Growth of far right networks 'fuelled by toxic political rhetoric'

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/07/growth-of-far-right-networks-fuelled-by-toxic-political-rhetoric

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An expanding far right has transformed itself into loose networks of online sympathisers who share and produce extremist material fuelled by toxic mainstream political rhetoric, experts have warned.

These networks attempt to generate interest using messaging apps, social media and platforms such as Telegram, 8chan and Gab, with some openly supportive of Boris Johnson and his stated aim of taking the UK out of the European Union by the end of October.

James Goddard, a self-styled yellow vest protester, encouraged people to join him outside the Conservative party conference in Manchester this week, in opposition to what he called the “unwashed, anti-democratic fanatical remainers” before signing off with the hashtag #BackBoris.

A rambling video on his Telegram and YouTube channels, which have a combined total of 17,000 subscribed accounts, shows him repeatedly harangue pro-EU protesters, calling them “traitors” and accusing them of “surrender” and “betrayal” – a language reflecting recent debates in the Commons.

The so-called Tommy Robinson News channel on Telegram endorsed Johnson in early September, praising him for stripping the Conservative whip from 21 MPs for refusing to back no deal.

“It is refreshing to see someone have a pair and stand up for British democracy,” the posting begins, referring to the “21 Tory traitors” who voted with Labour. “We back Boris, now get us out of the EU”.

Researcher Jacob Davey, at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue thinktank, said: “There’s clearly been a response to Boris Johnson and some of the rhetoric from his government in far right circles. It has stimulated them.”

Johnson was embroiled in heated exchanges in the Commons last week, when he dismissed as “humbug” pleas from Labour MP Paula Sherriff to stop describing the Benn act as the “surrender bill”.

Sherriff had said that death threats to MPs often quoted Johnson’s words, such as “‘surrender act’, ‘betrayal’, ‘traitor’” and she had called on him to “moderate his language”.

In the past decade, across continents, white supremacists have repeatedly chosen the same targets for shootings, stabbings, bombings and car attacks.

77 killed in a bomb attack, followed by a shooting targeting the island summer youth camp of Norway’s Labor party. The shooter wanted to prevent an 'invasion of Muslims' and deliberately targeted politically active young people who he saw as 'cultural Marxists'. More than half of the dead were teenagers.

Six worshippers including the temple president are killed. The shooter, a ''frustrated neo-Nazi' who had played in white power bands, was a regular on racist websites. He had previously talked to one colleague in the US military about a 'racial holy war that was coming'.

Rapper and anti-fascist activist Pavlos Fyssas was stabbed to death. A senior member of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party was imprisoned after confessing to the killing.

A former Ku Klux Klan leader shot and killed three people at a Jewish centre and retirement home, one of them just 14 years old. He said he believed Jews were destroying the white race, and that diversity was a kind of genocide.

Nine people killed during Bible study at a historic black church. The victims included elderly longtime church members at the Mother Emanuel AME church, and Clementa Pinckney, a state senator. The shooter, a self-avowed white supremacist, said he wanted to start a race war.

An attacker stabbed students and teachers at a high school, targeting those with darker skin, police said. Three died, including 15-year-old Ahmed Hassan, who was born in Somalia and had recently moved to Sweden.

Labour MP Jo Cox shot and stabbed to death a week before the EU referendum vote in 2016. The man convicted of killing her, a white supremacist obsessed with the Nazis and apartheid-era South Africa, shouted: 'This is for Britain,' 'Keep Britain independent' and 'Britain first' as he killed her.

Six people killed and nineteen injured during evening prayers at a mosque in a shooting which the gunman said was prompted by Justin Trudeau’s tweet that refugees were welcome in Canada, and that 'diversity is strength'.

Timothy Caughman stalked and killed by a white supremacist with a sword. His killer, an American military veteran, said he targeted a random black man on the street in New York City as a 'practice run' for a bigger attack, and as part of a campaign to persuade white women not to enter into interracial relationships.

Two men were killed and one injured after they tried to intervene to protect young women on a public train who were being targeted with an anti-Muslim tirade. Their alleged killer shouted 'Free speech or die' in the courtroom, and 'Death to Antifa!'

One killed and 12 people injured after a van ploughed into worshippers outside a mosque. The killer shouted 'I want to kill all Muslims – I did my bit' after the van attack. A judge concluded he had avidly consumed anti-Muslim propaganda from prominent rightwing figures.

Heather Heyer killed and dozens injured after a car ploughed into anti-Nazi protesters. The killer had been obsessed with Hitler as a teenager, according to a former teacher.

Man attempted to enter black church before allegedly killing two black people in a supermarket. A witness said that during the attack, the alleged shooter said: 'Whites don’t kill whites.'

11 killed in a mass shooting targeting the Tree of Life synagogue. The alleged shooter had an active profile on an extremist social media site, where he accused Jewish people of trying to bring 'evil' Muslims into the US, and wrote that a refugee aid organisation 'likes to bring invaders in that kill our people'.

51 people were killed and 49 injured in two consecutive attacks on mosques during Friday prayers. The gunman live-streamed the first attack on Facebook Live. They opened the live stream by urging viewers to 'subscribe to PewDiePie', a meme used by the online alt-right and white supremacists.

One person killed in mass shooting targeting a synagogue in Poway, California, US. The alleged shooter, 19, from California, opened fire in a synagogue during Passover services, killing a 60-year-old woman and injuring three others. An“open letter” posted on the 8chan extremist message board before the attack included white nationalist conspiracy rhetoric and said the shooter was inspired by the New Zealand mosque attacks.

21 people killed after a shooter opened fire at a busy Walmart store packed with families shopping. Two dozen more were injured. The 21-year-old white male suspect had driven nine hours to reach his target. and had posted a "manifesto" on 8chan.

Lois Beckett and Martin Belam

Pro-remain MP Dominic Grieve said that he had received a death threat this weekend, after the Mail on Sunday quoted a government spokesman saying that he and the two other MPs who had drawn up the bill to prevent a no deal Brexit were under investigation over whether they had been “engaged in collusion with foreign powers”.

“The direct consequence,” Grieve said, “was a death threat as I came up on the train [to Conservative party conference]. There is a direct causal link between the two, indeed the death threat came accompanied by the Mail on Sunday article.”

Joe Mulhall, a senior researcher at Hope Not Hate, which monitors the far right, described the model as “post-organisational” and said he believed one goal was to expand what is known as the “Overton window”, the range of ideas tolerated in public debate.

“Some of the language we see more widely now, such as ‘traitors’ and ‘betrayal’, this is absolutely the language of the far right,” he said.

Entry-level groups, such as the Tommy Robinson channel, which has 50,700 subscribed accounts, act as gateways for like-minded individuals to connect online, with the next step for some being to join closed chat groups and sharing material.

Brexit is not the only issue to interest far-right supporters: other dominant themes are anti-Muslim hatred, white supremacism or cultural nationalism.

Ideas are spread internationally, most notably the conspiracy theory of the “great replacement”, which is based on the false claim that so-called indigenous European people will be outnumbered by Muslims.

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Typically people are asked to prove their belief in order to join a closed group by photographing themselves with Nazi regalia or far-right texts, or asked to undertake a simple task such as distributing fascistic or anti-Muslim leaflets.

Individuals joining such groups tend to be male, aged 15 to 25, and show some level of technological sophistication, using encrypted communications and trying to hide their true identities online.

Direct incitement is rare but a pressing concern is whether individuals could become radicalised, “lone actors” such as Thomas Mair, the reclusive, white supremacist who assassinated Labour MP Jo Cox, or Darren Osborne, who was found guilty of murder after driving a van into a crowd of Muslims near a London mosque.

One UK based neo-Nazi group, National Action, was proscribed in 2016, becoming the first far-right group to be banned since the second world war. One of its members, who was also a convicted paedophile, was found guilty of a plot to murder Labour MP Rosie Cooper with a machete in May.

However, a cluster of offshoots are not banned and remain active in the UK: the Sonnenkrieg Division, System Resistance Network and the Feuerkrieg Division, the last of which last month posted an image of the West Midlands chief constable with a gun pointed to his head.

MI5 became the lead intelligence agency in investigating far-right networks last year. Until then, far-right subjects of interest did not form part of the agency’s files, covering a little over 20,000 people, but since then intelligence officers have been surprised by how often such individuals have been included in the highest category of potential threat.

Last month, police said that the fastest growing terrorist threat in the UK came from the far right, which accounted for a third of all disrupted terror plots since the Westminster attack in 2017. A particular concern is that some people on the far right are able to gain access to firearms, which Islamist terrorists traditionally find difficult to do.