Today in Bendigo, around 2-300 patriots/fascists answered their fuehrer’s call and attended the third and final leg of the United Patriot Front’s whirlwind tour of the ‘east coast’. There they were treated to another of Blair Cottrell’s best Hitler impersonations, whinged and whined about bloody Muslims, and (presumably) joined the UPF’s yet-to-be-registered political party, ‘Fortitude’. (The previous week in Orange, NSW saw around 40 or so gather at the local bowls club and the week before that around 70-80 attended the UPF meeting in Toowoomba, QLD.) The Bendigo Action Collective (BAC) held a ‘March Against Fascism & Bigotry’ which attracted anywhere from 50 to 100 or more in opposition to the fascist group’s presence in town.
The day appears to have been largely uneventful, though towards the end of the BAC march, outside the Bendigo railway station, a small group of a dozen or more UPF supporters — consisting largely of members of a tiny yoof gang from Melbourne calling themselves the ‘True Blue Crew’ — gave it large and were subsequently told to shoo by police. (You may remember the TBC from such rallies as ‘Reclaim Australia’ in Melbourne on July 18, when three of their members were arrested by police for being naughty and subsequently fined: the fines being paid for by the UPF.) Curiously, joining the TBC was (ex-?)UPF stalwart Linden Watson and Ralph ‘Valour Thief’ Cerminara, a man memorably described by UPF fuehrer (Blair Cottrell) last year as a ‘cancer’, a ‘virus’, and as someone who ‘infects’ and ‘destroys’ everything he touches.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Otherwise:
• The 2-300 UPF supporters who attended today were dwarfed by the crowd of anywhere from 500 to as many as 1,000 who attended the last time the UPF was in town (October 10), which may suggest that the UPF is declining in appeal. On the other hand, their numbers last time were considerably boosted by the presence of Christian fundamentalists from the ‘Rise Up Australia Party’, the period between October and February has witnessed a series of ruptures in the UPF, and the mosque appears to be going ahead despite numerous legal challenges to its construction …
• The UPF’s Perth leader, Dennis Huts — best known for being an uninvited guest at Muslim prayer rooms in hospitals and universities — has declared that he’s leaving the UPF (and public activism). This presumably leaves fascist thug Elijah Jacobson as Cottrell’s subordinate in Perth. Below is a discussion taken from the UPF’s internal discussions on Facebook, in which the boys discuss the virtues of the stillborn ‘Generation Identity: Australia’ project, now re-named ‘Australians Resistance Movement’ and admined by UPF member and neo-Nazi Jim Perren.
• Finally, the UPF has a tiny presence in Tasmania too. Well, of sorts. Their bizarre/disturbing batshit has been documented by anti-fascists in that part of the world in ‘We got chatting a while ago …’ (Antifa Tasmania, February 27, 2016).
This is an announcement of resignation from the Socialist Party, Australian section of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI).
We, the undersigned, refuse to be party to the cover-up of allegations of violence against women and will not remain complicit in the silencing of victims of abuse.
Over recent months we have watched the organisation we built be torn apart by attacks on a woman comrade for coming forward with serious allegations of abuse by a leading male member. We believe such allegations should always be investigated with seriousness and sensitivity, while open to scrutiny and democratic oversight. Instead, we have witnessed an attempted cover-up, defence of the alleged perpetrator and disgraceful treatment of the alleged victim.
As committed socialists and Marxists, we consider this an unforgivable breach between theory and practice. We have a proud history of fighting to end the oppression of women in society. We have published important material on the many ways women are oppressed by capitalist society and have expressed solidarity with the many movements throughout history that have fought and challenged this oppression. However, this important work will amount to nothing if we tolerate the silencing of women within our own ranks.
We are entering a new period of history where self-proclaimed socialists like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are inspiring people into political action and shaking up the capitalist system. A whole new generation is discovering the ideas of democratic socialism. Socialists should welcome them with open arms. But this can only be done on the basis of taking a principled stand against all forms of oppression.
The struggle for a socialist society – a society that puts the interests of people before profit – must be founded on the understanding that we cannot challenge capitalism while condoning violence against women within our movement. We must oppose all forms of oppression on the basis of class, gender, ethnicity, disability or sexuality.
We have a world to win through struggle, solidarity and socialism. We intend to fight for it.
Signed:
Stephen J
Mel G
Chris D
Emma L
Aish R
Emma Da.
Toby D
Sue M
Matt M
Tess K
Emma Du.
Kyal R
Bridgid O’B
Steven M
Blair Cottrell — the leader of the United Patriots Front and Fortitude — appears as ‘Bruce’ in a recent documentary about youth in prison (the maximum-security Youth Unit at Port Phillip Prison in Truganina). In this passage he describes how he abused steroids, stalked his former partner and her boyfriend, tried to kill him, set fire to their house, and eventually got arrested, convicted, and sent to prison.
I knew steroids were always available to me, so I decided to buy some. I spent $1,000 on my first course, which was testosterone and dianabol … The aggression and the rage that I got from them almost was addictive. It made me feel good, it made me feel powerful. And every time my girlfriend would tell me ‘it’s enough now, you need to cut back, you need to take it easy, you’re getting too angry, you’re getting too big, you just look ridiculous’, I would sort of just dismiss it …
… I was friends with this guy for two years before she broke up with me. And I was under the impression that over these two years he had weaseled his way into her mind and influenced her to leave me and get with him. So I had convinced myself that it was his fault, and he needed to disappear.
When she cut me off, which [was] probably around mid-year, that’s when everything got really bad. I started obsessing about this guy. I used to walk past this guy’s house like ten times a night, up and down his street, just watching it, waiting for him to come out of it, and he never did. And I would leave him messages telling him to ‘stand up to me, stand up to me’ and he never replied.
When I never got a reply from him I started carrying knives, and like a hatchet, I had my hatchet … I had a little tomahawk … I had like this little tomahawk that I used to wear it, I put it inside my jacket and in the middle of the night, like one and two o’clock in the morning, I would go out the front of his house and like just hover around, and they always used to stay up really late and smoke bongs and the lights would always be on.
So I would sleep behind this little white picket fence across from his house and look through the cracks, at his house, and as soon as like the door would open my heart would skip and I would stand up and be holding a knife because I’d be ready to go round there and be ready to like kill him because I was pretty determined.
There was one time where he did come out his front door and I had jumped out from behind his fence with a tomahawk in my hand and he ran away. So I put the tomahawk back in my jacket and I chased him, screaming out, telling him to stop, telling him he was a fucking coward. I chased him down about three streets and then he disappeared and that just made me worse and then I started damaging his house I started throwing things at it, through the windows and like, I made a couple of Molotov cocktails, and lit his garage up with those … and I started getting arrested after I did that.
When he made an intervention order against me I took it seriously because it threatens you with two years jail if you break it which is like a restraining order. So I started trying to speak to my girlfriend again. Of course she didn’t speak to me after what I’d been doing …
Since his release from prison in May 2014, his public statements would suggest that Cottrell has not altered his views on women. He also regards feminism as being a Jewish plot. In any case, the neo-Nazi will be addressing a Little Nuremeberg rally in Bendigo this Saturday. A ‘March Against Fascism & Bigotry’ has also been organised.
For those of you coming in late, ‘Whitelaw Towers’ (WLT) is a neo-Nazi blog that often functions as a kind of online shit-sheet for Dr Jim Saleam’s ‘Australia First Party’ (AFP). Thus, while there are many entertainingly batshit articles on the AFP website dedicated to trashing the (deregistered) party’s many political enemies, WLT exceeds the site many times in over in terms of size and scale.
WLT originally developed as a replacement for another, short-lived blog titled ‘Victor Whitelaw’ (February–October 2006). The author was a Sydney-based neo-Nazi named Peter Campbell. When ‘Victor’ stopped publishing, WLT was born (October 2006). Campbell was joined by his comrade in Toowoomba (now Chinchilla), Jim Perren — both men proud members of the now-defunct ‘White Pride Coalition of Australia’ — and more recently by AFP member, the Sydney-based Nathan Sykes.
I didn’t realise it until now, but Peter Campbell is actually deaded, having (reportedly) been killed in a motorcycle accident in August 2013. That means sole responsibility for the blog now resides with Perren and Sykes.
Finally, the WLT Facebook page recently merged with the ‘Anti-Antifa Australia’ page, previously maintained by Brisbane bonehead Chris Smith. I’ve been informed that Smith left the project last year and for most of it Perren assumed responsibility for the page.
United Patriots Front
On Tour
The UPF paid a visit to Orange yesterday (February 20) as the second leg of their ‘east coast’ tour to promote their fledgling, yet-to-be registered political party, ‘Fortitude’. It’s unclear why they chose Orange to promote it (presumably, they have at least one supporter in town) but the party went down like a lead balloon, the meeting attracting something in the order of 40 or so flagwits, most of whom reportedly came from outta town.
The UPF return to Bendigo on Saturday, February 27, and can reasonably be expected to attract at least a few hundred supporters. It will be the third time the boys have staged a rally in town, having previously organised anti-Muslim rallies on August 29 and October 10, 2015. The October 10 rally was their biggest event thus far, attracting somewhere in the order of 500 to as many as 1,000 people.
Bendigo is an attractive proposition for the boys for two primary reasons. The first is that the UPF is essentially a Melbourne-based project, with its key leaders — Blair Cottrell, Kris0 Richardson, Thomas Sewell and Chris Shortis — living in town. Further, Cottrell and Sewell have had a long association with neo-Nazi group Nationalist Alternative, another Melbourne-based project. In addition, the UPF has been able to attract the support of Melbourne-based Christian fun-da-mentalist party Rise Up Australia. Secondly, the UPF has been able to piggyback upon a long-running campaign by locals to stop the development of a mosque in town.
On the other hand, the events in Toowoomba and Orange have not generated a whole lot of public interest; the denunciations of the UPF as neo-Nazi by former comrades Shermon Burgess and Neil Erikson have made at least a few of their supporters re-think their commitment to the group; the two previous rallies in Bendigo have taken advantage of support from a broader milieu drawn from ‘Reclaim Australia’, its supporters, and various tiny satellites; the event is the launch of a yet-to-be-registered political party which enters an already fairly crowded field (including the Australia First Party, Australian Liberty Alliance, One Nation, Rise Up Australia and various other, right-wing Christian grouplets).
In summary, the event in Bendigo will be a real indicator of the actual level of support for the UPF and Fortitude, and determine whether or not it has actually been able to build a real social base, at least in Bendigo if not elsewhere in the country. Speaking of which, the Bendigo Action Collective has organised a ‘March Against Fascism And Bigotry’ in opposition to the UPF. For details, see their Facebook page.
Online
As noted in my last post, the UPF’s “inner circle” has been penetrated and material assembled there made available on the intarwebs. The material so far released consist of the circle’s Facebook discussion for the period December 22, 2015 to February 15, 2016 (ie, a few days after the Toowoomba rally) and messages exchanged via the Fortitude page for the period December 11, 2015 to January 20, 2016. It appears possible that other material will be released at a later date.
Most of the discussion that takes place among the boys is fairly mundane and of the sort that accompanies any (tiny) political project: the production and distribution of propaganda, creation of contact lists for supporters, scheduling of meetings and so on. Added to this are opinions about the various personalities to be found in the ‘patriotik’ movement, references to the various squabbles that have taken place during this period, and an attempt to solidify some kind of basic organisational structure. Throughout it is clear that Cottrell functions as the fuehrer and that the other boys are subordinate to him — a position which they seem to quite enjoy. Nonetheless, it’s not all smooth sailing, as this angry video addressed to his underlings suggests:
Otherwise, here’s a few more samples of some of the more, ah, interestink things the boys have had to say:
1. Kris0 Richardson expresses his liking for neo-Nazi warbler Saga:
2. Kris0 Richardson expresses a desire to smash the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, in the face with a hammer on account of his willingness to apologise for the state’s previous criminalisation of homosexuality:
3. Perth-based Elijah Jacobson expresses a desire to give “ANTIFA & SAlt” (Socialist Alternative) a hiding:
4. Nic Genovese (also from Perth) expresses gratitude on being appointed the UPF’s chief propagandist:
5. Kim Vuga hearts the UPF and is going to Perth in March:
6. Cottrell urges the boys to read The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion, the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, and to pay particular attention to Protocol 9.
Somehow or other, material published on the Facebook group “UPF & FORTITUDE ~ INNER CIRCLE” — comprising the ‘inner circle’ of the UPF/Fortitude — done got made public. It provides an interesting glimpse into the inner workings of the group of a dozen or so men who comprise the inner circle, and no doubt similar material will be forthcoming. Here’s a sample:
1. Chris Shortis (‘Chris Neil’) assures new member, Perth-based neo-Nazi Nic Genovese, that the inner circle is safe and secure.
2. Fuehrer Blair Cottrell assures the inner circle that everything is safe and secure. Note that along with Christian fun-da-mentalist Scott Moerland, neo-Nazi Jim Perren, formerly of Toowoomba, is the UPF’s flunkey in Queensland.
3. Blair Cottrell makes a funny about Thomas Sewell’s dreams of being a little Nazi.
4. Perth-based Elijah Jacobson asks who the man is what expresses ABSOLUTE UNWAVERING LOYALTY to his Fuehrer (Sewell provides the answer: Rudolf Hess).
5. The boys have a discussion about who’s gonna be standing for Fortitude come this year’s federal election. The other UPF/Fortitude flunkey in Perth, Dennis Huts, like Cottrell, has done time in jail: thankfully, for less than 12 months, meaning he’s free to catapult himself into the Australian Senate.
Hell hath no fury like a neo-Nazi scorned amirite?
Neil ‘Nazi Boy’ Erikson has been busy over the last few days exposing local neo-Nazi elements in the patriotik milieu. Much of what he’s stated — Nationalist Alternative (NAlt) is a neo-Nazi gang; the United Patriots Front (UPF) is led by neo-Nazis (Blair Cottrell, Thomas Sewell); he was #BFFs with the defunct Melbourne-based neo-Nazi gang the ‘Crazy White Boys’, etc. — is already known. But he’s made a few other claims which are revealing:
• NAlt meets at a mansion (146 Toorak Road) in South Yarra which functions as the happy home of ‘The English-Speaking Union of Victoria’, the ‘Royal Society of St George’ and the ‘British Australian Community’ (formerly the ‘United Kingdom Settlers’ Association’). I’d never heard of these groups, but they seem somewhat reminiscent of arch-Tory groups like the ‘Conservative Monday Club’ in the UK; a group which had close links to the fascist ‘National Front’ in the 1970s. (Oh yeah. On its website, the BAC gives props to Swedish neo-Nazi warbler Saga.)
Above : Nathan Sykes (L) with AFP Führer (Dr) Jim Saleam (R).
• Sydney-based ‘Australia First Party’ (AFP) bizarr0 Nathan Sykes — who writes for AFP, Whitelaw Towers (WLT) blog and the US-based neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer — is in fact Jewish. This would, of course, be quite remarkable if true, though not unique: the 2001 film The Believer was inspired by the life and death of Daniel Burros (1937–1965), an American neo-Nazi of Jewish descent. (Burros committed suicide on October 31, 1965, hours after his Jewish heritage was made public. He shot himself in the chest and then the head. At the time, he was reportedly listening to music composed by Richard Wagner.)
Sykes is not. a. fan. of my blog and wrote a batshit piece about me back in March 2015 (see : slackbastard ~versus~ Australia First Party, Daily Stormer, Reclaim Australia (etc.), March 10, 2015). Inter alia, Sykes wrote that I was a “gutless squid” who “champions every cause in the whole spectrum of the social justice warrior rainbow, without being sincere about any. If it’s faggot marriage, Muslim asylum seekers crying in detention because they didn’t get to sneak in and rape a white woman, petrol-sniffing Abos demanding sit-down money or self-hating Whites marching in solidarity with Ferguson, he’s got his tender paw in the scene.” (I’m also denounced as an “ideological fraudster”, “professional mud slinger”, “champion of the Jew-run left-wing media”, “hipster skunk” and “limp-wristed poseur”. Touché! LOL.)
• In December 2015, Brisbane-based neo-Nazi Jim Perren (ex-‘White Pride Coalition of Australia’, WLT blog) was apparently part of the UPF’s (vewy secwet) inner circle. You may remember Jim Perren from such events as the abortive joint rally by Australia First and Golden Dawn in Brisbane in May 2014. Assuming Perren remains a part of the UPF — and has not left or been removed by der Führer in the meantime — the ‘pagan’ neo-Nazi would be holding hands with fellow Queenslander and Christian fu-da-mentalist Scott Moerland: such a happy marriage! LOL.
On the whole, the cracks in the patriotik movement between neo-Nazis and Christian fundamentalists (whose chief embodiment at the moment is the UPF) on the one hand and ‘civic patriots’ (also sometimes termed ‘kosher patriots’ by their anti-Semitic and White nationalist rivals on the right), on the other hand, would appear to be further widening. Reclaim Australia appears to be in steady if not permanent decline — the national page was unpublished a few days ago, and the dumbs and mads who comprised the original committee are at war with one another over money, merchandise and fame — leaving the UPF, in whatever disarray it may be currently, holding the patriotik bag. Of course, fascists rarely play well together, and there are seemingly still many scores to settle among the ranks, so it’s highly likely that there’ll be more recriminations to come …
NB. The UPF is in Orange on February 20 and will be staging its third Little Nuremberg rally in Bendigo on February 27. See : March Against Fascism & Bigotry for more.
The United Patriots Front (UPF) held a meeting in Toowoomba yesterday at the Toowoomba Indoor Bowls Hall, the official launch of their political party ‘Fortitude’. From the one photo which has been published of the event, it appears that around 40 or 50 individuals attended –meaning that they were almost certainly outnumbered by the number of flags the UPF used for the occasion.
To celebrate their triumph, the UPF retired to the Burke & Wills Hotel. The manager of the pub later appeared in a video published by the UPF, stating: Hi guys I’m Nathan I’m at the Burke & Wills Hotel. I’ve just had a phone call — ah, an email — from head office, who is reporting having seen on Facebook, from a David Foster I do believe it was, that there was a group of neo-Nazis coming to my hotel here. I have responded, informing my reception staff to email back to head office, letting them know, that the 20-odd people that have come in for in meals and drinks tonight, are the leadership and members of Australia’s newest political party.
(The UPF is holding another meeting in Orange on February 20.)
Otherwise, former UPF member Neil Erikson continues to denounce the UPF as a (neo-)Nazi organisation and has vowed to continue to reveal ‘secrets’ about the UPF and other nazi meatheads for as long as they continue to dis him. Ho hum. There’s not a great deal of new information in the claims that he’s published thus far, though it was interesting to note that Cottrell’s association with and involvement in Melbourne-based neo-Nazi groupuscule Nationalist Alternative (NAlt) extends back some years (he appeared in their company at the April 4 Reclaim Australia rally in Melbourne). Further, that as Reclaim Australia was emerging last year Cottrell agreed with Erikson that explicit reference to The Jewish Problem was a Bad idea, and should be left to a later date when ‘patriots’ would be more likely to be able to share their anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi political convictions.
Neil Erikson : Yeah sick! Yeah mate I’m surprised I guess it’s cause of abbot [sic] and the siege but it’s bigger people have had enough of pc shit! My personal opinion is stick to the Muslim shit and Cultural Marxism for max support do Jews later you don’t need to show your full hand. Blair Cottrell : Yeah good advice and that[‘]s my current attitude as well[.] It will take years to prepare people for the Jewish problem. If any of us came out with it now we would be slaughtered by public opinion.
What is somewhat disturbing is his claim that Cottrell has threatened to kill him(!): A lot of people are asking me why I’m trying to destroy Blair Cottrell. Well Blair Cottrell called me up in a fit of fucking rage, threatened to run through my house and kill me in front of my family. Given that Cottrell apparently has a criminal conviction for an arson attack upon the home of a person who previously crossed him, one can only hope that Cottrell was just very upset and has no real intention to commit murder.
(Above (L to R) : Chris Cottrell, Mark Hootsen, Blair Cottrell. Federation Square, Melbourne, April 4, 2015.)
Erikson also claims that the reason NAlt fuehrer, Mark Hootsen, was removed from his position as moderator of the Stormfront Downunder forum was because he had been found to have sent sexually graphic material to a teenage supporter. See also : Nationalist Alternative throw their former Führer under the bus #antifa (December 14, 2014).
One Nation /// Bendigo
Also on Saturday, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party held a meeting in Bendigo at The Shamrock Hotel. The small group who assembled to hear her and the party’s Victorian Senate candidate (and Bendigo councillor) Elise Chapman were also treated to a small demonstration by opponents. Chapman’s comrades in the UPF will be returning to town on February 27. A welcoming committee has been formed to oppose them then, too: MARCH AGAINST FASCISM AND BIGOTRY.
Above : Neo-Nazi Blair Cottrell (UPF/Fortitude) and Christian fundamentalist Rosalie Crestani (Rise Up Australia Party).
On Saturday February 6 a number of nationalist, patriotic and religious groups held a rally in Canberra outside Parliament House in order to ‘Save Australia’ from Islam and refugees. The February 6 rally was the local manifestation of a global ‘day of action’ organised under the auspices of PEGIDA. Among those who attended were Reclaim Australia (or what remains of it), Rise Up Australia Party (RUAP), United Patriots Front (UPF)/Fortitude and an array of smaller, principally Facebook projects (‘Aussie Brotherhood’ etc.). Supporters were bused in from Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Newcastle, Sydney and various regional centres. Estimates of attendance vary from 200 (ABC) to 250 (Canberra Times) to 4-500. A very small group of 30-40 held a counter-rally. See : Reclaim Australia Rally drowns out counter protesters, Georgina Connery, The Canberra Times, February 6, 2016.
PEGIDA rallies were held in around a dozen European cities on February 6, including Amsterdam, Birmingham, Dublin and Prague. In Amsterdam, antifa successfully managed to sabotage the demonstration and the fascists were put on city buses and driven out of town after 40 minutes. There were multiple clashes with police and multiple smaller clashes in the area between fascists and anti-fascists. Antifa F-side AFC Ajax football hools were present, as were NVU members (The Dutch Peoples-Union (Dutch: Nederlandse Volks-Uniewere), Blood and Honour and neo-Nazis from Belgium, Germany (Dresden) and Poland. See : Tegen Pegida, voor, F-side, politie, February 6, 2016. In Birmingham, a very small crowd assembled to hear former English Defence League leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’) talk shit, while in Dublin the crazy baldheads (Polish neo-Nazis) got chased out of town. In Prague, neo-Nazis attacked the Klinika social centre following the rally. See : Klinika Collective’s Statement After Saturday’s Neo-Nazi Attack in Prague, René Schuijlenburg, Revolution News, February 8, 2016.
Over the course of the last two days two former members of the UPF/Fortitude — Shermon Burgess and Neil Erikson — have published several videos on Facebook denouncing the UPF for being a neo-Nazi group.
Prior to their denunciation of the group, the boys were described as follows:
They are now described in far less flattering terms.
In essence, what happened was the following:
Yesterday, Burgess (‘The Great Aussie Patriot’) published a video (which since appears to have been deleted) in which he denounced the neo-Nazi blog ‘Whitelaw Towers’ (whose principal author is the Sydney-based neo-Nazi Peter Campbell, and which promotes the Australia First Party), Dr Jim Saleam’s ‘Australia First Party’ (AFP), another blog (and Facebook page) titled ‘Anti-Antifa Australia’ (the responsibility of Brisbane-based neo-Nazi skinhead and Volkfront leader Chris Smith) and finally Mark Hootsen‘s Melbourne-based neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Nationalist Alternative’ (NAlt). Because the UPF has encouraged and facilitated the participation of neo-Nazis and White supremacists in the UPF and the ‘patriotic’ movement more generally, Burgess also denounced the UPF.
Soon after Burgess published his denunciation, he was joined by Erikson. In several subsequent videos, Erikson has stated that when he joined the Reclaim Australia protest in Melbourne in April last year, he identified as a neo-Nazi and joined Reclaim on that basis. He further states that Blair Cottrell is a neo-Nazi (as is Cottrell’s sidekick, Thomas Sewell), that he facilitated Cottrell’s entrance into the Reclaim movement, and that both did so ‘undercover’, ie, by lying about their neo-Nazi political convictions. (See : Neo-Nazis @ #ReclaimAustralia in Melbourne, April 5, 2015.) In ‘coming out’, then, Erikson has abandoned his cover, while Cottrell — now the undisputed heavyweight champion of the UPF and of Fortitude — continues to run around with his pants on fire.
None of this is news to anyone who pays attention to such matters (see : Quotations From Chairman Blair Cottrell, July 27, 2015), but it’s always interesting to listen to patriotik Volk when they decide to be honest for once. Thus Erikson also claims that money raised via an UPF gofundme campaign (administered by a former flunky named ‘Indie Rose Oliver’) was what paid for the UPF’s plane trip to Perth in November; that when he was a member of NAlt, he attended meetings of the group in Toorak (at which Cottrell was also present); that the flags which the UPF waved at the May 31 ‘anti-Communist’ rally in Richmond were paid for by NALt; that NAlt were present at both UPF rallies (August 29 and October 10) in Bendigo; and that at the second Bendigo rally there were several scuffles between NAlt and its supporters and those who objected to their presence.
It’s unclear exactly what triggered the outbursts by Burgess and Erikson (though Erikson maintains it was because the UPF wrongly accused Burgess of stealing money from them), but both claim that the involvement of neo-Nazis such as the UPF in the ‘patriot’ movement is bound to be its undoing. I’m not so sure: ie, that would be the case if the UPF was honest and declared itself to be a neo-Nazi group, but of course it isn’t honest and for precisely that reason: even the thickest of patriots are unlikely to follow a neo-Nazi into battle. In which case, the UPF will simply continue to engage in denial. On the other hand, the facts do place the ostensibly non-nazi members in a bit of a pickle.
Currently, the UPF/Fortitude is structured as a tiny micro-sect, with Cottrell as fuehrer and the handful of other members — Scott Moerland in Brisbane, Dennis Huts and Elijah Jacobson in Perth, and Kriso Richardson, Thomas Sewell and Christopher Shortis in Melbourne — performing as his faithful lapdogs. Huts and Jacobson are part of a tiny neo-Nazi and White supremacist milieu in Perth (see below), while Moerland (a former RUAP candidate) and Shortis are Christian fundamentalists (Richardson appears to be a garden-variety racist meathead, happy to tag along, take orders, and occasionally — falsely — claim to be a member of the CFMEU). Its following is small but generally quite fanatical, and happy to believe whatever it’s told.
In summary then, what seems to be happening is a further entrenchment of a split in the patriotik movement between AFP, NAlt, UPF and RUAP (ie, neo-Nazis, White nationalists and fundamentalist Christians) on the one hand and the Australian Defence League (ie, Ralph Cerminara), the Party For Freedom (Nick Folkes & Co in Sydney) and assorted other fascist dregs on the other hand, united by a shared hatred of Muslims, refugees and Teh Left. Each party being driven by political opportunism, it remains possible that there will be a rapprochement of some kind, but the cracks do appear to be beginning to widen.
As for the UPF, it’s holding a Little Nuremberg rally in Toowoomba on Saturday at the Toowoomba Indoor Bowls Hall at 10 Annand Street. (The UPF claim that the owner of the business is a UPF supporter.) Otherwise, local UPF supporter Liz Carlsen is arranging their visit to the town, ie, when she’s not busy working for local Catholics as a relief teacher(!). The rally on Saturday is the first of three the UPF is conducting, with another in Orange, NSW on February 20 and a third in Bendigo on February 27.
Pauline Hanson in Bendigo
Pauline Hanson is bringing her batshit roadshow to Bendigo on Saturday and has won the support of The Shamrock Hotel in doing so. While the Hotel is rolling out the red carpet for her and her running mate (and Bendigo councilor) Elise Chapman, a welcoming committee has formed in order to ensure that their vile message does not go unopposed. See : Bendigo: Stop One Nation Senate Launch.
Aryan Nations
WA Today published a story on February 9 about a newly-established neo-Nazi group in Perth called ‘Aryan Nations’. See : Aryan Nations: Perth white supremacist group on letterbox recruitment drive, Brendan Foster, February 9, 2016. AN’s main propagandist is a jung fella by the name of Robert Edhouse (aka Matthew Collins). Over the course of the last year or two Robert has been periodically bugging me to write about him and his group. Most recently he messaged me to state the following:
A brief perusal of his Facebook profiles reveals that Robert is well-acquainted with the UPF in Perth, being friends with both Huts and Jacobson and even Neil Erikson. Seemingly consisting of no more than a handful of boneheads, the AN in Perth is an outgrowth of AN in the US, which Edhouse has visited, and to an OMC in the US and Aotearoa/New Zealand called Sadistic Souls. See also : Squabbling Aryan Nations Factions Descend Into Vicious Name-Calling, Bill Morlin, SPLC, January 27, 2014.
Bonus Galea!
Local neo-Nazi and Reclaim Australia and UPF supporter Phil Galea was in court again today. His batshit rant about Muslims outside court was captured by Channel Ten. Stay staunch, brother! Note that UPF supporter John Wilkinson (‘Farma John’ on Facebook) purchased 20-something tasers a few months ago, presumably for use upon anti-fascist counter-protesters. Wilkinson was in Canberra on February 6, but who knows where the tasers have ended up …
Laure Akai, secretary of the International Workers Association (IWA), will be giving a presentation on the practice of anarcho-syndicalism this month. The IWA was founded in 1922 in Berlin and has sections around the world. The series of events around Australia is being organised by the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation (ASF), the Australian section of the IWA.
See also : The Relevance of Anarcho-syndicalism: Noam Chomsky interviewed by Peter Jay, The Jay Interview, July 25, 1976 | A history of Anarcho-syndicalism (Solidarity Federation, UK, 2001) | Anarcho-Syndicalist Review : “an independent syndicalist magazine, published since May 1, 1986 (originally Libertarian Labor Review). ASR is a forum for non-sectarian, critical, informed and constructive discussion of anarcho-syndicalist theory and practice.” | “The Solidarity Federation’s book, Fighting for ourselves: anarcho-syndicalism and the class struggle, aims to recover some of the lost history of the workers’ movement, in order to set out a revolutionary strategy for the present conditions. In clear and accessible prose, the book sets out the anarcho-syndicalist criticisms of political parties and trade unions, engages with other radical traditions such as anarchism, syndicalism and dissident Marxisms, explains what anarcho-syndicalism was in the twentieth century, and how it’s relevant – indeed, vital – for workers today.” [2012]
On Thursday night in Newtown an altercation occurred outside of Black Rose anarchist infoshop involving Ralph Cerminara (Australian Defence League/Left Wing Bigots & Extremists Exposed Facebook page) and Dan Evans (Reclaim Australia and principal organiser of the February 6 PEGIDA rally in Canberra) on the one hand and two or three people at the infoshop on the other.
Charges laid following brawl – Newtown
NSW Police Force Media Release
January 29, 2016
Four men have been charged following an alleged brawl in Newtown last night.
Just after 8pm (Thursday 28 January 2016), emergency services were called to a service station on Enmore Road, following reports of a brawl nearby involving men armed with poles, bottles and fluorescent light tubes.
On arrival, officers attached to Newtown Local Area Command located a 37-year-old man [Ralph Cerminara] and a 36-year-old man [Daniel Evans] suffering minor injuries.
They were assisted at the scene by Ambulance Paramedics, before being taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in a stable condition.
Both men were arrested this morning (Friday 29 January 2016) after leaving hospital, and taken to Newtown Police Station.
Police also arrested two men, 21 and 23, at the scene.
They were also taken to Newtown Police Station.
The 23-year-old man was charged with affray, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and being armed with intent to commit actual bodily harm.
The 21-year-old man was charged with affray and being armed with intent to assault.
The two younger men were refused bail, to appear in Newtown Local Court today.
Both the 37-year-old and the 36-year-old were charged with affray; with the younger man also charged with being armed with intent to commit an indictable offence.
They were both granted strict conditional bail, to appear before Newtown Local Court on 18 February 2016.
Cerminara — a valour thief and close comrade of Shermon Burgess (‘The Great Aussie Patriot’), has previously been arrested for trying to provoke a fight in Lakemba in December 2014 and generally tries to make mischief by filming himself harassing Muslims and leftists on the streets; videos which are later uploaded to his Facebook page. In recent months, Black Rose has become the focus of his ire. He published this video on November 14, 2015:
Otherwise, the incident has provoked the usual response from ‘patriotik’ folk — and anarchists and other anti-fascists should expect further attacks.
In February the UPF is embarking upon a promotional tour for its yet-to-be-registered political party, ‘Fortitude’. They’re planning on holding public rallies in Toowoomba, Queensland on February 13; Orange, NSW on February 20; and Bendigo on February 27. Chris ‘The United Nations is attempting to install the Pope as leader of a new world government!’ Shortis has been announced as the party’s candidate for the Senate in Victoria at the next federal election.
Another neo-Nazi UPF supporter, Phillip Galea, was due in court on January 27 (Police on the hunt for missing stun guns amid fears of use by extremists, Angus Thompson, Herald Sun, January 13, 2016). Gallea was arrested by police after meeting up with UPF member John Wilkinson (‘Farma John’) in Sandringham at the beginning of the year:
Det Sgt Tierney said Mr Galea met anti-immigration activist “Farmer John” Wilkinson, as well as other UPF members, across the road from a UPF barbecue at Sandringham Beach on January 3.
The court heard that Mr Wilkinson told police on January 7 that he had bought up to 22 stun guns, and that police were still searching for seven of these.
Previously, Wilkinson gave the following stirring address at a Reclaim Australia rally in Melton in November alongside Casey councillor (and deputy president of the Rise Up Australia Party) Rosalie Crestani. According to the Herald Sun:
Farmer John, from United Patriots, spoke to the crowd while it chanted “No Muslims in Melton”, and threatened more violent action. “We’re going to burn every mosque down if they build them … Let’s stick it up them,” he said.
*smh*
… in Bendigo
On Australia/Invasion/Survival Day, the UPF paid a visit to Bendigo. Among other things, they went to the house of a man, Jason Godwell, they believed had registered ‘United Patriots Front’ as an ABN. The home visit was filmed and uploaded to the UPF Facebook page, and as well as being named and having his address published, Godwell was denounced to the UPF’s 30,000+ followers. (Subsequently, the video was deleted.) Godwell himself later stated that he had not registered UPF and was a victim of identity theft. Having been publicly named by the UPF as a Bad man, Godwell further claims that he was forced to abandon his home and the care of his child.
Maajid Nawaz /// PEGIDA /// Tommy Robinson/Stephen Yaxley-Lennon
Former Islamist Maajid Nawaz is currently undertaking a brief tour of Australia. You can listen to an interview with him on ABC radio here (January 27), while a critical account of his political evolution has been published in New Republic (What Does Maajid Nawaz Really Believe?, Nathan Lean, January 27, 2016).
Curiously, Nawaz makes explicit reference to the role of neo-Nazi grouplet ‘Combat 18’ in ‘radicalising’ him as a teenager; in Melbourne, there have been numerous reports of ‘Combat 18’ stickers popping up around town in the last few months, meaning former Creatard Patrick O’Sullivan and his nazi chums have been more active than usual. Coincidentally, some wanker stuck a sticker up in Chapel Street Prahran reading “Cure AIDS, kick a poofter to death”.
Nawaz is also famed for helping to establish the Quilliam Foundation, a UK-based project which claims to attempt to ‘de-radicalise’ Islamists and other ‘extremists’. Its most famous success story is (was) Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’), the former leader of the English Defence League (EDL), who announced (in conjunction with the Foundation) his resignation from the group and the anti-Muslim movement in October 2013. The mouthy little gobshite claims that the Foundation paid him thousands of pounds to resign in a move that many saw as a bribe: Robinson stepped down, and Quilliam took credit for bringing about his departure. The money, Robinson said, went to pay “my wife’s rent and help with basic bills, [and] in return Tommy Robinson would be their poster boy.”
Fast-forward a year or two and Yaxley-Lennon is back, baby, this time as the spokesperson for PEGIDA UK, and will be addressing a rally in Birmingham on February 6. On the same date, another dozen or so anti-Muslim protests are planned, while in Australia, neo-Nazis, fascists, racists and a motley assortment of other bigots will be converging on Parliament House in Canberra. See : Pegida meets with European allies in the Czech Republic, Deutsche Welle, January 23, 2016.
I have a stack of stickers to give away to good homes. If you’d like some, leave a comment, send me an email or contact me via my Twitter account or Facebook page.
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
