‘Last summer, I was just changing jobs, moving house, newly single, and going to the odd protest,’ says self-confessed ‘patriot’ Liam Tomsett.
Then, the utilities manager became an agitator almost overnight, after hearing on the radio that nearby army camps were to be used to house 600 asylum seekers.
The father-of-two lives in Crowborough, a pleasant, affluent Sussex commuter town with low deprivation and high employment. It is home to a Waitrose and, four years ago, featured in the Guardian for being so welcoming to Ukrainian refugees.
Today, Crowborough looks very different.
‘I was on the way to work and I heard on the radio… I thought something’s got to be done about it,’ Liam tells Channel 4 documentary England ’Til I Die, which charts his journey into the far-right movement over a year.
Ostensibly worried about public safety, he and friend Gary set up protest group ‘Crowborough Says No’ and started organising rallies and direct action.
Standing in the dark and rain, he blocked contractors from working at the asylum centre – confrontations that quickly became violent.
‘We’re trying to make people feel uncomfortable about being there. That if you are working there, you are part of the problem,’ he tells the documentary in one scene, adding, ‘it all went a bit tits up.’
Wiping blood from his face, Liam tells documentary maker Jamie Roberts that he fell.
He is arrested and charged with common assault and possession of an offensive weapon. Liam says he carries a hammer in his car for DIY, and the charges are later dropped.
It’s the beginning of a grim descent.
‘This story doesn’t start with violence and intimidation. It starts heated at a council meeting. It’s a broad church, with people from all walks of life and all across the political spectrum who are concerned.
‘This is Waitrose. This is normal people. These are people that you might recognise. You have friends like this,’ Jamie, who is also behind controversial documentaries The Jihadis Next Door and Angry, White and Proud, tells Metro.
However, as events unfold, a vacuum opens.
Liam’s fight becomes a cause célèbre, flag group Raise the Colours becomes involved and ‘citizen journalists’ spread hatred and division online.
‘The thing that really surprised me is how popular these live streamers are. Some of them get a lot more viewers than mainstream television, and they’re famous.
‘They are just a guy with a camera who rocks up in a car, and more people are watching his live stream than are watching Sky News. It’s huge,’ Jamie explains.
Inside the echo chamber, Liam becomes a hero who is speaking up for Britain. It’s clear he enjoys the attention, despite the fact that his personal life seems to be falling apart.
‘Six weeks ago life was very easy. I bought a new place. Got a nice job. Had a few quid in the bank. Don’t take anything for granted as things can change very, very quickly,’ he tells the documentary.
Footage shows protesters and counter-protesters swearing at and mocking each other on the once-peaceful streets of Crowborough. Liam thrives during the marches, shouting and hugging fellow marchers.
‘It’s taken over. I’ve got two grown-up children. I’ve not been there enough for them. I’ve lost my father. I don’t think I’ve had time to grieve,’ he adds.
Liam denies that he is lonely, but his new partner Shana later tells the documentary: ‘He was suspended from his job. His friends are non-existent.’
Liam is filmed in a group of men taunting and harassing three men who came from the asylum centre. They interrogate them, follow them, swear at them and tell them they are not welcome, before the trio head into a church for a Sunday service.
Addressing his involvement, Liam says: ‘I wouldn’t say I was intimidating them. I was engaging them in conversation.
‘We weren’t chasing them. We were walking with them. If they were scared, how do you think the women and children feel walking home at night? They are not wanted. End of. How do we know they haven’t committed a crime?’
Later, Liam is arrested again for harassing a business owner who wanted to provide training to asylum seekers. He is released from police bail with no further action. He insists he was doing it to protect his community and would do it all over again.
One resident tells the film: ‘Liam Tomsett comes across as a local thug. He loves to scream in people’s faces.
‘They blame asylum seekers for violence against women and girls, when there were over 29,000 domestic violence incidents last year in Sussex alone.’
In one scene, local barman George holds a sign saying ‘Make Love Not War’, and says to Jamie that the community is terrified of the anti-immigration protesters.
The community is scared, but so, it seems, is Liam’s new partner, Shana, who tells the documentary how Liam ‘opened her eyes fully’.
‘It’s always in your algorithm. We are dwindling. Which is scary. White British people [are] being taken over by Muslims very, very rapidly.’
Liam adds: ‘There is an agenda to replace us. By powers bigger than Government. By globalists.’
He cannot explain who the globalists are.
Jamie blames isolation, social media echo chambers, economic anxiety and a wider sense of national decline for fuelling this division, with complex problems increasingly blamed on immigration and a failing asylum system.
‘Liam lost his father at the start of the process, and then, since Covid, he worked at home. The social media ecosystem and the algorithm that drives content towards people creates a bubble where everyone confirms each other’s beliefs, and there’s similarly held misinformation that gets spread around without context or fact-checking or oversight.
‘So you end up with a very narrow train of thought.’
Jamie asks Liam if he is prepared to lose his job over his beliefs.
‘My beliefs? It’s not about beliefs,’ he insists. ‘It is about keeping your community safe. I don’t think it is a belief, it is a duty.’
It’s a pattern being echoed across the country, as violence erupts in Dover, Essex, Norfolk, Portsmouth and elsewhere.
Jamie was shocked by how many confrontations he encountered over a year of filming.
‘Tension in this Middle England town was extremely high. It was uncomfortable. People were really divided. It was women being confronted, asylum seekers being chased, people being screamed at, people’s work being targeted, people being posted online and doxxed.
‘It felt very toxic – and this is playing out across the country. It is the same group of people, or the same network, applying themselves to different towns.
‘It’s a network with clear goals. They are very organised, and currently they’re succeeding.’
For Jamie, it was surprising to see how far Liam went in a year.
‘Just how committed he is, to the point where he’ll risk pretty much everything in his life to achieve these political goals, is quite shocking and surprising,’ he explains. ‘But I don’t think he’s singular. I think there are lots of Liams around the country picking up a microphone, giving speeches, being emboldened to do this.’
Meanwhile, division and mistrust deepen. Locals are less likely to chat in Waitrose than they used to, Jamie says.
‘Crowborough was this beautiful, sleepy little village. You felt safe with the family here. That peace is gone. You don’t know who you can talk to anymore,’ the friendly barman George adds.
‘You don’t know who you can trust. We’re all a little bit scared, and a little bit tired.’
England ‘Til I Die is on Channel 4 on Wednesday, 16 September at 10pm