On 30 June, Feuerkrieg Division became the third far-right group to be proscribed by the UK’s Home Secretary, making it a criminal offence to be a member of, or invite support for, the organisation. This followed the proscription of Sonnenkrieg Division, another neo-Nazi group, in February 2020. In September last year, the National Lead for Counter-Terrorism Policing, Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, described the far-right as the fastest growing terror threat in Britain. Shortly after, Home Office statistics for PREVENT, the government’s counter-radicalisation programme, made headlines after revealing near parity between the number of individuals referred for concerns relating to right-wing extremism and those referred for Islamist extremism.
Perceptions of an emboldened and increasingly prolific right-wing terrorist (RWT) movement were reinforced by a series of deadly shootings by far-right extremists across the West in 2019/20, most notably the March 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings; the deadliest attack by a right-wing actor since the murder of 77 people in Norway in 2011. However, the statistical evidence for an upsurge in RWT is thinner than such headline-grabbing occurrences suggest.[1]
Among the reasons for the lack of reliable data on RWT is the absence of universally accepted criteria for what constitutes far-right terrorism. A recent report on RWT in the United States by the Center for Strategic and International studies included attacks by so-called ‘incels’ (involuntary celibates) and anti-abortion activists as forms of RWT.[2] Such categorisations are not without controversy.[3] Indeed, the ideological and organisational diversity of far-right collectives is such that attempting to group them for statistical purposes will likely remain a challenge for the foreseeable future.
No less of a problem is the perennial issue of what constitutes terrorism. Violence by neo-Nazi skinheads, often directed against ethnic minorities, has been prevalent across Europe for decades. Yet historically, such attacks have largely (but not exclusively) been treated as hate crimes rather than terrorism. While national laws are sometimes inconsistently applied, there is even less uniformity across different jurisdictions, meaning compilations of national records of far-right violence are viewed by some as less than reliable.[4]
Nonetheless, it is possible to draw broad conclusions from the available data. Globally, it appears that violence perpetrated by far-right extremists has increased in recent years. Analysis of several databases indicates that the frequency of violent incidents attributed to right-wing actors has increased significantly (albeit remaining below historic highs in the 1990s), both in Europe and the United States since around 2015.[5] Annual totals vary considerably, but the trend has been upwards.
Perhaps more concerningly, the lethality of attacks by right-wing extremists has also increased significantly. This largely reflects the increasing prevalence of mass casualty attacks. Such attacks, formerly quite rare, have become alarming more frequent. Since the March 2019 Christchurch shootings, there have been seven mass casualty attacks by RWT, compared to three such attacks in the preceding decade.[6] While this may transpire to be a temporary spike, it potentially portends a new dynamic, to be explored later.
Across the Atlantic, a consensus is emerging that far-right terrorists are the most prolific threat actor in the United States. The hypothesis is well supported. While the data is open to contestation, gunmen holding far-right views appear to account for the majority of deaths from terrorism and, excluding the 9/11 attacks, have done for some time.[7]
In Europe, the picture is less clear-cut. It is almost certain that support for far-right ideologies has increased in recent years since the 2015 migrant crisis. However, in most Western European countries, RWT remains mercifully rare, and continues to be overshadowed by the threat of Islamist extremism. Germany, which has experienced several high-profile attacks by right-wing extremists in the past year and a half, is something of an outlier in this regard. In June, the German interior minister described Right Wing Extremism (RWE) as the greatest threat to security in Germany.
Assessing the situation in Britain, Assistant Commissioner Basu’s assertion that RWT represented the fastest growing terror threat in the country is entirely supportable. Since 2017, there have been three confirmed terrorist attacks by far-right extremists, with a further seven plots foiled (roughly a third of the total). These figures represent an enormous increase over the three years preceding 2017 and represent a historic high.[8]
Accounting for the increase in RWT observed in the UK, US and elsewhere is far from straightforward. The drivers of radicalisation are complex, and it is normally a combination of personal, social, and political factors which precipitate attack planning by radicalised individuals. However, several factors are likely to have contributed to the growing reach of RWT ideology. Macro drivers like increasing political polarisation, diminishing social cohesion and the growing traction of ‘meta-narratives’ around migration and identity likely all play a role, but one of the most significant catalysts appears to be other terrorist attacks; those committed both by RWE and Islamist extremists.
The 2017 Finsbury Park attack against a Muslim centre was ostensibly carried out in revenge for the London Bridge attacks by Islamist extremists days earlier, while the now-banned neo-Nazi group National Action was formed in response to the murder of Lee Rigby in 2013. Conversely, the perpetrator of the 2019 attack in Stanwell was reportedly inspired by the Christchurch shooting the previous day. The attacks in New Zealand would also subsequently be cited as inspiration by several far-right terrorists who carried out mass casualty attacks in the US and Europe in the months following.
Another major driver appears to the emergence of online communities which play a key role as sources of ideological and tactical inspiration, but also constitute a primary audience for acts of terror committed by participants. This dynamic was seen at play in the Christchurch attack, in which the attacker livestreamed the atrocity, while his weapons were inscribed with references to assorted far-right shibboleths. It was also seen in the October 2019 Halle synagogue shooting, where the attacker addressed his livestreaming audience, not in his native German, but in English the lingua franca of the increasingly internationalised online far-right movement.[9]
Recurrent themes within these online far-right milieus are hostility to migrants, religious and ethnic minorities, and the perceived impotence or ambivalence of the political establishment to transgressions allegedly committed by these groups.[10] To a large extent, these narratives drive the target selection of right-wing extremists. Crowded places and symbolic sites associated with these groups are frequently targeted by far-right terrorists. However, the political left is also seen as a target, whether it be individual politicians (as seen in Britain, Germany and Poland), or gatherings and institutions (as seen in America).
The tactics employed by right-wing extremists vary considerably, from less lethal unarmed assaults on individuals and arson attacks on property, to marauding mass casualty attacks. The increasing prevalence of the latter is driven by a combination of factors. One of these is the reciprocal dynamic between Islamist extremism and the new far-right. More extreme violence has effectively been legitimised by the indiscriminate attacks conducted by Islamist terrorists, while their tactics, from vehicular impact attacks to marauding shootings, are eagerly emulated by more zealous adherents of far-right ideologies. There is also a new competitive element driven by the gamification of real-world violence, and a desire to exceed levels of violence exhibited in previous attacks.[11]
Sadly, these factors are unlikely to abate in the near-term, and may very well intensify. A continued upward trend in the number of RWT plots in the UK is therefore probable. Only a minority of these will ever reach fruition. The police and intelligence services are alert to the threat and have proved adept at both dismantling RWT organisations and detecting and disrupting plots by lone actors. However, even without existing resource constraints, it is implausible that every plot will be foiled.
While recent experience suggests those plots most likely to succeed are opportunistic and unsophisticated, RWT across the globe have proven capable of executing mass casualty attacks without warning. While the UK’s strict firearms laws make a repeat of the 2019 Christchurch or 2011 Norway attacks unlikely, the use of alternative methodologies with the same lethality and reach by a capable and disciplined far-right actor in Great Britain cannot be discounted.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/02/is-right-wing-terrorism-violence-rise/
[2] https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states
[3] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/01/canada-may-host-the-worlds-first-incel-show-trial/
[4] http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/508
[5] https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/topics/online-resources/rtv-dataset/limited-version.html
https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/Jones_EuropeTerrorism_WEB%20FINAL.pdf?QujAgipQZ97O7HifLbNHKTSWAWHUBJY8
GTD
[6] Authors analysis of GTD
[7] https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states
[8] It is worth noting that prior to the 2015 murder of Jo Cox MP, the police and intelligence services dedicated few resources to identifying RWT plots, however, very few materialised in the preceding decade
[9] https://www.un.org/sc/ctchttps://assets.poolre.co.uk/sitefiles/2020/04/CTED_Trends_Alert_Extreme_Right-Wing_Terrorism.pdf
[10] https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/Jones_EuropeTerrorism_WEB%20FINAL.pdf?QujAgipQZ97O7HifLbNHKTSWAWHUBJY8
[11] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/08/04/the-el-paso-shooting-and-the-gamification-of-terror/