The Bizarre and dangerous rituals of Patriotic Alternative & a cucumber for the National Front

Matthew Collins - 13 09 21

One of the most active (and bizarre) far right group’s active in Britain is Mark Collett’s Patriotic Alternative, though I prefer to call it Patriotic Allotment (PA) as it is full of dirty turnips. Although it was meant to be a new type of British National Party (BNP) it is little more than a perfectly formed fan club for the rather self loathing and loving delicate flower that is Mark Collett.

Collett: Having another totally normal day

So bizarre and paranoid are Patriotic Alternative that earlier this year they ‘abducted’ an antifascist researcher and held him for an hour long interrogation. Those who did this are part of a small number of thugs who have attached themselves to PA in Scotland and appear to be instructed to intimidate and silence the leader’s critics and legitimate political opposition.

Collett has attempted to culture an aura of aloofness around himself modelled on that of the BNP’s founder John Tyndall. Tyndall only found true popularity in the far right after his death- spending his living and working political life estranged from his few supporters- which suited him. Collett has taken his own particular social awkwardness and understandable paranoia to completely new levels.  

Since founding PA, Collett has surrounded himself with a host of other people expelled (like him) from the BNP at its peak (like him) for what were deemed ‘treacherous’ acts.

One assumes because they all have so much horrendous dirt on each other these experienced ex-BNP members would never betray each-other or Collett again. However, if senior PA members end up in Prague with the company credit card for a ‘long weekend’ in the near future, we’ll know history really is repeating itself. I mean, PA’s money is paid into Collett’s own bank account..

Building an almost secret gang within the ‘party’ of those that can be trusted with both ideological and general naughtiness follows Nick Griffin’s modus operandi once he took over the BNP from Tyndall-  building a secret party within a party. So far they are mainly from the old BNP, but one wonders if Collett also has plans to recruit the former NF members, other former comrades of his, who filmed him cowered and screaming for mercy.

Collett has upset Nick Griffin (again)

A frustrated and frankly furious Nick Griffin has taken great issue with Collett- whom he once mentored, for recruiting the likes of former BNP administrators’ Steve Blake and Kenny Smith to the backroom of PA.

Kenny Smith has been entrusted by Collett with some aspects of PA’s internal security, despite being held responsible by Griffin and the rest of the BNP’s leadership for the disastrous and damaging BNP membership leak of 2008. What infuriates Griffin most is not just Collett’s refusal to accept some kind of benevolent paternal advice from him, but that the BNP’s membership leak was actually a result of people like Blake, Smith and Sadie Graham being sick to death of Collett’s behaviour!

The truly salacious and nasty nature of that episode and resultant legal slough can be read here.

Collett: Yes, yes he does want to live like the common people

Strange Habits

Knowing and understanding Collett’s particular peccadillos is one way of having your slate wiped clean and being rewarded with a seat in his new party’s outhouse.  And that is useful to PA as aspects of Collett’s notorious past behaviour are beginning to show in his current actions. 

Some PA have now begun to collect details on what they term as ‘reds’ which one assumes, is anyone not a hard line Nazi. There are also reports of PA officials forcing their way into the homes of members who have transgressed strict rules about criticising Collett’s leadership.

Absolutely dominated by social media use, PA’s preferred social media is awash with a growing number of disappointed and disillusioned detractors. And they need policing and or punishing for it. A whole host of nasty individuals now spend their time in the name of PA surfing the web for detractors who must be silenced. In the great tradition of a paranoid dictator, Collett doesn’t seem to mind the resultant schisms and arguments this creates amongst what is after all, a very small number of individuals. The PA membership is still only around 300 and shrinking. But as Collette knows, size isn’t everything.

If the marching up and down hills with tatty flags doesn’t exhaust the PA membership, then being hounded by foul mouthed malcontents and drug addled deviants, surely will. Like the group he so previously derided but gave tacit advice, National Action, it doesn’t take long for any ‘cutting edge’ Nazi group to descend into degeneracy.

Ryan McCue (right): He asks the questions.

Held against his will

The preoccupation with ‘hunting reds’ – be they under the proverbial bed or even hiding in Collett’s wardrobes has predictably taken sinister turns. A video is currently doing the rounds of one PA member on his doorstep waving a machete and making threats against a former member.

One antifascist researcher in Scotland who contacted the group found himself abducted and driven to an industrial estate to be harangued, threatened and tormented by PA officials.

‘David’ had contacted PA to see what he could find out about the group- a group that declares it has nothing to hide but good honest patriotism (and a hatred of Jews).

Having been directed through a series of bewildering and private chatrooms on the messenger application ‘Telegram’ David was asked to produce for PA’s security department both a scan of his passport and a utility bill in his name at his home address.

David believed at the time he was then monitored by PA, who he believes also sent someone to check the address on his utility bill and to confirm he lived there. This suspicion was later borne out when PA concluded in an internal discussion we have seen, that David had moved from the address. David also claims PA tried to send a member to the passport office in Inverness for more information on their potential new recruit. The individual left PA fearing he was being asked to break the law, by possibly impersonating David at the passport office.

One such Telegram group administered by PA, ‘Scottish anti antifascists’ which is supposedly limited to the PA leadership and a trusted few, discussed in great detail David’s application and the whereabouts and the lives of other Scottish PA members and supporters. It appears that no sooner does PA in Scotland recruit a member, the group tasks itself with purging them.

In February of this year, Valentine’s Day in fact, David was invited to meet PA officials in the Morrison’s supermarket carpark in Partick in Glasgow’s north west. Perhaps in homage to Collett, the person who was to conduct an ‘informal chat’ introduced himself as ‘Adam West’.

Despite the car park being relatively empty, a fidgety ‘West’ insisted David join him in a nearby parked car for ‘security reasons’. He found himself being unceremoniously bundled into the back of the car and driven off with West and  two other masked men. His pleas to stop the car were ignored.

Ryan McCue (centre) unmasked

David was driven to an industrial estate and held for an hour by the three while they shouted questions at him about his sex life and previous far right activism. Upon claiming he had been active with the particularly nasty Scottish Defence League (SDL), one of the masked men removed his mask and asked David if he recognised him. Although David did, he claimed he did not- infuriating one Ryan McCue, a notorious and well known Scottish Nazi.

“It was terrifying” claims David. “I’m still in all their private chat groups- they haven’t a clue I’m still there. This terrorising of prospective members has upset a lot of people and we’ve been able to get a lot of dirt on PA. The group is really dangerous. The Scottish region are completely dedicated to Nazism and terrorising even their own supporters.”

National Front Boss Gets a new Cucumber

It’s been a while since we’ve had cause to mention the National Front (NF).

That’s no surprise; they haven’t done much more of late than sit in the grumbly corner at the Wetherspoons in Croydon and grumble they don’t do much other than sit in the grumbly corner of Wetherspoons.

Tony Martin: Gift that keeps on giving

Their unambitious leader, Tony Martin, has exceeded all expectations.  The party’s membership has been in double digits for a couple of years now and since the Covid pandemic and the timely passing of Richard Edmonds last year, one former Chairman (they don’t do ‘chairperson’) has opined it’s more than a bit likely there are now less than ten paid-up members remaining.

Somewhat of a lifeline was thrown to Martin and the NF, when serial and moronic motor-mouth James Goddard of the Patriotic Allotment gang declared he would be visiting Croydon from his home in Sale to protest outside the closed offices of the Home Office.

Not only did a pointless protest on his very doorstep excite Tony Martin, it also (‘allegedly’) excited some roughens who had a substantial bone to pick with Goddard. Alerted to this,  Goddard decided not to turn up to the protest, gifting Martin the unique opportunity to stand outside the Home Office with his loudhailer almost completely on his own- aside from a woman holding a large cucumber.  

Another thing we haven’t seen in a while is the formerly disgraced Paul Prodromou (who pretended for too long he was the anglicised ‘Paul Pitt’). Prodromou, who was not permitted to candidate during a previous NF leadership election has been out for coffee and banoffee pie with the equally not very anglicised sounding Mac McElhinney.  One wonders what those two were cooking up.

Prodromou (left) Planning a Trojan Horse?

We’ve not seen activism with this quality of luncheon and garden vegetable since Eddie Stampton’s era (that’s an old gag for those longish in the tooth).

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