Concerns about the growth of self-styled fitness clubs organised by the far right have prompted calls for action to counter misogynistic messaging targeted at young men and boys.
Campaigners want the UK government to recognise the danger presented by so-called “active clubs” – a loose movement imported from the US – and use moments such as a review of the school curriculum to challenge their ideology.
While it has often been careful to avoid direct calls to violence, the decentralised grouping has links to the international far right and has a specific focus on developing members’ fitness with a view to being able to fight.
Thousands of subscribers across Britain are signed up to accounts on Telegram, the encrypted messaging app.
White nationalism, fascist imagery as well as homophobic and misogynistic language feature heavily, while many of the same fitness groups’ Telegram channels have been posting attempts to stir up tensions after the deaths of three young girls in Southport.
A range of active club groups in the UK had upwards of 6,000 subscribers on Telegram while the latest version of a group dedicated to England had almost 1,600 subscribers, a BBC investigation reported this week.
Evidence seen by the Guardian indicates that members of equivalent clubs in the US have travelled to the UK in recent months.
The groups’ relative growth – researchers regard the true number of participants as being a fraction of the thousands of subscribers – comes as more overtly political British far-right groups such as Patriotic Alternative have struggled.
A group using the name Active Club Scotland (ACS) is regarded by Hope Not Hate as being one of the first to have emerged in Britain, taking a cue from US clubs that grew out of the Rise Above Movement, a far-right street-fighting group in California.
Patrik Hermansson, a senior researcher at Hope Not Hate who has explored the trend in detail, said: “The UK has been a late adopter to this trend, which only really took off here last summer and took inspiration from European and US counterparts. Ultimately, they are about reasserting masculinity, affirming members as strong, capable men and pushing out the message that society is weak and degenerate and the reason for that is progressive ideals and feminism.”
Like their European and US equivalents, the groups mix ideological posts with images and “reports” of members taking part in martial arts activities, often in open countryside but sometimes in private and public gyms.
Images and posts seen by the Guardian range from groups publicising activities such as “banner drops” of far-right propaganda from motorway bridges, through to posts showing exercising members with their faces blurred out.
One from a group for the south of England showed black-clad recruits doing press-ups on Jesus Green, Cambridge. Another post, by Active Club England, forwarded an image purporting to show a visit to London last month by followers of a US white supremacist group calling themselves the Sons of Colombia. Anti-fascist researchers are also aware of at least one other visit by another US far-right active club to the UK this year.
Hermansson added: “These clubs are about building a capacity for violence and imagining a future where violence is necessary to somehow save the nation. It’s highly masculine – you rarely, if ever, see a woman in their posts and there is very much a separatist side to drawing people in and radicalising them.”
Christine Jardine, a Liberal Democrat MP and the party’s equalities spokesperson, described the rise of the groups as “deeply disturbing” and said the school curriculum should be updated to ensure young people can be protected from people using popular platforms to prey on vulnerable young men and boys.
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, announced a review in August of the curriculum in primary and secondary schools and said children would be taught how to spot extremist content and misinformation online under planned changes.
Brendan Cox, who was married to the murdered West Yorkshire MP Jo Cox and campaigns on counter-terrorism and community cohesion, said the Active Clubs should be seen in the context of research showing men were more than twice as likely as women to try to justify violence outside refugee accommodation this summer.
“The other thing is that misogyny is a common strand connecting so many of the different forms of extremism,” he said. “There is an obvious opportunity in the curriculum review. We need to be talking not just about misogyny but about positive male role models.”
The call for a greater focus on education was echoed by Amy O’Connor, the director of policy and advocacy at Movember, which campaigns on men’s health and is also devoting resources to researching misogyny.
She said: “What we are increasingly learning is that men are just not getting the support when it comes to relationships and male identity. In so many cases they are going online and searching for answers and that’s a gap which is being filled in some cases by some extreme views, influencers and groups.”