Editing National Action (section)

== Members ==
A member known as "Tom", who was 18 years old at the time, was interviewed by ''The Huffington Post'' in March 2014. He named José Antonio Primo de Rivera of the Spanish Falange, Alexander Raven Thomson and [[Oswald Mosley]] of the [[British Union of Fascists]], and writer Wyndham Lewis as inspiration for National Action. The group's strategy document twice quoted [[Adolf Hitler]], which "Tom" called "a bit dodgy". He explained it by saying "What has been a successful nationalist movement? Oh it was [the Nazis]...That's why we're using [the Nazis]. They used it and they were able to gain power...Gottfried Feder, who was an economist and a member of the NSDAP, he had some good ideas".

Due to the secretive nature of National Action, it is not clear who the leadership of the organisation are. Former National Front member Ashley Bell (pseudonym Tommy Johnson) has been referred to as the organisation's leader, and is thought to be one of a number of activists behind National Action's founding document.

In an investigation by the ''Daily Mirror'', [[Benjamin Raymond]], age 25 in June 2014, was found to be the leader of National Action. He is a former double-glazing salesman who graduated with a degree in Politics from the University of Essex in 2013. By 2014, he had written on his blog: "There are non-whites and Jews in my country who all need to be exterminated. As a teenager, ''Mein Kampf''changed my life. I am not ashamed to say I love Hitler." He has expressed admiration for [[Anders Behring Breivik]], the far-right terrorist, who is "the hero Norway deserves". Raymond told BBC News in 2015: "The source of all of the conflict in society is all the different racial groups that have been brought here. They have been brought here to create a people who are deracinated and easier to control".

Another member was found to be 19-year-old Alex Davies of Swansea, who withdrew from a first-year course in philosophy at Warwick University in June 2014 after his involvement in National Action was revealed. A university spokesman said, "Any such allegations are taken seriously." Davies had joined the Young [[BNP]] at 16, but found the group to be in "disarray". He describes the difference between the two groups as: "We're targeting universities regularly. That's something the BNP never had. We've built something in a few months the BNP didn't have in 20 years."

[[Jack Renshaw]], a former Youth BNP activist and a senior spokesperson for the organisation, faced criminal charges over incitement to racial hatred, with his trial scheduled for 2 January 2018. Renshaw had called for Jews to be "eradicated" as "nature’s financial parasite and nature’s social vermin", and had said that the UK had backed the wrong side in the Second World War, since the Nazis "were there to remove Jewry from Europe once and for all." A person who had committed those same offences, whose name cannot be legally published in the UK, was found guilty at Preston Crown Court of inciting racial hatred on 8 January 2018.

In November 2017, six people – 31-year-old Christopher Lythgoe, from Warrington, Garron Helm, 24, of Seaforth, Merseyside; Matthew Hankinson, 23, of Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside; and Andrew Clarke, 33, and Michael Trubini, 35, both of Warrington, along with Jack Renshaw, were charged with being members of National Action, which is banned in the UK. Two of the men, Lythgoe and Renshaw, were also charged with being involved in a plot to [[murder]] the West Lancashire MP Rosie Cooper with a machete, and of threatening to kill a police officer. In July 2017, a former National Action member, Robbie Mullen, reported the plot to the anti-racism organisation Hope Not Hate, who reported the matter to the police.

The six faced trial on 11 June 2018 at the Old Bailey in London. The next day, Renshaw pleaded guilty to plotting to murder Rosie Cooper, and to threatening to kill a police officer. The following month, Hankinson and Lythgoe were found guilty of being members of National Action and jailed for six years and eight years, respectively. The presiding judge, Mr Justice Jay, told Hankinson: "You are a neo-Nazi who glorifies and revels in a perverted ideology, has a deep hatred of ethnic minorities and Jews and has advocated violence to achieve your objectives." Helm was found not guilty of being a member of the group and Lythgoe was found not guilty of encouragement to murder for allegedly giving Renshaw permission to kill Ms Cooper on behalf of the group.

According to the BBC and ''The Independent'', six people – five men and a woman – were arrested in co-ordinated raids by the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit, and were charged with being members of National Action. The six – Nathan Pryke, 26, from Cambridge; Adam Thomas, 21, and Claudia Patatas, 38, both of Banbury, Oxfordshire; Darren Fletcher, 28, of Wednesfield, Wolverhampton; Daniel Bogunovic, 26, of Leicester; and Joel Wilmore, 24, of Hazel Grove, Stockport – appeared in court in January 2018 and entered pleas of not guilty. All except Patatas gave their nationality as British; Patatas is Portuguese. Several of the group also faced additional charges.<sup>[20]</sup> Thomas, Patatas and Bogunovic were convicted in November 2018. (''see below'') In December 2018, the six received prison sentences varying between five to six-and-a-half years.

Two National Action members were imprisoned for eight years each at the Crown Court in Birmingham. In March 2018, Corporal Mikko Vehvilainen, 34, was described as a recruiter for National Action, a key part of whose strategy was to expand its membership within the armed forces. A self-confessed racist who believes in a coming "race war", Vehvilainen wanted to establish an all-white stronghold in the Welsh village of Llansilin. When arrested at his house there, police found a photograph of him giving a [[Hitler Salute|Nazi salute]] at a 1917 memorial to his native Finland’s independence and an arsenal of weapons and swastika bunting. Another soldier, Private Mark Barrett, like Vehvilainen a member of the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment, was acquitted but is believed to have been dismissed by the Army. Alexander Deakin, 24, unemployed, was the Midlands regional organiser. He was seen on CCTV putting up racist stickers at Aston University. Deakin spread racist propaganda from his bedroom at his parents’ house, telling fellow National Action members via encrypted chat that in a future "race war" they would have a "[[KKK]]-themed [[death squad]]". He bragged that counter-terrorism officers were incompetent and would never catch him, but he was found hiding in a cupboard when he was arrested. He was sentenced in April 2018.

In May 2018, Wayne Bell, described as a "poster boy" for the organisation, pleaded guilty to two counts of stirring up racial hatred and three counts of possessing multiple items in order to destroy or damage property. The court heard that he had written neo-Nazi graffiti on pillars and lamp posts in his home town of Castleford, and that he had made hundreds of racist and [[Anti-Semitism|antisemitic]] posts on Twitter and the Russian social media site VKontakte. He was sentenced to four years and three months in prison.