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Europe|British Neo-Nazis Discussed Targeting Migrants, Mosques and Synagogues
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/world/europe/uk-neo-nazis-extreme-right-wing-terrorism.html
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Three men in northern England were sentenced last week for preparing acts of terrorism. Their case highlights a growing threat from right-wing extremism, experts said.
Reporting from Sheffield Crown Court in northern England
Oct. 22, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET
Brogan Stewart liked to refer to himself as the “Führer” in his group chat with fellow neo-Nazis. At his home in Tingley, a village in northern England, a swastika flag hung on his bedroom wall. On Jan. 23 last year, Mr. Stewart, then 24, wrote in a private Telegram chat: “The time for talk is now over. We will be discussing and planning a mission against migrants.”
In a group call two weeks later, Mr. Stewart, who had gathered an arsenal of weapons, suggested targeting an Islamic education center in Leeds, a city about 10 miles from his home, or “cruising that area looking for victims.” He had researched the center, including its location and satellite imagery, and marked a route on a map for his co-conspirators.
Unknown to him, three of the seven people on that call on Feb. 5, 2024, were undercover operatives deployed by counterterrorism police and MI5, the British security service.
All these details were recounted at a two-month trial at Sheffield Crown Court, where last week Mr. Stewart and two co-conspirators, Christopher Ringrose, 35, and Marco Pitzettu, 26, were sentenced to between eight and 11 years in prison for “preparing acts of terrorism.” All three men had denied the charge, and told the trial that they were not in reality planning violence, but instead engaging in edgy “banter” that aimed to shock.
But they had stockpiled more than 200 weapons, the police said, including swords, knives, crossbows, air guns, axes and bats. Mr. Ringrose had 3D-printed part of a homemade assault rifle.
The case has thrown a spotlight on the threat in Britain from extreme-right-wing terrorism, which has grown over the past decade and now represents around one fifth of the counterterrorism police’s workload, officials say. It also illustrates how domestic terrorism is increasingly fomented in encrypted messaging groups by small clusters of people, rather than by larger organized groups, experts said.
