A Jewish victim of the neo-Nazi known as "Brutus of Goy", who has been jailed for disseminating antisemitic propaganda in his home town, has described the experience of being verbally harassed as "completely sickening” and is now questioning whether to remain in the UK.

Mark, from Hertfordshire, was visiting a car-boot sale in the West of Manchester with his wife and two children when Robert Taylor called him “synagogue of Satan”, repeated the word “gas”, and said “Heil Hitler”.

“When this kind of thing happens to you alone, you feel you’re in some degree of control," Mark told the JC this week. “But when you feel that your family is affected by it, then it’s an order of magnitude worse, and completely sickening.” He told the police in his victim impact statement that the incident was so disturbing he was considering leaving the UK.  

Far-right extremist Taylor, 38, was sentenced to four years in jail with a one-year extended licence period, after pleading guilty to numerous charges relating to stirring up racial hatred, including several offences under the Terrorism Act, at Manchester Crown Court on Friday.

Robert Taylor in front of an anti-Jewish flyer he put up depicting the antisemitic 'Happy Merchant' caricature (Credit: Community Security Trust)

It has now been revealed that Taylor was part of a transnational neo-Nazi collective called the Goyim Defence League (GDL), which is behind some of the importation of far-right extremism into the UK.

A new report by the Community Security Trust (CST) has exposed how the shadowy online network, which originated in the United States to spread anti-Jewish hatred, is radicalising Britons to commit antisemitic hate crimes.

Taylor, of Ullswater Drive, Farnworth, pleaded guilty to 14 charges in total, including four counts of distributing written material with the intent to stir up racial hatred; two counts of racially motivated harassment; one count of distributing a terrorist publication; and another for possessing a document likely to be useful to a terrorist.

From spreading posters around his home town saying, “Israel did 9/11”, to handing out flyers claiming, “Jewish privilege allows this child rape, child torture, and child genital mutilation to be legal,” Taylor was dedicated to promoting anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.

A flyer depicting an antisemitic conspiracy in Robert Taylor's home town, Farnworth (Credit: Community Security Trust)

He encouraged violence against Jews by graffitiing “Gas the Jews” on bus stops and even created Nazi-themed mugs. A poster he put up in Farnworth featured the ‘Happy Merchant’ caricature, an antisemitic depiction of a Jewish man greedily rubbing his hands together. The poster suggests Jews are responsible for illegal immigration, a war on Christianity, communism and pornography.

Jon Minadeo II (middle), the leader of far-right collective the Goyim Defence League (GDL), holding flyers in Nashville, July 2024 (Credit: Community Security Trust)

Mark, a visibly Jewish man, encountered Taylor in Manchester, where he had travelled with his family for his grandmother’s stone-setting. He wanted to take his two children out to stretch their legs before the solemn event, so they visited a car boot sale.

He heard a man behind him repeating the word “gas”, and at first didn’t think that the speech was directed at him. Then, Taylor stood in front of Mark and repeated the word, saying: “That’s what I think of when I see your people, I think of gas.” Taylor proceeded to call him the “Synagogue of Satan”.

Mark told the JC: "He gave me a 'Heil Hitler', and he turned around and walked away, and thank God the kids didn’t clock what had happened. That saved me a very difficult conversation afterwards."

Describing the impact of the incident, Mark said: “A lot of people experience this kind of thing, unfortunately. When you experience it, it really makes you feel sick to your stomach, you really feel it deeply.”

At the time, both Mark and his children were wearing kippot. “In that sense, we are a target,” he said. “Which is very sad, that in this day and age, wearing a kippah in public can make you a target. But that is the reality, and unfortunately it has become even more so the case since October 7."

Since the incident, he has felt a lot more conscious of being visibly Jewish. When he takes his children out to a football match, Mark is constantly anticipating the moment they’ll all have to take their kippot off to avoid any hostile confrontation. Mark has black hair and now will  wear only a black kippah with black clips in an effort to be “less conspicuous”.

"I’m living with this constant tension,” Mark said. “On one hand, I want to take sensible precautions, but on the other hand, it's wrong, outrageous even that I or anyone else should feel like that in Britain in 2024. I’m proud to be Jewish and I don’t want to be intimidated by anyone else.”

He added: “I wish I could just feel comfortable, I wish it was something that we didn’t have to worry about. It’s always in the back of my mind: ‘Are we too visible now? Is it going to cause a problem? And if it does, how am I going to have that conversation with my kids?’”

According to the CST, internet users in Britain like Taylor are downloading and printing off antisemitic Goyim Defence League propaganda from platforms like Telegram, resulting in the circulation of anti-Jewish flyers around the UK including places like Swansea, Brighton and Hove and Manchester.

The Goyim Defense League (GDL) Telegram chat (Credit: Community Security Trust)

In a comprehensive investigation beginning in May 2021 which spanned almost two years, the CST discovered the scale of Taylor’s antisemitic activities both online and offline. The charity reported its findings to the Greater Manchester Police, resulting in Taylor’s arrest in February 2023 and his recent conviction.

The neo-Nazi collective which Taylor was a part of, GDL, originated around 2018 and is run today by one of its US co-founders, Jon Minadeo II, who was jailed in November 2023 for 30 days after distributing antisemitic flyers around Florida’s Palm Beach County. Minadeo calls himself “AMERICAS #1 ANTI SEMITE!” in the “About” section on his Gab profile.

Its name and logo are mockingly modelled on the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a New York–based organisation that was founded to combat antisemitism, bigotry and discrimination.

The Goyim Defense League (GDL) logo is a mockery of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) a New York–based organisation that tackles antisemitism, bigotry and discrimination (Credit: Community Security Trust)

Taylor’s pseudonym, “Brutus of Goy”, is a play on the name “Brutus of Troy”, the mythical founder of Britain. The CST said that the term “Goy” — the Hebrew and Yiddish term for a non-Jew — has been re-appropriated by far-right activists like Taylor, who wear the derogatory term as a badge of honour.

The CST said it first became aware of Taylor in 2021 when its online research teams discovered a 3-minute video of him distributing antisemitic flyers and verbally abusing visibly Jewish members of the public at same car boot sale he would return to a year later to harass Mark.

Taylor runs a commentary throughout the clip, audibly calling Jews “our enemies” and at one point refers to a visibly Jewish person nearby as the “synagogue of Satan”.

He sent the video to the GDL telegram chat, where about 1,250 members routinely shared antisemitic videos, photographs and memes. One such example sent by Taylor includes an image of Santa Claus wearing a swastika armband, while holding a shotgun at the head of a caricatured image of a Jew holding a menorah.

(Credit: Community Security Trust)

Another time, Taylor asked the Telegram chat for advice on what antisemitic slogan to graffiti on a bus stop poster. “Any ideas what to write on this ad goys…I’m thinking Gas the Jews,” he wrote. Just four hours later, he posted a photograph on the chat of the same advertisement with “Gas the Jews” scrawled above it.

(Credit: Community Security Trust)

(Credit: Community Security Trust)

At one point, Taylor posted a series of images to the chat, showing off all the far-right posters he had disseminated that day, with the caption: “Just been for a nice Sunday stroll o/.” The “o/” symbol is designed to resemble the Nazi salute.

The CST was able to track the geolocation of the various antisemitic flyers using Google Street View, establishing that Taylor was functioning primarily in Falmouth. After an almost two-year investigation, the charity established Taylor’s real identity and passed on the information to the police.

(Credit: Community Security Trust)

Other examples of propaganda from the GDL neo-Nazi network have been found across the UK. Copies of a flyer titled “EVERY SINGLE ASPECT OF FEMINISM IS JEWISH” were found around a primary school in Aberdeen in May 2024, while another titled “EVERY SINGLE ASPECT OF THE JEWISH TALMUD IS SATANIC” was found on the Manchester Metrolink.

Throughout its report, the CST emphasise how unregulated, fringe social media platforms like Telegram, Gab and Odysee are central to the neo-Nazi collective’s viral and international influence.

“This case acutely demonstrates how online social networks, alternative tech platforms and the promotion of extremism intersect with each other and can lead to individuals being drawn into terrorism,” the CST said.

“The role of social media and online platforms, especially ones with poor or non-existent moderation policies, has been central to the increasing informality and structureless nature of extremist and terrorist groups,” the charity wrote.

On Telegram, Minadeo, the leader of the neo-Nazi collective, who is known online by his username “Handsome Truth”, runs his own livestream which he describes as “the best Jew-hating stream on the planet”, which the CST says he uses to spread antisemitism to his young audience.

(Credit: Community Security Trust)

The leader of the Goyim Defense League (GDL), Jon Minadeo II, is known online by his username “Handsome Truth” (Credit: Community Security Trust)

The CST’s report revealed how the GDL operates its own video platform, GoyimTV, “the sole purpose of which is to spread antisemitic content”.

Within the US, the collective is behind a series of public anti-Jewish stunts. One notorious example is the GDL “Name the Nose” tours, which involve far-right activists travelling across parts of the US with antisemitic slogans printed on their vehicles. In 2021, GDL supporters drove around Florida in a van emblazoned with the phrases “Rabbi’s [sic] rape kids” and “Holocaust never happened”.

Goyim Defense League (GDL) activists with antisemitic banners over a bridge on a main highway in Los Angeles, October 2022 (Credit: Community Security Trust)

The report concluded by calling on social media platforms which have the tools to detect the GDL’s iconography, flyers, content and leading activists to remove them, and for Minadeo and other prominent GDL activists from the United States to be barred from entry to the UK.