Home Secretary Amber Rudd labels National Action as "racist, antisemitic and homophobic" as the extremist group are classified as terrorist organisation.
December 12, 2016 12:19Lee Harpin
A NEO-NAZI group responsible for a series of attacks and threats on prominent British Jews has been classified as a terrorist organisation by the government.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd labelled the extreme far-right National Action as “racist, anti-semitic and homophobic” as she announced the move to ban the group in the UK.
The Community Security Trust had been among those backing legislation to make National Action the first far-right organisation to be proscribed under British terrorism laws.
Labour MP Luciana Berger was among those repeatedly targeted by National Action members – with Garron Helm being sent to jail in February last year for sending her an openly anti-Semitic threat.
Announcing the decision to proscribe the group Home Secretary Amber Rudd said: "I am clear that the safety and security of our families, communities and country comes first.
"So today I am taking action to proscribe the neo-Nazi group National Action.
"This will mean that being a member of, or inviting support for, this organisation will be a criminal offence.
"National Action is a racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic organisation which stirs up hatred, glorifies violence and promotes a vile ideology, and I will not stand for it.
"It has absolutely no place in a Britain that works for everyone."
National Action has described itself as a "National Socialist youth organisation" and says its movement is aimed at the "broken right-wing".
The group provoked fury when it lauded Thomas Mair, the white nationalist who murdered Labour MP Jo Cox in June.
The decision to enforce the ban on the group will make it illegal to be a member or support the group under the Terrorism Act 2000.
The order will be debated in parliament on Wednesday before becoming operationally effective on Friday.
Reacting to the government’s move the CST said: “National Action is a viciously antisemitic neo-Nazi group that repeatedly incites hatred and violence and whose supporters have been involved in hate crimes. We have raised our concerns about them with the Government and the Police on many occasions over the past two years and we welcome the news that they are to be proscribed.”
CST has referred two speeches by senior National Action member Jack Renshaw to police. In one speech Mr Renshaw said: “Hitler was right in many senses.”
In another he said Britain took the wrong side in the Second World War by fighting the Nazis “who were there to remove Jewry from Europe once and for all.”
Garron Helm, a Merseyside National Action member, had sent Liverpool Wavertree MP Luciana Berger a message on Twitter showing a Holocaust-era yellow star which was photo-shopped onto her forehead with the hashtag ‘Hitler was right’.
In February 2015 he was sent to prison four four weeks for his campaign against the MP.
Last week Joshua Bonehill-Paine, another far-right fanatic, was jailed for two years after launching a vile anti-Semitic campaign against Ms Berger in support of Mr Helm.
Penalties for proscription offences offences can be a 10 year long prison sentence and unlimited fines.