The founder of a banned fascist group has been jailed today for eight-and-a-half years.
Alex Davies, the founder of National Action, was sentenced at the Old Bailey after a jury at Winchester Crown Court convicted him of being a member of the banned extreme right-wing neo-Nazi group.
Davies, from Swansea, set up the group in 2013 with Ben Raymond, the court heard.
The pair described themselves as a “white jihadist group” and sought to create a National Socialist, or neo-Nazi, youth movement in the UK.
They modelled themselves on Nazi SS stormtroopers and toured the country joining flash demonstrations, which often turned violent.
In May 2016, Davies was seen shouting into a megaphone in front of a banner that read: "Refugees not welcome: Hitler was right.”
Davies, 27, controlled the finances of the Hitler worshipping group and supervised the production of leaflets, flags and banners.
He was taped saying: "I don't want to tell you what I would do to the Jews but it's more extreme."
Davies was seen throwing Nazi salutes while visiting the Buchenwald concentration camp with other fascists.
When the group was banned, Davies rebranded the group into several smaller organisations.
He was head of the NS131, which was in Wales and the South West.
He said: "It's not illegal to be a national socialist. I don't think we've got much to worry about."
He later added: "If they continue to try and repress us we will simply give them the biggest game of Whack-a-Mole ever."
National Action spread its propaganda through stickering, leafleting and joining flash demonstrations, most notably in 2016 in Liverpool, Swansea, York and Darlington.
They used Nazi-themed stickers as visual weapons put up in town centres and university campuses.
The organisation stockpiled knives, daggers, machetes, high-velocity crossbows, rifles, pump-action shotguns, knuckle dusters, disabling spray, baseball bats, and even a longbow.
The group supported Thomas Mair, who was given a whole life sentence for the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016.
In December 2016, the government banned them and then Home Secretary Amber Rudd described the group as "a racist, antisemitic and homophobic organisation which stirs up hatred, glorifies violence and promotes a vile ideology".
Davies was studying at Warwick University when he founded National Action. The former philosophy undergraduate was the last of 25 members of the National Action to get convicted of keeping the organisation running following a ban for encouraging the killing of MPs.
The far-right group encouraged members to join the police and army, as they toured the country holding "flash demonstrations".
Fellow members included Jack Renshaw, 26, jailed for at least 20 years in 2019 for plotting to kill MP Rosie Cooper with a sword, and Christopher Lythgoe, 35, who was locked up for eight years in 2018.
Mikko Vehvilainen, a serving soldier who fought in Afghanistan, was jailed for eight years in April 2018 for amassing weaponry including ceremonial Nazi daggers.
Benjamin Hannam, 22, became the first police officer in the UK to be convicted of belonging to National Action in 2021. He had joined the organisation in 2017 but failed to declare his extremist beliefs during the Met police vetting process.
Hannam was convicted by an Old Bailey jury of terrorist offences and jailed for four years and four months in April 2021.
Among other recruits was Alice Cutter, who entered a 'Miss Hitler' beauty pageant, calling herself the Buchenwald Princess.
Raymond, who studied politics at Essex University and set up National Action with Davies, was jailed for eight years last December.
Davies had twice been referred to the government's Prevent de-radicalisation scheme by his school, once when he was 15 and again when he was 19.
He was convicted of membership in a proscribed organisation after a trial at Winchester Crown Court last month.
He was on bail for racially abusing a train passenger six weeks before he was arrested.
Judge Mark Dennis told him: "This was a well-orchestrated and determined effort to flout the ban on the activities of National Action."
During the trial, Davies had said he was still a neo-Nazi and still supported Hitler.
He said that when Davies advocated mass deportations for the non-white population of Britain a "chill" fell on the court that he can never forget.
The judge added that Davies had played an "active and prominent role" in National Action and defying the ban of the organisation and his abhorrent views had not been affected by his arrest and trial.
He told Davies he held "warped and shocking prejudices which it appears you maintain to this day".
Detective Superintendent Anthony Tagg, from CTP WM CTU, said following Davies' conviction: “Our officers have worked tirelessly to secure convictions of men who posed a significant threat to communities across the country.
“They were not merely armchair terrorists, they actively planned a race war. They recruited from positions of trust – the military and the police."
Detective Superintendent Gareth Rees is the Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism lead for the National Counter Terrorism Policing network and added: "The conviction of Alex Davies demonstrates policing’s commitment to pursue those who seek to spread fear and spark dissent in our communities.
“Since the proscription of National Action in 2016, officers across the country have worked tirelessly to identify individuals who continue to engage with, and further, the toxic and dangerous ideology of this terrorist group.
“The work of the Counter-Terrorism Policing network has led to a significant number of convictions for membership of National Action, and I hope that the sentences served by the courts are a warning to those who may be tempted into such activity in the future."
