Throughout 2024, the area of Rushmoor, Hampshire, which incorporates the towns of Aldershot and Farnborough, has endured a persistent anti-migrant campaign.
Ostensibly established to oppose the use of a hotel in Aldershot and apartments in Farnborough as temporary asylum accommodation, there has been a quick and predictable drift towards broader anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim themes, as well as more recent conspiracies about the supposedly “two tier” British legal system.
At the time of writing, the Rushmoor People First campaign – led by Jeremy “Jez” Stocking – remains the de facto front-line in the broader anti-migrant movement, with many other such campaigns around the country folding a good while ago.
Predictably, Rushmoor People First has attracted a broad sweep of far-right groups, including UKIP, Turning Point UK and the nazi Patriotic Alternative. We have also exposed two hardened far-right activists who had latched onto the campaign; Derek Young and Keith Sutton. The two men spent the 2000s and 2010s weaving in and out of an array of far-right street movements, including the English Defence League (EDL), the Infidels, the National Front (NF) and the South East Alliance (SEA) between them.
This is, however, just the tip of the iceberg. HOPE not hate can expose numerous other fascists involved in the campaign, including the antisemitic Youth Alliance, experienced nazi street activists and members of the anti-Muslim group Britain First.
The influence of experienced and hardened activists threatens to push the Rushmoor People First campaign towards more extreme positions and tactics, posing risks to community cohesion and minoritised groups.
Launched in spring 2024, Youth Alliance is a deeply antisemitic and anti-Muslim far-right youth movement that targets men between 17-30 as recruits. The group calls upon young men to ‘Defend Britannia’ against an array of perceived enemies, and emphasises Christianity as a core part of its identity, positioning itself as fighting a quasi-holy war against both Judaism and Islam.
Youth Alliance prioritises offline activism, and a contingent of its activists attended both of Tommy Robinson’s London rallies this June and July, as well as the 31 July Whitehall demonstration, the Sunderland and Bristol riots, and the Portsmouth protest in August, as far-right disorder swept the country.
Now, Youth Alliance activists have attached themselves onto the Rushmoor People First campaign. On 4 August, in Aldershot, Youth Alliance members mobilised for the well-attended rally outside the Potters Hotel while wearing masks of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Also involved with the Rushmoor People First campaign is the nazi former National Front activist, Mike Gott (AKA Carl England).
Gott’s history of involvement in the British far right stretches back many years. In 2013, Gott was part of a nazi “White Pride” mobilisation in Swansea, where a range of extremists descended on the town, including activists from the National Front, the neo-nazi music network Blood & Honour, former members of Combat 18, and even several members of the now-banned nazi terror group, National Action.
That year, Gott also joined the nazis of the National Front for its annual march on the Cenotaph for Remembrance Day, a sickening act of disrespect to Britain’s war dead.
Gott re-emerged into far-right street activism at the Armistice Day riot in 2023, and has since attended Tommy Robinson’s London demonstration on 27 July and the Whitehall mobilisation days later, at which there were over 100 arrests. In August, he attended far-right rallies in Weymouth, Southampton and Bournemouth, as well as the Rushmoor campaign mobilisation on 28 August.
Alan Furniss, a recent addition to the Rushmoor People First group, also boasts a long history in the British far right. Throughout the early 2010s, Furniss attended multiple EDL rallies across the South and Midlands.
Furniss was also present at the protest outside the Old Bailey in 2014 during the sentencing of the murderers of British Army Fusilier, Lee Rigby. The protest was attended by key movers in the British far right, including the leadership of Britain First, the South East Alliance and the British National Party (BNP).
Furniss honoured Rigby’s memory by presenting his backside live on BBC News whilst a report on the trial was underway.
Furniss is a frequent poster in the Rushmoor group, keeping fellow members updated on developments during the riots and making requests for information on anti-fascists from other members of the group.
Furniss was also involved with the Pie & Mash Squad (formerly “Casuals United”), a more extreme EDL splinter group, formed by Jeff Marsh, who now acts as Welsh Organiser for the fascist organisation, Patriotic Alternative. The Pie & Mash Squad took its name from the cockney rhyming slang for “fash”. Furniss has shared Pie & Mash Squad propaganda, along with the group’s slogan “5W – We Go Where We Want”, on the Rushmoor People First group.
Jeff Norman, a former paratrooper now based in Aldershot, is another attendee at the protests.
Norman has attended at least four demonstrations in Rushmoor this year, as well as heading to London for Tommy Robinson’s rally on 1 June. Norman had previously travelled to Telford for a screening of Robinson’s “Rape of Britain” documentary on 29 January 2022.
Norman is also a fan of the British nazi punk scene, sharing various logos and album covers of well-known nazi acts. These have included: Skrewdriver (whose frontman Ian Stuart Donaldson founded the notorious nazi music network Blood & Honour), Crucified (who have released records via the Swedish nazi label Midgård Records) and London Breed, the explicitly RAC (“Rock Against Communism”) band and latest project of Brad Hollamby, a lifer of the British nazi music scene.
Norman also appears to be a personal friend of the guitarist from Crucified, Rob Claymore.
Britain First (BF) is a far-right, anti-Muslim party led by former BNP activist, Paul Golding, who has multiple criminal convictions. Whilst the party has proven a disaster at the ballot box over the years, it remains a recognisable brand on the British far-right and an active threat in communities.
HOPE not hate can reveal that two members of the Rushmoor People First Group, Kurt Beaton and Conrad Jones, have links to BF.
Beaton has previously attended a number of far-right demonstrations, including a Britain First rally in Rotherham in 2014, a Football Lads Alliance (FLA) mobilisation in Birmingham in 2018, and a “Free Tommy” rally in London the same year. Beaton even performed the role of standard-bearer whilst leading a Britain First rally.
Finally, Conrad Jones, a peripheral member of the Rushmoor group, has also been a member of Britain First, posing with his membership card in a photo shared by the party on 31 October 2020.
Jones attended the anti-migrant rally in Aldershot on 28 August in what appears to be a Britain First beanie.
A frequent refrain within Rushmoor People First is: “we’re not far right, we’re just right”. This phrase serves a dual purpose. In the first instance, it attempts to render far-right views more mainstream than they are.
However, it is also an attempt to disavow the categorisation of “far right” itself because, as our Director of Research, Joe Mulhall, noted in a recent article: “The term far right still has some power and if accurately deployed it can help slow or maybe even reverse the normalisation and mainstreaming of far-right politics’”
The question that those involved with the campaigns in Aldershot and Farnborough must now ask themselves is: if the group is not far right, then why are the individuals outlined above drawn to it?
As we expose more activists involved in the anti-migrant campaign in Hampshire as having extensive links to the organised far right, it’s getting harder and…
