Warning: This report by ITV News’ Global Security Editor Rohit Kachroo contains language some people may find distressing.
A white supremacist group masquerading as a fitness club has been secretly working to build a far-right militia, holding training sessions in plain sight.
An undercover investigation by ITV News has revealed how ‘Active Club England’ is following a blueprint established by neo-Nazi networks in the US and Europe, using extreme fitness and fraternity as a front to recruit and radicalise members for a so-called “race war”.
ITV News has uncovered how a recruitment drive in the wake of the 2024 summer riots attracted dozens of new members. By capitalising on social unrest, the group expanded to more than 100 members, with one branch drawing enough new followers to begin fortnightly training sessions at a park in Vauxhall, south London, just steps from MI6 headquarters.
Among its latest recruits is a convicted violent criminal, previously jailed for a knife attack in a supermarket. The 28-year-old, who calls himself ‘Glenn’ but who ITV News has identified as Jay Barlow, joined in December – weeks after he was sentenced for separate offences.
He is currently under probation conditions and must regularly attend a ‘thinking skills programme’ as part of his rehabilitation. When confronted by ITV News he denied any knowledge of the group.
After six months of secret filming, ITV News can reveal that:
- Active Club England has become one of Britain’s largest white supremacist groups, with at least eight branches across the UK
- Twelve meetings secretly filmed by ITV News between October 2024 and February 2025 show a change in language from offensive “jokes” about Adolf Hitler to discussions about the use of weapons, and open declarations about “taking power whenever the opportunity arises”
- The network is making plans to rent a permanent indoor space in London to “practice knife defence without getting arrested”
- Two of its members have discussed pooling resources “to buy ten acres of land” for the group
Despite the group’s claims it is “peaceful and legal”, the ITV News investigation has sparked “concerns” about safety. Neil Basu, former head of UK counterterrorism policing, says it’s clear “these are people preparing to commit acts of violence.”
A Descent Towards Violent Rhetoric
Most meetings follow a pattern. First, an hour of high-intensity training where members are expected to meet strict fitness targets – preparation, it‘s claimed, for future violence.
Within their first six months, new recruits are required to achieve a 60kg flat bench press and a 110kg deadlift or face expulsion. Guidelines circulated on Telegram make clear “fitness and robustness of mind, body, and spirit are not just expectations but core pillars of our worldview.”
But often it is after these sessions, in cafes or restaurants, where ideological discussions play out. ITV News has documented a clear progression towards extreme and openly violent rhetoric in these conversations over the past six months.
In October, members in the London chapter laughed about Black-on-Black crime.
Members were recorded saying: “I much more enjoy it when they kill each other, because one gets killed the the other gets life. It’s like two birds with one stone.”
They later went on to claim that Black people have “hive minds”, and that white people are “more intellectual”.
By November they had become comfortable using extremely racist slurs, discussing their violent ambitions, and the use of weapons.
One member boasted: “I got about a grand’s worth of throwing knives and axes, and I got a bunch of bows and s*** as well”.
“As a police officer, I would find that very disturbing,” said Neil Basu after watching ITV News’ recording of these discussions.
“I’d want to monitor that individual very closely… you only need one of those people to be very dangerous. He sounds like one to me.”
In another group discussion, secretly recorded in December, a member declared: “We’re here to defend ourselves when the s*** hits the fan.
“After the s**t is over, there’s going to be a power vacuum and someone needs to step up. We’re here to take power whenever the opportunity arises.”
And by January, some members were openly discussing their personal history of violence. “I was done for bottling someone,” disclosed one. Another bragged: “I bit an Albanian guy in the face once.”
The origins of Active Club England
Active Club doesn’t look like most far right groups. It operates with a decentralised structure designed to foster both secrecy and resilience.
Although individual chapters worldwide take different stances on issues such as the war in Gaza or the election of President Trump, all remain committed to the network’s core ideology of revolutionary white supremacy.
The network, which hails Adolf Hitler as a hero, was first promoted in 2021 by American far right activist Robert Rundo, who fled the US after being accused of rioting and conspiracy to violence.
He was arrested in Romania in 2023.
New recruits to Active Club England must pass a rigorous vetting process before they are allowed to attend a training session.
Only then, after proving their commitment are they granted access to a private group on the encrypted messaging app Telegram – marking their official entry into the organisation.
During a twenty seven-minute telephone interrogation, ITV News was questioned by a man calling himself ‘Lance’, the group’s national leader.
“What are your religious beliefs?… What is your ethnic background, exactly?… What do you think is wrong with the country?… How would you describe your fitness?” our undercover journalist was asked.
Given the importance given to operational security, many members remain anonymous, even to one another. In Active Club England, trust appears to be shallow and carefully guarded.
In internal directives issued via Telegram in late October, members were instructed to tighten security further by purchasing “a secondary phone” for communication with other members, to use a Faraday pouch to block electromagnetic signals, and to switch to the encrypted messaging app ‘Threema’ described as the best platform “for keeping communications separate from your everyday identity as possible”.
Survival and salutes
In November, as members completed a boxing session at a rented village hall in Buckinghamshire, they paused to complete an important ritual.
Attendees had travelled from across the country – for some, it would be a long journey home – but it was worth delaying their trips to take a group photograph.
As they assembled for the image, one by one, several began raising their arms – unprompted – in what they referred to as a ‘Roman salute’.
These moments, secretly filmed by ITV News, exposed the group’s true ideology. As the photographer prepared to take the picture, ‘Lance’, the group’s national leader intervened.
“No Romans, no Romans” he warned. His instruction was immediately followed.
This was one of three occasions when ITV News witnessed members performing Nazi salutes – a gesture deliberately excluded from the group’s social media presence.
The image from Buckinghamshire posted online after the meeting showed eleven men, their faces pixelated, standing in front of a St George’s flag, but with their arms crossed or held firmly by their sides. No ‘Romans’ indeed.
Despite the common perception of far-right extremists as reckless, Active Club England’s leaders have worked to carefully manage the group’s public image, drawing a sharp distinction between its private attitudes and public persona.
Members are instructed to stay within the bounds of the law in public – knowing that unwanted scrutiny could threaten the group’s survival.
Observers compare the organisation to Anjem Choudary’s al-Muhajiroun group, which avoided legal censure – taunting UK authorities for almost a decade through hyper-awareness of the law.
“If you are inciting racial hatred online and in a public place, with the intention of being abusive or insulting someone you have committed a criminal offence”, said Neil Basu, former head of UK counterterrorism.
“They know that, and they are being careful with what they do. They are clearly being coached in how to stay the right side of the law”.
For Dr Elizabeth Pearson, Programme Lead for the MSc Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Studies, exercise can be an important vehicle for radicalisation.
“This idea of brotherhood, of engaging in an activity which allows you to connect together, is also really important part of how people radicalise.
“When people were seeking to understand jihadists, gyms were also a really important location where groups of men could meet, could share in an activity that embodied a particular ideal around fitness, around continuing a struggle, a fight.”
A new recruit, a hidden past
By the time Active Club England’s London branch sat down for dinner at their Christmas night out, a brand new member had already positioned himself at the centre of the conversation.
Over the course of pre-meal drinks, Glenn, a flat cap-wearing railway worker, had quickly gone from newcomer to a dominant voice in the group’s discussions.
Over beers, burgers, and shots of whisky, he was warmly welcomed, promising to join the others for their next training session in Vauxhall. His enthusiasm earned him acceptance. His past, however, remained a secret.
Glenn’s new friends had no idea the man they were dining with is in fact called Jay Barlow – a man with a history of violent crime.
Just ten weeks earlier, Barlow had stood before a magistrate receiving a suspended sentence for possession of a knife and racially or religiously aggravated harassment.
And in 2018 he was jailed for four years after carrying out a knife attack in a supermarket, pleading guilty to GBH and possession of a bladed article.
Barlow had been in the group for just two weeks when he shared a video with other members, which appeared to show him harassing a non-white teenager in the street.
“We locked eyes as I was walking back from the gym, and he made a funny face at me,” Barlow fumed over Telegram.
Later, in person, he recounted the vicious encounter, telling Active Club recruits: “I’ve got an especially short temper for the non-whites. I’ve got a zero tolerance from them… I said ‘f*** it, I’m just going to get my phone out and video it’. I thought it would be funny.”
Under his probation conditions, Barlow must attend lessons designed to reduce his risk of re-offending. “I’ve had to start doing TSP ‘Thinking Skills’ f***ing programme” he said at an Active Club gathering in January.
“I’ve got to do a course, I can leave the country because I’m not on licence, but it’s just I have to make sure I’m back in time for my meetings.”
Neil Basu, former head of UK counterterrorism policing, who reviewed segments of the more than 100 hours of footage secretly recorded by ITV News, described Active Club England as the “successor to National Action”, the banned far-right terror group that was outlawed after celebrating the murder of MP Jo Cox.
“It’s very clear – the racism, the white supremacy, the antisemitism- it’s severe,” Basu said. “From what I’ve heard from your filming, these are people preparing to commit acts of violence.”
“Eventually they will attract somebody who has no problem with that whatsoever, because we’ve seen a lot of vulnerable, mostly young men who are attracted to violence, searching for a cause, and here’s a cause being presented to them.”
For Neil Basu Active Club presents a particular radicalising threat to young men with a violent past.
“It only takes one person to commit a violent act, and people like that will be attracted to this group and they will get support for the group” he says.
“These are radicalisers in everything but name.”
ITV News contacted Active Club England about their findings, and made members aware that they were undercover.
In response, they said: “Active Club England is a fraternal organisation for young Englishmen, dedicated to the development of a culture of brotherhood, physical fitness and self improvement.
“We are unapologetically for the English people and our continued existence in our ancestral homelands. We stand for total victory through cultural rebirth.”
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