Briefly:
Mr Cottrell Goes To Staffordshire
Above (TOP, L to R) : Blair Cottrell, Tom Sewell, Tim Lutze, Jim/eone Roberts at the now-closed neo-Nazi Legacy Boxing Gym in Sunshine West (BOTTOM) : National Socialist Network at Legacy.
As detailed by Red Flare and Searchlight, this weekend witnessed a conference organised by UK-BASED! fascist/neo-Nazi grouplet ‘Patriotic Alternative’ (PA). Taking place at Hanley Memorial Hall in Burton-on-Trent — ‘built in 1962’, the Hall is ‘on the site of the village ‘Hut’, destroyed by the Fauld explosion in 1944’ and ‘commemorates the 78 people, many from the village, who perished in the explosion’ — the choice of location for the Nazi re-enactors was, in one sense, a fitting tribute to the war dead of the smol town in Staffordshire, and starred a glittering array of local and foreign talent, including British neo-Nazi James Owens AKA The Ayatollah, fascist survivalist Simon Birkett, PA leader Mark Collett and deputy leader Laura Melia (AKA Laura Towler), and failed Frankston fuehrer Blair Cottrell. According to Searchlight (Veteran hardline German nazi allowed into the UK for fascist rally, October 19, 2024):
As Searchlight reported yesterday, one guest was Australian nazi and convicted criminal Blair Cottrell. Joining him today, in front of an audience that included veteran British nazis Mark Cotterill and notorious Holocaust revisionist Lady Michèle Renouf, was the Bavarian stormtrooper Sascha Rossmüller, from what used to be the NPD and is now (confusingly for British readers) called Heimat (Homeland).
I was mildly surprised to read about Lady Renouf’s attendance as I’d half assumed she was dead, having last read (and written) about Lady Susan Michèle Mainwairing Renouf Et Cetera 15 years ago in connection to good Nazi and semi-pro Holocaust denialist Fred Töben. Otherwise: both Red Flare and Searchlight make reference to Cottrell’s criminal record, which includes a conviction in September 2017 for ‘serious religious vilification’ (after a batshit publicity stunt in opposition to a mosque project in the Victorian town of Bendigo) and various offences he committed when, as a ‘young scamp’, he embarked upon a minor terror campaign directed at an ex-girlfriend and her then-new partner. Oddly, Kate Kniveton, the former local Tory MP for the seat of Burton and Uttoxeter, was ‘a member of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Domestic Violence and Abuse, and the Midlands Engine’ (Kniveton lost to Labour’s Jacob Collier at this year’s general election).
Incidentally, Angelos Frangopoulos, the media figure responsible for Cottrell ‘controversially’ being subjected to a frenly interview on Murdoch’s right-wing propaganda outlet Sky News Australia in August 2018, is now CEO of the vewy angwy GB News.
Mr Sewell Goes to Corowa
Last weekend, Cottrell’s kamerad Tom Sewell and his nazi gang the ‘National Socialist Network’ (NSN) marched around the town of Corowa in NSW before settling outside its war memorial to squawk about White Australia. The event attracted some startled (and unsympathetic) locals as well as subsequent (and typically gormless) media reportage: so far, so typical.
In any case, while neo-Nazis parading about in pseudo-black bloc drag is hardly novel (see, for example, Sydney in November 2012 and Melbourne in July 2016), what’s remarkable about these media spectacles is their size and frequency. Hence, prior to last weekend’s excursion, the NSN had conducted nazi fashion shoots in Adelaide (September, 2024), Brisbane (August, 2024), Sydney (January, 2024), Ballarat (December 2023) and Melbourne (August and July 2024, and October, September (twice), (*Geelong in July), May and March 2023). Otherwise, they belong to a longer tradition of far-right mobilisations, dating back to 2015, in which a number of the principal figures in the NSN were also leading participants (albeit it took several years for them to step out of their Nazi closets).
Given that their antics are aimed at, first, content creation (for the consumption of both a local and international audience) and, secondly, generating uncritical media attention, I see no good reason why they’d stop.
See also : Neo-Nazis [sic] Mobilisations Are Becoming Normalised on Australian Streets, Paul Gregoire, Sydney Criminal Lawyers, October 17, 2024 /// Why neo-Nazis rallied in a country town, ABC News Daily, October 17, 2024 /// The Source: Lunch could bring Corowa white supremacists unstuck, Herald Sun, October 15, 2024 /// Reverse racism?msicar esreveR, February 21, 2010.
