Britain First Facebook page restored after far-right group labelled social network ‘fascist’ for taking it down

The far-right group called Facebook 'fascists' and its opponents 'bigots'

A Britain First member being watched over by police officers (AFP)

Facebook has restored Britain First’s page, an hour-and-a-half after the page was taken down.

Britain First — which claims to have 1.1 million supporters on Facebook — had its page removed without explanation. Many presumed that the site may have been permanently removed, but Facebook appears to have decided to fully restore the page.

The move frustrated Britain First, which said that Facebook was “fascist” and immediately launched a donation page ostensibly so that the far-right group could challenge Facebook in court.

Britain First said after the page was restored that it didn’t know why its page had been removed, but that it was “in talks with Facebook to see why”.

“We applaud Facebook for reversing their decision and yielding to common sense and fair play,” a Britain First statement said. “Our leftwing opponents went into temporary celebration when our page was closed down but now they are furious!”

On Twitter, the group described its opponents as "Leftwing bigots", and said that restoring the Facebook "fan page" had made them "furious".

A Facebook spokesperson told The Independent when the site went down that it was investigating why the site had been taken down. It has not issued a statement on the page being restored.