Fascists target Reform for infiltration

NOTE: This article was published on 15 May 2025In a move predicted by Searchlight last year, UK neo-nazis led by Patriotic Alternative boss Mark Collett are planning to systematically infiltrate Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. Collett has posted his intentions on the PA telegram feed, where he and Unity News Network host and PA sympathiser…

NOTE: This article was published on 15 May 2025

In a move predicted by Searchlight last year, UK neo-nazis led by Patriotic Alternative boss Mark Collett are planning to systematically infiltrate Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party.

Collett has posted his intentions on the PA telegram feed, where he and Unity News Network host and PA sympathiser David Clews have posted a pompous “… declaration of intent as to how we can unite together to secure the future of our nation and its people…

“We recognise the only political route to achieving this on a national level is through the Reform Party”

“We encourage all of our supporters to become active organisers and members of Reform and seek candidacy to become MPs, mayors, Councillors, Police Commissioners, MSPs, researchers, Party Staffer etc”

Mark Collett, Patriotic Alternative

They then set out a number of demands they are making of Reform which would take the party even further to the right, knowing full well, of course, that that they do not have the weight to extract any single one of them.

Nevertheless, they go on:

“We the undersigned undertake a commitment not to select candidates or campaign against Reform candidates at the next general election or in any by-elections”

“We encourage all of our supporters to become active organisers and members of Reform and seek candidacy to become MPs, mayors, Councillors, Police Commissioners, MSPs, researchers, Party Staffer etc.”

The aim, they say is to get tens of thousands of extremists planted into Reform. That is a laughable objective, but there is no doubt they could certainly get many hundreds or even a few thousand of their co-thinkers joined up.

Clews had made a similar announcement in his own capacity only a few days earlier declaring his belief that:

“The ONLY vehicle to make change in this country is the Reform Party.

“If you want to be part of that change you cannot sit back on the sidelines.

“Join the Reform Party, get involved, become a candidate and make the change that YOU want to see.”

Mark Collett writing in Heritage and Destiny last year

Searchlight reported last year that this looked like Collett’s next strategic move when he wrote in the neo-nazi magazine Heritage and Destiny that:

“Those of us who are not known, who have a clean public image and who wish to get elected to high office should join Reform UK, help to steer that party from within and put themselves forward as parliamentary candidates.

“Having a number of officials and candidates within Reform UK, and potentially having an ethno-nationalist elected to parliament under the Reform UK banner would obviously be advantageous in a number of ways, not least in bringing Farage and his party closer to our positions…”

“Those of us who are not known, who have a clean public image and who wish to get elected to high office should join Reform UK

Mark Collett

But it is not just Collett who is targeting Reform for infiltration or at least covert co-operation.

Homeland Chairman Kenny Smith last week hinted at Homeland Party activists, including himself, campaigning for Reform candidates and secret arrangements to work together.

In an online interview he said:

“At the General Election I was helping three (Reform) candidates and the message was passed down stop working with Kenny Smith, stop working with Homeland party people.

Homeland chief Kenny Smith – working with Reform UK

“That’s to the detriment of their party.

“I put a message out last year saying …’they are going to break the two-party system go and give them your support’.

“On Thursday I still voted for the Reform candidate.

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but I have lines of communication with people round about here who are Reform…who are quite happy to work with me behind the scenes as long as we keep it quiet, so I won’t mention any names…”

So, predictably enough perhaps, the UK’s very far right have proved unable to resist the temptation to plunge into a much bigger party where they can fish for support, recruits and cash.

I have lines of communication with people round about here who are Reform…who are quite happy to work with me behind the scenes as long as we keep it quiet, so I won’t mention any names…”

Kenny Smith, Homeland Party Chairman

Nigel Farage’s much vaunted vetting system may now be tested to the limit.

And perhaps Farage should be asking himself: what is it about my party that makes it so attractive to nazis…?


Peter Hain

Peter Hain, founder of the ANL and friend of Searchlight

British Jews have been persecuted over the centuries; British blacks since the Windrush generation of the 1950s; British Muslims, especially after the Islamist 9/11 and then 7/7 terrorist attacks in New York 2001 and London 2005. But until the last few years there has not been a simultaneous threat against all three British communities of Jewish, Black and Muslim Britons – meaning the need for Searchlight has never been greater.

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Paul Holborow

Paul Holborow

In the campaign against the National Front, Searchlight provided a rich and utterly reliable basis for much ANL propaganda – particularly with reference to the two leading NF figures, John Tyndall and Martin Webster. The appearance of Tyndall in full nazi uniform, drawn from the archives of Searchlight, was a key part of ANL propaganda, coupled with deeply damaging nazi quotes from Webster.

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University of Sheffield

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