Far-right 'hypermasculine' fitness clubs

A secretive network of martial arts and fitness clubs is being used by far-right activists to recruit youngsters into fascism, a new report has claimed.

The anti-fascist campaign group Hope Not Hate revealed how the International Active Club movement, a "network of fascist martial arts clubs that are used to spread far-right ideology", has emerged in the UK over the past year, said The Times.

'Fascist fitness'

In March 2022, The Observer reported that the far-right was increasingly recruiting via online fitness groups, whose popularity "soared" during the Covid pandemic.

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Researchers from Hope Not Hate uncovered a network of online "fascist fitness" chat groups on the messaging app Telegram. Many were directly linked to the neo-Nazi Patriotic Alternative, Britain’s biggest extreme right group.

Members of the White Stag Athletic Club posted images of swastika flags, and celebrated the 2021 acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot dead two anti-racist protesters in Wisconsin. The "danger" of these fitness groups is that members start to associate "real, positive change in their lives with fascism", said Hope Not Hate in The Observer.

Last August, a prison officer from Barnsley who ran a far-right fitness club was jailed for eight years for possessing a "murder manual" for white supremacists. Sheffield Crown Court heard that Ashley Sharp set up the White Stag Athletic Club to create a "brotherhood" and train others to be soldiers for the racist cause. He vetted potential recruits with questions including: "Are you Jewish? Are you homosexual? Are you a Muslim? What are your views on race mixing?"

Those who passed the "vetting process", said the BBC, were "expected to commit to a daily exercise programme", which was shared in a closed group on the encrypted chat app Wickr. Group members would write "hail victory" when they had completed tasks.

'We are law-abiding, tax-paying citizens'

Hope Not Hate believes the ongoing goal of Active Clubs is to recruit young men and increase members' combat readiness for an "imagined future" marked by "violent conflict between ethnic groups or even a potential fascist revolution", said The Times.

The clubs are a response to suggestions within the far-right that its groups are too passive and online-based, making little real-world impact, according to the report by Hope Not Hate. A branch that has enjoyed "increased membership and influence in far-right circles" is Active Club Scotland (ACS). ACS's members include people who have made bomb threats and marched with National Action, a terror group that is banned in the UK. 

The "grim band" of men, who pose in "menacing balaclavas", are "hellbent on creating racial unrest", said the Daily Record.

A core theme in Active Club content is the notion that physical exercise and hardship are "necessary to prove nationalist beliefs and to fulfil the hypermasculine ideal", Hope not Hate's report said. Developing "physical strength and a capacity for violence" is perceived to be "contributing to the far-right movement overall, even if direct political activism is minimal".

Reports of a link between far-right beliefs and exercise have previously drawn mockery, said the Daily Mail. When an MSNBC columnist warned that the far-right was using exercise as a means of recruiting new supporters, Elon Musk tweeted: "MSNBC thinks you're a nazi if you work out lmaooo." Later he added that "parody & reality are becoming indistinguishable". Podcaster Joe Rogan also weighed in, tweeting: "Being healthy is 'far right.' Holy f***."

In response to the Hope Not Hate report, ACS said: "We reject violence of any kind and have a code of conduct that prohibits this." The club's activities are "geared towards building better men, fathers and creating lasting friendship", it said, and "above all else, we are law-abiding, tax-paying citizens".