The founder of a new far-right ‘supergroup’ aiming to unite fascists across the UK has spoken of targeting union offices and picket lines, openDemocracy has learnt.

It comes amid the UK’s biggest wave of industrial action in decades, as workers faced with a cost of living crisis demand better pay and conditions.

National Support Detachment (NSD), an umbrella organisation founded by far-right activist Alek Yerbury, brings together fringe groups such as the White Indigenous Rights Alliance (WIRA), former members of Patriotic Alternative, the Northern Infidels and others with the hope of growing in relevance.

Recent posts by Yerbury on instant messaging service Telegram, seen by openDemocracy, set out plans to target those involved in industrial action.

In one message, from April, Yerbury wrote: “Why don’t we start directing our protests directly at the trade unions? i.e their offices, picket lines etc.”

When someone responded saying it was a “good idea”, Yerbury added: “I’ve spoken to some of my local allies about this. Legal things will happen soon surrounding this issue.”

Another post from last week takes aim at “the internationalists, the Marxists, the trade unionists and the liberals”, saying: “The only possible relationship with these people is one of hostility.”

The NSD names immigration as its primary concern. It staged its biggest rally yet in Leeds on Saturday only to be outnumbered by anti-fascist counter-protesters. Leaflets for the demo and future protests in Norwich, Lincoln and Elgin in Scotland declare: “Enough is enough, no more globalists, this nation belongs to its own people.”

President of the Leeds Trades Union Congress (TUC) Jane Aitchison said union members had experience in defeating the far right.

“Leeds is a brilliant multicultural city that has no time for their hate,” she said. “Our leafleting campaign for the demo got a great response. That’s how we will defeat them – by being the majority.”

Liz Kitching of Stand Up To Racism, which organised the counter-protest, added: “We know it is imperative that we mobilise in very big numbers to stop them before they can grow. This must be built in workplaces, all trades unions, community groups, LGBT organisations and faith groups. If we are divided they can grow. If we are united we can stop them."

NatCon themes

Katie Fanning was a key speaker at the NSD event. Head of WIRA and formerly a member of UKIP’s National Executive Committee (NEC), Fanning is well-known in far-right and Conservative circles. In 2017 her extremist beliefs were exposed by Hope Not Hate, yet she still managed a brief stint in the Tory party, which ended in 2020 when she was suspended pending an investigation into her social media posts, one of which read: “British military – time for a takeover of parliament and to send the army in to shoot the foreign invaders.” The Conservative Party would not confirm to openDemocracy whether her suspension had been upheld.

Fanning says she is currently suing the Open University for supposed anti-white discrimination. She has previously spoken at a dinner held by the Traditional Britain Group, a far-right think tank, and is Facebook friends with five current Conservative councillors, a Conservative research assistant, three Reform councillors and a parliamentary assistant to Tory MP Joy Morrissey. She has posted on social media about so-called "white genocide" and her hatred of immigrants.

These themes, which made up the majority of her speech at the protest, are similar to those heard at the National Conservatism conference last month, at which prominent Tory MPs spoke and right-wing historian David Starkey told an audience “white culture” was under threat.

Both Fanning and Yerbury have also referred to Black Lives Matter as a terrorist organisation, often linking it to what they call “cultural Marxism”. That phrase, widely acknowledged to be antisemitic in origin, was also used by speakers at the NatCon event, including Tory MP Miriam Cates, who claimed it was “destroying our children’s souls”.

West Yorkshire Police were criticised for allowing the Leeds rally to take place. The Football Lads & Lasses Against Fascism group, who were part of the counter-protest, told openDemocracy: “We are shocked that the police have offered protection at the cost of the taxpayer to accommodate a fascist rally with no real goal or agenda aside from an attempted show of strength and intimidation against people who disagree with their ideology."

A video from the event showed police chaperoning the NSD around the city centre as they played ‘Rule, Britannia!’ over a PA system and waved a number of flags, including one bearing the SS Totenkopf insignia.

Helen*, a Jewish woman who has lived in Leeds for most of her life, told openDemocracy she was “appalled” by the rally. Born in the 1930s, she recalled a number of antisemitic incidents from her youth and explained that, even today, “the shuls [synagogues] have security on the gates – we will not let [the holocaust] happen again”.

Temporary assistant chief constable Ed Chesters from West Yorkshire Police said it sought to balance the “lawful right to protest” with “the rights of residents to go about their everyday business”.

When asked about his Telegram messages, Yerbury told openDemocracy that unions had for years “financed the hard left” using “the money of the working man”.

He added: “Instead of confronting their minions like Stand Up to Racism, antifascists, etc., the unions themselves need to start being directly confronted and asked these questions, in a public forum, where they will be exposed for all to see.”

* Name changed to protect her identity