Tagged with John Wilkinson

Butterflies & Unicorns Win “The Battle of Eltham”

nickcondoms

Briefly:

Around 70 or so people attended “The Battle Of Eltham” today, the great majority non-locals from Sydney (Party For Freedom), Bendigo and Melton (True Blue Crew). All The Usual Suspects were present: Sergio Redegalli; Nick Folkes (pictured above), Toby Cook and George Jameson (PFF); Kane Miller, Paul ‘Guru’ Franzi & Co. (TBC); The Angry Gnome Jay B Moore & his wannabe bikies (Soldiers Of Odin) et al. Also guest starring (sic) were valour thief and serial pest Ralph Cerminara and (!) Richard Lalich (Australian Defence League); Blair Cottrell and Thomas Sewell (United Patriots Front); UPF lackeys Julian de Ross and John Wilkinson; John Bolton (Reclaim Australia, Adelaide) and a handful of other boofheads.

Something in the order of 200 or so other people joined Diamond Yarra Valley Resistance Solidarity (DYVRS) for a gathering and march, while several thousand more — including the supporters of ‘Welcome to Eltham’ — gathered in the city for a refugee rally. A good account of the day’s events in Eltham is provided by Kieran Bennett in Far-Right Outnumbered In Eltham (November 5, 2016), while the ABC published Eltham refugee rally: Scores turn out to support Syrian refugees being resettled; The Age Battle for Eltham: Welcoming butterflies a background to anti-refugee protests, The Guardian Victorian anti-refugee rally: counter-protesters turn up in strength and SBS (AAP) Pro and anti-refugee protests in Melbourne.

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The relatively small number who rallied under Folkes’ PFF banner is indicative of two things. One, there’s very little sympathy for those opposed to the housing project in the local community, especially when this opposition is being proclaimed by racist thugs. Two, the brief popularity enjoyed by Reclaim Australia and the UPF as a vehicle for racist, right-wing and xenophobic discontent — especially in Bendigo and, to a lesser extent, in Melton — has largely collapsed. This is likely due both to opposition and the failure to achieve very much through public mobilisations, but is also likely related to the various legal problems encountered by some of its adherents, most obviously in the case of alleged terrorist and TBC supporter Phillip Galea. So too, the prosecution of Blair Cottrell, Neil Erikson and Chris Shortis for racial and/or religious villification. As noted previously, John Wilkinson and Linden Watson, though also taking part in the UPF stunt in Bendigo, have escaped prosecution. Notably, Wilkinson had close dealings with Galea, allegedly providing him with cattle prods for use on leftist demonstrators.

At this stage, the next hate rally is scheduled for January in Sydney under the auspices of Reclaim Australia. In any event, the photo below, courtesy of JE, sums things up in Eltham today I think: a racist teenybopper from the True Blue Crew giving the finger to locals.

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Bonus Grace!

“The Battle of #Eltham” : #Fascists ~versus~ #Refugees : November 5, 2016

See also : 800 crimes against German refugee shelters so far this year, Middle East Eye, October 19, 2016: Crimes include arson, attacks using explosives and distribution of far-right propaganda.

This Saturday, November 5, a small group of people from Sydney, Bendigo, Melton and Melbourne will be descending upon St Andrew Park in Eltham in order to engage in what the organisers of the rally, the Sydney-based micro-sect ‘Party For Freedom’, are referring to as “The Battle Of Eltham”. The ‘Battle’ is to stop St Vincent’s Care Services in Eltham from providing housing to a number of Iraqi and Syrian refugees, a joint project of St Vincent’s Health Australia and CatholicCare. According to St Vincent’s, the proposal is intended:

… to help settle and support vulnerable refugees from Syria and Iraq – with priority given to women and children.

The refugees will be provided with medium-term rental accommodation in 60 units on the site of St Vincent’s Care Services Eltham. These units are stand-alone and separate from the residential aged care and independent living facilities on site.

The 60 units have been vacant for a number of years and have been refurbished by St Vincent’s Care Services to make them liveable.

The refugee housing project will run for two years and then the accommodation will be transitioned to be used as affordable housing for seniors.

There will be no impact on the residential aged care or independent living residents who live at the Eltham site.

You can read more about the project on the fact sheet (October 5, 2016) St Vincent’s has provided here.

In any case, while St Vincent’s claims that ‘We bring God’s love to those in need through the healing ministry of Jesus’, others, including the Party For Freedom, Soldiers Of Odin, True Blue Crew and United Patriots Front, have other ideas. Thus according to the PFF, in its promotional material for the ‘Battle’, ‘the decision to house the refo invaders in an aged care facility is a slap in the face of locals’, and those who support the proposal are ‘deranged and irresponsible advocates for open borders’. Further, ‘both major parties are working together to destroy Australia by using taxpayers’ money to facilitate the third world colonisation of Australia’: a dastardly plot which now implicates the Christian charities St Vincent’s and CatholicCare. Of course, the PFF also advocates the forcible sterilisation of refugees from the ‘Third World’, and is otherwise infamous for staging an invasion of a church service in Gosford (August 2016) and for attempting to stage a recreation of ‘The Battle of Cronulla’ (December 2015).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Those scheduled to speak at St Andrew Park as part of the ‘Battle’ are all familiar faces on the far right. Thus in addition to PFF Chairman Nick Folkes and his teenybopper sidekick Toby Cook, Sydney-based anti-Muslim activist Sergio Redegalli, ex-Australian Liberty Alliance candidate John Bolton of Adelaide, and local boys Paul ‘Guru’ Franzi (True Blue Crew), Julian de Ross (AKA ‘Hugh Pearson’, United Patriots Front) and John Wilkinson (AKA ‘Farma John’) will all be delighting the crowds with their verbal wit. One person who won’t be joining the patriotik mob will be Phillip Galea, currently a resident at Thomas Embling hospital, but otherwise on trial for alleged terrorist offences. A friend of Reclaim Australia, the TBC and the UPF, Galea’s previous legal entanglements revolved around Wilkinson’s alleged provision to him of a number of cattle prods; Wilkinson was also one of those who participated in the UPF dummy stunt in Bendigo in October last year, though has escaped facing any charges. Not so lucky are UPF fuehrer Blair Cottrell and former UPF members Neil Erikson and Chris Shortis (now a member of the White nationalist Australia First Party): they are due to face court in March next year.

The fascist plan to grunt and squeal in St Andrew Park has also resulted in the organisation of some other activities by Diamond Yarra Valley Resistance Solidarity on Saturday morning. Titled SAFE – Stand Against Fascism in Eltham, the DYVRS day begins at 10am. In which context, it’s worthwhile noting that this is NOT a counter-rally and DYVRS is seeking to avoid any and all confrontation on the day. DYVRS:

DYVRS is staunchly antifascist, and firmly believes that hatred and bigotry on our streets should be shut down. In this instance though, due to circumstance and location, direct opposition to thugs and bigots is not a workable tactic.

If your desire is to shout at and engage with right wing undesirables, while in other circumstances we might agree, in this case we must respectfully ask you not join us on the day. We cannot emphasise this enough – this is a peaceful protest aimed at avoiding conflict. There is much at stake in this issue and no one to profit from conflict but the groups we oppose.

Note that further details on the day’s events (which are scheduled to finish at 1pm, ie, before the fascist rally ends at 2pm) may be found by checking the DYVRS Facebook event page on Friday night. Just a reminder the first stop on Saturday’s event at 10am is a very long way from the shouty asshats and is in an easily secured location. You are most welcome to just attend that part if you’d like. This stop will have the speeches and the banner drop. Afterwards we’ll be moving a little closer to their group but not in contact and if you’d prefer not to do that, that’s fine too. See you Saturday – remember to check for maps and further instructions on Friday on this page or Twitter.

As always, much love and respect to all the good folk taking a stand against racism and bigotry — see you on the streets!

antifa notes (september 29, 2016) : #HackLive +++

Update (October 1, 2016) : A small rally protesting a proposal to house refugees at St Vincent’s in Eltham took place outside Jenny Macklin’s office this morning. In addition to a handful of locals, a few members of the Party for Freedom (SYD) participated, as did around one dozen ‘Soldiers of Odin’ and 20 or so members and supporters of the Melton-based ‘True Blue Crew’.

1)

Three men — Neil Erikson, Chris Shortis, and one other — have been charged with offences allegedly committed during the course of a publicity stunt by the United Patriots Front (UPF) in Bendigo on October 4 last year. According to police:

Detectives charge trio in relation to Bendigo incident
Tuesday, 27 September 2016 16:15

Bendigo Crime Investigation Unit detectives have charged three men in relation to an incident that took place in Bendigo last year.

It is alleged the men beheaded an effigy and damaged property in a public area on 4 October 2015.

A 31-year-old man from South Morang [Erikson], a 34-year-old man from Frankston [?], and a 45-year-old man from Wallan [Shortis] have each been charged with:

– Deface property

– Wilful damage

– Behave in an offensive manner in public

– Serious Religious Vilification (under the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001)

The men have been charged on summons and are expected to appear before Melbourne Magistrates Court on 6 March 2017.

Erikson has a previous (February 2014) criminal conviction for harassing a rabbi:

A man has avoided jail for abusing a Melbourne rabbi in a series of racially-motivated phone calls he tried to explain as a prank.

Neil Luke Erikson, 29, phoned Rabbi Dovid Gutnick of Melbourne City Synagogue on three occasions, telling him “Give me the money Jew or else I will get you” and abusing him for his faith.

He also spoke of circumcisions, blood money and Jewish sidelocks and told Rabbi Gutnick he knew his location and was coming to get him.

Magistrate Donna Bakos said she had no doubt Erikson’s calls were motivated by prejudice and found he had little remorse for his crime.

Shortis, who has recently left the UPF in order to join the Australia First Party, is currently engaged in a legal dispute with the Chief Commissioner of Police in Victoria after having had his gun licence revoked. Shortis subsequently won his appeal to the Firearms Appeals Committee (August), and while it’s unclear if the Commissioner will seek to have the decision reversed, it seems likely.

See : United Patriots Front members charged for mock beheading a dummy sends a ‘strong message’, Stephanie Corsetti, The World Today (ABC), September 28, 2016 | Three charged after ‘mock beheading’ in Bendigo, Adam Holmes, Bendigo Advertiser, September 28, 2016 | United Patriot Front members charged after Bendigo mock beheading video, James Dowling, Herald Sun, September 28, 2016.

Today, Erikson, pretending to be a journalist, paid an unscheduled visit to St Vincent’s Care Services in Eltham. The facility is planning on housing a number of refugees from Iraq and Syria. Opponents of the plan have organised a protest at Jenny Macklin’s electoral office in Heidelberg on Saturday.

2)

Among those promoting the rally in Heidelberg on Saturday is the Sydney-based ‘Party for Freedom’ (PFF). An unregistered but active micro-sect, the PFF regularly organises very small but vocal protests, generally directed at African migrants, Muslims, asylum seekers and refugees, leftists, equal marriage proponents, Chinese developers and so on. A handful of PFF members were present at the ‘True Blue Crew’ (TBC) rally in Melton in August, at the TBC/UPF rally in Melbourne in June, at the TBC/UPF rally in Coburg in May, and at the halal exhibition in Ascot Vale in April. This week the group, comprising a dozen or so members, staged a rally outside a Sydney court where three people are facing charges arising from an incident in January outside Black Rose infoshop in Newtown. Joining them was the Million Flag Patriot, who has now extended his control of Melton to the Sydney CBD.

3)

The leader of the UPF, Blair Cottrell, was a special guest of Hack Live the other week. I won’t bother to assess the program in any great detail, but briefly:

a) It’s somewhat curious that while Cottrell — a neo-Nazi with a string of criminal convictions for violence — was considered a fit person to join a panel on the subject of ‘patriotism’, Zaky Mallah’s appearance on QandA in June 2015 triggered a media shitstorm. Indeed, on this matter, not a single peep has been made by the commentariat.

b) Another extra-special guest was a geek named ‘Damien Rieu’ (r/n: Damien Lefèvre) from fascist projekt ‘Génération Identitaire’, who joined in the chorus supporting a ban on Muslim migration to Australia. Note that for a very brief period Neil Erikson touted establishing an Australian equivalent before abandoning the idea and handballing responsibility for the stillborn group’s Facebook page over to another neo-Nazi. (The page is now known as ‘Australians Resistance Network’.)

c) At about 8:22, former soldier Andrew Fox makes reference to a YouTube comment made by Cottrell condoning violence against women. The comment Andrew refers to reads: ‘Women have manipulated me using sex and emotion; demoralization, and I have manipulated them using violence and terror. We use what we have to get what we want.’ Blair denies ever having written this, stating: ‘I never said that and I never wrote that. False statements are attributed to my person all the time.’

The statement in question has long-since been deleted from YouTube, presumably by Blair, along with dozens of other, similarly objectionable comments about women, Jews and the like — I published a number of these on my blog on July 27, 2015. The comment he claims not to have made was reported on October 17, 2015 in an article for Fairfax by Michael Bachelard and Luke McMahon, who were in a position at that time to independently verify this statement, along with the others included in their article.

With regards Blair’s criminal record, he provides his own account (as ‘Bruce’) in a segment of a documentary about youth incarcerated in Port Phillip prison, Stories From The Inside (2014). I transcribed his testimony in a blog post published on February 23, 2016. In it 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. This was later reported by Geir O’Rourke and Angus Thompson for the Herald Sun (June 11, 2016). Of his offending, they write:

Cottrell, 26, was sentenced to four months in prison in May 2012 after being convicted of 13 charges, including seven counts of intentionally damaging property. County Court Judge Michael Tinney convicted the then-22-year-old of throwing a missile, stalking, failing to comply with a community-based order, and two counts of recklessly causing serious injury. In December 2013 he was fined $1000 and sentenced to seven days in jail by a County Court judge for aggravated burglary, property damage, arson, trafficking testosterone, possessing a controlled weapon and breaching court orders.

4)

Speaking of neo-Nazis: ‘A white supremacist from Sydney’s south-west has been charged with setting fire to a Pentecostal church on the NSW mid-north coast. Ricky White appeared in Taree Local Court on Monday accused of deliberately starting the fire at the Destiny Church at 1:30am on Sunday’ (White supremacist charged over Taree Pentecostal church fire, Nick Ralston, The Sydney Morning Herald, September 19, 2016). Described as a ‘skinhead’ (sic) with Nazi tattoos, ‘It is understood that Mr White is also the head of the Wotansvolk fraternity in NSW and the second in charge nationally’. This may be so, but Ricky is also known as ‘SGT Hatchet’, the 2IC of tiny neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Right Wing Resistance Australia’. A handful of its members have rocked up to various Reclaim Australia and patriotik rallies over the course of 2015/2016.

rwrricky

5)

Local council elections are being held in Victoria on October 22. Among those vying for electoral glory are the Australia First Party, which is standing in Brimbank (John Carbonari, Harvester Ward) and Wyndham (Susan Jakobi, Harrison Ward). In Bendigo, Elise Chapman (Lockwood Ward) is running and, rather oddly, using a Chumbawamba song as her campaign anthem; further, ‘Chapman has been given extra time to plan her appeal against a councillor conduct panel ruling ordering her to apologise for an obscene tweet’, and is now expected at VCAT on November 14. Another anti-mosque campaigner, Julie Hoskin, is running in Whipstick Ward. Note that Hoskin led an unsuccessful (and rather xpnsv) legal challenge to the mosque proposal: ‘One of those who made the appeal, Julie Hoskin, said the legal process had so far … cost more than $200,000, which was mostly crowd-funded.’

BONUS Rayguns!

#Melton : Soldiers of Odin ~versus~ True Blue Crew

footyblah

Briefly:

Around 100 or so people attended an anti-Muslim rally in Melton on Sunday, ostensibly in order to voice opposition to a stalled local housing development. (The developer, Rahber Developments, was wound up in May over a $400,000 debt to the ATO.) Meeting at Hannah Watts Park, those assembled listened to some speeches before marching to the council chambers (in the footage, the crowd looks closer to 200-strong), where they continued to shout slogans at an empty building.

See : Far-right group holds anti-Islam rally at Melton in Melbourne’s outer west, Joanna Crothers, ABC, August 28, 2016 | Anti-Islam protest: Far-right groups rally in Melton against ‘Muslim’ housing estate, Neelima Choahan, The Age, August 29, 2016.

Organised by the ‘True Blue Crew’ (TBC), the boys were joined on the day by the remains of the ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF), a handful of (Sydney-based) Party for Freedom activists (among them Toby Cook and George Jameson), sometime Grand Poobah of the ‘Australian Defence League’ (ADL), Ralph ‘The Cancer’ Cerminara, and ‘Love Australia Or Leave’ Kim Vuga. Also making an appearance were a dozen or so ‘Soldiers of Odin’ (SOO).

The SOO were founded in Kemi, Finland in October 2015 by neo-Nazi activist Mika Ranta. The Soldiers appeal to racist thugs and boys who think Sons of Anarchy was a documentary, but by exploiting more generalised antipathy to Muslims and refugees, SOO helps bridge the gap between neo-Nazi activists and Western publics.

Sound familiar?

A true Viking, in May 2016 Ranta was given an 18-month suspended sentence for assault committed in June 2015: ‘Mika Ranta, 29, was sentenced for aggravated assault on one man and assault on a woman who tried to stop the attack, both of them Finns.’ (Antifa paid a visit to SOO’s clubhouse in Tampere, Finland a week later.) Ranta’s history as a neo-Nazi activist turned Nordic onanist is not unusual: AFA in Sweden have documented these links, which occasionally appear in media reportage, as has Anti-Racist Canada.

See : Soldiers of Odins hemliga Facebookgrupp: Vapen och nazihälsningar, YLE, March 16, 2016 | AFA Malmö – Soldiers of Odin Malmö. Högerextrema gatupatruller, April 6, 2016 | Myteri i Soldiers of Odin efter nazistskandal, EXPO, August 5, 2016.

soo14

The Melbourne chapter of SOO announced its existence in March 2016 and, in the wake of its establishment in Finland just a few months prior, is one of scores of SOO grouplets to have sprung up across Europe and North America. A vigilante group whose 14 Words sneakily substitutes ‘our children’ for ‘white children’, in the last few months the Soldiers have been attending City Square in the Melbourne CBD, republishing dank right-wing memes, and otherwise carrying on like patriotik pork chops. In other words, they resemble any number of patriotik gangs that have emerged in Australia over the last 5-10 years.

Be that as it may, the potty-mouthed clash between members of SOO and TBC on Sunday appears to have revolved around the unwanted participation in the rally of its President, ‘Jay B Moore’. Moore is pictured below exchanging pleasantries with Steven Skinner, the person who may (or may not) have invited Moore and his Soldiers to Melton. Oddly, Skinner was named (seemingly wrongly) by Shermon Burgess as having had his house searched by police when they arrested Phill Galea.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Roundly abused by TBC, Moore was eventually forced to leave Melton and the rally with his tail between his legs. Exactly why the Soldiers were supine in the face of this attack upon their President is unknown (maybe they don’t like him that much either?), but their routing by the TBC may spell trouble in the future if — unlike many other such incidents — it doesn’t simply disappear down the memory hole. That may seem unlikely, but the case of Ralph Cerminara is illustrative.

bffsaug28

Denounced last year by UPF fuehrer Blair Cottrell as a ‘cancer’ and a ‘virus’ who will ‘infect and destroy everything he touches’, Cerminara was nonetheless once again embraced this year by the UPF as a comrade. This has upset some. Since being drummed out of/having left the UPF late last year, Burgess (‘The Great Aussie Patriot’) and Neil Erikson have denounced it as ‘Nazi’: a fact which apparently escaped them for the eight or nine months they spent as members of the group. Since then they’ve made a series of attempts to establish new patriotik (Facebook) groups, including ‘Generation Identity: Australia’, ‘UPF Originals’ and ‘Aussie Patriot Army’. Proclaimed just weeks ago, ‘Australian Settlers Rebellion’ is the latest in this series, which was intended to include Burgess, Erikson and … Ralph Cerminara. But that was yesterday. Today, Cerminara is once again back with the UPF and denouncing Burgess and Erikson as ‘dogs’ and ‘traitors’.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

More generally, is it possible that the ‘patriots’ have now reached peak derp?

While ‘Reclaim Australia’ has more-or-less collapsed, the UPF’s mobilising capacity appears to exist in inverse proportion to its Facebook likes. Further, its attempt to establish a political party (‘Fortitude’) have ended in complete failure, with one-time Senate candidate Chris Shortis recently having decamped for the Australia First Party. In Melbourne, those left holding the bag are Cottrell, his preppy sidekick Thomas Sewell, and Kris0 Richardson, the founder of the ‘United Australian Front’ (UAF), a tiny grouplet which has since evolved into ‘Order 15/UAF’ while pumping out unabashed expressions of anti-Semitism, White supremacy and fascism. In Perth, the UPF lvl boss is Dennis Huts, whose own White supremacist and fascist convictions are also becoming increasingly frank.

With regards the TBC, it organised two public rallies prior to Sunday’s: a flag-waving parade in Melbourne on June 26 and an anti-left counter-rally in Coburg on May 28. (The TBC also took part in an anti-Muslim rally in Melton in November last year, organised under the auspices of ‘Reclaim Australia’.) The Coburg rally, which the UPF and a smattering of other neo-Nazis joined, attracted approximately 100 participants; the flag-waving ceremony (with the added participation of both the UPF and Rise Up Australia Party) attracted a similar number. So it would seem that there’s been no growth in either the TBC or UPF’s ability to draw a crowd. In fact, one could even speak of a rather precipitous decline since the Reclaim Australia rallies and anti-mosque rallies in Bendigo last year. Further, the TBC’s antics on Sunday will only underscore the fact that they’re basically a small group of frequently drunken, always bad-tempered, and invariably racist goons.

Oh, and to add some icing to the cake: Cerminara was allegedly given a Glasgow kiss by John Wilkinson (‘Farma John’).

Tee hee … tee hee hee.

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BONUS!

antifa notes (february 11, 2016) : PEGIDA, United Patriots Front, Aryan Nations

PEGIDA Goes to Canberra

cottrellcrestani
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.

See also : Anti-Islam movement PEGIDA stages protests across Europe, Reuters, February 7, 2016.

United Patriots Front

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:

former

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.

toowoomba

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

ONPBendigo

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

robertedhouseatbar

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:

weak

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 …