Following our report yesterday, Homeland Party leader Kenny Smith’s Easter has got even worse. On Thursday night Smith lost his star speaker Renaud Camus due to a Home Office banning order. And tonight, a second speaker at the Homeland Party’s upcoming Remigration Conference has thrown his leader under a bus. There has even been talk of an imminent split in the party, though this seems to have been averted – for the moment, at least.

Steve Laws, the anti-immigration video blogger who has radicalised into the leader of Homeland’s hardline fascist faction, posted on X: “The recent decisions were nothing to do with me to be clear and neither is it something I agree with.”

Standing by his man

The decisions in question were the appointment of Carter McAfee as Homeland’s first Northern Ireland organiser, followed by Smith’s insistence on standing by his man, defying internal critics who objected to the fact that McAfee is gay, and who also condemned his flirtations with Irish republicanism.

Several prominent Homeland activists threatened to resign, but Smith called their bluff, and according to one source forced Laws’ fellow YouTube star “Zoomer Historian” (Sam Wilkes) out of the party.

It was all to no avail because to no one’s surprise McAfee cracked under the pressure of incessant homophobic abuse and quit his post.

It has been apparent for some time that there were tensions within the party that would sooner or later come to the surface. One the one hand there is a hardline, largely former BNP and Patriotic Alternative faction, who have so far acquiesced in Smith’s attempts to present the Party as the home of ‘sensible nationalism’ while it continues to bring in recruits.

But there are limits to their willingness to go along with this strategy. This appointment, together with the invitation to ‘gay Zionist’ Renaud Camus to address the Remigration Conference at the end of the month, has exposed one of the fault lines.

Split averted

On the other hand, there are the more ‘respectable’ elements – often former Tories like HP’s policy chief Pete North – who want more rather than less of the ‘sensible’ variety of fascism.

These two factions cannot cohabit for ever. A split has been averted this weekend, but the tensions are such that it may not be long before they erupt again.

Others on the far right have lost no time in tearing into Smith over the McAfee appointment. Homeland has even been christened the Homoland Party.

Hysterical about homosexuality

The one winner from all this ought to be Smith’s bitter rival Mark Collett, führer of Patriotic Alternative. But Collett has his own problems.

For one thing, his fellow nazis are wondering just why Collett gets so hysterical about homosexuality. They point to persistent rumours about his own private life and the closeted or semi-closeted lives of other PA organisers.

And they also mutter about Collett’s curious refusal to criticise McAfee’s Irish republican tendencies. This fits a pattern, some say, of PA failing to “stand up for Ulster”.

Blind spot

Does Collett have some personal or financial reason for his “patriotism” having a blind spot where the Emerald Isle is concerned?

Twenty years ago, he was keen to sing the praises of the UDA terrorist Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair, but in the 2020s no-one has heard even the mildest defence of the Union from the no longer young, but still nazi and proud Collett.

The mystery deepens, especially when he chooses to miss a chance to attack Smith for politics rather than sex.