National Party (UK, 1976)
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The National Party was a short-lived British far right political party formed on January 6, 1976 and folding in 1977. It was a splinter group from the National Front (NF), and came about as a result of a dispute within the NF between John Kingsley Read and John Tyndall.
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[edit] Background and formation
Kingsley Read had become leader of the NF in 1974 and had sought to move the party towards a more populist platform, but the move was resisted by Tyndall and his supporters; however, the electoral results from the General Election in 1974 showed the three most successful NF candidates "were all from the 'Populist' wing".[1] With Tyndall proposing constitutional reform of the NF the 'Populist' counter-moves to expel him ended in failure. Tyndall went to court which resulted in the reinstatement of "Tyndall and his supporters. Subsequently, the courts also restored the NF headquarters and the membership lists to the Tyndall faction".[2]
Kingsley Read decided to break from the NF altogether and formed the National Party with other leading NF members. In all around 2000 members, or one fifth of the NF's total, joined the new party, which thus represented a considerable loss of support to the NF.[3] Richard Lawson helped shape the ideology of the party the source of which was "the 'soft' National Socialism of Rohm and the SD".[4] The National Party "claimed to be more opposed to immigration than the NF"[2] and sought the "repatriation or resettlement abroad of all coloured and other racial incompatible immigrants, their dependents and descendents".[5]. The National Party also circulated holocaust denial material such as Arthur Butz's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century.[6]
[edit] Development of the party
The origins of the party were the result of internal dissention within the Monday Club over "entry to the EEC and immigration" which led to "several leading Powellites" leaving the Conservative Party for the NF.[7] In the local elections of 1976 it had two councillors elected in Blackburn, Lancashire,[8] which were to be the last electoral success for any British far-right party until the election of Derek Beackon of the British National Party in 1993.[9] A party journal, Britain First, was published between 1974 and 1977,[10] but the NP did not last long, largely because the party had been formed out of disillusioned NF members, most of whom were former Conservatives who returned to the Party after Margaret Thatcher became leader. Alongside this tendency, a minority of members were "socially radical Strasserites";[2] some of whom, such as Steve Brady, would later rejoin the NF.[11] These ideological differences, which had largely united the two, otherwise disparate, wings against the leadership of John Tyndall soon proved too deep to be housed within one group and, combined with personality and financial differences, the party fell apart.[12]
[edit] Leading members
The NP attracted a number of leading figures from the NF/far right to its ranks. These included:[13]
- Gordon Brown of the Greater Britain Movement.
- Richard Lawson, editor of Britain First and later associated with the Official National Front.
- David McCalden, a former NF writer who later emigrated to the United States where he was a founder of Holocaust denial organization the Institute for Historical Review.
- Roy Painter, a leading Conservative Party member from Enfield
- Denis Pirie, a veteran of the National Socialist Movement who was later involved in Martin Webster's One Nation.
Other members of note included
- Steve Brady, an influential figure in Loyalist circles in Northern Ireland as well as the League of Saint George.[14]
- Anthony Hancock, a former British Movement member who was widely regarded as the leading publisher of far right material in the 1970s in Britain (he and his father Alan Hancock owning a printing firm).
- Richard "Jock" Spooner, who emigrated to Australia where he became a leading activist in the One Nation Party.
[edit] Miscellaneous
The party should not be confused with the Nationalist Party which, although having similar roots to the National Party, was an alternative name for the Constitutional Movement of Andrew Fountaine. Similarly it had no connection to the National Party which briefly emerged from the National Fellowship.
[edit] National Party elections
Given that its brief history fell between two general elections the NP only ever contested three by-elections for Westminster seats. In each of the three elections the NP finished behind the NF candidates, namely Andrew Fountaine, Joseph Parker and Paul Kavanagh respectively.
| Date of election | Constituency | Candidate | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 4, 1976 | Coventry North West | John Kingsley Read | 208 | 0.6 |
| November 4, 1976 | Walsall North | Marian Powell | 258 | 0.7 |
| February 24, 1977 | City of London and Westminster South | Michael Lobb | 364 | 1.7 |
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Sykes, Alan The Radical Right in Britain Palgrave, 2005, p. 110
- ^ a b c Sykes, Alan The Radical Right in Britain Palgrave, 2005, p. 111
- ^ S. Taylor, The National Front in English Politics, London: Macmillan, 1982, p. 44
- ^ M. Walker, The National Front, Glasgow: Fontana Collins, Revised Edition 1978, pp. 194
- ^ Walker, Martin The National Front Fontana Collins, 1977, pp. 193-4
- ^ Ray Hill & Andrew Bell, The Other Face of Terror, London: Grafton, 1988, pp. 250-251
- ^ Sykes, Alan The Radical Right in Britain Palgrave, 2005, p. 109
- ^ N. Fielding, The National Front, London: Roultedge, 1981, p. 27
- ^ Sykes, Alan The Radical Right in Britain Palgrave, 2005, p. 131
- ^ Catalogue of copies held in the British Library
- ^ Sykes, Alan The Radical Right in Britain Palgrave, 2005, p. 117
- ^ M. Walker, The National Front, Glasgow: Fontana Collins, 1977, pp. 188-92
- ^ M. Walker, The National Front, Glasgow: Fontana Collins, Revised Edition 1978, pp. 189-193
- ^ Ray Hill & Andrew Bell, The Other Face of Terror, London: Grafton, 1988, pp. 185-6
[edit] References
- A. Sykes, The Radical Right in Britain Palgrave, 2005
- S. Taylor, The National Front in English Politics, London: Macmillan, 1982
- M. Walker, The National Front, Glasgow: Fontana Collins, 1977 (Revised Edition 1978)
