UK far-right group attempts to hijack World Indigenous Day with racist contest

Members of the UK far-right Patriotic Alternative group are attempting to redirect conversation on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples to instead push racist “great replacement” rhetoric.

ISD’s Head of Communications and Editorial, Tim Squirrell, spoke to VICE World News about the “abhorrent” campaign that began three years ago during the worldwide Black Lives Matter protests: “Their claim is that ‘indigenous British’ people are under threat, primarily from immigration but also other things that are supposed to bring down the birthrate”, he said.

“It’s really grim, given that the British in particular, but Western Europeans in general, colonised and expanded empires across much of the world and caused a massive amount of damage to indigenous peoples worldwide”.

“It’s pretty grim of them to try to appropriate the concept of being indigenous to push a conspiracy theory grounded in ethnonationalism”.

This year, the group held a contest across the country for supporters “to carry out the most audacious, attention-grabbing stunt, with the winner awarded a cup called the ‘White Lives Matter trophy'”.