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Following our previous exposés, HOPE not hate can reveal another individual linked to the extreme far right, including the neo-Nazi group Patriotic Alternative, while employed by the Royal Navy.
In 2019, a HOPE not hate investigation exposed two members of Generation Identity UK (GI UK), a now-defunct far-right youth group, as employees of the Royal Navy. Despite their involvement in the group, which pushed for a form of racial segregation, Mike Lynton and Kenneth McCourt were both permitted to remain in the Navy without being disciplined.
We exposed McCourt again in 2022 as an active member of Patriotic Alternative (PA), the neo-Nazi group, which finally resulted in his sacking. Both McCourt and Lynton went on to join the fascist Homeland Party, which splintered from PA in April 2023.
HOPE not hate can now reveal another individual who appears to have moved through GI UK, PA and Homeland while remaining in the military. Holden Stenner spent almost 10 years in the armed forces, including serving as a Royal Navy submarine engineer between 2021 and 2025. He was stationed at Faslane, home of Britain’s Trident nuclear submarines, alongside McCourt.
This raises further questions about the prevalence of far-right extremism within the armed forces.
Stenner, from Halstead, Essex, has been active in the far right since at least June 2018, when he attended a “Free Tommy” protest in London during one of Stephen Lennon’s stints behind bars. By June 2019 he was active in GI UK, attending two of the group’s actions that month — first in Dudley and then Queen Mary University, London — through which the group hoped to spread “awareness” about the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.
GI UK folded in January 2020, having been cut off by the international GI network after a series of infiltrations, exposés and debacles. However, Stenner — like many former members of the group — remained active in the far right.
In August 2022, Stenner accompanied PA’s Eastern branch, holding a banner emblazoned with the fascist group’s branding, at an anti-Drag Queen Story Hour protest in Norwich during the wider far-right backlash against the children’s book reading sessions. In February the following year, he did the same at an anti-migrant protest organised by PA in Erskine, Renfrewshire, roughly 25 miles from Faslane.
In April 2023, chunks of the PA membership, including its Scottish branch, broke away to form the Homeland Party, a split motivated by strategic differences. Stenner attended the new fascist group’s first national camp that July.
Given his political activities, it is unsurprising to find that Stenner has engaged in antisemitism. For example, last December, he wrote:
“Islam is the flu, Jewry is AIDS. Without AIDS, the flu can be fought by the immune system. Jews destroy the immune system of society, and teach you that to identify foreigners itself is evil. We cannot win until Jews are stripped of power in our institutions.”
Telegram, 16 December 2024
Stenner’s former colleagues at the Royal Navy, Mike Lynton and Kenneth McCourt, remain active in the far right.
Based in east Cornwall, Lynton spent years as a Royal Navy submarine weapons engineer stationed at Plymouth. According to his LinkedIn account, his service in the Navy ended this February.
He is now Homeland’s Cornwall branch organiser and has links to the Odinist Fellowship, a group that follows a racially exclusive version of Norse paganism. He was previously a member of UKIP and the PA Fitness Club, as well as GI UK.
Lynton was also involved in South West Nationalists, a Telegram group that organised offline meetups. On the group, Lynton posted an audiobook version of Mein Kampf, and also wrote:
“I am a NatSoc [National Socialist]. Unashamedly”
Telegram, 8 January 2021
He also posted photos of his British Union of Fascists (BUF) flag, and wrote: “I’ve got a Rhodesian flag up in my office as the gf wouldn’t let me put up the BUF one”.
On 15 May 2021, he also posted a propaganda video from the banned neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action (NA). The video featured footage of NA’s march in Darlington in 2016, including a hate-filled speech about “hook-nosed bankers” and the rise of “National Socialism” that concluded with members throwing Nazi salutes.
Lynton posted the video and wrote: “This was pretty based, but I think this was like 10 years ago”, continuing: “It’s pretty good tbh It’s definitely something worth sharing to normies thinking about us”.
Lynton recruited McCourt to GI UK . We have elsewhere outlined McCourt’s past in fascist fitness groups and having the neo-Nazi numeric slogan “1488” printed on his trainers. McCourt is now also involved in the Homeland Party.
The prevalence of far-right extremism within the British military is deeply concerning. Many in the far right are fixated on military culture, with some either attempting to join the forces or to recruit from within it. According to the Ministry of Defence, 40 individuals across the Army, Navy and Air Force were investigated for extremism-related concerns between 2019 and October 2022.
Notoriously, in 2017, four serving members of the Army were arrested on suspicion of being members of NA, with one sentenced to eight years behind bars for membership of the group and attempts to recruit other soldiers. Members of The British Hand, a tiny terrorist outfit exposed by HOPE not hate in 2020, made plans to join the military.
Moreover, a number of former servicemen have carved out careers in the far right. For example, Kristofer Kearney, another ex-NA member who went on to head the PA Fitness Club, trained in the British Army as a paratrooper. He is currently serving a four years and eight months sentence for terror-related offences. Alek Yerbury, leader of the PA splinter group, the National Rebirth Party, has made his military past central to his appeal and has encouraged young men to join the military.
Clearly, far more is needed to root out those following dangerous ideologies within the forces, and to address the culture that enables them to flourish.
For more information on PA and the Homeland Party, read our report: The Fascist Fringe: Patriotic Alternative and its Splinter Groups
HOPE not hate takes a look inside Patriotic Alternative, the UK’s most active fascist organisation, and its splinter groups.
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