Category Archives: Far right

‘Lifer’ in HMP Woodhill planned to kill Tommy Robinson, high court told

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Two other prisoners also plotted to attack far-right activist, who is challenging his segregation at jail

A “lifer” in the prison holding Tommy Robinson planned to kill the far-right activist while two other prisoners plotted to attack him to gain “kudos and notoriety”, the high court has been told.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is seeking to bring a legal challenge against his segregation from other prisoners, which he claims is having an impact on his mental health.

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MI5 officers lamented lack of guidance in child terrorism cases, emails reveal

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Officer who investigated Rhianan Rudd, who killed herself, tells inquest ‘wider conversation’ needed on such cases

MI5 officers investigating a schoolgirl who went on to kill herself after being charged with far-right terror offences had complained of a lack of guidance on handling the growing number of such cases, according to internal emails heard at an inquest.

A special evidence session in London heard that intelligence agents working on the case of Rhianan Rudd, who died at the age of 16, lamented the lack of national strategy in dealing with a proliferation of vulnerable young people holding violent far-right views.

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‘Vicious cycle’: how far-right parties across Europe are cannibalising the centre right

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Hardline agendas, especially on immigration, are copied by mainstream conservatives in vain effort to win back votes - but it’s not working

Far-right parties could become the largest force on the right in Europe within a decade, experts have said, as mainstream conservative parties look to copy their hardline agendas, especially on immigration, in a vain effort to win back votes.

Germany’s conservatives last week sparked fury when their leader, Friedrich Merz, the country’s likely next chancellor, broke a longstanding pledge by relying on far-right votes to adopt a non-binding motion urging a drastic immigration crackdown. The leader of Alternative für Deutschland, Alice Weidel, hailed “a historic day for Germany” as the Bundestag, for the first time in its history, passed a vote with the backing of her party, which is second in the polls weeks before this month’s elections.

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‘Disrupt or be disrupted’, mainstream parties warned as voters turn to populists

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Research shows voters losing faith in traditional centre-left and centre-right to deliver meaningful change

Voters in western democracies are turning away from mainstream political parties and towards populists because they are losing faith in their ability to implement meaningful change, a major report based on surveys of 12,000 voters has found.

The popularity of traditional centre-left and centre-right parties across major democratic countries has plummeted from 73% in 2000 to 51% today, according to research by the Tony Blair Institute.

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Trump v Bannon, Musk v Farage: who hates who in Magaland

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The feuds and rivalries within the US president-elect’s Maga ecosystem – including some British sympathisers

The task of deconstructing the internal manoeuvrings of the leadership of the Soviet Union was once regarded as little short of a science such was the paucity of information. Today, the court of Donald Trump is perhaps no less enigmatic – but for quite different reasons. Trumpologists trying to keep up with the machinations of the Make America Great Again (Maga) movement and its sympathisers in Britain are faced with a torrent of information via social media posts and podcast rants. Sworn enemies today can easily be the closest of conspirators tomorrow. Steve Bannon has let it be known that he intends to bring down fellow Trump acolyte Elon Musk in time for inauguration day (with days to go). It is no easy task to make sense of it all but here is what we know of the current feuds and rivalries in the Maga ecosystem:

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Elon Musk’s attempts to sway German and UK politics thought ‘unacceptable’ – poll

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Exclusive: Majority polled by YouGov viewed billionaire negatively – except among Reform UK and AfD voters

Most people in the UK and Germany consider Elon Musk’s efforts to influence their national politics unacceptable and believe the US tech magnate does not know much about either country or the issues they face, a poll has shown.

The survey, by YouGov, follows a spate of hostile statements by the billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X attacking the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and their respective governments.

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Fears for UK boomer radicalisation on Facebook after Meta drops factcheckers

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For middle-aged users, it will be ‘even harder to discern the truth’ among extremist content, expert says

Experts fear the decision by Meta to drop professional factcheckers from Facebook will exacerbate so-called boomer radicalisation in the UK.

Even before what Keir Starmer described as “far-right riots” in England last summer, alarm bells were ringing amid fears older people were even more susceptible to misinformation and radicalisation than younger “digital natives”.

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Neo-Nazi Jacob Hersant freed on bail as he appeals against one-month jail sentence for Hitler salute in Melbourne

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Twenty-five-year-old the first Victorian convicted of intentionally performing the gesture in public

An Australian far-right extremist has walked out of a Melbourne court on bail after being sentenced to one month in jail for performing an illegal Nazi salute.

Last month Jacob Hersant, 25, became the first Victorian convicted of intentionally performing the salute in public.

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Man jailed for claiming he had fought for Wagner group in Ukraine

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Piotr Kucharski wore insignia for proscribed terror group on combat clothing at Suffolk Viking re-enactment

A builder has been jailed for claiming at a Viking re-enactment that he had fought for the Wagner group in Ukraine.

Piotr Kucharski, 49, wore combat clothing bearing badges with insignia for the proscribed terror organisation to an event in Stonham Aspal, in Suffolk.

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Group that emerged from Tory party hosts forum for Britain’s far right

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Traditional Britain Group’s London conference includes speaker from Germany’s AfD party and far-right activists

A group that emerged out of a faction of the Conservative party has become a forum for Britain’s splintered far right.

A private conference hosted earlier this month by the Traditional Britain Group (TBG) was attended by figures from the Homeland party, an extreme nationalist group, as well as rivals from other groups such as Patriotic Alternative.

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Thorpe rebuffs Indigenous leaders’ criticism of protest – as it happened

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This blog is now closed

More on news media bargaining code and funding of media publishers

One of the committee’s key recommendations was a digital platform levy on companies like Meta and Google, which some have described as a tech tax to fund public interest journalism.

So in parts of Europe, for example, there’s a 2% digital services tax. You could look at a public interest journalism levy.

The issue that we have fundamentally here is the … offshoring of the digital platform’s profits, where currently they pay very little tax because they argue that they don’t operate in Australia, even though they’re getting this enormous profit yield of the advertising on their platforms. So that’s another thing that has to be resolved within legislation in order to impose a tax.

But simply imposing a tax and feeding [it] into media organisations … won’t fix the issue if Meta continues to deprecate news content – that is, reduce the exposure of news content to its consumers.

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Undercover film exposing UK far-right activists pulled from London festival

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Film festival organisers make ‘heartbreaking’ decision not to show Undercover: Exposing the Far Right amid concerns over staff welfare

A documentary that lifts the lid on a “race science” network of far-right activists in Britain and its links to a rich American funder of eugenics research has been pulled from the London Film Festival (LFF) at the last minute due to safety concerns.

The organisers have taken the “heartbreaking decision” to cancel the planned screening of the “exceptional” Undercover: Exposing the Far Right this weekend due to fears about the welfare of audiences, staff and security working in the festival venues.

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Far-right activists fundraising for people jailed over UK riots

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Money is being given to families of people involved in riots whom far-right groups are calling ‘political prisoners’

Far-right activists are trying to raise funds for people jailed over their roles in the summer riots, describing them as “political prisoners”, in an attempt to generate support by giving money to their families.

More than £14,000 has been raised by a leading group, which has been promoting the start of its “gifting” of funds to families of “political prisoners”.

One of the leaders of Patriotic Alternative (PA) recently met a teenager in HMP Hull who had been jailed for racially aggravated harassment during the disturbances, his wife told supporters.

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‘Quite shocking’ lack of government contact during UK riots, says MCB head

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Zara Mohammed calls for review of Downing Street’s non-engagement policy with Muslim Council of Britain

The head of the Muslim Council of Britain has called for an explanation and a review of the government’s policy of non-engagement with the body after her appeals for contact during the summer riots were ignored.

Zara Mohammed, who was elected more than three years ago as the MCB’s youngest and first female secretary general, said there had been a “quite shocking” lack of contact with the new government at a time when mobs were targeting Muslims and mosques.

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Starmer promises ‘project of hope’ in UK amid concern about rise of far right

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Prime minister says ‘progressives have to provide the better answer’ during visit to Germany

Keir Starmer has expressed concern that the UK could face a rise in mass far-right populism as seen in Germany and France, as he said it was his mission to “inject some hope” into the country.

Speaking to reporters in Germany, where the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) could come top in three state elections next month, Starmer said the increase in support for such groups was “something that occupies my time”, especially after UK riots partly inspired by far-right misinformation.

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UK must curb rise in racist hate speech by politicians and public figures, UN says

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Review also highlights racial profiling in police practices, and failure to address legacies of colonialism and slavery

The UK must act to curb a sharp increase in the use of racist hate speech by British politicians and high-profile public figures, a UN body has said.

Ministers must “adopt comprehensive measures to discourage and combat racist hate speech and xenophobic discourse by political and public figures” and ensure that such cases are “effectively investigated and sanctioned”, the UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination recommended in a report.

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Stand Up to Racism plans counter-protest to Glasgow anti-immigrant rally

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Campaigners warn against ‘false sense of security’ and say asylum seekers in Scotland are fearful of the far right

Anti-racism campaigners have vowed to show the far right they are not welcome in Scotland after an anti-immigration rally was organised in Glasgow.

But they warned against a “false sense of security” as the disorder witnessed across England and Northern Ireland earlier in the month has not been seen in Scotland.

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Tommy Robinson’s passport may be invalid, say Irish parliamentarians

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Dáil members call for investigation after far-right leader gave false country of birth to Canada’s immigration officers

Irish parliamentarians have called on their government to investigate how an Irish passport was obtained by Tommy Robinson, who has been accused of inciting riots from abroad.

The Luton-born far-right leader travels on an Irish passport in his real name – Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – and was believed to have qualified for it via his mother, an Irish immigrant to Britain.

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Home secretary calls out ‘shameful behaviour’ of politicians seeking to undermine police – UK politics live

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Yvette Cooper says government will work with police rather than ‘blaming them from afar’

Phillip Inman and Graeme Wearden report:

The UK should not be “seduced” into thinking the battle to calm inflation is over despite price rises easing to the Bank of England’s target, according to an interest rate setter at the central bank.

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Far-right disorder had ‘clear’ Russian involvement, says ex-MI6 spy

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Christopher Steele says officials will ‘look very carefully’ at online instigators such as Tommy Robinson

There is “clear” Russian involvement in the far-right riots and security services will be looking closely at the instigators, a former head of the MI6 Russia desk has said.

Christopher Steele, the ex-spy who compiled a notorious dossier on Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia, said that security officials would be “looking very carefully” at the people encouraging anti-immigration riots in the past fortnight.

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