Group previously known as Generation Identity UK and Éire disbands

The leader of the Identitarian Movement Great Britain & Ireland has announced that the group is disbanding. In a statement released earlier this week, its leader noted his own “disillusionment” with the wider Identitarian and far-right movement. And he argued that the British far right is made up of “conspiratorial, chauvinistic and primitive… feuding clubs and sects”. The organisation was previously named Generation Identity UK and Éire.

Generation Identity has been linked to the Christchurch terrorist who is accused of murdering 51 people last year. And an undercover investigation last year revealed the extremist views which existed in the group.

“Omnipresent” anti-Semitism

According its leader, Benjamin Jones, he called for a meeting in Birmingham on 11 January to discuss the future of the group. The meeting was called based on his own “disillusionment” with the British far right. In a press release he highlighted that he “agitated for reform amongst the ‘patriotic community’”. But he went on to declare that the British far right is “neither patriotic nor a community”.

Jones instead contended that the movement consists of “a conspiratorial, chauvinistic and [a] primitive series of feuding clubs and sects”. Anti-semitism, he said, is “Omnipresent”. Alongside this, the “fetishisation of totalitarian regimes continues unabated”. 

Given this, he stated that:

I was a fool to believe that I, or anyone else, could overcome a century of complete political, cultural, intellectual, and moral failure. 

Disbanding

At the meeting in Birmingham Jones insisted that he therefore called for a “a decisive break” with the wider far-right movement. The majority of participants concurred. And, as a result, it was “agreed to dissolve the Identitarian Movement and to ruminate on our lives”. 

In closing, he pointed out that globalisation is “pillaging” people and cultures. He also argued that what he termed as “Demographic changes” have “enormous implications for our society”.

Christchurch and Austria

Generation Identity has previously been linked to the Christchurch terrorist. It was revealed last year that he had given the Austrian branch of the group a donation of €1,500. The discovery was made by Austrian police as part of an investigation into the finances of Generation Identity Austria.

Featured image via Wikimedia Commons – JayCoop