Neo-Nazis to form political party in Australia
Source: The Conversation
The prominent neo-Nazi group that disrupted Anzac Day commemorations is recruiting members to form a new political party, as part of a plan to exploit loopholes in recent anti-vilification laws – and run candidates in the next federal election.
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.”
Speaking on a webinar in February, Sewell told his followers they were being smashed by authorities, hit by raids and tangled up in expensive litigation under new state laws outlawing Nazi symbols and salutes. Forming a political party was “the only way we’re going to be protected” from serious jail time, in his view.
“Our plan ultimately is to challenge the swastika by incorporating it in some capacity into our organisation,” he said. “Then it is political communication.”
While the National Socialist Network might be “deluded in thinking they can get a Nazi elected”, researchers at the White Rose Society say “you just have to look at the way [some] mainstream conservatives” have latched onto the Shrine booing stunt, to question Welcome to Country ceremonies, “to get a preview of how a Nazi political campaign will be used to push the Overton window”, referring to efforts to bring extreme views into the mainstream.
Far from deflating their party launch, researcher Dr Kaz Ross expects the publicity from the stunt will boost it. “They’re eating One Nation’s lunch,” she said. “And they’re growing.”
The AEC has limited grounds to knock back an application if the Nazi group meets all the requirements because the agency has to stay apolitical. It could rule that a party name is “obscene”, for example, but only along very narrow grounds that experts say the group’s planned name is unlikely to trigger. Objections lodged by the public and other parties also face narrow criteria to block them.
Sewell told followers the group would form an alliance with other small parties to the right of the Liberals to “get our numbers”. But he predicted that within a decade or so, the Nazi party will have “crushed” them, including One Nation, with the exception of the MAGA-inspired Libertarians, who will “agree with a lot of our policies”.
Jordan McSwiney, who researches the far right in Australia, expects if the group does clear its 1500 membership hurdle, it will be approved as a registered party. But standing up candidates to drive real political change is unlikely to be their main game.
From: SMH
To read the rest of this story, go to https://www.smh.com.au/national/nazis-are-quietly-forming-a-political-party-to-try-to-get-around-the-law-20250415-p5lrzq.html
