Some Notes on Liberty GB, Paul Weston and Jack Buckby

From ITV News:

Following the decision by all major political parties to not contest the upcoming by-election for Jo Cox’s seat out of respect for her family, one smaller party has announced that it will.

Jack Buckby, who is part of ‘radical patriotic conservative’ party Liberty GB, took to social media to make the announcement that he was standing for election in Batley and Spen.

Liberty GB (var. LibertyGB) was founded in 2013 by Paul Weston, who formerly headed British Freedom; in 2011 Weston was part of a “counterjihad leadership summit” in London, after which his party made a formal association with the English Defence League. In 2014, Weston spoke at an EDL rally in London, at which he denounced David Cameron as a “traitor”.

In 2012, as I noted at the time, Weston met with allies in the USA, and he spoke at an event in New York co-hosted by Brigitte Gabriel of Act for America and Lawrence Auster. Auster, who died the following year, was a self-described “racialist” with pro-BNP views.

Buckby, as has been widely reported, is himself formerly with the BNP; in 2013, VICE described him as the “Boy Wonder of the Far-Right”, and Macleans followed up with a profile. Buckby describes himself as the founder of a student movement called “National Culturalism”, in association with John Press (or, as he prefers to style himself, “John K. Press, Ph.D”), past president of the Brooklyn Tea Party and now based in South Korea (where he teaches English at Namseoul University, although he prefers to emphasise that he gives a course on his “Culturalist” philosophy).

A recent Tweet from Liberty GB has announced that “1st interview after announcing candidacy for election will be with @Gavin_McInnes today. Turned down UK media. No respect 4 lying UK press.” Buckby and Weston have appeared on the Gavin McInnes Show previously; in 2014, Media Matters described the presenter as a “Hipster Racist”, and gave an overview:

McInnes currrently writes for Taki’s Magazine, a “paleoconservative” website that publishes overtly racist articles including ones by neo-confederates. At Taki’s, McInnes has referred to Asian-Americans as “slopes” and “riceballs,” suggested Muslims are “stupider” and “more violent” due to inbreeding, defended blackface because some minstrel shows were “just mimicking black people” and “fun,” backed the racist comments of Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson, and argued that to yell the n-word at someone is “not racist” but “just very rude.” He also owns his own website, StreetCarnage.com, where he defended Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s racist comments because Bundy was just “wonder[ing]” if African-Americans were better off under slavery. In 2013, 18 Milling Rising gave him a “Lifetime Achievement Award in Hipster Racism,” a brand of racism marked by making “ironically” racist “jokes.”

Buckby and Weston take the view that the Labour Party is to blame for Jo Cox’s death, and on Facebook Liberty GB quotes her pro-immigration views under the heading “Death of a Fool”. Buckby also argues that “The left and LGBT” were responsible for the Orlando shootings, for not being anti-Islam.

When it was announced that the main parties would not contest the Batley and Spen by-election, it seemed like a reasonable (although not unarguable) gesture: there would be little appetite for proper campaigning after the tragedy, and a low-key transition to a new Labour MP would send a signal that the country rejects the idea that an assassin can influence the political process. But it also now means that a far-right candidate will be campaigning against just one mainstream party opponent, with other potential alternative voices reluctant to enter the electoral process for reasons of respect and good taste.

3 Responses

  1. The following accurate report about LibertyGB’s disruption of the Swinton Circle’s July meeting appeared in the August edition of the Springbok Cyber Newsletter :-

    SWINTON CIRCLE NEWS

    As many readers will alas be aware, last month’s planned Swinton Circle meeting unfortunately proved to be a complete disaster. About 18 months ago a young Canadian joined the organization, and being highly impressed with his abilities, friendliness and apparent authentic support for the patriotic ideals of the organization he was “fast-tracked” onto the Committee. A short while ago he recommended that the Swinton Circle should make contact with an organization calling itself “Liberty GB” which he assured the rest of the Committee shared similar patriotic aims and objectives. Not doubting his assurances in this regard the Swinton Circle therefore made contact with this organization, though alas without checking its bona fides, and indeed invited their leader, a certain Paul Weston, to address its July meeting. Alarm bells started to ring when a complete stranger turned up for this meeting and announced that he was a member of a “splitist” political party called “The English Democrats”, which being the English equivalent of the SNP was therefore the complete antithesis to what the Swinton Circle stands for. Worries quickly escalated however, when a steady trickle of strangers – none of whom had been officially invited – starting arriving for this meeting, and when approached one unknown woman stated that she had been “invited” by a known and notorious neo-fascist extremist! In retrospect the meeting probably should have been called off at this stage, but the arrival of the guest speaker only confused and intensified the worrying situation even further. It was by then obvious that this “Liberty GB” outfit had seen fit to circulate “invitations” to a whole batch of extremist contacts without having the common decency to inform the Swinton Circle in advance! Even worse, the leader of this outfit arrived together with a BBC camera-crew who were evidently making a programme about him and what subsequently turned out to be his extremist views – again without having the common decency to inform the Swinton Circle about this action and to ask their permission. Worse was to follow however, for the known and notorious neo-fascist leader did as feared turn up himself, and a couple of other apparently well-known political extremists were also identified by one of the Swinton Circle member present. As the meeting began many authentic Swinton Circle members and supporters started to drift away, some because (as it later transpired) they didn’t like what they saw and heard, and others because they were alarmed at the fact that the meeting was being filmed. Intense discussions then took place between some Committee members, but with the meeting by then in full swing it was difficult to know what to do to remedy the terrible situation. After Weston had finished speaking and the temporary Chairman (the young Canadian) was wrapping up a couple of the uninvited gate-crashers started to disrupt proceedings by shouting out overt pro-Nazi slogans insulting Britain’s war effort during WWII. This was of course too much, and the Organiser of the Swinton Circle told these neo-Nazi scumbags that as they hadn’t been invited they must leave. This alas they totally refused to do, but even more sickeningly the young Canadian, who should of course have fully supported his fellow Committee member, seemed to side with the neo-Nazis and pushed his erstwhile colleague out of the way, thus indicating for the first time that his motivation in joining the Swinton Circle was not all that it seemed. With a heated confrontation by then having erupted there was no alternative other than to summon the management of the venue where the meeting was taking place to eject the uninvited trouble-makers, but alas the manager seemed to adopt a “six of one and half-a-dozen of the other” attitude and washed his hands of the whole situation, stating that the Swinton Circle were barred from ever holding meetings there again! The meeting thus ended in complete chaos, but an even worse spectacle was then witnessed, for the young Canadian was then seen quite brazenly chatting merrily away to one of the neo-Nazi trouble-makers! It then of course became crystal-clear that he had been in league with them right from the start, and that he himself was an extremist infiltrator whose aim was either to wreck or help takeover the Swinton Circle on behalf of the “Liberty GB” outfit, or for a wider neo-fascist grouping.

    The Swinton Circle would therefore like to apologise to all its members and supporters who unfortunately witnessed the appalling scenes at this traumatic July meeting, and to assure everyone that prior to this disastrous meeting the organization had absolutely no idea about the true extremist nature of the so-called “Liberty GB” outfit. The Swinton Circle has now issued an official statement fully disassociating itself from “Liberty GB”, and of course now advises all decent people to be extremely wary of them. Happily it can also be reported that the young Canadian has now resigned from the Swinton Circle, thus confirming even further that he never had the true interests of the organization at heart.

    In view of all the most unfortunate problems experienced at its July meeting the Swinton Circle has decided to suspend all activities until its AGM due to be held in October, when the whole sorry saga will be discussed in full and decisions will be made about how to increase security and prevent any similar infiltrations taking place in future (although the organization will be giving its full support to New Britain’s Gibraltar Day celebrations in September – see New Britain News section). This of course has not been the first occasion when neo-fascist elements have tried to infiltrate and takeover the Swinton Circle. In 2008 there was a similar attempt by a small group of previously barred undesirables, and as a result three members of the organization who were implicated had to be expelled. In 2010 this same group of malcontents attempted to gate-crash a Swinton Circle meeting to be addressed by Philip Hollobone MP in the Houses of Parliament complex, but happily with the assistance of the Police were rebuffed. We do not doubt therefore that the Swinton Circle will also be able to overcome this latest attempt to destroy the organization by enemies of liberty and the British nation (and there are indications that all these sabotage attempts are connected) and will bounce back stronger than ever!

    • This response from the ‘Swinton Circle’ is an advert for Alan Harvey’s “Swinton Circle” AKA the Springbok Club. If Harvey’s Swinton Circle meeting was “a complete disaster” one can’t wait for his description of more recent events.

      It seems somewhat hypocritical of him to talk about “neo-Nazi scumbags” when one considers – as subscriber Thomas Mair would have done – issue 30 of Harvey’s South African Patriot-in-Exile which praises (p4-5) the South African neo-Nazi scumbags the Blanke Bevrydingsbeweging (of which Alan Harvey had been a member) and under a sub-heading entitled “The Paramilitary Option” refers to killer Barend Strydom and when commenting that some readers might “be disturbed by some of the apparently illegal activities which we have been forced to consider” [to apparently ‘save’ South Africa from majority, democratic, rule] advises “there is a law higher than the law of the land”.

      Incredibly, Harvey is still offering the South African Patriot-in-Exile for sale, and the website stresses that “the magazine has been consistent in its editorial stance”.

      Clearly not all of Harvey’s peers believe it has been consistent. Mark Cotterill, in an article refuting the claim that Thomas Mair attended a “racists meeting” in 2000 http://efp.org.uk/will-the-real-thomas-mair-please-stand-up, suggests that “SAPIE was very pro-Zionist and very anti-Nazi” and perhaps it is from where Cotterill stands, particularly after his friendship with Harvey ended in the early 90’s. Cotterill further states http://efp.org.uk/worse-than-a-crime/ that “Harvey was always an eccentric and marginal figure in our movement and no longer has any connection with racial nationalism”. One wonders whether he’ll have any connections after this.

  2. This recent jaundiced response from “Elsa” (who is too cowardly to disclose his or her true identity) cannot pass without several comments :-

    1) The Swinton Circle and the Springbok Club are completely separate organisations, although they do enjoy friendly fraternal links and have several joint members (myself included). The Swinton Circle is a political organisation concerned almost exclusively with internal British affairs, whereas the Springbok Club is a socially-orientated organisation for expat’ Southern Africans.

    2) Although S.A.Patriot-in-Exile supports the Springbok Club editorially, it is an independent publication owned and run by me alone. It has no direct connection whatsoever with the Swinton Circle.

    3) All attempts to link myself personally or any organisation I am associated with to the man arrested and charged with the horrific murder of Jo Cox MP, one Thomas Mair, are beyond contempt. I have never met Mair and only had a brief spell of correspondence with him – merely three letters, the last of which was sent over 19 and a half years ago. To be sure Mair subscribed to S.A.Patriot-in-Exile – but so have hundreds of other people around the globe! Neither I nor anyone else who publishes a periodical can surely be expected to commission a psychological survey on all the subsceibers to their publication.

    4) Issue No.30 of S.A.Patriot-in-Exile was published in 1991 – a quarter of a century ago! – and only just after I’d been forced to return to the UK. A different time; a diffferent place! Tactics and strategy have of course changed radically since then – but my basic ideology of neo-Imperialism and supprt for the Capitalist free market system remains the same!

    5) The BBB – of which I was a proud member – may seem too racist and too Right-wing for many – but it was NOT neo-Nazi! Indeed I believe that the movement had several Jewish members in the Transvaal.

    6) Mark Cotterill – now there’s a ghost from the past! Is he still around? He’s part-Chinese (opinions vary about whether it’s one-quarter or one-eighth – but it is clearly obvious just by looking at him) and as a result he adopted a “more Papist than the Pope” attitude, trying to out-extreme everyone else in patriotic circles just to prove that he should be considered White. He also had a personality disorder which meant that he collected enemies like other people collect postage stamps. He suddenly fell out inexplicably with me around 1993 – but this subsequently turned out to be simply because I had written an article for the late and unlamented Ian Anderson some half-a-dozen years earlier when I was still based in South Africa, and long before I learnt what a complete rogue Anderson was. If Cotterill had explained the position in a civilised rational manner instead of going out of the way to wreck an event in north Devon then undoubtedly the whole situation would have been able to be sorted out very quickly and very amicably.

    7) So Cotterill considers S.A.Patriot-in-Exile to be “very pro-Zionist and very anti-Nazi” – to which I of course plead a catagoric “guilty! (Although of course I would far prefer the term “pro-Israel” rather than “pro-Zionist”).

    8) So the wretched Cotterill considers me “an eccentric and marginal figure”. As a clasic case of the saucepan calling the kettle black this certainly takes some beating. If Cotterill is still active today than he undoubtedly still only runs a two-men-and-a-dog organisation, just as he did in the early 1990s. I on the other hand hold leading positions in TWO vibrant and growing patriotic organisations! And another thing, I am NOT and never have been a “nationalist”; I am a Unionist in the UK context, and an Imperialist in the global context!

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