S • Continued on page 14
Two members of the Royal Navy ,
including one who is due to start
work on a Trident nuclear submarine,
are members of a far-right group with
links to a banned terrorist organisa-
tion, the Observer can reveal.
An undercover informant, who
infi ltrated the UK branch of the pan-
European Identitarian Movement and
had access to thousands of internal
messages, met a Royal Navy sailor
who revealed that he was about to
take up a posting on a submarine
armed with Trident nuclear missiles.
The meeting, involving an inform-
ant for anti-fascist group Hope Not
Hate , took place at the annual con-
ference of Generation Identity UK in
London on 27 July.
The Identitarian Movement, which
is fi ercely opposed to mass migration,
has expanded rapidly in the past two
years and has at least 63 “regional
branches” across Europe.
The “great replacement” theory
was cited as motivation by the mass
shooters in the Christchurch mosque
attack, which killed 51 people in
March, and the massacre in El Paso,
Texas, earlier this month, in which 22
people died.
There is no suggestion that GI UK
endorses or supports violence.
Last night the identities of the naval
recruit and another GI member at the
same base were sent to the Ministry
of Defence, which issued a statement
saying: “Any extremist ideology is
completely at odds with our values.”
The infiltration, coordinated by
Hope not Hate, was terminated afterJay Rayner
My last
supper
In the Magazine
Exclusive extract from the new book
by UK’s top restaurant criticic
The Observer Magazine
25 AUGUST 2019The last
thing
I’ll eat?
Jay Rayner’s final supper is the masterpiece of a lifetime
(and he’s still working on it)Comedy queen Sara Pascoe Lemn Sissay’s heartbreaking memoir Best British walksDear Mariella10 best walks
in Britain
In the Magazine
Toby Helm
Political EditorMark Townsend
Home Affairs EditorContinued on page 2Continued on page 4Johnson seeks legal advice on
fi ve-week parliament closure
Secret plan to block
any Brexit delay Move will anger EU
leaders at summitThis weekend, Robert Halfon, the
Conservative MP who chairs the
Commons education select commit-
tee, said it was extraordinary that
state school pupils were taking harder
exams than their private school coun-
terparts, and that these qualifica-
tions were then treated as the sameDonald Trump is greeted by US ambassador to France Jamie D McCourt in Biarritz yesterday. ReutersTwo Royal
Navy sailors
exposed as far
right activists
Easier exams benefi t private school pupils
T op universities are giving privately
educated children an unfair advantage
by not differentiating between the rig-
orous GCSEs compulsory in the state
system and less demanding exams
taken in many fee-paying schools, MPs
and education ists said last night.The Amazon on fi re
Europe’s leadersmust do more to save
the rainforest from
Jair Bolsonaro and
Brazil’s big farmersObserver Comment,
page 44Continued on page 14Just days after GCSE results day last
Thursday , Freedom of Information
(FoI) requests by Labour MP Lucy
Powell show that almost all Russell
Group universities treat the two types
of exam – the regulated GCSEs used in
the state system, and IGCSEs, which
the government admits do not meet
the same high standards – as exact
equivalents in admission processes.Boris Johnson has asked the attorney
general, Geoffrey Cox , whether parlia-
ment can be shut down for fi ve weeks
from 9 September in what appears
to be a concerted plan to stop MPs
forcing a further extension to Brexit,
according to leaked government
correspondence.
An email from senior government
advisers to an adviser in N o 10 – writ-
ten within the last 10 days and seen
by the Observer – makes clear that the
prime minister has recently requested
guidance on the legality of such a
move, known as prorogation. The ini-
tial legal guidance given in the email
is that shutting parliament may wellToby Helm
& Heather Stewart Biarritzhttp://www.observer.co.uk | Sunday 25 August 2019 | £3.£1.60 for subscribers