Meeting the Former BNP Youth Leader Who's Now a Pagan Squatter

Former BNP Youth leader Danny Lake. Photo by Theo Cottle.

Danny Lake's life has made a bit of a handbrake turn over the past few years. Leader of the BNP Youth from 2005 to 2007, his surroundings lately have shifted firmly from neo-Nazi to New Age. Instead of spending his time advocating bigotry to minors, he's now promoting peace, love, economic equality and the idea of getting back to nature.

Over the last few summers, Danny has "found himself" at a number of Rainbow Gatherings. These – for those of you who've never attempted to recreate utopia in a Monmouth caravan park – are basically hippie music festivals without any of the music and much more of the 4AM discussions about how to make the world a better place by replacing money with Snickers bars and governments with hugs.

Lake meditates daily and feels that, thanks to some recent enlightening experiences, he has "spiritually changed" since his time with the BNP. After leaving the party – which he says he joined when he was "18, young and stupid" for their economic values, policies about mass immigration and opposition to the EU – he founded the Occupy Mile End camp and now lives in a squat in Leicestershire.

In fact, besides his giveaway Union Jack phone case, you'd never guess the guy in the baggy trousers and ankh necklace used to be the future of British prejudice. That said, he claims he never held the racist views that people tend to associate with the BNP in the first place. "Of course, the BNP did have its extreme elements, much in the same way the left does," he says. "But this reputation wasn't representative of all organisational regions. The West Country, with one notable exception, was, if anything, much more liberal minded. So my view on first impressions was that the media simply hyped the extremism."

Photo by Theo Cottle

So what exactly led Lake to change his life so drastically? "I had a mind-expanding experience where I had complete and utter ego death," he explains. "I had no idea who I was or where I was; the only way I can describe it is like being born again."

Given a bit of context, perhaps his personality shift isn't all that surprising. Danny – a former nationalist-Pagan, raised by an ex-army, ex-foreign legion, cross-dressing hippie father – was presumably never going to tag along with Britain's bigot brigade for too long. Bullied at school for his father’s penchant for wearing pantyhose, Lake claims to have dealt with the problem by rocking up to school one Red Nose Day in a skirt and high heels with a large grin on his face. Apparently the bullies backed off after that.

He laughs at the recent news of Nick Griffin's bankruptcy, though admits his old boss makes "the best chilli ever", and explains that he left the party by sending Griffin a text calling him a "bigoted and small-minded zealot". It's unlikely he's going to be invited back any time soon.

So what's next for the Judas of the British far right? Besides more Rainbow Gatherings and heavy involvement in the anti-fracking movement, he's applied to go to Mars with Mars One, the Dutch initiative aiming to send a bunch of people to live on the red planet for the rest of their lives.

I caught up with Danny to talk about his shift from politics to inner peace.

Danny speaking as the leader of the BNP Youth. Photo courtesy of Danny Lake.

VICE: Hey Danny. Did you encounter any negative reactions from people when you first got involved with the Rainbow Gatherings? How aware were people of your past?
Danny Lake: People were calling me a fascist and I’d say to them that I was here for the same reasons as they were – and that politics should be left out of it.

What would it take for other BNP members to find inner peace, do you think? The banishment of all immigrants from the UK?
[Laughs] Well, they’d probably find something else to bitch about, wouldn’t they? "All these dogs coming over here!" They’d probably just start moaning about the influx of American Bulldogs or something.

Do you have any advice for Kieren Trent, the current, sieg-heiling BNP youth leader?
There’s no advice I can give him, really. Only something like, “You’ll come to your senses eventually.” Mind you, the truth is that, if he’s in that job, he’s probably not very good at taking other people’s advice. It’s basically going to cause him more problems than it will do him good. I mean, I’ve lost count of the number of jobs I’ve lost because people have found out about my political past. I lost two jobs in as many weeks once. I was working as a barman in Swindon, and one day I went into work, got taken aside and was told they’d had a complaint about racism, and they let me go. I mean, in the 1950s, people shouted "Communist!" but now it’s "Racist!"

Danny (far right) with Nick Griffin. Photo courtesy of Danny Lake.

What do you think would happen if you dropped Nick Griffin into the middle of a Rainbow Gathering in a poncho?
I have no idea, but I’d love to see that.

You left the army over your views on the Middle East. What were they?
I was there for about nine hours, until they asked me to use a gun. A gun kills people! They had the bloke standing there with this machete telling us to, "Kill, kill, kill!" I couldn’t bring myself to do that, so I left and never looked back. I wasn’t happy about the war in the Middle East because I didn’t agree with it.

The Rainbow Gatherings have no official leader or spokesperson. Do you feel like that model of organisation is more effective than the hierarchical one you experienced in politics?
Definitely. The thing about the Rainbow Circle is you have a talking stick at meetings. The talking stick means that only the person in the circle holding it is allowed to speak. It’s a great idea because, in Parliament, they’re all bloody shouting over each other, the tensions are rising and rising and people are getting more and more agitated. With the talking stick, if someone’s said something that’s pissed you off, you’ve normally got to wait for it to go around half the circle of people before it gets to you. By that point, you’ve calmed down. A talking stick would be great in politics.

Photo by Theo Cottle

How else is democracy better at the Rainbow Gatherings than in the Commons?
I remember one day there were two hippie women having an argument. They were shouting and screaming at each other, and another bloke went up to them and started singing. Imagine that – just two men singing at you and hugging. The women stopped arguing and we all just started hugging and singing together!

How did your family react when you told them you were leaving the BNP?
Some friends and family were a bit surprised about my lifestyle change. Dad was pleased but he’s not exactly your average cross-dresser, he’s ex-army! To me, it wasn’t really much of a leap to go from my political past into activism with the Occupy movement and then to Rainbow Gatherings.

Do you feel you’ve spiritually changed since joining the Rainbow Family?
It’s given me time to contemplate and meditate. Meditation was something that I never did before. The first time I meditated was at a Rainbow – so yeah, it has definitely had its impact. It just helps me to be that little bit more beyond the physical world. I dunno – I always thought intelligence was up here [points at head], but when you shut that off you start to realise that it’s really here [puts hand on heart].

Thanks, Danny.

Follow Shanna (@ShannaFelicia) and Theo (@theocottlephoto) on Twitter

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