Notes from the Underground, part 4: British Fascism 1983-6 (II)

Larry O’Hara

See also:

• Part 1: British Fascism 1974-92 (Lobster 23)
• Part 2: British Fascism 1974-92 (II) (Lobster 24)
• Part 3: British fascism 1983-6 (Lobster 25)
• The 1986 National Front Split (Lobster 29)

A left turn for the NF?

Having described some of the multiple policy initiatives undertaken by the National Front in part 3 of this study, in Lobster 25, one question that might legitimately be asked is: did these changes represent some kind of a turn to the political left? After all, ‘green’ politics, support for the miners and workers co-operatives, opposition to U.S. nuclear weapons and airforce bases — and ‘state repression’ — are causes far more associated with the political left than the right. Their British National Party (BNP) rivals thought so and attacked the NF as ‘Strasserite’.(1) This in turn raises two questions: were the NF actually Strasserite, and even if they were, was this a leftist doctrine? Before returning to that, it is as well to turn from the minutiae of Nazi theology to NF practice. For, in the period of 1984-5 there were overtures made by the NF to the political left, in particular anarchists. As well as reputedly debating with the Socialist Party of Great Britain (who, to give them their due, will debate with anybody, anytime), Nick Griffin wrote to the anarchist magazine Black Flag trying to open up a dialogue. They didn’t want to know, and Griffin was publicly scathing in his response, calling them ‘Red reactionaries…. overgrown garden gnomes…. a disorganised shambles.'(2) He did go on to make a serious point, saying of anarchist arguments ‘for self-sufficiency and decentralisation’ that it ‘is time such ideas were rescued from obscurity and integrated into the programme of the Nationalist movement. This is why we are still prepared to debate with Black Flag — or indeed any open-minded group who at least think of themselves as anti-Establishment’.(3) He was equally scathing about other groups on the left such as the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and Red Action.(4) The only other prominent NF member to show any interest in dialogue with the left was Derek Holland, who in early 1984 called for the NF to not baulk at ‘conversing with anarchists, Welsh Nationalists, English regionalists’.(5)

Although the NF’s attempts to become accepted as a party within the radical milieu were rebuffed, there are two supplementary points to be made here. First, account has to be taken of the allegations ‘floated’ by Guardian journalist David Rose in 1985 that members of the anarchist group Class War had links with the NF, most notably at the ‘Stop the City’ demonstrations against the London Stock Exchange that year in which, according to Rose, ‘Class War played a leading role’.(6) Without doubt, NF members did turn up on ‘Stop the City’ activities, and made no secret of the fact.(7) However, they did not make themselves known at the time, and in any event the variety of anarchist organising the events was of the London Greenpeace kind — Class War as such was not prominent, individual members merely went along.(8) The allegations publicised by Rose and obtained (as he later confessed) from Searchlight magazine, while strong enough to lead to Class War’s suspension from Anti-Fascist Action, were never substantiated.(9) In the words of the Anti-Fascist Action Commission of Enquiry, ‘we don’t have any evidence that Class War knew that NF youth participated on any event in which they took part or organised(10), and Class War’s suspension was therefore revoked.(11) The second point of note is that we should not view NF attempts at ‘dialogue’ with the left in isolation from their other activities. Thus, genuinely interested as Griffin was in pursuing such an exchange, this didn’t stop him engaging in more traditional forms of NF ‘interfacing’ with opponents — for example disrupting a CND meeting in Leiston(12), and there are even more disturbing allegations that the local NF, in which both Griffin and Holland were active, might have had a hand in the fire-bombing of an anti-Nazi activist in the same year.(13) The overall question of the NF’s ‘leftism’ or ‘Strasserism’ is dealt with below.

On the football front

The events at the Heysel stadium Brussels in May 1985, when public disorder at the European Cup Final between Liverpool FC and Juventus resulted in 38 deaths, was a testing time for the NF, and brought into sharp focus questions about their exact relationship with ‘football hooliganism’, and what that said about the NF as a political party. About the events of Heysel themselves, while initially the NF were blamed for organising the riot by the Liverpool FC Chairman and the media, this later transpired to be unsupported by sustainable evidence, and a press statement from Liverpool police on July 5 stated there ‘is no evidence to suggest that any NF members were involved in the riot at the Heysel stadium’. The NF themselves had counter-attacked with a dual policy of blitzing the media with complaints and widely distributing their ‘Lies Damn Lies’ riposte at football grounds and elsewhere.(14)

The NF-football connection goes back to Bulldog magazine, which while initially started ‘to politically radicalise white youth….. a Nationalist equivalent of the Sun, soon took on a life of its own.(15) Given a few years to reflect on it, a variety of shades of NF opinion came to the conclusion that Bulldog was counter-productive. Thus, in an (unattributed) Nationalism Today article after the 1986 split, Patrick Harrington roundly denounced it as encouraging ‘race hate’ and ‘young supporters to engage in violent aggression…. against political opponents’.(16) Martin Wingfield, at the time of Harrington’s article Chairman of the rival Flag NF, concurred in criticism of Bulldog for publishing opponents ‘names and addresses and endangering their families…Bulldog was over the top’.(17) He was also candid enough to admit just why Bulldog hadn’t been diluted — ‘if it was watered down it wouldn’t have sold. It had a massive sale and it was paying the rent at the time.'(18) The most genuinely popular NF publication was rather off-putting to many of the social sectors other NF policies were tentatively aiming at. Brady who (along with Derek Holland) had been a long-time critic of Bulldog, later bemoaned the situation whereby ‘instead of the NF controlling and manipulating football hooligans, they were controlling and manipulating an NF publication.'(19) The NF had backed itself into something of a corner strategically, and although Bulldog was replaced by the highly irregular New Dawn in 1985, the latter never came to much. Ironically, the prosecution of Joe Pearce for the production of Bulldog meant that the NF felt forced to defend their erstwhile magazine far more strenuously than they would have done otherwise.(20)

On the foreign front

Apart from the Italian exiles, the 1984-5 period saw other attempts by the NF leadership to develop foreign contacts. Thus, as well as Gary Gallo, other U.S. fascists to visit were Matt Malone (also in the ‘National Democratic Front’) and the photographer Robert Hoy. Nick Griffin visited the U.S., and, among others, interviewed Tom Metzger of WAR (White Aryan Resistance)(21); and Derek Holland wrote a variety of articles on ideologically similar groups to the NF.(22) The 1985 AGM saw greetings of solidarity for the NF from a wide assortment of groups and individuals, including the German NPD and the imprisoned Italian bomber Franco Freda.(23)

Though the influence on NF policy of Roberto Fiore and the other Italian exiles is clear, what these other links meant, and how far links with Libya and Iran went in this period is not yet clear. While Martin Webster alluded in July 1984 to a projected (but unrealised) trip by Joe Pearce to the Libyan embassy for fund-raising in February 1984, he never produced any solid proof.(24) The death of WPC Yvonne Fletcher would have closed off that avenue, and what were unquestionably NF internal documents in Anderson’s hand-writing (reproduced in Searchlight) show that by mid-1984 even the paying of six month’s back-wages to the dethroned Webster and Salt ‘would bankrupt’ the NF — indicating that no fairy godfathers were on the immediate horizon.(25)

The NF transforms itself

As well as changes in policy, in 1985 the NF underwent an important change in structure, anticipating the debates of 1986 concerning the need for, and method of, popular participation within the party itself. The crucial change was the introduction of two categories of member, voting and non-voting. The decision as to whether a member was to be a voting one was to be made by the National Directorate. (26) The rationale behind this change, passed unanimously by the June 1985 EGM, was explained by Griffin as making it possible to ‘begin seriously to turn the NF into a revolutionary cadre party — a movement run by its most dedicated and active members, rather than by armchair nationalists, tin-pot dictators or refugees from the old political parties’.(27) This was an attempt by those who wanted to turn the NF into a ‘revolutionary nationalist’ force and those who adhered to more traditional Evolian elitist ideas, to force the pace of change.

While it may have looked superficially like a ‘Strasserite’ alteration, there was another undercurrent, not visible to all members. In the Summer of 1985 the editors of Rising, the seed-bed of NF ruralism and much else, Holland and Fiore, now felt it was time to call it a day. In their words, the ‘transformation that has taken place in the Nationalist Movement in the last year or so has been so dramatic that the Rising staff feel that Rising as a magazine has outlived its usefulness’.(28) This didn’t signify a diminution of commitment — rather a desire to carry forward the struggle more centrally within the NF.

The key text here was Derek Holland’s ‘The Political Soldier’, first published in 1984, a subtle blend of the ideas of Evola, Codreanou and Nazi traces, adapted to British circumstances, which called for the creation of a ‘new type of man who will live the Nationalist way of life every day’.(29) It would be wrong to see this as a purely militarist thing, for the relevant point to note here is that this focus on an inner transformation was profoundly at odds with the confused democratism evident in the Constitution and other policy statements around this time.(30)

Independence for Ulster?

The signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, a week before the NF AGM in November 1985, was the spur to a change of policy, crystallising differences within the NF. At the AGM, after a fierce debate during which Steve Brady, and the moving force, Nick Griffin, spoke in favour, a motion was passed calling for a ‘Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the British Government’ to maintain Ulster’s ‘freedom and identity’.(30) What has to be remembered is the ferment in Northern Ireland politics at that time. The very day of the NF AGM, there was a 250,000-strong demonstration outside Belfast City Hall, reminiscent of Carson’s stand before World War One. In that context, attitudes of NF members were mixed, some pro some anti,(31) and what probably swung it were speeches in favour by Northern Irish members such as Brady and a reluctant Jim Morrison.(32)

Reasons advanced to justify this policy range was the way forward for Ulster.(33) Griffin himself had a ‘radical’ rationale derived from factors strictly-speaking extrinsic to Northern Ireland: ‘since our aim, then, is the overthrow of the Establishment, we must seek a Revolution. And the situation in Ulster is fast becoming Revolutionary. If things develop as they easily could, and if we influence them as easily as we should, then our British Revolution will start in Ulster…. we must be ready to switch the entire resources of the NF to campaign on this issue alone.'(34)

What the NF were up to — a summary

All in all, a highly exotic period for the NF then, in which (to paraphrase Chairman Mao) a ‘thousand initiatives bloomed’. But was there any overall coherence about the organisation, or were they merely adding policy to policy, desperately hoping they would cohere? I strongly suspect that even people influencing matters most strongly weren’t sure of the answer to that. In this context, the question of the degree to which the NF were ‘Strasserite’ answers both the old question, is the NF a Nazi Front?, and also the question, did they have an overall plan?

The case can be made both for and against. In support were the policy statements that increasingly incorporated themes of a ‘Strasserite’ nature, ranging from the keynote Rising book, Yesterday and Tomorrow of 1983, which contained excerpts from Strasser, Goebbels and so on, to Derek Holland’s important articles on Strasser in Nationalism Today 23 and 24; the introduction of the ‘White Workers Power’ feature into Nationalism Today, September 1984; the frequent attacks on capitalism as the main enemy(35), and the exhortations to ‘Nationalise the Banks. Break up the Multinationals. Scrap the Stock Exchange… Nationalise all vital industry. Break up Capitalist Concerns and establish British Workers Co-operatives’.(36) As if this wasn’t enough, by late 1985 it was declared in NF News that the ‘propaganda of NF News will in future, more fully reflect our revolutionary stance’ (emphasis added).(37) So, in early 1986 it should have come as no surprise when the NF sent letters to supporters of the Militant Tendency in Liverpool, seeking to recruit them because (in the NF’s words) they ‘have a working-class membership and of course our organisation is entirely working-class’.(38)

Nevertheless, and especially with hindsight, a simple description of the NF as ‘Strasserite’ doesn’t quite tell the whole story. First, while Yesterday and Tomorrow was Stasserite in tone, the fact that Holland and Fiore never saw fit to quote Strasser in their own magazine Rising pointed towards that book having been a tactical feint, designed to win over genuine ‘Strasserites’ like Brady and Pearce in the looming battle against Webster.(39) When Holland and Fiore spoke of ‘revolution’ they meant something far more spiritual than the Strasserites envisaged, and the key concept of the ‘Political Soldier’ which was grafted onto Strasserism was in contradiction to corporatism (being highly individualistic, even metaphysical). Unlike the Strassers, few in the NF could even contemplate describing their goal as ‘socialism’ of any description, and the world view adhered to by many of the ‘leading cadres’ who were to split the NF and remain as the ‘Official NF’ in 1986, owed far more to the anti-modernism of Julius Evola than Strasser (even if many were not aware of that).

They were in fact ‘revolutionary conservatives…. really to the right of the political world’.(40) I don’t doubt that some in the NF saw themselves as ‘Strasserite’ but there is yet another reason why the NF cannot be simplistically labelled Strasserite: Strasserism was only ever an attitude of mind, and a partial one at that, as opposed to a strategy. Thus the real capitulation and defeat for Strasserism in Germany occurred not as late as 1932 or even 1934, but much earlier, in 1926, when the Strasserites accepted the ‘Fuhrer‘ principle, the inviolability of the 1926 programme, and the consequent leadership of Hitler. Once he had outfaced them then, Hitler’s only further need for them was as (useful) demagogues, to be discarded when expedient.(41)

Another reason why the NF can’t really be seen as Strasserite is the fact that even those members most influenced by Strasser were not simply trying to ‘recapture’ that ideological moment, but to trying to create something new, a British — or English; there was some confusion – nationalist ideology, drawn from a wide range of sources.(42) That such a project is illogical, incoherent and/or impossible isn’t quite the point. Between 1980-85 it was genuinely tried by some. Further, some NF initiatives — e.g. the important attempts at ‘Community Politics’ or opposition to U.S. bases and the European Community — were not issues in 1920s Germany and can’t be easily fitted into such a framework. The final (ironic) reason why the NF shouldn’t be labelled Strasserite without qualification is the fact that the key political theorist, Nick Griffin, had a view that owed far more to residues of a Hitlerian (or even Leninist/Jacobin!) mind-set — waiting for the collapse and then ‘seizing opportunities’– than to Strasser.(43)

What you had then, was a coalition, with a wide range of inputs into strategy (including Strasserism), no one view predominating, with ultimate incompatibles co-existing. This does not mean there was no strategy, nor even that such syncretism was necessarily doomed to fail — the success of the ultimate opportunists Hitler and Lenin are proof of that — but to pin it down as emanating from any one ideological strand is inappropriate.(44) The NF’s consciously articulated racist ideology, nationalism, support for nuclear weapons and adherence to conspiracy theories rules out any strategy of being ‘leftist’.

The NF at the start of 1986 — a balance sheet

In the period immediately preceding the outbreak of civil war within the NF in 1986, there was a taking stock by elements inside, outside, and opposed to, the NF. The most tangible definitions of strategic goals were those provided by Joe Pearce: his ideas were later incorporated into a ‘5 Year Plan’ in 1980, whose progress he reviewed in June 1985, and these form a useful framework for initial evaluation. Overall, he was quite optimistic, believing that the first aspect, membership education, had been accomplished, leading to activists getting a ‘thorough-going understanding of Nationalist ideology’.(45) However, many members had (not) been on the ‘Training Seminars’, which were, in any case, primarily aimed at younger members. This created something of a gulf in the party between many younger, ideologically committed elements (often with responsibilities at branch and national level), and older less ‘intellectual’ members. Indeed, the very novelty of many of the ideas explored — Codreanou, Evola and so on — were incomprehensible to some, and such incomprehension turned in some cases to hostility and derision.(46)

The influence of Fiore and his associates, raised by Webster as a problem in 1983, never really went away as an issue(47), pointing to something not foreseen by the NF when they undertook a programme of ‘ideological development’: there were no agreed criteria for determining what the content of the ideology should be, and no leader to police such boundaries.(48) Indeed, in reaction to Tyndall and Webster, couching things in terms of the ‘Leader Principle’ was very much out of fashion.(49) Dissent wasn’t just about the sources of ideology — but its practical outcomes, whether in Northern Ireland or in more general terms of how the NF was to see itself and be seen as respectable reformists or revolutionaries? Although the issue of race was at the back of all debates, while some felt the NF would only ever get anywhere by stressing racism, others felt that the electoral debacle of 1979 had clearly shown that racism was not enough. (50)

Looking at the second point of the 5 Year Plan, making the ‘public aware of the very wide range’ of NF policies, Pearce was right to say strong efforts had been made in this area. But as we have seen, NF attempts to get credibility by having previously hostile sectors work consciously alongside the NF as an organisation had failed. It wasn’t just due to the ‘media’: at the start of 1986 in some cases the media were taking note of new NF policies.(51) Another reason was that many NF members weren’t themselves actually interested in such policies, preferring instead concentration on the ‘key issues’ of race, law and order, and Europe. This would explain why the turn-out for say, the ritual slaughter march, was so poor: the ‘ideological struggle’ hadn’t even been won within the NF; or rather, had been won too easily.

Some of the activities the NF engaged in, like ‘Instant Response Units’, were calculated to increase public awareness of the NF — but in a way that hardly appealed to new constituencies, and seemed to leftist observers to be nascent stormtroops. Set against that, the NF had developed an impressive range of propaganda tools: NF News had increased sales, and was certainly no worse presentation or content-wise than it had been under Webster; Nationalism Today was increasingly regular and professional in appearance; and there was a proven ability (post-Heysel) to rush out masses of leaflets on particular topics. On the propaganda debit side, New Dawn had in no way replaced Bulldog, and was only to struggle on for a mere three issues.

The third point in the 5 Year Plan, ‘sinking roots in local communities’, hadn’t been accomplished by the end of 1985, all agreed, despite the increasing numbers of local ‘Patriot’ leaflets. The reasons varied. Many NF members felt themselves isolated, and retreated into a ghetto mentality down the local pub; others preferred to become influential on the national NF stage rather than locally. Another reason must have been the nature of some of the NF’s recruits. While many of the new post-1983 leadership were lower middle-class, ideologically committed types, the NF’s image still attracted others who were merely after a ‘good ruck’ with the ‘Reds’. While the 1985 Constitution may well have denied many such people a big say in policy, when it came to public activities, the NF wasn’t so rigid. The St. George’s Day Pageant in April 1986 degenerated into a drunken brawl, and the 1985 Remembrance Day march invitation, published in the Member’s Bulletin, called not only for attendance by every member, but the encouragement of ‘friends, family and other patriots to come too‘ (emphasis added).(52)

In 1985 Pearce acknowledged that he had underestimated the significance of finances.(53) In a letter to the by then imprisoned Pearce in January 1986, Derek Holland saw it as a noteworthy achievement that its HQ at Croydon was ‘now fully up to date on the rent…. I am fully confident that by the time you are released the office will be on a financially even keel’.(54) Nick Griffin was of the view that if it hadn’t been for harsh reorganisation in the winter of 1985, ‘we would have been about to go bankrupt once the money from the subscription renewal rush had been frittered away.'(55)

Counting heads

There are criteria of success other than those offered by Pearce. The first one is that of numbers of members, difficult to calculate as official figures were never published. In late 1979, the number of members was disclosed by Andrew Fountaine as being 5,500, and this is an important bench-mark.(56) The usual public source for the later period is figures provided by Searchlight. According to Gerry Gable, the membership was intentionally run down to ‘just under 1,000 in early 1984.’ (57) Further Searchlight-derived figures quoted by Thurlow put the numbers at 3,148 in October 1985 (58) and Gable himself put the numbers at the end of 1984 as ‘around 30,000’. (59) These figures themselves would be fairly respectable, showing only a slight haemorrhage of support (mirrored by poor election results in 1983), but I have difficulty in taking them too seriously. For a start, in January 1985 the magazine saw the Front as having ‘only 1000 members in total.’ (60) In any event, by the start of 1986, outside observers agreed the NF’s membership had dramatically increased over the previous twelve months – ranging from 2,500 (Anti-Fascist Action) to 3,000 (Time Out/Searchlight).(61)

The two other more accessible ways of ascertaining membership figures are attendance at AGMs and marches, and the group’s own figures, which are always useful to indicate trends, if not necessarily accurate. Here the record of new membership was mixed. We have alread seen that the 1985 Remembrance Day attendance, at 1,500, was the highest of the 1980s. However turnout for other marches was hardly spectacular. Using the NF’s own estimates, the best other total for the ‘coalition’ regime was the April St. George’s Day 400. (62) The two General Meetings held in 1985 saw 300 members present, this a decline of 50 from 1984, itself a drop of about 50 from 1983. (63)

For an extra-parliamentary fascist grouping, more important than absolute numbers on marches is the ability to gain control of the streets. Here, the NF were under some pressure. In Stockport, November 1985, the NF received a great fright. In Griffin’s words the few NF members present were ‘besieged’ by a ‘murderous mob’, and seem to have left under heavy police guard. (64) Anti-Fascist Action, formed in 1985, characterised that year as one of increasing racist violence, ‘although not all of it can be attributed to the NF’, (65) and this led AFA to mount for the first time a counter-demonstration to the NF’s Remembrance Day parade. Such activity worried the NF, and their response was to call on units to ‘collect every scrap of information about AFA’ and ‘pick a reliable but little known member to join your local AFA group if one is set up and collect as much information on them as possible.’ (66) They also decided to drop the St. George’s Day march and replace it by a pageant, politically (and even culturally) understandable in principle, but nevertheless capable of being interpreted as a sign of hesitancy about holding marches (as opposed to counter demonstrations – e.g. the 400 plus present at the anti-Republican activity in January). (67) The NF also felt itself under pressure from the police, and exhortations to burn back copies of various publications were repeated and affixing photographs to Voting members cards introduced. (68) The question of to what extent the national leadership should take responsibility for the contents of publications sold by activists liable to prosecution under the Race Relations Act was still open.

Opposition from the state on one hand, and anti-fascists on the other, was very much par for the course, and in themselves could even be seen as indicators of growing influence. Increased membership and a profusion of policy initiatives could have been factors cheering the NF leadership at the start of 1986. However, storm-clouds were already on the internal horizon. Pearce was absent, (69) and the abrupt removal of Ian Anderson as Chairman by the Directorate in December 1985 was the opening shot in a fratricidal and ultimately suicidal civil war. For the moment, the leadership were gearing up to focus their efforts on Ulster, where according to Griffin, ‘events have opened up a massive gap in the State’s defences, now it is up to us to concentrate our efforts on this one weak point in order to achieve a real breakthrough. After years on the defensive, we must now move on to a political attack’. (70)

The decentralisation that took effect at the start of 1986, with NF News and publicity material coming from Worthing, finance dealt with at Norwich, and the bookshop continuing at Pawson’s Road, Croydon (71) not only caused some inconvenience, but provided future opposing factions with ready-made organisational bases. Such was the state of the largest fascist grouping, the NF, in early 1986.

The British National Party — outside contenders

While all this ferment was going on inside the NF, the BNP leadership tried to continue with the strategy that John Tyndall had tried earlier with the NF, standing in elections and holding marches. The problems however, included much reduced numbers, a lack of a national profile, and the fact that with the absence of even the pretence of democracy, sophisticated younger members were far more likely to remain in the NF. The lesson Tyndall had learnt from being outmanoeuvred in the NF was that to prevent dissension, all power had to be centralised in his hands, and only devolved to people he trusted. Thus, according to the Constitution his role was defined as responsibility for overall direction of the party, making of policy, formulating (most) of the Constitution, determining all party organisational structures and appointing all officers.

At the start of 1984, the BNP admitted to their own members that due to the ‘limited successes of all Nationalist organisations, and not just the BNP, in mobilising numbers of activists for marches over the past 2 or 3 years….. a lesser priority will be placed on marches as a party activity’. Elections were to be generally avoided due to lack of resources and poor returns.(72) The emphasis on rallies rather than marches and standing in few elections continued throughout 1985, although in one council election (Bradford) the BNP achieved 4.1% of the poll. (73)

Another means of preventing dissent was keeping tight control over younger elements in the party. Thus, trusted figures such as Richard Edmonds were put in charge of ‘youth’ organisations (74) and initiatives such as ‘Rock Against Communism’ were viewed with great suspicion. (75)

Given the lack of discussion, the importance of BNP policies cannot clearly have been too great, but they were at least fairly distinctive as compared to the NFs ‘radical’ turn. The 1983 Manifesto, while proposing corporatist state restrictions, was in no doubt that ‘we Nationalists recognise the private enterprise system, with all its faults, to be the system which has provided the vital dynamic for the economic development of Britain and the Western world’. (76) As for the ‘class struggle’, the BNP’s means of resolution was to ‘amalgamate all trade unions….. and all employers associations into a single national body.’ (77) To take one last policy example, only 12 lines in a manifesto of 23 pages were devoted to the environment, and while there were calls to capitalise on this issue after the General Election, (78) nothing was done save for attempts at using the ‘ritual slaughter’ issue in Bradford in 1984. On a local level, there were attempts to set up ‘Community Defence Patrols’ to gain publicity, but little substantial seemed to result.

The most important BNP political initiative in this period was the incessant (if unimaginative) appeals for ‘Nationalist Unity’. What this meant in practice was everybody else joining the BNP, and although joint meetings to discuss such unity were held (e.g. London, May 1985) they didn’t come to much as there was too little common ground. (79) In any case much of the NF leadership were not in the BNP precisely because they knew they would have no influence in a Tyndall-run party. Nevertheless, trenchant criticism of the NF was clearly viewed sympathetically by some on the far right, and by holding its ground, the BNP stayed in existence, hoping to gain from splits in the NF, but too small to influence it.

According to their own figures the BNP had a turnout of 250-300 for the 1983 Annual Rally,(80) but a more typical indication of their relative weakness compared to the NF was the attendance of only 70 at their 1985 Remembrance Day activity in York.(81)

While Tyndall himself set his face firmly against political violence as a strategy, others were not so sure.(82) The lack of numbers and even street marches led to some members becoming politically frustrated. Tony Lecomber, for example, BNP Youth Officer, was arrested in late 1985 when a nail-bomb he was carrying exploded. Speaking of the episode recently, he said that ‘because the device went off prematurely…. it was not as powerful as it would of been a little later. It was said at the time I was planning to blow up the headquarters of the Workers Revolutionary Party…. but the prosecution dropped that suggestion due to lack of proof.’ (83)

By the start of 1986, the BNP were, like the NF, under pressure from the courts, which was to result in both Tyndall and John Morse (editor of their paper British Nationalist) receiving jail sentences for racially inflammatory propaganda. Nevertheless, the decision was taken in principle at the start of 1986 to put up candidates in the next local and General Elections, though it still wasn’t felt wise to hold any march other than one for Remembrance Day in York.(84) Behind the scenes, links were being made between the BNP and disaffected Tories that were shortly to bear fruit, but overall the BNP was content to await changes in the fortunes of their rivals on the right.

In retrospect, the simplicity of the BNP’s strategy, and the appeal it must have had for those on the far right fed up with factionalising, were plus points. However, such a strategy was unlikely to ever win substantially new sectors to the fascist cause, especially when behind the scenes the Jews were still seen as malevolent presences, whether in the guise of finance capital or multi-racialists, or the more straightforward descriptions from time to time of the ‘real enemy, International Jewish finance’.(85)

Other developments

After Michael McLaughlin wound up the British Movement in 1983, elements of the Leaderguard refused to accept this, and in 1984 got together in their own words to ‘rebuild and restructure the Movement’, and at the 1985 AGM ‘established a new structure; low profile reorganisation; fund-raising…. and clarifying the Movement’s ideology’ and renamed themselves the British National Socialist Movement.(86) A small active membership, combined with a multiplicity of ex-members and no national publication (as opposed to sporadic local offerings), contributed much to the continuing mythology of the BM, and rumours of ‘clandestine’ activities, that have to date been little supported by evidence.

Webster’s short-lived enterprise, Our Nation, started after he was finally expelled from the NF on 13 January 1985, appealed to the same ‘patriotic’ respectable racists as those flirting with the BNP and/or Western Goals UK (which was founded May 1985) but never amounted to much.(87)

More serious attempts to win the ideological ‘war of position’ for the far right were the ongoing projects of Richard Lawson and Michael Walker. In 1984 Lawson and others such as Paul Deacon founded IONA (Islands of the North Atlantic), devoted to an attack on the ‘American Way of Life….. mass consumer culture’. Counterposed to ‘this spiritual death’ they favoured a ‘renaissance of the ethnic cultures of Europe’. (88) While their activities — publishing poetry, visiting exhibitions and beauty-spots etc. — were intentionally little-publicised, they were nevertheless important in terms of seeking to influence agenda-setters. Michael Walker’s occasional magazine, The Scorpion, devoted an issue to the ‘American phenomenon’, seeking to conduct the debate on a higher plane, asserting (against crude chauvinism) that ‘in fighting America we are fighting what is in fact a part of ourselves’.(89)

In conclusion

At the start of 1986 therefore, the far right was in a state of flux. There was apparent unity within the NF, and a slowly increasing membership, but the ‘hearts and minds’ of many within the NF let alone those without, hadn’t been won to the new change of course. If the NF was small, the BNP and other groups were even smaller, and even less able to impose their presence in a consistent way. The highly-effective crushing of the miners’ strike, and the failure to make much political headway after the riots of late 1985, or even significantly control the streets, illustrated the powerful physical and ideological reserves at the disposal of the Thatcher regime.(90) So, in a variety of ways, those anticipating a breakthrough by organised fascism were few and far between. The ‘coalition regime’ in the NF itself wasn’t to last long enough to even begin to prove the proposition that they might have been able to make meaningful political headway.

Notes

1. See Spearhead issues 180, October 1983, ‘The Divisive Wedge’ p. 4; 184, February 1984, ‘The So-Called Ideological Split’, pp. 9-10; 206, December 1985, ‘The Chaotic Mind of Otto Strasser’, pp. 8-11 (‘Chaotic’ as compared to that epitome of coherent thought, Adolf Hitler, in case you were wondering.)
2. Nationalism Today (NT) 23, July-August 1984, p. 15. The earlier approach was outlined in NT 20, March 1984, p. 15.
3. Ibid. p. 15.
4. NT, 25, November, 1984, p. 19.
5. New Nation 5, Spring 1984, p. 9. This shouldn’t be confused with sympathy on his part for socialism of any sort, and he wrote (with Tom Acton) an aggrieved letter complaining about a back-page article in NT which had sought to counterpose ‘Socialists Against Communism’ (in NT 23, July 1984, p. 20). See also Dave Shedden ‘Socialism or Social Justice’, NT 38, April 1986, p. 16.
6. Guardian 18 October, 1985. Interestingly, this allegation against Class War was retailed in the course of a retraction of Rose’s comment two weeks earlier that CW was ‘run by former leading figures in the NF’ (Guardian 30 September 1985).
7. See e.g. Bulldog 38, May 1984, p. 4
8. As did the author.
9. As well as the police more directly in Class War’s opinion — see Class War, October 1985, p. 6.
10. Statement dated May 1986, p. 3.
11. See the churlish admission of this in the Guardian (not by Rose) 4 June, 1986. The baselessness of the allegations and the precise way they fitted into a police agenda, raises far more questions about the originators than Class War.
12. NF News 56, May 1984, p. 3.
13. Reported in Searchlight 114, December 1984 pp. 4-5. As yet, I haven’t investigated this matter, so am unable to confirm or deny the truth of this.
14. See Organisers Bulletin 4, June 1985, no. 11, pp. 1-2; NF News 68, July 1985 p. 1; Nationalism Today 31, July 1985, p. 19; NF News 69, August 1985 p. 2. NF members were convicted of hooliganism at other matches (e.g. Blackburn 1986), and in various grounds there has been a residue of NF support continuing to this day — for example ‘Chelsea Headhunters’.
15. Tom Acton interview 27 October, 1992. He also said the infamous ‘League of Louts’ in which football grounds were ranked according to the degree of voluble racism, started life as a parody of a Sun article.
16. ‘The Bulldog Breed’, NT 41, October 1987, pp.25-6.
17. Time Out, 14 October 1987.
18. Ibid. Tom Acton has said that sales peaked atnear 10,000 (interview 27 October, 1992).
19. Interview, 27 October, 1992.
20. On the subject of ‘youth’, little sophisticated significance can be attached to the various ‘Rock Against Communism’ gigs played by NF-linked bands, although the ‘Anti-Drugs’ campaign launched July 1985 had rather more salience. It is just as well the publicity for the Campaign only featured needles for the injection of hard drugs. HQ worker Roger Denny was found to be in possession of a small quantity of cannabis after one rally. See Newham Recorder, 5 December, 1985.
21. See NT 31, July 1985, pp. 12-13.
22. E.g. ‘MNR — the Real Nationalism’ in NT 31, July 1985, p. 10.
23. See NT 36, February 1986, p. 17.
24. ‘Petition’ 8 July, 1984, pp. 6-7. Derek Holland wrote an enthusiastic article on ‘Trans National Revolution’ for NT 21 April, 1984, p. 12.
25. The contention in Searchlight 112, October 1984 p. 4, that it was Gallo and other Americans who determined the NF’s strategy is rather far-fetched, and more likely to be an inversion of the truth. See for example the piece by Gerry Gable, ‘The Far Right in Contemporary Britain’ in L. Cheles ed. Neo-Fascism in Europe, (Longman, London, 1991) p. 250. Readers might care to contrast his account of the NF in this period, including the description of Webster’s downfall, with the one in this article. The argument concerning Gallo will be examined at a future date as it more properly concerns the politics of the ‘political soldier’ NF after 1986.
26. 1985 Constitution page 2, Section 3.4 Other decisions included the election dismissal of Party Chairmen by the Directorate alone (Section 4.4, pp. 2-3), and a stipulation that candidates for Directorate elections had to have four years unbroken membership prior to the event (Section 5.3, p. 4).
27. NT 32, August 1985, p. 21. See also Ian Anderson, ‘A Constitution For The Future’ in NT 28, April 1985, p. 9.
28. Rising 5, Summer 1985. p. 2.
29. Published by the Nationalist Education Group, Croydon, 1984 p. 6. I include Nazism as an inspiration because although Holland doesn’t mention the creed, his mentor Evola quite clearly based his call for Legionnaires in revolt against the modern world partly on the Waffen SS. See Franco Ferraresi, ‘Julius Evola: Tradition, Reaction and the Radical Right’, in Archives Europeennes de Socologie 28, 1987, pp. 107-51. Another bench-mark contained in the 1985 Constitution was a programmatic one. For the first time, a commitment to Distributism was enshrined in such a document: page 1 Section 2.2.
30. What annoyed the Ulster Loyalists so much about the Anglo-Irish Agreement was the ceding (in principle) of a part of that which they felt to be indivisible — sovereignty. The late Ulster Unionist politician Harold McCusker said that Ulster was on the ‘window-ledge of the Union’. That the concessions and power given to the Eire government were largely symbolic did nothing to dissipate the sense of betrayal.
31. David Kerr interview, 31 October, 1992.
32. Martin Wingfield wasn’t an opposing speaker as Griffin later stated in the pamphlet Attempted Murde r, p. 28. He was in jail at the time.
33. See NT 37, March 1986, pp. 2, 12-13 and NT 38, April 1986, pp. 8-9. Prior to this there had been little debate on ‘independence’ within NF circles (David Kerr interview 31 October, 1992) — confirmed by the fact that no issues of Kerr’s magazine Ulster Sentinel (series 2) prior to the post-Hillsborough issue 5 even mentioned the topic, and the lack of mention of it in the interview of David Kerr by Joe Pearce in NT 25, November 1984, p. 9.
34. NT 38, p. 13. The uncharitable regarded this policy as a flight of fancy on his part, spurred by megalomaniacal pretensions, if not more sinister motives. I doubt that, and in any case, such an explanation doesn’t begin to take account of how he won over someone like Brady to support him in November 1985.
35. E.g. Joe Pearce, ‘The Meaning of Nationalism’ in NT 25, November 1984, p. 18, and Andrew Brons in New Nation 6, Winter 1984, p. 2.
36. In the programme printed on the back page of NF News 56, May 1984, with much the same thing finding its way into the ‘Statement of Principles’ contained in the 1985 Constitution.
37. Issue 70, September 1985, editorial p. 2, emphasis added.
38. Quoted in the Guardian, 15 May, 1986.
39. Joe Pearce’s Fight for Freedom (Nationalist Books, Croydon. 1984) was a classically Strasserite document.
40. Rising 1, 1982. p. 10. A superficial similarity to Strasserism on the part of the ‘political soldiers’ concealed fundamental antagonisms. One of the most startling of these was that true Evolians cannot, in fact, be nationalists — Evola wanted the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire — and the later policy commitments by the Official NF to ‘break up’ the United Kingdom can be seen as a logical set of outcomes given their essentially rootless ideology.
41. I cannot possibly prove this in detail here, but if it is true, it would explain why it has always been that ‘Strasserites’ have failed, and erstwhile adherents moved to the right. It never was a coherent ideology or alternative strategy to Hitler’s, and thus any attempts to combine it with a ‘democratised’ inner-party regime must inevitably end up in tears. And yet to adopt a Strasserite posture in a dictatorial organisation is to negate it too… The very partiality of Strasserism explains why believers like Brady and Pearce were forced to coalesce with others (like Holland) who did have a more encompassing world view (incorporating Evola, Codreanou, Darre and, later on, Qadhafi), and why indeed the Flag NF (and even more the political soldier NF) were able to so quickly slough off Strasserite ideological remnants after 1986.
42. See, in particular, on this Andrew Brons ‘The Roots of British Nationalism’ (pp. 14-15), and Alan Dale’s ‘The Case for an Ethnic Culture’ (p. 9), both in the ‘Visionary’ issue of NT, no. 26, February 1985. Indeed the whole magazine is worth reading in this light. So, when Joe Pearce said that ‘because we are a nationalist organisation…. we believe in the British nation and so we try to derive as many of our roots as possible from the English intellectual tradition’ (Time Out, 23 January, 1986, p. 13), there is no need to disbelieve him — although his opinions are only part of the whole story. As Marx might have said, ideologists do make ideology, but not in circumstances and using material entirely of their own choosing.
43. See NT 31, ‘Understanding the Nature of Power’ p. 22, and Pearce’s acknowledgement of Griffin’s role here in NT 30, June 1985 p. 10.
44. Gary Gallo was probably near the mark (allowing for flattery) when he wrote in 1985 that ‘I quite frankly do not understand how the NF leadership operates. Too much time seems to be wasted, and yet so much gets done…. most of the really important strategy decisions are made in pubs, yet the decisions are quite sound…. These men are so imaginative that the biggest problem seems to be assigning priorities to the large number of ideas they come up with, all of which appear to be very important to the development of the movement’. ‘First Impressions’, in NT 30, June 1985, p. 8.
45. NT 30 June 1985, p. 10.
46. For example in Steve Brady’s letter to Joe Pearce 3 February, 1986, which contains some of the first drafts of what were later to be highly-publicised (after the 1986 split) attacks on ‘Captain Codfish’ and the like.
47. See Brady op. cit. p. 6.
48. A situation compounded by the call of Griffin to ‘place much more emphasis on the ”irrational” aspect of our movement’ — New Nation 7, Summer 1985, Editorial p. 2. He meant drama, poetry etc., but the point still stands.
49. Another difference from orthodox Nazism, but then I don’t think the NF as a whole, even at this time, can be defined as ‘Nazi’ (as opposed to having Nazi elements/traces in their ideology). Contrary to the imaginings of Searchlight, there was no key ‘fixer’ behind the scenes giving orders of an ideological or operational nature. Nick Griffin’s letter to Joe Pearce of 14 March, 1986 indicates that Richard Lawson, while much respected, wasn’t involved in either sense (p. 9). Those who want to maintain (like Searchlight) that he and Michael Walker were guiding the NF (as opposed to influencing important figures within, on the basis of the nature of their ideas) have to produce some evidence — a highly unlikely prospect. Gable’s comments in the book edited by Cheles (op. cit.), where he might have been expected to elaborate on the theses of his magazine, are almost laughable. He only grants Strasser, Evola and Belloc the status of being ‘quasi-ideological’ (p. 256), and then seeks to explain the origins of the NF’s ‘master plan’ by reference to a letter from Tyndall (who’d left the NF in 1980!) to a U.S. Nazi in 1967, and The Turner Diaries written by the same Nazi, William Pierce in 1979 (pp. 256-7), which has allegedly ‘become the Mein Kampf of the 1980s’ (p. 258). This assertion, and the associated fantasies about the role of Colin Jordan are so wide of the mark as to be verging on intentional disinformation. Webster, pouting on the sidelines, was perhaps unconsciously projecting his own concerns when he said of the NF in early 1986 that the ‘development they are involved in is not ideological at all but psychological. They are feeling besieged, unloved and worn down by ardent hostility…. They want to be loved.’ (Time Out, 23 January, 1986, p. 13).
50. It is this point which is crucial, and explains more than anything else just why so many ideological ‘experiments’ were undertaken. The traditional academic view, which just ‘writes off’ the NF around 1978-9 is thus very remiss. I hope this article and its predecessors will galvanise other academics into studying the subject properly. Speaking of inadequate treatments, the recent pamphlet by Ross Bradshaw, Germany Calling — A Short History of British Fascism (Mushroom, Nottingham, 1993) is an absolute classic. By its title it seeks to reduce even Mosley (pictured on the front) to a mouthpiece for Hitler, and inside it gets even worse. We are told for instance that fascists believe ‘there has to be one leader’ (p. 4) which would (wrongly) exempt Third Positionists from the label. The author says absolutely nothing about the 1986 split, and the co-existence of two National Fronts for three years. He is not aware of the existence of the International Third Position or Third Way (even less the English Nationalist Movement) and still seems to think that Western Gaols is still functioning. The pamphlet is glowingly introduced by the Searchlight associate and ‘psychiatric consultant’ Professor Michael Billig and Bradshaw himself relies exclusively on Searchlight’ s ‘analysis’. This is just the sort of slip-shod work on the far right that my research aims to supercede with proper scholarship, and there really is no excuse other than laziness for it — a laziness that is inexcusable given the serious nature of the subject matter and current fascist threat.
51. See in particular the series of Yorkshire Post articles 17-19 February, 1986, which created a furore within the party and without. The NF view was contained in NT 38, April 1986, pp. 12-13 and the letter by Andrew Brons to the paper, 27 February 1986.
52. 1985 (4) p. 2, emphasis added.
53. Nationalism Today (NT) 30, June 1985, p. 10.
54. Dated 21 January, 1986, p. 1.
55. Letter to Joe Pearce 14 March, 1986, p. 7. These two statements are more creditable than things said later (by both sides) about the NFs finances during the 1986 split, and inasmuch as both were written to Pearce, an important figure whom both then saw as an ally, hardly likely to have been deliberate disinformation. Searchlight in their ‘start of year’ review for January 1986 said with their customary accuracy that the ‘Front has not had any real problems over money’. (issue 127 p. 5).
56. Guardian, 30 November, 1979.
57. Gable op. cit. p. 253
58. P. 290 op. cit.
59. Op. cit. p. 253 These two figures for the same year can be reconciled, by reference to the cycle of NF membership renewals. Basically, although it was seen as desirable for members to renew in January of each year, the customary practice was for many members to renew in a trickle throughout the year, with a big rush just before the AGM usually held in November. Which makes talk of the leadership ‘running down’ the figures intentionally, somewhat disingenuous factually, if politically fair comment!
60. Searchlight 115, p. 4, a figure repeated in Time Out, 23 January, 1986 and The Times, 11 April, 1985. Searchlight might say they deliberately underestimated numbers as part of a conscious attempt to undermine the NF. In which case we are entitled to raise the question of how many (if any) of their estimates are to be taken seriously, something academics like Thurlow should also have thought about before uncritically repeating them as fact.
61. AFA Bulletin, January 1986, p. 3, Time Out, 23 January, 1986 p. 11, Searchlight 127, p. 5.
62. NF News 67, June 1985, p. 8.
63. See respectively, in reverse date order, NF News 69, August 1985, p. 3; NF News 62, January 1985, p. 6; NF News 51, November 1983, p. 4].
64. Letter to Joe Pearce 14 March, 1986 p. 2, sentiments repeated by him in the Organisers Bulletin for 25 April 1986, where it was said that the ‘low turn-out at Stockport… could easily have led to our people being killed‘ (p. 2). See also Manchester Evening News, 18 November 1985, Daily Telegraph, 19 November 1985 and AFA Bulletin, January 1986 p. 2.
65. AFA Bulletin, January 1986, p. 1.
66. Organisers Bulletin, January 1986, p. 3.
67. Yorkshire Post, 18 February 1986.
68. Organisers Bulletin, January 1986, p. 3. On the subject of photographs, a better way of Special Branch/MI5 ascertaining just exactly what every key NF activist (as opposed to paper member) looked like could hardly have been devised. It really speaks of extraordinary incompetence when it is recalled these applications were to be sent through the post — and the later allegations by Griffin and co. that the Post Office had at SB/MI5’s behest sabotaged membership renewals, if taken as true, would hypothetically point to many such photographs ending up in state files instead of HQ.
69. Quite possibly jailed by the state in order to ‘take out’ this dangerously charismatic figure at a crucial time. This consideration would have nothing to do with guilt or innocence.
70. Organisers Bulletin, (1) April 1986, p. 3. By the time of the 25 April Organisers Bulletin, Griffin was deploring the fact that notwithstanding individual donations ‘Not one unit has yet sent in a payment as requested in the last bulletin to finance the Ulster activities’ (p. 3), an eventuality that two weeks later, in Belfast, he was to interpret in a sinister light.
71. NF Member’s Bulletin, 1986 (1) p. 1.
72. It was promised that with changing circumstances — i.e. more numbers — they would be reinstated. BNP Member’s Bulletin, February 1984, pp. 2-3.
73. Member’s Bulletin, October 1985, pp. 1-2.
74. For example, he was the first editor of Young Nationalist whose first editorial in 1982 ended with the stirring words, ‘Let it be made clear here and now that this paper is dedicated to the British destiny as believed in by the founder and Leader of the New NF, John Tyndall. WITH HIS VICTORY SHALL COME OURS!’ (p. 2)
75. See Tyndall’s later comments in ‘The Music of Revolution and Counter-revolution’ in Spearhead 231, May 1988, pp 4-5 and 20.
76. ‘Vote for Britain’ p. 11.
77. Ibid. p. 11.
78. See e.g. Steven Partridge, ‘Conserving Our Environment’ in British Nationalist 32, October 1983, pp. 3-4.
79. This was something the BNP found difficult to accept at times. See Tyndall in Spearhead 200, June 1985, pp. 14 and Stanley Clayton-Garnett ‘The Relative Positions of Nationalism 1985’, in Spearhead 201, July 1985, pp. 6-9.
80. Member’s Bulletin, February 1984, p. 1.
81. Racism and Fascism in Leeds and West Yorkshire, Leeds AFA, 1987.
82. See Kelvin McAndrew, ‘When Force is Right’ in Spearhead 181, November 1983 pp. 14-5 and 20.
83. Interview in Thor-Would, 5 March, 1993, p. 8.
84. Members Bulletin April 1986, p. 1. York, of course, was picked because it was in 1190 the site of a notorious anti-Jewish pogrom.
85. Target, Leeds BNP, April 1984, p. 5. Richard Edmonds, Tyndall’s no. 2, was equally forthright in his praise of Hitler and criticism of Jews. See Time Out, 23 January 1986, p. 13.
86. Broadsword 1, 1991, p. 4
87. Like Irving’s failed ‘Focal Point’ before him, Webster sought to attract ‘young men and women who are bound for or at university because these are the people who are destined to exercise power’. Guardian, 30 July 1985. On Western Goals UK see Mike Hughes’ article in Lobster 21.
88. Statement of policy, n.d..
89. Issue 7, Summer 1984, p. 2.
90. See Griffin’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek ‘Open letter to Blacks in Britain’ in NT 35, November-December 1985, p. 15.