording such individuals a platform serves to undermine the credibility and importance of such events.

We, therefore, call on Chatham House to restructure the vetting process for external speakers during events to avoid such errors again.

Rafal Pankowski, of Never Again, said: “Freedom of debate is important, and a plurality of voices is fruitful in any discussion, but it should not function as a tool to legitimise those who vilify minority groups like Muslims, or sully the legacies of those who worked to dismantle apartheid in South Africa.”

Iman Atta, Director of Faith Matters, said: “When inviting such people to key events, it is really important that we do not legitimise individuals who have made extremely divisive comments previously about minority groups such as Muslim communities. We expect some due diligence work to have been undertaken beforehand.”

Notes

• Faith Matters is an NGO committed to building pluralism, community cohesion, and educating and empowering communities to resist all forms of extremism.
• Rafal Pankowski is a Professor of Sociology at the Collegium Civitas University in Warsaw and a co-founder of the ‘Never Again’ Association, which is an independent anti-racism organisation in Poland.

An event for Polish families in Stafford on May 12 will feature a lecture by a controversial historian who has links to the neo-fascist National Radical Camp (ONR) group in Poland, a Faith Matters investigation has revealed.

The speaker, Leszek Żebrowski, was labelled an antisemite in a 2016 article published by Gazeta Wyborcza.

The event, hosted by the White Eagle Club, promises bouncy castles, a barbeque, and face painting, will also see an appearance from the controversial GROM Legion group.

A Facebook event page has already attracted interested.

The event poster also sees sponsorship from the Ogniwo (The Link) which promotes itself as a self-styled ‘patriotic group’ but whose membership attracts neo-Nazis.

Rafal Pankowski, an academic who works for the Polish anti-hate charity Never Again, noted that Żebrowski continues to deny Polish involvement in the anti-Jewish pogroms in Jedwabne and Kielce.

Żebrowski appeared in a photograph of the Irish chapter of the ONR following a brief speaking tour in May last year which included events in Dublin, Cork, and Limerick.

He appeared in an ONR promotional video concerning the March 1 march to commemorate the ‘cursed soldiers’ and by organising such rallies, allows the extreme right to posit themselves as torch-bearers for this form of Polish patriotism, according to the historian Rafał Wnuk. Żebrowski was also photographed at an ONR rally last year. 

Commemorations for this event in Slough, London in February 2017, included an event where the extremist former priest, Jacek Międlar, infamous for his antisemitic and anti-Muslim views, was listed alongside Żebrowski as guest speakers. Międlar has twice failed to enter the UK to attend two Britain First rallies in February and June and remains banned due to his extreme views.

A video of the Slough event, uploaded by Piotr Szlachtowicz to YouTube, confirms Żebrowski’s presence, at the timestamp of 7:21.

The views of Szlachtowicz do also appear in the Faith Matters report.

Razem Londyn, the London branch of the left-wing Polish political party Razem (Together), condemned the potential presence of Żebrowski and Międlar in Slough in a Facebook post on February 22, 2017.

Leszek Żebrowski shared a flyer for the same commemorative event in Slough a year earlier.

On Facebook, Żebrowski promotes the Holocaust revisionism of Jan Peczkis, who writes long screeds on Amazon and other obscure blogs. In one example Peczkis  wrote: “All attention is focused on the suffering of Jews and almost completely ignores crimes committed on the Slavic nations like Poles, treating them as second-class victims.”

Nor does this view exist in insolation, our report into contemporary and historical forms of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred and racism in Poland highlights how parts of the Polish right attempt to use historiography to reshape a collective memory which favours and exceptionalities Polish suffering collectively under Nazism. This form of revisionism also serves to erase discussions about how some Poles were complicit in antisemitism and antisemitic violence before, during, and after the Second World War.

This view has found ground in more mainstream circles, including in the works of Richard Lukas, who is not without controversy and has been accused by one eminent Holocaust scholar of publishing a book which ‘borders’ on antisemitism.

Peczkis has made various antisemitic comments in his Amazon reviews, including “THE USA AND EUROPEAN UNION AS TOOLS FOR PROMOTING JEWISH INTERESTS AT POLAND’S EXPENSE.” It is, therefore, no surprise to see Żebrowski promoting such views to his large Facebook audience.