At least five Reform UK councillors have been members of a Facebook group promoting the far-right Patriot Platform, according to anti-fascist campaigners.
The councillors — two from Solihull, two from Gateshead and one from Kent — belonged to the closed Northeast Patriots Facebook group. Two left after being contacted by the Guardian, while a third claimed he was no longer a member.
The group’s front page directs visitors to “join the movement” through the Patriot Platform website. Patriot Platform was established by convicted criminal Daniel Thomas, a long-term associate of far-right activist Tommy Robinson. Its masked members have been involved in blockades at Dover and Portsmouth, as well as clashes with police that have led to several arrests.
Hope Not Hate identified four of the Reform councillors after they were tagged by their Facebook handles in a welcome post for new members. Because Northeast Patriots is a closed group, they couldn’t have been tagged as members unless they had joined it. At least 14 other Reform councillors were invited to join.
Northeast Patriots was set up by Mark Thorn, a Tyneside Reform activist whose Facebook profile describes him as “Reform UK Representative/Campaigner Gateshead Central & Whickham Constituency”. This wasn’t simply some unrelated far-right page which Reform councillors happened to stumble across. It was established by someone publicly campaigning under the Reform banner.
Gateshead councillor James Wright said he had only joined to monitor local political activity.
“I joined the Northeast Patriots Facebook group in the same way I follow and monitor a wide range of local groups, community pages and political discussions,” he said.
“Membership of a social media group should not be taken as endorsement of every view expressed by other members, administrators or organisations referenced within it.
“I do not endorse any unlawful activity, disorder, intimidation or violence. My focus as a councillor is on representing residents and understanding issues that are being discussed locally.”
Membership of a Facebook group doesn’t prove that every member supports every post made in it. But five elected councillors joining a closed group created by a Reform activist and openly promoting a far-right vigilante organisation can’t be dismissed as meaningless either. The fact that members began leaving after journalists approached them makes the claim that this was all routine monitoring even less convincing.
Reform itself is divided over how openly it should associate with Patriot Platform. Nigel Farage initially described the group’s actions as “disgusting”, “wrong” and “horrible”. Some Reform councillors and members were reportedly unhappy with even this limited condemnation.
The party’s home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, then met Thomas in Portsmouth the day after Patriot Platform activists clashed with police. Yusuf said Thomas had made his points “respectfully” and attacked Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch for condemning the group, writing: “How dare you call them ‘thugs’.”
Gregory Davis, a senior researcher at Hope Not Hate, said: “From initially condemning Patriot Platform’s balaclava gang in Dover, with Farage calling it ‘disgusting’, ‘wrong’ and ‘horrible’, Reform’s messaging on the group has since become somewhat more confusing.
“The link we have uncovered is very worrying. Patriot Platform is a far-right vigilante group who has now been involved in several clashes with police, resulting in multiple arrests and more expected to come.”
The confusion is partly about presentation. Reform wants to channel the same anti-migrant politics that animate groups such as Patriot Platform, while maintaining enough respectability to operate as a parliamentary party. Farage needs to reassure sections of the ruling class that Reform can discipline the forces it mobilises. At the same time, Yusuf and others don’t want to alienate the far-right activists who carry the party’s politics onto the streets.
Their disagreement is therefore less about whether migrants should be treated as the enemy and more about which methods can be publicly defended. One wing wants the racism packaged in suits, press conferences and parliamentary speeches. Another is prepared to embrace masked vigilantes confronting people at ports.
Both serve the same class function. Britain is marked by falling living standards, insecure work, unaffordable housing and the destruction of public services. Reform directs the anger produced by this crisis away from landlords, employers, financiers and the capitalist state. Migrants and people seeking asylum are blamed for conditions created by the ruling class.
This scapegoating also conceals imperialism. People displaced by war, sanctions, exploitation and the unequal development of the world economy are presented as invaders once they arrive in Britain. The system which allows capital to cross borders freely treats workers and refugees crossing those same borders as criminals.
Far-right nationalism divides the working class along racial and national lines, teaching workers born in Britain to identify with their own exploiters rather than with other workers. The masked men at Dover and Portsmouth may look more extreme than Reform’s elected representatives, but they’re drawing from the same political well. The links uncovered inside Reform aren’t an accidental contamination of an otherwise respectable party. They show what grows from the politics Reform has spent years cultivating.
