“The only thing terrifying about Belfast are the beer prices”

These days Matthew Collins is a leading anti-fascist campaigner and a Researcher/Northern Ireland correspondent  for the organisation HOPE not hate. But this wasn’t always the case. Back in 1987, aged 15, he was a Mein Kampf-reading Nazi, flogging copies of National Front Newspaper ‘The Flag’ around south London housing estates before becoming a party organiser and touted as a future leader. He was also a volunteer at the BNP’s head office and active with violent neo-Nazi street fighters Combat 18. …

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@hopenothate on #UKIP and the UDA

After the UKIP debacle (and irony) of being banished from the Crown to the Europa last Wednesday, the Hope not Hate blog has done some digging into the complexion of the company Nigel Farage was keeping at the time. Farage’s companions included political allies of James Dowson of Britain First, occasionally the BNP, and, a recurring figure on the local flag protest scene. More pointedly, according to the blog, they were UDA figures who it is claimed were then involved in an attack on Friday that  was part of an internal …

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