White supremacist activist Joshua Bonehill-Paine, who has organised a rally against the "Jewification of Great Britain", has been arrested for inciting racial hatred and reportedly banned from entering London.
A Scotland Yard spokesperson said a 22-year-old was apprehended on Friday because of "two visual and written publications on the internet".
It is alleged that the far-right nationalist sent abusive tweets to Jewish MP Luciana Berger.
He has been released on bail until late March, but has reportedly been banned from entering London. That would preclude Bonehill-Paine from attending his planned ‘Liberate Stamford Hill’ protest on March 22 at Clapton Common in north-east London.
He denied any wrongdoing, writing on Twitter: “What’s funny is that despite agreeing with what was said against that MP, I never made any of the alleged tweets.”
Since his arrest, he has also written on his blog “I will not stand for Jewry of any kind,” and vowed to expand his campaign nationwide.
He wrote: “Hitherto, we have called our campaign simply ‘liberate Stamford Hill’, but upon my arrest I feel this campaign has now expanded to the entire country. Our aims are simply to liberate Great Britain from Jewry, tyranny and oppression.”
The activist group North London Anti-Fascists plans to counter the rally in Stamford Hill. The organisation said in a statement: “This demonstration will not only be opposed, it will be stopped.
“We will do everything we possibly can to refuse National Action, or any other antisemitic, White Pride, nationalist or neo-Nazi groups who join this protest, even an inch of our streets.”