The New Right and national anarchism

26Oct11

From Hope Not Hate:

a coalition of some of the finest Jew hating conspiracy theorists around are having a meeting of their own. And, in time honoured far right tradition, they are having a factional split of their own. The “New Right” is a quasi-intellectual political group formed by the former National Front activist Troy Southgate and unites various strands of far right thinking into a bi-monthly talking shop.

Having split into two warring factions, they’re aptly enough holding their next meeting in a London pub on the 5th November. The who’s who of the group makes for interesting reading. One faction is led by a professed “National Anarchist” and the other by a man who until recently boasted of working for Military Intelligence.

From the full report:

New Right organisers

Troy Southgate

A self-described “National Anarchist”, Southgate is a former Political Soldier and a prolific biographer of obscure political figures. A onetime adherent of the “radical” leadership surrounding Nick Griffin, Southgate moved out of the NF in the very early 90’s with the “Political Soldiers” before falling foul of the chief exponent of radical catholic fascism, Derek Holland.

Before discovering “National Anarchism”, Southgate led the “English Nationalist Movement” and the “National Revolutionary Faction” both of which dissolved and which he ran prior to the New Right. He is the vocalist in the band H.E.R.R and plays in numerous “Neo Folk” bands.

Some of the speakers at past New Right events

Michele Renouf

Former model and actress, Australian born Renouf is a staunch defender of a number of well known Holocaust deniers including David Irving, Robert Faurisson, Richard Williamson, Germar Rudolf, Ernst Zündel and countryman Fredrick Töben. Efraim Zuroff, of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem told “The Australian” newspaper: “This woman is especially dangerous… she can put a pretty face on a very ugly movement.”

Renouf has previously described Judaism as a “repugnant and hate-filled religion”. She attended a “Holocaust denial” conference hosted by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad entitled “Holocaust Review: A Global Vision” in Tehran in December 2006. Others at the conference included former KKK leader David Duke.

From Anarchonation back in the summer:

For the second time in as many years, and following his denunciation by former comrade Troy Southgate, Andrew White (aka ‘Andrew Yeoman’) has declared the BANANAs [Bay Area National Anarchists] have- once again- split. […] Given the short time that elapsed between the first time the BANANAs called it quits and their resumption of pea-brained ‘activism’, it’s likely that activities will indeed be resumed at a later date, although given the bad smell that surrounds the group’s name, it may also be that it will come under a new label.

As is stands, the ‘national anarchist’ project in the English-speaking world has come more or less to a standstill, with supporters either (re-)lapsing into neo-Nazi activity or simply ceasing public political activity altogether. Of related interest is the following article by Matthew N. Lyons in the US journal New Politics (April 29, 2011): Rising Above the Herd: Keith Preston’s Authoritarian Anti-Statism

 

From Slack Andy:

In the UK, occult publisher ‘Scarlet Imprint’ has issued a statement on ‘Occultists and Fascists’ (June 10, 2011), distancing them from fascist bizarro and ‘national anarchist’ Troy Southgate.

We were approached recently to contribute to Troy Southgate’s Black Front Press whose last published work was a Crowley anthology.

After a little research, we were disturbed to find their rather murky history hidden beneath the anti-corporate, anti-capitalist and permaculture ideals.

Though we are very happy to promote the independent esoteric and occult authors and publishers whose work and dedication invigorate and stimulate our community, it is entirely another matter to contribute our energy to a project which would seem to be attempting to use a multiplicity of voices from the occult scene to promote the ideas of the so-called New-Right.

The Wild Hunt add:

Scarlet Imprint noted that they held a “profound” disgust for the views expressed in the National Anarchist manifesto, and stated that “what is clear in magickal history is that racial mixing has been incredibly beneficial.” The well-regarded San Francisco esoteric book-seller Fields Books thanked Scarlet Imprint for their stance, and promises “a longer and more nuanced response to all of our customers soon” on the matter. In response, some Crowley fans instantly went on the defensive, wondering if there was going to be a “blacklist” of contributors, bemoaning the “war of ideologies” that will be raised on the issue. This is exactly the kind of response that National Anarchists like Southgate hope for, since a veneer of an apolitical “pox on both your houses” attitude is what gives these New Right/third positionist groups their oxygen.

From Datacide: From Subculture to Hegemony: Transversal Strategies of the New Right in Neofolk and Martial Industrial:

Neo-Folk and Martial Industrial are two sub-categories of Industrial Music, which developed in the 1980’s. Industrial as such was a direction that – parallel to Punk Rock – worked with the latest electronics in order to create an aesthetic of futuristic noise machines of the late 20th century and research extreme zones of contemporary society and history. Throbbing Gristle already thematized concentration camps, serial killers, Aleister Crowley etc by using cut-up techniques of William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin and thus with strategies of liberation from brain washing. Similarly, Cabaret Voltaire were said to wage a “propaganda war against the propaganda war” (Industrial Culture Handbook). With SPK this was combined with a critique of Psychiatry and a presentation of extremes of the body and death. In the 80’s there were agitational and critical bands such as Test Dept., Nocturnal Emissions and Bourbonese Qualk which were often associated with the ever broadening spectrum of “Industrial”. However, with Laibach the critique of totalitarianism became more ambivalent. This ambivalence was at first seemingly shared by Death In June, the band that in many ways was at the origin of what is now considered Neo-Folk and Martial Industrial.[…]

A great importance is attached to avoid being easily associated with the brown swamp. Their attitude is intellectual and elitist with adoration for Ernst Jünger and Julius Evola not Hitler and Mussolini. Even with key figures who have undeniably been members of far right political groups (in Britain this is crystallized around the mid-80’s National Front and its “Political Soldier” faction), there is a surprising eagerness to distance themselves from allegations of “fascism”. This has a historical precedent in the French “Nouvelle Droite” (see appendix) who, motivated to get out of the neo-Nazi cul-de-sac, and on their march through the institutions, tried hard to avoid being tagged fascists while serving old wine in new bottles, or old ideology in new phraseology for to the present day.

Troy Southgate, head of the group HERR, seems particularly eager not to be branded a fascist despite his history as a wanderer from one group of the extreme right to the other (such as the National Front, the International Third Position, the English Nationalist Movement, the National Revolutionary Faction etc). Presumably this is a tactical move not to scare away potential recruits to his more recent “National Anarchist Movement”. With a list of his favorite authors including pre-cursors like Bakunin, Proudhon and Nietzsche, “classic” fascist and National-Bolshevik authors such as Julius Evola, the Strasser Brothers, Ernst Jünger, Martin Heidegger, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Ernst Niekisch, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Karl Haushofer, and finally more contemporary fascists and esoteric Hitlerists like Francis Parker Yockey, Miguel Serrano and Savitri Devi, one wonders why he pretends to be so allergic to the f-word. While this is not necessarily a homogenous bunch of authors, and most of them are not “Nazis” in the sense of toeing the line of the NSDAP, all of them (minus the 19th century pre-cursers) can reasonably be called fascist in the sense of using “fascism” as an umbrella term for tendencies including the conservative revolution, national bolshevism, the Hitler-Nazis to the various strains of the contemporary New Right.[…]

Wakeford and Southgate are by no means the only ones involved in the far right. Ian Read, a founding member of Sol Invictus and occasional member of Current 93, […] has a history as a far right militant as he acted as security for Michael Walker and Michèle Renouf at events around 1990. Renouf is one of the leading figures of British holocaust denial and anti-Semites. Amongst other things, she participated in the Teheran holocaust conference, and is one of the most active supporters of David Irving. She also pops up in our context again in 2007 when she spoke at an event of Southgate’s New Right groupuscule, as reported by the anti-Fascist magazine Searchlight. This (and a looming leadership contest) led to disputes within the British National Party, since its culture commissioner, self-declared “philosopher” and “artist” (who made garish oil paintings with titles such as “Adolf and Leni” or “Freud was wrong”) was simultaneously Southgate’s partner in the New Right grouplet. This was at a time when Nick Griffin (former Political Soldier, now BNP chairman and recently elected to the European Parliament) tried to create a more “respectable” image for the party. Of course if leading functionaries rub shoulders with radical anti-Zionists and anti-Semites, who, as Renouf does, believe that “Hamas fights for us all”, then Griffin’s attempt to clear the BNP from charges of anti-Semitism have little credibility.

From Paul Stott: Imitation As Flattery? How Europe’s Fascists Are Copying Anti-Fascists

Antifa in the Czech Republic have recently published a fascinating analysis of how some fascist groups appear to be busying themselves adopting the imagery and style of anarchists and anti-fascists. The Big Neo-Nazi Crib illustrates examples of this from clothing, sticker designs, badges, t shirts and logos. Quite who gains from these maneouvres is another matter entirely – it certainly provides easy fodder for the lazy ‘they are all as bad as each other’ media talking heads. Here in the UK (where the trend identified by Czech Antifa is nowhere near as pronounced) attempts to link anarchism and fascism are usually the preserve of the secret state and its useful idiots on the last century left such as Searchlight and bloggers such as Andy Newman over at Socialist Unity.

The closest we have perhaps come is some of the literature of the International Third Position in the 1990s, when they attempted to rally against McDonalds and corporate capital – with little real success. Or perhaps the stalled attempts to create ‘National-Anarchism’ by Troy Southgate and others. Why did they fail? Well firstly you do have to wonder if the participants heart was ever in it – Southgate quickly popped up in BNP circles when Nick Griffin was at his peak. But most importantly, people do tend to prefer the original, to the copy – if they have to copy our ideas to attract young supporters, what does it tell us about the confidence the fascists have in their own belief system?

See also: Anton Shekhovtsov, ‘Apoliteic music: Neo-Folk, Martial Industrial and “metapolitical fascism”’, Patterns of Prejudice, Volume 43, Issue 5 (December 2009), pp. 431-457; Arne Gräfrath ‘Far-Right Tendencies in the Wave and Gothic Scene‘ Originally from D-A-S-H.org; Not for Profit ‘Pro-Nazi, Pro-Rape, Pro-Pedo Music in London‘ Indymedia.

Previous: Faces of the new right, National Anarchism update, National Anarchism and white nationalism, Who makes the Nazis?, Troy Southgate and national anarchism, Troy Southgate and Nationalist Alternative.

Filed under: Fascism and antisemitism, national anarchism and autonomous nationalism   |  9 Comments
Tags: Black Front Press, Michele Renouf, national anarchism, Neo-folk, new right, Scarlet Imprint, Troy Southgate