Back in October 2011 The Mirror newspaper did a great expose where it revealed the identity of the British leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
Chris Hopgood, a tattooist from Easington Colliery, County Durham was revealed by The Mirror to be the Grand Dragon of The European White Knights Of The Burning Cross’ England.”
The European White Knights is officially recognised by the original KKK in the US and is linked with several other US groups – including the racist, homophobic Keltin Klan Kirk, whose masked leader appears in videos hosted on Youtube preaching hatred in front of a swastika, armed with a rifle.
He initially denied his KKK membership but later admitted to The Sunderland Echo that he was a member of the KKK, joining back in 2003 when visiting the USA.
Hopgood told The Echo ” They put me in touch with some members in Germany. I got in touch and went to meet them in Berlin. It was suggested I try to open a UK branch and I set up a website”
The website based in the UK described homosexuality as a “cancer that threatens our way of life”. It has since been removed from the internet.
The KKK is still classed as a terrorist organisation in the USA.
As well as supporting the KKK it was revealed Hopgood was also a supporter of the BNP and had links to the EDL’s biker division as well as sporting a Swastika on one of his biker jackets.
So knowing all this you would have thought that the EDL would steer clear of Hopgood and his fancy for wearing KKK robes and pointy hoods?
Not so, instead of distancing themselves the EDL’s biker division, now known as The Crusaders have embraced Hopgood, inviting him to an EDL Christmas party last year.
The event, organised by Sunderland EDL activist John Morrow saw a number of Crusaders travel up to the North East for the Christmas shindig. Some bikers travelled with Morrow to the tattoo parlour, Greko Designs owned by Chris Hopgood in Easington Colliery.
However, Hopgood isn’t the first members of the EDL Crusaders to have been involved with the KKK. Founder member of the biker division Mike Shore, a former BNP and NF official was the Midlands organiser of the Ku Klux Klan, joining the United Klans of Europe in 1997.
During the 1990s, Shore was also involved in Combat 18 and its political wing, the National Socialist Alliance (NSA). In 1995 Shore was noted to have sat on a committee, convened by convicted murderer Charlie Sargeant and which comprised of members of C18, Blood and Honour and the NSA.
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