Tag: fascism

Refections

Dark Alliances: How Secrecy, Betrayal and the Far-Right Threat Are Rewriting Britain’s Security Landscape
By Desmond Brown

If you listen to the headlines, you’d think Britain’s greatest threats come from left-wing protests or human rights campaigners blocking roads. Yet in the shadows, a far-right terror ecosystem is growing—supported not just by neo-Nazi ideology and online radicalisation, but by a systemic failure to acknowledge and dismantle it.

Since 2016, the UK has proscribed multiple white supremacist organisations: National Action, Sonnenkrieg Division, Feuerkrieg Division, and The Base. These groups have been tied to bomb plots, weapons hoarding, and youth recruitment—often involving teenagers radicalised in plain sight. But their threat is still minimised or reframed. The Security Services’ own record tells the story: earlier this year, MI5 admitted to misleading courts about a violent neo-Nazi informant, “Agent X,” who used state protection to terrorise his partner and evade accountability.

This wasn’t a one-off mistake—it was part of a broader culture of secrecy, a “scrutiny vacuum” that also allowed catastrophic failures in humanitarian obligations and counterterror policy.

Afghan Betrayal and the Super-Injunction Cover-Up

In 2022, the Ministry of Defence mistakenly leaked the personal data of 18,714 Afghan citizens who had applied to the UK’s ARAP scheme—many of whom had risked their lives supporting British forces. What followed was a calculated cover-up: the MoD obtained a contra mundum super-injunction preventing the media from reporting the breach—or even acknowledging the gag itself—for 600 days.

The human cost was incalculable. Some Afghans were hunted. Others killed. The government eventually evacuated 4,500 people under a secret scheme at a cost of over £400 million—all kept quiet while far-right commentators fanned xenophobic hysteria about migrant numbers and so-called “queue jumpers.”

Aid as a Killing Ground in Gaza

In Gaza, we see a similar story: where Western states claim to deliver aid, the reality on the ground turns deadly. Between May and July 2025, over 875 civilians were killed at U.S.-backed aid distribution points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. These convoys, escorted by Israeli forces and U.S. private contractors, funneled starving civilians into what Israeli soldiers themselves described as “killing fields.”

Médecins Sans Frontières went as far as calling the entire scheme “a crime against humanity.” And still, no meaningful pause, no international accountability. Just more slogans about freedom, security, and humanitarian concern from Western governments funding the slaughter.

Farage, Reform, and the Mainstreaming of Extremism

Into this atmosphere of betrayal and silence steps Nigel Farage and the Reform UK Party—a political movement that weaponises public anger over immigration, data breaches, and institutional failure. Their rhetoric echoes white nationalist talking points: that “globalists,” climate protesters, and human rights defenders are threats to “British values.” Farage doesn’t need to explicitly praise National Action. He just needs to create the conditions in which their worldview feels validated.

Reform’s promises of strong borders, silenced NGOs, and restored “British sovereignty” have become a Trojan horse for authoritarian policies—such as new “barring” laws for civil society and mass deportation schemes. All while ignoring the very real, systemic enablers of violence inside our institutions.

Prevent: A System That No Longer Protects

A new review of the Prevent strategy—Britain’s key counterterrorism safeguarding programme—has concluded that it no longer adequately addresses the changing landscape of domestic extremism.

Key findings:

  • Prevent has repeatedly failed, including in the cases of MP David Amess and the Southport attacker.
  • An ex-employee warned that the programme has lost focus—shifting from Islamic extremism to a poorly defined far-right threat.
  • There is growing concern about “lone wolf” actors who don’t fit traditional ideological profiles and slip through the system.
  • A proposal to create a secondary programme for non-ideological extremists has been met with criticism, likely to be under-resourced and ineffective.
  • The alternative: expand Prevent’s scope, while finally addressing why it failed to act even when warning signs were present.

This debate reveals a bitter truth: the UK’s counterterrorism strategy is broken—ineffective, ideologically unbalanced, and dangerously reactive.