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Far-right neo-Nazis threatened to cause race riots in Liverpool in a sinister letter to Mayor Joe Anderson.

White supremacist group National Action has threatened that the city “will go up in flames” if a racist march through its streets is banned.

In the letter directly addressed to the Liverpool Mayor, and seen by the ECHO, the group promises violent retribution if their planned ‘White Man March’ next Saturday is not allowed to go ahead.

The hate-filled letter states: “God help you and your Liverpool vision if you interfere with our God given right of public expression and freedom of speech.

“We look forward to a National Action-packed weekend of ethnically-enriched chaos and mayhem. We may even pay you a visit if things are played against us. It’s in your hands.”

The letter ends: “Only Bullets Will Stop Us!”

Last night, outraged Mr Anderson reacted furiously to the group’s threats and called for a change in the law to allow him to cancel their event.

Currently, Home Secretary Theresa May is the only person with the powers to veto lawful democratic protests on Britain’s streets.

She is understood to be aware of the group’s threats and is consulting urgently with Merseyside police.

Speaking to the Sunday Mirror Mayor Anderson said: “These people are trying to blackmail me and the people of Liverpool into allowing them to stage a racist march which no-one here wants.

"We are proud of our diverse racial mix and I am appalled by this group. I will defend the right to freedom of speech until the day I die, but there is no place for anyone who seeks to incite racial hatred and violence.

“I have asked the police to halt the march and I am calling on the Home Secretary to allow me to forbid it before it even starts.

"The power to do so should lie with me. She doesn’t know this city as well as I do and cannot begin to fully understand what the people of Liverpool think about this group and their ideas.”

A rally in Liverpool last year provoked angry barracking from members of the public and police were forced to break it up.

Group members then handed out National Action leaflets which read: “Cleanse Britain of parasites. The white man is on the march - white power.”

It claims 150 supporters - some allegedly coming from Russia, France and Germany - will be at next Saturday’s march which will pass directly though the main shopping area.

A year ago the Mirror exposed the ugly face of National Action and published photographs of its leaders spouting racist bile in front of shoppers and families in Liverpool city centre.

Days later its leader, student Alex Davies, 19, was expelled from Warwick University.

The probe revealed him proudly describing the group as “like the BNP but more radical.”

The group has demonstrated at Nelson Mandela’s statue in London, draped a banner with the slogan “Anti-Racist is a Codeword for Anti-White” over a bridge in Birmingham, and held a placard-waving “flash mob” in Coventry.