Nick Griffin’s big comeback in Madrid on 23 November only proved that he is yesterday’s man. Perhaps that’s putting it too kindly. Griffin is ten or fifteen years past his sell-by date.

He’s now 66, a year older than John Tyndall was at the time of the 1999 leadership contest when Griffin was describing the BNP führer as past it, and taking over his party.

And those who have seen Griffin recently say he seems in rather worse shape now than Tyndall was at the same age.

The Madrid conference was staged by Griffin’s old ally from the 1980s Roberto Fiore (also now 66 but apparently healthier than Griffin) the convicted terrorist who founded and leads the Italian fascist party Forza Nuova and is president of the Alliance for Peace and Freedom.

This APF (where Griffin serves as Fiore’s deputy) was nominal sponsor of the conference. It aims to act as an umbrella network for a dozen far right parties in nine countries.

APF’s main Spanish section is the violent racist gang Democracia Nacional which has traditionally had links to skinheads and other thugs. Two parties that claim the mantle of Falangism and have recently merged, La Falange and FE-JONS, are also Spanish affiliates in the Fiore network.

Kremlin-backed

All three of these groups are also part of the new Kremlin-backed international alliance of racists, fascists and nazis called “Paladins”, launched two months ago at a conference in St Petersburg.

Several alumni of this St Petersburg conference were present at the Madrid event, but anti-fascist observers as well as spies from rival nazi factions were surprised by just how badly attended the latest venture was.

Griffin’s enemies seem to have played some part in persuading Spain’s newest and fastest growing far-right group Núcleo Nacional to boycott the conference, even though DN has several times backed NN demonstrations.

Russian paymasters

DN leader Pedro Chaparro who chaired the Madrid shindig was embarrassed by his failure to turn out larger numbers, and Fiore’s Russian paymasters will be wondering whether they are getting value for their money.

A representative from the Paladins’ Russian student group was among the speakers.

Perhaps hoping to fool European border security, the APF were coy about naming him, but Searchlight has been told it was Timur Bureiko, a specialist on Spain and Latin America inside the Brotherhood of Academists.

Cultivating Collett

This Putinist youth group is also friendly with Patriotic Alternative leader Mark Collett, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see the Russians start to cultivate Collett in preference to Griffin.

The Serbian guest was Misa Vacic, who has been sanctioned by US authorities since 2023 for acting as a Russian agent during a sham referendum in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

Two extra Spanish speakers were added to the roster. Both of them had been at the St Petersburg conference in September – Manuel Andrino, leader of the now defunct Falange, and Gonzaló Martin, DN’s vice-president and international liaison officer.

Politically the conference was a flop, but Spain’s anti-fascists and security authorities remain worried because of Democracia Nacional’s history of violence.

Russian interests

Their real concern is not that this will build into a serious political force, but that their militants, now funded and advised by Moscow, will try to exploit recent political unrest in Spain and use anti-government demonstrations of right-wing conservatives and populists as a cover for bringing terror to the streets.

The fact that a different section of the far right, also sponsored by Russian interests, held a conference in Sweden on the same day as the one in Madrid, indicates that ranging from friends of Farage to open Hitlerites, sections of the European right not only have their own malign agenda but are also serving Putin’s subversive ends.