The conviction of Brogan Stewart, a Wakefield-based neo-nazi sentenced today to 11 years for plotting terrorist attacks on mosques and synagogues, throws a spotlight on the activities of British Movement, one of the UK’s most longstanding and notorious neo-nazi outfits.

American terrorist

Stewart, 25, was the self-styled “Fuhrer” of Einsatz 14 (Mission 14) an online extremist cell that amassed over 200 weapons, including crossbows, swords, and components of a 3D-printed firearm.

’14’ refers to the ’14 words’ a slogan coined by the American nazi terrorist David Lane, founder of The Order: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”. It has been used on BM propaganda.

With his accomplices Christopher Ringrose and Marco Pitzettu, Stewart planned to attack an Islamic education centre in Leeds, with prosecutors describing the trio as “followers of an extreme right-wing Nazi ideology” who glorified mass murderers and espoused racial purity. They also planned to attack synagogues.

Hope not Hate has reported that in December 2023, he received a BM membership form and propaganda pack.

Paramilitary style

“Their office is about 10 minutes drive from where I live. It’s almost uncanny,” he wrote in a neo-Nazi Telegram group, where he later posted images of BM leaflets and expressed his intention to join the organisation.

His engagement with BM deepened in early 2024. Stewart joined the group’s encrypted chat channel and discussed forming a paramilitary-style “unit to provide security for NSM [National Socialist Movement] events” with fellow BM member Kyle Crosby, also based in Wakefield.

When counter-terrorism police raided Stewart’s home, they found a British Movement poster displayed on his bedroom wall.

Stewart’s connections to organised neo-nazism didn’t end there. In February 2024, he attended a meeting of the National Support Detachment (NSD), the early incarnation of Alek Yerbury’s National Rebirth Party.

Encounter downplayed

Photographs from the Wakefield gathering show Stewart posing with NSD’s then deputy leader, Scott Pitts.

Yerbury later downplayed the encounter, claiming Stewart’s behaviour gave “no indication as to any secretive activity.”

However, Stewart’s presence at the NSD meeting came just days before his arrest in a counter-terrorism operation that uncovered a cache of weapons and Nazi memorabilia.

The jury at the nine-week trial at Sheffield Crown Court was shown a 374-page dossier of internet activity revealing admiration for Hitler, antisemitism, and fantasies of a race war.

Stewart had even developed a mission statement for Einsatz 14, outlining plans to “target mosques, Islamic education centres and other similar locations.”

Toned down

British Movement emerged in the mid-1960s from Colin Jordan’s National Socialist Movement.

After serving jail time for race relations offences, Jordan decided the NSM had to tone down its politics to avoid further imprisonment. Changing the name to British Movement was part of that adjustment.

Jordan had to retire in the 1970s when he was convicted of stealing women’s underwear from Tesco in Coventry, and he was replaced by Michael McLaughlin. In the 1980s it was targeted by Searchlight and our mole Ray Hill.

Forced to shut down

Thanks to his efforts the group, then making progress recruiting working-class youngsters under Mclaughlin’s leadership, was forced to shut down in September 1983.

It was later relaunched under the leadership of Steve Frost but today is a tiny group, a shadow of its former existence, with around 100 members at most.

However, it enjoys a disproportionate reach on social media and, on the extreme right at least, the caché of being the UK’s longest standing openly Hitlerite organisation.

In April this year, BM activists held a birthday party for Hitler at the Duke of Edinburgh pub in Oldham.

The event featured Nazi flags and a swastika-decorated cake. Initially shared online with blurred images, the gathering was first revealed in Searchlight and later exposed by the Manchester Evening News, which obtained CCTV footage showing identifiable attendees in full nazi regalia.

Horrified

The pub’s management, horrified by the nature of the event, reported it to police and handed over the footage. The fallout led to dawn raids across the North West, resulting in the arrest of nine BM members and the seizure of weapons, nazi memorabilia, and hard drives.

Counter Terrorism Policing North East described Brogan Stewart and his co-defendants as “dangerous individuals” who “espoused vile racist views and advocated for violence.”

All three will be subject to Serious Crime Prevention Orders upon release and must comply with Terrorism Notification Requirements for 30 years.