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National Action Conference 2016 Notes

There is a significant problem for Britain and the European Union in the coming years, as issues such as mass migration, economic instability and terrorism lead to a polarisation of politics with extremists from both the left and right becoming more prominent. In a series of posts we will focus on some of these groups, with the first being a National Socialist youth organisation in Britain called National Action.
The following notes are taken from extracts of the National Action 2016 Conference which was held in Liverpool. National Action is a National Socialist youth organisation who want a free white Britain. The group have come to prominence in recent months, by conducting propaganda stunts which included holding a banner in Newcastle which stated, âHitler was rightâ and two demonstrations in Liverpool which resulted in significant violence. Although the group is small with approximately a hundred members, they have a strategy for growth which aims to use the issues of refugees, mass migration and terrorism in Europe to bolster their numbers. Their spokesperson, Benjamin Raymond states that the group aims to distinguish itself from traditional white nationalist groups by creating a new university educated far right. While he admits that the vision he holds for Britain is currently fantasy, he hopes they can build an organisation which could become a political movement.
Executive Summary
Alex Davies, one of the leaders of the group discussed applying the sales approach in order to engage with the public. The groupâs current drive is to increase membership so they can go from having a regional presence in the United Kingdom, to a local presence. He stated that the group have regional organisers in every region, except the Southeast of England. He stated that the group should ignore leafleting because it is ineffective and should instead go out and speak to the general public, using push button issues like mass migration and Islamic terrorism. Davies stated a conversation should begin by bringing up an issue and then eventually leading to National Action being the solution, with the aim of establishing rapport and getting the person to join the group.
Benjamin Raymond, spokesperson and another leader of the group discussed public relations. He stated that their enemy is in power and have systems in place to counter groups like National Action. Because of this, he stated the group has to defy convention, using propaganda stunts to bait the media and ensure that they continue to be present in the news, by creating stories that the media could not help but print. The group is attempting to appeal to many similar nationalist youth organisations in an attempt to bring them under the National Action banner. Raymond praises Donald Trumpâs political aptitude and states that the man on the street respects someone who has guts and wants someone like that to be their leader. He states that nationalists who attempt to be the good guy will never gain power. He then talks about defeating the left and how they have been divided in their ideas of how to combat National Action. The left he argues is collapsing with the social justice warrior phenomenon, and they should attempt to foment division within the left wherever possible. He also states that he feels there has been a change in how the state deals with the left and that there is an attempt to reign the left in.
The final unknown speaker talked about attracting young nationalists to National Action and how they plan on doing that. The group plan to make their marches look more professional, wearing the same clothing, carrying the same flags, but also using provocative banners and a âfiery speakerâ to âset the crowd alightâ. This is so important the group are going to begin training their members in public speaking. In addition, National Action aim on increasing their regional social media presence, ultimately so they reach the numbers whereby they can hold demonstrations wherever they want, to appeal to the receptive minority of British society. He then speaks about discrediting an ideology and the left, by attacking the contradiction and creating cognitive dissonance. By attempting to show qualities of intelligence, honour, loyalty etc, they aim to attract similar people to their organisation with the goal of pulling the entire window of acceptable opinion across to the most radical extreme part of the right.

Unknown speaker (Mixed Martial Arts coach) â Can I fight? A discussion on Martial Arts in the 21st Century.
This speaker discussed different styles of Martial Arts, the mindset and how it can help National Action members and their goals as nationalists.

Alex Davies (Leader of National Action) â Applying the sales approach to engage with the public.
Regional organisers in every region except southeast.Leafleting is not the way forward, they need to go out and engage with the public.Need to change from regional to local presence.Membership appears to be at a constant but not increasing significantly.In a recent event in Bath, stated some people were receptive to their message and if that is the case in Bath, in somewhere like Rotherham it should be amplified.Their conversation starter with the general public in Bath was, âI am Alex from National Action. We are talking to people today about your concerns. We are talking about the refugee crisis, what do you think about that?â This was because they had no specific local issues to talk about. Davies gives the example in Leeds of a refugee centre that is being built which they can talk about.Key talking points should include introducing the problem. The examples he gives are the refugee crisis, immigration centre, Muslim rape gangs. The next part of their delivery he states should be a solution, which is National Action. âWe take the fight to themâ. The key point he wants them to get across is that it is not a political solution, 10 years away but direct action and that is the âunique selling pointâ of the group. Then they attempt to recruit the person once they have found someone who has the same ideas and fears.Part of the issue the group faces is that people may support them, but are afraid to be active in case they lose their jobs.Davies states ultimately they are selling the dream of a free white Britain.Targeting: people under age of 40.Should canvas in groups of 4 or 5, which is a social proof because other people are involved not just loners.

Benjamin Raymond (Spokesperson) â We are the bad guys. The National Action public relations strategy.

Raymond is the person who makes the videos.Public relations is a tool, if it is not being done with a purpose then it is pointless. Everything NA does has a purpose.He states that the enemy is in power, they have been doing PR for years and entire systems have been put in place to counter groups like NA. They know our arguments, our weaknesses, our inconsistencies, how to intimidate us and how to develop a media narrative that best counters us. This is why we have to oppose convention and why the rules that apply to other groups cant apply to us. Right wing groups set themselves up and create their image on how they see themselves eventually. This is not taking a realistic stock of the situation.Raymond gives the example of PEGIDA and how when they hold demonstrations they hold them in car parks outside of the towns or cities, because they are attempting to maintain their family friendly image. He states that problem should be staring them in the face that left wing violence prevents them from demonstrating in town centres and therefore no one hears them in the car parks away from the general population.Raymond states we live in a post collapse era.He states before nationalism, fascists would rent out halls and if they went out to leaflet they would have their heads kicked in, which is why the blackshirts and the brownshirts needed to be formed. This is why we should count our blessings because we can clear our whole politics around a larger plan. So we are a national socialist youth organisation and we didnât decide to do that one day, we did it as a response to conditions that surround us, because politics is made impossible both by the system and circumstance.The group is attempting to appeal to many similar youth organisations in an attempt to bring them under the NA banner.The group started a campaign of baiting the media, because they were being ignored by the media. They therefore had to create stories that the media could not help but print and that he states plays right into NAâs hands. He states the group has been so successful that they have been stonewalled. They therefore have to ramp up how radical they are with the example being the Newcastle protest with the banner stating, âHITLER WAS RIGHTâ. NA therefore have to be more innovative in their stunts.Raymond praises Trump and states that the man on the street respects guts who wants someone to be his leader. He states that nationalists who attempt to be the good guy will never gain power.The modus operandi of the opposition is divide and conquer, organisations like Hope Not Hate. The group run something called the Insiderâs Blog whose sole purpose is to sew disunity among the right. They try to divide us because they fear unity, a single strategy, a united front that can punch through.How do we crush the left? They are held together by the same thing. A common narrative and a unity model. Their modus operandi is always punch to the right. However, by National Action existing we are causing cracks amongst the left. The anti-fascist media intelligence network from two years ago has been broken up because they disagree with how to deal with us. Bringing people into a more partisan rivalry is good because the left lack any flexibility. The left is collapsing with the whole social justice warrior thing, like atheism and atheism plus or the whole feminism thing. It is about seizing on different types of discontent. An example of this is the militant anti-fascists, Anti-Fascist Action, for the first time since Liverpool they have attacked Hope Not Hate and that was over the dividing of the spoils. They wanted to take credit for what happened on the day and now they attack them more and more because they awkward about being part of the system. We call them out on this by saying you do whatever the politicians want them to do and that drives them mad. Everything National Action should do should be about pissing off Communists, because when you are angry you make mistakes. Another way we can make them mad is by outreach. We donât always have to be belligerent arse holes, we have to be flexible. Our pretext is that we have been forced into this situation by our enemy, by their unwillingness to sit down and talk. This should work on a tit for tat basis. Every time we get approached by some hipster journo and we do something with them, that is going to piss off the Communists because it breaks their unity model. Every time we successfully engage with the media, we are breaking that embargo. Finally, the main problem we face is institutional left wing violence. There are a large number of people who feel they have the right to attack nationalists. When Nick Griffin was elected the European Parliament and was attacked with by 100 reds, it was celebrated in the media. So, we need to be belligerent, we need to defend ourselves and our rights and what I suggest is…..[this part of what Raymond says was bleeped out for 2 seconds] the anti-fascists put out a film quite recently and it gave us an idea of their numbers. I think militant anti-fascists numbers are inflated and that is because their areas are safe spaces. Skin Heads back in the early 90s used to be an enormous movement but what happened was the alternative scene came along and you had militant anti-fascism and when they were attacked a lot of normal guys who were part of the scene didnât want to be part of it anymore because the didnât want to be attacked for wearing boots and braces and left the hard core and that is what we need to be doing with them. If we are putting up a resistance, the police and authorities I have noticed a huge change in the intelligence community, they are following up anti-fascist planned violence against us and they are hitting them for the first time because we are presenting an actual form of resistance to it and they know that these little rats need to be pulled back in.

Basic responses to questions we get:

About the masks: When we first started as a student movement and we wore suits and ties we ended up on all these websites and at the South Africa demonstration Prevent got the pictures and through the records and hunted someone down in the West Country and that person is no longer involved. With masks we guarantee anonymity.Threat of right wing terrorism is the same as Islamic terrorism: There has been no right wing terrorism in the UK since the 90s with the Copeland Bomber. There has never been organised right wing terrorism in the UK. IN regard to National Action all we are doing is self-help. We should be getting government funding. When Prevent approach a Muslim they say, ok listen you have the wrong interpretation of Islam, it is not about violence, you should get involved with these Muslim sport groups, Muslim aid groups and disavow violence and that is the service National Action provide. When they approach kids with right wing views they say get out of politics, shut your mouth, not that you should embrace a less violent form of white nationalism. That is why we came up with the white jihad thing which shows how badly done to our own people are.

Unknown speaker â Going into 2016. Extracts from a strategy session.
Do we think that 5% of the young racial nationalists in this country are members of National Action? Or 10%? We are not tapping into enough of those young people, so why is this? I think young people have become disenfranchised with nationalist organisations. They have come to see them as unprofessional and unsophisticated and at the same time highly ineffective. So the key I think is we show them a completely different and radical nationalist organisation. Both in terms of professionalism and efficacy. The most obvious and visible form of this is our demonstrations. We need to get rid of the random flag effect. Lots of nationalists just bring out random flags like Combat 18 flags for example and the effect is it looks awful. We need to have just one flag or two flags coordinated in a way that shows that they are meant to go together. Whenever we have numbers we should try and use flagpoles with our flags and only in small numbers does it work holding the flags. We will dress all in black, no exceptions. We need to make a real visual impact on people. We will use our own bandanas which we are in the process of designing. We will use pyrotechnics, flares with our provocative banner. In front of that we will use a fiery speaker, a real orator, someone who can set the crowd alight with their words and with that we are going to set up our own internal school for the development of public speakers. This will take place around the country, because what we are looking at doing in each NA region is setting up our own …..[this part was bleeped out for 2 seconds] then once our numbers and the physical training is sufficient, we can take our demos wherever we want, whenever we want. The left like to say no platform for the right, but we will make our own platform and defend it with violence, so we can speak to the people directly wherever they are. Not so we can target the masses, but the receptive minority within that mass. Each region needs two forms of social media, a Twitter account and a WordPress blog, so people know there are local people active in their areas. We need to split our activists up into cells, with each cell taking care to spread propaganda in their area. If we come up with a good propaganda idea we can then enact that idea across a hundred towns for example. What we are fighting is a war of ideas a mental war. We are trying to convince people that the ideology of national socialism is the correct ideology while discrediting all rival ideologies.How to discredit an ideology? Attack the contradiction. Show people there is a contradiction in one belief they hold and another belief, or a belief and some information about the world which is irrefutable. This is because it creates a behaviour call cognitive dissonance, it is the unpleasant mental state we experience when we realise that two things we believe about the world are in contradiction with one another and it motivates people to alter their beliefs to change their beliefs. An example of this is nationalists stating that liberals only want diversity for white nations. Liberals responded by putting out a load of articles stating that Japan needs mass immigration. They didnât really care it was just to justify their demand for diversity in white countries, so they altered the wrong belief in that sense, which is why it is much stronger to attack a belief with someoneâs behaviour or some feature of the world that they canât refute. The best example is the Soviet Union and the collapse of Communism. The Communism was predicated on the idea that it would make the workers more free and give them greater material prosperity, but over decades the opposite was true and no one can deny that anymore and that slowly but surely undermined Communism. People are rarely won over by rational argument, they use rational argument to consolidate the position once they have already been led to it. The real question is how can we use non rational factors to win people over. Basically the principle there that I call like attract like, which can be broken down into two principles. The first is qualities attract qualities and the other is quality attracts quality. The latter is quite obvious, high quality people attract other high quality people and low quality people attract other low quality people. That if you think about it explains the state of the EDL. Qualities attract qualities, if you appear to be intelligent you attract other intelligent people. If you appear to be bold and fearless, bold and fearless people are attracted to you. If you are honourable and loyal, then honourable and loyal people will be attracted to you. So if we show those qualities through our propaganda, we will attract those same people to our side.What we are trying to do is pull the entire window of acceptable opinions all the way over to the most radical extreme part of the right, by showing people of quality who will attract other people. Whereas what moderate nationalists have a tendency to do is jumping inside the window of acceptable opinions and represent that with people who are repulsive and all they do thereby is shift the whole thing further to the left as people try to get away from being associated with even the most tepid patriotism as it is associated with people who are grossly overweight, low IQ, poorly educated.
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