'Surging threat' of right-wing groups fuelled online
The report said traditional membership of far-right groups is at its lowest level for two decades but online support was rising.
Friday 2 March 2018 06:24, UK
A campaign group has warned that a rise in hate messages online is fuelling the threat of extreme right-wing terrorism.
The report by the charity Hope Not Hate says that far-right groups such as National Action are subverting Government bans by operating online.
In its 14th annual report, it warns of a "surging threat" of right-wing plots in the same week that a senior counter-terror officer revealed that four extreme right-wing plots were foiled last year.
Its chief executive Nick Lowles said the UK was facing a "surging threat" and that he feared more violence in 2018.
He said: "This rising terrorist threat is the consequence of the increasingly confrontational tone of online far-right rhetoric, combined with the almost universal extreme-right belief that a civil war between Islam and the West is coming, as well as the growing influence of hard-line European Nazis living in the UK."
The report also highlighted the case of Finsbury Park terrorist Darren Osborne. It emerged at his trial that he had been influenced by extreme right-wing propaganda online.
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Security Minister Ben Wallace said the report "shines a light on the growth of intolerance across the UK and Europe" and said that the government's Prevent strategy was working. He added the Government could take further action of proscribing groups.
The proscription means that being a member of or inviting support for a violent extremist organisation is a criminal offence, carrying a sentence of up to 10 years' imprisonment.
He added: "This Government did not hesitate to proscribe a neo-Nazi group, National Action, when the evidence was enough and we will not hesitate to take further action."
National Action was made a banned group in December 2016.
A major Government review of last year's terrorism attacks recommended a new approach by MI5 to managing domestic extremism, particularly extreme right-wing groups, where their activity meets the definition of terrorism.