When a crowd gathered in Buchanan Street on Tuesday night following the attempted murder of a man in Belfast, banners were on show.
Front and centre, on the steps of the Royal Concert Hall, was a banner proclaiming “Scotland for the Scots”.
The slogan took up two thirds of the banner with the other third stating the name and web address of the group who produced it.
It is Patriotic Alternative, a far-right group based mainly in Yorkshire and in the north west of England, which has been active in protests in recent years outside hotels housing asylum seekers in different parts of the UK.
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On its website it states it is a “British advocacy group that campaigns for the indigenous people of Britain; namely, the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish”.
It adds it is a “growing community of patriots”.
The group is descended from the BNP and its founder Mark Collet is an ex-BNP member, who was once close to the extreme right wings group's former leader, Nick Griffin.
While it is relatively small in number, particularly in Scotland, it has attached itself to protests and campaigns against immigration.
Members had travelled to attend protests in Erskine outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in recent years.
Las year the BBC published an undercover operation which infiltrated the group in England.
It found a leader proposed detaining migrants in camps until they return home and if they refuse, they should be shot.
Several other members or with links to the group have served jail sentences.
A court heard how one prominent member had a photograph of Adolf Hitler at his home.
Others have served sentences for terrorist related offences and race hate.
The group has policies on immigration, crime, education, health and housing but almost always comes back to immigration.
Its policies include: “There will be a complete halt to all immigration unless under exceptional circumstances.”
“Those of immigrant descent who have obtained British passports will be offered generous financial incentives in order to return to their ancestral homelands.”
The group states the idea should be the “traditional, nuclear family, which consists of a mother, father and children” and states “children will be protected from exposure to sexualised material or LGBT propaganda”.
It wants “Welfare benefits only be available to those who speak fluent English”.
In schools it says “British history will be restored as a central pillar of every child’s education”.
Despite some people holding the banners masking their faces the group wants “full-face coverings” to be “banned in public” adding “there will be no religious exception to this.”
It calls for social housing to “no longer be available to those who cannot speak fluent English”.
And it wants capital punishment to be “reinstated as an option for murderers and serious sexual offenders”
The group has reported links to other far right organisations in Europe and America.
It is connected to the Nordic Resistance Movement and the National Justice Party, a group of neo-Nazis in the USA.
Patriotic Alternative has also been monitored by police across the UK.
A National Police Coordination Centre briefing from2023 documented it’s activity.
It described the group as a “white nationalist group who engage in street level activity against a number of themes including anti-immigration, anti-LGBT+ and anti-multiculturalism issues”.
As well as the activity around hotels it noted it staged protests over Drag Queen Story Hour events in public venues.
The briefing sated: “It is likely future campaigns by the group will attempt to bolster their causes by linking them to localised and national issues of interest”.
The briefing stated: “While PA has national reach, their attendance numbers at events can be sporadic, with only a handful of members in attendance at any given time, this is in addition to community tensions caused when the group attend local events.”
It sated the groups “more extreme views” are unlikely to “enable mainstream support”. And that its activity will match “peaks and troughs associated with cultural nationalism…as an event or trigger emerges”.
