National Front (UK)

National Front
Leader	Tom Holmes
Founded	1967
Headquarters	Solihull, West Midlands
Ideology	Racism
Political position	Far right
European affiliation	None
European Parliament group	n/a
Colours	Red, White and Blue
Website
www.national-front.org.uk

The British National Front (most commonly called the National Front, and often known as the NF) is a British far right political party whose major political activities were during the 1970s and 1980s.

Late 1960s: Formation

A move towards unity on the far right had been growing during the 1960s as groups worked more closely together. Impetus was provided by the 1966 general election when a moderate Conservative Party was defeated and A. K. Chesterton, a cousin of the novelist G. K. Chesterton and leader of the League of Empire Loyalists (LEL), argued that a patriotic and racialist right wing party would have won the election. Soon Chesterton opened talks with the 1960s incarnation of the British National Party (who had already been discussing a possible deal with the new National Democratic Party) and agreed a merger with them, with the BNP's Philip Maxwell addressing the LEL conference in October 1966. A portion of the Racial Preservation Society led by Robin Beauclair also agreed to participate (although the remained threw their lot in the NDP, its house political party under Dr David Brown) and so the NF was founded on February 7, 1967.

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 negotiated bilateral agreements between nations. The new group placed 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 by a policy of entryism to circumvent the ban (this led to several members resigning in protest, most notably Rodney Legg, who went on to become an acclaimed local historian and conservationist).

Early 1970s: Growth

The National Front 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 or simply the appearance of immigrants. 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 "Wind 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 England in the 1970s, the NF was well-known for its noisy demonstrations, particularly in London, where it often faced anti-fascist protestors from opposing left-wing 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) 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.

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 first '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.

Late 1970s: Riot and downfall

If anything encapsulated the NF under Tyndall and Webster - and the clumsy response by its opponents - it was the events of August 1977, when a large NF march specifically went through the largely non-white areas of Lewisham in South East London under an inflammatory slogan claiming that 70% of muggers were black whilst 70% of muggers' victims were white (nb. these figures came courtesy of an ill-worded press statement from Chief of the Metropolitan Police Sir Kenneth Newman that was actually intended to illustrate how poor relations between the black community and the police had become, i.e. - black victims of crime seldom bothered to report it).

As the NF were at that time taking part in the Birmingham Ladywood by-election, such a large march elsewhere can only be construed as being deliberately to provoke trouble. Two-hundred seventy policemen were injured (56 hospitalized), over 200 were arrested, and 78 marchers or protesters injured, and an attempt to destroy the local police station saw the first use of riot shields on British soil outside of Northern Ireland.

The event is often romanticised by miltant anti-fascists as the Battle of Lewisham., along similar lines to the previous Battle of Cable Street against Oswald Mosley. However, as journalist Martin Walker pointed out, the march achieved Tyndall and Webster's aim of causing trouble and ensuring that their opponents took all the blame for it.

The real damage to the NF at Lewisham was that plenty of its ordinary members began to have second thoughts about the sort of organisation they were in: seeing little attraction in having bricks and smoke bombs rain down on them just so Tyndall and Webster could have excellent propaganda material and prime time media coverage.

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 from the NF or its myriad splinter groups.

Also Tyndall insisted in using party 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: for most 'candidates' were candidates in name only, and did no electioneering whatsoever.

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.

Thus, the three important factors in the NF's collapse were Margaret Thatcher's "swamping" speech designed to cream off the NF vote in key marginals, John Tyndall's rash diktat on the NF standing in 303 seats, and - ironically - the collapse of the ANL.

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, the NF members finally rebelled and expelled Tyndall. He was replaced ostentatiously by Andrew Brons: but the real leader was Martin Webster, who much to everyone's surprise, backed the expulsion. Tyndall went on to eventually form the British National Party - ironically, Tyndall and his acolytes had been banned from the original BNP).

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.

The party effectively split into two halves during the 1980s, after they'd successfully expelled Martin Webster and his partner Peter Salt from the NF. On one side were the Political Soldier ideas of young radicals such as Nick Griffin, Patrick Harrington, Phil Andrews, Derek Holland and, slightly later on, Troy Southgate, who were known as the Third Way. They had little interest in contesting elections, preferring a revolutionary strategy.

The opposition NF Flag Group however contained the traditionalists such as Ian Anderson, Martin Wingfield, Tina 'Tin-Tin' Wingfield, Joe Pearce (initially associated with the Third Way faction) and Steve Brady, who ran candidates under the NF banner in the 1987 general election. The Flag faction did some political dabbling of their own, and the ideas of Social Credit and Distributism were popular, but the chief preoccupation was still race relations.

Having two parties within one saved the NF from oblivion after 1979, when the phrase "let a thousand initiatives bloom" was coined to allow internal diversity in the hope of recapturing success, but inevitably it led to clashes bordering on high farce: at the Vauxhall by-election Patrick Harrington stood as the Official National Front candidate against Ted Budden for the Flag NF, both sides cat-calling at one another during the declaration of the result.

By 1990, the Political Soldiers had fallen out with one another, splintering into Harrington's Third Way (UK), and Griffin's International Third Position (ITP), leaving the Flag Group under Ian Anderson and Martin Wingfield to continue alone. Griffin's pamphlet "Attempted Murder". gave a very colourful - if biased and somewhat bitter - overview of this period of the NF's history.

Its opponents viewed it during the 1980s and 1990s as a white power skinhead party with barely concealed neo-Nazi views — something that the Front denied. 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. Meanwhile, leftist and non-political skinheads — particularly those in Oi! bands such as the Angelic Upstarts, Peter and the Test Tube Babies and the Toy Dolls — spoke out against the NF's racist views or made it clear they had no interest in politics. Around this time, one pro-NF skinhead fanzine asked the Macc Lads to perform at a White Noise fundraiser even though their guitarist, The Beater, was Asian.

Nick Griffin and Derek Holland even tried to enlist the financial aid of Libya's Colonel Gadaffi, but this was promptly 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, which influenced Phil Andrews into leaving the NF to form the successful Isleworth Community Group, the first of several such "grassroots" groups in English local elections whereby nominally independent candidates stand under a collective flag of convenience to appear more attractive to voters...

1990s and 2000s

In the 1990s, the NF declined as the British National Party (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 previous deputy leader 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 rump NF rump launched a new paper The Flame, which is still published irregularly, but Anderson kept all the old NF printing equipment.

The party fielded seven candidates at the 1997 General Election, and 13 candidates at the 2005 General Election, none of whom saved their deposit. The NF's current National Chairman remains Tom Holmes.

The National Front gained a local council seat on 3 May 2007 when candidate Simon Deacon was elected unopposed to Markyate Parish Council, near St Albans (there were 10 vacancies but only 9 candidates). It is 32 years since the NF's only previous elected councillor. The NF had hoped that Tom Holmes could also win the Nelson ward council seat on Great Yarmouth Borough Council; he polled 22.9% of the votes cast. At the end of August 2007, Deacon announced that he had joined the BNP.

Party logo

File:National Front at gay pride 2007.jpg

NF protesting "Homosexual Marriage" at Gay Pride 2007

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 Flag 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 InterCity trains - however it also bears a strong resemblance to the old "Ministry of Food" logo from World War Two. 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.

See also

• British National Front Election Results
• British Nationalism
• British National Party

Bibliography

• 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.

External links

• Nick Griffin's "Attempted Murder" pamphlet
• National Front website
• BBC 1975: National Front rallies against Europe
• 1975 video
• Black boxer Errol Christie talks about the National Front [1]