Founder of banned fascist group set up continuity faction, court hears

Alex Davies, of Swansea, is accused of being a member of a proscribed terrorist organisation.

Alex Davies arrives at Winchester Crown Court where he is standing trial accused of being a member of an outlawed organisation (Andrew Matthews/PA) (PA Wire)

The founder of a fascist group accused of creating a continuity faction after it was banned under terrorism laws was “probably the biggest Nazi of the lot”, a court has heard.

Alex Davies, 27, is on trial accused of being a member of the proscribed organisation, National Action (NA), after it was banned on December 16 2016.

Barnaby Jameson QC, prosecuting, has told the trial at Winchester Crown Court that the UK Government banned the group after it had “terrorised” towns across the country with its call for an “all-out race war”.

Following the ban, Davies set up NS131 which stood for National Socialist Anti-Capitalist Action and which itself was later banned by the Government, Mr Jameson said.

Who was at the centre of all this? The founder, the galvaniser, the recruiter, one Alex Davies of Swansea. He was probably the biggest Nazi of the lot

Barnaby Jameson, prosecuting

Summing up the prosecution case, Mr Jameson told the jury that NS131 was a “continuity faction” of NA set up to cover the southern part of the country.

He said: “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, there’s a racing certainty it is, in fact, a duck.”

Mr Jameson added: “National Action never disbanded, it morphs into regional factions.

“To a terrorist hiding in plain sight, which is what Mr Davies is, bans mean nothing.”

He continued: “The group was expanding and recruiting, what became NS131 was one of the skins worn by continuity factions of National Action.”

Comparing the two groups, he said: “The same name, National Socialist Anti-Capitalist Action (NS131), take out the three middle words and you are left with a big clue: National Action.

“Same colours, black and white, colours of Sturmabteilung (the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party), same look of designer Benjamin Raymond, a convicted NA member.

“The same encrypted internet provider, same ideology – both a throwback to Nazi Germany.

“The same leader, this defendant who makes it all happen, same regional structure, adapted and re-drawn following proscription and so many familiar faces from the old guard.”

He added: “Who was at the centre of all this? The founder, the galvaniser, the recruiter, one Alex Davies of Swansea. He was probably the biggest Nazi of the lot.”

Mr Jameson continued: “The defendant was an extremist’s extremist.

“This was an individual who had his first contact with counter-extremist authorities when he was 15/16 – those organising the Prevent project.

“And when in contact he sets up an organisation (NA) in 2013 concerned with the revolutionary overthrow of the democratic order.”

He added that Davies later said to an undercover reporter that he did not want to say what he wanted to do to Jews “because it was so extreme”.

He continued that Davies was “an individual who went on tour to Germany to Buchenwald to give the Nazi salute in the execution chamber that was a flagrant and provocative breach of German law.”

He added that NA was judged by an expert to be “so extreme you can’t go any further”.

Davies has told the court that NS131 was not set up as a continuation of NA and had different aims and processes.

He said that he was “exercising his democratic rights” after the ban and he was involved in “advancing the cause of national socialism not the cause of a continuity NA.

“After proscription all I am interested in is pursuing legal political activities.”

Davies, from Swansea, denies membership of a proscribed organisation between December 17 2016, and September 27 2017, and the trial continues.