The Reclaim Party's first elected official doubles down against Islam
'Honest hardline Christian values might be what's needed to stop the Muslim takeover'
Hello and thank you to all those who subscribed to Scout over the weekend. If you missed our top story from last week, check out our investigation into Britain’s biggest anti-vax newspaper, which has started teaming up with far-right activists.
Today we’re publishing an interview with the Reclaim Party’s first elected official. Anthony Allen, a former Tory councillor who jumped ship to Laurence Fox’s Reclaim, was exposed last week for making anti-Muslim comments. On a phone call with Scout, Allen did not apologise for what he said, and instead expanded on his views about the “Muslim takeover” over Britain. We’ve also got our Lookout briefing to help you understand what’s going on in the far-right.
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‘Tommy Robinson for PM’
Last week, the Reclaim Party declared a major victory. Anthony Allen, a town councillor in Shropshire, left the Tories to join the party set up by the actor Laurence Fox. Allen is now Reclaim’s first elected official. His defection was touted as a “by-election bombshell”, indicative of a potential Conservative defeat in the North Shropshire constituency this Thursday. There, Reclaim is putting up Martin Daubney, the former Brexit Party MEP and Loaded magazine editor, for Owen Paterson’s old seat.
Reclaim says it is opposed to woke politics and political correctness, but stresses that it is fighting for “a respectful nation where all are included”. This might come as a surprise to Allen, who has repeatedly claimed that Muslims are trying to take over the UK. His Facebook posts, which were revealed by Hope Not Hate, the anti-fascist campaign group, discuss how Britain is apparently being threatened by Islam.
Allen has called for “treasonous” politicians to be hanged, accused the government of trying to “force the Islamic culture upon us”, and called for immigrants to “integrate themselves back into society in Muslim countries instead of us having to put up with this bullshit”.
Scout phoned up Allen to ask about his anti-Muslim comments, and he doubled down on them. In one of his Facebook posts, Allen had said that “someone with honest hardline Christian values” could prevent the “Muslim takeover” in this country.
On our call, Allen first denied ever writing those words. Then, after being presented with the evidence, he changed tack. Referring to hardline Christian values and the Muslim takeover, he said: “In certain areas of the country, that may be how people feel. If they feel like that, then that’s perhaps what’s needed.”
He added: “And if they feel that way, then the only way for them to do something about it – in their country, in their area – is to promote Christian values. How many people go to church nowadays? Nowhere near what it used to be. There’s no point people moaning about something if they’re not prepared to do anything about it.”
On Facebook, Allen has also praised Tommy Robinson, the far-right agitator. When we asked Allen about this, he said: “I don’t support Tommy Robinson as a person. I don’t support what he stands for in being far-right because I’m certainly not.” He claimed that he only likes Robinson for his activism on grooming gangs. This is somewhat undermined by the substance of Allen’s Facebook posts, which say things like “Go on Tommy lad!” and “TOMMY FOR PM!” and "WHOAH TOMMY, TOMMY.... TOMMY, TOMMY, TOMMY, TOMMY ROBINSON.”
Allen has also posted in reference to the Great Replacement, a far-right conspiracy theory that claims that Asian and African migrants are being deliberately brought into western nations to existentially threaten white Europeans. “But we are all told that we have to promote cultural diversity and enrichment through migration and integration,” Allen wrote. “This is imposed replacement.”
When asked about this, Allen said: “Great Replacement, pass. I’ve never heard of anything spoken of in that way. That’s something I’ve never really given any thought because I’ve never heard of it.”
We pressed him, saying it sounded like he did in fact know what we were talking about. Allen responded: “We are one race. There is one race on this planet, the human race. End of story.”
Allen said he is not a racist and is “very good friends with Muslim families”, adding that Muslim friends once lent his daughter an expensive sari. “If I’m racist or anything like that or against Muslim culture or Sikh culture, do you think I would be close enough to them to be lent something like that?”
We asked him to explain why he reposted a Breitbart article that said Africans had not contributed to modern civilisation because they were “living in mud huts”, but he said he had to get back to work and hung up the phone.
Allen was elected as a Conservative councillor for Market Drayton in May but joined Reclaim after just six months in office, saying the Tories had “gone soft on illegal immigration, they've lost control of taxation and are obsessed with crippling green taxes nobody wants”.
Laurence Fox, who used to play a detective on the TV show Lewis, set up Reclaim as an anti-PC party in 2020. He unsuccessfully stood for London mayor earlier this year, gaining only 1.8 percent of the vote, a result so low he had to return his £10,000 deposit. He is backed by Jeremy Hosking, a City financier and Brexit Party funder, who today announced that he was doubling his initial donation of £5 million to Reclaim. The party did not reply to our request for comment and has not said anything publicly about Allen since his Facebook posts emerged.
Lookout
Welcome to Lookout – our digest of far-right stories that have appeared in the media over the last week.
A Hitler super-fan gets convicted
In a weird story from the Old Bailey, a Hitler obsessive was convicted for possessing material intended to incite racial hatred. Matthew Henegan, who has grown a Hitler-style moustache and referred to himself as “the Führer”, is now facing a custodial sentence.
During the trial, the 36-year-old defended his Hitler aesthetic, accusing the jury of having “diseased minds” for thinking that his toothbrush moustache was a tribute to the Nazi dictator. However, the jury might have been a little sceptical of these claims. When Henegan was asked if he was a National Socialist, he replied: “Yes, I do not pretend otherwise.”
He produced an hour-long film accusing the Jewish population of controlling the police, economy and media. In other materials, he referred to Jews as “kikes”, calling them filthy and sadistic. Police also found Nazi memorabilia at his home including a swastika armband – which he wore to a court appearance last year – and literature calling Hitler a saviour. He’ll be sentenced next month and is currently in police custody. Read the full story on the Jewish Chronicle.
Far-right extremists are making millions from bitcoin
The anonymity promised by bitcoin has long meant that it is the currency of choice for various sketchy individuals and now it seems some of the sketchiest are taking advantage.
A report from the Southern Poverty Law Centre, an American anti-extremism charity, has found that the heads of prominent neo-Nazi publications have been into bitcoin for years. Greg Johnson, the editor of the far-right site Counter Currents, and Don Black, a former KKK Grand Wizard and founder of the Nazi forum Stormfront have benefitted from crypto mania.
Black started trading bitcoin back in 2014, when one coin was worth less than $1,000. Johnson’s first trade was even earlier, when one bitcoin cost $5.50. One bitcoin is now worth just shy of $50,000, meaning anyone who got into the cryptocurrency early could have easily made millions on their investment.
According to an interview with NBC, the reasons why far-right figures like bitcoin have as much to do with their political philosophy as their financial preferences. Megan Squire, who co-authored the report, described a “strong libertarian streak” in far-right figures, whose distrust of central banking may explain why they found crypto so appealing.
So far, relatively few trading platforms have taken action against these sources of far-right funding, and with the anonymised nature of blockchain, it might prove hard to stop these users accumulating money out of sight of law enforcement. Coinbase, an online service that allows crypto trading, is an exception – it has banned donations to accounts known to be associated with Stormfront. Read more on Gizmodo.
Far-right terrorism arrests at Stansted Airport
Two men have separately been arrested at Stansted Airport on suspicion of far-right terrorism offences. Both men are UK nationals but are not connected to each other. A 26-year-old was arrested on December 3 on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism. Two days later, a 44-year-old was arrested on suspicion of possessing an article for a purpose connected with terrorism and collecting information likely to be useful for terrorism. Neither of them has been charged and both have been bailed. The Metropolitan Police will not disclose the intended destinations of either man. Hit reply to this email if you know more about these two different cases.
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Will you keep on pandering to a rabidly racist and homophobic ideology? It's vile.