LONDON (Reuters) – The co-founder of a British neo-Nazi group, whose members have planned or praised the murder of lawmakers, was jailed on Tuesday for being a member of a banned organisation.
Alex Davies, 28, helped to set up National Action, a white supremacist group which was proscribed by the government in 2016, after it openly celebrated the killing of Jo Cox, a member of parliament. She was shot and stabbed to death by a Nazi-obsessed recluse in a frenzied street attack.
Davies was found guilty last month of remaining a member of the group after it was banned. He was jailed for eight-and-a-half years at London’s Old Bailey court on Tuesday.
In 2018, a National Action member admitted buying a machete for the purpose of murdering another female lawmaker as well as making a threat to kill a female police officer.
Last year, a policeman became the first serving police officer to be convicted of a terrorism offence after he was found guilty of being a member of the group.
Prosecutors said the aim of National Action, which was formed in 2013, was to start a race war. The group – the first far-right organisation to be outlawed in Britain since World War Two – had said it wanted to free white Britain from Jewish control and the spread of ethnic minorities.
British police have recently warned of a rise in far-right extremism.
(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by William Schomberg)
