Fascism's 'political soldiers' target nationalist groups

Loyalist extremism, the fascist movement's putatively intellectual wing

has chosen today, St Patrick's Day, to relaunch itself as the Third Way.

For under the new dominant theory of that wing of the organisation,

Irish nationalism is one of the so-called seven nationalisms of Britain

-- the others being English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Manx, and Ulster

-- which are to be harnessed for fascism. According to a Scottish

republican now living in Dublin, Scottish political, cultural and

language organisations should be on guard against infiltration by Third

Way activists.

''People need to be aware that this is going on because you can bet

they will be making approaches to groups within the Scottish nationalist

movement, who will find themselves unwittingly mixing with fascists,''

he said.

Adam Busby has lived in Dublin since the failure in 1984 of an attempt

to have him extradited to face charges relating to the Scottish National

Liberation Army. It was as a member of the Celtic League -- a political

and cultural organisation covering the sweep of Celtic nations, from the

Scots to the Bretons -- that he first discovered infiltration by members

of the National Front's ''political soldier'' wing.

This wing, which sees itself as intellectual in character, with strong

links to European fascism, split away from the NF rump, called the

''flag section'', in 1983. After the 1980 Bologna railway station

bombing, in which 85 people died, a number of Italian fascists fled the

country.

Among them was Roberto Fiore, who arrived in Britain via a spell with

Phalangists in the Lebanon. He successfully resisted extradition back to

his homeland to face conspiracy charges, on which he was sentenced to

nine years in absentia, and emerged as one of the leaders of the group

which today becomes the Third Way, itelf a European term signifying a

fascist alternative to both capitalism and communism.

The other leading light is Patrick Harrington, the NF man whose

attendance at North London Polytechnic sparked off a boycott of classes

by his fellow students. Above both, it is said, lies Colin Jordan,

although he denies formal membership of the NF. With a growing talent

for clandestine entryism, their activ

ists have appeared in animal rights groups, the ecology movement, and

nationalist organisations.

Busby and a Celtic League colleague from a Cornish separatist group

discovered that a woman member of the group was a National Front member.

Busby and others then decided to begin running checks on other

organisations which might be infiltrated in this way, and discovered

that Welsh language organisations and even Plaid Cymru itself had been

targeted by the ''political soldiers'', who have seemingly abandoned

some of the former tenets of fascism, such as racism and anti-Semitism,

in favour

of their new pan-national approach which speaks of a ''British family

of nations'' and ''unity through diversity''.

''This wing of the National Front was all about intellectual snobbery

-- we're not talking about some bunch of skinheads. Much of their

material is extremely well produced,'' said Busby. He decided to go one

stage further in his investigation by writing to Patrick Harrington, at

a box number given in NF publications, under the assumed name of Martin

Mitchell, offering to set up an Irish section of the Third Way.

A letter came back from Harrington thanking him. ''The establishment

of an Irish section of the Third Way would be a great step forward,'' he

wrote, and said the leader of the Ulster section, David Kerr, would get

in touch. Sophisticated publishing equipment was being purchased and

''once you are established and have produced some literature, I shall

encourage some people to provide donations to get you started''. He said

St Patrick's Day had been chosen for the Third Way launch because ''he

is the patron saint of one of our nations'' and because it was the first

day of spring.

Kerr has since written to ''Mitchell'' referring to help he is

receiving from Scotland from David Seawright, the National Front

activist and brother

of the murdered Belfast councillor,

the ultra-Loyalist George Seawright. Given that Busby was posing as an

Irish nationalist from the South, this indicates the strange bedfellows

which the Third Way expects to mould into a cohesive organisation.

But according to Tony Robson of the anti-fascist magazine,

Searchlight, the ''political soldier'' section is minuscule, and even

the change of name is in some doubt since a Christian group has a prior

claim on it. He estimates organised Nazism in Britain at some 15,000

strong, including the NF, the result of an earlier split, the British

National Party, skinhead groups such as Blood and Honour, and other

sects.

But he claims the Third Way membership is minuscule, partly as a

result of the success of Searchlight

in revealing Fiore as an informer for

MI6 and Harrington for the Special Branch, which has discredited the

pair. Robson said: ''If Fiore was a left-winger, or Irish republican, or

Asian his feet wouldn't touch the ground, but because he is a fascist

who is working for British Intelligence they turn a blind eye. What MI6

did was tell them to infiltrate every group they had an interest in --

ecology groups, animal rights groups, black organisations, Welsh groups,

even groups with links in Libya and Iran.

''Some of these are perfectly legitimate organisations for the

intelligence services to be interested in, but what we say is why use

Nazis to do your work for you? But they've had very little joy. They've

been bumped out of Wales, quite roughly too by all accounts, and made

little headway in Scotland because they just don't have the

membership.''

He added the warning: ''They may be totally discredited, but that

doesn't mean they can't do damage. They can induce paranoia among target

organisations, who end up spending 99% of their time looking for

infiltrators and holding witch-hunts.''