Leadership dramas have not stymied plans by Australia’s far-right United Patriots Front to form a political party ahead of next year’s federal election.
The UPF’s new leader, Blair Cottrell, has announced in a video on the group’s Facebook page the formation of a political party called Fortitude.
“This will be happening in the next few weeks,” the former Victorian bodybuilder said on Monday in a video statement.
The group, which claims to oppose “the spread of left-wing treason and spread of Islamism”, first announced its electoral aspirations in September.
But its former leader Shermon Burgess resigned in October after videos surfaced of fellow UPF members mocking him.
It’s unclear whether Cottrell himself will run, as a 19-month prison sentence for arson may put him in breach of Australian Electoral Commission regulations.
In order to be registered as a party the UPF will need to sign up at least 500 members and overcome any objections registered by the public.
The UPF has become notorious for its part in this year’s Reclaim Australia rallies, the most recent round held on Sunday, with several hundred protesters and counter-demonstrators turning out in Melbourne and Sydney and smaller rallies in Perth, Canberra and Brisbane.
Ten were arrested, including three for possessing weapons in Melbourne and one for defacing a memorial in Sydney.
Reclaim organisers have publicly distanced themselves from the UPF — calling them hardliners and a “Nazi element” — and claim to have cleared its members from their ranks.
It is also unclear what specific policies the UPF will run on, though Cottrell has previously voiced support for putting portraits of Adolf Hitler in schools and railed against multiculturalism and feminism.
A far-right activist, Phillip Galea, was arrested last week allegedly in possession of five tasers, a jar of mercury, a bomb-making manual and “extreme political material related to the UPF”, police said.
The Dutch MP Geert Wilders was in Australia last month to launch the Australian Liberty Alliance, another anti-Muslim party, albeit one that eschews violence.
A Townsville-based activist, Kim Vuga, has recently announced plans for a party along similar lines, called Love Australia or Leave.
Sydney man Diaa Mohamed last week announced the creation of the Australian Muslim Party, which he said would aim to voice Islamic perspectives in national debates.
