Patriotic Alternative promotes awhite nationalist ideology and aims to combat the "replacement and displacement" ofwhite British people by migrants who "have no right to these lands". They support the deportation of people of "migrant descent" and would offer financially incentivised repatriation for "those of immigrant descent who have obtained British passports". Patriotic Alternative opposes allimmigration unless immigrants have a shared cultural and ethnic background or can prove British ancestry.[6]
In October 2020,counterterrorism experts reported that extremist far-right groups including Patriotic Alternative were usingYouTube to try to recruit people, including children "as young as 12".[15] Later that month, Patriotic Alternative members delivered leaflets to over 1,000 homes inHull, England, stating that white British people will be a minority in Britain by the 2060s and that theCOVID-19 lockdown was an attempt to "take away our freedom".[16]
In December 2020, it was reported that Patriotic Alternative's London regional organiser was Nicholas Hill, a 50-year-old formerLiberal Democrat councillor fromCatford in South London, known by the online pseudonym "Cornelius".[17] That month, during an appearance by theLabour Party leaderKeir Starmer onLBC, a caller referring to herself as "Gemma from Cambridge" put forward the white supremacistGreat Replacement conspiracy theory. Starmer was criticised by some for his perceived failure to challenge the caller, who was revealed by investigative groupRed Flare to be Jody Swingler, a yoga teacher and Patriotic Alternative activist.[18]
A group called the Antifascist Research Collective infiltrated Patriotic Alternative Scotland's privateTelegram group. Working withThe Ferret, the Telegram group of around 60 people was found to include people who had been members of, or expressed support for, theScottish Defence League, the neo-Nazi groupBlood and Honour, theBritish National Party, the New British Union, theBritish Union of Fascists and the Scottish Nationalist Society.[19]
In February 2021, the Guardian reported that Patriotic Alternative was running "Call of Duty: Warcraft" (presumablyCall of Duty: Warzone) gaming tournaments for its supporters.[5]
Tabatha Stirling of Stirling Publishing[20] wrote a series of articles for Patriotic Alternative as "Miss Britannia" describing her son's school as "a hellhole for sensible, secure White boys" and said "there is one member of staff who is openly gay, and I meanRuPaul extra gay".[21] On 14 March 2021, authorJulie Burchill announced that, with Stirling, "I've found someone who's JUST LIKE ME", who were now publishing her book after theLittle, Brown Book Group had dropped Burchill. This came after Burchill had made defamatory statements about the Muslim journalistAsh Sarkar.[21] However, Burchill parted with Stirling Publishing when she found out that Stirling was associated with Patriotic Alternative.[21]
Patriotic Alternative's social media accounts onFacebook,Instagram andTwitter were suspended in February 2021, but some of its regional pages remained.[7]
In October 2021, Tim Wills, a councillor inWorthing, was suspended from theConservative Party over allegations of secret support for Patriotic Alternative, after Hope not Hate published results of an investigation into him.[22] Wills resigned from the council on 15 October.[23] The same month, in a district ofBorehamwood, theHertfordshire Constabulary increased patrols after leaflets calling for the banning ofkosher andhalal food were delivered to several Jewish homes. While it was not considered a hate crime, it was considered ahate incident, and was condemned by local representatives of all three major political parties.[24]
A joint investigation byThe Times and theanti-fascist investigative group Red Flare in September 2022 revealed the identity of a Patriotic Alternative supporter and "Britain's most racistYouTuber", known as "The Ayatollah", as James Owens, a 37-year-old journalism graduate fromHixon, a village inStaffordshire.[26]
In February 2023, Patriotic Alternative supporters showed up at riots at hotels inKnowsley[28] andGlasgow.[29]
In March 2023, Patriotic Alternative delivered leaflets to homes in the Welsh town ofLlantwit Major, warning about the possibility of migrants moving there, as part of its response to local plans to build a site for asylum seekers. The leaflets used the term "white genocide".[30]
In June 2023, a Patriotic Alternative member, Kristofer Thomas Kearner, who had pled guilty to charges of disseminating terrorist publications on aTelegram account, including the manifestos ofBrenton Tarrant andAnders Behring Breivik, was imprisoned for four years and eight months.[31]
According toSearchlight magazine, in 2023 Alek Yerbury left Patriotic Alternative and formed a new militant group named the National Support Detachment.[32] Within a month, PA national administration officerKenny Smith had also left and formed a new organisation calledHomeland, attracting many members of Patriotic Alternative to join. The organisation's inaugural meeting was held onAdolf Hitler's birthday.[33][34]
The Times reported in October 2021 that Mark Collett had attended combat training with former members of the now-proscribed neo-Nazi organisationNational Action.[44] The investigation also revealed that Kris Kearns, who leads Patriotic Alternative's "Fitness Club" initiative, was active in National Action before the group was banned.[44][45] In August 2022, it was reported that Kearns faces extradition from Spain to the UK, and up to 15 years in prison on terrorism charges relating to the sharing of far-right terrorist manifestos on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.[46] Sam Melia, a regional organiser for PA, has previously been affiliated with National Action.[47]Alex Davies, the jailed co-founder of National Action, had been active within Patriotic Alternative for more than two years.[48]
In March 2021, Mark Collett, as a representative of Patriotic Alternative, participated in an online conference bringing togetherDaniel Conversano [fr]'s Les Braves, theSyrian Social Nationalist Party and theNordic Resistance Movement (NRM), at the end of which Mark Collett and Simon Lindberg of the NRM called for the union of white nationalists. In September 2021, PA formalised this partnership with Les Braves by publishing an article by Les Braves on its website.[49] Australian extremistBlair Cottrell participated in a conference organised by Patriotic Alternative in 2024.[50]
The Russian emigre news outletThe Insider listed Patriotic Alternative among the organisations sending representatives to an international congress of far-right and neo-Nazi movements held in the Mariinsky Palace in St. Petersburg in September 2025.[51]
^Cohen, Nick (18 October 2009)."How the BNP's far-right journey ends up on primetime TV".The Observer.Archived from the original on 4 August 2018. Retrieved3 August 2018.Earlier this month, Radio 1'sNewsbeat cutely allowed "Mark and Joey, two young guys who are members of the BNP", to imply that Chelsea and England footballer Ashley Cole was not really British. It did not reveal that "Mark" was Mark Collett, the BNP's press officer and an admirer of Nazism, and "Joey" was Joey Smith, who runs the BNP's record label. - Laura Spitalniak,"Rep. Steve King compares backlash over white supremacy comments to Jesus' suffering"Archived 15 November 2020 at theWayback Machine,ABC News, 24 April 2019, "retweeting Mark Collett, a neo-Nazi..."
^Boulle, Delphine-Marion; Pacaud, Valentin (2022).Au nom de la race: bienvenue chez les suprémacistes français (in French). Paris: Robert Laffont. pp. 222–226.ISBN978-2-221-25494-3.
