Matt Kennard and Daniel Trilling will be in conversation with Vron Ware about neo-Nazis and extremism in the US Army and the rise of the far right in mainstream British politics on:

Thursday 13^th September, 7pm

Matt Kennard’s Irregular Army is a shocking investigation into the lengths to which the US military has gone to boost troop numbers during the War on Terror. Having undertaken years of first-hand research, Kennard has exposed for the first time the extent to which far-right groups and violent gangs have infiltrated the army. Irregular Army includes extensive interviews with extremist veterans and leaders of far-right hate groups and reveals the targeting of children as young as 11 by army recruiters as well as the underhand methods used to coerce young people into joining the military.

Daniel Trilling’s Bloody Nasty People explores the rise of the British National Party, the country’s most successful ever far-right political movement, and the emergence of the anti-Muslim English Defense League.  Trilling provides a fresh insight into the dynamics of political extremism and demonstrates how mainstream politicians have consistently underestimated the far right in Britain while pursuing policies that gave it the space to grow. Bloody Nasty People chronicles the rise of the BNP, mapping how previously marginal characters from a tiny neo-Nazi subculture successfully exploited tensions exacerbated by the fear of immigration, the War on Terror and steeping economic inequality.

Matt Kennard is a freelance investigative journalist. He was a staff writer for the Financial Times in Washington, DC and London and has written for Salon, The Chicago Tribune and the Guardian.

Daniel Trilling is the Assistant Editor at The New Statesman, where he has reported on the far right since 2009. His work has appeared in the Guardian, Sight and Sound and Frieze.

Anti-racist journalist and academic Vron Ware, former editor of Searchlight (1981-83) and author of the forthcoming Military Migrants: Fighting for YOUR Country (Palgrave), will chair the event.

Military Migrants looks at the politics of racism and culture in the British Army through the eyes of migrant-soldiers, recruited in large numbers since 1998 to meet shortfalls in military recruitment. Lauded as ‘heroes’ in uniform but stigmatised as ‘immigrants’ and ‘foreigners’ as non-UK citizens, these soldiers face rising visa costs for their families and even deportation when they leave the service. By focusing on the employment of ethnic minorities who are also non-nationals, the book brings the armed forces into debates about Britishness, national identity and multiculturalism in unprecedented ways.

FREE, rsvp@mosaicrooms.org