The dramatic pause to this summer’s heatwave failed to stop Tony Carmelo from getting decidedly hot under the collar this weekend.
A former security sidekick to Jayda Fransen and Paul Golding, Carmelo took to social media to declare: “Direct action is the only answer.”
He didn’t bother posing the question to which this was the answer, but we presume it may be to do with brown people and mosques.
He’s positively obsessed with both.
As he is with guns.
Indeed he even went so far as to offer a personal recommendation to anyone on his timeline who might be set to embark on wholesale slaughter.
Formerly of Basildon but now blotting the landscape of Haverfordwest, Carmelo has been a far-right fixture for a while.
Up until last July he was something of a thing in Britain First, flexing his biceps on behalf of the leadership as they went on their flag-waving jaunts around the country.
Then came Rochdale.
Following a pitiful side-street shuffle largely missed by the long-suffering residents of the Lancashire town, the Biffers headed off for a few snifters.
But the party at a nearby hotel was soon over as one woman present made serious allegations against Golding. Really serious allegations.
Events that night led Carmelo and a number of other Britain First members to leave the party.
Their disgust at what Golding was alleged to have done soon opened the door to further complaints. Wholly predictable claims of financial impropriety were made.
But what you might have thought should have been a salutary experience did not in fact deter Carmelo from his far-right path.
He quickly switched his allegiance to what was left of the British National Party (BNP) and today is throwing his weight behind something called the BDF. We presume this to be the infinitesimal British Defence Force.
He’s also maintaining a dialogue with Jim Dowson, the fundamentalist founder of Britain First who now runs the shadowy outfit, Knights Templar International (KTI).
Dowson likes a bit of military kit too. Earlier this year HOPE not hate exclusively revealed how KTI had tried to smuggle bullet proof vests and radios to Serbian groups in Kosovo.
Little wonder then that pair like to natter on Facebook, although frankly the dialogue can be a bit immature.
Meanwhile a quick peruse of Carmelo’s second Facebook profile reveals it’s not just AK 47s he’s taken a shine too.
I’m no military expert but that looks to me like a Sage SL6, a 37mm projectile launcher, what you might call a riot gun. Why would he be dribbling over such a piece of kit I wonder?
Incidentally, while Carmelo was sweatily hitting his keyboard, the Grimsby Telegraph was breaking an awful story involving another Britain First supporter.
The paper reported that Dean Killen sought Paul Golding’s help with a virulent hate campaign he had launched against Lincolnshire social workers. It added that he followed other far-right extremist groups and had warned on social media to “watch what happens if they [Britain First] team up with me”.
He was jailed for three years after the court also heard of his previous convictions for stalking a carrying a knife.
It’s almost as if the far right attracts unstable obsessives with a predilection for making and sometimes carrying out threats of violence. And this after Britain’s former leading anti-terror cop, Mark Rowley, warned in February that four far-right terror plots had been foiled last year.
15,000 gather in London for demonstration despite Tommy Robinson being remanded in custody. At 3pm yesterday, Stephen Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) handed himself in at…