Jack Renshaw (terrorist)

Jack Renshaw is a former economics and politics student at Manchester Metropolitan University and leader of Youth BNP. He is currently a spokesperson for National Action, another far-right political party.

Personal life

Renshaw joined the BNP at age 15 against his parents' wishes as he became frustrated with the banking system and what he considered to be a lack of white people in British cities. An economic and politics student at the Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) in September 2013, Renshaw's social life took a nosedive since he became the face of Youth BNP. He was forced to leave MMU in September 2015 following a university investigation regarding his incitement to racial hatred.

In an exclusive interview with student newspaper The Tab, Renshaw said that he has a preference for "old fashioned music". Confessing to be a loner, Renshaw claims he is not "a big party person". He claims to have "had ethnic minority flatmates and some homosexuals" during his stay at university. Four years after joining Youth BNP, Renshaw decided to dedicate himself entirely to party campaigning, saying "I spend a lot of days canvassing when I should have been studying".

Renshaw also wants to bring back National Service and has previously said that he wished to join the Army when he left university. He has an uncompromising attitude towards the War on Drugs, saying that "drug dealers should be hung from the nearest lamppost ... [lethal injection execution] would cost too much money for the taxpayer." Renshaw's application for the BNP to gain Student Union recognition alongside the Young Greens and Young Labour was rejected by the union; Renshaw and the Youth BNP organised in protest at this decision.

Youth BNP leader

As the leader of Youth BNP, the youth wing of the British National Party, Renshaw appeared in a much-derided 2014 video titled "Youth BNP Fight Back" (since deleted from YouTube) which railed against "cultural Marxism", "militant homosexuals", "heartless Zionists", "political correctness", Islam, immigration, multiculturalism, Doreen Lawrence and other perceived societal ills and a perceived eradication of British identity. Writing for the Left Foot Forward, Mark Gardner notes that: "At times the language and targets, 'Zionists', 'neo-Cons', 'capitalists', 'globalisation', resemble the modern extremes of far-Left, Islamist and (especially) New Age ideology. There is, however, nothing modern about BNP antisemitism, not even when they swap the word 'Zionist' for the word 'Jew' ... It is a very serious antisemitism that blames Jews for nothing less than the destruction of European nations. This is not neo-Nazism, it is old original Nazism, echoing Mein Kampf and Der Steurmer [sic]. In public broadcasts the party still targets Muslims for ugly racism, but within its own circles the deeper antisemitic ideology is resurrected."

Following the video, Renshaw alleges he was abused "verbal[ly] or physical[ly] ... about once a week" as a result of the views. Speaking ahead of his second year at university, he said "

In another BNP TV video Spreading Truth to Youth, Jack Renshaw spoke out against "banksters" such as the Rothschild family (a familiar anti-Semitic trope) and claims that allegations of the BNP's racism and fascism are "Talmudic". Another such video, Nationalism not Globalism, Renshaw claims that the European Union is part of a preliminary "global New World Order" in order for the Rothschilds to allegedly bind the globe via trillions of pounds of debt. He also blames "capitalists", "financial institutions" and "cultural Marxists" for "trying to mongrelise the races of the planet".

A few months later, Renshaw wrote on Facebook for his pet Labrador Derek to not "challenge my principles" by "licking the penises of other male dogs". Renshaw was opposed to his dog's perceived homosexuality. The leader of the BNP Nick Griffin had previously called gay people "creepy". He has since stated that "the status about my dog was a joke. I have learnt my lesson, that's all I can say."

Anti-Jewish protest

In May 2015, far-right blogger Joshua Bonehill-Paine planned an protest in Golders Green, the heartland of London's Jewish community. Bonehill launches an "appeal against the Jewification of Britain ... [and the] occupation force of approximately 50,000 Jews" in the area. Mike Freer, the local Conservative MP, called for the march to be banned, stating that "The rally is not about free speech but a deliberate attempt to provoke tension and anti-Semitism". More than 3,000 people signed a change.org petition for it to be banned, although Jewish groups such as the Community Security Trust and the Board of Deputies of British Jews had mixed responses to the demonstration.

Renshaw had a falling out with the event's organiser Eddie Stampton and did not attend as one of the speakers at the event was Jewish.

Spokesperson for National Action

During a Yorkshire Forum event in 2015, Renshaw called for Jews to be "eradicated". As the spokesman for National Action, a far-right organisation within the United Kingdom, Renshaw said that he was was sympathetic to Adolf Hitler.

Hitler was right in many senses but you know where he was wrong? He showed mercy to people who did not deserve mercy ... As nationalists we need to learn from the mistakes of the national socialists and we need to realise that, no, you do not show the Jew mercy.

— Record of Yorksire Forum event, seen by The Times in 2015.

Renshaw is facing a criminal investigation over the remarks by the West Yorkshire Police, and National Action itself risks being a proscribed terrorist organisation follow its conduct after the assassination of Jo Cox and its support for her assassin "Tommy" Mair.

Additionally, the Crown Prosecution Service is separately considering whether to charge Renshaw with inciting racial hatred over comments made at a public demonstration in Blackpool, organised by the North West Infidels. In front of police officers and surrounded by a group of masked men, Renshaw threatened to execute left-wing political opponents, described Jews as "parasites", claimed that white people were "a superior race" and stated that the UK took the "wrong side" in the Second World War by fighting the Nazis "who were there to remove Jewry from Europe once and for all". Renshaw also claimed that "the real enemy is the Jew", saying that:

The refugee problem is part of a bigger problem. It is a symptom of a disease. That disease is international Jewry. In World War Two we took the wrong side. We should have been fighting the communists. Instead we took the side of the communists and fought the national socialists, who were there to remove Jewry from Europe once and for all. That's what the final solution was. We are pointing fingers at the symptoms, not the disease. Let's cure the disease and all of its symptoms by default. ... You can call me Nazi, you can call me fascist, that's what I am. By only advancing our people once and for all, the superior race, the white race, only when we do that are we going to succeed."

Dave Rich, of the Community Security Trust, which represents the Jewish community on matters of antisemitism, said: "Anybody who is inciting hatred and violence of that kind needs to be dealt with fully by the law. Actions don't come from nowhere." Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate criticised perceived double standards in the justice system, saying were such words to be uttered by an Islamist extremist, they would have been arrested. The CPS so far has taken no action over Renshaw's comments.

In March 2016, the Liverpool Echo claimed that Renshaw was part of a group of neo-Nazi North West Infidels and National Action protestors in Liverpool. Posting under the Twitter name Jack Albion, he posted "[Shit], bricks, glass bottles etcetera - still we come back. We don't fight for ourselves but for an idea. #WR #Liverpool #NationalAction".

Other activities

"Hang Jews" post

The Jewish Telegraph revealed in 2014 that Renshaw had labelled Jews a "disease" on his blog, saying that:

World Jewry is the disease, whilst its product ideologies are just the symptoms. ... Beat the symptoms and they’ll return or be replaced – but – beat the disease and you’ll eradicate the symptoms. The Jew aims to bastardise and mongrelise our race through Multiracialism and Multiculturalism ... The Jew has declared war on our people and we should – and in time we will – return the favour.

— Jack Renshaw, "Renshaw's Corner" (15 December 2014)

Renshaw had also previously supported hanging all Jews as part of a genocide, saying on his blog that:

Britain, and indeed the whole of Europe, is waking up to the Jew once again. The new generation of nationalist is pointing the finger to the old enemy, and it is about time too! When our time comes, the Jewish elite and the Judeophile traitors who were used as their puppets will be put on trial – if found guilty, they will get the sentence that is deemed appropriate – for me that is hanging.

— Jack Renshaw, "Renshaw's Corner" (November 2015)

National Strike Force

In 2014, Renshaw was photographed outside Manchester University's John Rylands Library on behalf of a new far-right group, the National Strike Force. The National Strike Force distributed 60 Greggs hot drinks vouchers to 12 "white British males" who were homeless. The Strike Force does not issue food to non-whites, and Renshaw himself has refused to give food to a "Romanian gypsy".