British Transport Police say alleged victim ‘did not wish to provide a statement to the investigation’
The far-right activist Tommy Robinson will not face charges over allegations he punched a man to the ground at a London train station, police and prosecutors have announced.
Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm after the incident on 28 July at St Pancras train station.
Continue reading...Paul Bean may have breached civil service impartiality rules over alleged social media posts
Campaigners have complained to the Home Office after it was revealed a councillor for Reform UK also works for the government department processing asylum and immigration claims.
Paul Bean, who serves as a councillor for Crook ward at Durham county council, declared his day job as a civil servant at the Home Office in his register of interests.
Continue reading...Counter-demonstration offers welcome to refugees as anti-migrant protesters gather outside Cladhan hotel
Anti-racism campaigners held a counter-demonstration against people protesting against “uncontrolled illegal immigration” outside a hotel used to house asylum seekers in Scotland.
Stand Up to Racism Scotland, Falkirk Trades Union Council and local people said they organised the gathering in Falkirk on Saturday to show that refugees are welcome in the town.
Organisers described it as a “safely stewarded community event with music, speeches from the local community, the trade union movement, local campaigns, faith groups and others”.
Demonstrators held placards with messages such as “stop the far right”, “refugees welcome” and “migrants make our NHS”.
Continue reading...Ricky Jones was filmed speaking at anti-racism rally after last summer’s far-right riots that followed Southport murders
A suspended Labour councillor who called at an anti-racism rally for far-right activists’ throats to be cut has been found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder.
Ricky Jones, 58, used the phrase “disgusting Nazi fascists” in a speech about last summer’s far-right protests after the Southport murders, his trial at Snaresbrook crown court heard.
Continue reading...Spate of physical incidents includes attack on a six-year-old girl at a County Waterford housing estate
In the west Dublin suburb of Tallaght, a group of teenagers accosted, beat and partially stripped an Indian man, who was then filmed staggering and bleeding. Days later a gang attacked another Indian man in the nearby suburb of Clondalkin, hitting him in the face, chest, back and legs, leaving him with a fracture, gashes and multiple bruises.
Days later again, two male passengers turned on an Indian taxi driver in the north Dublin suburb of Ballymun, striking him across the face with a bottle and shouting: “Go back to your country.”
Continue reading...Restrictions in place on Friday in areas including Norwich and officers will monitor at least 12 other towns and cities
Police are braced for potential disorder in towns across England this weekend amid the far right’s promotion of a range of protests against asylum seekers, with anti-racism activists planning counter-protests.
Restrictions will be in place on Friday at locations including Norwich while officers will police at least 12 other towns and cities that evening.
Continue reading...Small group booed and yelled at Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown’s welcome and Victorian governor’s acknowledgement of country
A man is expected to be charged for offensive behaviour after a group including an alleged neo-Nazi booed and heckled a welcome to country at Melbourne’s main Anzac Day dawn ceremony.
A small group of people booed and yelled throughout the welcome delivered by Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown at the 5:30am service at the city’s Shrine of Remembrance.
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Continue reading...Call for greater protection for asylum seekers and policies targeting rightwing violence as report sounds ‘alarm bell’
Berlin has reported a marked increase in attacks on asylum seekers and refugee shelters, amid a sharp rise in far-right crime and a hardening of German migration policy.
Official figures provided at the request of two local Green party lawmakers showed there were 77 assaults on asylum seekers and refugees in 2024 and eight instances of deliberate damage to residences housing them.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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:
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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”.
Continue reading...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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Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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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