The far-right “United Patriots Front” is targeting “African migrants”; a recent “street patrol” only avoided violence for lack of a target.
Earlier this year the United Patriots Front failed in their attempt to register an anti-Islam political party in order to contest the July Federal Election. Support for their organization subsequently collapsed as key members left for other projects.
The two key remaining UPF members, Blair Cottrell and Thomas Sewell, are now attempting to rebuild the organization on the back of anti-African racism. The fascist duo have latched onto “Apex gang” narratives, and are attempting to relate to anti-Apex vigilantism.
On their Facebook page, the UPF regularly posts accounts of “Aussies” supposedly attacked by “Africans” or “immigrants”, their supporters then respond with hundreds of comments encouraging vigilante attacks.
A standard such post on 19 December quickly resulted in hundreds of comments such as:
“Its time to fight back… [the] police are failing. … arm yourselfs and fight back”
“They need to know who’s boss…. seems to me its time nationalists formed their own gangs and started showing these cunts real violence and no mercy”
These were not isolated remarks, threads on the UPF Facebook page routinely contain hundreds of explicit calls for violence and vengeance.
The challenge for Cottrell and others has always been how to translate these online expressions of hatred into a movement capable of projecting “force and terror” on the streets.
Recent attempts by far-right groups to call public rallies have flopped. November’s Donald Trump celebration attracted maybe thirty attendees, a sizable counter-demonstration, and an overwhelming police response. Hardly a display of power.
Two days ago the UPF tried something different. The UPF Facebook page announced that “a friend and fellow UPF supporter just got jumped by African car jackers” and called on supporters to immediately head to the site to this alleged attack.
Supporters were simply told to come “prepared”, but the UPF’s online audience knew what was expected. The thread immediately exploded with the giddy remarks of racists keen to witness a revenge attack:
If any meet with “unfortunate accidents”, make sure photos are posted so the rest of the scum will see what’s heading their way too.
Wish I was their my cricket bat is looking a bit dusty.
Get one person to video you claiming citizen arrest make sure they throw the first punch then defend yourselves. Its that simple.
Curb stomp.
Break there knee caps and arms with bats.
A knife works better.
Fortunately, the UPF’s keyboard warriors didn’t get their murder porn on Wednesday night. Less fortunately the event seems to have been a successful test run of a new tactic for the UPF.
At 11:45 the UPF Facebook page was reporting that “Blair and Tom met with about a dozen blokes” who reportedly “searched the area for [an] hour and a half”.
Whilst the UPF are prone to inventing events for propaganda purposes, it seems likely that they managed to gather a squad prepared to use violence at very short notice on Wednesday night, and then spent approximately an hour searching for “Africans” to attack.
Since launching their “patrol” on Wednesday, the UPF have followed up with further posts encouraging the idea that the “Aussie” community is under attack from “Africans”. The UPF’s online followers continue to respond enthusiastically to suggestions the UPF could seek to directly attack “African” and “migrant” youth.
Blair Cottrell is reveling in the prospect for conflict, enthusing on Twitter that “the day of the rope isn’t far off, boys”.
The phrase ‘The Day of the Rope’ is lifted from the 1978 novel by dead neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce (published under the pseudonym Andrew MacDonald), ‘The Turner Diaries’. It refers to The Day when White supremacists embark on a campaign of mass murder of political opponents and racial enemies: academics, politicians, ‘race-mixers’ et. al..
Anti-fascists have a significant task in front of us. Rising far-right vigilantism is likely to result in calls for greater police action from social democratic quarters, however the police, media and government are the key players in the racist campaign against Sudanese and other African migrant communities that the UPF is seeking to latch onto.
We need to organize as an anti-racist movement capable of rapidly and decisively countering attacks by the far-right, whilst also pushing back against the racism of the state, the media and the police.
If we do not, racist attacks against migrant communities will likely escalate, and the UPF’s keyboard warriors might yet get the murder porn they clearly crave.
Bonus!
“Using the pseudonym ‘Bruce’ Cottrell details his offences of arson, stalking, breaching intervention orders and his addiction to steroids.”