A young generation of patriots calling themselves “Zoomer Nationalists” is being groomed for racial hatred and possibly terror – and their poster boy is just 17.
Far right group Patriotic Alternative is targeting Generation Z in search of the next wave of neo-Nazis.
And it is claimed PA’s rising star, Barkley Walsh, has followed the group's leader online since he was 13.
Shocking footage filmed over two years as part of an undercover investigation alleges:
- Walsh has been named guest of honour at PA’s next conference by its leader Mark Collett – an infamous neo-Nazi and a former youth leader of the British National Party.
- The teen was lured in by watching trolling reels and memes on PA’s YouTube channel after a relative died.
- Group members blast out racist political broadcasts over shoot-em-up computer games played by other potential Zoomer Nationalists.
- Older group members congratulate new recruits like Walsh for being arrested handing out far-right leaflets.
- Fake Labour leaflets distributed in the Batley and Spen by-election were planted by PA.
- Primary school children attend group rallies where racist terms are openly used – including one vile suggestion that footballers be shot in the head for taking the knee in support of the black community.
- There are even “jokes” about the Holocaust and slurs on Jewish people.
- A trainee teacher, Scouts volunteer and law student were at one camp.
The footage, in a Dispatches documentary broadcast on Channel 4 tomorrow, will shock parents whose children could have access to PA’s unregulated social media pages.
In a video of one gathering, Walsh can be heard laughing on hidden camera footage, as he boasts: “It’s quite funny to think I watched a f****** meme compilation and that’s what’s f****** led me to be at a campsite with some of the most notorious neo-Nazis in the country”.
Counter extremism adviser Dame Sara Khan warned of the youngsters being drawn into racism, violence and even terror.
She said: “We are increasingly seeing more young people being drawn into far-right extremism in this country.
“We have seen how children have gone on to commit acts of violence and in some cases been drawn into terrorism.
“Patriotic Alternative is promoting the same ideology, same dangerous anti-minority narrative as extreme right-wing terrorists. They are fundamentally creating a climate conducive to terrorism and violence.”
Dame Sara called on the Government to “outlaw the activity” of “hateful extremist groups like Patriotic Alternative.”
She added: “To not do so would be a big failure.”
Campaign group Hope Not Hate warned of a rise in under 24-year-olds using memes, livestreams, video games and chat sites to spread hate-filled propaganda “from basements and living rooms”.
According to HNH, Zoomer Nationalists feel older extremists have “failed to establish far-right ideas as the norm in society”. The new generation is said to favour a “hysterical, over the top” form of activism.
Vile tactics include dressing in Nazi garb or wearing blackface to shock unsuspecting strangers who log on to chat sites – then filming their reaction to use as promotional material.
Patrik Hermansson, senior researcher for HNH, said Walsh was among younger activists invited by PA to speak for an hour on a weekly “Zoomer Night” livestream.
Mr Hermansson said: “People have moved from Zoomer Nationalist communities into Patriotic Alternative specifically.
“Barkley Walsh is very much one of them. Whereas once you would have to travel, pay money and get out of your house to get involved, online you have a much better chance of taking up the movement and playing a much more major role. It’s a growing audience for the movement.
“It’s an increasing issue and we could be talking thousands [of youngsters] involved.”
The Dispatches probe gives a worrying insight into the group founded by Collett, 41, in 2019.
He tells followers tuning in to battle games like Mini Royale and Call of Duty where they can find his political back catalogue.
It comes after Britain’s most senior counter-terror officer warned that children are being lured into right-wing terrorism with online content via video games.
Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner Matt Jukes said that out of 20 children aged under 18 who were arrested last year for terrorism offences, 19 were linked to an extreme right-wing ideology.
He said extreme groups know how to present “something which is very attractive, potentially, to a vulnerable, young person, a young boy who spends a lot of time gaming.”
Despite being just 17, Walsh already has a track record of spouting race-hate bile on the internet.
He was recorded during one livestream saying “f*** the Muslims”. On his chat show, streamed via PA’s YouTube channel, he claimed white people face “erasure”.
In the C4 documentary he even brags about his online radicalisation.
Speaking to an undercover investigator at PA’s annual summer camp last June, he tells how he entered the far right after the death of a relative.
“I became quite reclusive, you know, I started watching... trolling videos and cringe compilations and stuff like that,” he says. Walsh was arrested on suspicion of malicious communication after handing out PA pamphlets in Norwich in 2020, but released without charge.
In footage on C4, Collett and his PA sidekick Laura Tyrie – who uses the pseudonym Laura Towler online – heap praise on the lad.
In a livestream, Collett says he and Tyrie are “very proud” of Walsh and offers him free tickets to a PA conference, claiming the youngster will be introduced “as a guest of honour”.
Collett, Tyrie and Walsh are also pictured in a group picture taken at PA’s summer camp in Derbyshire’s Peak District last year.
In footage secretly filmed at the camp, attended by 150 people, Walsh appears excited about his notoriety.
He jokes about Jews being marked by numbers – a reference to the six million murdered at Nazi concentration camps.
When others laugh he vows to include the slur in a future speech.
He adds: “Mark said that, if I’m a super-good boy, when I’m 18 he’ll let me do a speech at the Patriotic Alternative conference.”
There is no suggestion that Walsh is linked to terror. The Sunday Mirror revealed last year how some members who attended PA’s summer camp later abused three of England’s black footballers online after they missed in the penalty shootout against Italy in the final of the Euros.
And shocking Dispatches scenes reveal the hateful views circulated at the camp – in spite of PA claiming it does not tolerate racial slurs or the promotion of violence.
According to the documentary, organisers of the event – pitched as family friendly and attended by children – told campsite owners it was a community group helping the homeless.
Attendees are seen discussing shooting in the head those who take the knee at sporting events in support of the fight against racism.
One uses a racial slur to describe Man City and England striker Raheem Sterling, while another uses the N-word when telling how they refuse to take the knee. The Scouts volunteer and law student appear on camera during chats at the camp and describe Jewish people as “disgusting”.
The programme also shines a light on PA’s so-called Alternative Curriculum – a system of home-schooling which the Mirror first exposed in 2020.
UN counter terrorism adviser Julia Ebner blasted the regime as “brainwashing children into white nationalist ideologies”. Revelations about the Zoomers come after a police alert last December for “all parents to be vigilant” after figures showed a rise in the number of children arrested for far-right terrorism offences.
Det Supt Vicky Washington, Counter Terrorism Policing’s National Prevent Co-ordinator, said lockdown created a “perfect storm” for teenagers to become radicalised by the far right.
She told of fears that lockdown lifting has created new opportunities for people who have been radicalised to meet face-to-face.
Last month neo-Nazi Thomas Leech, 19, who posted online a “call to arms” for the white race, was jailed for two years. His far-right online activities “filled a void”, Manchester crown court heard.
Leech, of Preston, Lancs, admitted three counts of encouraging acts of terrorism and two of stirring up religious or racial hatred. He also admitted possessing indecent images of children.
And in February, 18-year-old Connor Burke, who sent a bomb manual disguised as a Minecraft video game guide to fellow extremists, was jailed for three-and-a-half years for terror offences.
The teen’s parents fear he “fell down a rabbit hole during lockdown”, Woolwich crown court was told.
The Sunday Mirror approached Collett, Walsh and Tyrie for comment.
Collett and Tyrie told Dispatches that PA is proud to advocate “for the rights of the indigenous people of the British Isles” and that “it is our constitutional right to organise.”
They said PA activists engage in “legal, democratic and peaceful political activities” and told Dispatches: “To characterise persuading other people to join a cause through discussion or by presenting alternative ideas as ‘grooming’ is outrageous.”
They claimed the programme takes events “out of context”.
- The Enemy Within: Britain’s Far Right – Dispatches is broadcast by Channel 4 at 8.30pm tomorrow.
