Patrik Hermansson
Our polling shows that 41% of young people think that violence can be necessary to defend something they strongly believe in. This finding does not inherently suggest approval of unprovoked or offensive violence. However, the Hateful Advocates segment shows a disproportionate agreement with this stance, where 75% endorse the necessity of violence to defend something they strongly believe in, and within this group, 51% express strong support compared to just 10% of Progressive Advocates. This view is also significantly higher among men (48%) than women (34%).
It is in the Hateful Advocates segment that we find young people who turn their strongly held opinions into active engagement in the far right. There has been a notable rise in criminal convictions of young people in relation to far-right violence and terrorism over the last decade. Between 2022 and 2023 HOPE not hate recorded the highest number of terror-related cases involving teenagers ever, with 13 cases. During the period from 2012 to 2016 only two such cases were recorded.
We have also noted a rise in the number of explicitly fascist activist groups led by young people over the last few years. Groups are usually started as small chat groups on popular chat app Telegram or gaming adjacent platforms like Discord by people as young as 15. It is a worrying trend that has been aided by an increasingly social media-centred way of organising in the wider far right.
The groups have used Instagram and TikTok to reach out to new potential members and to promote their activities, which usually include offline activism such as stickering and flyering, as well as graffiti, physical training activity and banner drops over bridges.
In most cases, the groups have been short-lived and lasted less than a year, but they have opened the door to far-right activism for young people who would often not be allowed inside more established organisations. The groups have provided stepping stones into the movement and educated the members in far-right activism. Members of groups have later attended far-right demonstrations and some are involved in terror-related criminal cases.
The groups are testing grounds for how to produce social media content, recruit and learn where they position themselves in the wider far right. Groups regularly shut down and reform in a new shape with a new focus or ideological direction, but with the same members. It satisfies a desire to lead something of one’s own. The total network of young far-right activists is small and they usually engage across groups, playing different roles in them – many are leaders of their own groups whilst also being a member of many others.
Case study: British Hand
In September 2020 HOPE not hate exposed a small group led by a Derby-based 15-year-old. Inside a private chat room, he wrote that he planned to attack migrants in Dover. The group discussed how to modify, make and acquire weapons and how to hide their political views in order to be able to enlist in the military.
Although the members were relatively young and the group newly formed, the leader consistently called for urgent and extreme action. He described The British Hand as an: “ultranationalist” group and its main goals are “to get rid of Islam and those little blm fuckers”.
The group is rife with antisemitism but Muslims and migrants are their primary targets. Worryingly, the messages in their closed chat group show a consensus around the necessity for violence. When the leader posted that he was planning an attack against Dover migrants, he received support from other members in the group. Other members similarly stressed their willingness to commit violent attacks. One writes of Muslims in London that they are “gonna mow em down”.
Pictures of the 2011 Norwegian far-right mass murderer are interspersed between images of the 2015 Charleston church shooter, the 2019 Bærum mosque shooter, and the Christchurch terrorist who killed 51 people at two mosques in the same year. One member even claims he’s named a pet after the perpetrator of the latter. In another post, the leader of the group suggests that The British Hand are “gonna be bigger than them”, referring to the 2019 Christchurch and 2011 Norway killers.
The group is at the same time supportive and welcoming to new members. A community quickly forms around opposition to outsiders, not just minorities, but family members, teachers and other students at their schools. It makes the group insular and the feeling of being part of a community means that boundaries can be pushed.
Rejection of older generations
The National Partisan Movement (NPM) was an international youth group active in 2021 and 2022 with a significant following in the UK. The group followed similar patterns to British Hand but was larger and international. It recruited new members via Instagram and existing chats on Telegram. In the UK they engaged in stickering and in graffiti. They accepted members up to the age of 21 and as low as 12.
Central to NPM’s rhetoric is the rejection of older generations of fascist leaders and used the slogan: “For the future, by the future”. In recruitment messages they wrote:
We arent [sic] run by old men who do not have your best interest in mind, so if you are looking for that, do not join this group. It is for members of GenZ.
“Gen Z” is the generation born from late 1990s to early 2010s. The desire to oppose older generations is not necessarily harmful and common outside of far-right groups. It can give a young person a sense of agency and control, especially if one feels let down by the adult world. However, impatience with lack of action and disappointment with the adult world can in these contexts help justify violence.
Adults are also not entirely disconnected from youth groups. In NPM, experienced far-right activists were in the chat and referred to as “advisors”. They directed the group and suggested literature and videos members should watch. We have observed similar patterns in other groups since. Known activists, many years older than most members, reach out and offer to help new groups tie connections with existing far-right groups and share reading material. In some cases, youth groups have subsequently been subsumed by existing conventional groups.
It is a recognition that young people are the future of their movement. The fact that those best suited to bring in young people to the far right are young people themselves has not been lost on groups like Patriotic Alternative (PA). A PA-related live stream channel let a British teenager appear in its streams since he was 15 years old and to host special “ZOOMER NIGHT” episodes (“Zoomer” is another term for “Gen Z”). One of the UK’s largest far-right youtubers Dangerfield has similarly done a nine part live stream series called “Talking with teens ” where he interviews far-right teenagers. The cases show a worrying willingness to make children active advocates and members by fascist organisations.
Plugged In but Disconnected looks at young people and the attitudes they hold. We find some shocking evidence of hateful attitudes, particularly amongst young men. Download the report today.
HOPE not hate can reveal the location of plots of land in Wales owned by the Woodlander Initiative, a land-buying scheme with links to Patriotic…
