38 Facts About Britain First

Britain First is a far-right, British fascist political party formed in 2011 by former members of the British National Party .

Britain First registered with the Electoral Commission on 10 January 2014; and, in February 2017, it was statutorily deregistered as a political party by the Electoral Commission, after it failed to renew its registration in time.

Britain First was founded by Jim Dowson, who ran a call centre in Dundonald, East Belfast, for the BNP.

Britain First is linked to Ulster loyalist groups in Northern Ireland.

Britain First was launched through the "British Resistance" website in May 2011.

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Britain First announced in 2014 its intention to launch in America, as "America First", but it failed to materialise.

Britain First owes much of its influence to the rise of social media and the hesitation of companies to regulate speech within their platforms.

In November 2015, Britain First claimed that its Facebook page had over a million "likes", more than any other British political party or the British Prime Minister, David Cameron.

In March 2018, Britain First was banned from Facebook, which said it broke community guidelines and was designed to incite racial hatred.

In November 2011, Britain First announced the registration of a political party, the "National People's Party", with Golding named as leader, Edwards as nominating officer and McBride as treasurer.

However, the Electoral Commission register shows Britain First listed itself from November 2011 as a political party, with the same roles for the three officers, and no current or past listing for a National People's Party, so it is not clear whether the National People's Party has a separate existence.

Paul Golding reacted to this by saying that Britain First was, "as far as right-wing organisations go, relatively scandal-free".

Britain First itself denied the Mirror story, calling it "chief communist newspaper and lover of all things anti-British".

In July 2017, it was reported by BBC News that a string of Britain First videos designed to attract a Polish audience had appeared online, including a video from Jacek Miedlar, a Polish far-right former priest, an interview with a Polish media outlet that has over half a million views, and videos by Polish Britain First supporters encouraging others to support the party.

On 23 June 2017, Marek Zakrocki, a 48-year-old Polish-born Britain First supporter, shouted, "White power" and gave a Nazi salute as he used a white van in an attempt to run over Kamal Ahmed, a curry house owner.

Subsequently, Britain First's leader, Paul Golding, announced that he had joined the Conservative Party, hailing Johnson's remarks on the burqa as evidence that Johnson is a "populist nationalist under the surface".

Britain First registered with the Electoral Commission on 10 January 2014.

Britain First stood candidates for the 2014 European elections in Wales and Scotland.

Britain First stood its first parliamentary candidate for the Rochester and Strood by-election on 20 November 2014, nominating its Deputy Leader, Jayda Fransen.

Britain First said it could refuse to carry election mail if it considered the contents threatening or abusive.

In February 2017, Britain First was statutorily deregistered as a political party by the Electoral Commission, after it failed to renew its registration in time.

Britain First fielded three candidates in the local election on 5 May 2022.

In May 2013, following the murder of Lee Rigby, Britain First released a video threatening to place Islamist cleric Anjem Choudary, who was accused of radicalising Rigby's killers, under citizen's arrest if the Metropolitan Police would not arrest him.

In February 2014, Britain First conducted what it called "Christian patrols" in an area of Tower Hamlets, East London, to counter continuing Muslim Patrols which had first come to media attention in 2013.

Around a dozen or so Britain First activists recorded themselves holding a banner proclaiming "We Are The British Resistance" and emptying cans of beer outside a mosque to "bait" Islamic extremists operating in the area.

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In May 2014, members of Britain First invaded ten Bradford mosques, as well as ones in Glasgow, Luton and East London.

In May 2014, Britain First announced that it would be deploying "hundreds of ex-British Forces" alongside "several armoured ex-army Land Rovers" to protect the UKIP leader Nigel Farage after he had been opposed on the street by supporters of Scottish independence.

Later that month Britain First went to that group's meeting in London "to give these traitors their comeuppance".

UKIP rejects associations with Britain First, stating, "On the fringes of our politics are nutters and we don't want them anywhere near us".

In 2015, Britain First offered "solidarity patrols" in areas of London with high Jewish populations, while blaming anti-Semitism on Islam.

The Community Security Trust, an organisation against anti-Semitism, has warned Jews not to become involved with Britain First, and has likened this policy to similar ones by the English Defence League and the BNP, saying that all of these groups were opposing Muslims more than supporting Jews.

Britain First visited the French port of Calais in the middle of 2015, during a period of attempted migration to the United Kingdom via the town.

OpenDemocracy has said that Britain First is not fascist, since it does not oppose democratic politics and does not have a direct connection to older fascist groups, but that they are xenophobes and Islamophobes.

Britain First has attracted derision and condemnation for social media posts.

Britain First received criticism for posing for a photograph with naval cadets in Nottingham, and then adding a caption falsely claiming that their activists were protecting the children.

Britain First boasted of a surge in support after Trump retweeted its videos.

Part of Facebook's community guidelines includes a ban on homophobic and transphobic hate speech, of which Britain First's page was accused of having "lashed out at LGBT equality, attacking [a] reality dating show for featuring a lesbian couple last year and repeatedly lashing out at transgender rights" in an article by PinkNews in March 2018.

Britain First's page had broken Facebook's rules more than the number of times that would normally lead to the page being banned from the site.