For the record …
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).
See also : United Patriots Front supporters outnumber anti-racism protesters at Bendigo rallies, ABC, February 27, 2016 | United Patriots Front launch “Fortitude” in Bendigo 27/02/2016 (ApexImagery) | October 10 “Global Rally For Humanity” (October 11, 2015).
It would be interesting to know the reason for Huts throwing in the towel. His loss will be sorely felt by the UPF. Especially if he’s replaced by Jacobson, who is a decided step down in class.
I honestly think your writing is getting worse, Andy… It reads more and more like biased propaganda in absence of the actual facts. For example your citing UPF numbers down! You’re leaving out that they still outnumbered the Anti-protesters by about 6 to 1. Which likely is why it was a peaceful event. Sounds like UPF might not be the only group with trouble in the ranks…
But we do live in a world where PC rules the day here. It’s funny how people are told for years an action will eventually lead to serious issues in the future. Only to be told don’t be intolerant. Then when those very same issues do arise, it’s easy just to shrug and say “Who could of seen that coming?” And continue making the same mistakes over and over.
The Mosque will be built and eventually a bomb will go off in the heart of Melbourne, placed by Islamic extremists, who do not give a lick about equality or social freedom. And the left will turn and say to everyone else, middle or right, “We told you you shouldn’t of upset them”. When that bomb does go off, I will be sure to stop by here and see what has changed or what you do have to say about it. I expect it will be as I wrote above.
Yes, the UPF’s numbers were down; yes, they outnumbered those opposed by a margin of anywhere from 3 to 1 to 6 to 1 (depending on which estimates are relied upon). Otherwise, yes, the mosque in Bendigo will almost certainly be built and it may be that ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh or some other, Salafi, jihadist militant group will stage an atrocity on STRAYAN shores at some point in the future.