تعريف في الجماعات العنصرية في بريطانيا

1- The English Defence League

The English Defence League (EDL) is a racist organisation whose main activity is street demonstrations against the Muslim community. Although it claims only to oppose Islamic extremism it targets the entire Muslim community and its actions deliberately seek to whip up tensions and violence between Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

Many of its protests have resulted in violence and it taps into wider anti-Muslim feeling. What started as a loose network of football hooligans is developing into a new social movement.

The EDL emerged in Luton in March 2009 in the aftermath of a protest by a handful of Islamist extremists at the homecoming parade of the Royal Anglian Regiment through the town.

It now has thousands of supporters across the country. What began as a loose alliance of people around various social networking websites is increasingly turning into an organisation with a national, regional and local structure.

Between 2009-2011 the EDL was without doubt the largest social movement in the country, often holding councils and local authorities to ransom with its demands carrying the threat of up to 3000 EDL members descending on towns and cities and bringing them to a standstill.

In 2011 however, the wheels of the EDL juggernaut appeared to come off. The Norwegian racist killer Anders Breivik cited the EDL as an inspiration. Several high profile EDL activists were recorded admitting their support for Breivik's actions in killing 77 people in two terror attacks, many of them teenagers.

The EDL's leader Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) was later filmed seemingly admitting his admiration for the killer, though Lennon has denied he made these comments. Throughout 2011 a series of exposures in the national and international media exposed the heart of the EDL as part of an international network of extremists targeting Muslims around the world. This movement, the "Counter-Jihad" movement, had a number of small-time English businessmen and women at its heart, as well as the street army that is the EDL

The leadership even had a very short-lived foray into politics that ended in disarray and humiliation.

EDL descended in huge numbers on Newcastle in May 2013

After the Breivik exposures and a series of other exposures that seemed to tear away the EDL's very thin veneer of not being a fascist or racist organisation, ordinary activists seemed to tire of the organisation and splits emerged. Some of the more damaging allegations included the engagement in paedophilia by one of its founding members.

Lennon, along with his co-leader and cousin Kevin Carroll are both natives of the town of Luton. They run the EDL and its lucrative merchandising arm ruthlessly. Those who show dissent are often violently removed from the organisation and as a result of this and growing frustration with the EDL's direction, the organisation has been in a near terminal decline for over a year.

In September 2012 the group suffered a massive humiliation when it was prevented by locals from marching in Walthamstow, east London. The fallout from which reopened a festering sore with the rival BNP, whose leader Nick Griffin described the EDL's leader as a "big girl's blouse" in an appeal for the EDL activist base to move to the BNP. Many EDL activists broke away to form their own groups or quit the movement entirely.

In January 2013, Lennon pleaded guilty to "possession of a false identity document with improper intention" at Southwark Crown Court. He was sentenced to ten months imprisonment, but was released on electronic tag in February. Lennon had used the false passport to gain entry into the United States in late 2012.

A career criminal, Lennon has a number of criminal convictions, including football violence related convictions. The EDL is a non-membership organisation and so has often been viewed by Lennon and Carroll as their own private army. It is estimated that there are 700 criminal convictions directly linked to the EDL and its supporter base. This includes fire-bombings and even murder. The EDL is always quick to distance itself from the more heinous of these crimes.

EDL demonstrations, even after Lennon's release from prison, dwindled to mere handfuls of alcohol-fuelled desperados' intent on drinking and fighting their way into prison.

The murder of off-duty soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, south London, in May 2013 has been jumped upon by Lennon as a way of rebuilding the organisation. Until Rigby's death, Lennon had shown no real interest in further EDL activities, but found his way to Newcastle on the 25th of May 2013 to address over 1500 people at an already planned march and another 1000 at a hastily arranged demonstration in London some three days later.

A social media led organisation, many people judge the size of the EDL primarily on its Facebook page(s). The EDL certainly gained a massive spike to its numbers on social media sites in the immediate aftermath of Drummer Lee Rigby's murder, but building an accurate picture of its "membership" has also proved difficult. What is accurate to say is that few of those who physically engaged with EDL activities in the immediate aftermath of the Rigby murder were entirely new to the organisation or its surrounds. Many former activists and supporters simply “reactivated” with furious activism and shock, but very soon after slunk back into mainstream society once the EDL returned to a cycle of continuous bickering, internecine invective and almost pointless demonstrations.

An estimate would be that there are now between 300-500 people actively engaged in the day-to-day activities of the group. When its founder and perpetual martyr Stephen Lennon sensationally quit the organisation in October 2013, many thought that the EDL would wither and die. This has not been the case, though across Britain, the group’s “divisions” have one- by- one declared autonomy from the main organisation, which is now run by a committee of uninspiring individuals.

The EDL remains on top of a chain of competing and often antagonistic “Counter Jihad” groups that have sprung up since the EDL began to suffer internal difficulties in 2011 and 2012. Most of these groups remain unheard of by the wider public and seem little different to the naked eye from the EDL. But where the EDL has at least tried to fight off infiltration and the inevitable slippery slide towards outright Nazism, due to its combustible nature, The EDL still remains the greatest conduit for the journey towards smaller more extreme and more outright neo-Nazi groups.

2014 has started very badly for the group. Police in the West Midlands issued photographs of some sixty EDL activists wanted in connection with a violent demonstration in Birmingham in 2013 and a further 32 EDL activists were sent to jail for their part in disturbances in Walsall in 2012.

The EDL is led by a committee of individuals and shareholders. Hel Gower is now believed to be holding the EDL in some kind of limbo for Stephen Lennon:

Key Figures

Dave Bolton, Hel Gower, Roger Firth, Alan Spence, Gail Speight, Tim Abblitt (Chair)

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2- The British National Party?

The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right political party that operates throughout the UK. It was formed in 1982 from the remnants of the old National Front.

The BNP claim around 7,000 members, However it exaggerates its support and paid up members number between 3000-5000.

When the party was led by its founder John Tyndall (1982-1999) it was easily identified with Nazism through its extreme and provocative activities, associations and publications as well as its active denial of the facts of the Holocaust.

However, the BNP has undergone a number of ideological shifts and personnel changes during its 28 years.

John Tyndall (left) poses with fellow Spearhead members in the Notting Hill HQ of Colin Jordan's National Socialist Movement in 1962 Tyndall was deposed as chairman in 1999 by a faction of “modernisers” led by Griffin who, ironically, had been responsible for some of the more extreme articles in BNP publications such as Spearhead (which he secretly edited for a period) and in his own journal The Rune, which led to his conviction for inciting racial hatred in 1998.

The organisation still rejects integration, equality and basic human and civil rights for people it describes as “non-indigenous” or “civic British” and claims to put the interests of “the British people”, by which it means white Britons, first. So, while the BNP has attempted to distance itself from its past it remains a racist party in the European fascist tradition.

The BNP has described itself as British nationalist, racial nationalist and more recently, ethno-nationalist. Its leader, Nick Griffin, has at times also referred to the party as a civil rights movement, especially since its electoral defeat in May 2010.

In recent years the party has concentrated on opposing Islam and actively campaigns against the establishment of mosques, halal meat and what it calls the “Islamification” of the UK.

It claimed in January 2011 that white people were being “exterminated” from British cities by means of “ethnic cleansing”. It also seeks to build support by a populist opposition to the war in Afghanistan.



BNP demonstration over the murder of Lee Rigby, London May 2013

Griffin and his colleague Andrew Brons were elected to the European Parliament in 2009. Since then the party has gone downhill, with severe financial problems and disastrous management by Griffin, who acts as a dictator. Andrew Brons quit the party at the end of 2012 to form his own political party in 2013 The British Democratic Party, (BDP). The BDP has done little since.

In 2013 the BNP’s poor state of political health was exposed when in the County Council elections, the party stood some 300 candidates less than at the reciprocal elections in 2009 and very few of them managed to gain more than 10% of the poll. For the first time since 2002 the party are without representation in Burnley and remains divided and moribund in most parts of London and Yorkshire.

The party has survived financially on pressuring members to leave the BNP property and cash in their wills. The BNP's leader, Nick Griffin, has fought a desperate battle with Stephen Lennon of the English Defence League (EDL), for control of the hearts and minds of the far-right presence on the streets, but in a see-saw battle, is at the moment on the back foot.

With the party in both financial and electoral decline, the BNP has had to rely on more controversial means of gaining publicity, including the use of conspiracy theories. A planned march by the BNP in Woolwich in June 2013 was banned by the police, forcing Griffin into a humiliating public appeal for help from the EDL's leader. This help was refused.

Including Griffin, the party now only has two elected officials in the whole of the UK.

The rise of UKIP as well as the party’s own schisms and incompetence has largely removed the party from the public’s eye.

2014 began disastrously for the party when Nick Griffin was declared bankrupt in January as a result of mounting debts, further making him an object of extreme ridicule. The party then lost a controversial attempt to access £390,000 that a judge declared was not legally theirs, in February.

The party has begun to place enormous importance on the education and radicalisation of its younger members, with an emphasis on street protests and anti-Semitism as it prepares for the possibility of losing its MEP and a large amount of funding.

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3- Britain First

Britain First (BF) is the brainchild of James Dowson, the man who was once dubbed ‘the person who owned the BNP’.

A shadowy figure in the world of evangelical Protestantism and anti-abortion activity, Dowson made contact with the BNP in 2007 offering his services as a man with a record of get-rich-quick schemes. Originally from Scotland, he’d set himself up in Belfast, Northern Ireland where he took a keen advantage of religious fervour.

Dowson’s anti-abortion activities and close relationship with Loyalist paramilitaries were seen as positive attributes by the BNP’s leadership, who were dazzled by Dowson’s patter and promises of riches.

Nick Griffin eventually moved the entire BNP operation to Belfast – under Dowson’s control – with Griffin’s daughter Jennifer entrusted to Dowson’s care. We dubbed Dowson as Griffin’s consiglieri in 2009 and meanwhile, as the party faltered after the 2010 local and government elections, anti-Griffin factions within the BNP saw Dowson as Griffin’s Achilles’ heel and began campaigning against him.

Dowson and the BNP parted company in October 2010 but it was another six months before BF was formed. In the intervening time Dowson preoccupied himself with trying to undermine the 





BNP at every opportunity.

Paul Golding (left) holding a Jim Dowson cardboard cut-out in Belfast November 2013

In May 2011 Dowson, along with Paul Golding, a former BNP councillor and editor of the BNP’s flagship magazine, announced the formation of a campaign group to protect “British and Christian morality” and sent an internet and glossy mail shot to some 40,000 names that Dowson had allegedly acquired from his time with the BNP.

Hoping to gain an invitation to join rebel BNP MEP Andrew Brons in a new venture, Dowson also sent another glossy brochure attacking a number of high profile BNP officials during the BNP’s July 2011 leadership election. BF was born to attack Griffin.

Close to a thousand people responded to BF’s launch with either cash or membership, but very quickly, aside from a few regional meetings, it became apparent that the organisation was not interested in being the alternative to Griffin’s party.

In 2013 the party began to pick up a lot of disaffected former EDL supporters, attracted by a hearty mixture of confrontation, harassment and the apparent distribution of free alcohol on demonstrations.

The party registered itself with the Electoral Commission in early 2014 with the intention of unseating Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP and an MEP for the North West region.
Key Personnel

Probably the only group experiencing growth on the far-right, Britain First has slimmed down its leadership as it strives to streamline a notorious cash-for-controversy operation.

Jim Dowson: Former Calvinist Minister who helped run the BNP between 2007-2010. Controversial businessman who has received funding from the European union in the past. Having built the BNP up, has made it his business to knock it down again. A powerful anti-Griffinite, if not an effective politician. Has been in and out of court in Belfast , Northern Ireland since he took a leading and controversial role in the “Flag Disputes.”

Paul Golding: The BF’s national chairman, Golding is former head of publicity for the BNP as well as a failed councillor in Sevenoaks, Kent. Golding was one of the high flyers in the BNP’s ‘Brat Pack’ during the last decade but was held back by a poor temper and an allegedly challenging life style. Golding is the BF’s Chairman and a recent convert to Christianity which comes hand in hand with being a minor business partner of Dowson. Has been at the forefront of leading the BF’s confrontational street activities but struggles dismally when interviewed by the media. Expected to be the BF candidate against Nick Griffin in the Euro Elections.
Britain First Key Politics
Britain First is only recently a registered political party. Previously it used the name “National People’s Party”, before deciding to register the Britain First name.
BF claim it is not a racist or fascist organisation, yet it propagandises on the traditional far-right issues of Islam, immigration and abortion. It encourages its members to carry out actions like mass emailing and letter writing in a campaign to “Put Britons First”, which the organisation appears to define as anyone who is Christian. So far, it claims that over thirty thousand “actions” have been taken.
The BF is closely aligned with the black-led organisation the “Christian People’s Party”, which also had a small dalliance with the BNP when Dowson was fundraising for them.
If religion has replaced race as the clarion call in the BF, it does not appear to feel the need to proselytise or seemingly recruit to its cause either non-Christians or BNP hardliners.
The party has doomsday prophesy where it believes civilization will end in bloodshed between Christians and Muslims. To this end, the party has stepped up its efforts to antagonised Muslim groups.

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4-The English Democrats Party

The English Democrats Party (EDP) was founded on 17 September 2002 by the merger of the English National Party (ENP), which had been founded in 1997 by Robin Tilbrook, and several other small English nationalist parties. The EDP is attempting to position itself as the English equivalent of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru (PC) in Wales.

The party hopes to attract support ahead of the independence referendum in Scotland in the autumn of 2014.

In January 2005 the EDP absorbed the Reform UK Party, founded in 2000 as a breakaway from the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and in February 2007 the EDP absorbed the Dartford-based New England Party (NEP), founded in 2003 by Mike Tibby.

The EDP has never won a Westminster parliamentary seat at a general election or by-election in its ten-year existence.

The EDP had one elected Mayor (Peter Davies in Doncaster) but he quit the party in 2013 because of what he felt was the party's associations with racists and racism.

The party publishes the England Awake! magazine (2011-) and previously published The English Voice (EV) (May 2003-2010) quarterly magazine. The EDP claims 3,000 members, though in fact it is believed to be considerably lower in terms of actually paid up members.

The EDP stood 87 candidates in the 2012 local elections and averaged 10.3%.

Despite some promising signs for the EDP in the 2012 Police & Crime Commissioner elections, by the 2013 County Council Elections the party was another of the victims of the surge of UKip, and the party performed disastrously, coming last in many of the wards that they stood in. The party stood only 42 candidates, despite claiming internally that it would have over 300 candidates and achieve an election broadcast. The electoral commission and the police are also investigating alleged irregularities in regard to some EDP candidates.

The rot had been apparent for many, when the party achieved an appalling 70 votes (0.17%) at the Eastleigh by-election during February 2013. The party either tied with or lost to novelty candidates including "Elvis" and a candidate who liked beer!
Infusion of former BNP members into the EDP

Robin Tilbrook declared at the EDP’s 10th annual conference in Leicester on 24 September 2011: “BNP supporters are joining us. They will help us become an electorally credible party. We need to be sure they ascribe to civic or cultural nationalism and that they will be an asset to our party, but we do not need to be too defensive”.

The EDP passed a policy amendment at the same conference requiring “every candidate for any office in the party shall have been a paid-up member of this party for at least 2 years immediately preceding the date of application or nomination”. This has not prevented former members of the BNP becoming office bearers of the EDP immediately upon joining. The influx of so many BNP members led to the party's most senior elected public official, Peter Davies-the Mayor of Doncaster, quitting in 2013.
The English Democrats Party: Profiles

Robin C. W. Tilbrook: Co-founder and chairman, EDP, since 2002. Solicitor and the EDP’s principal funder. Tilbrook addressed a Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) No Sharia Here! demonstration outside Lambeth Palace, London on 11 September 2008.

Steven Uncles: Chairman, EDP South East and South West areas. EDP member since 2003, who runs the English Passport blog. Uncles has been the prime mover in attempts by the EDP to establish links with other like-minded nationalist parties and organisations, including the England First Party (EFP) ahead of the 2009 European Elections and separately with Sinn Féin (SF) in Northern Ireland.

Former EDP activists

Bill Baker: Founder and Leader, English Nationalist Alliance (ENA), since 2010; former member: BNP and EDP, 2009-2010. Baker co-organised an English Defence League (EDL) demonstration outside Harrow Central Mosque on 29 August 2009 which was cancelled, but eventually took place under the Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) banner thirteen days later on 11 September.

Stephen Gash: Founder and Organiser, Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) – England (originally No Sharia Here), since 2007; co-founder, Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE), in 2007 and former EDP National Council member.

Ben Weald: Former EDP parliamentary candidate in Enfield and Southgate at the 2010 general election, and who has travelled extensively in support of the English Nationalist Alliance (ENA) and March for England (M4E). Weald resigned from the EDP in 2012.

Prominent BNP recruits to the EDP

Chris Beverley: Chairman, EDP Leeds branch, since 2011. Former BNP Regional Organiser for Yorkshire and Humber, 2009-2011 and BNP member, 1997-2011. Beverley continues to be employed as constituency office manager to Andrew Brons, BNP MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber. He runs the Morley Patriot blog.

Eddy Butler: Former member, National Front (NF), 1980-1986; Campaign Director, Freedom Party (FP), 2001-2003; BNP member, 1986-1996, 1998-2001 and 2003-2010; National Organiser, BNP, 2008-2010 and founder, BNP Reform Group, in 2010. Butler continues to be employed as a research assistant to Andrew Brons, BNP MEP. Butler’s membership application to the EDP was approved by the party’s National Council on 26 November 2011 by 8 votes to 1 with one abstention. Those voting in favour included Robin Tilbrook.

One could easily be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that this trio of Yorkshire-based European Parliament-funded employees of Andrew Brons are serving two masters, let alone hypocritically campaigning for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU while being paid via one of its institutions.

Front groups

ENGLISH LOBBY (EL) The EDP co-founded the English Lobby (EL) in April 2004, together with the Freedom Party (FP) [since defunct] and Third Way (3W), [which has since become the National Liberal Party] as a cross-party loose umbrella lobby organisation to defend and promote English national identity, values and culture and the national interests of the ethnic English community. The FP and 3W both later withdrew from the English Lobby.
The English Democrats Party Key Politics
The EDP does not advocate independence for England but campaigns for the establishment of a devolved English Parliament within a renegotiated UK. It campaigns for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU and for a complete end to mass immigration.
The EDP aims to assert Englishness consciousness and to preserve and promote English culture, heritage and national identity. It has sought to establish common ground with other small parties since the 2004 European Elections.
The EDP has tried in vain since 2010 to unite the disparate English nationalist parties and campaigning organisations in the so-called ‘English Movement’. In the run up to the 2010 general election the EDP approached other fringe parties, including UKIP, in order to establish electoral pacts, which did not materialise.

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5-National Action

National Action (NA) is the product of the political and ideological demise of the British National Party (BNP).

Following the birth of the Islamophobic street movement, the English Defence League (EDL), the BNP’s former leader, Nick Griffin, privately lamented that his party was suffering a decline of militancy and of young leadership.

The BNP’s youth wing (Young British National Party), which had changed its name numerous times over the years, provided Griffin with some impetus for remodelling the party’s “cadre” and he openly encouraged its members to attempt to seize control of BNP branches and bodies that were growing either stagnant or irrelevant as the party started to vanish from the political landscape.

The BNP’s abysmal failure to capitalise on the brutal murder, in May last year, of soldier Lee Rigby, and Griffin’s demoralising attempts to make amends with the erstwhile “Zionist conspirators” of the EDL during that summer were a watershed.

Some of the disaffected - frustrated with what appeared to be a blatant attempt by the new BNP leadership to wind down confrontational activities - reacted by branching out in a seemingly autonomous movement that paints itself as some kind of “Identitarian”, ultra-nationalist street gang, copying similar movements in Europe.

NA is heavily aligned with a plethora of groups, including both the North West Infidels and the South East Alliance, that are clinging to Griffin’s coat-tails.

Graphic from a National Action publication

Politics and ideology

Politically, NA advocates self-styled “revolutionary nationalism”, heavily influenced by its forerunners in a similar group named “Resistance” that grew out of the YBNP under its leader, Kieran Trent, in 2012 but never got off the ground.

The group has produced several readable if confused documents on its ideas and ideology and has made large-scale use of professional social media and web forums.

Early press coverage of NA overestimated both its size and academic provenance, even though it had a habit of acting provocatively around university campuses where it had members, including one of its founders, Alex Davies, who was busy failing a philosophy degree at Warwick University around the time the group first came to prominence.

Publicity hungry, NA has geared up its activities in the last six months by causing confrontations on demonstrations or by targeting individuals and premises. In November 2014, a series of homes belonging to NA activists in Liverpool were raided by police and one member, Garron Helm, was later jailed for threatening Jewish MP, Luciana Berger.

Other fascist outfits in Europe, Russia and the USA influence the group and its publicity-seeking provocations. Davies, for example, told the Daily Mirror earlier this year: “I don’t want to say what I’d like to do to Jews - it’s too extreme.”

Lurking in the background is Larry Nunn, a former BNP organiser from the Northampton area. Nunn is better known in the far right as “Max Musson” and is the main figure behind a website, Western Spring, that energetically promotes vile far right extremism.

In August, people aligned to a number of groups in and around National Action and Western Spring staged a training and survival camp called the Sigurd Outlaw Camp where they trained in martial arts and undertook weapons practice with knives.

Key facts

Formed: 2013

Leaders: Alex Davies, Ashley Bell, Mark James and Benjamin Raymond

Members/Activists: 30+

Areas of Activity: London, Birmingham, Leeds, Coventry and Liverpool

Ideology: Nazism, visceral racism, antisemitism, anti-Communism and white supremacy

Key Players

Alex Davies: Recently removed from Warwick University, Davies has become a public figure for the group mainly as result of a sting operation carried out against him by the Daily Mirror.

Ashley Bell: more commonly known as Tommy Johnson, appears to have made his way into the far right via the “Straight Edge Movement” which refuses to take drugs, tobacco or alcohol whilst listening to punk music. Around the same time, he is rumoured to have tried his hand as a Hunt Saboteur in Yorkshire. Based in Leeds, in the last few years he has fallen in with both the British Movement and the National Front (NF), though he is currently persona non grata with the NF after accusations were made against him of theft from the movement. He has been referred to as the leader of National Action and is thought to be one of those behind its founding document.

Benjamin Raymond: aka Benjamin Noyles is one of the main activists in National Action. He previous far right activity was the Integralist Party which also called itself the Green Shirts. Has also spent time in the comical New British Union. Returned to the UK in January of this year after living in the United States. A huge fan of the American Renaissance Party of North America, Raymond/Noyles is the moderator of some of the more obscure nazi internet forums too.

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6-National Front

The National Front (NF) was formed in 1967 by fairly obscure organisations on the far-right. They created one of the most notorious and longest running racist racist organisations in the world.

The NF began life as an uncomfortable coalition of the conservative right, old fashioned imperialists and Hitler admirers. After becoming Britain’s fourth largest party by the mid seventies, the election of the right wing Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1979 General Election, saw the NF begin a headfirst dive. Its misfortune took it into a seedy world of factional strife, violent splits and at times, incredible ideological oddities.

John Hutchins Tyndall is the best known of all NF leaders. He led the NF from 1972-1974 and again from 1976-1980, when Martin Webster accompanied him in a double act that made the National Front a household name, synonymous with violence and neo-nazism. The party went into the 1979 General Election with an impressive 303 candidates but gained a disastrous average vote of little over 0.5%. The NF finally split into three warring factions in 1980, eventually leading to Tyndall and his hardline followers forming the rival British National Party (BNP) in 1982.

It is near impossible to accurately put a figure on the number of splits and leaders that the NF has had in over forty five years. Even the party’s own online history is grossly inaccurate. But the NF has provided almost every other tiny far-right organisation in the UK with all of its senior members (past and present,) including the BNP’s current leader Nick Griffin and of course its founder, John Tyndall.

A return to year zero

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the NF came close to complete extinction. But it has proved itself as a survivor and even though it is a shell of the organisation it once was it still attracts a working class membership that embraces a fanaticism for racism, ultra-nationalism and outright nazism.

Such is the nature of its membership and history, the NF is driven simply by the will to survive and to agitate on the perimiters of the law to build a mass movement in preparation for what it sees as the inevitability of a race war.

Since a short lived but startling period of ideological deviations in the mid 1980s under the leadership of Nick Griffin and Patrick Harrington, the NF has actively shunned political modernisation or anything remotely dynamic that could affect or change its dour image. Surviving on a tiny budget provided by a membership of 400, the Equality and Human Rights Commission did not bother to pursue the organisation like it did the BNP over its similar policy of allowing white members only.

National Front Remembrance Day Parade to the Cenotaph 2013

A key presence at a number of “unity meetings”, the NF has made little headway in recruiting the ten thousand ex-BNP members and officials who have deserted the BNP

Whilst the BNP has been critical of the rise of the English Defence League, the NF has been vehemently critical of what it describes as the EDL’s ‘Zionism’ and of their supposed ‘Anti-racism’. As a result, the NF has been keen to cosy up to the EDL’s close rivals, The ‘Infidels’. Newcastle NF organiser Simon Biggs was quick to use their muscle to intimidate trade unionists in the city, while Liverpool’s Peter Tierney – another former BNP official who recently moved to the NF – has joined up with a variety of neo-nazis, Infidels and some EDL members to run similar campaigns of harassment and intimidation.

Political pariahs

Political opportunities and recognition remain incredibly limited for the NF. Although avowedly ‘democratic’, the party puts little faith in the parliamentary process. The End of 2013 saw the NF embroiled in another large scale internal dispute-loosely described as a North vs South split. Currently there are two different factions both describing themselves as the official faction in control of the National Front.

The NF stood 40 candidates at the 2012 elections in England, Scotland and Wales, including three candidates for the Greater London Assembly (GLA) elections and a candidate for the Liverpool Mayoral elections. Although the NF’s average vote was under 5%, they did achieve noticeably high votes in former BNP strongholds, in particular Tipton Green in Sandwell (11.5%) where the then Deputy Chair Kevin Bryan scored a very respectable 16% in his home borough of Rossendale.

The NF's internal difficulties means that it is unlilely that the party will be standing any candidates in this year's local elections under the NF's name.

Membership & Activity

The party’s £10 membership fee has not changed in nearly twenty years. The estimated 400 members are encouraged to agitate in local communities by the use of protests, localised leaflets and sales of the bi-monthly newspaper Britain First, which is possibly the most illiterate publication in the history of the far-right. The party also has a number of blogs in support of different factions within the leadership which seem to focus very little about political differences and more about which side is the most corrupt.

Few of the NF’s branches have ready access to party materials and the party is often seen as a drinking club.

Party areas of activity are limited by its small size but include:

Sandwell and Dudley

Hull

Liverpool

Aberdeen

Oldham

Newcastle & North Tyneside

Thurrock

Internal Structures

The Party is led by an Executive Committee drawn from a Directorate, which advises the Chairman and Deputy Chairman. In 2010 both the Chair and Deputy Chair of the party were removed from their posts during a meeting held without their knowledge. In 2013, Kev Bryan replaced Ian Edward as Chair of the party in a move that Edward and his supporters claim was unconstitutional.

Key Players

Ian Edward, Chairman (Disputed). An ex-BNP official from West London. An unspectacular record in the far-right, mainly a figurehead.

Kevin Bryan, Chairman (Disputed). A loud middle aged street thug. Like Edward, a former low level BNP official.

Richard Edmonds. One of Britain’s most infamous neo-nazis and Holocaust deniers, he returned to the party in 2011 having previously been the BNP’s second in charge for most of the 80s and nineties.

Simon Biggs, Newcastle. Forty-something convicted burglar and race hater originally from south London. He has been in the NF and prison on and off since the 1980s. His rapid rise through the ranks was symptomatic of the NF’s overall decline. Last year he was convicted of stealing pot plants from a garden centre.

Peter Tierney, Liverpool. Also known as Peter Quiggins, he was the official NF mayoral candidate in Liverpool in 2012. Tierney was convicted of ABH in 2009 after attacking an anti-fascist. He became a millionaire when he sold Liverpool’s Quiggins Centre in 2006.

Chris Jackson, North West. Ex North West regional organiser for the BNP, Jackson challenged Nick Griffin in a leadership election in 2007. Switching to the NF in 2009, Jackson is now the NF’s NW organiser.

Tess Culnane, London. Veteran fascist and former “Nit-Nurse” Culnane has jumped backwards and forwards between the BNP and NF over a number of years. Served as an aide to Richard Barnbrook, the BNP’s one time Greater London Assembly member, where she was dubbed a “Nazi Granny” by the media.

Eddie Morrison, Yorkshire. Veteran neo-nazi and figure of fun for both fascists and antifascists. A serial splitter of groups, Morrison re-admittance to the NF was instrumental in its current internal schisms.