Throughout 2014, Student Rights highlighted attempts by the neo-Nazi organisation, National Action, to target university campuses.
While often only taking the form of poster drops, this activism was a worrying phenomenon, one exacerbated by the fact a member of the group was later convicted of attempted murder.
While National Action appears to have had little success in targeting universities in 2015, over the weekend members of the group took a number of photographs suggesting they had appeared on campus at the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University.
Student Rights have previously logged evidence of the group targeting campuses at Coventry University and the University of Warwick, as well as appearances at UCL and London Metropolitan University, and the University of Leeds.
National Action also claims to have appeared in Nottingham, Newcastle and Cambridge, and in April 2014 carried out a poster drop at Swansea University.
A virulently racist organisation, National Action regularly shares Nazi imagery and Holocaust denial online, and has recently taken to posting pictures of Auschwitz alongside the slogan “refugees welcome”.
Senior figures have also been reported to be: “obsessed with the “no compromise” tactics of the group called Islamic State and Jihadi John”.
This reflects a Twitter post made by the group in April 2015, which showed a cartoon of a National Action member dressed in the style of an Islamic State executioner in the process of beheading a Jewish man.
Such violent rhetoric was also on show at a conference held by the group in May that year, at which a member shouted: “Gas the kikes, race war now!” during his speech.
The group drew press attention last week, when a member was filmed assaulting a busker in Newcastle at a rally during which the group waved a banner which declared “Hitler was right”.
This violent behaviour, as well as the group’s militaristic pretensions and reports members carry weapons, highlights the importance of vigilance from universities.
Any evidence of the organisation’s presence on-campus should be taken extremely seriously, and recognising the campaign materials used by the group should be included in any counter-extremism training provided to staff.
Here at Student Rights, we also hope students will report any evidence of this group operating on their campus to their universities immediately – and will get in touch with us if they have any concerns.