itself from violent ideology—has been very successful in attracting a youth movement of highly educated, middle-class members, and has been branded 'hipster fascists' because of its predominantly middle-class, student membership.
67. It is currently assessed that these groups ***. However, there is a possibility that 'Identitarian' concepts—such as the 'Great Replacement theory', which argues that white European populations are being deliberately replaced at an ethnic and cultural level through migration and the growth of minority communities,[1] and as can be seen throughout the 'manifesto' of Christchurch attacker Brenton Tarrant—will be ***.[2]
Satanism
68. In addition to these three ideologies, there are also newer movements which have influenced organised groups: for example, the influence of Satanism in White Supremacist and White Nationalist groups. This can be seen in the influence of groups such as the Order of the Nine Angles (O9A): an international Nazi-Satanist group, which is believed to have been established in the UK in the 1960s and has influenced the ideology of some of the most extreme UK ERWT groups, including the Sonnenkrieg Division.[3] (The group encourages its members to participate in extreme violence, sexual assault and murder, and also promotes infiltrating and subverting other organisations such as the police and the military.)
69. Nick Lowles, Chief Executive of Hope Not Hate, pointed to the O9A as wielding notable influence across the extremist sphere:
I think the other thing that we've seen in the last few years is that in some of these very small groups, National Action and some of the spin-off groups, not only a kind of anti-women misogyny narrative but aggressively so, and about sexual violence, and this is particularly these very small pro-terrorist groups, that have [been] influenced by the Order of the Nine Angles, the Nazi satanic group, who not only glorify sexual violence but use it as a weapon, and set up channels like Rapewaffen and stuff, things we would never have seen 20 or 30 years ago, so I think that's a really key thing amongst the young—we're talking about influence on teenagers.[4]
70. When we asked MI5 about 09A, it told the Committee that Satanist groups although it did recognise that "an interest in satanic rituals may increase a propensity for violence, and that investigations involving individuals with an interest in the occult are more likely to present *** issues".[5]
Virtual groups
71. ERWT 'groups' may also exist in a virtual sense, and this is increasingly the way in which communities will organise to promote their ideology and recruit. Virtual groups can
- ↑ Jacob Davey and Julia Ebner, 'The Great Replacement': The Violent Consequences of Mainstreamed Extremism, Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), 2019.
- ↑ MI5 Strategic Intelligence Group paper, 13 January 2020.
- ↑ Hope Not Hate, State of Hate 2020, 2020.
- ↑ Oral evidence - Nick Lowles, Hope Not Hate, 16 December 2020.
- ↑ MI5 Strategic Intelligence Group paper, 13 January 2020.
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