Category Archives: Far right

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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Northern Irish first minister condemns mosque attack and other violence

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Michelle O’Neill and deputy first minister Emma Little-Pengelly call unrest in Co Down and Derry ‘disgraceful’

Northern Ireland’s first minister and deputy first minister have condemned a racist attack on a mosque in County Down and last night’s violence in Derry.

The mosque was attacked at about 1am on Saturday, when graffiti was sprayed on the front door and walls of the building in Greenwell Street.

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Archbishop of Canterbury warns Christians against membership of far-right groups

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Exclusive: Justin Welby condemns violent disorder of recent days as ‘unchristian’

The archbishop of Canterbury has warned Christians they should not be part of any far-right groups, criticising the use of Christian imagery in this summer’s riots as “an offence to our faith”.

Writing in the Guardian, Justin Welby condemned the violent unrest, which he described as “racist”, “anti-Muslim, anti-refugee and anti-asylum seeker”. His intervention follows a week of disorder that began after a mass stabbing of children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last month.

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Top Tories fuelled riots with ‘divisive language’ on immigration, say party grandees

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Veteran Conservatives on the party’s liberal wing have criticised the rightwards shift by some senior figures

• Tim Kirkhope: The Conservative party has shifted too far to the right. We must fight for the centre ground

Tory grandees have accused senior figures in their own party of using divisive language that inflamed anger over immigration before the recent rioting, amid warnings that too many Conservatives have “turned a blind eye” to a shift to the right.

The criticisms come as fears grow on the party’s liberal wing that the leadership election risks pulling the party further into populist polices designed to take on Reform UK.

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Video doorbells, CCTV, facial recognition: how the police tracked UK rioters

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Using an array of technology and intelligence tools, police are hopeful of tracking down key perpetrators, even those who were masked

The hunt to find the rioters and the people who incited them began the moment the first brick was thrown. But the efforts to catch them will last weeks or months, and involve super-recognisers, specialist software, video doorbells and, in a few cases, criminal stupidity.

A dizzying number of newly convicted rioters and online agitators were this weekend waking up in a prison cell on the first day of their sentence. Of the more than 700 arrests made so far, about 300 people had been charged by Friday night, with more arrests and court appearances on Saturday.

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Priti Patel’s ‘laughable’ claims of two-tier policing putting officers at risks

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Neil Basu, ex-head of counter-terrorism, says former home secretary’s remarks are divisive and untrue

The former head of UK counter-terrorism has accused Priti Patel of putting officers at risk after the Tory leadership hopeful made “divisive” comments about two-tier policing.

Since far-right riots erupted across England and Northern Ireland last week, there have been false claims on social media that police are treating white people taking part in the disorder more harshly than minority groups.

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Two men jailed for social media posts that stirred up far-right violence

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People who threw stones, hurled racist abuse and pushed a burning wheelie bin at police also sent to prison

Two men have been sent to prison for stirring up hatred and violence online after the Southport attack, in the first cases of their kind linked to the recent riots seen across the country.

Jordan Parlour, 28, was jailed for 20 months after pleading guilty to inciting racial hatred with Facebook posts in which he advocated an attack on a hotel in Leeds as part of the violent public disorder that swept England last week.

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Online Safety Act not fit for purpose after far-right riots, says Sadiq Khan

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Exclusive: London mayor warns law must be revisited ‘very, very quickly’ due to falsehoods that contributed to unrest

Laws designed to counter misinformation are “not fit for purpose” and must be revisited after the spread of online falsehoods contributed to this month’s far-right riots, the mayor of London has said.

Sadiq Khan, one of the UK’s most senior Muslim politicians, said ministers should act “very, very quickly” to review the Online Safety Act after the violent unrest in England and Belfast over the past week. There have been calls to hasten the act’s implementation.

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