In 2018, the far right Lads Society (formerly United Patriots Front group) infiltrated the New South Wales Young Nationals, the youth wing of the National Party in Australia. Together with neo-Nazis in Antipodean Resistance, the new members were successful in registering for the party without declaring their far right allegiances. Soon after, they were successful in electing one of their own activists, Clifford Jennings, to the Young Nationals executive. This allowed the Lads Society activists to make racially biased motions to champion white immigration to Australia and restrict all other ethnicities.
This infiltration was only halted when their activities were revealed by Australia’s public news broadcaster, the Australian Broadcast Company (ABC). The National Party itself is a right-wing socially conservative party which draws much of its support from rural Australia. The National Party, with the Liberal Party of Australia, form the Coalition, a right wing bloc that has governed Australia since 2013. The Lads Society and Antipodean Resistance almost succeeded in taking control of the youth wing of a major pillar of Australia’s system of government. Had they not been uncovered, they may well have become entrenched in the structures of Australia’s federal party system, through ultimately either standing as candidates (or supporting sympathetic candidates) for the House of Representatives or the Australian Senate.
This strategy is called entryism and it is not original. In short, entryism is a process by which members of a politically-motivated organisation join another party or group with the often clandestine aim of changing the latter’s principles or policies and/or exploiting their resources. According to political extremism expert John Tomlinson, this strategy has three primary objectives: to identify support for its own cause in a targeted party, provoke or exploit division in a targeted party in order to achieve power, and shift the nature and direction of policy in the targeted party.
