British National Front
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| National Front | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Leader | Tom Holmes |
| Founded | 1967 |
| Headquarters | PO Box 114 Solihull West Midlands B91 2UR |
| Political Ideology | Ethnic nationalism |
| Political Position | Far right |
| International Affiliation | None |
| European Affiliation | None |
| European Parliament Group | n/a |
| Colours | Red, White and Blue |
| Website | www.national-front.org.uk |
| See also | Politics of the UK |
In the United Kingdom, the British National Front (most commonly called the National Front or NF) is a far right political party that had its heyday during the 1970s and 1980s.[1]
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] Early days: late 1960s and early 1970s
The NF was founded on February 7, 1967, under the chairmanship of A. K. Chesterton, a cousin of the novelist G.K. Chesterton and former leader of the League of Empire Loyalists (LEL). Its purpose was to oppose immigration and multiculturalist policies in Britain, and multinational agreements such as the United Nations or the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as replacements for bilateral agreements between nations. The new movement brought the LEL into permanent coalition with the 1960s incarnation of the British National Party and a third of the Racial Preservation Society led by Robin Beauclair (the remainder of the RPS—led by Dr David Brown—joined its house political party, the National Democratic Party). There was a ban on neo-Nazi groups being allowed to join the party, but members of John Tyndall's neo-Nazi Greater Britain Movement joined as individual members to circumvent the ban.
The NF grew during the 1970s and had as many as 20,000 members by 1974. It did particularly well in local elections and polled 44% in Deptford, London (with a splinter group), almost beating the incumbent Labour candidate, who only won due to the split in the vote. It came third in three parliamentary by-elections. In only one of these instances—the Newham by-election of 1975 (where the candidate was former Communist Party of Great Britain candidate Mike Lobb)—NF outperformed the Liberals.
Its electoral base largely consisted of blue-collar workers and the self-employed who resented immigrant competition in the labour market. The party also attracted a few disillusioned Conservatives, who gave the party much needed electoral expertise and respectability. The Conservatives came particularly from the Conservative Monday Club group within the Conservative Party that had been founded in hostile reaction to Harold Macmillan's "Winds Of Change" speech. The NF fought on a platform of opposition to communism and liberalism, support for Ulster loyalism, opposition to the European Economic Community, and the compulsory repatriation of new Commonwealth immigrants that were able to come over to Britain because of its unique passport system of the period that allowed Commonwealth citizens to Britain as equal citizens.
A common sight in the 1970s, the NF was well-known for its noisy demonstrations, particularly in London, where it often faced anti-fascist protestors from opposing groups, including the International Marxist Group and later the SWP supported Anti-Nazi League. Opponents of the National Front claimed it to be a neo-Fascist organization, and its activities were opposed by anti-racist groups such as Searchlight.
The NF was led at first by Chesterton, who left under a cloud after half of the directorate (led by the NF's major financer, Gordon Marshall - also known as Gordon Brown) moved a vote of no confidence in him. He was replaced in 1970 by the party's office manager John O'Brien, a former Conservative and supporter of Enoch Powell. O'Brien however left when he realised the NF's leadership functions were being systematically taken over by the former Greater Britain Movement members in order to ensure the party was really being run by John Tyndall and his deputy Martin Webster. He and the NF's treasurer Clare McDonald led a small group of supporters into John Davis' National Independence Party, and the leadership passed to John Tyndall and Martin Webster.
[edit] Mid 1970s: success and infighting
The NF's success in the 1973 West Bromwich by-election shocked many when the NF candidate finished third on 16%, and saving his deposit for the only time in NF history. This result was largely due to the candidate Martin Webster's own adopted 'chummy' persona for the campaign as "Big Mart", and the NF flooding the areas with hired coachloads of supporters over the four weeks of the by-election at the party's expense. The party thereafter enjoyed respectable results, even if it could not win any seats. The NF's only 'elected' councillor won in a by-election for Carrickfergus Town Council in Northern Ireland in 1975 when the only other candidate dropped out (there was also the temporary defection of two Conservative Councillors in Wandsworth, London, one of whom—Athlene O'Connell—was later accused of failing to have ever severed her NF links).
In 1974, the ITV documentary This Week exposed the neo-Nazi pasts (and continued links with Nazis from other countries) of Tyndall and Webster. This resulted in a stormy annual conference two weeks later, where Tyndall was booed with chants of "Nazi! Nazi!" when he tried to make his speech. This led to the leadership being passed to the populist John Kingsley Read. A standoff between Read and his supporters (such as Roy Painter and Denis Pirie) and Tyndall and Webster followed, leading to a temporary stand-still in NF growth. Before long, Read and his supporters were forced out by intimidation tactics of Tyndall's Honour Guard, and Tyndall returned as leader. Read formed the short-lived National Party, which won two council seats in Blackburn in 1976.
[edit] 1979: decline and fall
1979 was a disastrous year for the National Front. One view is that the rise to prominence of the newly reinvigorated Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher was a factor. Thatcher's tough right-wing stance on immigration and law and order caused the NF's support to haemorrhage. Many ex-Tories returned to the fold.
Furthermore, in a rash move, Tyndall insisted in using the party's funds to nominate extra candidates so the NF would be standing in 303 seats in order to give the impression of growing strength. This brought the party to the verge of bankruptcy when all the deposits were lost. Most of the 'candidates' were candidates in name only, and did no electioneering whatsoever.
Tyndall's leadership was challenged by Andrew Fountaine after the disaster. Although Tyndall saw off the challenge, Fountaine and his followers split from the party to form the NF Constitutional Movement. The influential Leicester branch of the NF also split around this time, leading to the formation of the short lived British Democratic Party. In the face of these splits, Tyndall was expelled and replaced as leader by Andrew Brons. Tyndall formed his own New National Front, which was forced by court action to change its name. Tyndall renamed the NNF the "British National Party", which has since pushed out the NF as the dominant nationalist party in Britain (ironically, Tyndall and his acolytes had been banned from the original BNP).
Front deputy leader Martin Webster claimed two decades later that the activities of the Anti-Nazi League played a key part in the NF's collapse at the end of the 1970s, but this claim runs contrary to events: for the Anti-Nazi League collapsed in early 1979 amid claims of financial impropriety, with former celebrity supporters such as Brian Clough disowning the organisation. The NF stood their largest number of parliamentary candidates at the 1979 General Election only a few months later. Furthermore, a damning full set of minutes of National Front Directorate meetings from late 1979 to the 1986 "Third Way" versus "Flag Group" split, deposited by former NF leader Patrick Harrington in the library of the University of Southampton, revealed that during the party's post-1979 wilderness years they were in the habit of "tipping off the Reds" in order to give their activities greater credibility with the public by being attended by hordes of angry protestors. This fact was later confirmed by MI5 mole Andy Carmichael, who was West Midlands Regional Organiser for the NF during the 1990s.
The two most important factors in the NF collapse were Margaret Thatcher's "swamping" speech designed to cream off the NF vote in key marginals, and John Tyndall's rash diktat on the NF standing in 303 seats.
[edit] 1980s: two National Fronts
The party rapidly declined during the 1980s, although it retained some support in the West Midlands and in parts of London (usually centred around the entourage of Terry Blackham). The party tried in vain to gain support in Northern Ireland on several occasions. Its opponents viewed it as a racist skinhead party with barely concealed neo-Nazi views — something that the Front denied. Leftist and non-political skinheads — particularly those in Oi! bands such as Peter and the Test Tube Babies, Angelic Upstarts, and the Toy Dolls — spoke out against the NF's racist views.
Despite popular and tabloid media perceptions (and the line propagated by Searchlight), the NF actually lost a lot of racist skinhead support as a result of the group's support for non-white radicals such as Louis Farrakhan and Ayatollah Khomeini. The former supporters either moved to the British National Party, the rapidly declining British Movement, or simply to the White Noise umbrella group Blood and Honour. Griffin and Holland tried (unsuccessfully) to enlist the financial aid of Libya's Colonel Gadaffi, but this was rejected once the Libyans found out about the NF's reputation as fascist (a third of Libya's male population was exterminated by Mussolini's fascist troops during World War II). However, the NF received five thousand copies of Gadaffi's Green Book.[1]
The party was splitting into two halves during the 1980s. Foremost were the Political Soldier ideas of young radicals such as Nick Griffin, Patrick Harrington, Phil Edwards, Derek Holland and, slightly later on, Troy Southgate, who were known as the Official National Front or the Third Way. Under the leadership of the Political Soldiers, the NF lost interest in contesting elections, preferring a more revolutionary strategy.
The opposition NF Flag Group contained the traditionalists loyal to Brons such as Ian Anderson, Martin Wingfield, Tina 'Tin-Tin' Wingfield, Joe Pearce (initially associated with the Political Soldiers) and Steve Brady, who ran candidates under the NF banner in the 1987 general election. This led to a clash at the Vauxhall by-election where Patrick Harrington stood as the Official NF candidate against Ted Budden for the Flag NF. The Flag faction did some political dabbling of their own, and the ideas of Social Credit and Distributism were popular for a time, but the chief preoccupation was still race relations. By 1990, the Political Soldiers had drifted away into such groups as the Third Way (UK), and the International Third Position (ITP), leaving the Flag Group to take control. Leadership passed to Ian Anderson and Martin Wingfield.
[edit] 1990s and 2000s
In the 1990s, the NF declined as the BNP began to grow. As a result of this, Ian Anderson decided to change the party name and in 1995 relaunched it as the National Democrats. The move proved unpopular (and the name change ballot result much disputed). Over half of the 600 members continued the NF under the reluctant leadership of John McAuley. He later passed the job onto Tom Holmes. The National Democrats continued to publish the old NF newspaper The Flag for a while, and beat the NF at the Uxbridge by-election of 1997 in which the candidates were the respective party leaders. The NF rump launched a new paper The Flame, which is still published irregularly.
The NF stood 13 candidates at the 2005 General Election, none of whom saved their deposit.
The fortunes of the National Front have subsequently waned, although it still exists as a small party, and fielded seven candidates at the 1997 General Election. The party lost a number of supporters to the White Nationalist Party when Eddie Morrison (who had been an NF member at various points in his career) used the Yorkshire branch of the NF to form the basis of this group and they have since saw members depart to groups such as the Nationalist Alliance and the British Peoples Party. The NF's current National Chairman is Tom Holmes. They fielded 13 candidates in the 2005 General Election and received 8,079 votes.
[edit] Party logo
The party's conjoined letters logo is well known. The original version leaned to the right and some versions had a right leaning split level Union Jack to the left side of it (a style later copied by the airline company Air UK for their own logo). Allegedly it was A. K. Chesterton himself that came up with the design, taking the idea from the then logo for Inter City trains. Other logos have been used (including a ghostly figure holding a shield, and a slobbering vicious bulldog for the Young NF, but the siamese-twin lettering remains the better known.
[edit] References in popular culture
The Police mention the National Front in their song "Rehumanize Yourself" on their 1981 album Ghost In The Machine. The lyrics are critical of political and cultural movements that the band saw as violent or intolerant.
- Billy's joined the National Front
- He always was a little runt
- He's got his hand in the air with the other cunts
- You've got to humanise yourself
The 2 Tone ska revival band The Specials mention the National Front in their song "Concrete Jungle."
- I have to carry a knife
- Because there's people threatening my life
- I can't dress just the way I want
- I'm being chased by the National Front
Singer Morrissey penned a song called "National Front Disco", for the Your Arsenal album in 1992. Misinterpretation of this song resulted in much controversy, largely instigated by the New Musical Express music newspaper, with whom Morrissey had a running feud. He cleared it up in the fanzine Sing Your Life (Issue 5) that the song was about someone he knew who was politically naive and had gone to an "NF Disco" (one of Griffin/Anderson's many attempts to win favour with the young during their "Let A Thousand Initiatives Bloom!" phase of the 1980s).
NF members were mortified by the song, having lambasted both Morrissey and his previous band The Smiths on several occasions on the grounds of Morrissey's sexually ambiguous persona and his support for the Labour Party's Red Wedge project.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "1975: National Front rallies against Europe", BBC, 25 March 1975. Retrieved on 2007-03-01.
- Billig, M. (1978). Fascists: A social psychological view of the National Front. London: Academic Press. Very much an 'academic' book on the NF, with statistical as much as political/sociological analysis.
- Walker, Martin (1977) The National Front (also Expanded Edition 1978) Fontana/Collins. This was written by a Guardian journalist of the period who had unlimited access to all the key players within the NF circa 1967-1977: ie. Rosine de Bounevialle, Rodney Legg, John O'Brien, Roy Painter, John Kingsley Read, John Tyndall and Martin Webster, as well as the widow of Arther K Chesterton. By his own admission in the book, Walker's shadowing of the NF was to have an unintended influence on events within the party.
