Neil Mackay: White supremacy is a white disease

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I’ve spent 25 years interviewing neo-Nazis across the west to try and understand what makes them tick. They genuinely believe that the white race is being destroyed by Western governments – and these governments are, of course, in their minds, controlled by Jews.

This may sound crazy to the average Scottish voter – and intellectually it is crazy – but there are many people across the West who hold these views, and they’re becoming more visible, more powerful, and even shifting from the extremist fringes. They’ve been abetted by Twitter and Facebook; the normalisation of hate in the mainstream media – with the use of people such as Katie Hopkins, who once suggested using gunboats against migrants, as commentators; and the normalisation of extremism in politics through the likes of Ukip and Donald Trump. The President recently hinted his supporters could turn violent.

White terror poses as great a threat as Islamist terror. Young white people from all backgrounds – though mostly working class and poorly educated – are being radicalised in every city in the west.

White supremacists I’ve known glorify killing, loath democracy, and would use violence to achieve their ends. There’s little that separates them from Islamist extremists. They’re often life’s losers, they hate and they want to destroy. Many long for race war. If yesterday’s shootings in Utrecht were indeed the work of an Islamist gunman we need to begin to fear the rise of tit-for-tat murders.

In the wake of the New Zealand attack, a rash of hate crimes broke out across Britain. A stabbing in Surrey is being treated as a terrorist incident. A man and a woman have been charged over an incident in Rochdale after a taxi driver was abused with threats referencing New Zealand. A woman and man were arrested over online comments about the attack. Police in London are hunting three men who made anti-Muslim remarks and then attacked another man with a blunt object. Swastikas were daubed on walls in Oxford along with references to the Youtuber PewDiePie, who was name-checked by the Christchurch gunman.

The Muslim Council of Britain says there is a "palpable sense of fear" among the community, and has called for better security at mosques. Security funding has already been increased for synagogues and Jewish schools due to the rise in anti-Semitic attacks.

Dame Louise Casey, the UK government’s former integration tsar, and Sir Mark Rowley, former police national lead on counter-terrorism, jointly spoke out describing "divisive rhetoric" and "a climate of hate" that is feeding extremism. The atmosphere in the UK is "febrile". People feel "left behind" and not part of liberal Britain. They are "highly susceptible to extremist narratives".

"We have alienated, angry, white working-class communities who feel that they have little stake in society or the economy. And we have highly segregated British Muslims stuck in low-paid jobs and feeling under attack," they said.

The UK security minister, Ben Wallace, says that mass shootings of Muslims by a far right terrorist "absolutely could happen here". Crimes inspired by white supremacism have already happened here, however, as we saw with the murder of Jo Cox MP.

British security services place the threat of the far right on a par with Islamist and Irish terror. In Scotland, more far right extremists have been flagged to the Prevent programme – which is meant to spot people becoming radicalised – than Islamists.

Britain has already outlawed one neo-Nazi organisation, National Action. A member was jailed for the attempted murder of a Sikh dentist with a hammer and machete, and the organisation has called for "white jihad".

In the years which I have studied the far right, I’ve come to one firm conclusion: fascism flourishes in a vacuum. In the 1990s and 2000s, the West failed collectively to address concerns within primarily white working class areas over immigration and multiculturalism. In Britain, any attempt to hold a conversation was immediately silenced with claims of racism. Many people felt voiceless and the far right moved in offering a voice.

We need to address concerns, even if we find them ugly. That doesn’t mean giving white supremacists a neutral stage to propagandise hate, but it does mean listening to people who might be vulnerable to their message, and it also means scrutinising, dismantling, and defeating the far right message of division.

Our silence means former England Defence League leader Tommy Robinson can now stage 4000-strong rallies.

Nazi organisations in the UK, like the new Sonnenkreig Division, are getting louder each day. It wants execution for "race mixing", and published images of a bloodied Prince Harry with a gun to his head and the words "see ya later, race traitor". Sonnenkreig also calls for the rape of police officers, and glorifies Anders Brevik, the Norwegian neo-Nazi mass murderer.

Anti-radicalisation programmes need to be expanded in schools, communities and colleges – and the message needs put out repeatedly that extremism is colour-blind. If every Muslim has been told to watch for extremists, then every white person should be told the same. White supremacy is a white disease, and white people need to be vigilant against it growing among their friends, family and colleagues. Hand the job of tackling the far right to the security services. Extremist organisations need to be infiltrated – just like Islamist groups believed to be preparing acts of terror. Arrest members and proscribe far right organisations, like Sonnenkreig Division, once they advocate any form of criminal behaviour.

Honest debate, defending decency, a society built for everyone, and intolerance of the intolerable – these are the values that will protect the liberal West. Without those values, hatred, division and violence beckon.