Saturday, June 11, 2022

There’s a New Breed of Young, Violent, Far-right Activist in Britain: ‘White Jihadists’

THE GUARDIAN – OPINION: The neo-Nazi founder of the banned terror group National Action was jailed this week. Sadly, there are more like him

‘Alex Davies began outlining the framework for his neo-Nazi youth movement a decade ago.’ Alex Davies arrives at Winchester crown court, 20 April 2022. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

Alex Davies, the co-founder of the proscribed far-right terror group National Action, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison this week, bringing the total number of people convicted of membership of the group to 19. Formed in 2013, National Action espouses extreme antisemitic and anti-immigrant views, and presented itself as better organised and more disciplined than other groups in a British neo-Nazi scene previously on the verge of collapse.

When it was banned by the then-home secretary, Amber Rudd, in December 2016, National Action was the first far-right organisation to be proscribed since the second world war. But it wasn’t the first such group in that period to espouse extreme neo-Nazi beliefs or promote the ideology of terror and violence – nor will it be the last.

Davies, 27, a former University of Warwick student, began outlining the framework for this neo-Nazi youth movement a decade ago, while he was being monitored by the government’s controversial Prevent programme. » | Matthew Collins | Saturday, June 11, 2022