Civic Nationalist Developments after Armistace Day and the rise and fall of Patriots Alliance

Happy new year readers! 

If you cast your mind back briefly day to Remembrance Day, otherwise known as Armistice Day or Poppy Christmas, there was a rather large gathering of Statue Defenders™ who were called upon by the Home Secretary and other figures such as a certain Yaxley-Lennon to defend the Cenotaph from a Palestinian solidarity march. Of course, it is totally innapropriate to march for a ceasefire on the 11th of November, the day that commemorates the end of World War One, but I digress. 

Amidst the liberal use of cocaine and football chants, there was a small group making plans. Antifascists who were preparing for the day may have heard the name ‘British Defence League’ pop up, with the group gesturing towards defending statues in London, Leicester and Glasgow among other cities. From what I can tell, it was only in London that any attempt was actually made, although most of the organising fell to Tommy Robinson and former DFLA (Democratic Football Lads Alliance) networks. Of course, this attempt made pretty major news headlines, with Britain’s finest patriots scrapping with the police during the yearly minute silence, and Suella Braverman losing her job for essentially endorsing the entire affair. 

In the first identity crisis (don’t worry, there’s more of those to come), the British Defence League decided to rebrand as ‘Patriots’ Alliance’ (Not to be confused with the other ‘Patriots’ Alliance,’ a joint electoral effort of UKIP and the English Democrats). From here on out, Patriots’ Alliance will be referred to as PatAll, which of course sounds like another far-right organisation, Patriotic Alternative, that readers will likely be more than familiar with.

PatAll were a predominantly Civic Nationalist group led by Ryan Stevenson, who was born in Nottingham but based in Torcross, Devon for the period he was leading PatAll. Stevenson was pretty fresh to organising, with most of his experience coming from his stint with the short-lived British Street Commandos (BSC).Stevenson’s main contribution prior to his leadership of PatAll would be the BSC helping to coordinate a demo in Nottingham in 2020, which gained support from the DFLA and supporters of British Army war criminal Soldier F.

/Like most CivNat groups, they at least pretended not to be racist, although of course, this wasn’t a hard line: memes using racial slurs were frequently shared and laughed at in the painfully unfunny “banter” chat, and certain members were totally unchallenged when being horrendously antisemitic. At one point, the group was even in early conversations with the British Movement, but this ended when someone pointed out that the 14 words (“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”) might be in contradiction with the “No Racism” rule proudly displayed in the Signal chat description. 

Primarily, the group was looking to more activist type ‘direct action’ (using that phrase about them makes me feel gross). Originally, they were using Signal to organise, which raised many eyebrows: end-to-end encrypted open source chats like that were used by National Action post-proscription, not by a crowd of gammony football hooligans obsessed with being an EDL continuity group. And initially, the plans were big, with the group attempting to coordinate an occupation of a Warwickshire hotel housing asylum seekers, while others discussed the logistics of doing armed patrols on the South coast. Of course, no group is complete without its fair share of fedposting, with group members dicussing arson attacks (!) as a strategy.

While this initially sounded like hot air, early members like Lionel Rummell of Sidcup, Kent and Andy Gardiner of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire do seem to have access to weapons through various forms of countryside hunt scummery, although they parted ways with PatAll early on likely due to the all-around incompetence of Ryan as an organiser, as well as the continuous change of platform between Whatsapp and Signal.

All of this would be far more serious if the group managed to actually organise any of the things they spoke about. The only plan that ever materialised was the “biggest march in history” in London on December 16th. This was actually approximately 40-50 people marching from a pub near Embankment, all the way to another pub on Trafalgar Square. Unfortunately, I wasn’t with the Patriots lads on that day, as I had to tidy my sock drawer, but from what I heard Ryan and his right hand man, Adam Rice of Ashford, Kent, managed to score a big win for Nationalism when they lobbed a few beer cans at the Big Ride for Palestine.

After the “biggest march in history” hangover wore off, the group decided it was time for some reflection, and moved from Signal to Whatsapp for a brief period. Prior to this, the group had been collaborating with another weird CivNat fringe group, the Great British Guardians. However, on Christmas day, an enormous row erupted between Ryan and William Tanser-Dawson, an ex-squaddie from Gravesend, Kent.

Ryan had sent in a meme that referenced His Majesty the King’s rather sausage-like fingers, and compared them to pigs in blankets. This was all too much for William, outraged that a fellow “patriot” could mock the royal family that he had sworn to defend. A fair few PatAll heads, including Andy Gardiner and his “new EDL2” mates, went on to join GBG. 

After this split, PatAll went on to make further fruitless plans, such as a now-cancelled day of action on February 10th that was to feature demos in Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Leicester, Newcastle, Northampton and Cardiff, presumably to target pro-Palestinian marches. This plan fell through when GBG decided to go to Scampton on that day instead, and Ryan decided to tag along in an attempt to repair relations. However, while he was repairing relations with GBG, PatAll was collapsing in internal arguments, as Ryan broke up with his online girlfriend and fellow Patriot, Sorrell Kelly of Watford. At around the same time, another prominent member, Courtney A.K.A. “Heart and Backbone” of Liverpool was challenging many of the more laddish Patriots for their sexism within the group and their lack of support for victims of sexual violence. She was eventually kicked out for “being argumentative.” Shortly after Courtney’s removal, Ryan Stevenson lost his phone in the sea (apparently), and the group went quiet for a few days. Without Courtney sending in her regular updates on Houthi activity in the Red Sea, and no Ryan to send drunk voice notes at 2pm about his latest big plan, the group seemed to be getting dormant. Only Ian Hadley of Shropshire, passionately self-described as Ginger Bollocks, was left to send in random links to tweets to no reply. 

I can only assume that Ian was speaking to his friends in GBG for this period, because Ryan (once he’d retrieved his phone from the sea, presumably) announced late on the 28th of January that Patriots Alliance would be joining Great British Guardians en masse. It was honestly surprising to me that it took this long for Ryan to realise that he couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery, but Great British Guardians seem to be marginally more organised. GBG now hold a degree of control of the admittedly catastrophic RAF Scampton campaign after Sam Foley and Simon Avison’s horrific break up after Avison was outed for making sexual advances to a 16 year old.

GBG have also courted some higher profile names, such as Croydon’s “Brexit” Brian Stovell and ex-EDL Ceri Owens, who both have ties to the Chelsea Headhunters. GBG are now collaborating closely with alleged Scampton donation thief Darren Edmundson of Pembroke Dock, Pembrookshire, as well as Oldham-based John Lawrence’s National Housing Party. 

For any antifascists looking to monitor this group, it’s worth pointing out that their online presence is very different to that of most other far right groups that use Telegram and Facebook. GBG are very media-savvy, essentially using members own personal social media accounts as puppets to mass spread their propaganda. The primary platform for this is Tiktok, although members have done the same on platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Typically, GBG affiliated accounts will have the groups logo for a profile picture, so they’re relatively easy to spot but are spread around in a way that is far more unpredictable than a Facebook group, for example. Their members are equally spread out, although GBG’s profile does seem to be slightly stronger in the South, especially in the Home Counties and Greater London. Below is a list of some of the areas where PatAll and/or GBG are known to be active. Where possible, antifascist groups have already been made aware of their local situation, so if any GBG members are reading this and don’t see your hometown, don’t think we’ve forgotten you. However, for any antifascists looking to be better informed on the activity or membership of these groups, especially if they are local to you, please email us at PatAllExposed@protonmail.com. We will be happy to provide as much as we can to aid local responses to this new formation.

AREAS OF INTEREST:

Devon

Gloucester

Hertfordshire

Kent

Essex

Bedfordshire

Berkshire 

Northampton 

Nottingham

Warwick

Stoke-on-Trent

Telford 

Hull

Hartlepool