OneWorld.net - The rise of Europe's Right

It was autumn 1996. Four men were sitting around me in a central London pub. Little distinguished them from the passing commuters. Other than their baseball caps, jailbird tattoos, or talk of white revolution, they might have been just about anyone. Those four men were the leaders of a notorious neo-nazi gang called Combat 18 - the 1 and 8 in the name signify the position of “A” and “H” ('Adolf Hitler') in the alphabet. The gang was connected to Loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, a violent “white power” music scene, numerous football hooligan “firms”, and the British National Party (BNP) - the most prominent far-right political movement in modern Britain. (...) Aside from the FN and BNP, there are now prominent extreme Right and anti-immigrant parties across Europe today: in Belgium (the Vlaams Blok); in Norway (Progress Party); Denmark (Danish Peoples Party); in Germany (the Republicans, the German Peoples Union and the skinhead National Democratic Party, plus a dangerous alliance of “comradeship” groups); in Austria (Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party); in the Netherlands (Pim Fortuyn List); in Switzerland (Swiss Peoples Party); in Portugal (Popular Party); and in Italy (Northern League, and the National Alliance).