HOPE not hate can reveal that Matthew Darrington, leader of a fascist fight club and key organiser in the neo-Nazi group Patriotic Alternative, is active within Restore Britain. This comes after the party’s leadership blocked a local attempt to expel an extremist who had been outed by HNH.
Since launching as a political party in February, Restore Britain has attracted the extreme right like moths to a flame.
We have already exposed figures linked to an array of fascist and neo-Nazi groups now active within Rupert Lowe MP’s party, including Blood & Honour, the British National Party, the National Front, the Homeland Party and more.
Last week, we reported that members of Patriotic Alternative (PA), the UK’s largest neo-Nazi group, were campaigning for Restore in the upcoming Makerfield by-election.
We can now reveal that PA organiser Matthew Darrington – among the most prominent fascists in the Midlands – is active within Restore’s Newark branch. Pictured alongside him at the inaugural branch meeting this Monday were other PA figures, including his brother Leigh.
Darrington, who has a past in the English Defence League, has spent recent years as PA’s East Midlands Regional Organiser and unofficial bodyguard to leader Mark Collett, one of the UK’s most notorious Holocaust deniers. Last August, Darrington arranged a PA demo in Newark that was attended by a variety of neo-Nazis, some of whom have violent histories.
Last year, we also exposed Darrington as the head of Active Club Midlands, a branch of the Active Club network, a secretive fascist fight club. Active Clubs combine combat training with extremist ideology, drilling martial arts under white supremacist flags to prepare for racial and political conflict.
Now, Darrington’s attention has shifted to Restore, and he is actively organising for the party in Newark. Earlier this month, he tried to arrange a local action in a now-deleted Facebook post:
He has also attempted to recruit for his branch, writing on Monday:
“Activists of the newly formed Restore Newark branch have been out today in the heat delivering leaflets and speaking to members of the public! If this peaks [sic] your interest then please do not hesitate contact us! Aim high, Vote Lowe! Follow our new page on X.”
Pressure is mounting within Rupert Lowe’s party to deal with its noisy fascist faction.
Yesterday, James Munro, a Restore activist exposed by HOPE not hate for his militant neo-Nazi past, announced that he had been ejected from the party by a local organiser. Munro cycled through several neo-Nazi outfits before landing in Restore’s Dundee branch, including the Scottish Nationalist Society, PA and the Homeland Party. We first revealed his identity in 2023.
However, Restore’s head of local government, Maria Bowtell, intervened to block his ejection, further emboldening the party’s ethnonationalists.
Major inconsistencies remain within the party. Lowe recently told The Spectator:
“There was this spate of accusations of ethnonationalism and all this sort of rubbish. But you know I can’t and won’t audit who supports us, but I can assure you the actual structure of the party has none of that in it.”
Rupert Lowe, The Spectator, 26 May 2026
However, a leading party figure has publicly intervened to protect a well-known fascist, over the wishes of the local branch organiser.
At some point, the party will have to choose: mass appeal or ideological purity. If it continues to pursue both, it risks falling apart at the seams.
There are more extremists attending Restore events — and we will expose them in the coming weeks.
Prefer to listen? Click the play button to hear the audio version. Harry Shukman Reform UK is staffed by oddballs and enigmas, but none odder…
