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National Front (UK)
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National Front (UK)
The National Front (NF) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is currently led by Tony Martin. A minor party, it has never had its representatives elected to the British or European Parliaments, although it gained a small number of local councillors through defections and it has had a few of its representatives elected to community councils. Founded in 1967, it reached the height of its electoral support during the mid-1970s, when it was briefly England's fourth-largest party in terms of vote share.
The NF was founded by A. K. Chesterton, formerly of the British Union of Fascists, as a merger between his League of Empire Loyalists and the British National Party. It was soon joined by the Greater Britain Movement, whose leader John Tyndall became the Front's chairman in 1972. Under Tyndall's leadership it capitalised on growing concern about South Asian migration to Britain, rapidly increasing its membership and vote share in the urban areas of east London and northern England. Its public profile was raised through street marches and rallies, which often resulted in violent clashes with anti-fascist protesters, most notably the 1974 Red Lion Square disorders and the 1977 Battle of Lewisham. In 1982, Tyndall left the National Front to form a new British National Party (BNP). Many NF members defected to Tyndall's BNP, contributing to a substantial decline in the Front's electoral support. During the 1980s, the NF split in two; the Flag NF retained the older ideology, while the Official NF adopted a Third Positionist stance before disbanding in 1990. In 1995, the Flag NF's leadership transformed the party into the National Democrats, although a small splinter group retained the NF name.
Ideologically positioned on the extreme right or far-right of British politics, the NF has been characterised as fascist or neo-fascist by political scientists. Different factions have dominated the party at different times, each with its own ideological bent, including neo-Nazis, Strasserites and racial populists. The party espouses the ethnic nationalist view that only white people should be citizens of the United Kingdom. The NF calls for an end to non-white migration into the UK and for settled non-white Britons to be stripped of their citizenship and deported. A white supremacist party, it promotes biological racism and the white genocide conspiracy theory, calling for global racial separatism and condemning interracial relationships and miscegenation. It espouses anti-semitic conspiracy theories, endorsing Holocaust denial and claiming that Jews dominate the world through both communism and finance capitalism. It promotes economic protectionism, hard Euroscepticism and a transformation away from liberal democracy, while its social policies oppose feminism, LGBT rights and societal permissiveness.
After the BNP, the NF has been the most successful far-right group in British politics since the Second World War. During its history, it has established sub-groups such as a trade unionist association, a youth group and the Rock Against Communism musical organisation. Only whites are permitted membership of the party, and in its heyday most of its support came from white British working-class and lower middle-class communities in northern England and east London. The NF has generated vocal opposition from left-wing and anti-fascist groups throughout its history, and NF members are prohibited from various professions.
The National Front began as a coalition of small far-right groups active on the fringes of British politics during the 1960s. The resolve to unite them came in early 1966 from A. K. Chesterton, the leader of the League of Empire Loyalists (LEL). He had a long history in the British fascist movement, having been a member of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in the 1930s. Over the following months, many far-rightists visited Chesterton at his Croydon apartment to discuss the proposal, among them Andrew Fountaine and Philip Maxwell of the British National Party (BNP), David Brown of the Racial Preservation Society (RPS), and John Tyndall and Martin Webster of the Greater Britain Movement (GBM). Although everyone agreed with the idea of unification, personal rivalries made the process difficult.
Chesterton agreed to a merger of the LEL and BNP, and a faction of the RPS decided to join them. Chesterton and the BNP agreed that Tyndall's GBM would not be invited to join their new party because of its strong associations with neo-Nazism, as well as the recent arrest of Tyndall and seven other GBM members for illegal weapon possession. Chesterton wanted to keep his new party clear of the crude sloganeering he thought was holding back the far-right's electoral success; he later stated that "the man who thinks this is a war that can be won by mouthing slogans about 'dirty Jews' and 'filthy niggers' is a maniac whose place should not be in the National Front but in a mental hospital."
In October 1966, the LEL and BNP established a working committee to determine what policies they could agree on. The committee's initial policy platform revolved around opposition to Britain's political establishment, anti-communism, support for the white minority governments in Rhodesia and South Africa, a ban on migration into Britain and the expulsion of all settled non-white immigrants. They considered various names for the new party, before settling on "National Front" in December 1966. The National Front (NF) was founded on 7 February 1967, with Chesterton its first chairman. At the time it had approximately 2,500 members, of whom 1,000 were from the BNP, 300 from the LEL and over 100 from the RPS. The historian Richard Thurlow described the NF's formation as "the most significant event on the radical right and fascist fringe of British politics" since the internment of the country's fascists during the Second World War.
The NF's first year was marked by a power struggle between the ex-LEL and ex-BNP factions. The former were unhappy with the behaviour of ex-BNP members, such as their propensity for political chanting, while the ex-BNP faction criticised Chesterton's elitist pretensions. At the invitation of the ex-BNP faction, in June 1967, Tyndall discontinued the GBM and called on its members to join the NF. Despite his own earlier commitment to keep Tyndall out, Chesterton welcomed him into the party. Tyndall's magazine, Spearhead—originally sold as "an organ of National Socialist [i.e. Nazi] opinion in Britain"—dropped its open neo-Nazism and backed the NF, eventually becoming the party's de facto monthly magazine.
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National Front (UK)
The National Front (NF) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is currently led by Tony Martin. A minor party, it has never had its representatives elected to the British or European Parliaments, although it gained a small number of local councillors through defections and it has had a few of its representatives elected to community councils. Founded in 1967, it reached the height of its electoral support during the mid-1970s, when it was briefly England's fourth-largest party in terms of vote share.
The NF was founded by A. K. Chesterton, formerly of the British Union of Fascists, as a merger between his League of Empire Loyalists and the British National Party. It was soon joined by the Greater Britain Movement, whose leader John Tyndall became the Front's chairman in 1972. Under Tyndall's leadership it capitalised on growing concern about South Asian migration to Britain, rapidly increasing its membership and vote share in the urban areas of east London and northern England. Its public profile was raised through street marches and rallies, which often resulted in violent clashes with anti-fascist protesters, most notably the 1974 Red Lion Square disorders and the 1977 Battle of Lewisham. In 1982, Tyndall left the National Front to form a new British National Party (BNP). Many NF members defected to Tyndall's BNP, contributing to a substantial decline in the Front's electoral support. During the 1980s, the NF split in two; the Flag NF retained the older ideology, while the Official NF adopted a Third Positionist stance before disbanding in 1990. In 1995, the Flag NF's leadership transformed the party into the National Democrats, although a small splinter group retained the NF name.
Ideologically positioned on the extreme right or far-right of British politics, the NF has been characterised as fascist or neo-fascist by political scientists. Different factions have dominated the party at different times, each with its own ideological bent, including neo-Nazis, Strasserites and racial populists. The party espouses the ethnic nationalist view that only white people should be citizens of the United Kingdom. The NF calls for an end to non-white migration into the UK and for settled non-white Britons to be stripped of their citizenship and deported. A white supremacist party, it promotes biological racism and the white genocide conspiracy theory, calling for global racial separatism and condemning interracial relationships and miscegenation. It espouses anti-semitic conspiracy theories, endorsing Holocaust denial and claiming that Jews dominate the world through both communism and finance capitalism. It promotes economic protectionism, hard Euroscepticism and a transformation away from liberal democracy, while its social policies oppose feminism, LGBT rights and societal permissiveness.
After the BNP, the NF has been the most successful far-right group in British politics since the Second World War. During its history, it has established sub-groups such as a trade unionist association, a youth group and the Rock Against Communism musical organisation. Only whites are permitted membership of the party, and in its heyday most of its support came from white British working-class and lower middle-class communities in northern England and east London. The NF has generated vocal opposition from left-wing and anti-fascist groups throughout its history, and NF members are prohibited from various professions.
The National Front began as a coalition of small far-right groups active on the fringes of British politics during the 1960s. The resolve to unite them came in early 1966 from A. K. Chesterton, the leader of the League of Empire Loyalists (LEL). He had a long history in the British fascist movement, having been a member of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in the 1930s. Over the following months, many far-rightists visited Chesterton at his Croydon apartment to discuss the proposal, among them Andrew Fountaine and Philip Maxwell of the British National Party (BNP), David Brown of the Racial Preservation Society (RPS), and John Tyndall and Martin Webster of the Greater Britain Movement (GBM). Although everyone agreed with the idea of unification, personal rivalries made the process difficult.
Chesterton agreed to a merger of the LEL and BNP, and a faction of the RPS decided to join them. Chesterton and the BNP agreed that Tyndall's GBM would not be invited to join their new party because of its strong associations with neo-Nazism, as well as the recent arrest of Tyndall and seven other GBM members for illegal weapon possession. Chesterton wanted to keep his new party clear of the crude sloganeering he thought was holding back the far-right's electoral success; he later stated that "the man who thinks this is a war that can be won by mouthing slogans about 'dirty Jews' and 'filthy niggers' is a maniac whose place should not be in the National Front but in a mental hospital."
In October 1966, the LEL and BNP established a working committee to determine what policies they could agree on. The committee's initial policy platform revolved around opposition to Britain's political establishment, anti-communism, support for the white minority governments in Rhodesia and South Africa, a ban on migration into Britain and the expulsion of all settled non-white immigrants. They considered various names for the new party, before settling on "National Front" in December 1966. The National Front (NF) was founded on 7 February 1967, with Chesterton its first chairman. At the time it had approximately 2,500 members, of whom 1,000 were from the BNP, 300 from the LEL and over 100 from the RPS. The historian Richard Thurlow described the NF's formation as "the most significant event on the radical right and fascist fringe of British politics" since the internment of the country's fascists during the Second World War.
The NF's first year was marked by a power struggle between the ex-LEL and ex-BNP factions. The former were unhappy with the behaviour of ex-BNP members, such as their propensity for political chanting, while the ex-BNP faction criticised Chesterton's elitist pretensions. At the invitation of the ex-BNP faction, in June 1967, Tyndall discontinued the GBM and called on its members to join the NF. Despite his own earlier commitment to keep Tyndall out, Chesterton welcomed him into the party. Tyndall's magazine, Spearhead—originally sold as "an organ of National Socialist [i.e. Nazi] opinion in Britain"—dropped its open neo-Nazism and backed the NF, eventually becoming the party's de facto monthly magazine.
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