Eurasia Press & News
Neo-Nazi fight clubs under the name AC have been promoted since 2020 by the American ultra-right activist and RAM founder Robert Rando. Rando, who was arrested in Romania in 2023 at the request of US authorities, was one of several people charged with rioting and conspiracy in connection with violence across the US in 2017
A far-right group with links to a violent white supremacist collective is recruiting young people to support efforts to “revive” what it calls England’s “warrior culture” by posing as a sports club, a BBC investigation has revealed.
The Active Club (AC), which hails World War II Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as a hero, claims it is “peaceful and legal” and focuses on male friendship and fitness.
However, he is associated with the Rise Up movement. (Rise Above Movement, RAM), who played a key role at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.
Extremism expert Aleksandar Ritzman said he was using the “image of a sports club” to create a “paramilitary force” ready for “organized violence”.
Since the creation of the first AC in late 2020, it is estimated that more than 100 clubs have been founded in the USA, Canada and Europe.
This group arrived in the UK in 2023 and has since established branches in Northern Ireland, Scotland and various other regions of England, including the North West, the Midlands, London and East Anglia.
An investigation by BBC North West England revealed that AC groups in the UK have over 6.000 subscribers on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
Telegram has shut down the group’s England page on at least four occasions, but its latest incarnation – launched in mid-August – has nearly 1.600 subscribers.
Neo-Nazi fight clubs under the name AC have been promoted since 2020 by the American ultra-right activist and RAM founder Robert Rando.
Rando, who was arrested in Romania in 2023 at the request of US authorities, was one of several people charged with rioting and conspiracy in connection with violence across the US in 2017.
For Adolf Hitler’s birthday, the group announced that it was “celebrating a hero’s birthday”.
In a 30-minute phone call secretly recorded by the BBC, the national organizer said AC wanted “guys who take things seriously”.
After questioning the reporter about his ethnicity, physical fitness, religious views, boxing or martial arts skills, and driving skills, he claimed that the group, which only recruits men who are “white and of European descent,” has “people literally everywhere, in every region of England”.
“We’re trying to build a mass movement of strong, physically fit, able-bodied guys,” he said.
He added that the group is “peaceful and legal” and wants to avoid prison because its members “cannot protect their families, their friends and their people if they are in prison cells”.
However, messages posted by AC page administrators often contained references to future violent conflict and the need to “restore our nation’s warrior culture.”
One post also called on members to “take to the streets … or risk having their lineage crushed.”
Aleksandar Ritzman, a researcher at the international organization Counter-Extremism Project and an advisor to the Radicalization Awareness Network at the European Commission, said that “he has never seen any network in right-wing extremism spread so quickly.”
He says AC is a “sophisticated operation” and warned that if the movement is “allowed to continue to operate and multiply, the likelihood of targeted political violence will increase.”
He said that its goal is to “create a kind of paramilitary that hides behind the image of a sports club, while actually preparing for organized violence.”
“When the violence starts, members and groups will not subsequently publish a manifesto,” he said.
“This is different from the other kind of extreme right-wing terrorism, where manifestos with all sorts of explanations and theories are published after an attack.”
He says that if AC commits acts of violence, he will do so “covertly” and will not “leave behind information about his true intentions”.
“They may want to present it as a fight in a pub or a fight on a bus or a train … to avoid being exposed,” he says.
In research published in early 2024, the anti-extremism group Hope Not Hate alleged that AC had members who made bomb threats and marched with the now-banned neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action.
For an act to normally be considered terrorist by British authorities, it must meet a number of legal requirements under the Terrorism Act 2000, which include serious violence or damage to property, with the aim of intimidation or for the purpose of advancing political, religious, racial or ideological goals.
Nick Addleworth, a former chief of detectives and co-ordinator of the UK’s national counter-terrorism unit, said the AC’s announcements in the UK were “carefully worded to deliberately avoid conflict with the law and deliberately call for action that requires violence.”
“However, their intentions are openly contradicted by symbols and images that suggest violent acts and links to Nazism,” he said.
He added that their posts are “on the verge of violating the Terrorism Act,” but that they “represent a body of evidence to support future proceedings should there be other material or actions that cross the threshold of an offense.”
Nigel Bromidge, who runs the anti-radicalisation charity Exit Height after more than two decades in neo-Nazi groups, said the rise of AC in the UK was “worrying”.
He said that the organizer who spoke to the BBC was “talking about creating a mass movement, so this is not about small numbers.”
“This is about recruiting a large number of people who will be physically fit, who will follow a bunch of rules and regulations, and who will be disciplined,” he says.
“When they say they are not violent, it’s just a denial to cover themselves.
“Why are they training? Why do they keep themselves in good physical shape? Why do they talk about being serious?
“I think it’s all a hint of their real intentions, which is to prepare for their mythical race war that they believe is going to happen.”
Robert Rand is said to have attended a rally in Charlottesville in 2017 that shocked the US
A spokesman for the Police’s Counter-Terrorism Unit said the scale of the far-right terrorist threat in the UK had “grown steadily over the past two decades”.
He says that “more and more work” for their members has come from “an increasing number of young people who are drawn into this ideology through social networks and online platforms.”
The representative says the unit carefully reviews “information and intelligence regarding individuals and groups promoting extreme views” and if that activity “falls into our area of responsibility … we will respond quickly and without hesitation.”
“There is no doubt that our dependence on digital spaces and networks also leaves deep imprints on how extreme attitudes are formed, how individuals are radicalized and how they can be recruited into extremist groups or organizations,” he says.
The government spokesman said that “in our society there is absolutely no place” for religious and racial hatred.
He says the government is “working to tackle the threat posed by extremist ideologies and is responding to increasing and changing patterns of extremism across the UK”.
AC did not respond to the BBC’s requests for comment.
Telegram has been requested to comment.
