‘He clocked us as being Jewish and was shouting stuff about the Holocaust’
16:09, 10 Mar 2026Updated 17:55, 10 Mar 2026
Ryan Ferguson caught on camera at the demonstration in Bristol on Saturday
This is the moment a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi shouted ‘Heil Hitler’ three times over the shoulders of a line of police protecting him, after he identified two Jewish men in a counter-protest during the ‘Bristol Patriots’ march through the city centre on Saturday.
The man in the video is Ryan Ferguson, a prominent far right protester, who travelled for the day to Bristol from the north west to join the ‘Bristol Patriots’ event, which was called ‘United Against Extremism’. Ferguson, who was jailed last year for making false 999 calls, was a prominent figure at the front of the ‘Bristol Patriots’ march, as it was given a huge police escort from the start of the march at the Cenotaph to Cabot Circus.
Avon & Somerset police said they were ‘aware of several videos’ on social media and were reviewing them and an ‘investigation is under way’.
Several times, the marchers, who numbered around 40, were prevented from continuing the march by hundreds of counter-protesters who were determined to stop the march’s progress around the city centre. During one of those pauses, in Union Street, counter protesters were able to unfurl a wide banner right across the road, and a shouting match ensued over the shoulders of police officers who were lined up in between the two sides.
A short video clip, which has been seen by Bristol Live and been shared widely on social media, begins in the middle of a confrontation with Ferguson saying: “What are you going to do about it? I’m a neo-Nazi.”
The video is filmed by one of the counter-protesters who called Ferguson ‘scum’. He replied: “Are you Jewish yeah? Heil Hitler,” a phrase he repeated three times. He then replied to calls for him to be arrested by saying three times: “It’s not an offence.”“I have had briefings with the police,” he added, before the confrontation descended into obscenities on both sides, and Ferguson pointing at the person he was arguing with over the police lines by shouting ‘Jew’.
Notorious far-right provocateur Ryan Ferguson, from Merseyside, attended the ‘Bristol Patriots’ march in Bristol on March 7. This is a screenshot from a video at which he proclaims he is a neo-Nazi and shouts ‘Heil Hitler’ at two Jewish men, while being protected by police(Image: Bristol Post submitted)
The 40 or so Bristol Patriots on the march then had to run a gauntlet of abuse as they were forced to go through a narrow gap between police lines and the corner of the Coffee#1 coffee shop to get onto the Horsefair.
Ferguson’s own social media showed him going through that gap along with the other ‘Bristol Patriots’ marching, while proclaiming that the hundreds of counter protesters were targeting him personally.
“The left are trying to attack me from every single corner possible,” he said in a piece to camera posted on his social media channels.
READ MORE: Live: Stand-off near Broadmead Tesco as Bristol police form human wall during protest
While trying to get through the gap, Ferguson filmed himself shouting: “Get me through, get me through.” He posted that video with the caption: “Antifa thugs try and storm the police line and attack me,” before posing at the end of the day with two men he described as ‘my security team’.
After the police effort to get the marchers from Union Street to Horsefair, and while hundreds of counter-protesters were trying to stop the march, while chanting ‘Nazi scum off our streets’, two Jewish men approached Bristol Live to say they had been abused by Ferguson.
A screenshot from Ryan Ferguson’s TikTok video, showing him in Union Street Bristol, at the front of a ‘Bristol Patriots’ march through the city centre.(Image: Ryan Ferguson/TikTok)
“He clocked us as being Jewish and was shouting stuff about the Holocaust,” one of the men, who did not want to be named, said.
“He was shouting stuff like ‘six million’ and stuff about gas chambers. He was doing this while the police stood in front of him in a line to protect him, literally over their heads and in their ears,” he added.
Who is Ryan Ferguson?
Ferguson is a well-known and prominent far right protester and social media presence particularly in the north west of England. While he is not affiliated to the Bristol Patriots, he attended Saturday’s event.
Last year, the Liverpool Echo reported a court case where Ferguson, who was then 25, was sentenced to prison for making three false calls to 999 and asking for police assistance for his ‘own protection’.
The court heard he had 20 previous convictions for 29 offences, including one offence on a previous trip to the West Country.
Back in April 2023, then aged 23, Ferguson was in the away end of a match between Forest Green Rovers and Fleetwood Town, when he shouted racist abuse at a player – he was arrested and prosecuted, and found to have been the subject of a football banning order. He was jailed for nine months in early 2024.
In the past year or so, the Liverpool Echo reported that he had been photographed wearing T-shirts with Nazi symbols on, and appeared at Britain First rallies around the country.
Ryan Ferguson jailed Forest Green Rovers winger Jordon Garrick
Last summer, Ferguson’s own social media showed that he was stopped in Nottingham before an anti-immigration protest and escorted out of the area by police in that city who told him they had reason to believe he was there to cause anti-social behaviour.
Earlier this year, the Liverpool Echo reported that Ferguson had sparked controversy by posting a video on his social media channels ahead of an anti-immigration march in Blackpool, where he told the camera: “Remember at this demo, whites only. No blacks.”
The Echo reported that Ferguson wasn’t the organiser of that demo or associated with it at all, but was – as he was in Bristol on Saturday – prominent at the front of the march.
The Aryan Front
Last week, in the run-up to the ‘Bristol Patriots’ plan to march through the city centre, the Aryan Front initially announced they intended to take part and march alongside the local protesters.
Then, a couple of days before, the Aryan Front announced that it would no longer be attending officially. The group, which is one of the most far-right white supremacist and anti-Semetic groups in the country, said that although they ‘were invited’, they since found out the ‘Bristol Patriots’ would include Jewish members marching, and expressing support for Israel.
What counter-protesters say
Stand Up To Racism Bristol, one of the organisers of the counter-protest against Saturday’s march, claimed the ‘Bristol Patriots’ had been ‘exposed for the racists they claim not to be’.
“The so-called Bristol Patriots have spent the last year telling us they are not racist or far-right,” a spokesperson said, claiming SUTR has more video clips of people on the march shouting racist abuse.
“The fact that the police chose to make no arrests for incitement to racial hatred means SUTR is questioning whether they are impartial,” the group said.
Police line across the area by the Cenotaph in Bristol to stop counter-protesters approaching a group of ‘Bristol Patriots’ ahead of their march around the city centre (Image: Bristol Post)
SUTR Bristol, and the other groups of counter-protesters who came together, claimed Saturday’s events as a victory in the aftermath of the protest. Despite a huge police presence and escort, the 40 or so ‘Bristol Patriots’ were prevented from marching on their planned route, and police turned them back at Cabot Circus in the face of a wall of counter-protesters who refused to move.
Jon Reddiford, from Bristol SUTR, said: “SUTR called a counter protest, which once again massively outnumbered the Patriouts’ protest. Bristolians have once again shown in huge numbers that they won’t stand for racists marching through our streets peddling hate,” he added.
Six people were arrested on the day of the protest – all of them counter-protesters. A spokesperson for Avon and Somerset police told Bristol Live on Monday an investigation into videos from the march was underway. “We are aware of other videos circulating on social media following the protest,” she said. “We are reviewing these to see if any crimes have been committed and an investigation is underway.”
The aftermath for the ‘Bristol Patriots’
Among the ‘Bristol Patriots’ themselves there has been an amount of disquiet at the influx of extreme right-wing people from around the country, Bristol Live understands.
The group mustered only 40 or so people for their march around Bristol and were massively outnumbered both by the police there to protect them and ensure their march could go ahead, and by the hundreds of counter-protesters trying to physically stop them.
Online, the ‘Bristol Patriots’ have thousands of followers of their social media pages, and have been able to organise a protest presence at a series of events in the city.
The group effectively disrupted a protest march by Palestine supporters, who were marching from Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems to Patchway Police station earlier this year in support of the then-hunger striking Palestine Action prisoners.
‘Bristol Patriots’ and hundreds of counter protesters in Bristol city centre this afternoon(Image: BristolLive)
Publicly, ‘Bristol Patriots’ said the march had been a success on Saturday, even though they weren’t able to complete the circuit of the city centre because of the numbers of counter-protesters at Cabot Circus.
“Huge well done and a massive thank you to everyone who stood with us today,” a statement from the group said. “As we saw during the march, the situation in Bristol has reached a breaking point.
“We witnessed significant unrest from the counter-protesters, who spent the day targeting police officers and attempting to provoke our group.
“Despite the chaos around us, I am incredibly proud of our side. Police made multiple arrests among the opposition, while our group remained disciplined and peaceful throughout.
READ MORE: Video shows police use batons on protesters trying to block ‘Bristol Patriots’ march
“It’s also disappointing to see council-funded groups and even Green Party councillors standing shoulder-to-shoulder with those causing disruption. Thank you to every patriot who showed up and kept their cool. We stood our ground,” they added.
But behind the scenes and now publicly online, Bristol Live understands there is concern among the Bristol Patriots at the influx of extreme right wing neo-Nazis into their group.
Before the march, one contacted Bristol Live to object to the initial article reporting the Aryan Front had said they would be attending.
He expressed concern that his ‘group of flag-waving patriots’ were being ‘conflated with actual Nazi supporters’.
Police use batons on counter protesters in the Horsefair as they try to clear a path for a ‘Bristol Patriots’ march through Bristol city centre(Image: Bristol Post)
“They immediately pulled out of our event when they realised that we’re Jewish and we support the Iranian people,” he told Bristol Live before the event last week. “I’m a Jewish attendee of these rallies and our group is not aligned with the far-right in any way. We have a strong Jewish presence, and no one who is remotely far-right is tolerated within the movement,” he added.
After the march, some of those who took part said they and others were leaving Bristol Patriots.
Christopher Batt, from Hartcliffe, who is better known as Youtuber ‘Tyrant Finder’, took part in the march with the ‘Bristol Patriots’ and filmed much of it. On Monday morning, he shared a video on X/Twitter that showed the inside of the police cordon around the marchers at the time the march was forced to stop in Union Street.
The video showed Ryan Ferguson doing several ‘Roman salutes’, and proclaiming himself ‘a neo-Nazi’. Batt, a veteran of Covid lockdown protests, the ‘Kill the Bill’ riots and protests and in the past year many ‘Bristol Patriots’ protests, was unhappy with the presence of Ryan Ferguson.
“Bristol Patriots, when are you going to explain why neo-Nazis stood alongside you at that protest?” he posted on X/Twitter. “Why not call them out? What’s that about? I won’t be covering any more of your actions from here on,” he added.
In a public post on Facebook, another man who took part in the ‘Bristol Patriots’ march said: “Unfortunately myself and my associated friends have had to make the decision of leaving the organisation of Bristol Patriots for reasons I don’t want to disclose.
“We will be going back to being patriotic in our own rights as we previously were. We did try to express our concerns but they were not heard,” he added.
The first comment underneath in reply to this post read: “Anything to do with that orange bloke with turkey teeth?”
