White supremacist groups are using mixed martial arts as a way to recruit and gather members
A hateful white supremacist network with a ‘fight club’ ethos is spreading across the US and around the world, new research shows.
Neo-Nazi Active Clubs are said to be one of the fastest-growing extreme-right groups in America and are also present in the UK and Europe.
The branches outwardly promote mixed martial arts (MMA) training and ‘brotherhood’ while preparing members for a race war against their perceived enemies, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Collaboration between a long list of clubs in the US and the UK and Europe is evident in online communications seen by the Metro.
One branch in London is among those which have been active over the new year period, with members shown participating in MMA training.
The extreme-right movement is said to be undertaking combat training to prepare for ‘Day X’ — a power struggle with other groups.
Morgan Lynn Moon, an investigative researcher at the ADL, told Metro: ‘Active Clubs continue to be one of the fastest growing segments in the white supremacist movement in the United States.
Neo-Nazi Active Clubs combine combat training with a white brotherhood ethos (Picture: via Counter Extremism Project)
‘Since January 2021, Active Clubs have continued to spread and currently maintain a presence in 36 US states and have multiple chapters abroad, including Estonia, Scotland, Germany, France, Norway, Finland and more.
‘These Active Club chapters continue to engage in on-the-ground activity, distributing propaganda, organising a range of demonstrations and hosting large-scale fight nights across the United States.’
The ADL began tracking European Active Clubs in 2022, finding them to be ‘closely connected’ to longer established branches in the US.
Some of the extremists have overlapping membership of white supremacist groups, with members in the US taking part in demonstrations and travelling to Europe to participate in related activities.
Branches worldwide, including in the UK and Northern Ireland, are capitalising on the popularity of MMA as well as organising group outings and social events. In the UK, Active Club England has a handful of regional branches openly posting content on Telegram.
There are also clubs in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
A white nationalist video shared among Active Clubs (Picture: via Telegram)
An Active Club tournament in California where a flag for the neo-Nazi Hammerskins hangs in the background (Picture: via Counter Extremism Project)
One club in London posts pictures of members with their faces obscured training in a playground and carries a quote from Italian far-right philosopher Julius Evola encouraging race war.
Material shared by the UK groups also includes content encouraging white men to ‘wake up’ or — or rise up — against the British government in the aftermath of the Southport murders, which resulted in far-right violence across the country last summer.
This type of scenario is one the clubs are actively preparing for, with a factsheet put together by the New York-based ADL stating that ‘Active Club members see themselves as fighters training for an ongoing war against a system that they claim is deliberately plotting against the white race.’
Moon said: ‘Active Club fight nights are modelled after the European MMA-ultranationalist scene, as the network’s founder Robert Rundo was influenced by his time living in eastern Europe and by pre-existing European groups like White REX, Confident Hooligan and Generation Identity that focus on MMA-styled tactics.
‘Rundo has stated that he wished the Active Club model to “fill the gap” within the American white supremacist scene by creating similar MMA-styled clubs that would force online “keyboard warriors” to engage in real-world training and events.’
White supremacist behind hate movement
Far-right activist Robert Rundo, 34, co-founder of RAM, was extradited from Romania to the US in 2023 on anti-riot act charges after nearly a year on the run. He subsequently pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal laws and was sentenced to the 24 months he had already served in prison for inciting the brawls.
Active Clubs grew out of the arrests of members of the Rise Above Movement (RAM) for violence against counter-protestors at a 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Virginia. Some of the victims were left with ‘serious injuries’, according to the state attorney’s office.
In 2020, he began setting up ‘fitness clubs’ — essentially independent cells — combining combat sport with a white nationalist agenda. Named Active Clubs, they are ‘smaller than typical white supremacist organisations and more careful about their online image’ while ensuring that Rundo cannot be linked to any ‘illicit’ activities the groups take part in, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Outwardly, the network states that the MMA events and training are about white men training for combat sports and athletics for inter-club events, with no mention made of neo-Nazi aims or ideology.
The general ethos for members worldwide is to look and act like ‘regular guys’ and not talk about ‘politics, Jews or history’, according to research by the Counter Extremism Project, a New York-based policy organisation.
But underneath the law-abiding veneer are groups that are often founded by members with extreme-right agendas who are trying to attract recruits from mainstream society — an approach known as the ‘3.0 model’.
Members of an Active Club in Scotland display their logo within the Celtic Cross symbol used by the groups (Picture: Hope Not Hate)
The strategy is designed to evade law enforcement monitoring and intervention while preparing for a ‘Day X scenario’ which could mean the clubs serving as a militia to an extreme-right party and fighting their political enemies, according to senior CEP advisor Alexander Ritzmann.
Moon has found that this is the type of scenario the groups are actively preparing for underneath their focus on athleticism.
‘The large-scale fight nights, that sometimes attract upwards of 60 or more attendees from a range of white supremacist groups across the United States and even abroad, allow the groups to fraternise and recruit, while also fulfilling the Active Club’s goal of crafting a transnational white fraternal brotherhood,’ the researcher said.
An Active Club in France is among those which have been formed out of a movement started in the US (Picture: via Counter Extremism Project)
‘The group’s focus on physical training is directly rooted in fighting against a perceived enemy. The network’s focus on MMA, jiu-jitsu and fight nights serve as a way for members to physically prepare and train as “white warriors,” prepping for some potential conflict with their perceived enemy.’
In December 2023, club members were arrested over their alleged membership of the Canadian branch of the Atomwaffen Division (AWD), which is a listed terror group in the country and the UK.
According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, many former AWD members had joined the Canadian Active Club network.
However the groups’ decentralised structure poses a new challenge to the authorities across North America, the UK and Europe, with the evidence suggesting cross-over with other white supremacist movements.
In the UK, the threat from neo-Nazi extremists has been underscored by a string of convictions over the past 12 months.
Rise Above Movement founder Robert Rundo pictured inside a Romanian gym shortly after he was taken into custody (Picture: @Digi24)
In October, neo-Nazi terrorist Callum Parslow was jailed for stabbing an asylum seeker in the chest. The 31-year-old computer programmer, from Worcestershire, is due to be sentenced on Friday after previously being found guilty of attempted murder at Leicester Crown Court.
At present, members of Active Clubs cannot be prosecuted simply for belonging to one of the branches as the entities are not proscribed under UK terror law, unlike neo-Nazi groups such as National Action, the Sonnenkrieg Division and the Terrorgram collective.
Active Club Scotland has rejected accusations of extremism.
The group told the Times: ‘The purpose of AC Scotland is to promote a healthy counterculture of athletics, honour and identity. We reject violence of any kind and have a code of conduct that prohibits this.
‘Our club’s activities are geared towards building better men, fathers and creating lasting friendship. We do not step on others and focus on the principle of self-improvement.
‘Above all else, we are law-abiding, tax-paying citizens.’
Metro has approached various Active Club branches and the UK Home Office for comment.
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