There is just no escaping the absolute inadequacy of statism and nationalism for resolving questions of social justice. Here the Anarchist tradition has an old proposal that looks much more promising.
A Met police officer, Benjamin Hannam, has been found guilty of membership of the banned right wing terrorist group National Action (NA), lying on his application, and possession of a bomb making guide. He also plead guilty to possessing child pornography. Hannam was caught thanks to user data from the online far right forum Iron March, which was leaked by anti-fascist activists.
National Action was banned in 2016, although its members have tried to get around the ban by working under a variety of different group names. Several members of National Action were convicted in 2018, with the most serious charge being a plot to kill Rosie Cooper, a member of parliament.
While Hannam is the first British police officer to be convicted on terrorism charges, he is unlikely to be the last. The extreme right has attempted to infiltrate or recruit from police forces in America, Germany, and Greece. Getting members into the police force provide far right groups with the potential to subvert the organisation that is supposed to investigate their activities, as well as giving their members the ability to abuse police powers to their own ends.
The far right has also attempted to infiltrate and recruit from the armed forces, which gives them access to training and weaponry as well as positions of power. Nation Action itself had previously recruited from the British Army, with Lance Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen of the Royal Anglian Regiment being convicted of being a member in 2017. Vehvilainen was actively attempting to recruit other soldiers into National Action.
Organisations like the police and army provide a fertile recruiting ground for the far right. Both these jobs place a high emphasis on obedience and service to the nation while also granting opportunities to do violence to those the government considers it’s enemies. This is an environment that is attractive to existing members of the far right and encourages views that align with far right ideas.
The increase in far right attacks across Europe and America, combined with the far right groups’ attempts to infiltrate the government organisations supposed to protect their targets, highlight the need for grass roots anti-fascist action. Without such action Hannam would never have been exposed in the first place. ■
There is just no escaping the absolute inadequacy of statism and nationalism for resolving questions of social justice. Here the Anarchist tradition has an old proposal that looks much more promising.
In 2020, a record number of around 100,000 people6 lived in occupations in Belo Horizonte alone and the state of Minas Gerais had the second largest housing deficit in the country, with 500,000 homeless families.
This denial undermines solidarity and risks pushing trans people who aren’t white and able-bodied out of trans liberation movement spaces.
The Man Came Around is a game of complex moral decisions, where you attempt to navigate across a militarised border with a group of people fleeing an authoritarian regime. Organise sat down with its developer, Thierry, to talk about indie game creation, the game, and the all-too-real politics and events that inspired it.
Means and Ends is as robust as its research and the argumentation is as clear as the general prose styling.
On the morning of 19 September 2023, he was driving to an appointment with his probation officer when he was pulled over and arrested by an armed police unit in-between the Forest of Dean and Gloucester.