1920s One of the earliest examples of fascism in the UK can be found as early as 1923 with the formation of
British Fascisti by
Rotha Lintorn-Orman.
1930s to 1960s British Union of Fascists The British far right rose out of the
fascist movement. In 1932,
Oswald Mosley founded the
British Union of Fascists, which was banned during
World War II. Following the ban, Mosley founded the
Union Movement. It was following this that far-right groups became more prevalent. Mosley argued that fascism was the only possible way in which we were able to save Britain from socio-economic ruin and a communist takeover. During the 1950s and 60s, the landscape of ERW groups continued to evolve with the emergence of organisations such as the
League of Empire Loyalists (LEL) and the
National Front (NF). The rise of ERW ideologies during this period can be attributed, in part, to the dismantling of the British Empire, due to a sense of national decline. Furthermore, this group held the belief that Jews were behind the dismantling of the British empire. Its more extreme elements wanted to make the group more political, which led to a number of splinter groups forming, including the
White Defence League and the
National Labour Party. These both stood in local elections in 1958, and merged in 1960 to form the
British National Party (BNP). With the decline of the
British Empire becoming inevitable, British far-right parties turned their attention to internal matters. The 1950s had seen an increase in immigration to the UK from its former colonies, particularly
India,
Pakistan, the
Caribbean and
Uganda. Led by
John Bean and
Andrew Fountaine, the BNP opposed the admittance of these people to the UK. A number of its rallies, such as one in 1962 in
Trafalgar Square, London, ended in
race riots. After a few early successes, the party got into difficulties and was destroyed by internal arguments. In 1967 it joined forces with
John Tyndall and the remnants of Chesterton's League of Empire Loyalists to form the
National Front (NF).
1970s to 1990s National Front Britain's largest far right party post-war was the National Front. The NF popularity was boosted by the
Rivers of Blood speech given by
Enoch Powell in 1968. The NF opposed the mass-migration of non-white migrants throughout the 1970s and was able to boost its popularity through the opposition to the immigration rules introduced by
Edward Heath, leader of the
Conservative and Unionist Party and prime minister, which saw a boost to their membership, to an estimated 17,500 by 1972. Throughout the 1970s, the NF saw a rise in popularity and influence, mainly at a local level; for example, in the
1973 West Bromwich by-election the NF won 16 per cent. They finished third in three
by-elections, although these results were atypical of the country as a whole. The party supported extreme
loyalism in
Northern Ireland, and attracted Conservative Party members who had become disillusioned after
Harold Macmillan had recognised the right to independence of the
African colonies, and had criticised
Apartheid in South Africa. During the 1970s, the NF's rallies became a regular feature of British politics. Election results remained strong in a few
working class urban areas, with a number of local council seats won, but the party never came anywhere near winning representation in parliament. Throughout its active years, the NF were involved in several violent incidences, notably the 1974
Red Lion Square disorders, over the amnesty of illegal immigrants and the 1977 '
Battle of Lewisham', which aimed to intimidate local minority residents. However, by the late 90s, its popularity began to decline following the emergence of the
British National Party (BNP), receiving just 2,716 votes in the 1997 General Election. The smaller far right groups maintained anti-immigration policies, but there was a move towards a more inclusionist vision of the UK, and a focus on opposing what became the
European Union. The NF began to support non-white radicals such as
Louis Farrakhan. This led to the splintering of the various groups, with radical
political soldiers such as a young
Nick Griffin forming the
Third Way group, and traditionalists creating the
Flag Group.
British National Party John Tyndall formed the
New National Front in 1980, and changed its name to the
British National Party (BNP) in 1982. They, alongside the Conservative Monday Club, campaigned against the increasing integration of the UK into the
European Union. However, with Thatcher in her prime and Tyndall's reputation of a 'brutal, street fighting background' and his admiration for
Hitler and the
Nazis prevented the party from gaining any respectability. The BNP have had a number of local councillors in some inner-city areas of
East London, and towns in
Yorkshire and
Lancashire, such as
Burnley and
Keighley. East London has been the bedrock of far-right support in the UK since the 1930s, whereas BNP success in the
north of England was a newer phenomenon. The only other part of the country to provide any significant level of support for such views is the
West Midlands. There was some success in 1993, BNP scored its first electoral success when
Derek Beackon won a
council vote seat on the Isle of Dogs with 34 per cent vote. It promoted ethnic nationalism and believed that "being British is more than merely a passport," as such, it is noted by some, such as
Matthew Goodwin, that this is what separates the BNP from other parties in British politics. However, throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century the BNP were able to established itself as an alternative for working-class voters who were angry at the "political establishment" for its ignorance towards their concerns over immigration, which allowed the BNP to have representation at a local council level throughout the mid-2000s. A damaging
BBC documentary led to Griffin being charged with
incitement to racial hatred (although he was acquitted). The
2006 local elections brought the BNP the most successful results of any far right party in British history. They gained 33 council seats, the second highest gain of any party at the elections; in
Barking and Dagenham, they gained 12 councillor seats. Further success led to the party gaining local councillors in the
2002,
2003,
2004,
2006,
2007 and
2008 Local Elections. In the
2008 local elections, the party won a record 100 councillor seats, and a seat on the Greater London Assembly, which would prove the party's high water mark. At the
June 2009 European Parliament Election, the BNP gained two Members of the European Parliament for
Yorkshire and the Humber and
North West England. In October 2009, BNP leader Nick Griffin was allowed on the BBC topical debate show
Question Time. His appearance caused much
controversy and the show was watched by over 8 million people.
2010s The 2010s saw the rise of the English Defence League (EDL), National Action (NA) and Britain First (BF). At the beginning of this decade, it was determined that domestic terrorism, such as ERW terrorism, was not a threat to the UK. Throughout the 2010s, there was a continuing trend of the far-right being more intimidating towards minority groups. At the
2010 general election, the BNP fielded 338 candidates across England, Scotland and Wales and won 563,743 votes (1.9% of total) but no seats.
Nick Griffin subsequently said he would resign as BNP leader in 2013, and was eventually expelled from the party in 2014 as the BNP fell into obscurity. The National Front fielded 17 candidates at the 2010 Election and received 10,784 votes. The NF has not put forward a single candidate in any election since the
2015 United Kingdom general election. The BNP has been essentially inactive since 2019, and has not put forward a single candidate in any elections since 2019.
English Defence League organised by the EDL in Newcastle, England, in 2010 The anti-Islamist group, the
English Defence League, oversaw early "rapid and unprecedented" growth, Its ideology was driven by opposition to Islam, which it deemed a "threat" to "our way of life, our customs, and our rule of law." This opposition led the EDL to organise demonstrations in towns and cities across
England, the largest of which occurred in Luton in February 2011. By 2023 and 2024, news publications and
Hope not Hate considered the EDL defunct as an organisation.
UK Independence Party Soon after, the
UK Independence Party (UKIP) started to gain popularity. Although labelled as far-right by some political observers, UKIP was not universally considered so. UKIP and the EDL benefited over this period from a rightward shift in the electorate, while former far-right parties such as the BNP and National Front declined and became fringe groups. By 2024, The
British National Party (BNP) blamed UKIP for its decline, accusing the latter of stealing BNP policies and slogans. UKIP leader
Nigel Farage claimed that his party absorbed much of the BNP's former voters during their electoral peak in the early 2010s. UKIP's vote and support peaked at the
2015 United Kingdom general election with 3,881,099 votes or 12.6% of the vote. UKIP has seen its support decrease at every election since, getting 593,852 or 1.8% in
2017, 22,817 or 0.1% in
2019, and 6,530 or 0.01% in
2024. From 2018 to 2019, under the leadership of
Gerard Batten,
UKIP was widely described as moving into
far-right territory, at which point many longstanding members – including former leaders
Nigel Farage and
Paul Nuttall – left. As the new permanent leader, Batten focused the party more on opposing Islam and sought closer relations with the far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, otherwise known as
Tommy Robinson, and his followers. Batten would leave the leadership of UKIP in 2019.
English Democrats In 2010,
Robin Tilbrook, the chairman of the
English nationalist party the
English Democrats, met with Sergey Yerzunov, a member of the executive committee of the Russian nationalist group
Russky Obraz. Shortly afterwards, Obraz announced that they were in alliance with the English Democrats. Other members of this alliance include Serbian
Obraz,
1389 Movement,
Golden Dawn,
Danes' Party,
Slovenska Pospolitost,
Workers' Party and
Noua Dreaptă. Since 2010, a number of former members of the BNP have joined the English Democrats, with the party chairman quoted as saying, "They will help us become an electorally credible party." In an April 2013 interview, Tilbrook said that about 200–300 out of the party's membership of 3,000 were former BNP members. He said it was "perfectly fair" that such people would "change their minds" and join a "moderate, sensible English nationalist party".
Britain First In 2011, the far-right, anti-Islam, and fascist party
Britain First shared views similar to that of the EDL. and campaigns primarily against
immigration,
multiculturalism and what it sees as the
Islamisation of the United Kingdom, and aims to protect with the intention of "protecting British and Christian morality." and has been noted for its
online activism. Its leader
Paul Golding stood as a candidate in the
2016 London mayoral election, receiving 31,372 or 1.2% of the vote, coming eighth of twelve candidates. Golding was jailed for eight weeks in December 2016 for breaking a court order banning him from entering mosques or encouraging others to do so. In 2018, Golding was convicted and imprisoned again, this time for harassment. Nick Scanlon was the Britain First candidate in the
2024 London mayoral election. He received 20,519 or 0.8% of the vote, coming twelfth of thirteen candidates, and notably received less votes than the satire candidate
Count Binface.
British Democratic Party In February 2013, the
British Democratic Party (BDP) was launched by former
Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and
National Front chairman
Andrew Brons, who had resigned from the BNP in October 2012 after narrowly failing in his campaign to unseat
Nick Griffin as BNP leader in
2011. Brons remains the BDP's inaugural president, and the chairman is James Lewthwaite. The BDP has attracted former members of the
British National Party (BNP), Democratic Nationalists, Freedom Party,
UK Independence Party (UKIP), And in 2022 the BDP experienced a sharp increase in membership, with several nationalist local councillors and prominent far-right activists like
Brian Parker and
Derek Beackon joining the party. It is currently the only far-right British political party to have any elected representation, with 3 local councillors.
National Action , with the use of a
Nazi salute Founded in 2013 by Christopher Lythgoe,
National Action is a terrorist organisation and the first extreme right-wing group to be banned by the UK government since
World War II. National Action is described as a Neo-Nazi organisation that stirs up "hatred, glorifies violence and promotes vile ideology." It focused mainly on attracting young people through targeted propaganda. with by the end of the year the group being proscribed as a terrorist organisation under the
Terrorism Act 2000. The group became first far-right organisation to be proscribed in the UK since the
Second World War. In the years that followed, many figures were linked to the group and arrested on suspicion of plots to commit extremist acts, such as plotting to kill
Rosie Cooper, in a bid to "replicate" the
murder of Jo Cox, and the possession of terrorist manifestos.
For Britain Movement In October 2017, former
UKIP leadership candidate and
anti-Islam activist
Anne Marie Waters launched the
For Britain Movement. Unlike most far-right parties that came before them, For Britain were
zionist, opposed to
antisemitism, and held more moderate views on social issues like
LGBT rights. Former
English Defence League leader
Tommy Robinson and singer-songwriter
Morrissey announced their support for the party, and fellow far-right and
counter-jihad political party
Liberty GB merged with For Britain. The party received support from several former members of the BNP,
Generation Identity, and National Action. For Britain had some limited success in local council elections, but failed to make any significant breakthroughs in the parliamentary by-elections they contested. In July 2022, Waters announced on the party's website that the party was ceasing all operations with immediate effect, with their elected councillors subsequently joining the
British Democrats. In April 2023, it was announced that she was rejoining UKIP as the "Justice spokes[person]".
Reform UK Nigel Farage, who had departed from UKIP in early December 2018, launched the Brexit Party in April 2019. Farage stated that there was "no difference between the Brexit party and UKIP in terms of policy, [but] in terms of personnel, there's a vast difference", criticising UKIP's connections to the far right. After announcing that the party would change its name to the "Reform Party" in 2019, the party officially changed it's name in January 2021. Farage then stepped down as leader the following March, being replaced by the party chairman,
Richard Tice, before Farage replaced Tice as leader again in June 2024. Since 2025,
Reform UK has been described by political scientists as
radical right, as a subset of far-right politics, and the party has been categorised as far-right in various peer-reviewed academic journals. Reform UK rejects the descriptor of far-right, and has threatened legal action against media using it. After winning 14% of the vote and winning five seats in the
2024 UK general election, political scientist
Tim Bale described Reform UK party leader Farage as the "British representative of the populist radical right in Europe". According to Bale in 2025: "most political scientists" would say that Reform is a far-right party, "if you accept that as the umbrella term and then say they're populist radical right". In the
Parliamentary Affairs journal, Bennie & Widfeldt categorised Reform UK as far-right by fitting "into a broader European family of radical right parties working within democratic structures". In the
Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Shuttleworth, Brown & Mondon stated that the categorisation of Reform UK as far-right had been regularly left out from academic and public discourse, despite its "clear credentials".
Patriotic Alternative In September 2019, and
antisemitic conspiracy theorist Mark Collett established the far-right group
Patriotic Alternative (PA). The group promotes a
white nationalist ideology; its stance has been variously described as
Islamophobic, fascist and racist. According to Hope not Hate, members of PA have supported
political violence, the
white genocide conspiracy theory, and Holocaust denial. The group opposes
Black Lives Matter, has displayed
White Lives Matter banners around the UK, and campaigned against what they call "white genocide".
The Times reported in October 2021 that Collett had attended combat training with former members of the now-proscribed neo-Nazi terrorist organisation
National Action. In 2023, the newspaper described PA as "Britain's largest far-right
white supremacist movement". According to Hope not Hate, splits, especially the 2023 creation of the
Homeland Party, which has eclipsed it, pushed PA into decline. They party also supported
British Democratic Party in the
2023 local elections, according to
Searchlight. In 2024, a prominent member of the group was reported to have taken part in the
Southport riot, while another member helped to promote the event. The following year, supporters of the group organised and took part in
British anti-immigration protests. , PA has around 500 members,
2020s–present In late 2020, The British Hand was founded by a 15 year old teenager. Since then the group have been at the root of far-right online propaganda, especially on the social media app
Telegram. This led
Hope not Hate to start an undercover investigation into the group and write an article exposing them.
Homeland Party The
Homeland Party was founded as a splinter of
Patriotic Alternative (PA) in April 2023 by the white nationalist
Kenny Smith, and registered as a party in January 2024. The party was formed predominately by Scottish members who had left PA. It is ideologically similar to PA and ideological differences were not a reason for the split. Homeland espouses the
white genocide conspiracy theory and has been described as the largest
fascist group in the UK by
Hope not Hate. Internationally, Homeland is associated with the far-right European parties
Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Polish
Confederation Liberty and Independence. In April 2025
The Telegraph described the party as "
nationalist and
anti-immigration", highlighting one of its policies of "the re-migration, or encouraged mass emigration, of unintegrated and
illegal migrants."
2024 riots In July and August 2024, right-wing to far-right riots occurred in England and Northern Ireland, after
a mass stabbing in
Southport on 29 July. The first riot started in Southport and later many protests and riots spread across the country. The riots involved
racist attacks,
arson and
looting, and were the worst disorder in the
United Kingdom since the
2011 England riots. The riots were fuelled by underlying
Islamophobia, racist, anti-immigrant and anti-mass immigration sentiments, and disinformation about the identity of the Southport stabber. Far-right groups spread misinformation online, and the UK government under
Keir Starmer accused
Russia of spreading disinformation to stoke the unrest. The riots had limited formal organisation; instead, rioters assembled around individual far-right social media personalities Groups involved in the riots included supporters of the EDL, including its former leader Tommy Robinson, members of Patriotic Alternative, and Britain First. The riots were also supported by the British Movement and National Front. Rioters clashed with local Muslims and
counter-protesters, who were mobilised by
Stand Up to Racism and other anti-fascist and anti-racist groups.
2025 anti-immigration disorder on 6 September 2025 Since early 2025,
protests against
immigration have taken place in parts of the
United Kingdom. The protests have led to officers being attacked and multiple arrests. Some have been focused around hotels being used by the
government of the United Kingdom to provide accommodation for
asylum seekers, while others are against immigration more broadly. Many were organised or attended by
far-right groups including
Britain First,
UKIP,
Homeland Party, and
Patriotic Alternative, who have also been accused of spreading misinformation online. The wave of far-right anti-immigration protests began in the aftermath of a series starting in
Epping in July, later spreading to other cities. Protests occurred across the country, with disorder in cities including
Bristol,
Glasgow,
Liverpool,
Manchester and
Newcastle; the largest protest came on 13 September when up to 150,000 people took part in a
London march organised by far-right activist
Tommy Robinson, where 26 police officers were injured. On 8 August 2025, UKIP party leader
Nick Tenconi published a video depicting himself in attendance of an
anti-migrant demonstration in
Portsmouth. In this video, he is seen performing a gesture that some, including
Hope not Hate, have compared to a
Nazi salute. Both Tenconi and Turning Point UK denied the accusations. These protests have seen an increase in far-right efforts to use fears of violence against women to lend their views respectability. Multiple experts consulted by
The Independent - including Andrea Simon, director of the
End Violence Against Women Coalition; Lois Shearing, author of
Pink Pilled; and a researcher for
Hope not Hate - said that the far-right was are exploiting fears to make the far-right seem more "palatable", and that this is to appeal to a broader audience and gain more of a foothold in mainstream opinion. According to Simon, "these narratives are promoted by those who exploit genuine public concerns about sexual violence to intentionally fuel racism in our communities."
Restore Britain In June 2025, Rupert Lowe launched
Restore Britain. The party has been described as
far-right to the right of
Reform, as well as part of the
radical right. Lowe has stated indifference to Restore Britain being described as far-right or
racist.
Hope not Hate categorised Restore as "part of a broader re-racialisation of the British far right" with openly
racial politics, while assembling a coalition of figures located "to the right of Reform, all the way through to open
fascists". A month prior, Britain First had agreed to defer to Restore Britain in order to avoid fielding candidates in the same areas.
2025 flag raising "Operation Raise the Colours" is a 2025
political campaign in the
United Kingdom that consists of displaying the
Union Flag and the
Saint George's Cross in public places, as well as the flags of the other
constituent countries of the UK. The campaign began in August 2025, shortly after the beginning of the
2025 British anti-immigration protests, and has particularly aroused controversy around the
Flag of England due to its history of use by anti-immigration
nationalists. It has involved tying flags to
lamp-posts and painting them onto
mini-roundabouts. Supporters of the campaign say that this is with the aim of promoting
patriotism and it is
non-partisan, although it has been supported by several figures and organisations associated with the far-right, including the
fascist political party
Britain First and the
anti-Islam campaigner
Tommy Robinson. Anti-racist organisation Stand Up to Racism expressed its opposition to the campaign and organised counter-protests against Raise the Colours campaigners putting up flags. == Right-wing terrorism ==