As the readers of this blog know perfectly well, the Kremlin is actively cooperating — sometimes financially — with European far right parties. However, Moscow may also be engaged in even more sinister activities, namely whipping up racial hatred in the West in order to discredit democratic societies that have taken a strong position on sanctions against Russia for its war on Ukraine.
While it cannot be conclusively proven yet, the “anti-Jewification” demonstration that took place in London on July 4th might be an example of such activities. At least, there are sound reasons to suspect exactly this.
The demonstration was organized by the neo-Nazi Eddy Stampton who is notorious for drunken violence towards women, and was attended, among others, by his neo-Nazi mate Piers Mellor; the head of the far right IONA London Forum Jeremy “Jez” Bedford-Turner; and Britain-based activists of the Polish fascist National Revival of Poland (Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski).
Violent neo-Nazi Eddy Stampton leading the demonstration, 4 July 2015, London. Photo: Jack Taylor/AFP/Getty Images
Jeremy “Jez” Bedford-Turner with a loud-speaker, followed by the activists from the National Revival of Poland, 4 July 2015, London. Photo: Jack Taylor/AFP/Getty Images
Piers Mellor speaking at the demo, 4 July 2015, London. Photo: Jack Taylor/AFP/Getty Images
The anti-semitic demo in London was not the first time that Stampton, Mellor, Bedford-Turner and the Polish fascists came together. On November 29, 2014, they organized a demo in support of the Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party by the Embassy of Greece in London.
Jeremy “Jez” Bedford-Turner (a man with a loud-speaker on the left), Eddy Stampton (a man in a cap), and Piers Mellor at a demonstration in support of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, 29 November 2015, London
Most prominent participants of the London anti-Semitic demo last Saturday are not simply fascists: all of them are in one way or another connected to the Russians.
Bedford-Turner leads the self-styled “New Right” IONA London Forum that hosted, on 12 October 2013, a conference titled “The End of the Present World: the Post-American Century and Beyond”. The main speaker at this conference was infamous Russian fascist Aleksandr Dugin, who is building links between Western far right/far left organizations and Moscow, and who was also involved, in 2006, in training of the activists from the pro-Russian extremist organization “Donetsk People’s Republic.” Bedford-Turner also invited Russian neo-Nazi activist Denis Nikitin to speak at one of the Forum’s meetings in August 2014.
Denis Nikitin, founder and head of White Rex
This was not the only connection between Nikitin and the British extreme right: Nikitin, who also directs the Russian White Rex company engaged in organizing mixed martial arts tournaments in Russia and Europe, was a key person who provided fitness sessions to British neo-Nazis at a training camp in Wales. Are the Russians involved in training of would-be right-wing British terrorists?
Another participant of the anti-Semitic demo, Australian London-based neo-Nazi Piers Mellor, also participated in the Moscow-inspired anti-Ukrainian protest in March 2015.
Neo-Nazi Piers Mellor (left) at an anti-Ukrainian protest, March 2015, London
Together with Mellor, protesting against non-existing UK arms supplies to Ukraine, was Graham Phillips, a British RT propagandist employed by the Russian Defense Ministry’s TV Zvezda and strong supporter of pro-Russian extremists in Eastern Ukraine, including the Donetsk People’s Republic, where he spent most of 2014.
Neo-Nazi Piers Mellor (left) and RT propagandist Graham Phillips (the bald man on the right) at an anti-Ukrainian protest, March 2015, London
Upon his return to London, Phillips immediately joined the UK Independence Party (UKIP) whose leaders, including Nigel Farage and Diane James, who have openly expressed admiration of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. UKIP MEPs are also active opponents of the sanctions against Russia.
RT, Russia’s major tool of its information warfare against the West, immediately reported on the neo-Nazi gathering in London, but of course without mentioning any connections between the participants of the demo and the Russians.
Why would the Kremlin be interested in whipping up racial hatred in Britain? The fact is that when the Russians find it difficult to buy political influence in a particular Western country, they try to discredit it as a hotbed of fascism. The classic example is the KGB’s psy-op in Western countries at the end of the 1950s.
The KGB and its counterparts in the countries of the Warsaw Pact infiltrated neo-Nazi organizations in West Germany and some other Western countries, in order to goad them into extremist activities and then accuse Western societies of the alleged resurgence of Nazism. The most prominent case is the “swastika operation” devised by Soviet KGB General Ivan Agayants and carried out in 1959-1960 in Western cities and towns. During that period, KGB agents painted swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans on synagogues, tombstones and Jewish-owned shops in West Germany. Jewish families received anonymous hate mail and threatening phone calls. The initial KGB operation would stir up residual anti-Semitic sentiments in Western societies and, consequently, produce a snowball effect where troublemakers would carry out anti-Semitic activities on their own. The “swastika operation” in West Germany caused considerable damage to the reputation of the country in the West: its diplomats were ostracized, West German products boycotted, Bonn assailed for the alleged inability to deal with Nazism, and questions were raised about the credibility of the country as a member of NATO.
The established connections between the organizers/participants of the anti-semitic demonstration in London and the Russian actors (as well as other evidence) provide a good reason to suspect that Moscow is now involved in similar psy-ops in Britain.