BBC investigation exposes ‘far-right’ group in secret filming | Global News Avenue

Warning: This story contains strong and offensive language.

A far-right group should be banned and some members investigated by police, the BBC has been told, after we secretly filmed members of the group claiming immigrants should be shot.

Former counter-extremism commissioner Dame Sarah Khan believes the UK government should urgently change the law to outlaw groups such as Patriotic Alternative.

Barrister Ramya Nagesh watched some of the footage and said: “There is enough evidence for the police to investigate and refer it to the Crown Prosecution Service.”

An undercover BBC reporter spent a year investigating the far-right group, whose members were recorded using racial slurs.

A Patriotic Alternative (PA) member says he believes race war is inevitable and the group should use similar tactics to the Nazi Party to gain power.

The group cannot be banned under current legislation because they do not promote terrorism, but Dame Sarah, Britain’s first counter-extremism commissioner, believes they are “creating an atmosphere conducive to terrorism”.

Patriotic Alternative leader Mark Collett said they were not extremists, did not promote violence and fought peacefully for what he said were the rights of Britain’s indigenous people.

The group, considered the UK’s largest far-right group with around 500 members and thousands of online followers, says it exists to “raise awareness of immigration” and promote “family values”.

this BBC Wales investigation The program found some members had made comments that experts said could amount to incitement to racial hatred.

Patriotic Alternative, which has regional branches across the UK, encourages members, including former teachers and nurses, to hold protests to highlight immigration issues, film their events and share footage online.

A BBC journalist used the false identity of Dan Jones to infiltrate the organization in Wales, sleeping on a friend’s sofa in Cardiff without a full-time job.

Posing as a newcomer, the undercover reporter secretly filmed patriotic alternative demonstrations, summer camps and secret annual meetings over the course of a year and heard some members share extreme views.

Dan took part in a number of demonstrations in south Wales, including in Merthyr Tydfil, where the group protested against housing for immigrants.

He took part in banner-waving events on busy highway bridges, where the group visibly demonstrates against contentious local issues, encouraging drivers to honk their horns in support.

These events are legal and often attended by people who are not members of the Patriotic Alternative Party.

However, it was during these so-called “banner-lowering” protests that Dan met people like Roger Phillips.

Although Phillips said he was not a member of the Patriotic Alternative party, he attended a demonstration and told Dan privately after the protest that “there were 35 to 40 of us preparing and arming ourselves.” Plans to use a hotel in Llanelli to house asylum seekers.

“I’m buying a pump-action shotgun right now,” Mr. Phillips told the undercover reporter.

“Who do you think is going to fight these immigrants? There are a lot of us.”

He discussed modifying ammunition and claimed he planned to acquire a weapon that could “kill you at 150 yards.”

Mr Phillips later said he suspected Dan was being undercover and had given him false information and that he had been talking about paintball guns.

Joe Marsh, organizer of Patriotic Choice Wales and former leader of the anti-Muslim Welsh Defense League, invited Dan to the event.

“If there weren’t Jamaicans and Africans stabbing people here, we wouldn’t have any knife crime,” the former British National Party (BNP) activist and former football hooligan said in the video.

after Three young girls stabbed in Southport In July 2024, Mr Marsh told his followers: “People should not be calling demonstrations at mosques… outside the immigration hotel or in the city center if that’s what you’re going to do.”

The next day, a nearby hotel housing immigrants Rotherham And in tamworth Set on fire. We do not know whether there were AfD members or followers of Mr Marsh among the protesters.

Mr Marsh told the BBC he had not incited racial hatred, had protested lawfully and had not introduced any new members to members with extreme views.

Secret filming revealed how the extreme views of some members came to be, such as Aaron Watkins, who offered Dan some temporary work.

Watkins lost his tax job with HMRC and now works as a handyman after he was exposed for making racist comments online and being caught attending demonstrations.

As the pair were wallpapering the house, Mr. Watkins told Dan: “The most diverse communities are the ones we want to get rid of, preferably violently.”

“Surround them into a camp and if they refuse to leave, we shoot them. Anyone who comes here is a parasite.”

Mr Watkins told Dan that counter-terrorism detectives investigating him for making racist comments found no evidence against him because he had a new phone and had destroyed his old one.

“I burned the old ones at the barbecue,” he admits privately. “So, they can’t catch me.”

When the BBC subsequently contacted Mr Watkins he declined to comment.

Our undercover reporter was invited to join a social media chat group where he received daily messages about how immigrants were “invading” the UK.

Dan was invited to Patriotic Alternative’s summer camp in Derbyshire and attended their annual conference, where he met Patrick – a former history teacher from Bristol who said the group should emulate the 1920s The tactics of the German Nazi Party.

“If you look at what the National Socialists did in Germany…community organizing, talking to people about local issues, not as politicians…that’s what paved the way for their electoral surge starting in 1929 ,” he said.

Patrick then tells Dan that a race war is “inevitable” if the immigrants don’t leave: “The only way to get rid of them is to kill every one of them.”

When asked about his later comments, Patrick accused the BBC of anti-white bias and “persecuting ordinary British people who care deeply about the safety and well-being of our indigenous people”.

Dan spoke with one of the conference speakers, Blair Cottrell, a far-right activist and convicted criminal from Australia.

He was secretly filmed comparing Africans to dogs and suggesting slaves were happy to work for white people.

“An old lady was stabbed to death by a bunch of African kids. When you look at what’s going on in Africa, the only language they understand is violence,” he told Dan and the other panelists.

“The only way to effectively respond to them for committing crimes as heinous as the ones I’ve described is to skin them,” he said in the video.

“You hang some of their bodies at traffic lights and things like that. Of course, in theory, I can’t condone that kind of behavior.”

The BBC asked Blair Cottrell multiple times for his comments – he responded but did not answer our questions.

Dan has now left the Patriot Alternative group and the secret footage was shown to a prominent barrister who said the BBC’s findings should prompt a police investigation because, in her view, some of the comments could incite racial hatred.

Ramya Nagesh, a criminal lawyer who has written a book about hate crime, said: “After the Southport riots we saw people being punished for posting one or two messages on social media platforms. to prosecution.”

“This information is arguably not as inflammatory as you presented it to me.”

Ms Sala said groups like Patriotic Choice were “trying to mainstream extremism in our country”.

“They should never be allowed to get away with it,” Ms Sala said.

“We have seen their recent activities and the impact they had on public order during the summer riots.”

She is now calling on the UK government to introduce new laws to ban such groups.

“This is extremely urgent… Unless something changes, I fear we will continue to see groups like the PA radicalizing our children and making our society weaker and Not democratic.”

The British government said extremism had “no place in society” and was working to “assess and consider” the right way to tackle the issue.

A Home Office spokesman said: “We work closely with law enforcement, local communities and international partners to target groups and individuals spreading division and hatred.”

The leader of the Patriotic Alternative party said any comments were made privately.

“We are the ones advocating for the rights of Aboriginal people in the UK, and we are the ones who are fighting against what is happening in this country right now,” said Mark Collett, who formed the group after serving as press officer for the British National Party .

When asked about the use of racial slurs by its members, Collett said the group’s code of conduct prohibited it.

He added: “If anyone breaches the code of conduct, we will deal with it promptly.”

If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can visit BBC Action Line.