Far-right politics in the United Kingdom

At the 2010 general election, the BNP fielded 338 candidates across England, Scotland and Wales and won 563,743 votes (1.9% of total) but no seats. Nick Griffin subsequently said he would resign as BNP leader in 2013, and was eventually expelled from the party in 2014 as the BNP fell into obscurity. The National Front fielded 17 candidates at the 2010 Election and received 10,784 votes.

The anti-Islamist group, the English Defence League (EDL), started to rise in popularity, appealing to nationalist sentiments on a cultural rather than explicitly racial basis. Originally formed in Luton in 2009, it protests against what it considers the Islamification of Britain[6] by organising demonstrations in towns and cities across England, the largest of which occurred in Luton in February 2011.[7] Soon after, right-wing populist party UK Independence Party (UKIP) started to gain popularity. Although labelled as far-right by some political observers,[8] UKIP was not universally considered so.[9][10] UKIP and the EDL benefited over this period from a rightward shift in the electorate,[11] while former far-right parties such as the BNP and National Front became fringe groups and wield very little media attention or power.

In 2010, Robin Tilbrook, the chairman of the English nationalist party the English Democrats, met with Sergey Yerzunov, a member of the executive committee of the Russian nationalist group Russky Obraz.[12] Shortly afterwards, Obraz announced that they were in alliance with the English Democrats.[13] Other members of this alliance include Serbian Obraz, 1389 Movement, Golden Dawn, Danes' Party, Slovenska Pospolitost, Workers' Party and Noua Dreaptă. Since 2010, a number of former members of the BNP have joined the English Democrats, with the party chairman quoted as saying, "They will help us become an electorally credible party."[14] In an April 2013 interview, Tilbrook said that about 200–300 out of the party's membership of 3,000 were former BNP members. He said it was "perfectly fair" that such people would "change their minds" and join a "moderate, sensible English nationalist party".[15]

In 2011, the far-right, anti-Islam, and fascist party Britain First was formed by former members of the BNP.[16] Britain First campaigns primarily against immigration, multiculturalism and what it sees as the Islamisation of the United Kingdom, and advocates the preservation of traditional British culture and Christianity. The group is inspired by Ulster loyalism and has a vigilante wing called the "Britain First Defence Force". It attracted attention by taking direct action such as protests outside homes of alleged Islamists, and what it describes as "Christian patrols" and "invasions" of British mosques,[16][17] and has been noted for its online activism.[18] Its leader Paul Golding stood as a candidate in the 2016 London mayoral election, receiving 31,372 or 1.2% of the vote, coming eighth of twelve candidates.[19] Golding was jailed for eight weeks in December 2016 for breaking a court order banning him from entering mosques or encouraging others to do so.[20] In 2018, Golding was convinced and imprisoned again, this time for harassment.[21]

In February 2013, the British Democratic Party was launched by former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and National Front chairman Andrew Brons, who resigned from the BNP in October 2012 after narrowly failing in his campaign to unseat Nick Griffin as leader of the BNP in 2011.[22] Brons remains the party's inaugural president, and the chairman is James Lewthwaite.[23] The BDP has attracted former members of the British National Party (BNP), Democratic Nationalists, Freedom Party, UK Independence Party (UKIP),[24][25] For Britain Movement, and Civil Liberty, including long-standing far-right political leader John Bean. Nick Lowles of Hope not Hate believed the party would be a serious threat to the BNP, commenting "The BDP brings together all of the hardcore Holocaust deniers and racists that have walked away from the BNP over the last two to three years, plus those previously, who could not stomach the party’s image changes".[26] And in 2022 the BDP experienced a sharp increase in membership, with several nationalist local councillors and prominent far-right activists like Brian Parker and Derek Beackon joining the party.[27][28] They are currently the only far-right British political party to have any elected representation, with 3 local councillors.[29][30][31]

In June 2016, Jo Cox was murdered by a far-right extremist after being stoked by the campaigns surrounding the Brexit referendum.[32] Scholars have suggested that far-right attitudes contributed to and were normalised by the result of the Brexit referendum.[33]

In December 2016, the neo-Nazi group National Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation.[34]

In October 2017, former UKIP leadership candidate and anti-islam activist Anne Marie Waters launched the For Britain Movement.[35][36][37] Unlike most far-right parties that came before them, For Britain were zionist, opposed to antisemitism, and held more moderate views on social issues like LGBT rights. Former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson and singer-songwriter Morrissey announced their support for the party,[38] and fellow far-right and counter-jihad political party Liberty GB merged with For Britain.[39] The party received support from several former members of far-right groups like the British National Party, Generation Identity, and the neo-Nazi terrorist organisation National Action. For Britain had some limited success in local council elections, but failed to make any significant breakthroughs in the parliamentary by-elections they contested.[40] In July 2022, Waters announced on the party's website that the party was ceasing all operations with immediate effect,[41] with their elected councillors subsequently joining the British Democrats. In April 2023, it was announced that she was rejoining UKIP as the "Justice spokes[person]",[42] and the following month it was announced that she was selected as the UKIP candidate for Hartlepool for the general election.[43]

In March 2018 Mark Rowley, the outgoing head of UK counter-terror policing, revealed that four far-right terror plots had been foiled since the Westminster attack in March 2017.[44]

In November 2018 three people, Adam Thomas, Claudia Patatas and Daniel Bogunovic, were convicted of being members of the proscribed terrorist organisation, National Action, after a seven-week trial at the Crown Court in Birmingham. Thomas and Patatas have a child whom they named Adolf.[45][46]

From 2018 to 2019, under the leadership of Gerard Batten, UKIP was widely described as moving into far-right territory, at which point many longstanding members – including former leaders Nigel Farage and Paul Nuttall – left. As the new permanent leader, Batten focused the party more on opposing Islam and sought closer relations with the far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, otherwise Tommy Robinson, and his followers.[47] Batten would leave the leadership of UKIP in 2019.

Since 2019 the former director of publicity of the BNP, neo-Nazi[48] and antisemitic conspiracy theorist[49][50] Mark Collett has led a new far-right party called Patriotic Alternative.

In late 2020, The British Hand was founded by a 15 year old teenager. Since then the group have been at the root of far-right online propaganda, especially on the social media app Telegram. This led Hope not Hate to start an undercover investigation into the group and write an article exposing them.[51]

In February 2023, fifteen people were arrested following violent clashes between police and far-right activists who were protesting outside a Merseyside hotel housing asylum seekers.[52]

• List of British far-right groups since 1945
• Far-left politics in the United Kingdom
• Radical right