Violent fascists resurface in the British Democrats

Figures with violent pasts are gravitating to the British Democrats, a fascist political party seeking to embed itself within the growing anti-migrant protest movement

Emerging from the wreckage of the British National Party (BNP) in 2013, the British Democrats is among the largest fascist political parties in the UK.

Led by Jim Lewthwaite, the party attracts relatively little attention from anti-fascists and is widely regarded as an outmoded BNP tribute act. Its ageing membership, coupled with reliably dismal election results, reinforces the sense that it is little more than a retirement home for superannuated extremists. The party hardly challenges this perception when it wheels out infamous National Front relics like Martin Webster to address its gatherings.

Yet the British Democrats is home to a cluster of dedicated activists and parish councillors determined to inject their racial politics into local communities. And, despite its “suits not boots” approach, Webster is not the only individual resurfacing within its ranks with a history of violence or past links to neo-Nazi paramilitaries. 

Like much of the wider far right, the British Democrats has rushed to exploit the wave of anti-migrant protests that followed the campaign against the housing of asylum seekers in Epping, Essex. One prominent member, former local councillor Julian Leppert, was at the forefront of that effort, bragging about turning Epping into “a seething cauldron of nationalist resistance” at the party conference in October. Other party activists have attached themselves to campaigns in Aberdeen, Folkestone, Wakefield and elsewhere.

The group has also attempted to piggyback on a local campaign in Crowborough, East Sussex, where thousands marched against a planned asylum accommodation site last month.

Earlier in November, ex-BNP councillor Lawrence Rustem – now a Maidstone parish councilor – led a leafleting session in Crowborough to raise alarm about “plans to pour 600 illegal migrants” into the area, distributing leaflets with the slogan: “STOP THE IMMIGRANT INVASION”.

Helping deliver their message of “genuine and sensible nationalism” was Chris Livingstone, a Rickmansworth-based neo-Nazi who spent years immersed in the darkest and most violent corners of the extreme right.

A former BNP candidate, Livingstone was once the British head of the Misanthropic Division (MD), an international neo-Nazi network closely linked to the paramilitary Azov Battalion. MD, which aimed to recruit fascists to fight in Ukraine, had a small presence in the UK in the mid-2010s that was intimately intertwined with National Action (NA), the now-banned neo-Nazi terror group. Livingstone was eventually forced out of his position for drunkenness.

Livingstone collaborated frequently with NA during this period, and featured at a series of “White Man Marches” organised by the group in 2015 as it attempted to take control of the streets. This culminated in the disastrous event in Liverpool that August, where Livingstone and his hopelessly outnumbered comrades were forced to seek refuge in the left luggage office of Lime Street station before being escorted out by police.

That year, Livingstone also organised a series of protests outside the US Embassy in London to campaign for the release of Gary Yarbrough, an incarcerated member of The Order, an American white separatist terror group. These demos were sponsored by the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe, including NA, the Creativity Movement, the Racial Volunteer Force and Right Wing Resistance. The leaders of each of these groups have spent years behind bars for various race hate, violence and/or terror-related charges.  

Livingstone was present at the exceptionally violent demonstrations in Dover, including the infamous January 2016 clash in which fascists and anti-fascists traded projectiles and blows for hours across the town. Dozens of far-right activists were subsequently imprisoned with sentences of up to seven years.

He was also involved at the earlier demonstration in the town in September 2015, posting gloating messages purporting to show an anti-fascist pinned beneath a boot.

After a lengthy and unexplained absence, Livingstone appears to be returning to public activism. Joining him in the recent leafleting session was David Clarke, among the British Democrats’ most dedicated activists. A former BNP candidate in Croydon, Clarke was convicted of assaulting four anti-fascists in 2010.

In August, Clarke was photographed at the launch of the group’s Medway branch alongside another new recruit: Max Hammet-Millay, a well-known nuisance from Islington. Despite being considerably younger than the average party member, Hammet-Millay brings considerable baggage of his own. 

The privately-educated agitator first came to attention after attaching himself to the Tommy Robinson street movement in 2018. He would receive a 12 month prison sentence for his role in the violent disorder at a “Free Tommy” protest in Whitehall that June, at which more than 20 police officers were injured. 

During this time, Hammet-Millay was also involved in Make Britain Great Again (MBGA), a now-defunct Trumpist outfit that was widely derided across the political spectrum. In 2018, Hammet-Millay and eleven others “invaded” the London bookshop Bookmarks, where staff were abused and signs ripped up.

As Brexit anxieties peaked in 2019, he threw his lot in with the Yellow Vests UK, an attempt to mimic the French Gilets Jaunes movement. The British outfit was dominated by far-right figures and gained notoriety for harassing Remain-supporting MPs and journalists around Parliament Square, including Anna Soubrey and Owen Jones.  

He went on to immerse himself in the anti-lockdown and anti-migrant street movements, including recent protests in Epping. 

In June, he claimed: “I have had to flee to the USA to avoid prison for online comments”. Despite this, he was back in the UK just weeks later, leafletting with the British Democrats in Kent in August and September. 

The British Democrats may be small, greying and electorally insignificant. However, it remains among the best-organised fascist forces in the country and harbours violent and extreme individuals who, through the anti-migrant street movement, believe they have found a path to renewed influence.