Meet New Neo-Nazi Group National Action Which Just Wants To 'Piss People Off'

Meet The New Neo-Nazi Group Which Just Wants To 'Piss People Off'
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"We want to piss people off," says Tom, a member of a new neo-Nazi youth group which has recently emerged from the murky undergrowth of the far right and firmly believes "Britain should be for British people".

Made up of around 20 to 30 "lads", as 18-year-old Tom calls them, National Action stormed onto the student scene in a flurry of nationalist stickers - and lingered outside a small restaurant in Coventry for a few hours - as part of a recruitment drive aimed at 16 to 25-year-olds.

Little is known about the members of National Action, perhaps because, as editor of the anti-fascist Searchlight magazine Gerry Gable puts it, they are "very tiny". Or it could be down to the group's Fight Club-style rules:

"1. You do not talk about National Action. Our biggest problem has always been people that can’t keep their mouths shut and something bad happens.

2. You do not talk about National Action. Seriously, if you do something secretly or anonymously then don’t tell everyone."

Gable does however admit the group is of concern, telling HuffPost UK: "I worry about them because they have much more going for them than the BNP or National Front could ever produce, touring universities and education establishments."

Whatever their secret to anonymity may be, we were keen to find out who was behind the group, which is proudly pro-racism and anti-Semitic, and counts one of the co-founders of the Nazi Party among its role models.

After an exchange of emails with Tom, who wanted to know if we'd pay for his food and train ticket, we eventually persuaded him to speak to us over the phone.

WARNING: Some readers may find the language and imagery in this article offensive

Tom, from somewhere in Birmingham, proudly informs he has just got off the phone from the West Midlands counter terrorism police squad who said they were "keeping an eye" on the group.

So it appears National Action is attracting attention. The group was founded because of the vacuum in nationalism, Tom explains, as the youth branch of the British National Party simply weren't doing enough to fill it.

"We thought: 'We're a group of young lads, we're going to put our own thing together and see how far we get'," he says.

The members come from across the UK; Scotland, the Midlands, London, Essex and Yorkshire whose aim is to be provocative and, as Tom eloquently puts it, "piss people off".

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One of the group's recruitment posters

"It was a general reaction to the malaise in the current scene of the British right," he elaborates. "It's a classic tale of alienated youth not being represented by the establishment and kicking out."

Tom lists several role models which the group looks to for inspiration, namely José Antonio Primo de Rivera (founder of the Spanish fascist Falange party), Alexander Raven Thomson (thought to be chief ideologue of the British Union of Fascists), Oswald Mosley (founder of the British Union of Fascists) and Wyndham Lewis (painter and writer with 'authoritarian' views).

"We look at them and we see a tradition we can follow and tap into.

National Action has a detailed strategy document, which twice quotes Adolf Hitler and provides examples of posters the group could deploy around the UK.

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HuffPost has chosen not to publish the full poster, which appears on the group's strategy document due to its offensive nature. An explanation read: "An early mock up, or concept idea for the shock and awe principle.. It is likely that the majority of people would have been able to relate to it with the shock value getting their attention, and the message mitigated by humour.

A query about the Hitler references issues forth an "Oh God" exclamation from Tom, who hurriedly tries to explain the context as he admits it does come across as "a bit dodgy".

"Those quotes are there for a very specific reason," he says. "If you look at the NSDAP [otherwise known as the Nazi Party] they were a political movement that were successful. Unfortunately as nationalists, we can't look at people like the Front Nationale in France or the BNP in this country and say we should emulate them because they haven't been successful.

"What has been a successful nationalist movement? Oh it was [the Nazis]. If you look at these people, they were concerned about the economy, usury, international finance.

"That's why we're using [the Nazis]. They used it and they were able to gain power.

"Obviously there are differences between Weimar Germany and today's Britain, but there are also parallels," Tom continues. "Gottfried Feder [a founder of the Nazi Party], who was an economist and a member of the NSDAP, he had some good ideas.

"And the leadership of the NSDAP, vis-à-vis Hitler, were looking at these ideas and using them and that's partially why they came to power. So it makes sense for us to use them."

In one post on the site, titled Nationalism is for Stormtroopers, the group writes: "Educated readers will agree that there is no legitimate reason to not be a racist or an anti-Semite in 2014..

"..Weakness on the Jewish question is simply unforgivable, ignorance is inexcusable, the Jew has a name and it glares you in the face when discussing any world problems."

The group's policy document describes immigrants as "disgusting" and "vicious", while Tom seems to have mixed views on foreigners. Although he initially says he doesn't have a problem with international students in the UK, or immigrants, he does add the solution is ideally to "send them all back".

"I have to choose my words carefully here," Tom continues. "It's not as if we don't have a problem with them being here because ideally we'd want to send them all back. But our vitriol is not for them, it's for the people who brought them here in the first place.

"Britain should be for British people."

Tom can't quite define who actually counts as a British person, however, and says the issue will have to be decided by some nationalist party when they're on the "cusp" of power.

It's all a bit confusing to be honest, as the group wants to send immigrants back, but seems to be kind of ok with letting Europeans in. As long as they're white.

But Tom helps clear up the situation: "We sort of do divide by colour. We acknowledge that Europeans can be assimilated on some level. But not when there's ghettos of them. It's far easier to assimilate a white person than a black person.

"With coloured people we'd say big no to them coming over. But with [white people] we'd be a bit more lenient."

Tom is also happy to clear up his stance on gay people, saying the group is "all for" reintroducing Section 28 - an act which prohibited the promotion of homosexuality in schools and labelled gay family relationships as "pretend".

And, for now, Tom says the group is content with covering campuses in stickers and flyering.

"We wouldn't really do violent protests, as we wouldn't get very far from a prison cell.

"If we can stay out of prison we will. You have to consider race hate laws, they're quite ambiguous so it is possible some of us would go to prison. But we're prepared for that."