ARTICLE BY JOHN NORTH
John North was groomed into far-right extremism in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing.
I grew up in the northern part of England.The community where I lived in was very much a White working-class community, you know no one was really rich, everyone was just part of the working class, and again, a really White-majority area. You know, spent a lot of time as a kid playing football, cricket, rugby, all those types of sports. It really was just that typical sort of council estate British upbringing, really.
What drew me in to the far right initially was a friend of mine showing me a post on his phone, and this post simply said: “If you think British soldiers shouldn’t be on the streets, share this post.” Now, the reason I connected to that post so much is because my uncle was a soldier, and when he came home from war he had a lot of mental health issues, he was really struggling with the sort of things he had seen in that wartime setting and I really think he did had a little bit of PTSD after he left the war. At the time I thought he wasn’t being offered any help, so when I saw these people I thought cared about soldiers, it was a buy-in for me, really.
At that time in my life, I was a very, very angry person. I had a lot of rage for anything and that was sort of bred into me by the far right. You know, the smallest thing would get me really, really angry. So for example, being a video game player, if I died in Call of Duty or if I conceded a goal in FIFA, I’d lose my rag – and this happened with pretty much everything in my life. Another thing is that I didn’t really like authority, I didn’t like anybody telling me what to do, whether that was during my education or my family trying to tell me to do something.
This is something that the far-right do a lot. They’ll share a picture that will say something about soldiers, or it may say something like, “If you love British wildlife, share this post”, “If you love the British countryside, share this post.” But of course, with the way that social media algorithms work, if you share that post, the social media outlet, they all do it, they recognize that you’ve taken an interest in that account, and in that page, and then from there they’ll push more of that content onto your timeline.
The North West Infidels are very similar to the English Defense League, but much more violent. They have a lot of these ‘football hooligan’ type people, a much more extreme mentality about them. The Infidels are a huge group and the North West is just a branch. A lot of people from the same background, that White working class background, but most people there were a lot older than me, late 20s, 30s, going into the 40s.
It’s that core belief that Islam has no part in the UK, propaganda suggesting that every Muslim is a terrorist or that they are covering for terrorism, that every Muslim male was a part of terrorist gangs or covering for those gangs. The Mosque Burning Challenge was a “game” developed by the far-right and the Infidels really did use it a lot. It would be almost like a points-system based game where, for example, if you burned a mosque, you would get a certain amount of points, if you took a hijab, you would get a certain amount of points, if you took a burqa, you would get a certain amount of points. And I remember almost not believing what they were saying, but then of course you would read the reports, for example after the Manchester Arena attack, when mosques would get burned, they would throw petrol bombs at them and stuff, and you’re almost sitting there and thinking, “Could that be someone from the groups that I’m a part of?”
The ultimate goal of these groups is to recruit more and more people. Of course, each group has their different manifesto, different goals and aspirations, but ultimately, the main purpose of these groups is to get as many people on board as possible, radicalization basically, mostly online. There’s massive infighting between the different groups, which varies from one week to the next. The biggest example is between the Cultural White Nationalists and the White Supremacist Neo-Nazi groups, because the Cultural Nationalists support Britain. They are very patriotic. They believe that the Neo-Nazis are trying to continue the views that millions of British soldiers died to stop. Meanwhile, the Neo-Nazis hate the Cultural Nationalists because they don’t believe that they are extreme enough, and that they are just wasting their time doing these street protests and street demonstrations.
After making a series of racist and offensive comments in college, I ended up getting referred to the college safeguarding lead, and after a meeting with the college safeguarding lead she asked me if I would be comfortable speaking to Prevent – Prevent is voluntary. I said yes, that I would listen to what they had to say. I met my Prevent IP (Intervention Provider). We got along really, really well. We had a really similar upbringing, really similar background, and a lot of similar interests. I could see myself in him, and because of that I decided to listen to him. There was one bit of advice he gave me. There were twenty or so quotes that I had which at the time I had believed to be from the Quran. I believed them to be a declaration of war against Western culture. He told me to download this app which was just the Quran translated into English. It turned out that all but one of these quotes was fake. There was only one that was real, and the one that was real was about four words taken out of context.
That’s the moment that I realized I had been manipulated. I refer to it as a ‘lightbulb moment’ going off in my head. I started to do a whole lot of research into everything else. This research period went on for about five to six weeks. After that period had resolved and I learned a little bit about Islam, Muslim culture, and the benefits of immigration, I simply couldn’t stand by the far right’s message anymore, I didn’t believe in it and I just couldn’t support it anymore.
My IP taught me to believe in myself again. In school, I was a very low achieving student. I was always the class clown. I’d always heard throughout school that if you don’t get good grades, if you don’t get your GCSEs, you’ll amount to nothing in life. And he taught me that GCSEs aren’t everything. There are other opportunities out there for you. If it wasn’t for him believing in me, I wouldn’t be in this position now; it was him giving me a platform to work off that I was able to get into Exit Hate and Small Steps and get a job with them. I really owe him everything for where I am now.
Exit Hate is similar to Prevent. With Prevent being government-led, some people in the far right don’t trust the government so they won’t trust Prevent. Exit Hate is built as an alternative to that, so we do deradicalize and help people leave the far-right ourselves. The biggest thing that can stop all forms of extremism is uniting together as a community and educating people. The far right rely on communities fighting against each other. We need to come together as a community, understand each other’s background and cultures, and once we do that, there will be no room for extremism to grow. These extremist groups rely on us being divided and not having a good understanding of what the truth of Islam is about, or the truth of Judaism, or Black culture, etc. – they rely on us having a lack of education on these topics so that the far right can implement their warped version of what these different cultures and religions are about.
I was always a little bit of a ‘black sheep’ in my family. After I joined the far right, that gap grew even bigger. Lots of people didn’t like what I was involved in. They would never come directly to me and talk to me about it, they would often go to my mom and question my mom about it, which was something I really didn’t like. I fell out with a lot of my family at that time, but thankfully now, a lot of those connections have been rebuilt again.
Once I left the far-right, my mom and my grandparents started to see the changes in me very, very quickly. My more extended family took a few months, even years, to see that change within me. A lot of my childhood friends had walked away, which is quite understandable. I was a very negative person at the time, and they didn’t want to associate themselves with me. A couple were willing to give me that second chance straight away. For others, it took them a few months, even a few years. There are some people I still don’t speak to.
Once I left the far right I got off social media for a good two years. Being a young person, I’m not going to say that I didn’t have any social media, but I only have one or maybe two, things are very locked down and private. I changed my phone number, and was very, very careful who I gave that number to. There was a period were I chose to socially isolate myself, but it was something that I needed for myself. It was something that I recognized I needed to do.
Just reach out and get some help. Leaving the far right will be the best thing you’ll ever do. Taking the weight of the world off your shoulders, walking away from pure hate, will be the best thing you’ll ever do.