In early April last year, 23-year-old Thomas Sewell headed along to a Reclaim Australia rally in Melbourne. It was one of 16 rallies attended by thousands of people across the country.

Thomas wasn’t draped in an Australian flag or covering his mouth with a mask; he wasn’t wielding placards; he didn’t look like the guys who were splashed across newspapers the next day.

“I was just curious as to what was going on,” Thomas told Hack.

“I rocked up with nice clothes, not looking for a punch-on. To hear people speak. All I wanted to do was hear people speak.

“It’s the first time I’d heard of a public demonstration in this country, calling for the government to look at its immigration policy in regards to Islamic migration.”

Thomas approached a group of protesters, not knowing they weren’t on his “side”.

They told me to ‘go f*** myself, Nazi’.”

“I was very naive of the situation, I was unaware there was any form of counter-protest.”

Today, Thomas isn’t naive to of the swell of counter-protesters who clashed with Reclaim Australia that day. He now calls them ‘Communists’, ‘Trotskyites’, ‘Fabian socialists’, ‘cultural Marxists’, ‘lefties’, or, sometimes, just ‘thugs’.

Today, now on the leadership team of the United Patriots Front (UPF), a group that formed off the back of Reclaim Australia, Thomas calls himself a Patriot.

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Whatsapp Nationalist demonstrators protest at a 'Reclaim Australia' rally against Islamic extremism in Sydney on July 19, 2015.

What is the far right?

Thomas Sewell says his politics sit further on the right than people like Donald Trump - the Republican Presidential candidate who vows to build a wall between Mexico and the United States.

So where do the politics of groups like Reclaim Australia and the UPF sit alongside the major parties in Australia?

If you think of political views as a line, you can roughly plot out the major parties from left (generally being more liberal or progressive) to right (generally being more conservative).

In Australia, the Greens would be the most-left of the three major parties; Labor is around the centre left, and the Liberal party is around the centre-right.

Keep in mind that individual politicians’ own views - and other minor parties - are dotted more broadly along the spectrum.

The views of Reclaim Australia and the UPF sit on the far right.

Duncan McDonnell, from the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University, explains what the far right typically stands for:

“The far right is a series of movements and political parties which tend to be extremely anti-immigration, and they tend to be very much against the elites - so political parties, media elites, banks, cultural elites - in society,” Duncan McDonnell explains.

“They claim that the ‘real’ people in countries—the honest, hardworking silent majority of citizens—are not represented.”

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Whatsapp True Blue Crew rally, August 2016.

From rallies to the Senate

While Thomas Sewell was attending the rally in Melbourne, a similar one was taking place in Brisbane. Pauline Hanson addressed the crowd: “I am a proud Australian fighting for our democracy, culture, and way of life.”

Seventeen months later, Pauline Hanson said a similar line: “I love my country, culture and way of life.”

This time, her audience was the Australian Senate; three fellow One Nation Senators sitting by her side.

“We are in danger of being swamped by Muslims, who bear a culture and ideology that is incompatible with our own,” Senator Pauline Hanson said in her maiden speech last week.

Meanwhile, Liberal backbencher George Christensen called for tighter restrictions on immigration from countries where there is a higher prevalence of “extremism” last week.

Duncan McDonnell says this kind of discourse we’re hearing in Parliament is driven by fear.

This is really the politics of feeling and fear, rather than the politics of fact.

“In 2006, the population of Australia contained 1.7 per cent of people who had Islam as their religion. Five years later it was 2.2 per cent. Going on that basis, there’s not going to be any danger of being ‘swamped’ by muslims.”

How did we get here?

If you ask Thomas Sewell, the United Patriots Front played a big role in starting a conversation; getting politicians like Pauline Hanson elected; and having Sonia Kruger call for a ban on Muslim immigration on national television.

“We came into this saying we want to raise the awareness of the Islamic question. And put this question on the table - and we’ve very thoroughly slammed the question on the table, it’s in the mantra of the mainstream media now.

“I think we’ve been very successful in bringing this question to the table.”

The birth and splintering of Reclaim Australia

That ‘question on the table’ wasn’t exactly brought to the fore by the UPF.

The history of the movement goes back further than that - with the lead up to the April 2015 rallies and the beginnings of Reclaim Australia.

The group’s website - now shut down, but archived here - lists the group’s nine motivations, including a ban of Sharia Law, the burqa and Halal certification.

The group also wrote that the rallies wouldn’t tolerate Neo-Nazis or white supremacists.

This will be a peaceful rally, Neo-Nazi/White Supremacist Banners/Placards will not be tolerated. This is not a supremacist rally, it will simply be Patriotic Australians of all nationalities & beliefs standing united against radical extremism!”

Scott Moreland, a speaker and organiser for the Reclaim Australia rallies in Queensland, says the birth of the movement is directly tied to the December 2014 Lindt cafe siege in Sydney.

“One of the girls [who started Reclaim Australia] was on the channel 7’s Sunday Night program last year. The country knows her as Catherine Brennan. She was actually supposed to [take her] daughter to Martin Place when that siege happened.”

She started learning a little about Islam and said, ‘oh this is ridiculous’, and she got together with a few other people and they started the idea of Reclaim Australia and the rallies and all that.”

When she appeared on Sunday Night in October last year, Brennan and fellow Reclaim Australia founders said they were motivated to protect the “Australian way of life.”

"I'm just an everyday mum living in the suburbs doing the best job that I can for my family,” Catherine Brennan said.

After the April 2015 rallies, Thomas Sewell met 26-year-old Blair Cottrell. Together they started the United Patriots Front to protect other protesters.

“The UPF formed, the best way to put it, is reactionary. As an anti-communist movement, in response to the violence we saw in Melbourne on the streets.”

Thomas says violence at those rallies occurs as a form of defence and protection.

“We will protect the people that represent similar attitudes to us. Violence is always reasonable in defense.

You cannot defend yourself from violent acts without violence.”

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Whatsapp Police use pepper spray on anti-Reclaim Australia protesters on July 18, 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. 'Reclaim Australia' grassroots rallies are being held across Australia to protest the alleged 'Islamisation' of Australia.

This year, activity from Reclaim Australia and the UPF has petered out. There are less rallies; the focus has been on raising awareness of their cause on Facebook.

“Will we keep rallying? Yes,” Thomas Sewell told Hack. “Have we got a rally planned in the short term? Absolutely not.

“We’re having a bit of a breather. The goal is to maintain the Facebook page and maintain the airwaves of the opinions of the leadership team to be aired to the general public.

Meanwhile, another far-right group, The True Blue Crew, has emerged. Their most recent rally was held in Victoria last month, where Blair Cottrell addressed the crowd.

Hack attended the rally ahead of Hack Live: Aussie Patriots, airing on ABC 2 and ABC iview this Thursday.

Skip Instagram Post FireFox NVDA users - To access the following content, press 'M' to enter the iFrame. A video posted by triplejHack (@triplejhack) on Sep 18, 2016 at 11:26pm PDT

As for Reclaim Australia, organiser Scott Moreland says “infighting” within the group has slowed down their cause.

“It’s tapered a lot off - we didn’t have any rallies at all this year,” Scott says.

“But we are going to kick back again next year, apparently.”

Don’t miss Hack Live: Aussie Patriots on ABC 2 this Thursday at 9:30 PM.