A network of white supremacist ‘Active Clubs’ whose members aim to be combat-ready is expanding across the UK, an investigation shows.
The extreme-right movement is part of around 100 groups worldwide said to be preparing for ‘Day X’ — a power struggle with other groups.
Originating in the US, the guiding strategy is to build decentralised, shadow militias with a veneer of legitimacy to avoid law enforcement scrutiny.
Resembling mixed martial arts (MMA) clubs, members are asked to avoid threatening behaviour or displaying obvious Nazi symbols in public.
However underneath the focus on combat sports and ‘brotherhood’ lie groups which are often founded by members with neo-Nazi or similar extreme-right agendas who are trying to attract recruits from mainstream society — an approach known as the ‘3.0 model’.
The clubs are ‘arguably the largest and fastest growing violent extreme-right network’, and are spreading across the UK, according to the insights provided to Metro.co.uk by the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).
The government responded to the research by highlighting ‘rapid’ work taking place to counter ‘growing and changing patterns of extremism.’
‘The Active Club strategy was specifically developed to evade law enforcement monitoring and intervention and to prepare for a Day X scenario,’ senior CEP advisor Alexander Ritzmann said.
‘For example, this could be serving as the militia to a political extreme-right party and to fight their political enemies.
‘Violence by groups and individuals that follow the Active Club strategy will likely come without manifestos in the meantime.’
The clubs grew out of the arrests of members of the Rise Above Movement (RAM) for violence against counter-protestors at a 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Virginia. Some of the victims were left with ‘serious injuries’, according to the state attorney’s office.
Far-right activist Robert Rundo, co-founder of RAM, was extradited from Romania to the US last year on anti-riot act charges which are currently working their way through the courts.
In 2020, he began setting up the ‘fitness clubs’ — essentially independent cells — combining combat sport with a white nationalist agenda.
‘The Active Clubs run on their own,’ Rundo said in May 2022.
‘They don’t need me anymore.’
In the UK, evidence from Telegram shows that ‘Active Club England’ currently has four public clubs but is expanding across the north east, Birmingham, the south west, south east and Yorkshire.
There are also clubs in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The general ethos for members worldwide is to look and act like ‘regular guys’ and not talk about ‘politics, Jews or history’, according to the CEP.
Outwardly, brotherhood, fitness and self-defence are the focus.
Ritzmann has identified key principles behind the clubs including ‘make fascism fun’, ‘white unity at every opportunity’ and ‘a group of strong white men is a fascist statement in itself’.
Historical role models include the ‘Minutemen militia’ of the American Revolution and Adolf Hitler’s Sturmabteilung or Storm Trooper paramilitaries, according to the researcher.
In England, the national club has shared content and quotes from Oswald Mosely, whose British Union of Fascists had a militia known as the Black Shirts. The streetfighters were notorious for abusing and attacking Jews and left-wing targets.
With Rundo’s 3.0 model giving the clubs a degree of mainstream appeal, the loosely connected groups encourage members to take part in MMA training and activities with low-level risk such as banner-drops, stickering and graffiti tagging. Ritzmann identifies this as a gradient to more nefarious activities such as scouting target locations and avoiding law enforcement.
Other objectives identified by the advisor at the New York-headquartered policy organisation include creating local and national leadership figures.
Women are not mentioned in the 3.0 strategy but have fast-growing networks in Canada and France.
‘Active Clubs in the US are not about peaceful activism and sports,’ Ritzmann said.
‘There is increasing evidence suggesting that the network’s main objective is instead the creation of shadow militias that can be activated when the need for coordinated violent action on a larger scale arises.’
In December, club members were arrested over their alleged membership of the Canadian branch of the Atomwaffen Division (AWD), which is a listed terror group in the country and the UK.
According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, many former AWD members had joined the Canadian Active Club network.
With a decentralised structure, the groups pose a new challenge to the authorities across North America and Europe and the evidence suggests cross-over with other white supremacist movements.
‘Seemingly unrelated violence in areas where Active Clubs are present should be investigated with this information in mind,’ Ritzmann said.
‘Also, authorities should consider reaching out to law enforcement authorities in other countries, such as Canada, Finland, France, Norway, Sweden or the US, that already deal with growing networks.’
Joshua Fisher-Birch, a researcher and content review specialist at the CEP, has assessed the role that far-right groups such as the Proud Boys and Active Clubs might play in the countdown to the US presidential election.
Fisher-Birch does not view Donald Trump, who wants to carry out the biggest deportation in American history, as holding any appeal for the extreme right, where antisemitic conspiracy theories are commonplace.
‘Active Clubs are very different from the Proud Boys,’ he said.
‘They are explicitly white supremacist groups that focus on combat sports and building a white supremacist counter-cultural movement, while different chapters of the Proud Boys vary in their public displays and endorsements of racism or antisemitism.
‘To be clear, many in the extreme right do not view Trump favourably.
‘Many individuals in the extreme right do not believe in electoral politics, with many promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, such as that all candidates are controlled by a Jewish cabal. Extreme right groups and movements did not comment on Trump’s trial in any significant way.’
Active Club Scotland has rejected accusations of fascism and extremism.
The group told the Times: ‘The purpose of AC Scotland is to promote a healthy counterculture of athletics, honour and identity.
‘We reject violence of any kind and have a code of conduct that prohibits this. Our club’s activities are geared towards building better men, fathers and creating lasting friendship.
‘We do not step on others and focus on the principle of self-improvement.
‘Above all else, we are law-abiding, tax-paying citizens.’
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has pledged to crack down on hateful ideologies through a new counter-extremism strategy.
A government spokesperson said: ‘All forms of religious and racial hatred have absolutely no place in our society.
‘We are rapidly exploring how best to tackle the threat posed by extremist ideologies and inform a new counter-extremism strategy, to respond to growing and changing patterns of extremism across the UK.’
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