Steve Laws, one of the leading and most high-profile members of the Homeland Party, has resigned from the party in protest following the appointment of a controversial figure as the party’s Northern Ireland Organiser. But he has launched a much wider attack on the leadership which reflects a deeper split in the party.

Laws was the party’s South East regional Organiser and sat on the National Council. His resignation is a blow to party leader Kenny Smith who is struggling to contain the fallout of the recent row, which has infuriated large sections of the party and precipitated the current crisis.

They are angry at the appointment of Carter McAfee, a young openly gay man who has in the past flirted with Irish nationalism, to run the small Northern Ireland branch.

Facing uproar

Earlier online posts from McAfee making no secret of a colourful gay lifestyle were soon uncovered and published, with McAfee being described as ‘a sexual deviant’.  

Party leader Kenny Smith, faced with the uproar, doubled down and confirmed the appointment, though in the end the decision was taken from him when McAfee, facing a torrent of homophobic abuse from Homeland members, resigned.

But now the crisis has deepened. Laws, a member of the party’s National Council, posted at the time that he had not been consulted and did not support the decision. Today he has gone further and resigned.

Although his resignation statement states only that he has resigned his party positions, its tone and scope make it pretty clear he is quitting the party altogether.

English Democrat candidate

Laws is a particularly prominent and popular Homeland figure. In last year’s General Election, he stood as the English Democrat-backed candidate in Dover & Deal, funded by ED leader Robin Tilbrook.

A former UKIP candidate who (like several of the far-right candidates at this election) passed through Anne Marie Waters’ Islamophobic party For Britain, Laws is a notoriously militant racist, whose racism became more noticeably extreme last year.

Ideological lightweight

He began to build his reputation about five years ago by uploading films of migrant arrivals in Dover, but at first was seen by more experienced British fascists as an ideological lightweight.

He has since moved much closer to the nazi old guard and now believes that all non-Whites should be removed from the UK, “regardless of their birthplace or the legality of their arrival”.

High profile recruit

He was one of the most high-profile recruits to Homeland last year and spoke at the party’s annual conference, much to the annoyance of Patriotic Alternative’s Mark Collett who had been expecting to recruit Laws himself and who, like Homeland, coveted Laws’ considerable online following.

Since then, Laws has played a leading role in the party alongside Smith with whom he recently travelled to Germany and France to meet up with other European fascists.

His departure reflects what we wrote when we first reported the row; that there is an underlying tension between hardline nazis and ‘civic nationalists’ who are often ex-Tory, which could not be contained forever. Laws’ departure confirms this: his resignation statement today admits that the McAfee row is just a catalyst:

I’ve stepped down because I disagree with the Homeland Party’s direction. It’s a nationalist party that isn’t focusing on nationalists, instead chasing the middle ground without a solid base to build from.

Worse than that, the leadership are actively attacking and smearing nationalists which is something I complained about for a while now. Any form of criticism is met with a block or a smear and it’s not acceptable.

I pushed multiple times for a tougher remigration policy, as the current one won’t solve our demographic challenges. The party’s preference for tweaking wording or positioning itself just to the right of Reform isn’t enough.

The row has already led to many threats to resign from the party and much criticism of Smith for his inept leadership. Whether Laws departure will trigger an exodus of other members remains to be seen.

In the meantime, Smith is struggling to contain the fallout. All that is preventing him from a full scale purge of his critics is that so many of them are hiding behind  anonymous twitter handles.