Far-right group infiltrator says UK branch was ‘more open’ to antisemitism

An infiltrator in a European far-right group has told how the organisation’s UK branch was recently expelled because it seemed “more open” to antisemitism.

Generation Identity, part of the “identitarian movement,” campaigns for “ethno-cultural purity” and against the “Islamisation” of the continent through mass immigration, with chapters in countries across Europe, but denies that it is neo-Nazi. An identitarian sympathiser is believed to have carried out the Christchurch mosque attacks.

Anti-fascist organisation HOPE not hate, working with The Observer, revealed this week that the UK branch has now been expelled for inviting Scottish video blogger Colin Robertson as keynote speaker at its annual conference.

Robertson vlogs under the pseudonym ‘Millennial Woes’ and is described as a white supremacist and an antisemitic conspiracy theorist. In 2016 he spoke at a conference organised by white supremacist Richard Spencer’s alt-right US National Policy Institute at which supporters gave Nazi salutes and shouted “Hail Trump”.

‘Mike,’ the infiltrator whose real identity is not being revealed, said two Royal Navy personnel – one due to serve on a Trident nuclear submarine soon – were members of Generation Identity UK, which believes in “The Great Replacement,” the theory that white Europeans are being replaced through immigration.

Revealing how members discuss the “Jewish Question” to such an extent that they are abbreviated to “JQers,” Mike said the UK branch “appeared to be more open to things like antisemitism than its European counterparts would want”.

Internal messaging reveals that Generation Identity UK has links to Mark Collett, a former BNP official who warns of a “white genocide” in the UK, and Daniel Friberg, a Swedish activist who has worked with American white supremacist Richard Spencer.

HOPE not hate said identitarian groups work in 23 countries, making it “one of the most dangerous far-right networks currently active”. Up to 30,000 members use identitarian Telegram (messaging app) groups and 140,000 subscribe on YouTube.

Generation Identity UK says it is a nonviolent group and there is no suggestion that it has been responsible for any violent acts. Several members are understood to have resigned after Robertson’s invitation.

Simon Murdoch, researcher at HOPE not hate, said: “Evidence suggests we will be left with a smaller but more toxic group in the UK, open to engagement with the more antisemitic, extreme and thus dangerous elements of the domestic far-right.”