An outline history of the british national party and its leaders

This history is not meant to be a detailed survey and is provided as a background to discussion concerning the need for Reform of the British National Party.



Précis. It is asserted that the reason for the poor growth of the Nationalist Movement, and this effectively means the BNP, is that leadership has been poor. What progress that has been made has been primarily due to the efforts of local individuals.

Poor leadership has meant that there is no clear policy and no real possibility of gifted recruits joining.

The structure of the BNP is that of a dictatorship and all officials and candidates are picked to the order of the Party Leader. No-one, who does not have the Party Leader’s approval, can have a chance to influence the Party or stand for it in elections.

This system is exactly as per the main political parties, the so call Lib/Lab/Con parties. The Leaders of these parties are undoubtedly influenced, or indeed directed, by alien powers.

Such a system is seen operating in all the “democratic” countries and quite openly so in the USA.

The Reform Group of the BNP started out with the aim of reforming the Constitution of the BNP, however, we now believe that we should add to our aims by stating, as an integral part of our political philosophy, that Nationalist MPs should be selected and controlled by their local electors. Currently, MPs vote according to the orders of their Party Leader, who in turn votes according to the instructions he receives from his financial and mainly alien backers. We believe that an MP directly responsible to his electors is unlikely to have supported the invasion of our Land, the takeover by the EU, or acquiesced to the current extortionate taxation.



The British National Party in its present form is derived from the National Front. The National Front was formed in 1967 as an amalgamation of the League of Empire Loyalists, the Racial Preservation Society and, confusingly, a small party named the British National Party.



The original National Front was chaired by John Tyndall from 1972, (There was a short break in 1975 when John Kingsley Read replaced him). Martin Webster was the main organiser. During the seventies the Party grew and was beginning to make itself felt. Martin Webster won 16% of the poll in the West Bromwich by-election in 1973. Richard Edmonds and another polled 44% in the Depford by-election of 1974 and the National Front polled 119,000 votes in the GLC election of 1977. However, after fielding 301 candidates in the 1979 General Election, the Party commenced to break up. There were probably many reasons for the break up and these will be discussed below, however, at the time disillusionment at the low vote received by the Party in the General Election was undoubtedly a major factor. See natfront.com for a more detailed history to this point.



Thus in the early eighties the National Front split into three separate groups. These were: the New National Front formed around the Chairman of the National Front, John Tyndall; the Constitutional Movement, also know as the Flag Group, which wished to remain unreformed and what became known as the Official National Front. The New National Front changed its name to the British National Party in 1982. The situation outside the New National Front was very confused, however during the eighties the Constitutional Movement faded and died. Along the way Martin Webster had been expelled, probably unlawfully. Eventually Nick Griffin and Patrick Harrison led the Official Party. They wished to change the Party policies beyond all recognition to a “Third Way”. Nick Griffin supported the International Third Position, see Wikipedia and quote below*. At this point many of the remaining National Front members rallied around John McCauley and left Nick Griffin as a member of the Third Position but, effectively outside the legitimate nationalist movement.



It is this splinter of the original National Front that is the National Front of today. Whilst it is a tiny party it has dealt with chaos of continual splits and is now potentially a viable party.



The most important fact to register concerning these splits was that the majority of supporters of the original National Front ceased to belong to any of the successor parties.



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With hindsight we can assert that the break up of the original National Front was due to many factors. One important factor was the ‘over-democratic’ structure of the party leadership. There were 20 equal Directorate Members who controlled the Party. The Party Chairman was one of the 20 and had no special extra powers. Consequently, there was almost never agreement at Directorate meetings and this meant, in turn, that Party policies were not well understood by the members and there was no proper Party structure. Another factor was that members discovered that Martin Webster was openly homosexual.



The New National Front was formed, with John Tyndall as Chairman, to overcome the infighting and lack of direction that was caused by the original National Front Constitution. (John Tyndall was the Chairman of the National Front until the breakaway.) The New National Front changed its name to the British National Party in 1982. and was chaired by John Tyndall until 1999 and since then by Nick Griffin.

From the beginning the New National Front was run as a dictatorship by John Tyndall and he wrote a new Constitution to reflect this change. It is this Constitution with further changes to make it even more dictatorial that is in place today. In practice John Tyndall had a team of people who worked harmoniously together, (David Bruce, Richard Edmonds, John Peacock and John Morse) and for many years all was well.

The eighties were a very bad time for nationalism. Margaret Thatcher had successfully conned the electorate into believing that the Con Party was nationalist. Also the Race Acts became effective and the relatively benign situation of the seventies was not repeated. John Tyndall was imprisoned during this period under the Race Acts.

During the eighties the British National Party worked hard to gain recognition as the premier nationalist party in the United Kingdom. However, it was not until the nineties that the Party started to make real progress. In retrospect this was due to the obvious deterioration in the country caused by a truly massive influx of foreigners who were often violent and outspoken. The Margaret Thatcher con had been exploded.

The first real victory was when John Tyndall won 7% of the vote in the Dagenham by-election of 1994. Although, in itself, this was not a large vote, it was obtained in the now unfavourable general situation with media, unions and the law against nationalists. He retained his deposit.



After 1994 the Party made little progress and it seemed clear that John Tyndall was running out of steam. However, there were distinct signs of things to come and, for example, in 1998 there was a very successful rally held on the outskirts of Birmingham organised by the West Midlands organiser which showed the Party, at last on the move.



Unfortunately, shortly thereafter both Dave Bruce and John Peacock prematurely died. The loss of these key men exposed John Tyndall’s failing energy. It was clear that a new leader was required.

There was an election held under the Party rules. John Tyndall at first made little effort to defend himself and then conducted a very poor campaign. Nick Griffin ran a ‘media’ like campaign and made promises that like a good politician he never kept. Of his principal supporters it is of interest that Sharron Edwards and Michael Newlands left the Party almost straightaway and apologised to members for making an awful mistake. Tony Lecomber went after, it is alleged, being caught promoting violence and actually physically attacking Eddie Butler. Eddie Butler is his only remaining original promoter.

In retrospect the Party should have run a sensible debate on the future with perhaps a caretaker Chairman for 12 months. In practice, Nick Griffin took over in what was effectively a coup.



Since then Nick Griffin has been Chairman of the Party there has been continual sackings and resignations of officials of the Party.



It can be asserted that the successes of the Party in recent years have been due to the efforts of local individuals rather than Nick Griffin and that Nick Griffin has been more of a hindrance than a help. Two examples are given. The quarrel with Sharron Edwards, who at the time was West Midlands Organiser and also Deputy Party Chairman, which led to the stalling of the breakthrough being made in the Birmingham area. Sharron went on to be elected councillor for the Freedom Party such was her ability. The outstanding example is the quarrel with Steve Smith in Burnley. Steve engineered a remarkable breakthrough and at one time there were 8 Burnley Councillors with more on the way. Again Steve was forced out of the Party and now runs the England First Party and the number of British National Councillors in Burnley is way down.



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John Tyndall and Nick Griffin.



The characters of both men are in some ways remarkably alike. John Tyndall was able, and Nick Griffin is able, to attract a small number of devoted followers who seem incapable of seeing any wrong in their leader but at the same time they also strongly repel many people. Again John Tyndall was, and Nick Griffin is, very good at some things and completely useless at others. Neither was/is a rounded personality.



John Tyndall refused to publish Party accounts.

Nick Griffin has refused to publish meaningful accounts. Michael Newlands, the first Party Treasurer after the Griffin coup, resigned over Nick Griffin’s attitude to accounting. Exactly the same happened with the next Treasurer, John Brayshaw. The third Treasurer, John Walker has been removed by Nick Griffin. The auditor refused to sign off the 2007 Party accounts.



Over the last few years there has been much energy and resources expended in duelling between a Tyndall and a Griffin faction. This has meant that the BNP has not grown in a balanced manner; in particular, the Party has not developed a normal administrative structure and has not stated clearly its political principles.



We do not believe that the Party will have a sound future until the Party has a proper Constitution as per a normal English association and until the Party has leaders who are more generally acceptable – both to the Party members and the electorate in general.



*It was reported on Wikipedia that The International Third Position have also been baffled by Griffin’s constantly changing views. They declared:

“He has been a conservative, a revolutionary nationalist, a radical National Socialist, a Third Positionist, a friend of the ‘boot boys’ and the skinhead scene, a man committed to respectable politics and electioneering, a ‘moderniser’. Which is he in reality? Perhaps he has been all these quite sincerely – in which case his judgement is abysmal; or perhaps he has been none of them sincerely – which speaks for itself!”