Far-right group exposed in BBC undercover investigation
Watch: BBC journalist Wyre Davies confronts Patriotic Alternative member Aaron Watkins
Warning: This article contains violent and offensive language.
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A far-right organisation is to be banned and some members are to face a police investigation, the BBC has learned, after we secretly filmed members of the group saying immigrants should be stopped from being shot.
Former counter-extremism commissioner Dame Sara Khan says the UK government must urgently change the law to outlaw groups like Patriotic Alternative.
Barrister Ramya Nagesh has seen some of the footage and said: "There is more than enough evidence for the police to investigate and refer the case to the Crown Prosecution Service."
An undercover BBC journalist spent a year investigating the far-right group and its members were filmed using racial slurs.
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Gareth Lewis: What are the parties' positions on immigration? A member of the Patriotic Alternative (PA) has said he believes a race war is inevitable and that the organisation will have to use tactics similar to those of the Nazi Party to gain power.
The group cannot be banned under current law because it does not advocate terrorism, but Dame Sarah, Britain's top counter-extremism commissioner, believes it "creates a climate conducive to terrorism".
Patriotic Alternative leader Mark Collett said he was not an extremist, did not advocate violence and campaigned peacefully for the rights of what he called Britain's indigenous people.
The group, which is considered the largest far-right group in the UK with around 500 members and thousands of online followers, says it exists to "raise awareness" about immigration and promote "family values". Protesters gather outside the Stradey Park Hotel in Llanelli as plans to use it as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers were announced.
The Patriotic Alternative is involved in protests over controversial local issues in communities, such as plans to use a Llanelli hotel to house asylum seekers.
BBC Wales Investigates found that some members made comments that experts said could be inciting racial hatred.
Patriotic Alternative has regional branches across the UK and encourages its members - including former teachers and nurses - to organise protests, highlight immigration issues, film their activities and share clips online.
A BBC journalist infiltrated the group in Wales using a false identity, Dan Jones, someone who slept on friends' sofas in Cardiff and did not have a full-time job.
Posing as a new recruit, the undercover journalist secretly filmed Patriotic Alternative protests, its summer camp, and its secret annual conference over the course of a year and overheard some members sharing extreme views. Demonstrations and banners: public image
Dan has taken part in several protests in South Wales, including in Merthyr Tydfil, where the group protested against migrant housing.
He took part in the event by holding banners on busy road bridges, where the group demonstrated visibly against controversial local issues, encouraging drivers to throw snowballs in support.
These events are legal and are often attended by people who are not part of the Patriotic Alternative.
However, it was during these so-called "flag removal" demonstrations that Dan met people like Roger Phillips.
Although he said he was not a member of the Patriotic Alternative, Mr. Phillips joined the group at one protest and privately told Dan that "35 to 40 of us were getting ready, setting up" a hotel in Llanelli to accommodate asylum seekers. People hold signs on a bridge, one of them saying "stop the invasion"
Dan met Roger at a Patriotic Alternative "flag march," where supporters waved flags and banners on busy streets.
"I bought a shotgun," he told Mr. Phillips to the undercover reporter.
"Who do you think is going to fight these immigrants? All of us."
He discussed modifying the ammunition and said the weapon he planned to get could "hit at 150 yards."
Mr. Phillips later said he suspected Dan was undercover because he gave false information and mentioned paintball guns.
A secret photo of Joe Marsh in a grey hoodie, the regional organiser of the Patriotic Alternative for Wales
Our undercover reporter met Joe Marsh, the leader of the Patriotic Alternative group in Wales, after contacting him in 2023 following the Llanelli protests.
Joe Marsh, the organiser of the Patriotic Alternative in Wales and former leader of the anti-Muslim Welsh Defence League, invited Dan to the event. "If there weren't Jamaicans and Africans stabbing people here, we wouldn't have knife crime," said the former British National Party (BNP) activist and ex-football hooligan.
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After the stabbing of three young girls in Southport in July 2024, Marsh told his supporters: "People should not call protests in mosques... if you have one, in front of a mosque, the hotel of migrants." or downtown."
The following day, hotels hosting migrants near Rotherham and in Tamworth were burnt down. It is not known if any of the demonstrators were members of the Patriotic Alternative or supporters of Mr. Marsh Aaron Watkins told the BBC he had not incited racial hatred, had protested legally and had not introduced new recruits to members with extremist views. What is being said behind closed doors Secret footage has revealed how the more extreme views of some members have come to light, such as when Aaron Watkins offered Dan a casual job. Mr Watkins is now a practical man after losing his job as a tax specialist at HMRC after being reported for racist comments online and seen at demonstrations. As the pair tore down a house, Watkins told Dan: "The most diverse communities are the people we want to get rid of, preferably by force." Aaron Watkins was wallpapering the stairs of a house Aaron Watkins described immigrants as "sub-human invaders." "We round up camps and if they refuse to leave, we shoot them. The people who come here are parasites." Mr. Watkins told Dan that terrorism detectives found no evidence against him when they investigated him for racist comments because he had a new phone and destroyed his old one. "I burned the old man, literally, on a barbecue," he admitted privately. "So they couldn't get me, when the BBC contacted Mr Watkins, he refused to comment. Our undercover reporter was invited to join social media chat groups where he was getting messages every day about how they were 'invading' UK was invited to the Patriotic Alternative summer camp in Derbyshire and their annual conference where he met Patrick - and the former Bristol history teacher said that the group should reflect the tactics of the Nazi party in Germany "in the 1920s, the National Socialist Party made Germany ... organizing the community, talking to people about local issues, not as politicians ... that is what paved the way for its rise in elections from 1929 onwards," he said. Patrick later told Dan that a race war was "inevitable" and if the immigrants didn't leave, "the only way to get rid of them would be to kill them all." Screenshot of former history teacher Patrick by journalist Dan Patrick, a former history teacher from Bristol, said that the Patriotic Alternative should "mirror" the tactics used by the Nazi party. Asked about his comments later, Patrick accused the BBC of having an anti-white bias and of "persecuting ordinary Britons who care deeply about the safety and well-being of our indigenous people." Dan shared a conversation with one of the guest speakers at the conference, who was a far-right activist and convicted criminal from Australia, Blair Cottrell. He was secretly filmed comparing Africans to dogs and suggesting that slaves were happy to work for white people. "An elderly woman was stabbed to death by a gang of African children. "When you look at how things are in Africa, the only language they understand is violence," he told Dan and other members of the group Secret Footage of Blair Cottrell, the guest speaker for the Patriotic Alternative at its 2024 conference, filmed in secret. The BBC The guest speaker at the Patriotic Alternative conference in 2024 was far-right activist Blair Cottrell, who was convicted of burglary, arson and murder and inciting hatred of Muslims back home in Australia, as repugnant as she was. "What I described is literally throwing them out," she said. "Pick some of their bodies on traffic lights or something. In theory, of course, I can't argue that the BBC has repeatedly asked Blair Cottrell what he thinks of his comments, but he hasn't responded. He has now left the Patriotic Alternative and the hidden camera footage has been shown to a leading lawyer, who has said that the BBC's findings should prompt a police investigation because he believes some of the comments could incite racial hatred." "After the Southport riots, we saw prosecutions of individuals who had even posted one or two messages on their social media platforms," said criminal lawyer Ramya Nagesh, who has written a book on hate crime. "And those messages were not as provocative as the ones you showed me." Dame Sarah said groups like the Patriotic Alternative were "trying to mainstream extremism into our country." "Dan Jones" joined the Patriotic Alternative to find out more about some of its members and here is a photo of him with his membership card. BBC undercover journalist Dan Jones infiltrated the Patriotic Alternative to find out more about the group and found himself assigned the number 430 members to his circle. 500 members "They absolutely must not be allowed to act with impunity," Dame Sarah said. "We have seen their recent activity and contribution to public unrest during the summer riots." He has now called on the UK government to introduce new laws to ban groups like this. "This is extremely urgent... If nothing changes, I fear we will continue to see groups like the AP radicalising our children and making us a weaker, less democratic society. The UK government said extremism "has no place in society" and was working to "assess and consider the appropriate approach" to tackling the problem.
5c2330d0-d45a-11ef-a6f4-23ba91a24e49.png.webp"We are working closely with law enforcement, local communities and our international partners to tackle the problem of extremism and individuals who sow division and hatred," a Home Office spokesman said. Patriotic Alternative leader Mark Collett welcomed white nationalists such as the former Ku Klux Klan leader on his podcast. The Patriotic Alternative leader said all comments were made in private. "We are people who stand up for the rights of indigenous Britons and we are people who are now living against what is happening in this country," said Mark Collett, who formed the group after serving as press secretary for the BNP. Its members ,Mr Collett said this was prohibited by the group's code of conduct. "If there are people who have breached that code of conduct, we will deal with them in due course," he added.
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