United Kingdom - Politics
UK voters tend to revert to their traditional party allegiances as an election nears -- despite what they have told pollsters about their voting intentions in the pre-election period. While voters no longer distinguish themselves strictly along the ideological lines of the 1970s and 80s -- socialists versus capitalists -- there remain strong class ties to voting patterns.
Between 1945 and 1997, UK turnout was roughly between 71-83 percent; 2001 turnout fell to 59.4 percent, and rose again in 2005 to 61.4 percent. Typically, the Tories (whose core supporters are regular and committed voters) hope for low turnout in elections as it suggests that Labour and Lib Dem voters have stayed home.
Owen Jones wrote in The Guardian in February 2015: "The media polices the boundaries of acceptable debate in Britain, helping to ensure that the national conversation was on the terms most favourable to those with wealth and power. According to the opinion polls, most Britons want public ownership of rail and energy, higher taxes on the rich and a statutory living wage. Yet despite the fact such policies are political common sense among the public, they are ignored or actively opposed by almost all media outlets. If you are one of the very few commentators with a media platform that advocates them, you are treated as chronically naive, or as a dinosaur who isn't aware of their own extinction."
The Conservative Party had held power since 1979, when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. On November 22, 1990, Margaret Thatcher stood down as Prime Minister. John Major entered the contest, as Margaret Thatcher's preferred candidate. He narrowly won the 1992 General Election for the Conservative Party. He tried to steer a middle course on Europe, but only angered both the pro-Europeans and the Eurosceptics in the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party lost its Parliamentary majority in December 1996, but John Major remained in office for a few more months.
Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair was elected on May 1, 1997, with a massive 176-seat majority in the House of Commons. Labour's victory ended an 18-year run of Conservative (Tory) Party rule in the UK. Blair worked hard to reorganize and reenergize the Labour Party, moving it steadily to the center of the political spectrum.
Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were liberal politicians who embraced a new approach to governing -- the so-called "third way," which combined market forces with government action. Blair played an instrumental role in achieving peace in Northern Ireland and negotiating the Good Friday Agreement which brought all communities into the political and governmental process and ended centuries of division, conflict, and strife.
In 2003, Blair's support of the USA's war plans showed a complete and utter disregard for the views of the vast majority of British voters. Blair disregarded opinion polls showing that more than 80% of Britons are against a war, and continued to send British troops to Iraq. Blair was elected on the strength of promises to reform, among others, Britain's healthcare and traffic problems, but these seemed to be all but forgotten.
The United Kingdom Independence Party [UKIP], which would pull Britain out of the European Union, scored a surprising third-place finish in June 2004 elections for the European parliament, just five points behind Labor and ahead of the pro-EU Liberal Democrats.
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair called a national election for 05 May 2005. The main opposition parties hope to overcome that lead by highlighting Blair's support for the war in Iraq, which remains largely unpopular in Britain. Tony Blair became the first Labour Prime Minister ever to win a third consecutive term when he was re-elected on May 5, 2005. Labour had a 62-seat majority in the House of Commons. The Conservative (Tory) Party and Liberal-Democrats (LibDems) form the major opposition parties.
The British media made much of the March 2006 revelation that Prime Minister Blair nominated some wealthy individuals for peerages after they had made unpublicized loans to his Labour party. Those loans were not public knowledge, because transparency rules (introduced by Blair) apply only to donations, not loans. All those involved denied that peerages or honors were promised in exchange for the loans, and there was no evidence that any laws were broken.
Blair lost the support of the British people, many of whom strongly opposed his close association with President Bush's Iraq policy. Having promised to step down before the next general election, and being unpopular with much of the media and the left wing of his own party, Blair stepped down as Prime Minister in June 2007.
Labour Party leader Gordon Brown succeeded him. A lot had happened during the last 10 years under Mr. Blair's leadership, and Gordon Brown will inherit a demoralized and unpopular Labour Party lagging far behind the opposition Conservatives in the polls. The main British parties support a strong transatlantic link, but are increasingly absorbed by European issues as Britain's economic and political ties to the continent grow in the post-Cold War world. Prime Minister Brown continued Blair’s policy of having the United Kingdom play a leading role in Europe even as the United Kingdom maintains its strong bilateral relationship with the United States.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was never elected to the post by his party, remained uncharismatic. The Labour Party had performed strongly in marginal constituencies in the last three elections. Labour's landslide victory in 1997 demonstrated the party's ability to win small majorities in marginal seats. Similarly, in the 2005 election Labour used the same formula targeting marginal constituencies -- winning 88 seats with less than a majority of 10 percent. Efficient campaigning and appeals to middle income voters have been effective Labour tools in courting marginal seats.
Cameron's Tories, however, had not succeeded in seizing the opportunity that Brown's lack of popularity presented. Cameron, who has regularly polled as more trustworthy and a better leader than Brown, has tried to distinguish himself from Brown on the budget by calling for an age of austerity, without detailing what cuts his government would make, and has fashioned himself as a new generation Tory, pledging to empower individuals and communities.
The Labour government that had been in power since 1997, first under Prime Minister Tony Blair and then under his successor, Gordon Brown, lost its majority in the House of Commons in the May 6, 2010 election. For the first time since 1974, however, no party was able to win a full majority in the Commons, resulting in a hung parliament in which no party wins an outright majority. This led to several days of intense negotiations between the Conservatives (Tories), who won the most seats, and the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems), who placed third in number of seats won. On May 11, when it became clear that Labour would be unable to form a government, Prime Minister Gordon Brown resigned, and David Cameron became the new Prime Minister.
Cameron subsequently announced a formal coalition with the Liberal Democrats, which would ensure Liberal Democrat support for a Conservative-led government in exchange for five Liberal Democrat cabinet seats and policy compromises. As part of the coalition deal, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg became the Deputy Prime Minister. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has an 83-seat majority in the House of Commons, and the Labour Party forms the official opposition. Gordon Brown resigned as Labour leader on May 11, and was succeeded by Ed Miliband in a September 2010 Labour party election.
Far-right, anti-EU parties made strong gains following European elections in May 2014. The anti-EU UK Independence Party topped the vote, and now held a third of Britain’s 73 seats in the European Parliament. Party leader Nigel Farage vowed to repeat the success in national elections - and force a referendum on Britain’s EU membership.
The national election in May 2015 was expected to be the closest in a generation, with Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives initially polling neck and neck with the opposition Labour party.
Cameron promised a referendum on Britain's EU membership after the May 2015 election and wanted the treaty revived to allow countries to opt out of the historic objective of an "ever closer union" to fend off criticisms of eurosceptics in his party and in the hard right UK Independence Party (Ukip). Following the General Election in May 2015, one of the first challenges was the development of a Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).
On 23 June 2016 Britain made a historic decision to leave the European Union in a referendum that stoked passions on issues of immigration and sovereignty, and prompted the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron. “The British people have made a very clear decision to take a different path and as such I think the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction,” Cameron told reporters outside 10 Downing Street. Cameron said that transition should happen in October 2016.
Negotiating a divorce from the bloc would be troublesome and destabilizing, especially if the British government seeks to negotiate an EU free trade deal along the lines of Norway or Switzerland, which would include abiding by EU regulations and accepting free movement of labor. At least 110 Conservative MPs out of 330 could well vote against seeking such a deal. And with a Conservative majority of just eight in the House of Commons, the government would have to rely on the support of opposition lawmakers. If the opposition didn’t assist, an early general election could be triggered. David Cameron stepped down after a majority of voters opted to leave the European Union.
Theresa May moved into 10 Downing Street in July 2016. The early general election May called proved to be a mistake. She had hoped that the vote would strengthen her position in Brexit talks with the EU. Instead, it became a humiliation, with the Conservative Party losing 13 seats and its majority in Parliament, The deal Prime Minister May struck with the EU had been rejected three times by the House of Commons, leading to the EU twice granting the UK an extension.
Theresa May announced 24 May 2019 she would resign as Tory leader on 07 June 2019. The frontrunner to replace May, Boris Johnson, thanked her for "stoical service to our country and the Conservative Party. It was now time to follow her urgings: to come together and deliver Brexit."
A Conservative leadership contest was expected to take place across the summer in 2019 with a new Prime Minister in place before the Conservative Party Conference in September. There are 18 candidates who are expected throw their hat into the ring to replace Theresa May as Conservative leader. Johnson faced competition from former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, as well as a potential second run for power from Leadsom. Leadsom lost out to May in the bid to succeed David Cameron in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum in 2016.
Secretary of State for International Development Rory Stewart, an advocate of a so-called "soft" Brexit, and former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Esther McVey, who wants a "hard" Brexit, have announced they will run. Leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom, who came second in a leadership bid in 2016, said she was "considering" standing. Other possible contenders include former and current members of the Cabinet, including Environment Secretary Michael Gove, Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has carried forward Johnson's gaffe-prone legacy since taking over the job.
Bookmakers believed that Johnson was the leading candidate to replace May, giving him a roughly 1-in-4 chance of claiming the job. Johnson was also seen as a frontrunner to succeed David Cameron in 2016, before surprisingly announcing he would not run. Whoever replaced May would face the same parliamentary arithmetic which denied May an outright majority and a public greatly dissatisfied both with the delivery of Brexit and the state of the nation's leadership more generally.
The two contenders for the post were Boris Johnson, tipped as the frontrunner, and his successor, Jeremy Hunt. Meanwhile, the decision of 160,000 members of the Conservative Party as to who will be Britain's next prime minister would be announced on Tuesday 23 July 2019. Wednesday 24 July 2019 would be incumbent Prime Minister Theresa May's last day in office.
The far right poses different, but interconnected challenges. They are from: far right extremist political parties, of neo-Nazi origin, such as the British National Party (BNP) and National Front (NF); Populist Extremist Parties (PEPs), such as the English Defence League (EDL); and far-right terrorists.
The BNP, the largest far-right political party, has lost considerable support since aaround 2010. This can be seen in a number of ways.
For example, by its reduction in electoral activity. In May 2011, it stood 323 candidates in the local elections, compared with 739 candidates in 2010, and 877 candidates for the same seats in 2007. In the 2010 local elections, the BNP lost almost half their sitting councillors nationally and were wiped out in their former stronghold of Barking and Dagenham. In the May 2010 general election, the BNP stood 338 candidates in England, Scotland and Wales, the highest number ever put forward in a general election by a far-right party. This was a significant increase on the 119 BNP candidates in the 2005 general election. Overall, the BNP polled 563,743 votes nationally, or 1.9% of the national vote, and an increase on the 192,746 votes they polled in the 2005 general election. However, the average BNP vote fell from 4.2% in 2005 to 3.7% in 2010, and only 71 of their 338 candidates retained their deposits, whereas in 2005, 34 of their 119 candidates had retained their deposits.
In neither general election were any BNP candidates elected. Members were increasingly disenchanted by BNP leader Nick Griffin's impetuous and autocratic leadership, and as a consequence are leaving for other groups. In the May 2011 local elections, 36 former BNP candidates stood for a range of other smaller groups, including the National Front, England First Party, Democratic Nationalists, English Peoples Party, British Peoples Party and as Independents. Other candidates have since defected from the BNP to these smaller parties.
In June 2011, Griffin faced a strongly supported leadership challenge from Andrew Brons, the other BNP member elected to the European Parliament. Some of its loss of support may be ascribed to a move away from public activity such as demonstrations, to political activity, for which it has little capacity or experienced personnel. Media publicity about the number of BNP members and leaders who have been convicted of crimes in recent years was growing. This, together with reports of the possibility of bankruptcy proceedings and criminal prosecutions of one or more leaders for failing to submit accounts, was harming their organisational capacity.
The next UK general election must be held by 15 August 2029. However, the prime minister can opt to call an election at any point before this.
UK - Grooming Gangs
As the scale of the grooming gangs scandal in the United Kingdom began to dawn on the rest of the world, there was a gravely large amount of blame to be shared about. It’s a well-known fact that this type of abuse has been committed by various demographic groups, but the clearly racialised nature of the gangs in places like Rotherham was being weaponized by those who hope to stir up social tensions.Many perpetrators have been identified as coming from Mirpur, a city in the Kashmir region of Pakistan, with some noting cultural attitudes toward women and outsiders as contributing factors. Judge Gerald Clifton, who sentenced eight men of Pakistani origin in Rochdale, said the offenders viewed victims as “worthless and beyond respect”. He added that one of the motivating factors was that the victims “were not part of… community or religion”. The prevalence of certain group was acknowledged in 2018 by then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid. He comes from a Pakistani background and was born in one of the worst-affected towns, Rochdale.
The offenders often operated within the nighttime economy, with many working as taxi drivers or in takeout restaurants. The grooming typically began with younger men targeting children in public places such as shopping malls, bus stations, or arcades, where they were lured with attention, free rides, and small gifts. Once trust was established, older men were introduced. The “boyfriend” figure manipulated the girls into sexual exploitation, involving other men. Drugs, alcohol, and psychological control were used to trap victims in cycles of abuse, with threats and violence ensuring their silence. Authorities, including police and social services, often dismissed the victims as “troubled” or “rebellious teenagers” who had willingly engaged in risky behavior.
Editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo News Mehdi Hasan returned to "Piers Morgan Uncensored" on 09 January 2025 for a heated debate with Piers on Elon Musk’s disinformation campaign about the UK’s “grooming gangs,” the role of race and religion, and whether there should be a new UK national inquiry into the issue. “Why are we defining child sex crimes and grooming gangs by race, unless you're a racist or trying to make political hay out of this?” Mehdi says to Piers. “If you’re only obsessed with the perpetrators as Elon Musk, as Robert Jenrick is, then you don’t actually care about these girls.”
This scandal involved hundreds of men (for the most part of Pakistani origin) grooming a large number of young girls (for the most part white) for illicit sexual purposes – that took place in some 40 migrant-dominated British towns (most famously Rotherdam) between 1997 and 2013. Subsequent inquiries disclosed that widespread grooming took place, and that the immediate response by police, local councils and the director of public prosecutions DPP was tardy and unenthusiastic, to say the least.
Men, predominantly of Pakistani origin, were found to have raped and tortured a large number of vulnerable young girls over a 25-year period in numerous English towns and cities. The victims, mainly white girls aged between 11 and 18 from troubled homes, were tortured, drugged and pimped out. At the epicenter were post-industrial towns in northern England and the Midlands, where immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh established communities in the 1960s. Years of inquiries and investigations found systemic failures, and concluded that local politicians and police covered the crimes for fear of being seen as racist. However, no officer or government employee has been convicted for their misconduct.
Complaints by parents of the young girls were initially ignored by police, and the mainstream British media failed to comprehensively report on what was happening at the time. Conservative commentators and some Tory politicians have for the past decade sought to politicise the “grooming gangs” issue, claiming that these failures were caused by institutionalised woke reluctance to expose the criminal activities of members of an ethnic community, and rigorously prosecute wrongdoers.
Starmer was the DPP between 2008 and 2013, and this was the basis for Elon Musk’s attack on him. He accused Starmer of being “evil”, failing to prosecute offenders because of his ideological commitment to diversity politics and of being complicit “in the worst mass crime in the history of Britain”. Musk also intemperately called Jessica Phillips a “rape genocide apologist” – an absurd term – and a “witch”. Such crudities appear to be the norm for Musk.
US billionaire Elon Musk single-handedly brought back into the spotlight one of the darkest unresolved scandals of child exploitation in the UK. The CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X posted a series of tweets about grooming gangs, and shamed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer into explaining what was he doing while serving as chief prosecutor at the time the scandal broke. Musk described the case as “the worst mass crime against the people of Britain ever.” The Tesla CEO erroneously claimed he was jailed for “telling the truth” about the rape scandal.
The “grooming gangs scandal” became a political issue again in October 2024, when Phillips rejected calls for a further national inquiry into the matter. Musk called for a wide-ranging inquiry into the scandal and Starmer’s personal involvement in it. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, has also called for a government inquiry.
Starmer firmly rejected Musk’s allegations – he claims, in fact, to have prosecuted some offenders – and it was not yet apparent precisely what Starmer’s personal role, if any, in the scandal was. Starmer has predictably accused Musk of “peddling lies and misinformation” and refused to establish an inquiry.
There was no doubt that Musk’s intervention was politically motivated. As an influential member of the incoming Trump administration, Musk was no doubt seeking to curry favour with the new president by attacking Starmer – whose unwavering support for NATO and Zelensky were anathema to Trump.
Musk, who was recently named as a special adviser by Trump, posted several times on his X account on 01 and 02 January 2025, stating that Tommy Robinson, a notorious far-right activist who campaigns against immigration and Islam, “should be freed” from prison. "Why was Tommy Robinson in a solitary confinement prison for telling the truth? He should be freed and those who covered up this travesty should take his place in that cell." The Tesla CEO falsely claimed Robinson was jailed for “telling the truth” about the rape scandal. Tommy Robinson, a one-time football hooligan whose real name was Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has been involved in various criminal activities over the years.
In March 2018, Robinson was suspended from Twitter, where he had almost half a million followers. The social-media site decided that Robinson should be suspended for tweeting out a statistic about Muslim rape gangs that itself originated from the Muslim-run Quilliam foundation. In 2017 Robinson was found guilty of “contempt of court” for filming outside a rape-gang trial, one involving four Muslim men at Canterbury Crown Court. On that occasion Robinson was given a three-month prison sentence, which was suspended for a period of 18 months. In May 2018 Robinson was filming outside Leeds Crown Court, where the latest grooming-gang case was going on. The police turned up in a van and swiftly arrested Robinson for “breach of the peace.” Within hours Robinson had been put before one Judge Geoffrey Marson, who in under five minutes tried, convicted, and sentenced Robinson to 13 months. He was immediately taken to prison.
In 2024 Robinson was sentenced to 18 months in prison for breaching a High Court injunction by repeating false allegations against a Syrian refugee, Jamal Hijazi. Robinson claimed in two Facebook videos that the Hijazir was "not innocent and he violently attacks young English girls in his school". In clips viewed by nearly one million people, Robinson also claimed Hijazi "beat a girl black and blue" and threatened to stab another boy at his school.
Robinson's repeated jailings down the years - including nine months for interfering with a trial of a sexual grooming gang - failed to silence him. Robinson was jailed for 18 months after admitting contempt of court by repeating false claims against the Syrian refugee. On 28 October 2024 Robinson admitted 10 breaches of a High Court order made in 2021.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage distanced himself 03 January 2025 from Elon Musk's support for jailed far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson. Musk's support for Yaxley-Lennon was uncomfortable for Farage, who has made it clear over a number of years that he does not want him in his political party. Musk called 05 Janaury 2025 for Nigel Farage to be replaced as leader of Reform UK, just weeks after reports the multi-billionaire was in talks to donate to the party. In a post on his social media site X, Musk said Farage "doesn't have what it takes" to lead the party - but did not explain his reasoning.
Previous inquiries have conclusively shown that widespread grooming took place – although its extent was not clear – and that the police and other authorities were exceedingly slow to take appropriate action. It was also apparent that woke media organisations failed to adequately report on the entire “grooming gang scandal” when it was happening. It was not until 2010 that the first convictions occurred, with five British-Pakistani men found guilty of sexually abusing girls aged 12 to 16. Then in 2012, The Times’ journalist Andrew Norfolk published a horrific exposé revealing that groups of mostly Pakistani older men were using young girls for sex in Rotherham “on an unprecedented scale,” a matter that was well known to the authorities. Professor Alexis Jay’s investigation uncovered a shocking “conservative” estimate of 1,400 children exploited between 1997 and 2013. Rotherham has a population of 260,000. The majority of the perpetrators were described as being of Asian descent, targeting victims that were primarily young white girls. “There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators.” The same thing happened in Telford, later labeled the “child sex capital of Britain”. First a media report found the scale of the abuse was downplayed. In 2018 a Sunday Mirror investigation found that grooming gangs had abused over 1,000 girls since the 1980s. Four years later a local inquiry confirmed the Sun report. Following the same pattern, the evidence had been ignored for decades, and agencies blamed victims instead of perpetrators and hesitated to act due to “nervousness about race.” This, of course, as conservative media outlets and politicians assert, can only be explained by a deep-seated ideological reluctance to pursue perpetrators who happened to have come from an ethnic background. As with all “culture wars “ issues in the West, the search for truth was compromised from the outset by emotive moral posturing and irrational allegations and counter allegations of “racism” and “wokeism”. Neither side of the impassioned political debate was willing to put their ideological prejudices aside and determine exactly what occurred in Rotherdam and other towns – let alone ensure that appropriate action was taken against the perpetrators.
English Defence League (EDL)
The English Defence League (EDL), which was trying to spread fear, violence and hatred against the Muslim community. Violent, far-right groups such as the 'English Defence League' and the 'National Front' have been operating with tactics of intimidation and violence. They use force and fear to cause divisions in working class communities. The definition of terrorism: to threaten and/or enact violence to push an ideology. Legislation allows for a group to be proscribed in the UK only if the Secretary of State believed it was currently concerned in terrorism, within the meaning of the Terrorism Act 2000.
The "English Defence League" are an organisation devoted to violence, public disorder, hooliganism, and the incitement of hatred under the convenient guise of making some kind of political statement. The EDL, formed in 2009, organised marches and demonstrations in several cities across the UK, which have seen sometimes violent confrontations with anti-fascism campaigners. From their earliest protests the EDL’s members sought to highlight issues including sharia law, Islam’s attitudes toward minorities, and the phenomenon that would become euphemistically known as “grooming gangs.” In reality these protests often descended into hooliganism.
Tommy Robinson was a British political activist and “citizen journalist” who came to prominenceo when he founded the English Defence League.In 2011, English Defence League leader and founder Tommy Robinson said that the “the Islamic community will feel the full force of the English Defence League if we see any of our British citizens killed, maimed, or hurt on British soil ever again.” Robinson left the group in October 2013, saying he has concerns over the "dangers of far-right extremism". The EDL organises protests across the UK against "radical Islam". Robinson said it was still his aim to "counter Islamist ideology", although "not with violence but with better, democratic ideas".
Professor Matthew Goodwin of Nottingham, who has studied the EDL, said: "I would treat the announcement with extreme caution given Stephen Lennon's (aka Tommy Robinson's) recent comments against Islam in general on Twitter, and already signs that a new movement that was not geared around demonstrations may be formed. In hindsight, this may all owe more to the quest for publicity than to a genuine conversion to democratic ideas"
The overriding grievance of EDL members was over continued immigration into the UK, and particularly Muslim immigration. EDL supporters express growing dissatisfaction with government and its ability to improve the economic situation. EDL supporters are significantly more likely to hold pessimistic views about their economic prospects than non-EDL members. EDL supporters are "ultra-patriotic", and some may disavow racist ideologies.
While the BNP was the most popular political party amongst EDL supporters, the majority of members state that they are democrats. EDL supporters are, for the most part, 18-24 year old males. The EDL has Afro Caribbean, Hindu, Sikh and Jewish members, but they constitute a tiny and insignificant minority, although their presence has allowed the leadership to disavow racism.
The EDL has no political programme, and few self-declared leaders. Its main activity was the holding of street demonstrations and marches, which are organised via Facebook and other social media. These may be used to intimidate Muslim communities and their institutions, or to protest against Muslim and Islamist public activities. They are often violent, and print and electronic media reports refer to their racist chanting and the giving of Nazi salutes by some members.
One EDL sub- group, the NE Infidels, was more openly racist and violent.
The English Defence League published following statement on 17 November 2010 on its Facebook page.
"In the last 66 years we as a nation, as a race have had our national identity stolen from us by politicians who have forced us to accept multiculturalism. They have and still are practicing cultural genocide on their own people, despite warnings that we will not accept it. They have forced us to accept the dilution of our heritage and history by the implementation of laws which will stop us from rising up, even if that's just to voice an opinion.
"Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving us of our integrity as distinct peoples, or of our cultural values or ethnic identities. Any form of population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of the rights of the native or indigenous people. Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on us by legislative, administrative or other measures was cultural genocide.
"And unless we find our backbone and stand up to the ones who are committing crimes against the English people we shall continue to be subjected to slavery by a British elite aided by outside influences whose only intention was to destroy us from within and wipe us out as a race."
Although some leaders and members have also been members of the BNP, the EDL was most accurately understood as a new populist social movement, rather than a traditional political party or group of the far-right. The threat that it poses is, at the moment, to public order, and beyond that to community cohesion.
The Swedish academic, Dr Tore Bjorgo, who has studied Europe's far-right movements for over twenty five years, noted in 1995 that increasing support for xenophobic and far-right parties enabled the growth of militant neo-Nazi organisations and networks which target asylum seekers and visible minorities in Europe. He further observed that groups perceived as "right wing" or "racist" frequently turned out to have no connections with extreme political organisations, and had only a rudimentary idea of any ideology. He suggested that theirs "is an anger against perceived outsiders, or the state, which could take a violent path".
This analysis supports the view that within Europe as a whole, there was a growing political reaction to continued migration, and especially Muslim migration, which was perceived as a challenge to European culture. This may arise because of genuine concern over the future rather than as a by-product of racist or neo-Nazi ideology.
In 2007, the EU Terrorism Situation and Trend (TE-SAT) Report published by Europol, noted that: "Although violent acts perpetrated by right-wing extremists may appear mainly sporadic and situational, right-wing extremist activities are organised and transnational'. Also that 'Right-wing violence was partly driven by the agenda of their perceived opponents".
In 2008, the TE-SAT report noted that "Activities from right-wing extremist groups are increasing", and in 2009 that "several right-wing extremists were acting alone without links to an extremist organisation" and that "Individual members of the WPM (White Power Movement) scene have exhibited their readiness to use violence, threats or coercion to reach their political goals. In 2010, it observed that 'far right activists are engaging in paramilitary training in EU Member States … and that individuals who act alone continue to pose a threat", and in 2011, that "right wing extremist groups are becoming more professional in their manifestations" and that they "still pose a threat in EU Member States".
The ACPO National Community Tension Team noted in 2008, with reference to far-right terrorism in the UK, that: "The unorganised nature of such activity makes it difficult to police but individuals within known Right Wing Extremist groups are the subject of covert operations locally, regionally and nationally" and that "Lone Wolf operatives in the UK have primarily targeted Muslims whereas there was more evidence of an anti-Semitic focus in continental Europe".
An important underlying philosophy for right-wing terrorism was that of "leaderless resistance" as proposed by an American Ku Klux Klan leader Louis Beam, in his online journal, The Seditionist, and the messages contained in the novels of National Alliance founder, William Pierce, writing under the name of Andrew McDonald. In The Turner Diaries, Pierce depicted a violent revolution in the USA that leads to the overthrow of the federal government, and the extermination of all Jews and non-Whites. His other book, Hunter, describes a campaign of targeted assassinations of couples in inter-racial marriages and civil rights activists carried out by a Vietnam War veteran who gets drawn into a white supremacist group planning insurrection.
These two novels were a formative influence on both Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Alfred P Murrah Federal Government Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, and David Copeland, the London Nail Bomber in 1999. The philosophy proposes that individuals, or small groups, who are radicalised act out their beliefs without either participating in the political movement itself or without being part of a command structure.
Within Europe, parallel ideological developments included those promoted by the American-born Francis Parker Yockey, author of Imperium, who campaigned for a transatlantic and trans-European alliance; Jean Thiriart, a Belgian former Nazi collaborator, who established the Jeune Europe Movement, and who advocated abandoning the trappings of Nazism and who campaigned for a wider European collaboration from the Atlantic to the Urals; and Povl Riis Knudsen and Michael Kuhnen who adopted elements of leftist theory into their violent far-right ideologies. Kuhnen was among the earliest far-right terrorists in Europe, who was convicted in 1979 of organising an armed assault on a NATO establishment.
Targets for far-right terrorists have been Muslim communities, state institutions and Jewish communities. It was no coincidence that the Norwegian Anders Breivik bombed the Norwegian Prime Minister's Office in Oslo. He had been preceded by a Swedish neo-Nazi group, who in 2005, planned to bomb the Swedish Parliament and murder large numbers of young people. The four members of the Kameradenschaft-Sud, a neo Nazi group, were convicted of a plot to bomb the rededication ceremony of a synagogue in Munich in 2003 which was to have been attended by the German federal president, Johannes Rau and members of the Cabinet. Had the plot succeeded, the German government would have been decapitated.
Far-right political parties and groups provide the arena in which radicalisation occurs, even if the number who go on to commit acts of terrorism has remained small. But there was little public support for terrorism, and interdiction of plots by effective law enforcement counterterrorist operations has resulted in a number of significant arrests and convictions in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.
Far right terrorism was committed by very small groups and lone operators or "Lone Wolves". Far right groups lack cohesion, and have a low degree of overall coordination, but it should be noted that support for their views has risen historically in times of high unemployment and economic distress.
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