The traditionalist “society”, an unofficial right-wing campus political group, have spent the summer engaging in a series of inflammatory Facebook posts, quoting and disseminating the work of multiple far-right and neo-fascist activists.
The far-right activists who quoted these Facebook posts include Jonathan Bowden, a former prominent member of the British national party. Another figure quoted four times by the group was Baron Julius Evola, a major figure in the Italian far right. Evola is considered a leading philosopher of Europe’s neofascist movement, and his work includes justifications of rape, anti-Semitic conspiracism, and racist philosophies published with the backing of Benito Mussolini.
An “Orwellian Glossary” was published, portraying the group’s version of several key terms in political discourse. They declared feminism to be “an abdication of femininity”, humanitarian intervention to be “mass murder for oil & Israel” and diversity to mean “fewer White people”. In a post on the recent Swedish election, the group lamented the impossibility of the “easy solutions” to immigration advocated by Enoch Powell, the former Conservative MP reviled for his 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech.
The group posted quotes from Dr. Revilo P Olivier, an American white supremacist who engaged with organisations accused of promoting Holocaust denial. They also reposted a supportive image of far-right conspiracist Alex Jones, famous for claiming that the Sandy Hook shooting was faked by paid crisis actors, in protest of his suspension from prominent social media platforms.
The Traditionalists are engaged in an ongoing struggle to secure Student Union affiliate society membership. This would allow them access to Student Union support including presence at freshers fairs and potentially financial support. The group claims that they met all of the requirements for associate membership.
A Students’ Union spokesperson told SCAN: “There is currently no active application for society status for this group.”
Reacting indirectly to the publication of this story, the Traditionalist society posted a message slamming SCAN as “Fake News”, quoting the words of American President Donald Trump.
In this post they said: “The primary criticism they had was that we posted quotes from people who said or did things they did not approve of. They did not attempt to argue against the content of the posts, rather it seemed that they hoped their readers would pass judgement without them needing to.”
The Traditionalists have in the past firmly denied association with the far right and with fascist movements. SCAN has approached the group for comment but received no reply.
