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Introduction

The aim of this short article is to try and shed a bit more light on the question of Combat 18 and the involvement of the state. Any topic like this is, by necessity, going to require a significant amount of speculation. (MI5 are hardly forthcoming about their activities after all). But I’ve tried to keep that speculation sober and careful. Still though, any article like this should be treated with caution, regardless of who’s writing it.

Combat 18

It’s assumed that most people reading this have an understanding of who Combat 18 are. But in brief, they’re a (now largely defunct in my view) group of supposed Nazi hard men. Originally a BNP stewarding group founded in 1992, to protect the BNP from attacks from their antifascist opponents, they were quickly proscribed by the BNP leader John Tyndall in 1993. This followed C18 attacking senior members of the BNP Tony Lecomber and Eddie Butler earlier in the year.

The group’s name is a reference to the initials of Adolf Hitler, AH.

This article only looks at the original British group; I am not qualified to talk about their Canadian, German etc. affiliates. Although I briefly touch on the latter when relevant.

Combat 18: Myth versus Reality

The media portrayal of Combat 18 is well known. A group of Nazi paramilitaries, unstoppable and terrifying. We still see that today in the rather breathless Wikipedia entry on the group.

Combat 18 members have been suspected of being involved in the deaths of numerous immigrants, non-whites, a German politician and other C18 members.

The weasel words “suspected” do a lot of heavy lifting here. The involvement in C18 members in murdering each other is confirmed and I shall return to that later. The murder of the German politician Walter Lübcke is also definite, although this is 2019 so far later than the period we’re looking at. And there seems to be some confusion around exactly how involved the murderer Stephan Ernst was in Combat 18. He is said to have “links”, which could mean anything from active membership to C18 literature. But he is also said to have links with the AFD and NPD. For now, I would assume that Ernst was an individual actor who was part of the German far right mileiu in general, although I reserve the right to modify that if more information comes to light.

Interestingly, one reason it is hard to check these claims is that the BBC article linked to in the Wiki article does not mention them at all.

The view of militant anti fascists on the ground at the time is rather different. While willing to attack some soft targets like SWP paper sellers or elderly immigrants (and the nastiness of these attacks should not be dismissed), Combat 18 were not seen as particuarly terrifying by Anti Fascist Action. In fact, they were quickly christened Combat 16 (Combat Arthur Fowler) because of the gap between the rhetoric and the reality.

In the words of AFA’s house organ Fighting Talk (issue 16, March 1997)

Notwithstanding the fact that the C18 group came into existence as a direct result of an AFA offensive against the BNP in the early 1990s, it is recognised in militant anti-fascist circles that they are essentially a propaganda group who have done very little. Instead they choose to rely for their public notoriety on the media. Their celebrity is not as a result of them being “talented self-propagandists”. The reality is that the media are spoon fed all the ‘sexy’ stories by the same organisation, who on the back of the hysteria generated (still) hope to goad/ manipulate the security services and courts into proscribing the group.

It is a simple statement of fact that when Combat 18 came up against Anti Fascist Action or major Anti Fascist Action component Red Action C18 invariably got the worse of the clashes. When faced with a competent physical opposition, they simply didn’t live up to the hype.

The Combat 18 letterbomb campaign of the 1996 New Year should be understood in this context. In my view, it was a sign of frustration and impotence from C18, not the sign of a Nazi group with high morale. Still, this particular incident is relevant and I shall return to it.

Combat 18 and the State

This is what I will be focusing on for the body of the article. There were and are consistent allegations that Combat 18 had state links from all sides of the political spectrum.

I shall look at some of these allegations, but it’s worth remembering some terminology issues.

This is obviously especially pertinent in this time of the Spycops inquiry but that framework only gives us a small amount of the full picture.

The inquiry itself seems to be omitting things you’d expect to be there. We are expected to believe that the Troops Out Movement was of interest to the state (which it obviously was) but only Mark Jenner was deployed to take an active interest in Red Action. This despite Red Action’s overt support for the IRA, including one of its members being convicted of bombing Harrods on behalf of the IRA! This is obviously entirely unbelievable.

It’s also worth remembering that the inquiry only covers police officers. Informants, paid or otherwise, are not covered. And that is the meat of a lot of the allegations about Combat 18.

Finally and importantly, it doesn’t even begin to look at what MI5 were up to in the same period. It would have largely been MI5 at the time; although it is possible that MI6 had an interest in Combat 18’s links with Northern Ireland loyalists and other international dimensions.

Fascist Allegations Against Combat 18

The far right were accusing Combat 18 of having state links from very early on. In 1995 an anonymous far right pamphlet attacking Combat 18 was put out. In it was a very interesting question about main C18 men the Sargent Brothers:

whether Charlie and Steve Sargent are MI5 agents or just poisonous shit-stirrers and completely fucking stupid can be argued about

Nick Griffin of the BNP also made similar allegations. Specifically in his trial for inciting racial hatred in 1998 (where he was found guilty) he contrasted the action against him with the lack of meaningful action against Combat 18 for articles of a much more violent nature. While it goes without saying that Griffin is our enemy, this would still seem to be a very strong point.

Anti Fascist Allegations Against Combat 18

Anti Fascist Action also raised the possibility of MI5 links (Fighting Talk, March 1997)

It is possible that C18 was set up by British Intelligence as a ‘honey trap’ -to attract and identify the potentially most violent fascists and monitor their links with similar Nazi ‘terror’ groups around the world. It is also true that since the end of the Cold War MI5 are keen to identify ‘terrorist’ threats to maintain -and expand- their influence

By 2001 their view had firmed up somewhat (Fighting Talk, May 2001) stating:

It is likely that C18, from its inception, was a honey trap for extremist elements active in the fascist movement and that the State had assets at leadership level in the organisation, Steve Sargent in particular. The security services would have built a profile of the organisation, including any split offs like the NSM, and an assessment of their potential for employing political violence in Britain.

C18 were not kept on a tight leash. Action was taken with regards to racist material produced by the organisation, possibly as a result of heavy lobbying. However, C18 were allowed to publish extremist material including hit lists and bomb making instructions without any sanction being applied by the State. Was this part of the honey trap?

Press Allegations Against Combat 18

Somewhat unusually for this kind of issue, allegations of Special Branch (although not MI5!) involvement in Combat 18 has made it into the mainstream press.

An early example was in the World in Action documentary “The Terror Squad” (April 1993). While the details given are thin, drawing entirely on the word of a serving anonymous police officer, the documentary explicitly claims that Charlie Sargent is a police informer.

An Observer article by Henry Macdonald (5^th April 1998) goes into far more detail with its allegations. It suggests that Sargent was not only an informer, but one that got paid for his work and that there was a deliberate policy to leave their crimes unpunished. It goes onto suggest that the reason for this was to gather intelligence for Special Branch on the Ulster Defence Association.

Searchlight Allegations Against Combat 18

Serious caution is urged here. While nominally an anti fascist magazine, Searchlight are known to have state links of their own, including their publisher Gerry Gable directly providing information on leftists to the security services. See Lobster 24 for evidence, including the full text of the infamous “Gable memorandum”. However, the other side of this is that in can be assumed that Searchlight are “in the know” about MI5 attitudes, so this is very notable:

The reasons for MI5 wanting to establish a “honey trap” on the far right are understandable and possibly justifiable at the time Combat 18 were created. Stella Rimington had just taken over as Director of MI5. With the job came the responsibility for watching Ulster Loyalist paramilitaries, in mainland Britain, whom Special Branch had neglected in recent years. It was in these years that sections of the Loyalist UDA and UVF, and their respective killer squads, had started to cooperate with fascists in Britain. Clearly MI5 needed to know the extent of such joint operations. So Combat 18 came into existence.

(Searchlight, April 1995)

This needs careful handling to take Searchlight’s agenda into account. Seasoned state watchers will notice the implicit criticism of Special Branch, playing into the traditional rivalry between them and MI5. I would surmise that there is at least an element of truth here, in that it outlines a definite MI5 interest in C18 and their reasons and justifications why. What I think is less trustworthy is the lack of any real criticism of MI5 strategy here, or examination of what they were willing to let MI5 get away with.

A look at some leading Combat 18 players

As you can see, the allegations of state involvement in Combat 18 have been numerous and come from many different, even opposing quarters. To try and look at the plausibility of these allegations, I’m going to look more closely at three major figures in Combat 18. The aforementioned Charlie Sargent, Sargent’s rival for Combat 18’s leadership Wilf Browning and the American Nazi Harold Covington, who was heavily involved in the setting up of Combat 18.

Charlie Sargent

Many of the allegations here have already been aired, but there’s one important jigsaw piece to add.

In reference to the court case, the Combat 18 Bulletin #44 (produced by the Browning faction) has this interesting detail to add.

Detective Inspector Tony Parr told the jury that Sargent’s court statement amounted to 200 pages! We only have access to his first 16 page statement and his second 7 page statement. Parr then went on to say that only 60 of the 200 pages were relevant to this case and the rest were about ‘other matters’. The Fat Grass! What’s in them?

We should of course remember that Browning has motivation to discredit Sargent, considering the power struggle for control of C18. But it’s still a rather damning question.

Wilf Browning

However, Wilf Browning has similar questions surrounding him. The first is a simple case of the “dog that didn’t bark”. Browning was the man behind the C18 magazine Strikeforce and it’s a remarkable document for all the wrong reasons. Browning openly praises and advocates bombing campaigns and even prints bomb making instructions! And yet I cannot find any evidence of even a cautionary slap on the wrist from the police, let alone the conspiracy and terrorism charges this surely invites. Why was Browning seemingly immune to criminal charges for this?

This would be big on its own, but Anti Fascist Action provide evidence that Browning was providing information to Searchlight Magazine at the very least. According to AFA (Fighting Talk 22, October 1999):

In Drowning Browning, a document produced by the Sargent camp, a Machiavellian plot unfolds, a story of double-cross and double double-cross. The story goes that Browning made contact with Searchlight to feed them disinformation, in a sanctioned operation. However it seems he may have been working to his own agenda, using his contact with Gerry Gable to undermine Charlie’s gaffership and enhance his own political profile.

Detail is given with regard to Browning’s code names, money changing hands, meetings with Gerry Gable etc. As we all know, the Devil mixes lies with truth and to separate the two out when reading through this material would be an impossible task. However one detail in the story rang a few bells in AFA’s collective memory. We are told that the venue for meetings between Wilf and Gerry was a hotel behind Euston Station. This provides some credibility for the story. Once upon a long time ago, AFA personnel would meet with Searchlight in order to exchange information. The venue; a quiet little hotel behind Euston Station. Needless to say, those arrangements have not been in place for some time.

This is circumstantial evidence, but it’s strong circumstantial evidence. I will not even pretend to be unbiased (as an ex member of AFA), but probably points towards them telling the truth here. It’s a simple matter of logic. Browning has strong motivation to avoid his dealings with Gable coming to light. Gable has motivation to keep it quiet as well, even if simply to avoid damaging Searchlight’s operational capacity. I cannot think of any reason why AFA would lie about this.

Harold Covington

One of the more notorious figures in the American Nazi movement, the now happily deceased Covington was involved in the early setting up of C18, while he was living in the UK. Covington should certainly be of interest to the state at least. In 1979, five anti fascist demonstrators were killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party in what became known as the Greensboro Massacre. While Covington was not personally involved in the massacre his group were in attendance on his orders and he defended the actions of the killers.

Notably, there was a widespread belief on the American fascist right that Covington was a FBI informant, although solid details are difficult to come by. Further evidence there is welcome.

Conclusion the First

With the evidence we have available, I think we are safe to say that Combat 18 were infiltrated by the state at the highest levels. Special Branch involvement seems definite, MI5 involvement seems to be very probable. The only thing I’m not convinced of is that this was anything as official as a “honeytrap” from the start, although it may quickly have developed into one.

The evidence for Sargent being an informer, probably paid, seems overwhelming. Browning seems almost as likely; the evidence from AFA is crucial and brings up the question who else Browning was talking to. On Covington, I don’t think we currently have the evidence to know that he was working with the state. Even if he wasn’t that hardly gets MI5 or Special Branch off the hook as I will outline.

It also seems to be certain that the Guardian article by Stuart Millar (April 27, 1999) that suggests that “the group’s leadership are so closely monitored that there is little they can do without it coming to the attention of the authorities” is accurate.

This of course raises an important question and one the second part of the article focuses on. If this is the case (and it seems to be), what exactly did MI5 and/or Special Branch know about what C18 were getting up to. And best, it seems that they turned a blind eye, at worst that they actively encouraged it. With that in mind, I shall now move onto some of the more notable interests in C18’s history in Part 2.

Because it’s the right thing to do.

This, alone, should be enough.  If, as is often claimed, anti fascism and anti racism are at the very core of the emancipatory project (and it certainly should be), we can not pick and choose which minorities are ‘worthy’ of our support.

Because it’s a mandatory component of the class struggle.

A class politics that excludes any section of the class is no class politics at all.  We would rightly criticise any claim to class politics that excludes working class LGBT people or treats the working class as a solely white bloc.  And exactly the same principle applies to class politics that excludes working class Jews.

Because “less racist than the Tories” is not a defense

I would hope I am less racist than the “Hostile Enviroment” implementers.  This is not a baseline that any serious leftist should be working from.  It’s like saying you’re less homophobic than the DUP.  One would hope that’s the case, but it’s missing the point entirely.

Because Anti-Racism needs to be unconditional (mostly)

I am indebted to Keith Kahn-Harris who has done so much work to develop this argument:

The only way out of this impasse is to recast anti-racist solidarity so that it is completely decoupled from political solidarity. Anti-racism must become unconditional, absolute, and not requiring reciprocity. Anti-racism must be explicitly understood as fighting for the right of minorities to pursue their own political agendas, even if they are abhorrent to you.

I will say that Kahn-Harris goes further on this then I do. There are some individuals and group where I think that all you can say is that you shouldn’t use antisemitism against them, but where they’re still beyond the pale. (This is similar to the argument that you shouldn’t be sexist against female Tories, while still recognising them as a categorical enemy).

I do not in fact in any way recognise the right of Roberta Moore and the EDL Jewish Divison (now largely defunct) to pursue their own political agenda, nor do I have any interest in showing solidarity with them. The same would apply to Kahanists in general.

Equally, the same would apply to any Jew who attended the Katie Hopkins meeting. I think it’s fair to say that if you are explicitly allying yourself with the far right that outweighs any other considerations.  In the same way that anti fascists saw no need to get involved (apart from some sniggering) when Combat 18 were attacking the BNP, anti fascists do not need to get involved in any internal tensions of the far right.

(To be fair, I’m not actually sure Kahn-Harris would disagree with those exceptions; I don’t think he’s talking about these kind of fringe outliers).

The last exception is potentially more contentious.  I disagree on reciprocity. If people attack militant anti fascism, they should not expect militant antifascists to lift a finger to help defend them.  Bluntly, resources are limited.  And if you call antifa “thugs” and “terrorists” you can do your own fucking security.

However, the general principle remains. Specifically, it is in no way acceptable to expect any Jew on the left to repudidate the very concept of Israel or to interrogate them about their views before anti fascist solidarity is extended. This isn’t done with any other minority group.  No other group is expected to disown the very concept of a specific nationstate.  In the same way we don’t require Muslims to give us their views on homosexuality before we defend them against racist attacks, this is utterly unacceptable.

Apart from anything else, if you require Jews to repudiate the existence of Israel before they can be involved in anything left wing or antifascist what you’re de facto doing is excluding the vast majority of Jews from our movements.  That is, for reasons that should be obvious, not a good thing.  Personally, I think the idea of an antifascist group that would have excluded at least half the members of the 43 Group is a farce.

Antisemitism is called “the socialism of fools” for a reason

This quote is often misused, both by the right (who use it to falsely claim that Marxists and even all socialists are antisemites) and the left (who use it to mean people utterly separate from the left).

Neither is true.

The reason it’s the “socialism of fools” is that conspiracism and more specifically antisemitism have some structural similiarities to socialist theory.  What they do is they replace the structural critique with conspiracy theories and the ruling class with “rich Jews”.

This is not to say that the two are synonymous or that one naturally leads to another.

But what nominally left versions of antisemitism do is misappropriate socialist theory parasitically and strip them of their socialist content, to replace it with racism.

The best parallel is the National “Anarchists”, who misuse and steal traditional anarchist theory (and, unfortunately, also some virulent antisemitism from historical anarchist theorists) and misuse them to fascist ends.

So for socialism to prosper its necessary to destroy antisemitism entirely.

“Left” antisemites aren’t misguided socialists. They’re scabs.

Further Reading

That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Antisemitic by Steve Cohen

The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Antisemitism part of all our Movements by April Rosenblum

The Socialism of Fools: Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party by Mary Davis and Phil Katz

The Canary describe themselves as delivering

campaigning journalism that informs and empowers people to change their world

And in terms of profile at least, they’ve been growing in strength since ther launch in 2015. According to editor in chief Kerry-Anne Mendoza the site was attracting 3.5 million unique users monthly back in 2016. (Free and Fearless, Hacked Off, 2016).

So while there’s much that can be said about them, their relative success can’t be denied.

But what are The Canary really about? Are they the progressive campaigning journalists they present themselves as. I examine some of the issues in this post.

As well as my own research, this post wouldn’t have been possible without research carried out by Richard Seymour (video follows) and posters on Urban75. Any mistakes and analysis are naturally my own.

Why focus on Kerry-Anne Mendoza

It’s a fair question; she is after all part of a wider team. The reason is simple. Not only is Mendoza the editor in chief, she’s also one of the founders (the story here is inconsistent as we are about to see) and the public face of The Canary. So it seems valid to take her as representative of the company as a whole.

The Business Model of The Canary

This is where things get interesting. The Canary is run as a limited company. According to their website,

Canary Media Limited is owned entirely by its leadership team, comprising of: 4 directors (Kerry-anne Mendoza – Editor-in-Chief, Drew Rose – Managing Director, Nancy Mendoza – Director of Comms and Membership, Bex Sumner – Standards Editor), 4 Editors (John Ranson, Emily Apple, Ed Sykes, Tracy Keeling) and Andrew Streets, our Head of Advertising.

The official line is that

Kerry-anne Mendoza, our Editor-in-Chief, teamed up with a group of extraordinary people to form The Canary in October 2015.

.
That isn’t, however, what was being claimed in 2016.

The Canary has been formed by Kerry-Anne Mendoza and Anthony ‘Roja’ Buck, both highly experienced in their fields.

(From “Writer (Science and Technology) Role Description”, The Canary, 2016)

So already we have a disconnect between what The Canary claim now and how they described themselves in the past. A minor point? Possibly. But it goes to demonstrate how much of the Canary’s public statements are about marketing and nothing else.

Anthony ‘Roja’ Buck is an interesting figure as well. His background seems to have been in business and technology (in particular Just Eat) and he resigned as Director on the 28^th June 2016.

Tellingly, his existence seems to have been scrubbed from The Canary entirely. And vice versa; he doesn’t mention it on his Linkedin profile. Suspicion here is that having a tech entrepreneur involved in the founding of The Canary doesn’t fit the brand.

Journalism Model of the Canary

The Canary pay their writers on a per click basis, split 50/50 with the website.

This alone explains why The Canary is so inclined to clickbait headlines and lowest denominator articles. Unlike most media outlets which pay per article, it’s very model is based round journalists getting the highest possible audience for each article, regardless of quality. This is not a good way to do factual reporting (and also leads to half the articles on the website being just repurposed mainstream news stories with an editorial spin. I see no evidence of The Canary having done serious investigative journalism).

Rather than the daring progressive model they claim this is, it’s actually just a slightly better version of the issues you get with something like The Huffington Post. The Canary owners get to define what reasonable fees are when they take them from their writers. Any increase in advertising, affiliate links etc. are entirely at the discretion of the leadership team. Which goes some way to explaining why only five of the site’s writers earn enough to make a full time living. (Five of the Canary’s writers make enough money to work for the site full-time.). Considering that the leadership team also write for the site in many cases, I think we can hazard a guess which writers are putting food on the table.

Politics of the Canary

The Canary is sometimes seen (by its dimmer detractors as well as its supporters) as a “far left” site. There’s nothing socialist about The Canary. They never transcend a vague kind of left liberalism, with an analysis that could be found easily in the New Statesman or Guardian opinion sections. Don’t take my word for it, here’s Mendoza explaining The Canary’s political position:

We don’t have any affiliations with political parties, we don’t have any affiliations with political organisations, and we’re not actually ostensibly left-wing,” she added, calling the site’s editorial stance “a counterpoint to conservative media” and “broadly liberal”.

(From Buzzfeed)

While we can argue about what socialism would look like, I’m confident in saying that market driven liberalism isn’t it.

Mendoza’s Background

Previous to her founding of the Canary, Mendoza was a banker and management consultant earning over 100,000 a year. While some might consider mentioning this “class baiting”, I think it’s valid considering Mendoza’s posturing as anti establishment. It also means that the anti austerity stuff (genuine as far as it goes in my view; the issues with The Canary lie elsewhere) comes from a place of intellectual exercise, not personal experience.

She claims to have been radicalised by Occupy which is believable. (And explains a lot about The Canary. As anyone involved in that movement can tell you it had big issues with conspiracism).

The Canary and Conspiracism

The Canary has always had been more then willing to embrace conspiracy theories ranging from the Syrian Chemical Attack to claims Laura Kuenssberg was a speaker at the Conservative Party conference.

This isn’t surprising. While she may have tried to play it down since The Canary hit the mainstream Mendoza has always been a conspiracy theorist as her now deleted blog shows.

She has promoted the old far right favourite of a secret padeophile network and openly promoted the conspiracy film Zeitgeist.

So it’s not surprising that The Canary have had issues with antisemitism, whether promoting a play written by an antisemite or putting unabashed antisemites on their writing staff.

Mendoza and Icke

The antisemitism and conspiracism aren’t a shock, considering that Mendoza has links to notorious antisemite David Icke. (There’s not room to go into Icke in detail here, but you can find a summary here).

She seems to have had brief involvement in Icke’s “The People’s Voice” television channel, although she fell out with him. This seems to have been about money, not any of the many reasons anyone who isn’t a racist would fall out with David Icke.

This can’t have been an ideological dispute, considering that she was happy to appear on The Richie Allen show. Allen is an Icke protege who has also hosted neo nazis like Mark Collett, Alison Chabloz and David Duke.

It’s not a show any anti racist would even consider being on.

Conclusion

As I have demonstrated, The Canary is not a project that should be supported in any way. From its business model to its conspiracism it’s a barrier to meaningful left growth, not a path to it.

It should also be recognised that this isn’t the first time we’ve had this issue with alternative media. The previously useful resource Indymedia degenerated into racism and conspiracy theories, in large part due to Atzmon supporter and police informant Roy Bard/Freethepeeps. For any left media project larger than a few close comrades serious discussion on how to stop this happening needs to take place.

Unlike many more centrist critics of The Canary I’m of the view that the mainstream media has provided the climate for a site like The Canary to grow. There’s much to criticise from the left about Corbyn (I will be returning to this subject) but the media has decided to go with obvious conspiraloon stuff like the Czech Spy story and the hilariously stupid “Corbyn was best friends with the explicitly anti Labour Red Action” stuff. Until that’s recognised as an issue sites like The Canary will always find fruitful ground.

So rather than going for the stance that we should just abandon left media altogether, I’d suggest a) consuming the best stuff on top of the more mainstream outlets and b) being more discerning with what you read, repeat and share on social media.

For an example of the right kind of left media I highly recommend looking at the work of Kate Belgrave, who lets benefit claimants tell their stories in their own words. That’s real left campaigning journalism. And that’s what we could have if we get rid of the opportunists and the cranks.  (Note: I don’t know Kate Belgrave and have never talked to her, so she neither endorses nor even knows about this post. So send threats to me instead, k).

It seems Atzmon is getting even bolder in his open anti-semitism.  In a blog post dated the 27th December (http://www.gilad  .co.uk/writings/alexander-baron-gilad-atzmon-wipes-israel-off-the-map.html) he links to a supportive article from the homophobic plagiarist Alexander Baron.

Baron is one of the lesser known figures on the far right, so a bit of background.  He’s openly antisemitic and a holocaust denier as this quote from his website shows (http://www.  infotextmanuscripts.org/ITMA.html) shows:

I have published on the Holocaust and Holocaust Revisionism – what is known pejoratively and inaccurately as Holocaust Denial. I have published a book length exposé of Zionist agent and sexual deviant David Irving.

He uses the traditional antisemite tactic of blaming Jews for antisemitism.  He describes the “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” as:

Organized Jewry’s Deadliest Weapon

Baron isn’t just a lone crank, he has operational links with the Evolian think-tank “New Right”, set up by the veteren far-right activist and founder of “National Anarchism”, Troy Southgate.  Southgate acts as secretary of the group, which has Jonathan Bowden (who used to be in the Monday Club, the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus, the Freedom Party and the BNP) as its chairman.  So, much like Southgate, this is someone with a long history of neo-fascist activism.  Another person involved with the New Right is the veteran fascist and Holocaust denier Lady Michelle Renouf.  Baron thanks her in his writing up of the 2010 conference so he obviously knows her relatively well.  Baron himself spoke at the 2005 launch of the group and the 2010 and 2011 conferences.

Considering this is all easily available on Baron’s website (which is where the article Atzmon links to is from), there is no way Atzmon won’t have seen at least some of it.

So why might Atzmon be attracted to Baron and by extension the New Right?

I’d say it’s an ideological convergence.  Despite the claims from some quarters, while Atzmon is undoubtedly on the far right, his particular allegiance isn’t to Neonazi interpretations of fascism. (The fact some are pushing this merely illustrates the lack of serious anti-fascist analysis around at the moment.  Nobody with even a basic understanding of far-right ideology would be arguing this). His is more a kind of ‘post-modern’, cultural take on far right themes.  So he’s going to be attracted to the likes of Baron who present themselves as “beyond left and right”.  And the founding statement of the New Right could come straight from Atzmon himself:

We are opposed to liberalism, democracy and egalitarianism and fight to restore the eternal tsunami that have become submerged beneath the corrosive tsunami of the modern world.

(For a more in-depth analysis of this specific strand of neofascism, see Co-opting the Counter Culture: Troy Southgate and the National Revolutionary Faction) by Graham D. Macklin).

Some conclusions.

While it might have been previous possible to claim that, while a racist, Atzmon wasn’t a fascist, that is definitely no longer the case.  Atzmon is now openly linking to the organised far right, which makes him one of them.  As such, no platform is the correct position to take, whatever that may entail.

And those like Roy Bard/FreeThePeeps (who was behind the Indymedia coup) and Lauren Booth who are still defending Atzmon have to be treated as fascists themselves at this point.  Even if they don’t actively follow far right ideologies, they are now overtly collaborating with fascists.  At this point, it doesn’t make any difference whether this is deliberate or is the product of stupidity and wilful ignorance.  While not quite at the same level yet, Mikey Ezra of Harry’s Place also needs watching carefully.  While he may see getting his books signed by fascists as some kind of jolly public school jape, I beg to differ.

You are either anti-fascist or you are pro-fascist.  There is no middle ground and none will be accepted.

Lunatic far right anti-semite (and Harry’s Place drinking buddy) Gilad Atzmon is being all whiny.  (Link left intact, mostly for the lulz.  Let’s see if the brave rebel Atzmon runs to the old bill).

Apparently, opposition to his badly written antisemitic drivel can be explained by this:

At that stage, it appeared to be a campaign that was run by hundreds of Zionist enthusiasts – but if one scratches the surface, it was actually an orchestrated move of barely more than five Jewish bloggers, who have managed to mobilise another twenty or so book burners or shall we call them ‘wandering  sockpuppets’ that habitually attack in different areas of the net and the press, co-coordinating to harass, bully and intimidate, with the same dull, repetitive, accusations, ‘arguments’ and smears.

“Harass?”  “Bully”  “Intimidate”?

Man, Atzmon is thin-skinned.  Some people entirely unrelated to me might suggest that someone should give the little shit something to cry about.  An added bonus might be, to some people, that it would cause the whiny fucking liberals to run around panicking about the fact that someone is actually taking “opposition” to Atzmon seriously, showing up their inactivity.  But that is no reason to do so.  Obey the law, respect your parents and go to church.

The other star in this post is the very spooky Bob Lambert.

Couple of interesting observations on this.  Firstly, Daud Abdullah is, at best, naive to the point of idiocy.  At worst, his quickness to jump to the defence of a Special Branch spy raises questions about his own agenda.

This is just beyond satire:

The “exposure” of the former special branch officer Bob Lambert comes at a convenient time: it can serve as a distraction from the scandals that have engulfed the neocon tendency in the government. Lambert has been a staunch critic of the government’s Islamophobic rhetoric and exclusivist policies. This, to a large extent, explains the excitement that has greeted disclosure of information about Lambert’s past career among certain people.

Wait, what?  London Greenpeace (who are who exposed him) are actually following a neocon agenda on behalf of the Conservative Party?  Yeah, that’s a lot more believable than the idea that a proven police spy was following a state agenda.  I’m also interested to know if this was ever revealed by Daud Abdullah before it became common knowledge:

Those of us who worked with him during the difficult decade after 11 September 2001 always knew he came from a police background, and specifically the special branch unit.

And who specifically “knew he came from a police background, and specifically the special branch unit”.  Let’s have some names.  And an explanation of why they never saw fit to mention it including, I strongly suspect, their erstwhile comrades.

And what precisely is this supposed “smear”?  That Bob Lambert was a pig spy who infiltrated the libertarian left?  That’s a factual statement.  Daud may think that’s all fine and dandy, obviously.

The other interesting question is Lambert’s relation with Islamism.  Did he work with Islamist groups as part of a spook agenda or did his own authoritarian background attract him to Islamism?  Either raises some fascinating questions.  It does seem, on first glance, that SB (if not necessarily 5/6) don’t consider Islamism as much of a threat to the state  as direct action enviromentalists.  Both Islamists and certain people/groups on the far left really need to ask themselves why that might be the case…