Barnaby Jameson KC: Islamist and Right-Wing Terrorism through the eyes of a prosecutor

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

Hello and welcome to totally terrorism, a Pool Re podcast. My name is Becca Stewart, the Senior Threat Analyst at Pool Re. In this episode, Barnaby Jameson KC is joining us to talk about his experience as a prosecutor in UK terrorism cases. We’ll talk about the differences and similarities between Islamist and Extreme Right-Wing terrorists, the grey areas surrounding varying terrorism ideologies, and state threats and terrorism. We hope you enjoy this episode of Totally Terrorism and if you would like to hear future episodes, please like and subscribe through your streaming app of choice or sign up for regular terrorism updates through our Solutions Centre at poolre.co.uk/solutions-centre.

Barnaby Jameson… Welcome to Totally Terrorism.

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

Thank you for having me, Becca.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

Thanks for coming in today. It's really great to get to talk to you and have you on the podcast. Would you like to just introduce yourself for our guests and explain what your role is in relation to counter-terrorism?

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

With great pleasure. I am a barrister in independent practise. I'm at Red Lion Chambers and I've been prosecuting, well, I've been involved in terrorist cases since 2007 and I've been actively prosecuting terrorist cases since 2013/14 with the rise of Islamic State. I spent, I have spent about half a decade just on religious terror cases and then come 2018 I started prosecuting the first of the neo-Nazi terrorist cases. And so I'm one of quite a small number of KCs at the bar that does both religious/Islamic terrorism and also neo-Nazi political terrorism and I'm again, one of a small number that is security vetted, I think I'm one of I think 4 KCs at the Bar that do this work at the moment.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

So you mentioned that you've prosecuted both Islamic-related terrorism and neo-Nazi, Right Wing terrorism. Have you seen any sort of trends from one to the other? I know you said you started with Islamic and shifted to neo-Nazi, does that represent the trends of the cases more broadly that you've seen?

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

It's a good question. I think part of it is tied up with geopolitics. The earlier part of my prosecuting career was very much moulded around the establishment of Islamic State, which was in in 2014 and a number of cases flowed from the creation of Islamic State and I prosecuted a number of individuals for membership of a of a proscribed organisation, that being Islamic State. And then what shifted in around 2016 was the rise of a neo-Nazi group now proscribed by the name of National Action, and in 2016 they sort of reached the apex of their power and influence. And, they came together and started giving sort of flash demonstrations wearing balaclavas, chanting pro Hitler slogans and coming onto the streets and towns of a number of places, up and down the country. But the real concern with national action is that it followed, in June of 2016, the murder of Jo Cox MP. Now Tommy Mair, who was later convicted of the murder, was not a member of National Action, but he was found with Extreme Right Wing literature, including some National Action material. And so my role in prosecuting Extreme Right Wing cases, Neo-Nazi cases was really moulded around the proscription of national action at the end of 2016 and then the first cases came through the courts in I think 2018. And one of those included a case that I was indirectly involved with, which was Jack Renshaw, who pleaded guilty to a plot to murder a Labour MP. I mean, this is all out in the public domain, somebody by the name of Rosie Cooper MP who’s since stood down. But there's no question from his plea that and the facts of his case that he did acquire a broad sword on the Internet and he did, in front of a number of witnesses, make it quite clear that he was serious in his intention to behead an MP.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

That case has been turned into a series recently, which, The walk In I believe it's called, which demonstrates sort of just how dangerous these people had the potential to be. And I think that's something that perhaps hasn't necessarily been broadly recognised by the public. When people who don't have much involvement in counter terrorism or an interest in terrorism think of terrorists, it's always Islamic State. But as you mentioned, there are some fairly dangerous individuals associated with the Right Wing out there. And when it comes to prosecuting them, what are the differences between prosecuting those religious individuals and the more neo-Nazi, Right Wing individuals.

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC 

Perhaps I can break that down into two components. First, dealing with the first part of your question and then the second very good question about the different styles of prosecuting. I think everybody is probably guilty to some extent of having an assumed idea of what a terrorist looks like and believes in. And certainly in some of the religious terrorist cases I've done, the individuals on trial have fitted that particular idea of what people think of when they think about a terrorist, what they look like and what they believe in. With neo-Nazi terrorists, it is a very different situation because the people that are on trial, they look like people you could walk past in the street and you wouldn't look twice at them. And so in some of the cases when I've opened the prosecution, I've basically said to the jury that you're dealing here with terrorists that are hiding in plain sight. And with these individuals, because they're ordinarily, for obvious reasons, white and Caucasian, they can move around freely, they can also move around internationally quite freely in the way that you know somebody of a of a different profile might find it more difficult to move around internationally. So these people, they can travel and as you probably know from your research, the neo-Nazi sort of terrorist movement is not just restricted to the UK, it's prevalent in the US and also in Eastern Europe and to some extent in Scandinavia. And you may be familiar with somebody called Anders Breivik, who carried out a massacre in 2011. And whereas in Islamic State cases, you get a lot of sort of images that you can imagine are of, you know, Islamic symbols, and you often have very violent confrontations between sects or whatever it is. But certain individuals are very prominent, are very prevalent, that the way that they look but with Right Wing terrorism, you tend to get a hagiography and making into a Saint of people like Breivik. And so you see image after image of Breivik wearing a sort of crusader tunic with a machine gun carrying out a massacre you know of individuals of a diverse nature. And so in terms of the approaches to the two types of cases. Terrorism is terrorism whichever label it's under whether it's religious or whether it's political. I think with Islamic type cases, one really has to look quite closely at the mindset of the individual. And that often means looking at the type of material that they've got on their computer and the type of text that they have. And there are certain texts that have been taken out of the Quran, often used slightly out of context, but in terms of looking at their mindset, you will almost invariably look at the material that they possess, who they associate with and the type of searches that they do on their computer. 
In neo-Nazi type cases, you're looking at a terrorist mindset but it's slightly different. The mindset will often have a basis in the original Nazism and so whereas a lot of religious terrorism will have religious or religious context, the sort of God, if you like, of neo-Nazi cases for obvious reasons, is Hitler. And because we don't have rules, laws on Holocaust denial in this jurisdiction, people can quite freely exchange material of a very graphic nature. Often it's depictions of the Holocaust. Sometimes they're turned into cartoons, sometimes they're turned into memes. And looking at the mindset of these individuals, you will often have images from the Second World War and then images from other neo-Nazi atrocities or Nazi atrocities since then. There was a massacre in 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand, 50 Muslims were killed at prayer in Christchurch, that often crops up. The Breivik massacre which I talked about a moment ago, is something that often crops up. And then you often see the face of Tommy Mair, the killer of Jo Cox MP often is depicted by people that are interested in this type of terrorism. And so really what you're doing is you're exchanging a religious mindset for a political mindset. But I would say that, quite often, the mindsets are as vehement as each other. One of the aspects of neo-Nazi cases which I have found quite intriguing is that sometimes the neo-Nazis, who are quite good artists or some of them are quite good artists, putting together their sort of their artwork, they will often borrow from Islamic State. So you may have an image of an Islamic State fighter with a machine gun in a in a sort of desert environment. But the religious symbolism above the image will actually be replaced with a swastika. So you're getting this, almost this fusion between two types of terrorist mindset. And the other thing that may be of interest is that the proportion of the people on the neo-Nazi wing of the terrorist community, if that's the right word, they call themselves the white jihad, and in doing that they are obviously taking a leaf out of the book of religious terrorists. And I've seen images of people with balaclavas on, they have a sword and it says, you know, on the sword, we are the white jihad. And you know, we will behead those who stand in the way of National Action. And so you do get this strange fusion between the two types of terrorism.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

Seems like there's almost borrowing of things across the board like I know a lot of people who are convicted of terrorist offences will often have copies of the anarchist cookbook, or you'll have ISIS bomb making manuals in the possession of people associated with the Right Wing. And almost utilising their guides and their tactics, but to apply it to your own ideology and I think what's also interesting is that both sides are almost embedded in, or based on history. So the history of the religion of Islam, which they've interpreted in a different way, and twisted to become their Islamist ideology. Compared to the history of Hitler, Nazism, the Holocaust, etc, which they're then twisting into, whatever they believe should be occurring now and what their beliefs are.

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

Those are all entirely legitimate and pertinent observations. I think at the end of the day, if you had neo-Nazi terrorists and religious terrorists in the same room together, they would have quite a lot in common. I mean, they are, if ones being simplistic about it, they are both Nazi-type mindsets. One happens to be a religious type of Nazism and the other is a political Nazism. But they both believe in in the same totalitarian, in the same terrorist objectives and that's why they borrow frequently from each other. And I've certainly picked up in some of the imagery in neo-Nazi cases, what I would call a grudging admiration by the neo-Nazis of their Islamic counterparts, despite the fact that of course, their Islamic counterparts don't really fit the Aryan mould.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

Do you think that one type of ideology, whether the religious side or the political side, is more ingrained than the other? Do they have longer histories? Because especially more recently you have the self-initiated terrorists radicalised online or on their own, not associated with other people. Do you think that one side more so than the other, their radicalization, their ideology, has been ingrained for a longer period of time?

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

It's difficult to generalise. In my experience it goes on a case by case basis. My experience of religious terrorism is that people can be radicalised fairly quickly. There was a mosque that you might have heard of 15 years ago that was very active, which was called the Finsbury Park Mosque that was then shut down. When it was searched, there were all sorts of extremist literature there and some weaponry. And in a Finsbury Park Mosque situation, people are radicalised under the guise of being in a religious institution and people would simply be asked to stay behind, you know, after prayers. And then the radicalization process would begin. And it may be that on the religious side of things you have a slightly different relationship between the mentor who might be, you know, an imam of some sort, and the person that is being radical. In the Extreme Right Wing sphere, it's obviously not a religious movement, and so you wouldn't have the equivalent of a of an imam. But what you do have are people that find it very easy to find each other on the Internet. And I prosecuted the two leaders of National Action, Ben Raymond and Alex Davies, as well as a number of other members of National Action. And one of the main criticisms of the judge, the judges in the respective cases when they were convicted, was that these individuals had radicalised an entire generation of bedroom terrorists. The other aspect, which I think is perhaps worth pointing out, is that on the neo-Nazi side, the individuals tend to be younger perhaps than on the religious side. And my junior, Naomi Parsons, who's been with me for half a decade on neo-Nazi cases, in her own right, she's prosecuted some of the youngest individuals in this country to be prosecuted for terrorist offences. They're on the neo-Nazi side, and I think the youngest was 12 at the time and then 13 at the time that he was brought to trial. And so I think looking at or drilling down your question. On the neo-Nazi side people they will often self-radicalise and then they will meet up with other individuals within the movement and then an older neo-Nazi, someone like Ben Raymond, will then come in in a mentoring role whereas on the religious side it's just a slightly different structure.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

And do you think that there is more capability in religious or in political or both on a similar level in terms of their capability? Are they more, obviously we've seen more Islamist attacks in the UK particularly since 2017, but increasingly, we're seeing cases regarding Right Wing-related plots, not just membership of organisations, coming into court. Do you think that they potentially would have similar capabilities and it's just that perhaps there's more individuals associated with Islamist terrorism than Right Wing?

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

It's difficult to give an accurate answer on that because I think that there are. There are so many unknowns, but what I would say is that, this is a generalisation, but with plots concerning religious terrorism, quite often the targets and the victims are random. It could be the attack in Borough Market, not very far from here. It could be the Ariana Grande concert. They are classic terrorist attacks. The victims are unknown to the perpetrator and they cause death, injury and terror in the classic sense. On the Right Wing side, my experience is that it's slightly different and the individuals concerned are focused on individuals. The Right Wing terrorists are focused on specific targets. And this is in the public domain, Rosie Cooper is one MP that was targeted by Jack Renshaw, quite often in Right Wing terrorist cases other MP's names crop up. I won't name them here, but in open court their names have been. And so I think that those on the Right are concerned about more targeted attacks. A lot of their thinking goes back to an American book that came out in the 70s, which is called the Turner Diaries, and that has a sort of fictional denouement at the end. It's called ‘the day of the rope’, which is a kind of day of reckoning when all the enemies of the of the fascists meet a deadly end. I think one of the hallmarks of Right Wing terrorism is that they are looking really for a catalyst to spark ‘the day of the rope’ if you like. And certainly in the cases that I've prosecuted, their terrorist warped mindset is that if an MP is publicly murdered, that that will be the catalyst that will be the spark that brings about “the day of the rope”. And so it's two slightly different ways, both equally warped, of looking at the world.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

It's interesting. I'd not considered that the targeting of MP's was almost attempting to trigger the wider race war, as they're often aiming for.

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

Well, I was just about to say, and you've picked up on it, “race war” is something which is, it runs like the veins through stilton cheese right through any Right Wing terrorist case. They sometimes use the expression “race war” or they use the German “rassenkrieg” that was used by the original Nazis. And you've picked up on the fact that people's perception of Right Wing terrorists is often different. But the reality is that these people, they take the view that society is on the verge of “race war” at any one time, which is what they want. And that a single spark, a single catalyst, is all it needs to trigger the entire “day of the rope”. And so they're sort of, the way that they think, live and breathe, they genuinely take the view that “race war” is around the corner and that they are, if you like, the.. I was going to say the midwives, but that's not the right analogy. But they these are the catalysers who will bring about “race war”. And obviously anybody that doesn't fit the Aryan mould in their world view will be the first people to get it in the neck in the way that we saw in Nazi Germany.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

Right. So in in that sense, they're plotting and their plans for attacks would be less of the aspirational large scale and more targeted towards individuals, particular minority communities, depending on which, I guess, strain of Right Wing terrorism they're involved in. Whereas in comparison to perhaps the aspirational large scale plotting from the more religious side that you think, could you actually achieve that?

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

I think that's a fair observation. I mean, I prosecuted one young guy called Jack Coulson, who had put out images of bombs which he had made above Bradford City centre. And he had basically threatened to eradicate all of the Muslims from Bradford, but that was quite targeted. So I think in answer to your question, you could say that those on the Right are a little bit more targeted in their approach. The other thing to say which will worry anybody is that, and it goes back to what I was saying about terrorists hiding in plain sight, is that a number of the individuals on the Extreme Right that I have prosecuted are either ex-soldiers, serving soldiers or aspiring soldiers. And in one case there was somebody from the Metropolitan Police. He was on probation. But where you've got those with the terrorist mindset in the armed forces, the worries are plain and they will have access to material by or access to information by ident of being in the military, which civilians don't have. And so that's why, if anybody in a sense wants to downplay the threat of the Right, they only have to look at, it's the hiding in the plain sight, and it's the fact that within institutions like the British Army and the police, that these this infection is creeping. And one of those I prosecuted, or at least did a linked prosecution was called Mikko Vehvilainen, who was actually a Finnish national. I never quite worked out what he was doing in the Royal Anglian Regiment, but when he was arrested, he had one of the biggest arsenals of weapons that I've ever seen in any terrorist case. And he had long bows, crossbows, axes, what you call a Warhammer. Every type of knife, every type of dagger. I think some of it was kind of ceremonial, but there was a lot of firepower there. He had pump action shotguns and I think he had a semi-automatic weapon as well. He also had non-authorised handcuffs like non-police handcuffs and so one really got a chilling idea of what the “day of the rope” might look like with someone like  Vehvilainen going around and you know, arresting individuals. And then you know, whatever fate would awaken them. But again, it's something that has been flashed on screen in court cases that I've dealt with, but a note from Vehvilainen's diary does talk quite openly about major infrastructure attacks, and terrorist attacks, Yeah, on it's mainly on structures in, in this country. And it would, just looking at his diary note would worry anybody.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

Terrorists hiding in plain sight is definitely something that would probably scare certain people. And particularly at the moment, not just related to terrorism, there's been a lot of focus on the police, and the armed forces previous to that, regarding how these sorts of positions of authority can be exploited by those wishing to do harm to people in the UK or to the UK Government itself. And I think more recently it's been less clear as to what people's intentions are in terms of perhaps their ideologies. We've had more people who have unclear ideologies who, for example, the incident up in Nottingham last year, which wasn't terrorism but had all of the characteristics perhaps of what you might think is a terrorist attack. It's some individuals were stabbed and then a vehicle was used. Not terrorism, there was no clear ideology. When there are people who have access to weaponry, who have access to sort of knives and vehicles, as we're seeing more often. Where does the line sort of sit between something being terrorist or not? I know obviously in the definition of terrorism it has to be to further a religious, ideological, racial, or political cause. But when people are conducting attacks or engaged in violence like this, or there was a case the other day of an individual planning a school shooting, is there a case now for this grey area between extreme behaviour, Extremist behaviour, terrorism, etc., when you when you consider it in terms of the actions and the ideology and the presence or lack of either?

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

I think again you alight on a very interesting and topical issue here. What has happened in a number of schools recently is that people’s computers have been searched, and they have been found, you know, school kids 12/13/14, that sort of age, they have been found with material which technically probably falls under section 58 of the Terrorism Act. It is terrorist material, and there are two schools of thought, how you deal with that. I know that the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation has looked at the prospect of not necessarily going down the prosecution route first time round with individuals like this, if there isn't a direct threat to national security, because it may simply be, you know, school kids fooling around and maybe delving a little bit too far into the Internet, but that it can be nipped in the bud without a full on prosecution. And I think that the prosecuting authorities, they have to use very discrete judgement in terms of whether certain individuals should be prosecuted under the terrorism legislation or whether the matter can be nipped in the bud as I say. But there are, as you rightly observe, certain grey areas and certainly in the US, you've got other movements that are coming to the fore that don't sit entirely satisfactorily under the labels that you've rightly given, which is political, religious and ideological, and one of those is the is the incel movement, involuntary celibates. And you know, that's one area which is creeping up and certainly one individual called Elliot Roger carried out a massacre 10 years ago in the US and he read out an incel, kind of, manifesto before he went on the rampage and then before killing himself. And I think, one of the questions that, you know, we have to grapple with is: do you give the incel movement the oxygen of saying that this is an ideology or is it simply, you know, a nutter, and there is no right or wrong answer. It's a very grey area, as you rightly point out.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

I believe in Canada they've made the decision to count incel violence as a form of terrorism, but more broadly agree there's this question of the purpose of the incel movement. Is it revenge on women? Is it revenge on society? Or is it trying to further the movement? To which then you, I guess, you can step into the realms of ideology. But what, what is ideology? There's so many, I think so many questions which can't necessarily be answered by anyone in particular. It's more of a discussion and conversation of what makes most sense to us in this period right now.

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

Yes. And what I would say is that the incel movement or to put it another way, the neo-Nazi terrorist movement has all sorts of sort of offshoots to it. There's an occult offshoot that goes back into original Nazi history, and there's obviously some type of connection with the incel movement, because I've seen any number of images of Elliot Roger, the incel massacrer, cropping up in computers and on, you know, phones to do with neo-Nazi terrorists. And so I think it's something that's coming up in the rear view mirror and one has to be obviously very careful how one deals with it. And the risk is that if you then prosecute an incel case under the terrorism legislation that the question then is whether you're elevating it onto a platform that it really doesn't deserve to have. And again, there's no right or wrong answer.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

That's true. You wouldn't want to give it the energy that they're looking for if they're seeking attention. 

Something else that has been coming up in in the rearview mirror for us in particular, and I know more broadly across the country of those who are involved in terrorism, counter terrorism, etc. Is the conflation between state threats and terrorism, when we've had particular state associated but not state organisations like the Wagner Group being proscribed. Calls for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to be proscribed. Cases of, I think, between January 2022 and February 2023, 15 plots to kill British or British-based citizens by the Iranian state. What is your perception of this issue between state threats, terrorism? Is there a middle ground which can sort of be both?

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

That's a that's a big question, Becca, and I think I might have to step a couple of steps back before trying to give you an answer. There is a concept which is known as state terrorism and if one's looking at it from a technical point of view, that doesn't really have an application under UK law. In America, there is such a thing as state terrorism. And the US government, as I'm sure you know, it actually keeps a short list of states which it considers to be terrorist states, and you probably wouldn't get too many prizes for guessing which states are on that particular list. Iran is obviously one, North Korea is another, and certain states come off it one year and then they come straight back onto it, so America, the US government actually does, you know, it keeps a short list. And there is a concept of state terrorism for the American government. In the UK that the position is different. There's no concept, if you like, of state terrorism. The UK government doesn't keep a short list of terrorist states. But having said that, it would be naïve to think that there aren't States and governments that are hostile to UK interests. And I think you're aware that a piece of legislation came in in 2019, the Counter Terrorism and Border Security Act of 2019 and under Schedule 3 of that Act, there is now a power for what's called an examining officer, normally somebody from the from the police, but not necessarily, to stop and question somebody who may be an agent of a hostile state. And so anybody that's considered to be a hostile actor, that could be hostile, a threat to national security, a threat to the UK economy, or somebody who is planning a serious crime. And a good example of that was the Salisbury poisoning case of the of the Skripals. And as we know, suspects were two individuals from Russia. And the legislation that I mentioned a moment ago was brought in to deal with hostile state actors and in some senses it's remarkable that there wasn't a power to stop and question hostile state actors beforehand, and I think it's because we don't have a history, as I've said in this jurisdiction, of state terrorism. But the 2019 Act, I suppose, is a way of the of the UK Government recognising that state terrorism does exist, and the most obvious example of that was the 2018 attempted poisonings of the two individuals, Sergei and his daughter. And you'll remember that a civilian was caught up in that. She was given a scent bottle that was contaminated and she died. But I think that since 2018, the Russians have probably had other things to think about. And so I think in answer to your question, we are becoming a little bit less squeamish, if you like about naming certain states as being hostile to the UK and in the foreword to the piece of legislation, it says very clearly this act has been brought into force as a direct response to Russian operations in this country. And so I think that's a rather long way of saying that we are now becoming a little bit more like the Americans and we are willing to say publicly that other states, or states that are not the UK, are quite capable of being hostile. And we are quite capable of calling them out.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

I take from that, that we have various acts that can deal with state activity without it necessarily needing to be categorised as terrorism. So instead of us thinking about, are these state activities terrorism? Are these state-linked groups, terrorist groups? If they are a state organisation, they're still part of the state, right? So, the acts brought in, such as that one, Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, if that's made to deal with hostile state activity, then perhaps there's no need to be deeming groups that are part of the state, such as the IRGC, as terrorists when there's already legislation that can be applied to dealing with them.

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

Yes, and it really comes down to, sort of, what label you use. But I think that it would become practically easier to prosecute somebody under the 2019 Act as being a hostile state actor as opposed to being a terrorist. Even if there may be some merging of the actual operational intent, one can just imagine all sorts of diplomatic difficulties of prosecuting an individual who is a state agent of  a state, prosecuting them for a terrorism offence may be a little bit less palatable than using, as I said, the power under the 2019 Act. But really at this level, you know, ones looking really at sort of political and diplomatic niceties. The reality is that, you know, had the Skripal, you know, Skripal senior or junior been murdered, certainly consideration would have been given at the highest level as to whether to charge a terrorist offence.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

It's interesting and I think we'll have to watch this space to see what happens going forward with relation to the state threat and the association with terrorism, but also the direction that both Right Wing terrorism and Islamist terrorism head in. 

And on that point, what is your perception of the threat going forward, do you think it’s going to continue sort of as it is? Are we going to see, I know you mentioned the potential for incels to be considered or not. Do you think we'll see any changes or it's going to continue as it is?

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

In terms of the direction of travel, I can only sort of comment on the cases that I've done and what I've seen in open court. The Right Wing threat, I think will remain a very serious one. And it just so happens that a crop of individuals were convicted about five or six years ago who are soon to come out of prison, and so one simply doesn't know whether you're then going to get more movement because people are, you know, coming out of prison. If anything comes out of this podcast, it really is not to underestimate the threat of Right Wing terrorism, the terrorists that are hiding in plain sight. And so if I was going to make a prediction, I would say that Right Wing, neo-Nazi terrorism is perhaps a nose ahead at the moment. Just a nose in front of Islamic or religious terrorism. And as a link to that, one has to look quite carefully at what's happening politically in the States, because it was certainly something that's struck me, but a lot of the Right Wing and Extreme Right Wing organisations in the States, they certainly felt a spring in their step with the ascendence of Trump as President. There's a lot of, you know, Trump idolatry, if you like, in a lot of the neo-Nazi cases that I see a lot of images of Trump. Now I know that he's just won some kind of election today (16 January 2024) in America, and I think that if he comes back into office, I think that will touch, it will light a degree of touch paper. And you'll recall that there was an organisation called the Proud Boys who I think have since been designated a terrorist organisation, certainly in Canada, question mark in America. But what often happens is that Europe, the European, it's that old expression when America sneezes, Europe catches a cold. The neo-Nazis in in Europe will be watching what's happening very closely with the neo-Nazis in America. And if we see a resurgence of Trump, I can see a resurgence of ancillary political extremism that could ultimately end in terrorism.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

Well, watch this space. 

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

Watch this space.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

We'll have to see what happens in the US and see how that spills over into the UK. And watch as to how these different ideologies develop and what the threat landscape continues to be. 

Well, thank you for coming to talk to us. I think that's all we've got time for today, but it's been really great to get your views and your opinions and also to hear about your experiences directly involved with prosecuting some of these cases. It's been really helpful to get that sort of perspective on the threat in the UK. So thanks for coming on.

Guest Expert: Barnaby Jameson KC

It's been a great pleasure, Becca, thank you for having me.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Thank you for listening to the latest episode of Totally Terrorism, a Pool Re podcast. We hope that you have found this discussion useful for supporting or building your knowledge and understanding of terrorism threat. We hope that you'll join us next month for another conversation between a new guest expert and one of the Pool Re terrorism threat analysts.

Senior Threat Analyst: Becca Stewart

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Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Thank you for checking out the podcast and we look forward to seeing you next time on Totally Terrorism.