AN MP has criticised a far-right group that claimed it handed out thousands of anti-immigrant leaflets in Barrow and Ulverston.

Activists from Patriotic Alternative visited the area to distribute flyers into homes claiming white people would eventually become a minority.

They also hoisted banners saying white people would not be 'replaced'.

The far-right group is led by Mark Collett, who appeared on a Channel 4 documentary entitled Young, Nazi and Proud and wrote a book in which he described Hitler's Nuremberg rallies as 'something that one would have been proud to be a part of'.

Activists from the group have visited the area several times and drawn condemnation from community leaders.

They said this time they had posted around 2,000 flyers to homes.

They also hoisted banners at locations in Barrow town centre.

Furness MP Simon Fell criticised the group's behaviour and suggested they spend their time helping the community.

He said: "I'm not sure who these people think are replacing them, but as ever this is an unhelpful and unwelcome intervention from a group that was formed by a neo-Nazi and antisemitic conspiracy theorist.

"Given the heatwave they'd be far better put to use helping the community but instead they spend their time peddling hate.

"That really shows whose side they're on."  

Earlier this year the Furness MP accused members of the group of trying to spread 'poison' in Barrow by delivering leaflets opposed to Afghan refugees entering the country.

And the group drew criticism from anti-racism campaigners in Cumbria when it held its annual conference at a hotel in Levens last year.

The letters 'PA NW' were also scrawled on Barrow's Cenotaph in an apparent act of vandalism, although the group denied any involvement.

Members of the group were told they were 'not welcome' in Cumbria after they gathered in the Lake District earlier this year.

Paul Jenkins, an organiser for Unite Against Fascism in Cumbria, said: "Patriotic Alternative are not welcome in Cumbria or anywhere else.

"PA are led by Mark Collett - former Youth Leader of the BNP - who described himself as 'a Nazi sympathiser'.

"The people of Cumbria have a proud tradition of opposing these kind of organisations.

"Anti-racists are the majority."