The 1986 National Front Split, Part 1

👤 Larry O'Hara  

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In Lobster 25 my study of the National Front (NF) ended at the start of 1986, when, despite storm clouds on the horizon, the NF was the largest, most visible, and strategically flexible fascist grouping in Britain. By the end of 1986 the NF was permanently split into two factions. In this essay on the events of 1986, I refer to those who gained control of the National Front proper in 1986 – the Official NF of Nick Griffin, Patrick Harrington, Derek Holland and so on – as ‘political soldiers’. Their opponents, who rallied round the Flag newspaper, constituting themselves as the ‘National Front Support Group’ in June 1986, finally setting up their own rival NF in January 1987 – Joe Pearce, Ian Anderson, Andrew Brons, Steve Brady and Martin Wingfield for example – I refer to as the ‘Flag’ faction or tendency, and subsequently as the Flag NF. I am imposing my own terms upon the combatants in the interests of clarity, to avoid the perjorative terminology used by the protagonists, and to side-step the irrelevant question of who was right.(1)

The field of battle is prepared

While the removal of Ian Anderson as NF Chairman in December 1985,(2) to be replaced by Martin Wingfield in January 1986, was an important signal that conflict was imminent, it bubbled under the surface for a few months before breaking through. Both sides wanted the support of Joe Pearce, then in prison for contravening the Race Relations Act with Bulldog magazine which he edited; and letters sent to him in prison by both factions – widely distributed in NF circles, exacerbating the strife that existed – are of great use as source documents.

The first letter that caused a stir was the 20 page offering by Steve Brady to Pearce dated 23 February 1986. In it he outlined many of the criticisms of the NF’s recent trajectory, including:

  • the use of ‘pseudo-revolutionary sloganisings’ (p. 8), in particular the ideas of Corneliu Codreanou (p. 17), and the rhetoric of the ‘political soldier’, seen as connoting ‘armies, guns, violence etc.’ (p. 16).
  • The way in which, due to ideology and associations, the basis was being laid for enemies to present the NF as ‘an extra-legal gang composed of skinhead thugs and Paki-bashers…. and sinister terrorist conspirators linked to even more sinister foreigners.’ (p. 8) (This is obviously a reference to Fiore and other Italians.)
  • Aiming at the desperate and the dispossessed as a ‘non-starter’. (p. 7)
  • The lack of recognition that some NF ideas, such as those on race and workers’ co-operatives, were, in fact, popular, and preferable to dark mutterings about the imminence of state repression.

Nick Griffin, who had been a great friend of Pearce, came across a copy of the letter by chance(3) and penned a response to Pearce dated 14 March 1986. He accused Brady of spending a long time criticising but little encouraging progress. (p. 1)

Even at this early stage, before the dispute was formalised, clear political differences were revealed, on the nature of propaganda, the use of revolutionary rhetoric, the likelihood of state repression and so on. Meanwhile, debates which had continued beneath the surface about the NF’s future strategy very shortly broke through to the official party agenda in a spectacular way.(4) At the end of March, not content with Griffin’s response to Brady’s letter, the decision was taken to suspend Steve Brady’s membership for a month, confirmed by a disciplinary tribunal. The charge was that he had endangered party security by writing about internal matters in great detail to Pearce, including alleged ‘sensitive’ material.(5) Griffin also displaced Tom Acton as editor of Nationalism Today (NT hereafter), a change more apparent than real as publication had in effect been suspended: the ‘political soldiers’ priorities were internal manoeuvres.

May madness

Brady’s suspension set a precedent, and at a Directorate meeting held on 3 May 1986, 23 charges against Ian Anderson were discussed, ranging from intimidation to fraud. Anderson had kept a low profile for a few months, and the timing of the disciplinary procedures appeared to connote a deeper agenda, along the lines of a purge. Brons, Wingfield and Anderson demanded to see the evidence for these charges. However, in the words of Griffin, ‘since it was not required at this stage…. he did not have it to hand’.(6) In the document Attempted Murder (AM hereafter), discussed below, Griffin justified this lack of evidence by reference to the Constitution then in force. However, those who disagreed felt that he had been given enough time (it was nearly six months since Anderson’s suspension) to have produced it there and then.(7) Furthermore, Griffin’s retrospective admission in August that he did not have evidence to hand directly contradicts the content of his May letter suspending Wingfield. In that, he accused Wingfield of leading a ‘walk-out from the meeting designed to leave urgent disciplinary matters undealt with. In spite of the fact that you knew that a Directorate colleague had statements and witnesses ready on the premises to give evidence against suspended members of Newham branch.'(8) (Emphasis added)

At the meeting a new ‘Executive Council’ was elected, containing Nick Griffin on the one hand and Martin Wingfield, Andrew Brons, Paul Nash, Tom Acton and Joe Pearce on the other. The 1985 Constitution authorised the Executive Council (EC) to act between Directorate meetings, providing ‘any such action is referred for endorsement or rejection to the National Directorate at the first following meeting’.(9) Control of the EC was vital and ‘political soldier’ Griffin was in a minority of one on it.

The Directorate meeting having ended with only two items of business transacted, neither favourable from their point of view, the ‘political soldiers’ moved decisively. On 5 May, Directorate members Griffin, Phil Andrews, Holland, Graham Williamson, Harrington, Michael Turner, John Field and Dave Gobell, took the step of issuing a call for another meeting, because ‘a number of items… on the agenda for the Directorate meeting held on 3rd May were not discussed or acted upon.'(10)

The ‘political soldiers’ felt confident that this time the meeting would go their way because Dave Gobell had been recruited to their cause, having been won over in ‘bar-room discussions’. Along with John Ross, this now gave them a majority. Of a possible eighteen Directorate members, two had resigned – Paul Johnson (charged with sending fake explosive devices through the post) and Roger Denny (in embarrassment over a soft drugs offence). Thus, even with the imprisoned Pearce’s proxy vote, the ‘Flag’ tendency now only had seven Directorate votes: Acton, Anderson, Brons, the veteran Tom Mundy, Paul Nash, Pearce and Wingfield.(11)

On 6 May Griffin decided to suspend the NF membership of fellow EC members Acton, Brons, Nash and Wingfield; and also directed allies Paul Fortune and Michael Fishwick to remove Party records from the Norwich HQ on the unlikely grounds that the location was about to be disclosed to NF opponents.(12) This removal of records was stumbled upon by Nick Wakeling who promptly informed Martin Wingfield (after all he was NF Chairman…), and from then on civil war broke out in earnest. This final spark that ignited the tinder might seem trivial but it is not. In any NF faction fight, one of the most significant things was access to central records. As I pointed out when discussing the removal of Martin Webster, most members had an ‘inertial tendency’ to be loyal to whomever was in charge of head office. Control of the membership lists gave that faction the right to issue propaganda that would often go unanswered, as well as the ability to select who should receive circulars (or membership renewal cards). Even if a future legal battle was lost, whoever had control of membership lists could duplicate them before their return, and physical assets (photocopies and printing facilities, for example) once removed are difficult to recover. While Griffin’s actions were the formal signals that hostilities had commenced, that fratricide was in the air was illustrated by the fact that the only items on the Directorate Agenda for 3 May concerned the minutes of previous meetings – and disciplinary subjects.(13) Wingfield’s response to the news that NF records had been removed was immediate, if ultimately ineffective. Following telephone discussions on the evening of the 6 May with fellow EC members, he decided to:

  • instruct Acton and Nash to use legal means to seek the return of documents and to freeze bank accounts;
  • suspend Fortune, Fishwick, and Griffin from membership;(14)
  • and send supporters to gain access to the Pawson’s Road bookshop. (This failed as the locks had already been changed.)

At this point the plot moves beyond the complex to the realms of Alice in Wonderland. For Griffin had unilaterally moved against a majority of EC members, despite being in a minority of one. Justification he found in the Constitution, which, sure enough, stated that in an emergency ‘the Chairman or any one of the members of the EC may exercise the powers vested in the EC, providing that such action is referred to the EC for endorsement or rejection within 24 hours.'(15) Using Jesuitical logic (and methods) Griffin reasoned that this allowed him to suspend the others (apart from Pearce), in which case any resistance they had to such action on his part, or indeed any actions they might subsequently undertake, were by definition invalid. Therefore, according to Griffin, the deliberations undertaken by Acton, Brons, Wingfield and Nash on 6 May (and subsequently) were void, because ‘in law such suspensions are valid from the moment notification is posted.'(16) This conclusion meant Griffin did not have an EC to whom he could ‘refer’ the suspensions ‘within 24 hours’. Aside from political differences, Pearce, in prison, was unable to become involved in the process of ‘reference’. Again, as with Griffin’s interpretation of the constitution concerning the suspension of Anderson, while such a reading is possible, common sense (and ‘natural justice’) say that Griffin was in the wrong.(17) He did not mind this, for he knew that if matters did come to court, provided the ‘political soldiers’ retained the Directorate majority they had only just acquired, the legal battles would be won: and so it proved.(18)

A political rout

The threat of imminent court action alone meant that the power struggle going on in the upper reaches of the NF became known to key activists and beyond, in the shape of the Organisers’ Bulletin issued from Belfast on 9 May 1986 by Nick Griffin (technically as Chairman of the ‘Administrative Department’), entitled ‘Stabbed in the Back’. Speaking of difficulties in distributing propaganda and so on, Griffin commented: ‘Over the last two weeks it has become clear that these difficulties are not isolated hiccups, but part of a carefully co-ordinated campaign of disruption designed to neutralise the NF while Thatcher and co. deal with Ulster and the police try to keep the lid on the simmering pot of racial tension in the inner cities.'(19) He accused opponents of wanting to create a ‘Kosher NF…. weaken[ing] our opposition to the bandit state of Israel’, and to turn the ‘NF into a reactionary anti-immigration pressure group’.(20) This missive from Griffin produced a rival Organisers’ Bulletin under the auspices of Wingfield, Brons, Acton and Nash, with the equally polite title of ‘Nick Griffin – Traitor!’ (13 May 1986)

Realising they had the upper hand, the ‘political soldiers’ were prepared to be flexible over details when it came to dealing with the courts. Thus in a statement made at the High Court on 13 May, Griffin agreed to postpone the forthcoming Directorate meeting from 14 May to Saturday, 17 May 1986, a date originally suggested by Wingfield.(21) Knowing which way the majority would vote, he promised, as did co-signatories Acton and Nash, to ‘abide by the decision of the majority vote at that meeting’. This agreement, handwritten by Griffin (under the guidance of Harrington), was a master stroke. For if the ‘Flag’ tendency had ever returned to legal action, this undertaking would have been mercilessly used against them. Griffin even managed to get Acton and Nash to agree to rescind the Directorate resignation of ‘political soldier’ Turner, probably because they thought he supported their position. As Steve Brady put it more recently, ‘What he knew and we didn’t is that he’d now got the crucial one vote.'(22) The court accepted Griffin’s undertaking temporarily to freeze the NF’s bank accounts, pending the outcome.(23) The meeting that eventually took place on 17 May at the Pawson’s Road HQ in Croydon, was a rout. Motions by Acton and Anderson to suspend Griffin (for unauthorised removal of NF property and allowing Roberto Fiore into the Norwich offices) were defeated by 9 votes to 7.(24) Griffin was then elected Chairman in place of Wingfield, and Andrews, Holland, Harrington and Pearce were elected to the Executive Council. That Pearce was elected a member of the EC should not be seen as unusual. Pearce had great prestige, and despite the fact that in a widely referred to letter dated 10 May, he had put his full weight (and Directorate proxy vote) behind the ‘Flag’ tendency, in the form of Wingfield, the ‘political soldiers’ still hoped the could be ‘won over’.(25) This letter also set the seal on a breakdown of personal relations between Pearce and Griffin and Holland.(26) The four co-producers of the ‘Nick Griffin – Traitor’ bulletin were suspended; and, with their supporters, did not bother attending the afternoon session. Andrew Brons is reputed to have called Harrington a Stalinist, which I suspect he would have regarded as a compliment (organisationally). The ‘Flag’ group were impaled on the court agreement they had recently signed to abide by the Directorate’s decisions that day, so the rest was a formality.

At the afternoon sitting, all Griffin’s actions to date were ratified, other members deemed to oppose the ‘political soldiers’ were suspended or expelled, and sympathisers co-opted.(27) Some of the motions were bizarre, such as the one calling for the dismissal of all opponents from the Directorate and any other elected offices on the grounds that the ‘Directorate no longer had any confidence in them’.(28) And there were some important questions left outstanding: for instance, whether anyone in the NF did in fact meet the journalist David Rose to leak information about the NF illicitly obtaining a 4,000 MSC grant for the printing press owned and operated by Nick Griffin and Derek Holland between 1984 and 1985.(29)

The ‘political soldiers’ consolidate

Having won Directorate backing, the ‘political soldiers’ were now safe from challenge through the courts, and sought to present a front of ‘business as usual’, while they worked out a medium term political strategy. The Organisers’ Bulletin for 18 May 1986, ‘Progress on All Fronts’, was optimistic. The mass suspensions of the previous day were described as the outcome of ‘a simple choice between the radical, youthful and successful political leadership of the past year, and a group of people who, for varying reasons, wanted to ignore corruption and rumour-mongering…. and to hamstring the NF with out-dated conservative policies.’ (p. 2) At this stage the ‘political soldiers’ held the upper hand, both politically and legally. Their key opponents had been outmaneouvred and many were suspended waiting ‘disciplinary tribunals’ that would surely be a formality.

‘Administrative restructuring’ continued, and was seen in a political light. Derek Holland produced a circular asking for funds to get the bookshop back into credit, alleging that when the ‘Bookshop Committee took over the running of Nationalist Books in October 1985 the Movement’s merchandise section was on the verge of total disintegration: back orders numbered some 1,500; every single supplier owed money’.(30) And so on.

News in July that their opponents were setting up rival publications was met with a determined response: ‘Anyone prepared to go against the NF by offering support at all to such a set-up must expect to be expelled. Anything less would destroy our security and betray the vast majority who have remained loyal.’ This seemed straightforward enough, but was accompanied by an implicit elitism which meant a lot of the members (perhaps even the majority) were expendable: ‘We do not care how many people we have to expel to do this…. National Revolutionaries now control the NF and we’re going to keep it that way. If you don’t like this fact, just go away.'(31) Tough talking was the order of the day and the Flag was immediately proscribed, any members buying it using NF funds being threatened with disciplinary action, up to and including freezing of unit bank accounts.'(32)

The ‘Flag’ tendency regroup

That the ‘political soldiers’ were worried is a testimony to the effective fight-back that had been belatedly launched. Deprived of influence at the level of policy-making, the nucleus of the ‘Flag’ group were well aware that even if a majority of members sympathised with their views, there was no way for this support to affect the NF’s decision-making. In his letter to Pearce of 20 May, Brady expressed the opinion that the ideal course of action would be an Extraordinary General Meeting which would make ‘best use of our main asset – the support of most of the membership’. (p. 8) He correctly speculated that the Directorate would not allow this, and in any event many members not in possession of 1986 membership cards would not be able to attend an EGM or an AGM.(33) Paul Nash, whose entire branch of Enfield-Haringey had been suspended, summed up their dilemma in his declaration that ‘I fully intend to continue working for the good of the NF whether or not the forthcoming disciplinary tribunal decides to expel me.'(34) Given that they presented themselves as ‘loyalists’, and yet dissented strenuously from the ‘political soldiers’, the ‘Flag’ tendency concentrated their fire on Griffin’s alleged incompetence, and downplayed the ideological aspects of the dispute, describing them as ‘pure invention’.(35)

The backing of the jailed Pearce was a big plus, and he was released on 12 June, giving their morale a much needed boost. Perhaps understandably, the ‘political soldier’ side in the dispute tend to down-play the significance of Pearce.(36) A strategy meeting was held at Steve Brady’s home on 29 June. Indicative of the comparatively weak position the ‘Flag’ tendency felt themselves to be in was the tongue-in-cheek acronym used to describe themselves – SHUN, for Sunshine Home for Unwanted Nationalists. A number of decisions were taken, the most important of which was to continue a ‘waiting game’ in the confrontation with the ‘political soldier’ leadership. One reason for this was the lack of funds to take the leadership to court; and as time went by, more and more supporters and branches were being expelled or – more usually – not having their membership renewed. Another reason was their belief that the majority of NF members supported them; the problem was just the leadership. Given that throughout 1986 there was no ‘mass meeting’ called by the ‘Flag’ faction, this proposition is difficult to prove or disprove. That said, my view is that most NF members, if they were not heartily fed up with the whole affair, probably sympathised with the ‘Flag’ tendency; but this was mostly a passive identification, with few channels for articulation. The 29 June meeting also decided that it was high time the opposition to the leadership produced their own publications: the Flag newspaper (edited by Martin Wingfield) appeared in July, and the magazine Vanguard (edited by Pearce, Acton and Brady) appeared in August. In a final, and most astute tactical move, the 29 June gathering gave their tendency the name ‘National Front Support Group’, thereby stressing both their identification with the organisation and a certain distance from the leadership. Brady has said this label was his idea, the lesson having been drawn from Northern Ireland that what was once the Provisional IRA is now the IRA proper, and the ‘Official IRA’ is nowhere.(37)

A long hot summer

That there was no let-up in the internal conflict was in no small part due to the release of Joe Pearce from jail and his public refusal to ‘bury the hatchet’ with Griffin and company. On 4 August 1986 Pearce spoke at a meeting of the Barking branch of the NF. Due to the NF’s historical strength in the East End of London, this had been an important branch, although it was not necessarily as pivotal by 1986.(38) This was taken (rightly) as a point of no return, and Pearce was suspended from party membership for ‘acts of disloyalty’.(39) Violence was never far below the surface: Ian Anderson’s car was damaged by a crude petrol bomb placed beneath it on July,(40) and Nick Griffin was said to have met the delivery of a summons in May with a brandished shotgun.(41) Some of the forms taken by the faction fight were distasteful indeed: Tom Acton’s mother was allegedly phoned and informed (incorrectly) that he had contracted a sexually-transmitted disease, faeces in condoms were posted to various members of the NF Support Group, and personal information about both sides was leaked to political enemies.(42)

Whatever the truth of the matter, Patrick Harrington was widely perceived (along with Nick Barrett) as being responsible for many of the ‘dirty tricks’ attributed to the ‘political soldiers’. He denies all the charges and his explanation for the hostility is that as head of the ‘Security and Intelligence Department’ (of which Barrett was briefly a member), he played a prominent part in the disciplinary tribunals of those suspended or expelled, with concomitant legal action against them for the return of party property, as well as supervision of its collection. However, it is interesting that despite his prominent ideological and legal role during the 1986 conflagration, Griffin’s name was not put in the frame for such malfeasance.(43) For some in the ‘Flag’, Harrington’s ruthless attitude towards political opponents seemed to go way beyond the normal conventions of faction-fighting. Harrington’s response is that none of those against whom he lined up in 1986 are now in tune with him politically, and therefore his was a consistent opposition based on principle. Furthermore, Harrington says the ‘political soldiers’ had no need to resort to extra-legal means to win the political dispute: indeed, on one occasion he himself (unsuccessfully) had recourse to the law.(44) When pressed, Harrington admitted ‘score settling’ did occur around this time, but says it was not organised by him, nor a matter of policy. However, given that the ‘political soldiers’ set themselves up as not only ideologically but also personally superior to their opponents, and highly disciplined, this is hardly an adequate defence.(45)

As is usual in such circumstances, a rich variety of factional literature was generated. My particular favourite, which indicated just what a parlous state the NF had sunk to, politically, was the letter by Martin Wingfield of August 1986 to members, written in his (previous) capacity as Chairman. He commenced with the inimitable opening lines that ‘Some of you may now regard me as a Zionist infiltrator, others as an employee of MI5. There are no doubt some of you who do regard me as a flim-flam Tory.’ He rejected the accusations (of course), but that he was having to discuss them indicated the extent to which the NF had turned in on itself. The most explosive document politically was Nick Griffin’s Attempted Murder: the State/Reactionary Plot Against the National Front (AM) of August. This was a highly charged and emotive tract, suffused with ‘revolutionary’ passion and capturing very well the fevered atmosphere of the time. It drew a detailed response from the ‘Flag’ group, largely written by Tom Acton, entitled Attempted Murder — Actual Insanity. Seeking the moral high ground, the ‘Flag’ did not distribute this document as widely as AM, seeing this as a diversion of party resources. Unsurprisingly they omitted to mention that their alternative publications, Flag and Vanguard, were, technically, factional literature too.

Conflict within the NF were not the only worries the ‘political soldiers’ had to contend with, for the new leadership suffered two disastrous public outings in summer 1986. The first was the ill-starred ‘Free Speech’ rally in Liverpool, at which, on their own admission, only about 80 people turned up.(46) This was followed by a ‘British Independence Day’ march through Bury St. Edmunds on 5 July. Two estimates were given by the NF for numbers present, 125 and 150;(47) and although both reports indicate problems, neither they nor exclusively internal documents(48) tell the full story of what happened. Basically the march was abandoned because Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) were present in sufficient numbers as to be able (once corralled in a building-site by the local police) to rain down a hail of bricks and rubble on to the NF and force such an undignified retreat that even the NF banner was lost.(49) This debacle meant impromptu marches around chosen themes were something to which the ‘political soldiers’ never returned. Subsequently, aside from a frustrated march in Oldham on 19 July 1986,(50) Remembrance Day (of which more below) and the swansong July 1989 Welsh march, there were no more marches by the Official NF aside from Remembrance Day in 1986 and 1987. Therefore I am inclined to agree with AFA when they say that the ‘damage inflicted on the political soldier wing of the NF when they tried to march in Bury St. Edmunds directly led to the leadership of that organisation abandoning the tactic of marches’.(51) Small wonder then that by October 1986 Griffin was suggesting that members must ‘learn to resist the temptation to hold exciting, but basically futile, street activities, as a reaction to Red provocation. We have been marching along that road for nearly 20 years with little effect, save to allow groups such as “Red Action” to use the NF “threat” to boost their own support on the streets.'(52)

On 27 September 1986 the ‘Flag’ tendency held their own march through Guildford, protesting against the Anglo-Irish Agreement of the previous year. The turn-out, 200 at maximum (their own estimate), was half the number mobilised in January 1986 to oppose an Irish Republican march in London, indicating that they too were incapable of attracting large numbers to their colours. (53)

The schism is finalised

After a turbulent summer, the next event of significance was the AGM called by the ‘political soldiers’ for 2 November. Right from the start of the dispute, key ‘Flag’ strategists had realised the futility of turning up to such an event,(54) so they stayed away. The AGM was a rigidly controlled event, held over two days at Griffin’s family home in Suffolk. The first day was taken up with educational ‘seminars’, part of the second with traditional debates. While all the members not suspended were urged to turn up, (55) perhaps a sign of things to come was the attendance of only 100,(56) which led to the comment in the December 1986 Organisers’ Bulletin that, ‘Although there was a low turn-out from ordinary members, virtually every unit in the country was represented by at least some of its committee’. In a compromise decision, it was decided that all those who were committee members prior to the AGM of 2 November were deemed to be ‘cadres’, henceforth the crucial category of NF membership. Only cadres were to have the right to vote at AGMs or be on the Directorate, and other members and sympathisers were recategorised into ‘candidate cadres’, ‘NF News supporters’ and ‘Friends of the Movement’.(57) Membership dues were increased ten-fold – a rise clearly intended to drive away the ideologically less committed.(58)

A week later, on 9 November 1986, the ‘political soldiers’ sought to cement their control over the membership by organising the Remembrance Day parade. Since its inception in 1968, the November Remembrance Day parade held by the NF had been crucial in both practical and symbolic terms. As the 1989 ‘Flag’ NF programme for the event put it, ‘A well ordered, large and impressive parade can put real heart into our sympathisers and strike real terror into our opponents.'(59) In 1985, the turn-out had been the best one yet for the 1980s, with estimates ranging from 1,350 (opponents) to 2,000 (NF). In 1986, not yet a formally independent organisation, and with the traditional route booked in the name of the NF, the NF Support Group was forced to march behind the ‘political soldier’ NF. Turn-out estimates varied from 500 to 2,500.(60)

The final act of the NF formally tearing itself asunder took place on 10 January 1987 when both the NF Support Group and the ‘political soldiers’ held an Organisers’ Conference. The decisions of the latter need not concern us here, but the former was of great significance, for it took the decision that from then on they would call themselves the National Front. As a result until January 1990 there were two National Fronts: the ‘Official NF’, i.e. the ‘political soldiers’; and what I call the ‘Flag’ NF, which, at the time of writing (1995), is the only functioning NF. (The ‘political soldiers’ have kept an ‘Official NF’ shell going.)

The basis of the ‘Flag’ decision to style themselves the NF had been laid by earlier proposals to ‘decentralise’ the NF’s structure. Reacting to the centralising cadre mentality of their opponents, they tried to capitalise on the (presumed) latent support of ordinary members by proposing a new structure in which ‘local branches will now be largely autonomous, able to organise themselves and their activities according to local goals and eternal circumstances.'(61) The ‘Flag’ tendency were confident because of their analysis of the way the power struggle within the NF for the ‘hearts and minds’ of the members had been going. This is very difficult to evaluate, principally because each side in the civil war was aiming at different audiences. The ‘political soldiers’ were unquestionably seeking to win over the younger, activist and especially ideologically inclined members. Thus, to merely look at numbers and comment that the ‘Flag’ had more is to miss the very different criterion the ‘political soldiers’ set themselves: not quantity but quality (as they defined it).

There is no doubt at all that this was not a retrospective goal, but one consciously adhered to by the leadership – and fully communicated: we have already seen sufficient statements of this sort in organisers’ bulletins and so on. To them be added this unambiguous message in the Nationalist Bulletin, sent at the start of January 1987 to all those who had previously been members. After outlining the new structure, it concluded: ‘This leadership will not compromise with any of our enemies or on any principle, for it is our country which is at stake. It will not allow any individual or group of individuals to stand in the way of the NF’s progress. We want you to play your role in the new strategy. If you cannot accept the new direction, do not renew. Can we be any clearer?’(62) To those who believed, this would be seen as commitment: to those who did not, intolerance. Either way, it was not the same group the ‘Flag’ was pitching for.

Inasmuch as they had reason to believe the majority of members were not fully behind the new change of direction, the ‘Flag’ group’s confidence was soundly based. But this is not the same as mass positive backing for the NF Support Group. Tangible evidence on which the ‘Flag’s’ optimistic calculations were based is difficult to come by – not least because most members did not articulate their views in print and there was never any meeting at which both sides were present in force. One way of determining membership views is to look at the various circulars and missives issued by local party branches during the conflict. Even here there are problems: most would have been heavily influenced by leading figures in the conflict; and I am not certain I have all of them. Nevertheless they are useful straws in the wind.

The first one I have come across is a short letter from Worcester branch, dated 21 April 1986, announcing that some members were leaving to form a BNP branch. The next is from Wilfrid Smith, chairman of Blackpool and Fylde branch who, in July 1986, issued a vain appeal to ‘everybody to settle their differences’. On 24 July 1986 Ted Budden, on behalf of the Brighton Branch, called upon the Directorate to convene an EGM to discuss the expulsions of ‘Flag’ tendency sympathisers. Given the long-standing associations of Budden and the Brighton branch with many in the ‘Flag’ leadership,(63) this is likely to have been a tactical letter issued on behalf of the faction nationally as much as local membership. Geoff Burnett of Kent, on 10 October 1986, called for a disbanding of the National Directorate and a ‘national meeting of branches and groups’, thus indicating his sympathy for the ‘Flag’s’ ‘Confederacy’ idea. (p. 2). Mark Cotterill of Torbay NF also wrote a circular on 10 October 1986, formally in response to Wilfrid Smith’s of July, announcing that his branch was backing the NF Support Group. On 27 October 1986 came the only branch bulletin I have seen during this period that explicitly supported the ‘political soldiers’; but it was a significant one, Belfast. They commented that ‘most branches have treated the NF Support Group with mere idle curiosity, but even that accords it a credibility it does not deserve. We wish to make it clear beyond doubt that it has received no mandate from this branch to speak on our behalf about matters here nor to represent us on any of its activities.'(64) Sid Campbell of Kent sent two vituperative letters attacking the Directorate,(65) but the most significant circular from within England was that put out by Birmingham on behalf of the ‘West Midlands Regional Council’ of the NF, dated 23 December 1986. They did not just criticise the leadership, but acted, withdrawing their support (both political and financial) from the Directorate. Given the hundreds of members in Birmingham at that time, this was a body blow from which the ‘political soldiers’ never recovered in the West Midlands. Furthermore, it was the final thing that persuaded the ‘Flag’ faction that they might actually win, if not the apparatus of the party, at least the bulk of the members.

Thus it was that on the 10 January 1987 at their London meeting, a new NF was born, a ‘steering committee’ elected, followed in 1988 by a new constitution enshrining the ‘Articles of Confederation’.(66)

Notes

  1. Much of the documentation used in this article is contained in the ‘Patrick Harrington’ section of Warwick University Modern Records Centre, Coventry. I am grateful to Steve Brady and Patrick Harrington for comments on an earlier draft of this piece.
  2. I use ‘chairman’ here because it reflects the reality of the NF at the time. Women were not prominent in the leadership, except for Tina Dalton (later Denny and subsequently Wingfield), who had an administrative role.
  3. According to Brady, Michael Fishwick had left a copy lying around the Norwich office. (Interview 27 October 1992.)
  4. See ‘Lies Damn Lies’, a circular distributed by Griffin dated 9 April 1986, which sought to explain Anderson’s absence from party affairs by the desire to ‘devote more time to buying his house and setting up his private and independent business venture’, and waxed lyrical about how administrative affairs had improved in recent months — a clear indication, many thought, that they hadn’t.
  5. For example the comments about the NF’s perceived relationship to terrorists were seen as possibly implying that there were terrorist associations.
  6. Attempted Murder: the State/Reactionary Plot Against the NF, (hereafter AM) August 1986, p. 41.
  7. The constitution then in force only explictly referred to consideration of evidence in section 9:4 (iv), dealing with the functioning of a disciplinary tribunal.
  8. Letter, 6 May 1986. Even if we give Griffin the benefit of the doubt, and assume one of those Newham members is Dave Thomas, the other must have been Ian Anderson. There are only two other people this could have referred to. One was Kevin Bennett, but as he hadn’t renewed his 1986 membership and had in any case been moved against by Anderson, not Griffin, for alleged ‘thuggery’, then this is unlikely to have been him, and his name doesn’t appear in any documentation. The second person was Roger Denny, the evidence against whom no-one disputed. Therefore, by a process of elimination we arrive at the name of Anderson. The point isn’t his guilt or innocence here, but the fact that Griffin appears to have countenanced his suspension without having evidence ‘to hand’; and a few days later suspended Wingfield on grounds purportedly including an attempt to prevent the hearing of evidence Griffin later seems to have admitted wasn’t in his possession. Whatever the legal niceties, the idea that in principle people (and a recent NF Chair at that) could be suspended without some evidence having to be produced is an absurd, or rather dictatorial, one. Harrington’s more recent explanation of the absence of evidence against Anderson is that it wasn’t necessary because ‘everyone knew he was a crook’. (Telephone conversation, 20 November 1994.) Thus it was with the Inquisition, too.
  9. Constitution, section 4:12.
  10. Circular sent to all Directorate members, dated 5 May 1986.
  11. They were mistaken in their belief that Michael Turner would support them.
  12. I say unlikely because, as subsequent legal action showed, both factions were interested in securing the records and machinery, and preventing their removal by any third party. On this episode see Fishwick’s affidavit laid before the High Court on 12 May 1986, Nick Wakeling’s affidavit of 9 May 1986, and AM p. 46. Griffin’s affidavit to the Court, dated 12 May 1986, sought to justify the removal of assets on the basis of his authority as Chairman of the Administration Department (p. 2, point 5). However, his next assertion was that he had that morning ‘instigated disciplinary action against a number of people’ (point 6) – something for which his administrative responsibilities did not equip him.
  13. The disciplinary subjects were Tom Acton (his eligibility for the Directorate), Ian Anderson (alleged theft etc.), Roger Denny (cannabis possession), Steve Brady (sending aforementioned letter to Pearce) and the Norwich branch committee members (for having written a critical letter to the Directorate). Griffin denied (in AM) that the Norwich committee was to have been expelled and said that their letter had been ‘welcomed’ (p. 45). In which case, why did the branch appear on the agenda under the heading ‘Disciplinary Matters’?
  14. Letter to Griffin 7 May 1986.
  15. Section 4:13
  16. AM p. 47
  17. He signed the 6 May suspension letters ‘pp Executive Council and National Directorate’, when his actions had at that stage never been discussed by, let alone received the approval of, either body.
  18. The minutes of the telephoned EC meeting held by Wingfield et al on 8 May 1986 provide ample legal precedents to indicate Griffin had been legally in the wrong. But that was rather beside the point: the die had been cast. Griffin’s affidavit of 12 May quite rightly (from his point of view) heavily emphasised the fact of his allies now having a majority, while conveniently gliding past the fact that they didn’t have one on 3 May. (See points 8, 9, 10.) Brady’s letter to Pearce of 20 May quotes Griffin as saying that ‘We’ve got a majority on the Directorate so we can do as we like’. (p. 1)
  19. Page 1.
  20. Pp. 2-3 This first point is an allusion to Steve Brady’s comment in his letter to Pearce of 23 February 1986 that, ‘As far as I’m concerned the Jews can have an Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates if they’ll all go and live in it.’ (p. 11) That said, it is a big leap to assume that the opinions expressed in a letter of one person such as Brady, no matter how ideologically important he was, were the views of all his ‘comrades’.
  21. See his letter to Directorate members 9 May 1986, p. 1.
  22. Interview, 27 October 1992.
  23. AM p. 50.
  24. Minutes p. 2. Brady’s letter to Pearce of 20 May 1986 outlines the ‘Flag’ tendency view of things.
  25. AM p. 38
  26. He stated, ‘It is with very deep regret that I find it necessary to take this course of action. From a personal point of view, it was a difficult decision since Nick has issued me with an ultimatum that he will consider our friendship terminated and will refuse to work with me if I refuse to support him in his present destructive course of action.’ (p. 1) Given that Pearce was actually in prison for the ’cause’, to have suspended him at this stage, and to have accused him of being complicit in a ‘state/reactionary plot’ would have been tactically unwise, not to say tasteless.
  27. Some of the precise facts are as bewildering now as they were then. Steve Brady believes he was only suspended in June 1986, not at this time.
  28. Minutes p. 6. It calls to mind the statement by Brecht on hearing of the suppression of the 1953 East German uprising by the Stalinist regime: ‘Why don’t they dissolve the people and elect another?’
  29. See AM pp. 11-12 for reproduction of relevant documentation on this. According to Rose, he was accompanied by Searchlight editor Gerry Gable on visits to Suffolk and other meetings with a ‘high level NF source’. Ian Anderson, in an undated (but August 1986) commentary on AM implied that the source might have been Patrick Harrington.
  30. ‘Statement from the Bookshop Committee’ June 1986.
  31. ‘Time to get tough’ – Organisers’ Bulletin, 27 July 1986, pp. 1 and 3.
  32. Ibid p. 3.
  33. The relevant parts of the Constitution are, firstly, Section 8:12, stating that the National Directorate shall have the exclusive right, but not the obligation, to summon an Extraordinary General Meeting of the voting members if any special crisis or emergency arises’. Section 8:6 stated that voting members shall only gain admission to Annual General Meetings on production of fully paid-up membership cards.’
  34. Special Bulletin, 27 May 1986.
  35. ‘Griffin Clique: Loosing’ in Organisers’ Bulletin 10 June 1986, p. 1.
  36. Harrington, in particular, never had much time for Pearce, attributing his prominence to the media, and criticising him strongly for perceived political inadequacies in his conduct while in prison.
  37. Interview, 27 October 1992.
  38. Patrick Harrington is of the opinion that there were only 15 people at this meeting, of whom only 10 were branch members. According to him, Newham was far more important in 1986: though this hardly helps the thesis of the ‘Flag’ lacking support, for Newham was one of the ‘Flag’s’ strongest bases anywhere. Phone conversation, 20 November 1994.
  39. Letter from Phil Andrews to Pearce, 6 August 1986. Pearce had been adopted by the branch as the parliamentary candidate for Dagenham at the anticipated general election. (The Flag, 1 August 1986, p. 27.)
  40. Widely believed to be the work of a prominent ‘political soldier’.
  41. Given the lateness of the hour – 8.30 to 9 pm – and the numbers involved, whose identities there is no certainty Griffin was aware of at first, his action is understandable to an extent. Ian Anderson interview, 29 May 1991.
  42. For example, Steve Brady’s home and work-place, for which he believes Patrick Harrington to have probably been responsible. Harrington denies this. On the other side, Phil Andrews and Graham Williamson of the ‘political soldiers’, apparently lost their jobs after employers were informed of their political allegiances. Chairman’s Bulletin, 9 August 1986.
  43. Which can only be partly accounted for by Griffin’s non-residence in London, where much of the nastiness took place.
  44. When his arm was broken in mid 1987 at Brick Lane. He says this assault was carried out by Dave Thomas of Newham, and that the police perjured themselves when it came to court. Telephone conversation, 20 November 1994. The ‘Flag’ NF view was that it was Harrington himself who was the perjurer. See Vanguard 16 February 1988, p. 18.
  45. Telephone conversation, 20 November 1994.
  46. Nationalism Today 39, October 1986, p. 3.
  47. Nationalism Today 40, p. 4 and National Front News 79, p. 3 respectively.
  48. Such as the Chairman’s Bulletin of 9 August 1986 (Griffin) or the Organiser’s Bulletin of September (‘Looking for a Fight’, signed by Graham Williamson.)
  49. This account of the rout is, unsurprisingly, not totally accepted by Patrick Harrington. He prefers to stress the fact that the column wasn’t broken that day, and attributes the poor turn-out to someone (Anderson?) calling the NF’s usual travel company to cancel coaches booked to ferry members there that day. Phone conversation, 20 November 1994.
  50. National Front News 79, p. 3.
  51. Introduction to London AFA, 1991, p. 3.
  52. Nationalism Today 39, p. 9. Interestingly enough, Red Action had played a leading part at Bury St. Edmunds. Discussion of why the NF abandoned marches is a sensitive one for them and Harrington has strongly argued that the NF was already moving away from marches, for instance the action at Lakenheath in 1984, Instant Response Group and so on. I remain of the opinion that marches were abandoned primarily because of opposition, although I readily concede that paper sales, which continued, were potentially even more hazardous given restricted numbers, a static site, and the possibility of vastly superior opposition.
  53. Flag 3 October 1986, p. 1. The fact that the ‘Flag’ tendency waited until the end of September to hold a march under their own steam, when the ‘political soldiers’ had already held three, further illustrates the shaky ground on which the NF Support Group felt themselves in terms of appealing to the undivided loyalty of members.
  54. For example, see Brady’s letter to Pearce of 20 May 1986, p. 8, cited above.
  55. See Members’ Bulletin, Autumn 1986, p. 1.
  56. NF News 83, January 1987, p. 5.
  57. See NF News 82, December 1986 pp. 4-5, and also The Nationalist Bulletin, January 1987, on the new structure. Much of the AGM business was taken up with constitutional amendments, too many to enumerate here, but all involving tightening up central control and membership selection. To get the sense of it, three documents need detailed comparison: the 1985 Constitution, the 1986 AGM Agenda and the revised 1986 Constitution.
  58. The full reasoning behind this winnowing will be gone into at a later date, suffice to say here that it was broadly consistent with the ‘political soldiers’ desire to turn the NF into a vanguard movement of activists.
  59. Page 14: pp. 11-14 give a brief history of the event.
  60. See Black Flag 24 November 1986 (1,500) and The Times 20 November 1986 (500); as opposed to NF News 82, December 1986, p. 3 (2,500), or Nationalism Today 40, March 1987, p. 4 (2,300 plus). The ‘Flag’ didn’t officially comment on the numbers, being afraid thereby to give succour to the NF. See the bland report in the Flag 4 December 1986, p. 4. Steve Brady said that while the ‘Flag’ tendency turned up at the traditional meeting-place (the Duke of York pub) at 12 mid-day, and were thus able to proselytise freely before the ‘political soldier’ leadership arrived at 2 pm. Thereafter, control of the march was under the latter’s auspices. The late Nicky Crane and Derek Holland turfed Anderson, Brady, Brons et al off the march and they had to watch from the pavement at the corner of Bressenden Place. According to him, they applauded the march as it went past, and the bulk of it applauded them – the clear implication being that a majority of marchers were ‘Flag’ sympathisers. (Phone conversation 18 April 1995.) Maybe: but that’s what he would say, isn’t it?
  61. Vanguard, 6 February 1987, p. 2, editorial. The rationale was set out in an article by Joe Pearce, ‘Branching Out – A New Dawn for the NF’, in Vanguard, 2 September 1986, pp. 8-9.
  62. Page 2, emphasis in the original.
  63. Such as Martin Wingfield, Steve Brady and Tom Acton.
  64. Signed by John Field, David Kerr, Jim Morrison and Andy McLorie.
  65. Dated 1 November 1986 and 16 November 1986.
  66. As Appendix 2.

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