An English nationalist activist has said he is more committed to his cause than ever after completing a two-year prison sentence for sharing stickers with slogans including “it’s okay to be White” and “mass immigration is White genocide”.
Sam Melia, 34, was jailed in Leeds Crown Court in March 2024 by Judge Tom Bayliss KC – who has a record of giving paedophiles suspended sentences – after being found guilty of inciting racial hatred and encouraging racially aggravated criminal damage over the stickers.
Mr Melia, a father-of-two and an organiser for nationalist community group Patriotic Alternative, spoke publicly for the first time on Sunday in a long social media post where he criticised Britain’s two-tier justice system and said he would be resuming his activism as soon as possible.
“My time away hasn’t dimmed my spirit in the least, quite the contrary,” he said.
“Interrogated by both National Security Division’s probation service, as well as Counter-Terrorism’s Desistance and Disengagement Programme, the weakness of their arguments was breathtaking. Frequently breaking down to, ‘yeah, all that’s true, but why do you care?’
“We care because this is existential and we’re the only barrier to their sick replacement plan coming to fruition. I rejoin the fray with renewed zeal, this whole experience, dealing with these people, has been the single most radicalising thing I’ve ever been through.”
I’m back!
After two years away, what can I say? I’m filled with feelings of relieve as this ordeal finally comes to a close, we’ve had a full five years of the state breathing down our necks since my initial arrest back in 2021, I even missed the birth of my second daughter… pic.twitter.com/YWJ5E0Uh1D
— Sam Melia (@RealSamMelia) March 1, 2026
Mr Melia also revealed he had missed the birth of his second daughter while in jail, said he was relieved after a “full five years of the state breathing down our necks since my initial arrest back in 2021”, and thanked his supporters.
“I want to express my sincerest thanks to everyone who’s supported my family and me over that time, it blew me away,” he wrote.
“I also want to thank everyone who kept my case alive as an example of Britain’s two-tier justice and the brutal oppression of speech in this country. Whether it was the demonstration in Leeds that I saw via another prisoner’s smuggled phone, the one outside the prison that I briefly heard from my cell window before I was dragged off to isolation or the frequent online mentions that led to it being repeatedly highlighted by Elon Musk over the years.
“The antiwhite state took a black eye on this one and we all played a part.”
Mr Melia has written a book about his experiences called Legal, Truthful, Guilty: Diary Of A Political Prisoner, which will be released in March.
In imposing the two-year sentence Judge Bayliss called Mr Melia’s stickers “corrosive to our society” and “xenophobic, nationalistic and vitriolic”, and said a jail term was needed to act as a deterrent to others.
But in 2017 Judge Bayliss – who once posted a photo of himself giving a Communist-style raised fist salute in front of a Nelson Mandela statue – gave paedophile Shaun Reeves a suspended eight-month sentence for possessing child sex abuse material.
In 2022 he gave the same sentence to another paedophile, Bilal Akalwaya, 51, who admitted to having sex with a friend’s dog and possessing hundreds of images of children as young as three being sexually abused.
Mr Melia’s case was followed by a flood of similar long sentences for social media posts and non-violent appearances at anti-immigration protests that erupted after a Rwandan teenager stabbed three White girls to death in Southport in June that year.
There is growing concern in Britain about the rising number of arrests for social media posts, more than any other country, including one that resulted in a man being sentenced in December to 18 months in jail for two anti-immigration X posts that were viewed that were viewed just 33 times between them.
During November and December alone a Welsh man was jailed for 20 months for “racist and anti-Semitic” X posts, and a father-of-two was jailed in England for 40 months for possessing and distributing “extreme right-wing” music.
Header image: Left, Sam Melia with his wife Laura Towler. Right, one of the stickers he was sentenced for (supplied).
