British Neo-Nazis shared details of ‘phantom’ anti-immigrant protest in Derry on Russian social media channel
Social media channels linked to British neo-Nazis have been actively sharing details of ‘phantom’ anti-immigrant protests in Derry.
A new analysis of cross-border anti-migrant mobilisation by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue examined links between loyalists, neo-Nazis and the small but noisy nationalist far-right in Ireland.
Zoe Manzi, a hate and extremism analyst at ISD, writes that at the height of the recent race riots in Co. Antrim a social media post about a purported anti-immigrant demonstration in Derry was shared by neo-Nazis on Russian social media.
The post was widely shared in the online sphere but had little relation to reality. This was not for a want of effort by the far right in Britain.
"VK (a Russian social media platform similar to Facebook) channels linked to the Yorkshire-based British National Socialist Movement (BNSM) actively promoted a far-right protest planned for Londonderry on June 14,” writes Ms. Manzi.
The BNSM, is an offshoot of the British Movement, a self-professed neo-Nazi organisation founded by Colin Jordan in 1968.
Ms. Manzi notes how anti-immigrant protests – real or imagined – in Ireland are being amplified online throughout the Anglosphere.
"From across the Atlantic, US-based far-right influencers also used Ballymena to validate their own narratives of ‘Western civilisation under attack’, casting Ireland as a symbolic frontline of White identity and Christian heritage,” she notes.
This week the placement of an effigy of a refugees in a boat atop a loyalist bonfire in Moygashel above a banner stating 'veterans before refugees' has been shared widely on far-right platforms.