Far-right groups are being investigated for potentially breaching Charity Commission rules after the Guardian found they were distributing food and clothes to homeless people.



The fascist party the National Revival of Poland – known as Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski (NOP) – is one of several far-right groups across Britain that have launched charity campaigns.

The NOP’s “White Rescue: Charity campaign for Europeans”, is billed as a whites-only outreach scheme, has involved working with the far-right British group National Front to hand out food to homeless people in Glasgow, Exeter and London.



Idź Pod Prąd, a far-right media organisation that runs local community groups, also claims it is running a club helping Polish veterans in Stoke-on-Trent.

In Newcastle, the English Defence League has been posting on its Facebook page to say it is gathering donations for “homeless outreach” work, which is run by the EDL Angels, the women’s faction of the group.



Photograph: EDL Newcastle division

When approached by the Guardian, a spokesperson said that they did not discriminate and worked with people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. They claimed the women’s outreach work had been wrongly advertised as being linked with the EDL and as a result, the local chairman resigned on Saturday.

These groups are not authorised charities and in some instances are openly soliciting for donations. Charity Commission rules state that a charity cannot be used as a vehicle for the expression of political or extremist views.

“We will further assess the material … on these organisations’ activities regarding outreach work with the homeless in order to determine whether this presents regulatory concerns and, if so, what regulatory action, if any, may need to be taken,” a spokesperson for the Charity Commission said.



Anti-far right groups described the findings as “very worrying” and said far-right groups were “preying on the vulnerable”.

Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Faith Matters, which works to reduce extremism, said: “This is a classic way of extremist groups reaching into communities. This is how Islamist extremist and far-right groups try and prey on vulnerable people and on wider populations, by reaching out to the vulnerable and to the needy and then manipulating them over time to their extremist narratives.”

The NOP and Idź Pod Prąd have networks and groups operating in the UK.

On the website of National Front, which has been working with the neo-Nazi NOP in several cities, a post from April 2017, says: “The group has been working across the country to provide support for the homeless and those in need.”

When approached by the Guardian the group responded: “Of course our chary [sic] campaign White Rescue [is] still operational. However, due to false number of text appearing in Guardian about nationalists movements and political parties such as Golden Dawn [an ultranationalist, far-right political party in Greece], we are not interested in providing … any information about our activities.”

Idź Pod Prąd said their club in Stoke-on-Trent organised help for Polish veterans in the UK. It did not respond to a request for comment.

The EDL Newcastle division has been promoting its homeless outreach programme over the winter on Facebook. On 19 January a post said: “Can we please share this group [National East Angels Outreach] its [sic] so people can volunteer to help donate towards the angels outreach programme for the homeless in Newcastle.”

The member who set up the programme said the pictures had been used without her permission. Speaking on the condition of anonymity she said: “This was not anything to do with EDL, just us girls having clear out of stuff.”

She said that they were helping homeless people of all ethnic backgrounds. “We have never asked for money or said we are a charity. We are not – we just said if people want to donate hats, scarfs etc we will accept them.”

She added that there had been a vote of confidence against the chairman of their group in the north-east, Alan Spence, who advertised the homeless work on the EDL Facebook page, and he had resigned that day.

The Newcastle Labour councillor Dipu Ahad said: “It’s important to highlight that anyone trying to do good in the community should be commended but we know the far-right agenda and it’s not because of the cause or vulnerable people that they are helping. They just want to present a better image.”

Mughal of Faith Matters said: “We are clear that such groups must be countered and stopped from such activity. How did the Nazi party get hold of power in Germany? They tried to play to the vulnerabilities of the German people, acted like they were the ones who could provide social services and eventually, built their poisonous rhetoric into the heart of the nation.”

John O’Connell, founder of the Far Right Watch, called for the Charity Commission or councils to take action. “This is a blatant publicity attempt and the groups doing this work have no empathy for the people they claim to help. These are vulnerable people in vulnerable situations and they are being abused for the purposes of extremist politics.”