A violent anti-Semitic neo-Nazi group has launched a recruitment campaign “in preparation for a race war”, The Telegraph can reveal.
Vanguard Britannica has been holding fighting camps and carrying out combat training to ready its members for political violence.
Promotional footage distributed by the group shows masked men brawling in fields, taking part in one-on-one topless kickboxing fights and running fitness drills.
The group, founded in 2022, initially consisted of a small band of far-Right extremists but has since formed alliances with prolific white supremacist movements in the UK and the United States.
Far-Right referrals to the Government’s Prevent anti-extremism scheme have jumped 37 per cent in the past year, with reports rising by 27 per cent overall.
Vanguard Britannica’s recruitment push comes after anti-Semitic terror attacks on the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester and the Bondi Beach Hanukkah festival.
Alex Hearn, co-director of Labour Against Antisemitism, which conducted the research into the group, said: “The fight training camps and workshops with prominent white nationalist groups around the world suggest Vanguard Britannica could be preparing for increased political or racial violence.
“They exploit anti-immigration sentiment in their motorway banner drops and sticker campaigns, but the true objectives of these white nationalists are far more sinister – racial purity.”
The group has held training camps in London, the Midlands, East Anglia and Scotland, with organisers claiming they are preparing for an impending race war.
As part of the recruitment push, clips of training exercises, featuring stirring music, have been posted on the group’s Telegram channel.
The group has also been unfurling anti-immigration banners from motorway bridges as they seek to boost their profile.
Vanguard Britannica was founded in the East Midlands and initially targeted Jewish and ethnic minority areas with racist stickers and offensive vandalism.
But in 2024, members formed an alliance with Patriotic Front, the US’s most prominent neo-Nazi organisation, as well as forging ties with the Active Club England (ACE) white supremacist movement that masquerades as a fitness association but idolises Hitler and promotes Nazi values.
Since then, Vanguard Britannica has been on a recruitment drive to bolster membership and establish itself as one of the primary movements on the extreme Right in Britain.
Earlier this year, members travelled to the US to attend the first national conference of the Patriot Front and engage in “workshops” with them.
The group gained notoriety in 2017 after members were present at the march preceding the Charlottesville terror attack, which left one person dead and injured dozens more.
Following the visit, members of Vanguard Britannica boasted on Telegram of returning to the UK “ready to apply” what they had learnt.
The group has been known to target predominantly Jewish areas, putting up stickers and posters with messages opposing “Zionist wars”.
They have previously said they wish to “educate all on the evils the Jew wreaks upon our lands and people”.
