English version of my Latest Interview with Rébellion Magazine
1) Troy, thank you for agreeing to this interview, in which we're going to talk about a number of different subjects. Let's start with you. You're a really versatile man: a philosophy buff, author, musician, publisher, activist and metapolitical agitator. Can you introduce yourself? What is your background?
I was born in Crystal Palace, south London, during the mid-1960s to a working-class family. My father is descended from the Scottish clans of Grant, Gilmore and McLean, whilst my mother is half-Swedish. My parents were teenagers at the time of my birth and lived in poverty for a number of years until my father went to college and managed to earn the qualifications needed to become a chartered surveyor. Having been a paratrooper in the Territorial Army, he came from a traditional Labour family and his old-school socialism was grounded on a natural disposition towards the underdog. His heroes were men like Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone and Arthur Scargill. These values left a deep impression on me and I voted for the Labour Party at the 1983 General election, when I was eighteen, due to an instinctual loathing of Margaret Thatcher's constant war-mongering and the Tory Party's inhumane treatment of striking miners.
I soon discovered that British 'socialism' was completely incapable of presenting any real threat to capitalism and, in the mid-1980s, joined the National Front (NF) after finding myself impressed with its economic policies. Naturally, my father was extremely alarmed by my decision to join forces with such a notorious organisation and yet I had no interest whatsoever in racial issues and was simply eager to learn more about Strasserism, distributism and workers' co-operatives. I had grown up among West Indians, after all, and was not about to espouse racial hatred. It was only later that I awoke to the realities of mass immigration and became a racial separatist in the sense that I have always disliked chaos and believed, as we English like to say, that 'everything has its place and there is a place for everything'.
By this time, the NF had expelled the fascist elements that had plagued the organisation in the 1970s and evolved into a revolutionary nationalist group that had established links with Qathafi's Libya, Khomeini's Iran and Afro-American separatists like Louis Farrakhan and Osiris Akkebala. Amid a series of personality clashes, however, some of us went on to establish the International Third Position (ITP) in an effort to streamline the political dynamism that we had created between 1986 and 1989. However, the wonderful ideals that we pursued during that formative period were betrayed when Roberto Fiore and Derek Holland adopted a more clerico-fascist approach and expressed sympathy for the likes of Benito Mussolini and Marshal Petain. Furthermore, Fiore became a wealthy capitalist with a formidable London property empire and some of our supporters lost their life savings when the rural experiment in northern France collapsed. The fact that the farm in Normandy was subsequently discovered to have been listed under the name of Mrs. Fiore says it all.
As a consequence, in September 1992 I led two-thirds of the ITP membership into a new organisation called the English Nationalist Movement (ENM) and we began promoting the ideas of non-Marxist socialists such as Otto and Gregor Strasser, Robert Blatchford, William Morris and Robert Owen. In 1998 we took things a step further by forming the National Revolutionary Faction (NRF) and establishing an underground cadre system based on cell-structure. This we used to infiltrate and take over local organisations, either redirecting them for our own purposes or – in the case of our opponents – destroying them altogether.
Between 2005 and 2013, I organised forty-eight meetings in London under the auspices of the New Right. My intention was to create a non-sectarian platform for outsiders and political dissidents from various backgrounds, including revisionists, identitarians, conspiracy theorists, National-Anarchists, Christians, Muslims, and anti-Zionist Jews. Our speakers included Jonathan Bowden, David Irving, Tomislav Sunic, Alexander Dugin, Sean Gabb, Wulf Ingessunu, Günter Deckert, Lady Renouf, James Thring, Sahib Bleher, Martin Webster, Tord Morsund, Kai Murros, Alexander Baron, Keith Thompson, Rabbi Ahron Cohen, Peter Rushton, Norman Lowell, Adrian Davies and many others.
2) Your musical career is quite astonishing: you've been involved in no less than twenty projects, mainly in the neofolk genre. Could you tell us more about that?
I grew up listening to ska and reggae music, chiefly as a result of my early exposure to Jamaican sound systems in London, and fronted a couple of ska bands dedicated to the music of Prince Buster, Laurel Aitken, Desmond Dekker and the Two Tone/skinhead genre. By the late-1990s, when I was listening to a lot of traditional English and Irish folk music, I had discovered Neofolk bands such Current 93, Death In June, Strength Through Joy and various others. This style of music had close connections to the Industrial scene and older projects such as Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV and Test Dept, acts I had been familiar with for many years. From there I discovered the likes of Coil and Nurse With Wound, not to mention labels such as World Serpent, Cold Spring Records, Old Europa Café, War Office Propaganda, Eis Und Licht and many more. As a result, in 2004 I began corresponding with someone from the Dutch neoclassical/martial band H.E.R.R. and he invited me to join as a second vocalist. After releasing some material with the group – and we are still making music to this day - I collaborated with other projects such as Seelenlicht, Xiphos, Von Thronstahl, Horologium, The Days of the Trumpet Call, Survival Unit, The Joy of Nature, Sagittarius, Sala Delle Colonne, Mind Terrorist, Across the Rubicon, Ollin, Elvatorium, Erich Zahn, Street Cleaner, Jumpscare and many others.
3) You initiated the International anarcho-identitary movement. What does it consist of? Are there any plans to translate your Manifesto into French?
During the mid-1990s, whilst running the day to day activities of the ENM and NRF, I came to embrace Anarchism. I was inspired by the decentralist ideas discussed in Richard Hunt's Alternative Green magazine, a publication that I later edited in the wake of Richard's untimely death in 2012. Expelled from Green Anarchism, Richard became persona non grata on the British Left and this opened up a path for dialogue between our respective groups. In March 2000 Richard, Wayne Sturgeon and myself staged a self-styled 'Anarchist Heretics Fair' in Brighton at which tribalists, regionalists and nationalists from all over the country gathered to sell literature and exchange ideas. That same year I established the National-Anarchist Movement (N-AM) and wrote the official Manifesto, seeking to attract Anarchists from various backgrounds who were committed to establishing intentional settlements (racial or otherwise), opposing Zionism and advocating the overthrow of the capitalist system.
Whilst 'revolution' is often dependant on the fallacious notion that everything will happen on a particular day, or at some point in the future, we are already engaged in the process of organising small communities in urban squats and rural outposts and experimenting with independent currencies and the so-called 'black market'. We are also committed to the formation of temporary autonomous zones, the setting-up of self-defence groups, the organisation of sporting associations and home-schools, the planting of rooftop gardens and the development of inner-city farms. Given that many large towns and cities are rapidly breaking down, especially in America, it is important for these revolutionary structures to be well-defended. Anarchists must not fall prey to criminal elements who, like their capitalist friends in high places, will try to steal their resources. Particularly in a crisis. Although we have been affected by social media censorship in recent times, we nonetheless retain a presence in a more discreet fashion and our activists are involved in a number of projects that operate beneath the radar. As far as a French translation of the Manifesto is concerned, we would welcome that wholeheartedly!
4) Could you tell us about your publishing activities? You publish essays focusing on some very interesting figures, some of whom are not very well known in the "milieu", such as Byung-Chul Han, Gabriele d'Annunzio and Fritjof Schuon...
I published many 'samisdat'-style booklets and pamphlets during the 1980s and 1990s, under the name Rising Press, which I inherited from the NF, but due to financial constraints these were merely photocopied and stapled. In December 2010 I borrowed some money to release my biography of Otto Strasser and published it under the name Black Front Press. I only intended to issue one book, but since then I have gone on to publish over 140 titles. Most of this work focusses on history, poetry, art, philosophy and metaphysics, offering a wide range of writers and topics that are, naturally, rejected by the mainstream. Although it has been a constant struggle to raise enough funds to bring out each book, we take a lot of pleasure in the fact that our texts are read all over the world. We lack the distribution of the large publishing corporations, of course, so everything operates through the Black Front Press page on Facebook. I am a full-time writer and editor, but due to the fact that we make no profit whatsoever it demands the kind of time that only a true 'labour of love' can inspire. To know that someone, somewhere, is holding in their hands a copy of a BFP volume - and hopefully learning from it! - means everything.
5) Among your published books, it's certainly the series on the protagonists of the German Conservative Revolution that attracts the most attention. It’s a project carried out in close collaboration with Robert Steuckers and many others. Could you illustrate it for us?
I've known Robert since the 1990s. Due to the fact that he speaks a wide range of languages, his help with translating a number of texts on the Conservative Revolution has been invaluable. We have released ten volumes in the series so far, with several more to come. The contributors include some of the biggest names on the European New Right and the subject matter deals with the ideas of Ernst Jünger, Otto Strasser, Ernst Röhm, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt, Ernst Niekisch and many more important figures. It is our wish that this series will go down in history as one of the best in the field.
6) Let's talk about international politics. You have always shown your support for the Palestinian people. What is your position on this? Does the crisis that broke out in October 2023 represent a turning point?
I grew up watching the conflict between the indigenous Palestinians and their Israeli oppressors and was fascinated by the number of different factions involved on both sides. Personally, I do not regard 'Israel' as a separate entity to the United States and find the idea that the tiny Knesset can bully the might and power that is Washington completely ludicrous. Many people assume that the Zionist lobbies have the wherewithal to influence American politics and divert taxpayers money to the Middle East, but the reality is that the West surrendered to organised Jewish power a long time ago - even prior to the establishment of its colonial outpost in the Middle East. The latter is a mere consequence of the Jewish empire, a Rothschild heirloom, so to speak, not its reason for existence. After all, if the Zionists already control the governments, banking houses and media wings of North America, Europe and various neo-colonialist puppet-states in Africa and Asia, then why on earth would little 'Israel' need to tell its fellow Zionists what to do? They are, as I have intimated, simply one and the same entity.
Furthermore, whilst many people on the Right refuse to side with the Palestinians due to their Arab ethnicity and/or religious beliefs, the Left has no such qualms and has been actively working among the Palestinians for many decades. The latter are pursuing their own ideological objectives, naturally, but far beyond all the complexities and intricacies of this conflict - not to mention race, religion and ideology - there lies a more crucial and fundamental reason to support the Palestinian struggle against colonialism and imperialism. In fact this cause does not 'belong' to the Palestinians at all, it is a universal principle by which the standards of national freedom and social justice must be maintained at all costs. Whoever you are and whatever you believe, consistency is everything.
Another reason this issue is so important to those of us outside the Middle East is that whilst many on the Right still fail to comprehend why the internal affairs of a distant people towards whom one perceives little or no empathy can possibly serve any higher purpose, not to mention the disrespect that other Middle Eastern populations have often shown towards ordinary Europeans, it is crucial to remember that this is not simply a question of defence and that the West's own subjugation beneath the globalist jackboot of Zionist tyranny means that this situation can be transformed into an instrument of attack. It is time to set aside one's prejudices and consider the ramifications of this struggle in a more international context.
Whilst it makes perfect sense for those of us who oppose all forms of oppression to declare that we are 'all Palestinians,' it is no less true to suggest that those who support oppression in any way, shape or form are 'all Israelis'. The latter, of course, being linked in spirit to the regional Zionist governments of Europe, North America and every single puppet-outpost in Africa, Asia, South America, Australasia and Antarctica. This is not an isolated conflict, far removed from the escapist bubble in which the workers, consumers and taxpayers of the First World desperately suck upon the plentiful teat of relative domesticity, but the revolutionary frontline in a continuing struggle against global servitude. Every small victory on the periphery represents a slight loosening of the less discernible chains that cling to the ankles of those at the centre. Each of us must play our part.
Regarding whether the events of the last few weeks represent a turning point, I do believe that the ultimate Zionist objective is the creation of a 'Greater Israel' stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates and that the people of Gaza are being forcibly removed for that very purpose. Although Zionism is a fundamentally political idea, being modelled on the German nationalism of the late-nineteenth century, its modern-day leaders can hide between the religious dimension that claims to justify such genocidal behaviour on the basis of theology. The fact that 90% of World Jewry is descended from the Khazars of the Eurasian steppes and has no authentic claim to Palestinian soil is conveniently ignored.
7) Europe is surrounded by conflicts, areas of tension and geopolitical abscesses. Do you think Europe still has a destiny?
Although the idea of Europe is inevitably bound up with geography mass foreign immigration has completely altered what it means to be 'English,' 'French,' 'German' or 'Greek' and these countries, of course, are entities that were originally founded by specific tribes who often lent the territory their name. The globalist establishment can reinterpret what it means to be 'European' as much as it wants, but it doesn't change the fact that 'England' is no longer England and 'France' is no longer France. Countries that originated from the Angles or the Franks cannot possibly be 'English' or 'French' when the population of the world has since arrived on their doorstep! However, all is not lost and wherever you find a European there lies Europe. In other words, race is nation and nation is race. Indeed, those of us who wish to preserve what it really means to be European must seek the formation of new nations based along ethnic and cultural lines. If activists from England, France, Italy and other European countries can establish the kind of communities I discussed in relation to National-Anarchism, combined with the obvious need for defence, we have a real chance of saving ourselves. As the centre continues to decline and fall, new life will spring up on the periphery.
8) Secularism, postmodernism, AI, the abolition of borders (physical as well as moral, ethical and mental)... some people are delighted, seeing in it a kind of 'liberation' of the human being. Others look to Tradition, seeking to follow the path opened by Guénon, Evola, Schuon, Mario Polia and Hossein Nasr. Do you think that Tradition and his metaphysic can provide answers to contemporary challenges?
Certainly, yes. I am opposed to all of the things you mention in the first part of your question, but it is impossible to change society without first changing the individual. Similarly, without adding an intense spiritual basis to our struggle we reduce ourselves to materialist insects scrambling across the fetid corpse of modernity in the vain hope that biological factors will somehow have the final word. The traditionalists and perennialists offer the best hope for this in the sense that whilst each of us may favour a particular religion, we are united at the most fundamental level. This is the great secret of Tradition itself, that beyond the ritual and dogma of our respective teachings we are each performing our unique role within the divine unfolding of the the Absolute. Schuon, for example, believed that the main difference between religions such as Hinduism, Christianity and Islam does not concern the obvious or naked dissimilarities that exist between the belief-systems themselves, but a more fundamental juxtaposition distinguishing the purely theological or doctrinal branches of each faith from the primordial soil in which each has its elemental roots. The first being exoteric and revealed, the second esoteric and hidden from view. It is this latter which suggests a deeper and more transcendent substrate in which these theological forms - shaped, reshaped and splintered down the ages - share an ultimate solidarity. Not with the result that each religion dissolves in a modern haze of syncretism, but in the hope that a healthy consensus can move us beyond the sectarian discord that so often leads to chaos and bloodshed. Therefore I would urge all political activists to adopt the attitude that one should dress in the armour of one's particular faith, take the sacrament of your choice and go forth into the struggle with others of like-mind.
9) Troy, thank you for your availability, we'll leave you with the last word!
It has been a great pleasure and I would like to thank the staff at Rébellion magazine for providing me with this opportunity. I have been a reader for many years and your combination of revolutionary politics and uncompromising graphics has always been an inspiration. As a fellow European and freedom fighter, I wish you well in your future endeavours.