DAVID LAWRENCE
In May 2011, some 40,000 current and former British National Party (BNP) members, supporters and donors received an unsolicited email from a new group calling itself Britain First. A further 5,000 people received a glossy mailshot introducing the new group and its chairman, Paul Golding.
Formed by Jim Dowson and led by Golding, both formerly of the BNP, the group set about its confrontational political activities by attempting to intimidate and provoke Muslim communities.
While always struggling to marshal more than a few dozen on the streets, Britain First is one of the best known far-right groups in the UK, in part due to its success on social media. At its peak, the group’s Facebook page had over 1.9 million likes and in November 2017, then-President Donald Trump retweeted three anti-Muslim videos posted by then-Deputy Leader Jayda Fransen.
However, for many, the group is indelibly associated with far-right violence. This owes in part to the assassination of Labour MP Jo Cox by far-right extremist Thomas Mair in June 2016, a man who, despite having no apparent connection to the group, reportedly shouted the words “Britain First” during his attack.
The group has been linked to other terror attacks. In the summer of 2017, Polish-born Marek Zakrocki drove his van at the owner of a restaurant in North London, telling police at the scene: “I’m going to kill a Muslim, I’m doing this for Britain”. Britain First literature was found at his home.
Moreover, Darren Osborne, the terrorist who drove a van into pedestrians near Finsbury Park Mosque in 2017, killing one and injuring nine, had also consumed Britain First content. The Metropolitan Police said of Osborne:
“He had grown to hate Muslims largely due his consumption of large amounts of online far-right material including, as evidenced at court, statements from former EDL leader Tommy Robinson, Britain First and others.”
Since its founding 13 years ago, Britain First has suffered an inordinate quantity of legal, interpersonal and competency issues. However, it remains one of the most active far-right groups in the country and a threat to communities across the UK.
Since forming over a decade ago, Golding has regularly changed the focus of Britain First in the hope of finding a winning formula that, so far, remains elusive.
In its early years, Britain First sought to differentiate itself from other anti-Muslim street groups, such as the English Defence League (EDL), by adopting paramilitary trappings. This included pseudo-military titles, uniforms and armoured vehicles, mimicking organisations in Northern Ireland, where Britain First was formed. The tactic only served to mark the group out as extremists and led to convictions under the Public Order Act 1936.
Britain First became notorious for its aggression, especially the so-called “Christian patrols” and “mosque invasions”, in which activists descended on areas with large Muslim populations and stormed into Islamic places of worship. Driving military Land Rovers through East London, Golding and his comrades sought to draw out so-called “Muslim patrols” for confrontation and then catch the action on camera. In 2014, Golding even threatened to bury a pig at the site of a planned mosque in Dudley in order to “contaminate” the land and prevent its construction.
The group’s targeting of Islamist extremist Anjem Choudary and his network received considerable support on social media. However, for some, including the founder Jim Dowson, the approach proved too controversial and he abandoned ship, complaining that the group “is being overrun with racists and extremists,” and had become “a violent front for people abusing the Bible”.
One distinctive feature of the group is its emphasis on radical evangelical Protestantism. This is in part the product of the religious beliefs of Dowson and Deputy Leader Jayda Fransen, who would carry large crosses on protests and other actions. Since the departure of the pair, this overt religious aspect has diminished but not disappeared. For example, one of Britain First’s key “principles” remains a commitment to “maintaining and strengthening Christianity as the foundation of our society and culture”, and anti-abortion politics has featured heavily in its output.
This in part explains Britain First’s obsessive Islamophobia. The group believes in an ongoing clash of civilisations between the Christian West and Islam, and regards Muslims as a fundamental threat to British identity. However, it has a wider and more traditional far-right platform.
This became clearer during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, when Britain First adopted an explicit focus on race and whiteness. For example, the group embraced the slogan “White Lives Matter” and organised to “defend” various statues and memorials, in response to protests about their links to slavery and colonialism. Ashlea Simon, now Britain First’s co-leader, has said: “English people can’t be black, English blood is white”, and the group has also pushed the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, for example claiming in 2021 that “white Westerners” are being subjected to an “pernicious and evil campaign” that amounts to “genocide”.
While Golding has largely shied away from open antisemitism, he has collaborated with well-known antisemites. For example, he formerly enjoyed a close relationship with ex-BNP leader Nick Griffin, and he twice invited the strongly antisemitic Polish hate preacher, Jacek Międlar, to speak at Britain First rallies in 2017 (Międlar was barred entry to the UK). Piotr Rybak, previously convicted of inciting hatred after he burned an effigy of an orthodox Jew at a protest, was also invited to speak at a Britain First rally.
Since 2019, Britain First has also focused heavily on cross-Channel migration. Emulating the mosque invasions that made the group notorious, Golding and his activists have regularly stormed into hotels temporarily housing asylum seekers and confronted staff and residents with cameras, or else staged protests outside.
While this tactic has not garnered the same wide notice that the group enjoyed in its early years, it has proved highly influential on the wider British far right, popularising the trend of so-called “migrant hunting” that remains a mainstay of far-right activity today.
Britain First has long paired its street activities with electioneering, a strategy Golding has dubbed “the ballot and the boot”. The group initially launched the National People’s Party as an electoral vehicle but subsequently registered Britain First itself in January 2014.
At the 2014 European Elections, the group registered the phrase “Remember Lee Rigby” so that it appeared on the ballot paper, a move that resulted in wide criticism for exploiting the murder. The group polled 0.1%.
That November, Fransen ran in the Rochester and Strood by-election, receiving another 0.1% of the vote after Royal Mail refused to deliver her leaflet, believing it to be illegal. Golding stood himself in the 2016 London mayoral elections, polling just 1.2% but receiving media coverage for turning his back during Sadiq Khan’s victory speech.
This string of failures was followed by the deregistration of the party in 2017 after it failed to renew in time, and a fine of £44,200 in 2019 for “multiple breaches” of electoral law, including failure to keep accurate donation and financial records.
After numerous failed attempts and legal challenges, Britain First finally re-registered in 2021. Golding had already begun to reorganise Britain First into a more serious electoral machine, establishing more formal regional branches and more closely emulating the old BNP. He claimed in 2019: “Such a network, comprising scores, then hundreds, of active, connected branches, will make Britain First unstoppable!”
However, the group has fared just as badly at the ballot box as before. In May 2022, Britain First stood just three candidates, who were variously exposed by HOPE not hate for antisemitism, conspiracy theorising and past membership of fascist groups. All three performed poorly, despite an organised and active campaign.
At the May 2023 local elections, Golding came last in his target ward of Swanscombe, Dartford, with just 5%. As expected, Simon performed best, coming second in Walkden North (Salford) with 405 votes. However, despite six months of intense campaigning, the result was actually down from the previous year.
Simon stood again in the Tamworth by-election in October 2023, running an anti-migrant campaign that resulted in 580 votes (2.3%), placing fourth out of nine candidates.
2024 was a hat-trick year of failures at the polls. Following a nasty London mayoral campaign that included labelling Sadiq Khan as “that vile Taliban mayor” and claiming that the capital “will be the first Islamist caliphate in the Western world”, candidate Nick Scanlon received 20,000 votes (0.8%), losing to the joke candidate Count Binface.
The expense of this election — which, according to party emails, included £25,000 to contest in London and £11,200 on campaign materials — factored into the group’s decision not to contest the 2024 general election, with Golding admitting in an unusually candid broadcast:
“We are exhausted, physically. Our donor base is exhausted, financially… We would stand in seats and do terribly. We’re going to skip this general election. We don’t have the resources, manpower, finances to put up even more than a half-arsed campaign. We’re just not at that level yet.”
It has instead made the dubious pledge to field “30-40” candidates in the local elections next year.
Since founding, Britain First has been dogged by legal issues, criminal trials and prison sentences. Many of these involve Golding himself, who, according to Britain First’s own count, had “been arrested twenty times, been in three different prisons and prosecuted ten times” as of October 2021.
This includes a ban from entering Luton and all mosques in England and Wales in 2016, a jail sentence for religiously aggravated harassment in 2018, producing material intended to stir up hatred in 2019, and a 2020 conviction under the Terrorism Act for refusing to provide access to his digital devices after one of his trips to Russia.
Golding has also faced accusations of domestic abuse from Fransen, with a BBC Spotlight documentary uncovering recordings of him admitting to assaulting her and another woman, somewhat undermining his claims to be a protector of women from Muslims.
The group remains dogged by continual infighting, high activist turnover and has failed to significantly grow its offline activist base. This is despite a recent increase in visibility, after its Twitter (now X) account was reinstated in October 2022 following Elon Musk’s shakeup of the platform. Golding’s leadership style and volatile character have burned numerous bridges, and he has been at the centre of a number of conflicts in the UK far right.
Although it faces internal issues and a disastrous electoral record, Britain First remains one of the most active far-right groups in the UK. The group also has perhaps the best infrastructure on the far right, with three mini-vans, an office and a training centre for its “Defence Force”.
Despite its high turnover, its small core of activists are often willing to travel for actions most weekends, meaning that the group has an outsized ability to negatively impact its target communities.
Several recent cases highlight the dangers posed by the group. In June last year, Richard Osborne was jailed for three years and ten months after admitting to stirring up racial and anti-LGBT+ hatred. A baton fashioned out of a metal bar was found in his car and an unlicensed shotgun was found under his bed. HOPE not hate revealed that Osborne had engaged in anti-migrant activism with Britain First.
Moreover, there is good reason to believe that Britain First’s ugly anti-Muslim and anti-migrant campaigning fed into the countrywide race riots and disorder this summer. For instance, HOPE not hate has identified several individuals convicted of participating in the riots who were previously active within Britain First, including Warren Gilchrest, Shaun Holt and Bill Riley.
More pertinently, several of the asylum accommodation sites subjected to horrendous vandalism, violence and arson attempts had previously been targeted by Britain First campaigns. This includes in Hull, which suffered one of the worst riots in the country, and in Rotherham, where rioters attempted to burn down a hotel while residents were trapped inside.
An asylum hotel in Tamworth, which was similarly subjected to a terrifying mob attack this August, had been the focus of Ashlea Simon’s by-election campaign last autumn. The group drove around town in a “battle bus” emblazoned with the slogans: “Stop the boats” and “Keep Tamworth British”. Britain First distributed many thousands of leaflets that targeted the hotel by name and accused the government of “using Tamworth as a dumping ground for working-age illegal migrant men” and of “[facilitating] the illegal immigration invasion of Britain”.
Undeterred by the attempted arson, Britain First staged a march in Tamworth (led by Golding and Simon) on 5 October 2024 with a banner that read “PENSIONERS BEFORE MIGRANTS”.
While Britain First once looked set to occupy the space left by the BNP and the EDL, the group’s gaffes, failures and legal issues have overshadowed its victories. Golding bears personal responsibility for alienating much of Britain First’s potential activist base and driving the group further into the political fringes.
Nonetheless, it has been home to numerous individuals with criminal pasts and others who would go on to be convicted for hate crime and terror-related offences. Golding and his organisation push a dangerous form of politics that must be taken seriously.
Britain First paints itself as a respectable political party, but our undercover investigation reveals its true fascist nature. Over the course of six months, our undercover investigator infiltrated the group, rising through the ranks and even being awarded ‘Best Activist’. What we uncovered is shocking and demands to be seen. Watch the full investigation today.
