The National Rebirth Party (NRP) is a new fascist microparty led by Alek Yerbury, an oddball would-be dictator now based in Manchester.

The NRP, which gained party status in February, is predicated on dubious strategy and is staffed by figures extreme even by the standards of the far right. While its electoral prospects appear dim, there is reason to be concerned about the degree of extremism fomenting within the group.

Alek Yerbury and the National Support Detachment

Yerbury was privately educated in Adelaide, Australia before serving in the British Army. He joined the neo-Nazi group Patriotic Alternative (PA) in the autumn of 2021 and became a regular public speaker, receiving negative press in the process for his resemblance to Adolf Hitler. 

Yerbury harbours an intense hatred of politicians and left-wing activists. HOPE not hate has previously exposed his appalling statements about the murder of Jo Cox, a Yorkshire MP assassinated by a nazi in 2016. We also found others in which he advocated the use of firearms on migrants, the internment of his political enemies in forced labour camps and much else. 

He split with PA in February 2023 after a spat with the leadership and allied himself with a circle of former English Defence League (EDL) activists in Yorkshire. This included Scott Pitts, who would act as lieutenant throughout the year, and David Smaller, head of the Yorkshire Patriots, an EDL splinter group. 

He subsequently launched the National Support Detachment (NSD) that April in the hopes of establishing a faux-military force that would confront left-wing activists at street protests. Unsurprisingly, the reality was a far cry from the disciplined “NSD platoons” Yerbury had envisaged and he spent the year addressing a series of diminishing anti-migrant protests across the north, only to be reliably outnumbered by counter-protestors. 

This phase culminated in the calamitous protest camp outside RAF Scampton, a site earmarked to house asylum seekers, last winter. The camp was defined by squalor, squabbles, arrests and accusations of stolen funds and substance abuse, as Yerbury desperately tried to control the chaos. The ultimate outcome of this months-long effort was the total alienation of any local sympathy his campaign may once have had.

The NRP

Abandoning street protests, Yerbury successfully registered the NRP in February and now heads a political party that is both highly ambitious and extreme. Unlike the Homeland Party, another PA splinter group, the NRP dismisses the much-vaunted “ladder strategy” once used by the British National Party (BNP) and forgoes council contests, aiming directly for seats in parliament and primarily targeting urban areas. 

Yerbury believes that, through this strategy, he can seize national power in 10-15 years. This has puzzled many observers, not least because the NRP makes little effort to broaden its support and instead offers a startlingly authoritarian slate of policies. 

For example, the group’s manifesto states that “only people of British heritage or lineage” would qualify for citizenship and that “foreigners whose presence is harmful to the interests of the national community be expelled, without exception”. Moreover, citizens “who refuse to carry out their duties will be stripped of their rights”. The death penalty would be handed to those who commit “the most serious crimes, including crimes against the nation and its people”, a category that would include those who “carry out crimes that cause direct or indirect harm to enormous numbers of people (including habitual low-level crime)”. This definition would seem to include several people Yerbury has rubbed shoulders with at his own events.

Progress and Prospects

So far, the NRP has recruited a small collection of activists with pasts in PA, the EDL, Britain First, the BNP, the National Front, the British Movement, Youth Alliance and more. It has established five functioning branches: Birmingham, Hull, Leeds, London and Manchester, which engage in meetings, public surveys and street stalls through which they distribute the party magazine. 

It has also announced other branches that have so far achieved little or failed to materialise, including in Glasgow, East Anglia, Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Nottingham/Leicester and Sunderland/Peterlee. 

However, Yerbury’s habit of lecturing others despite his inexperience has also proved isolating, and he and other party figures continue to expend much energy squabbling with its competitors on the extreme right. The shift from street movement into party politics has alienated some of his existing allies, including Paul Leeming, a Leeds football hooligan who has dubbed Yerbury an “ignorant Hitler loving Nazi wannabe” who is “out to scam your money”. Scott Pitts appears more interested in street politics than electioneering, and Simon Scott, another close supporter, has retreated from activism after serving time in the wake of the July-August riots.

The NRP may prove attractive to PA offcasts and other fascist fantasists, and its open door policy to any extremist may see some moderate growth in the immediate term. However, its outmoded branding, eccentric leadership and its obvious extremism will ensure it is confined to the outside political fringes for the foreseeable future.

However, Yerbury and his followers are pushing a dangerous kind of politics that demands close attention. Both Yerbury and others now active within the NRP have themselves previously endorsed violence, and we have already identified several individuals convicted for the country-wide riots and disorder this summer who have previously rubbed shoulders with Yerbury and his allies at various events. 

At present, the NRP is engaging with the political process. However, it has potential to act as a crucible for violent extremism, especially if disillusionment sets in following its inevitable failures at the polls.