Neo-Nazis quietly forming a political party to try to get around the law
White supremacist leader Thomas Sewell is under strict bail conditions barring him from contacting other members of his neo-Nazi National Socialist Network, which has seen its websites and social media channels taken down after Sewell and other members were arrested over an Australia Day rally in Adelaide.
Yet The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald can reveal the group has quietly launched a new website, signed by founder Sewell, and is directing people through its remaining Telegram channels to join the NSN's new aspiring political party.
The group needs to reach 1500 verified members before it can apply to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to form an official federal party, which it hopes to do within a year. (The bar for becoming a state party is even lower, at 500 members needed in Victoria.)
The stunt at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance on Friday, when neo-Nazis including Jacob Hersant booed in the darkness of an Anzac dawn service, was part of a co-ordinated push to rebrand nationally as 'everyday Australians' fed up with so-called 'woke' politics and so funnel more recruits into their extreme ideologies.
That plan, which is revealed in online records and Sewell's videos for followers, could now be in jeopardy, as bipartisan backlash to the shrine stunt and other disruptions by fringe agitators this election campaign threatens to build into a national crackdown on far-right extremism.
But neo-Nazi watchers who track the group online, such as The White Rose Society, call their political ambitions serious and frightening. Even if they don't ever get a candidate up at the ballot box, the tactic could help the neo-Nazi group gain false legitimacy as they push further into right-wing politics – and evade crackdowns by authorities.
Extremism expert Josh Roose said Australian neo-Nazis had been successful, for their relatively small numbers, in eclipsing other groups in the far right, including in recent stunts during the election. 'Now they're following in the footsteps of Hitler [into politics], though they have zero chance of actually getting elected, but they'll exploit every loophole they can.'
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