Politics student, 27, who founded Britain’s first neo-Nazi terrorist group faces jail

Watch: Politics student who founded neo-Nazi terror group faces jail

A politics student who proclaimed that "Hitler was right" is facing jail for being a member of Britain's first neo-Nazi terrorist group, an organisation that was banned in 2016.

Alex Davies, 27, founded the extreme right-wing group National Action in his first year of university as an 18-year-old student with co-founder Ben Raymond in 2013.

A court heard together they aimed to create a National Socialist, or neo-Nazi, youth movement in the UK, describing themselves as a “white jihadist group”.

Footage released by Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) officers in the West Midlands shows Davies and supporters in various flash demonstrations across the country.

In York in May 2016 Davies was seen shouting into a megaphone in front of a banner declaring: "Refugees not welcome: Hitler was right."

Their followers stockpiled weapons, built a pipe bomb and even plotted to murder an MP before National Action was proscribed in December 2016.

Footage released by CTP also shows National Action members, who modelled themselves on Nazi SS stormtroopers, training with weapons and staging boxing matches.

More clips show masked members performing Nazi salutes and marching on the streets during demonstrations, which often turned violent.

The group spread its propaganda through Nazi-themed stickering, leafleting and joining protests across the country.

Weaponry that the group stockpiled included knives, daggers, machetes, high velocity crossbows, rifles, pump-action shotguns, knuckle dusters, disabling spray, baseball bats and even a longbow.

In December 2016, National Action became the first far-right organisation to be banned by the government since the Second World War but its members continued to meet in secret.

Davies, of Swansea, went on to set up a splinter group – NS 131 – in the spring of 2017. This too was banned just a few months later.

Davies has now been found guilty of membership of a proscribed group at Winchester Crown Court and will be sentenced at the Old Bailey next month.

He becomes the 19th person to be convicted of belonging to National Action.

Detective superintendent Anthony Tagg, from CTP West Midlands, said: “Our officers have worked tirelessly to secure convictions of men who posed a significant threat to communities across the country.

“They were not merely armchair terrorists, they actively planned a race war. They recruited from positions of trust – the military and the police.

“They stockpiled weapons, and researched explosives and bomb-making. They trained their members in boxing, martial arts and knife fighting.

“Extremists use this kind of ideology to create discord, distrust and fear among our communities and we strive to counter this.”