Blood & Honour/Combat 18 Listed as Outlawed Terrorist Organizations

I created the blog in November 2007 in large part to monitor the Aryan Guard, a Calgary-based hate group founded by Kyle McKee that I saw as having an incredible potential for violence. Eventually the Aryan Guard "patched over" to become Canada's first official (though there had been individuals affiliated long before) branch of the Combat aligned Blood & Honour.

As both the Aryan Guard and Blood & Honour, this hate group was implicated in numerous assaults, arson, a pipe bomb, weapons charges, uttering threats, and attempted murder. Two former members who created the rival WEB were later charged and convicted of murder. Another Blood & Honour group aligned with Volksfront was also implicated in a number of assaults.

My primary goal had been to warn people about this group. Though I've certainly expanded the scope of the blog significantly since its original creation, I've tried as best I could to keep tabs on the members and supporters of Blood & Honour as they became much more discreet online but no less dangerous in the real world.

As such, I view news as a significant event in the effort to combat hate:

1. Neo-Nazi groups have been placed on Canada's listed of terrorist groups for the first time. https://t.co/i97QERG0Ww

— Stewart Bell (@StewGlobal) June 26, 2019

Extreme right groups (Blood & Honour/C-18) were added to Canada's list of terrorist groups for the first time. I suppose it's fitting to announce that our (@Palgrave_) book on right-wing extremism in #Canada is set to be released in September (co-authored w/@OT_FSSH's B. Perry). pic.twitter.com/hCKrbrs7H1

— Ryan Scrivens (@R_Scrivens) June 26, 2019

NEW (!!): Canada has added international neo-Nazi groups Blood & Honour and its "armed branch," Combat 18, to its list of outlawed terrorist organizations, alongside groups including al Qaida, ISIS and Boko Haram. https://t.co/fmm9nom2aj

— Caroline Orr (@RVAwonk) June 26, 2019

I was interviewed by Vice News earlier today when the news of the designation of Blood & Honour and Combat 18 as outlawed terrorist organizations. I was asked about the activity of the group in recent years and noted that while not engaged in the overt activities of the past, it was still very much active as this 2016 screen shot indicates:

Rather than engaging in marched in Calgary or, as in the case of the last march Edmonton, the Calgary Blood & Honour instead engaged in surreptitious flyering and nearly monthly get togethers sometimes featuring guests who had been in the news:

I kept track of these events and while they were reasonably good at maintaining security, their failures were duly recorded:

More recently, Blood & Honour has been promoting a camp out that is to take place in both Alberta and New Brunswick:

McKee himself no longer lived in Calgary. He and his partner have moved to New Brunswick where McKee now runs a tattoo business.

Based on interactions on the business' Facebook cite, he seems to be one of the go-to tattooists for members and friends of the Northern Guard in the province:

I also mentioned in the interview that as happy as I was that Blood & Honour and Combat 18 have been designated at terrorist groups, I also hope to see further scrutiny on groups such as the III% militia, Northern Guard, Proud Boys, Soldiers of Odin (or any of the other Nouns), and the Yellow Vesters which often serve as "gateway drugs" so-to-speak for entry into even more extreme groups.

On this readers need not take my word for it:

In the Iron March forums, a Blood & Honour organizer told a student on Vancouver Island in 2016, “If you really want to stop the leftists at your school you’re going to have to use more than just arguments, but at least it’ll be a permanent solution.” Thankfully it didn't happen.

— Canadian Anti-Hate Network (@antihateca) June 26, 2019

Long time readers won't be at all surprised to know that long-time figure in the hate movement Paul Fromm is a bridge between the extremist Yellow Vests and the even more extreme Blood & Honour:

"I Disagree With Violence But....": The Justification and Celebration of the Christchurch Mosque Murders By Paul Fromm and Robert Jones

It didn't take long for the likes of Paulie to try and justify the murder of 50 adults and children worshiping at two Christchurch mosques. In a post on his blog, Fromm posted the entirety of the murderer's "manifesto" along with his own forward justifying the attack while couching that justification if claims to oppose violence:

The most relevant section of the forward his here:

Of course long time readers of ARC and those who know the long history of Fromm's support for violent hate groups who do the dirty work that he tacitly promotes know just how hollow Fromm's claim to "disagree with... violence." He has supported groups such as the Aryan Guard/Blood & Honour, Volksfront, the KKK, and a multitude of groups who have engaged in violence and he has rationalized every single instance:

In fact he has his own links to Christchurch, New Zealand where another violent hate group had been founded:

Here Fromm is shaking hands with Kyle Chapman while on a speaking tour of New Zealand in December 2010. Chapman was leader and founder of the neo-Nazi hate group Right Wing Resistance that formed targeting Maori and other Polynesian peoples, other New Zealand peoples of colour, Jews, and Muslims:

• Anti-Muslim pamphlet upsets residents

Right Wing Resistance also had a number of chapters around the world. Many were quite small including a Canadian chapter whose sole active member was profiled on the blog in late 2015:

Fromm isn't the only prominent disseminator of hate propaganda who has helped to poison the well and creating the conditions that contribute to events such as the Christchurch tragedy. Like others regarded as leaders or (to use a more resent term) influencers in the white nationalist movement internationally, Fromm toes right up to the line where he doesn't overtly advocate for violence, but justifies it when it occurs as the inevitable consequences of an ethnically diverse society and that the remedy is to make society not ethnically diverse.... however that task would be accomplished is left up to the imagination. These dog whistles are heard by those who ARE potentially inclined to commit such reprehensible acts, but those who have helped to foster this noxious environment have their plausible deniability. 

A figure on the far right whom I have written about due to his active involvement in protests and groups that are increasingly more extreme, Robert Jones, represents the kind of person people like Paulie are dog whistling too:

We usually find the sort of radicalization Robert Jones is undergoing in teens, however like the children who find their way into hate groups, Jones is someone who seems desperate to belong to something. He has been a member of the Soldiers of Odin, the Proud Boys, and the JDL as an affiliate. He has eventually been booted from all three of the groups mentioned and now he's on his forth, the hate group known as the Northern Guard. He has also embraced overt fascism and worships Donald Trump as a sort of living god (note that he has more than one Facebook account two of which I will be sourcing in the article without bothering to make the distinction):

When the Christchurch murders took place, Jones was immediately drawn to the manifesto which he has spent a great deal of time sharing online:

Jones seems aware that posting links to the manifesto, as well as the video of the murders, violate Facebook's terms of service regarding dissemination of hate propaganda and violence, but he seems determined to share these with a wide audience:

Jones' reaction to the murders has been equally crass:

Duarate seems to be under the impression that Fraser Anning, the Australian senator
who blamed the Muslim community for the the murder of their members for
the audacity of living in New Zealand, is a leftist because he likely didn't
read the article.... because he seems to be an idiot.

The term "retribution attack" used by Jones is telling as he very quickly begins to justify the murders and dehumanize non-white peoples:

Anti-Yellow Vest Protest in Edmonton: Counter Protester From the Clann Hate Group Arrested

At the Alberta Legislature an anti-Yellow Vests protest took place calling the movement out on their ties to overt racists and racist groups such as the Nouns of Odin, Northern Guard, and other hate groups. In response, the Yellow Vesters counter-protested.... along side the Nouns of Odin, Northern Guard, and other hate groups:

So.... thank you for proving the point I guess?

Journalist Carly Robinson reported on the event:

Another protest at the Alberta legislature today.
This week the counter-protesters had the podium (Yellow Vest movement comes weekly on Saturdays), using their time to call out what they call are "radical patriots" like members of the so-called "Clann" who participate. #YEG pic.twitter.com/qbFsycQMvE

— Carly Robinson (@CarlyDRobinson) March 16, 2019

Jeff Sharpe with the Yellow Vest movement in Edmonton says the counter-protesters are "dividing the community when we should be uniting the community to stand up for civil rights", says online hate comments come from "trolls". #yeg pic.twitter.com/Sda6sySOyZ

— Carly Robinson (@CarlyDRobinson) March 16, 2019

On the counter-protesters side, Dylan Michaels says they are fine with the pro-pipeline/job creation/political expression from the Yellow Vests, they just want them to disassociate and stop allowing members of groups and individuals who have made Islamaphobic comments. #yeg pic.twitter.com/WwcEsA6Yl5

— Carly Robinson (@CarlyDRobinson) March 16, 2019

As a bit of an aside, it is a bit galling to hear Jeff Sharpe claim that the there are no Yellow Vesters who are racists given his own history associating with groups such as the Worldwide Coalition against Islam and the Canadian Combat Coalition.

In any case, an interesting incident occurred during the protest.

One of the Clann members was arrested, evidently on outstanding warrants:

Ms. Robinson witnessed the arrest and included a photo in her Tweet:

Groups they are calling out are Solider/Wolves/Nouns of Odin, The Clann (who were present, one member taken by police for what I am told are unrelated outstanding warrants), Canadian Infidels. Says if YV denounced these groups, they would stop counter-protesting. #yeg pic.twitter.com/fuNgWDG0Tt

— Carly Robinson (@CarlyDRobinson) March 16, 2019

ARC readers will recognize the man being led away in handcuffs as the man in the following photograph alongside Clann leader Tyson Hunt attending a United Conservative Party event in October 2018: