A report by the Watford Observer - as it should have been written

Dr Andrew Emerson joined the BNP in January 2005, after more than 20 years as an active member of the Labour Party.

Dr Emerson is a published author with a PhD in sociology.

In 2008 he finished third, ahead of both Labour and UKIP candidates, in a bid to win election to Chichester District Council, with more than 12 per cent of the votes.

He has worked in the NHS for many years, and has lectured at several institutions of higher education, including the University of Reading.

He is standing in a general election for the second time, having previously contested the Broxbourne constituency for the BNP in 2005, polling a very creditable 4.75% of the total number of votes cast.

BNP, or KGB?

The following is a letter by Dr Andrew Emerson to the editor of the monthly journal of the British National Party, Martin Wingfield. Do not be too surprised if it is not published in the Voice of Freedom. To publish it would be more than the editor's job's worth, and could well result in his being immediately despatched as a slave labourer to the nearest salt mine - which I believe is in Cheshire.

Dear Sir

Mr Smeeton's e-mail letter (Freedom # 118) is, like the proverbial curate's egg, good in parts.

Mr Smeeton is right when he says that the Establishment oppresses the British National Party, and persecutes its members, doing its utmost to deny us our freedom of speech.

However, he is wrong when he states that this is "...clearly illegal". The treacherous Establishment, which includes the overwhelmingly foreign European commission, and 'parliament', makes most of our law, and the supine judiciary interprets it.

Mr Smeeton is confounding the two concepts of legality and justice. They are far from synonymous, legality denoting what society demands from the individual, while justice denotes what is right and fair, ethically or morally.

He is also wrong when he implies that Britain has no constitution, presumably because it has, unlike the United States, no WRITTEN constitution.

Actually, it was through the political sagacity of our English forefathers that we have no written constitution, though the law of the European Union is insidiously subverting this state of affairs, since an unwritten constitution permits the citizen to do anything that the law does not forbid, while a written constitution prohibits the citizen from doing anything it does not expressly allow.

Mr Smeeton is right to be concerned about the denial of freedom of speech to the British National Party but should he not also be concerned, should not every BNP member be concerned, about the BNP's own denial of freedom of speech to its own members?

During the party's recent nomination process for a leadership challenge the most flagrant and unfair breaches of the BNP's written constitution were perpetrated by the party leadership. Such breaches included: the barring of members from party meetings; the suspension of members without good cause; the issuing of biassed nomination forms; the invention of unfair rules of procedure, not sanctioned by the constitution, designed to favour the incumbent leader; the conniving condonation of vile 'attack blogs' that publicly assassinated the character of Eddy Butler and his key supporters; and the systematic removal of all references to any member who supported the challenge from the party's web site and "Voice of Freedom" newspaper.

Stalin also introduced a written constitution, for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. It looked very impressive on paper. The trouble was that, just like the BNP's written constitution today: in the hands of a despot it was not worth the paper it was printed on.

How can we seriously expect the British people to be concerned about the Establishment's victimization of the BNP, when the BNP hypocritically victimizes its own members by unfairly denying them their rights?

In any event it seems that some of the apparent unfairness of the 'mainstream media' was brought on the head of the BNP by its own so-called leadership, that leadership turning down several requests for a party spokesman to go on air in the run-up to the general election earlier this year. It seems that Messrs Griffin and Dowson had some cock-eyed theory of 'scarcity value' with which they wished to experiment. Or could there be a more sinister explanation for the apparent madness in the method of the top leadership of the BNP: such as deliberate sabotage of the BNP's electoral prospects?

Old hands will recollect Mr Griffin's announcement, at a press conference, just prior to the 2005 general election, about the desirability of discharged members of the armed forces (some of whom have, understandably, mental health problems) keeping an automatic rifle and live ammunition in their homes!

One wonders how many votes that intervention by Mr Griffin cost the BNP.

This year there was an announcement by Mr Griffin to the media, five weeks before the general election, that the BNP's publicity director (Mark Collett) was conspiring to murder both the party's leader (Mr Griffin) and its chief fundraiser (Jim Dowson); an allegation which the police investigated but which the Crown Prosecution Service declined to prosecute, presumably because the likelihood of securing a conviction on any such charge was, in their expert assessment, less than fifty per cent.

Since Mr Griffin's spurious allegations were plastered all over the daily 'red tops', to the great detriment of the reputation of the BNP, one wonders how many votes, members, and council seats, this particular piece of Griffinism cost the party.

"Nick likes to shoot from the hip", his admirers may say. The trouble is that whenever he does so he shoots not himself but the party in the foot.

Surely I am not alone in detecting a disturbing pattern in Mr Griffin's behaviour as party leader - or should that be party BETRAYER?

Will the Voice of Freedom live up to its name and publish this letter?

Yours faithfully

A Emerson

Dr A Emerson

Is Griffin 'State'?

Enemy Finger in the Pie


John Tyndall asks: Is the BNP infiltrated by hostile agents?







No longer very covert state action

As can be seen from the report on page 4 of Spearhead magazine, last month I was expelled from the British National Party for the second time in 16 months. The charges were as ludicrous this time as they were the previous time. Then I took legal action to obtain reinstatement, and I was successful: to avoid the matter going to court and very big costs being incurred, party chairman Nick Griffin agreed to an out-of-court settlement whereby the expulsion was annulled and my membership restored. As it was, the action was expensive: due to a procedural error by my solicitors in notifying Mr. Griffin of the application for judicial review of the case, the judge hearing the costs application ruled that each party to the dispute pay its own costs. A total bill of over £12,000 resulted from this fiasco, which was split roughly equally. The cause of Nationalism in Britain, never abounding in affluence, was that much the poorer for Mr. Griffin's folly.



Just what the costs will amount to in the new action which I have been forced to institute over this latest expulsion remains to be seen, but the affair will not be dealt with cheaply. No one regrets more than I do the fact that loyal nationalists will again be asked to dig into their pockets to pay, but the dispute has not been of my making. I never had Mr. Griffin expelled; he has had me expelled – twice!



A study of the history of Nick Griffin's involvement in nationalist politics indicates that he gets rather a kick out of expelling people – or, if not that, proscribing them – which amounts to almost the same thing. In our October 2003 issue we took a look at a document titled Attempted Murder, of which Mr. Griffin was the main author. This chronicled the internal quarrels that convulsed the National Front in 1986, in which he (Griffin) stood right at the centre. As a sample of paranoia it takes some beating; and it should be studied by everyone who wants to arrive at some understanding of the troubles now besetting the BNP. Attempted Murder can be read online at www.aryanunity.com/attempted_murder.html



But this would only touch at the surface of these troubles. There is much more that is needed to explain what is now going on in our party than the personality of Chairman Nick. We need to step back for a moment and focus on the bigger picture. This is important because, from the many letters and e-mails that I receive from nationalists around the country, I sense that an awful lot of people are utterly confused. The political climate in Britain is now more favourable to us than it has ever been. Despite the disappointments of last June's round of elections, both European and municipal, we are still getting some hugely encouraging votes. We should be on the crest of a wave of high morale and optimism, with our ranks united and our tails up. Yet the BNP is racked with internal division and widespread demoralisation – a truth which is only superficially concealed by the upbeat 'spin' that comes from official publications and bulletins.



Suspensions and expulsions

Right now, one of the party's best organisers in the South of England is under suspension, with his branch virtually in a state of limbo – only a probable five months from a vital general election. Another excellent organiser, in the East Midlands, has just been expelled (welcome to the club!). A leading activist in the London area only reported to me just before Christmas the alarming state of dissatisfaction among members throughout the capital and its suburbs. Just what is happening?



I will endeavour to give my own up-to-date 'take' on the situation. It is one which necessarily requires a certain amount of repetition, over which I hope readers will bear with me. The repetition must begin with some words quoted in these pages in our March 1999 issue. They come from a report in The Express newspaper published on 18th February of that year, and they read:-



'Scotland Yard and MI5 are planning a huge covert operation to break up violent racist organizations. The Express has learned that intelligence officers will infiltrate far Right groups such as the British National Party.



'Other officers will tap telephones, open mail and scrutinise bank accounts and medical records. "We plan to close down these organizations by using every administrative device available to us," said a Yard source.'



I believe that we must constantly keep these words in the forefront of our minds if we are to make sense of what has been happening to our party in the near six years that have followed. And it is perhaps the right place and moment for a further quote:-



'More recently, as the National Front declined to a mere rump, the British National Party (BNP) has been seen as more dangerous. By the early 1990s MI5 had successfully recruited or turned several agents inside the BNP.'



These words come from a book Defending the Realm, by Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, published by Andre Deutsch in 1999. I have no way of ascertaining the sources of the writers' information, but I have to presume that they carried out considerable research into the workings of MI5, the establishment's main internal security service, and would have had no reason to invent their claim. They are almost certainly no friends of the BNP and would not have made it to do us any favours.



This aside, the claim gives all the appearance of fitting logically into the picture of what has been happening in the party. Taken in conjunction with the words of the Scotland Yard spokesman reported in The Express newspaper, they present a scenario that should at once sound loud warning bells and enlighten us as to what our enemies are doing. For myself, I can see no rhyme nor reason in the conflicts we have had in the BNP without such forces at work – and this applies not only to our party but to other nationalist organizations, past and present, where similar internal trouble has been constantly visible. In one case, in the National Front in the 1970s, I was able to observe the same pattern: recurring internecine quarrels and splits, which seemed to break out not when there was organisational and political failure but at the moments of greatest success, when in theory morale should have been high and unity at its strongest.



Internal subversion

These experiences of years ago led me to give a good deal of study and thought to the question of internal subversion of dissident political groups carried out by the state and other hostile agencies. The phenomenon is not new, and it is not confined to Britain; in fact it has been a recognised technique of political warfare for centuries. Neither should we imagine that it targets only our side of the political spectrum. The writers of Defending the Realm affirm that it is practised also against radical left-wing organisations, most notably of all the IRA but also cranky fringe groups like the Socialist Workers' Party.



The infiltrator is an animal of which most nationalists are aware, but many have only the sketchiest idea of his chief function. There is often talk of 'enemy plants' working to get inside information, but where this occurs it is only for the purpose of that information being used in much more destructive designs. At the end of the day, nationalist political parties like the BNP are absolutely legal: unlike terrorist groups, they have nothing to hide. Not a single one of their activities is secret. The infiltrator, whether state or other, can obtain no information about these activities that his controllers do not already know about because of their completely open nature.



The principal function of the infiltrator in a nationalist political group that operates within the law (and nearly all do) is to promote internal sabotage. This can best be done by encouraging the formation of rival factions, in conflict with one another over matters of leadership or policy. Here there is almost always ready-made fuel for the saboteur.



Radical organisations tend by their nature to be fractious. They attract individuals with strong opinions, sometimes amounting to obsessions. This fractiousness is most common on the left, where ideological arguments that would appear to us ridiculously nit-picking in their proportions can become the subject of passionate and raging quarrels. On our side of politics conflicts of this kind are less common, though far from unknown. In the early to mid-1980s a group gained ascendancy in the National Front which pushed hard and persistently for the adoption of what came to be known as 'Strasserite' policies. This appellation was taken from a rebel faction in Hitler's National Socialist Party in Germany led by the brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser, which sought to combine a kind of civic Nationalism with social and economic doctrines that were little short of Bolshevism.



At the time all this was happening, I and people of like mind to me had parted company with the official Front over matters in no way connected with it, but we were still hoping for the fractured marriage to be repaired and the party united again. I noted that those most vociferous in their advocacy of the 'Strasser' line of thought were the most obdurately resistant to such a reunification, resorting to ideological pettifogging as an excuse for their self-entrenchment rather than focusing on the bigger picture. At the time I thought of them, politically speaking, as immature schoolboys who had a lot of growing up to do: their political ideas were shallow, sloppily thought out and very easy to demolish in debate. What I did not consider seriously enough then – though I did later – was that there could be some method in their evident silliness, and that 'Strasserite' politics could well have been some skilfully conceived wedge driven into the remnants of the former NF in order to ensure its continued division.



Unnecessary divide

However, a more obvious and easily available pretext for division within nationalism has always been the disagreement between what, for simplification, we might call the 'hard-liners' and the 'modernisers' within the movement. I have always regarded this conflict as grossly exaggerated in substance and wholly unnecessary when measured beside the strategic imperatives confronting us.



In all politics there is the ever-present debate as to ways and means: whether to present objectives in strident, uncompromising tones or to employ the 'soft sell', the soothing, moderately worded approach that will encounter the fewest objectors. To a great extent, divisions over these matters are rooted in the differing personal characters of those who argue them. There are those of the born warrior outlook, who will tend naturally towards the fighting approach which brooks no compromise; and there are the natural conciliators, who will forever be seeking gentler methods because their temperaments can conceive no other way.



I have long believed that the course of practical politics demands a fusion of the two instincts: that of the fighter and that of the diplomat, wisdom lying in recognising the moments and situations in which one or the other is called for, and deciding accordingly. A movement with an excess of warrior qualities over the qualities of the conciliator will rush blindly into political action that is often ill-conceived and self-destructive, while one in which these attributes exist in reverse measure will atrophy and wither on the vine because of a shortage of courage, motivation and will.



When all is said and done, I believe that it has to be the code and approach of the fighter that must prevail over that of the conciliator; but the fighter must be one with the discernment to accept the need for conciliatory methods when the situation calls for them. Here we who like to think of ourselves as fighters must be aware of instincts within us which sometimes need curbing, and to curb them when required. Here we have the fusion that makes for the soldier-politician, of whom Caesar, Napoleon and Marlborough were outstanding examples.



On the other hand, human nature being what it is, it is only rarely that life's born conciliators can overcome their innermost instincts and face a real fight when fighting is the only option.



And as with individuals, it is the same with ideologies, which tend to conform to individual bent. An ideology of firmness and strength should be able to incorporate the gentler virtues and practise them when needs demand. But an ideology rooted in weakness can never summon firmness and strength that simply are not there.



Recipe for splits

This is a bit of a diversion but, I hope, a useful one in identifying potential sources of conflict in a political movement. Between people of goodwill there is reasoned thought and discussion over the respective tactical viewpoints; but to the would-be wrecker these viewpoints, instead of being reconciled in synthesis, present a perfect recipe for internal quarrels resulting in factions and splits.



Again and again, I have seen this happen in nationalist organisations; and again and again I have come to the conclusion that somewhere, in each case, there is an external agency stoking the fires of conflict where common sense, and a focus on the greater common good, could have avoided it. I believe that just such an external agency – indeed more than just one – has been present in the divisions which over recent years have convulsed the British National Party.



It is at this point that we should focus on a third type that is to be found in organisations. This type has instincts neither towards the 'hard-line' nor gentler approach but is in the struggle for essentially egotistical reasons – and sometimes also mercenary ones. To this type, arguments about 'hard-line' or 'soft-line' politics have only one utility and criterion: do they advance or retard his own personal ambitions and personal faction? He can be at one moment the hard-line fundamentalist and the very next moment the soft-line 'moderniser' according to tactical requirements – the tactical requirements being not those of the party but purely his own.



This type, again, is putty in the hands of the would-be wrecker. His ego and ambition can be so easily exploited by cunning manipulation which sets him against others with whom he should be working in dedication to a common cause.



Mysterious new arrivals

Many of us noticed that shortly before or shortly after the leadership change that took place in the BNP in 1999 a number of new figures emerged in the party, little or nothing of whom had been known previously; and many of these graduated quickly to senior positions. Where were they coming from? What was their motivation? Were they with us to help or hinder?



Absolutely certain answers to these questions cannot be supplied, but it was noticeable that virtually all of these people aligned themselves decisively with the so-called 'modernising' faction in the party which had gained the ascendancy through the leadership change.



In what limited contact I had with these people one thing struck me vividly. Their arrogance and conviction in the rightness of their attitudes was astounding. Most of them were young enough to be my children and some even my grandchildren. Their practical experience of the nationalist struggle was at an apprentice level. Yet they spoke to me about political ideology and tactics as if they were experienced achievers with battle honours under their belts and I a young lad just out of school. Just where had they learned all this stuff? At an MI5 training college perhaps? Or were they just wired up that way? One of these explanations is not necessarily exclusive of the other.



In previous articles I have focused on the various policy and presentational gimmicks that have been employed allegedly with the object of making the BNP more 'electable': a Sikh newspaper columnist; a Jewish candidate (and later councillor); a Asian spokesman on a TV party political broadcast; declarations that the party would be satisfied with the permanent presence of ethnic minorities in Britain, providing there were not too many of them. I could go on.



I have never believed that these innovations make more than 0.01 per cent difference either to our election results or to our recruitment. On the other hand, they have been hugely divisive to the party internally, with large numbers of members, including some of our best activists, quitting it in disgust. Is this just folly – the lack of intelligent political calculation of gain and loss? Or is it deliberate – a quite cynical manoeuvre aimed at alienating the genuine nationalists within and without and turning the BNP into nothing better than a neutered Tory pressure group? I am in no doubt myself as to the answer to these questions. I hope that what is written here will lead others to think about them seriously. Let us remember the words of the 'Yard source' back in 1999. "We plan to close down these organisations..." One way to close down an organisation is to divide it into fragments which, separately, exert almost zero influence in national politics. This was what happened to the National Front at the end of the 1970s. Is it the strategy now being pursued with regard to the BNP? There is a great deal of evidence – albeit admittedly circumstantial – that it is.



I have spoken earlier of the sacking and suspension of excellent organisers and branches. If this is not intended as a deliberate act of sabotage of the party, it most certainly is operating to that effect. The pretext for this orgy of purges is the need to maintain internal party discipline. Well, there is no one more firmly committed to the principle of internal party discipline than I. But in an organisation of volunteers – very different from a branch of the armed forces – discipline cannot be imposed by bullying and coercion; it must be maintained with prudence and must begin with its ultimate arbiter – the top party leadership – winning respect and being seen to apply it disinterestedly and with a view solely to the party's welfare. This simply has not been happening in the BNP. Certain people have been 'chopped' on purported disciplinary grounds, while others much more deserving of disciplinary action have been allowed to get away with almost anything they like – providing they show loyalty and willing subservience to the people currently in control. This is not a recipe for order in the party; it is one for self-destruction.



Financial gravy train

It is the time now to take another look at the BNP's quite ludicrously inflated wage bill. I have asked the questions before: Who is being paid and how much? And whence is coming the money to keep this gravy train on the rails? The people bidding to take over the party in 1999 made one of their main campaigning issues a demand for transparency and accountability in the handling of party finances. Yet these present questions continue to be shrouded in secrecy. Why?



I would suggest that the overriding reason for the payments that are being doled out to so many party functionaries is that they are intended to keep them subservient and acquiescent in the numerous outrageous policy decisions that have been made over the past few years and a few examples of which I have highlighted. In any other circumstances there would have been a palace revolt at the top of the party, with numerous senior officers simply not being willing to accept what has been going on. Yet there has been an almost indecent compliance. Could it be that when promptings of rebellion come from the inner conscience a self-reminder about bread-and-butter dependency stiffle the urge. Thoughts about the mortgage or instalments on the motor car act as a brake on protest.



I would strongly urge those in receipt of these emoluments to examine their consciences again. Can they reconcile their positions with personal honour and self-respect? Can they with sincerity condemn the 'bought' politicians of the established parties when they have their feet planted on the same path?



And I ask again: where is the money coming from? I remind those in control of their previous clamour for transparency. Where is the transparency here?



No to new party!

As I write these words, many still urge me to take the lead in forming a new party. As has happened in the past, I refuse to take that step. All previous experience counsels against it. Indeed I am convinced that it has been the intention and hope that I would launch and lead a breakaway movement from the BNP that explains so much of what has been happening – both to the party itself and to me personally. But I simply do not intend to play these people's game. The name of the game is divide-and-conquer. It made Nationalism in Britain impotent for so many years. It is the hope and prayer of those who seek to keep things this way.



And just as I would be playing our enemies' game by consenting to the setting up of a breakaway party, so also are those who on grounds of principle and protest have let their party subscriptions lapse, and have thus disenfranchised themselves with regard to action for internal change. If you aren't a member you can't vote. And if you can't vote you're going to leave things as they are. Here I risk offending some of my staunchest friends and allies by saying that this kind of abstention boils down to a form of self-indulgence. It is precisely what is wanted by the people who are steering the BNP – whether by intention or under manipulative forces of which they have no knowledge – to self-destruction. You may not like sending these people money at renewal time. Nor do I. But it is an utterly necessary procedure if the BNP is to be saved.



With these thoughts I wish a happy new year to all those genuinely devoted to the cause of race and nation.



Spearhead Online

Dr Andrew Emerson Reform Conference Speech

Dr Andrew Emerson Reform Conference Speech

Dr Andrew Emerson speaks at BNP Reform conference, 12 09 2010

Tyndall on Griffin's Attempted Murder

Originally published in Spearhead, October 2003

We've Been Here Before!

John Tyndall compares his expulsion with past events

Paranoia

Personal attacks

Accusations of 'subversion'

Expulsions

Purges

To be exact, we were here 17 years ago. The year was 1986. The British National Party was four years old. The National Front, the party out of which it was formed, was racked by chronic internal divisions, with accusations and counter-accusations, personal attacks and demands for expulsions poisoning the air. Does it sound familiar? It should, because there is a certain common thread linking that time with times much more recent.

It was in 1986 that the NF split in two. One morning, nationalists in Britain woke up to find that there were now two organisations claiming to be the National Front where previously there had been one: there was the 'Official' National Front, led by Nick Griffin and Derek Holland; and there was what came to be known as the National Front 'Support Group', of which the main leaders appear to have been Martin Wingfield and Ian Anderson. There is some irony in this because the former gentleman is now one of the leading lieutenants of Mr. Griffin in today's BNP!

Inevitably, both sides in the conflict issued their respective versions of what had gone wrong and who was to blame. Those of us by then in the BNP smiled as we watched these two factions screech at each other like alley cats, each seeking to outdo the other in mutual recrimination. Of course, we took no sides. Long ago, we had come to view the NF as a party with no future, albeit that it still contained some good patriots at rank-and-file and lower leadership levels. With the individuals at the top, a clash had always been probable, and it was no surprise when it came.

Hysterical and nutty

Neither version of what had happened impressed us, but of the two the version issued in the name of the 'Official' Front seemed by several degrees the more vituperative, paranoid, hysterical and plain nutty. It was titled Attempted Murder: the State/Reactionary Plot Against the National Front. From this choice of words it will be gleaned that the 'Official' NF regarded its internal opponents as hirelings of the political establishment, whose mission was to sabotage the party from the inside. Our own view at the time was that there was probably some truth in this but it was only half the truth; the likelihood was that the establishment had its agents placed in both camps, with the intention that through action and counteraction from one direction and then another the NF would be smashed to pieces. Effectively it was, though a rump of it has managed to survive to this day.

Attempted Murder in due course took its place among the piles of mostly forgotten factional literature that have gathered dust in attics, cellars, spare bedrooms and garages over the years - just occasionally retrieved and read for amusement and for old time's sake. Certain recent events, however, brought memories of it back, and we acquired a copy for study. The study was well worthwhile, and the document is highly recommended to those who seek to make sense of what has been happening in the BNP, our own party, over the past few years. We too are deeply divided within - though successes on the electoral scene should, from every commonsense standpoint, be making us more united than ever, while other nationalist groups should be abandoning their own separate operations and joining us. Why is there this division? Let us turn to Attempted Murder, and see if it offers some clues.

In the introduction to the document it is made clear that, though it was unanimously approved by the National Directorate of the National Front, its author was in fact Nick Griffin, who as a consequence of the split had emerged as leader of the party.

'Disciplinary tribunals'

We do not have to proceed very far in Attempted Murder before something of its flavour emerges. In the third paragraph of the Introduction it is stated that:-

'The facts about the State's response to the growing NF threat, and the part played in it by the last reactionary elements within the old leadership, have taken a long time to uncover. And the need to ensure fair trials for these few individuals at their resuming disciplinary tribunals has prevented previous publication of the full story about the rise and fall of their factional adventure.'

It is at this point that we should explain that throughout the document Mr. Griffin's opponents in the NF are described as the 'reactionaries' and his own faction as the 'radicals'. The division, in other words, is over matters of ideology and principle, and has nothing to do with human egos, personal ambitions or power-rivalries. Make sure you understand this!

Fair trials for individuals at disciplinary tribunals! Does this not sound faintly familiar In the next paragraph members are assured that the offending individuals - termed 'ring-leaders'- have now been expelled. Familiar again?

What follows is a depressing tale of organisational incompetence within the party, with one individual after another being blamed for this. In fact, when one tots up the names of the people who are accused of incompetence and/or bad personal habits and/or dishonourable or subversive behaviour the list reads like a roll call of just about everyone who was anyone in the NF at the time. There is one notable exception among these names, and that is Nick Griffin himself. None of the blame for the long catalogue of cock-ups is Nick's; it is all other people's fault. And, needless to say, Nick remains a beacon of honourable behaviour while so many other people are acting dishonourably!

The tale takes a kind of diary form, with commentaries recorded against the months in which things happened. The first such entry is for December 1983. Here it is stated that "a meeting of the National Directorate voted to expel [Martin] Webster and his homosexual lover Michael Salt from all their paid and elected positions within the party." Now that really is interesting - because not so very long previously Mr. Griffin had been one of those in the NF who had opposed John Tyndall's move to have Mr. Webster dismissed on the grounds of his homosexuality! This sounds a rather Damascan conversion, but no doubt Mr. Griffin will be able to explain it - as he usually has an explanation for everything.

In the same section Martin Wingfield is accused of trying to obstruct the dismissal of Webster in the first place but changing his mind when he was offered the editorship of the party's newspaper, then called National Front News.

The narrative proceeds to August 1984, in which section Tom Acton, Ian Anderson and Roger Denny are all attacked. There is an argument over the location of a party printing machine, which, according to Mr. Griffin, Anderson wanted to be in East London "which he saw as his own personal power-base." Following on from this, in a section dated April 1985, Anderson is accused of lying to his close associates. The next thing is that the same Mr. Anderson is as good as accused of financial impropriety.

Everyone is guilty except Nick!

Needless to say, we have no way whatever of knowing whether any of these accusations are justified or not. It is just that virtually everyone who had been, or currently was, a colleague of Nick Griffin gets accused of something. Nick comes out of every encounter with clean hands!

It is the same in a section which follows, dated July 1985. In this section we read about a long succession of cock-ups. Money has been handled irresponsibly, if not dishonestly. Large numbers of letters to the party office have gone unanswered. Stocks of books have run down while orders have not been dealt with. Leaflets have been produced far too late and have been of poor quality. A printing press has been purchased which is quite useless, while the motive for its purchase is deemed as factional. There are more attacks on Anderson, Wingfield and Denny in this connection. There is even a snide reference to rivalries over lady friends affecting the performance of party duties - something more appropriate to the gossip column of a tabloid newspaper than a bulletin dealing with serious business in a political party.

Next target for attack is one Michael Hipperson. Yes, he too has incurred Mr. Griffin's displeasure. Mr. Hipperson is accused of failing to deliver photos of an NF march for the party's paper and also neglecting to pursue follow-ups - with what justification we have no way of knowing. He simply joins Mr. Giffin's 'hit list' and is thought to be part of the rival faction because he shares accommodation with Anderson. It gets more and more complicated!

While all these misdeeds and failures of duty were occurring, what, the reader might ask, was Nick Griffin himself doing? Of course, as always, he is not to blame! The failures were other people's. However, Nick has an explanation for the chaos that seems to have been endemic in the party. It is not just incompetence; it is worse than that; it is deliberate sabotage! At the end of the July 1985 section he announces that those he is attacking are doing it all "in order to discredit their radical colleagues..." In other words, it's a conspiracy, folks!

The attacks continue. One person out of favour is accused of being into drugs. Another is too fond of his beer.

The hit list grows

There next appear accusations of a leak to The Guardian newspaper over a printing operation. As with so much else, it is impossible 17 years afterwards to get to the truth of what actually happened. Ian Anderson, by now very clearly enemy number one, is believed to be the culprit; however Wingfield and Acton are attacked again, this time for obstructing charges against Anderson being brought on the Directorate. And they are joined by two more: Andrew Brons and Paul Nash. All are accused of scheming, lying and rigging the Directorate agenda to get Anderson off the hook. Mr. Griffin claims that they have been doing so "to protect a member of their secret faction," and that they are therefore 'corrupt'. Four more to be added to the hit list.

Coming to the Autumn of 1985, the attacks on Anderson continue. There are allegations of theft, fraud, drunkenness and incompetence, but that is not all; again the theme of 'deliberate sabotage' reappears, and again Wingfield and Brons, among others, are accused of shielding Anderson - no doubt as part of the factional conspiracy!

It is known that at some time during those years Ian Anderson was in fact chairman of the NF Directorate and therefore in effect leader of the party, though Attempted Murder is extremely imprecise as to when he took over this position and when he vacated it. At all events, throughout the time he was most definitely part of the NF's hierarchy. If his sins were so glaring as Mr. Griffin makes them out to be, it seems incredible that anyone in senior party circles should have failed to be aware of them and support the appropriate action against him. Yet he appeared to have several defenders at the very top of the party. Why? Perhaps these defenders knew a few things that are not made obvious in Attempted Murder.

Next to come in for condemnation is Miss Tina Dalton; she joins the lengthening list of guilty persons. She is accused of inefficiency as a typesetter but it is hinted that in this capacity she did some jobs for Anderson for factional reasons. Miss Dalton later became Mrs. Denny and, subsequent to that, Mrs. Wingfield, which we understand she remains today. Mr. Wingfield, for his part, is now editor of the BNP paper The Voice of Freedom, as most people know. This suggests an extraordinarily forgiving attitude on his part towards Nick Griffin - or should we put that the other way round?

Gutter press tactics

Interspersed with these attacks against all and sundry, we find in the section headed January 1986 a reference to certain sensitive papers being found in an office and destroyed as part of a security operation. Apparently not all of the papers were of a political nature, and here Mr. Griffin again descends to a piece of bitchiness worthy only of a low-grade female gossip columnist, talking about certain personal diaries and love letters that should never be regarded as party business. He is at it again a page later, insinuating an 'affair' between a member and another member's wife when the husband was unavoidably away. This is gutter stuff which we could well do without.

Next to incur disfavour is one Steve Brady, whom some readers will know. Brady apparently sent a letter to Joe Pearce, now (Spring 1986) in Prison, which contained sensitive information liable to be read by the prison censors. This was foolish but hardly a hanging offence. Nevertheless it is stated that "The Directorate took a dim view of this and Brady ended up on a charge." It is not stated who actually moved that there should be such a charge, but the reader will perhaps have little trouble in guessing! Brady is described as having letters of support from Wingfield, Brons, Acton and Dalton - which presumably means that these people did not consider his letter to Pearce sufficiently serious for disciplinary action. Says Griffin: "Most of the key figures in the subsequent faction leapt to Brady's defence, so they had already clearly transferred their loyalties from the National Front as a whole to members of their own clique." Much more likely, they simply regarded a disciplinary punishment against Brady as ridiculous and could see that it was being pursued in a fit of paranoia that could not be countenanced. Here Pearce, up to now not on the hit list, incurs disfavour by sending a letter out from prison which appears to defend Brady. Obviously, Pearce must from now on be watched!

Northern Ireland becomes the next battleground for Mr. Griffin's factional war. A loyalist by the name of Keith White gets killed by a bullet from an RUC rifle during a demonstration against the Anglo-Irish Agreement - probably no more than a tragic accident. However, in the minds of Nick's 'radical' wing of the NF it becomes 'murder'. In retaliation for the death, some loyalists in the province make petrol-bomb attacks on the homes of RUC officers - an utterly inexcusable action, whatever the natural anger prompting it. And what do Griffin & Co. in the NF do? They make a declaration which as good as justifies the attackers! Wingfield condemns this declaration, and is in consequence himself condemned by the so-called 'radicals' in the NF, presumably including Nick Griffin. Another mark against Wingfield!

About-turn on street confrontation

Following this, there is further condemnation of Wingfield for his opposition to a policy of 'direct physical confrontation' by the NF against marches by IRA supporters. It is not the time nor place here to enter into this argument, save to remark that Mr. Griffin, who clearly then approved of these tactics, has now done a 180° turn and throws the 'street confrontation' charge against his opponents in the BNP, alleging that they favour it!

After more tirades against Wingfield (his ally these days, remember), Mr. Griffin turns to the satirical writer the late Ted Budden, whose columns in nationalist papers gave great entertainment to many nationalists. Ted is accused of "reactionary and juvenile race-hate rantings" and called "an elderly bigot." One more on the hit list! Ironically, Nick was pleased later to accept Ted Budden's humorous contributions to the BNP newspaper before the latter died at the end of 2000. But we are not finished with the tirades against Wingfield. They continue at some length, and at one point Griffin writes: "Wingfield's 'Mr. Nice Guy' image conceals an arrogant self-importance and lust for power of shocking proportions." Phew!

But none of this should sidetrack us from the fact that Anderson continues to be the number-one enemy. It is all now building up to the disciplinary action against him intended to hound him out of the party. No prizes are being offered for correctly guessing who is bringing the charges!

Of course, anyone disposed to disagree with this action is branded an 'enemy' too, with prominence in this regard given to Wingfield and Acton. Wingfield is accused here, as elsewhere, of having 'Tory' tendencies. Brons, out of things for some time, is attacked for opposing the action against Anderson.

Recently Spearhead has spoken to some of the people around at this time to get their views on the situation. They are unanimous in saying that, although Anderson had many weaknesses and faults, they believed that the attempt to bring disciplinary charges against him to drive him out of the party was utterly ridiculous; hence their opposition to it. One witness has testified to the paranoid way in which anyone who opposed these charges was lumped together with Anderson as part of some imaginary 'conspiracy' against the party.

We now come to the Directorate meeting at which Anderson is intended for the chop. Here an extraordinary admission is made of which the reader should take careful note. Steve Brady, who in this section again comes in for much stick, is accused of making a false claim to the effect that Griffin had told him that Anderson was about to be expelled on 'trumped up' charges. Brady, it will be recalled, was already in hot water over his letter to Pearce. Here Nick's version of what actually happened is spelled out. This is now Nick Griffin speaking, not someone else putting words into his mouth. Bear in mind that he (Nick) writes of himself throughout Attempted Murder in the third person, and he writes as follows:-

'For all his faults, Brady was considered quite radical and was a drinking mate of Pearce's, so Nick had told him on the 'phone that his recent short suspension was the end of the affair of his indiscreet letter to Pearce, and had made it clear that Wingfield's attitude made it necessary to expel Anderson. He went on to tell him that there were so many genuine charges against him that his removal was assured, but that no one else would be touched as long as they didn't move to support his corruption...'

His removal was assured! Readers will perhaps find here an eerie foretaste of later events and declarations. As for the promise that no one else would be touched, this sounds very much like: "Support my action - or else". Here again, future events seem to cast their shadow. When in July of this year Mr. Griffin was phoning around the country urging people to support the planned expulsion of John Tyndall he was making similar threats to those who showed insufficient enthusiasm for the idea, in the case of BNP town councillors hinting at the withdrawal of the party whip from them if they did not endorse Tyndall's dismissal.

In the outcome, the motion to bring charges against Anderson, which was put by Griffin, was defeated by one vote. There follows in the document a list of the diabolically subversive practices employed to achieve this result, as part of which, again, nearly everybody is attacked, but Wingfield in particular comes in for very heavy punishment, being accused of manipulating the whole proceedings. At the same meeting a new party Executive is elected, leaving Wingfield as chairman and Griffin as his deputy. This does not seem a recipe for future harmony, and it isn't.

Accusations of corruption

Nick is not finished with Wingfield. There follows in Attempted Murder a two-page section headed 'Wingfield's Corruption' which makes it all the more amazing that Wingfield and Griffin are now colleagues and the latter is able to write glowing tributes to Wingfield's skills as a journalist and propagandist. The whole affair of 1983-86 involving Griffin and Wingfield leaves two questions begging. If Griffin's assessment of Wingfield's character as shown in Attempted Murder is correct, how on earth can he now embrace him as a senior colleague in the BNP? Alternatively, if the assessment is just malicious fabrication, how on earth can Wingfield accept with any honour a job that involves working under Griffin?

The new party Executive, according to Mr. Griffin, consists of six persons, namely Martin Wingfield, Andrew Brons, Paul Nash, Tom Acton, Joe Pearce and Griffin himself. If what he has written in Attempted Murder is correct, this leaves Nick in a minority of one - at least with regard to his current obsession of driving Ian Anderson out of the party. It will not require too much perception on the part of the reader to appreciate that Nick was none too pleased.

At this point it should be explained that the National Directorate remained the senior authority in the NF; the Executive was merely a body appointed by the Directorate to make quick day-to-day decisions that could not await the next scheduled Directorate meeting. Thus appointed, the Executive could likewise be dismissed.

And this is what Mr. Griffin now sets about planning. According to the account in Attempted Murder, he manages, by energetic and persuasive lobbying of Directorate members, to obtain a majority, albeit not a large one, for the dismissal of the Executive he dislikes and the appointing of a new one. Readers will not be overwhelmed with surprise to hear that the new chairman of the Executive, Directorate and party is - Nick Griffin!

According to his own account (and corroborated by others), Nick now sets about pursuing the expulsion from the party of his main opponents and rivals. The pretext is a bulletin issued by these people which is claimed to reveal confidential minutes of a Directorate meeting, but to put spice on things the offenders are also accused of telling lies and making attacks on Nick and his supporters. And that's not all. To quote Attempted Murder, "additional charges of disloyalty were also brought."

The four arch-criminals, namely Wingfield, Brons, Nash and Acton, are duly expelled from the party. One of our current witnesses who was there at the time has opined that the four had a pretty strong case for challenging the expulsions in court, but were put off the idea by the thought of the expense involved. It seems from Attempted Murder that there were additional purges, but the document is not too specific about which individuals were affected. Somehow the ghost of Joseph Stalin makes a fleeting appearance here.

Attempted Murder rambles on for many more pages the details of which it would be tedious to reproduce here. Briefly, what next transpired was that the sacked people refused to recognise their expulsions and set about creating their own organisation. They called it the 'National Front Support Group', claiming that their loyalty was still to the party though not to its existing leadership. For a while, Britain witnessed the absurdity of two 'National Fronts' operating quite separately from each other, each claiming to be the authentic representative of the original party.

Griffin support slips away

Nick Griffin, in Attempted Murder, claims that his faction, the 'Official' Front enjoyed the support of a very clear majority in the party. This may have been correct at the time it was written (1986) but it ceased to be so before very long. A year later, the rival faction had become indisputably stronger. Mr. Griffin's supporters deserted him in droves. Some joined the other 'National Front'. Some went to the BNP. Some dropped out of nationalist politics altogether. Griffin's Front and Wingfield's Front measured strengths against each other at the Remembrance Day parade in November 1987, and the latter was seen to be at least four times more numerous.

Eventually, the Griffin Front disintegrated entirely, leaving the Wingfield Front as the sole claimant to the party's title. The National Front of today is the heir to that party.

In years following, nationalists in Britain were to witness more political turns by Mr. Griffin. Soon after the 1986 split there came the 'Cadre' National Front (so named as a result of Nick's organising of an elite 'party within the party' which enjoyed a superior status to the ordinary membership and thus thoroughly and predictably alienated the latter). Then there was the 'Gaddafi' Front, a nickname earned by the adoption of the doctrines of the eccentric Libyan dictator. The most notable event in the short career of this body was an unsuccessful visit by Griffin and Derek Holland [and Pat Harrington] to Libya to solicit money. There followed the era of the 'Political Soldiers', another Griffin stunt modelled on the example of Rumanian Iron Guard leader Corneliu Codreanu. Later Nick became involved with the International Third Position, but this did not last long. For information on his contribution to the ITP, the reader is best advised to contact one of its leading officers, Mr. Gareth Hurley.

We come then to the early to mid-1990s, when we find Nick making overtures to the BNP, which some years previously he had been regularly attacking. But that is another story.

We now hear that copies of Attempted Murder are again in circulation, though Spearhead has had nothing to do with this development. We strongly recommend anyone seeking an understanding of present problems to obtain and read this document. This article has only been able to provide the sketchiest summary of its contents. The task of reading right through Attempted Murder, which is set in 50 pages of A4 size, is a chore but a necessary one. The document can he obtained on the internet, but we can supply copies if necessary at the cost of £1.50 each, which barely covers paper, printing ink and postage.

Spearhead Online

Tyndall on Griffin the Wrecker

The Problem is Mr Griffin


It is not policies which divide the BNP, says John Tyndall







The Problem is Griffin

As readers will know, the press hounds were sniffing around the British National Party in August hoping to help themselves to some tit bits following the news of my expulsion from the party. Unfortunately, they were given some by representatives of the BNP leadership, who were only too ready to blab their mouths off on matters that are internal to the party and should not be disclosed to the media. There were reports in The Times and The Observer which, only too predictably, supplied fuel to the theory that the divisions in the party are over policy and ideology. The Times report spoke of internal discontent over the 'watered-down' policies of Nick Griffin and went on to quote one 'senior source' as saying:-



'We are not a Nazi Party, but people in Burnley were being seduced by John Tyndall's rhetoric. He was leading people astray, trying to split the party, attacking the leadership.'



I would like to know who this 'senior source' is but if he/she cared to contact any Burnley BNP member who was at the meeting at which I spoke last May they could confirm that during my speech I uttered not a word about party internal divisions nor even mentioned the party leadership. As for saying that the BNP is not a Nazi Party, that is to raise a total red herring. I said nothing at the meeting to suggest the BNP should be a Nazi party, and I challenge anyone to produce a shred of evidence to the contrary.



The Observer spoke of a 'power struggle' in the BNP and went on to say that I was expelled "as its chairman, Nick Griffin, seeks to portray the organisation as a more mainstream body in a bid to attract new voters." Red herrings again! There is not the slightest disagreement between Mr. Griffin and myself over the fact that the BNP should aspire to be a mainstream party and attract new voters. It was set firmly on this course from about 1990 onwards long before Mr. Griffin came anywhere near it.



The report went on to state that "BNP modernisers said Tyndall was expelled due to his extreme views." This is nonsense, and if someone in the party made such an allegation he/she is guilty of total distortion. Nothing in the charges against me said anything about my views, only about my alleged actions. Of course, whether my views were an underlying reason for my expulsion is another question.



Myth

We have taken issue with Mr. Griffin over certain public relations stunts and 'gimmicks', which we believe have not gained us a single extra voter and only serve to demoralise the party internally: Sikh columnists being given space in the party newspaper; candidates endorsing black sons-in-law; talk of a few ethnic minorities in Britain being better than none at all; declarations that an all-white Britain is neither desirable nor feasible.



But, these errors apart, we are at one with everybody in the BNP over the principle that the party should present itself with an image of reasonableness, decency and civilised behaviour and should, whatever it may say on racial issues, avoid expressions of hate.



Dishonesty

This is what makes so downright dishonest Nick Griffin's article in the July issue of Identity magazine, which consists of a four-page tirade against me, no doubt intended to prime members to accept my kicking out of the party. I could go through this article point-by-point and refute in detail every political allegation made, but that would take excessive space and I decline to do so. I will just deal with two particularly misleading references.



At one point Mr. Griffin says:-



'The fact that our spokesmen can be guaranteed not to launch into tirades of racist abuse or turn up wearing boots and braces provides them [the media] with the reassurance they need to be able to justify... giving us a platform.'



The clear implication here is that I favour BNP interviewees facing the media with boots and braces and yelling racist abuse at them. Mr. Griffin knows that this is a million miles from the truth but he chooses to let his readers think it actually reflects my ideas on political tactics. In fact, in the interview with Mark Collett on the Dispatches programme in November last year the BNP went far closer to projecting this image than I would have ever allowed.



In another passage Mr. Griffin refers to John Tyndall's "self-serving thesis that people are getting so desperate that they'd vote for a pig in a nazi armband if it stood for the BNP..." This is so pathetic, and reeking of desperation, that it is hardly worth dignifying with a reply. I have given ample chapter and verse in numerous articles in these columns to show that not so very far back Mr. Griffin himself was striking political postures far more extreme than anything I have endorsed for a long time - the most noteworthy example being an article in 1995 in a journal of which he was editor praising the Waffen SS, and more recently than that his talk of meeting left-wing opposition with "a well-aimed nationalist fist or boot."



The truth is that Nick Griffin's pose as a political leader of 'moderation' is so transparently phoney that it can quite easily be demolished by any media hack at any time who cares to do a little research into his verbal and written utterances of the not-so-distant past; and if he wants to play the game of digging up old photographs, as he did with his July article, people might ask him about the one taken of him visiting Libya just 14 years ago and posing in front of a gigantic portrait of Colonel Gaddafi. Gaddafi, it might be worth reminding readers, helped to finance the IRA, was behind the gang responsible for the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher in a London street in 1984 and is generally perceived (rightly or wrongly) to have instigated the Lockerbie air disaster.



Avoiding the arguments

I allowed myself to become involved in some foolish political associations back in my late twenties (I am now 69). There is thus a four-decade gap separating me from those escapades. Like Mr. Griffin, I have made some past political mistakes; but unlike Mr. Griffin, I do not dishonestly exploit the past mistakes of others to deflect attention from current arguments. A number of us in nationalism have been guilty of indiscretions in our earlier political careers, some a long time ago, some not such a long time ago. On these matters we should present a united front, affirming that the important thing is what we propose for Britain today, not what we may have said about foreign politicians in bygone days. Least of all should any nationalist worthy of the name attempt to score cheap points over another nationalist by raking up past errors as a substitute for intelligent debate over matters of the here and now. This is to play the game of Searchlight and the equally obnoxious Express newspaper group.



Long ago, I came to realise that as far as Nick Griffin is concerned policy stances are simply things to be adopted or discarded in accordance with how they further his ends in the factional wars in which, for his whole political life, he seems to have been engaged. His tactics are nothing if not consistent. He ascertains the policy stance of the person he perceives to be his current rival, and he then adopts a different one - so that he can then present his position as arising out of political necessity rather than egotism and ambition. He gets away with this with many people because he has a silver tongue that at times can be extremely persuasive. It takes getting to know the man to see through his tricks.



I have covered these matters in order to get to what is really the core of the issue; and the core of the issue is the personality and character of Nick Griffin; not policy arguments, not ideology, not questions of party 'imagery'.



Portent of disaster

It was after some three years of close acquaintance with Mr. Griffin that I foresaw that his assumption of the leadership of the BNP would portend disaster for the party. I have not changed that view despite some very favourable election results that the party has enjoyed since the Summer of 2001 - results that I attribute to factors far removed from Mr. Griffin's leadership and his U-turns in policy. I would incidentally say also that our earlier election victory in East London in 1993 was in no way due to anything I did myself when then leader but was entirely the result of a happy marriage between local anger against immigration and an excellent campaign by our local activists - factors which have so immensely helped us in various parts of the country over the past couple of years.



I have said this before but I will say it again: As far back as the mid-1990s I was already thinking about the desirability of finding a replacement BNP leader younger than I, and I had started to see considerable attractions in a life which, though still busy, would be free from the intense pressures that weigh on the head of the party.



But I have to say that I never saw Mr. Griffin as the right person. From the very start there was something about him that inspired doubt. On this, my wife was far more emphatic. She has met nearly all my main political associates over the years, and I have never known her to be wrong in her personal assessment of a single one of them. From the very first moment she met Griffin she warned me that I should never trust him. I conceded that she could well be right but, nevertheless, I needed some new blood in the party leadership team, particularly in the writing field, where up till then far too much fell on me. I needed someone to take over the editorship and production of Spearhead so that I could give my almost exclusive time and attention to party matters. I took a gamble in taking Griffin on, while resolving to keep a careful eye on him.



It became clear to me after working with him for some time that he had joined the BNP simply and solely for his own ends. I had been warned of this from the beginning by one or two people who knew him, and it was not long before I realised that their warnings had been correct. He had a history of playing disruptive roles in virtually every organisation with which he had been involved, but at the time I was willing to put this down to the immaturity of youth. I later realised too late that he had not changed a jot.



Biting the hand that fed

Griffin did not perform the duties on Spearhead for nothing; I paid him, as is necessary with the work involved in a publication of our size, quality and frequency. In addition to this, he was also paid for doing certain jobs for the BNP, mainly the writing of bulletins. As proprietor of Spearhead and leader of the BNP, I provided Nick Griffin with his living for some three years. Right from the start, he showed his appreciation and gratitude by plotting and scheming against me. Treachery of this kind I have not known in some forty-plus years of involvement in nationalist politics, during which I have encountered some pretty despicable people.



When Griffin launched his takeover bid in 1999, I was in no way surprised. What did surprise me were the forces in the party that he had working for him. I had had some inkling of these from the effusions of Patriot magazine but I have to say that I totally underestimated the poison they had spread and the gullibility of so many of those on whom they had worked. Many of the latter have subsequently expressed to me their bitter regret that they were taken in by the Griffin faction, but the fact is that taken in they were at that crucial moment in the party's progress.



Our achievement pre-Griffin

And there was progress. The Griffin propaganda machine has skilfully manufactured a myth about the "bad old days" preceding the leadership change, but the fact is that in the two years before Mr. Griffin's takeover the BNP had increased its membership by almost 90 per cent. It put up a full slate of candidates in England and Scotland in the Euro Elections in 1999 and won TV time. Its vote over the country was steadily increasing, though it had not yet experienced the dramatic increase that later led to several councillors being elected. This big upsurge began in certain northern towns in the general election of June 2001, and the catalyst that caused it was undoubtedly the race riot in Oldham just three weeks previously. This gave the party a new credibility rating that led to council seats being won the following year and again in 2003. The fact is, however, that between the leadership change in September 1999 and June 2001 (nearly two years) there was no significant rise in BNP votes that marked anything new from what had already been occurring for some time. When Nick Griffin himself stood as the party's candidate in West Bromwich West in November 2000 he obtained a very mediocre 794 votes (4.2 per cent) in an area which had always been very fertile nationalist territory. This was a mere 13 votes more than a previous BNP candidate, Steve Edwards, had achieved in just one ward in the same constituency a few months earlier!



Fiasco in West Midlands

Mention of Steve Edwards brings us to the story of how Nick Griffin virtually wrecked the BNP in the West Midlands as a result of his paranoid witch hunt against Steve and his wife Sharron in the late Summer of 2000. Steve and Sharron, among others, had raised some awkward questions about Nick's management of party finances. The next thing was that, like many before and after them, they found themselves expelled by Griffin from the party. Sharron Edwards had in fact been the region's chosen candidate for West Bromwich West, but Griffin deselected her at the same time as expelling her. He was later forced to reinstate the Edwards as members following an angry protest meeting in the area in support of them, but Sharron was not reinstated as the West Bromwich candidate. The result? Disgusted local activists who had been prepared to campaign for her, and had in fact already started to do so, refused to campaign for Griffin. The latter was forced to import campaign helpers from other areas to make any kind of showing at all, but it was not enough. The opportunity for an excellent vote was thrown away.



The Edwards and a large portion of the then BNP West Midlands membership then left the party and took part in the formation of the breakaway Freedom Party, on behalf of which Sharron Edwards is now a councillor. I believed this to be a big mistake and advised Steve and Sharron against it. However, their anger against their treatment by Griffin was such that I failed to persuade them to stay in the BNP. Prior to their departure, the BNP in the West Midlands was experiencing a tremendous boom similar to that which it later enjoyed in the North West of England, and had Griffin not wrecked everything it could today be as strong as the North West. It has made a partial recovery but is still very far from what it was prior to the Summer of 2000.



Steve and Sharron Edwards had previously supported Griffin's candidature in the BNP leadership ballot in 1999, and their names and photos were prominently featured in this capacity in some of the Griffin campaign literature. They were to become badly disillusioned. In a letter to me in December 2000 they said:-



'The current leader Nick Griffin is a... and a... (words deleted to avoid possible libel action)... Decent people have been badly let down...Griffin has wrecked and factionalised every movement he has been associated with... If Griffin is replaced, we may be able to join forces again.'



The reference to wrecking and factionalising is significant. Griffin is in fact well on the way to doing this to the BNP as a whole, whereas prior to his entry it enjoyed 14 years of almost total harmony. Before that, he accomplished much the same thing with the National Front, and this is why we have given considerable space to the story of the NF break-up in 1986 earlier in this issue. But Nick does not seem content with this record. He seems to want to extend it. The latest area of his wrecking operations is the very one where the BNP has been doing best of all in the last couple of years: Lancashire and the North West.



Vendetta against Burnley BNP

The full story of the damage Griffin has been doing in this region is much too long and detailed to fit into this article; others are working on that and before long we may have the chance to study it. Here I will just give a few of the barest of bare bones.



Somehow Nick has managed to alienate a large portion of leading activists in the most successful branch of all, the Burnley branch. Local people are better qualified than I am to give chapter and verse as to how this has happened. My own vantage point is a limited one and connected with my own personal experience. I was invited to speak at a Burnley branch meeting on the 1st August 2002. This infuriated Griffin when he heard about it and he employed all the persuasion he could to get the then organiser, Steve Smith, to cancel the invitation. Steve, to his great credit, stood firm. From then on, it became clear that his card was marked.



Spearhead gave a full account of that event in its September 2002 issue and I will not repeat all the details here save to say that, mysteriously, Anti-Nazi League demonstrators turned up on the evening, whereas they had not been present at any previous Burnley BNP meeting nor have been since. Who tipped them off about the meeting and my appearance at it as speaker? You can make up your own mind!



The meeting, notwithstanding all this, was very successful - but not nearly as successful as the one which took place on May 29th of this year, when 140 people turned up to hear speeches by Richard Edmonds and myself. This further angered Griffin. An inside report I received from friends in the party told me that at a private meeting at Blackburn just previous to the Burnley one Griffin had hatched a scheme to disrupt the latter. The plan was that one of his (Griffin's) acolytes would be present at the Burnley meeting accompanied by a group of 'heavies'. At a certain point in my speech the acolyte would stage a protest, whereupon if anyone tried to restrain him the heavies would move in and a violent scene would ensue. Then Griffin would be able to claim that wherever Tyndall speaks at BNP meetings there is disorder.



The plan went badly wrong. As the meeting proceeded, the Griffin acolyte could see that his brawny companions were reacting so enthusiastically to Richard Edmonds' and my speeches that he would be unlikely to get their support if he tried to make trouble. He remained silent and nothing happened. The meeting went smoothly and was a terrific success.



Apparently, Searchlight got hold of the story and printed it, but in this case the fact does not make the story untrue. My own source for it is much more reliable.



I have spoken at other meetings in the North West over recent months, in all of them getting a very good reception, and was down to speak at more when Griffin contrived my expulsion. It is very clear that he was getting frightened that I might influence local members.



Dissatisfaction

The upshot of all this - combined with other factors with which I am not connected is that there is now widespread dissatisfaction with the party leadership in this the BNP's strongest and most successful region. Nick Griffin seems to have alienated, one by one, a large portion of the local leaders and leading activists in the region, and the latest is that Steve Smith, the initial architect of the party's tremendous success in Burnley (others have played important parts more lately), has been driven out of his position in the branch. Actually he chose to leave of his own accord, but it was his treatment by Griffin that led to this.



I have had to spend a great deal of time on the telephone in the past few months endeavouring to bolster the morale of people in the North West of England and persuade them that on no account should they quit the party.



I believe that if Nick Griffin is allowed to continue his jealous and vindictive rampage he will wreck the Lancashire and North West BNP just as he did the West Midlands three years ago and the National Front many years before that.



It gives me no satisfaction to say that the warnings I gave about Nick Griffin back in 1999, ignored as they then were by many, have been overwhelmingly vindicated.



As readers will know from the opening words of this article and from last monthly report, I am currently a non-member of the BNP, having joined the long list of people who have been expelled from nationalist parties by the machinations of Nick Griffin. I am planning to take legal action over this but for the moment am barred from BNP meetings, along with several others.



One of the counts on which Griffin's disciplinary tribunal expelled me was that I had 'slandered' him personally (libel is the correct term but we will not split hairs). Nick alleges that I have made defamatory remarks about him.



The 'gay' story

Well, it is interesting to learn that Nick Griffin these days considers defamation of himself a cause for action against the defamer, for this did not seem to be his attitude back in 1999, when a former high ranking National Front official, Martin Webster, put out a circular alleging a homosexual relationship between himself and Griffin back in the late 1970s. Webster, in doing this, challenged Griffin to take him to court for libel if the allegation was untrue. Griffin declined to do so, arguing that as Webster was a 'man of straw' he would not get any damages off him. This completely side-tracked the main issue, which was not one of money but of the personal honour and reputation of the leader of the BNP, and thus of the BNP itself.



But it was not only Webster whom Griffin could have sued. The story was covered in both The Sunday Times and Searchlight magazine, in the latter case being written in tones which gave credence to Webster's claims. Neither of these publications are exactly without assets, and Griffin could have got tidy sums off them had he taken them to court and won.



But he chose not to - which makes it strange that he is now so sensitive to imagined 'defamation' by me and has had me hounded out of the BNP for my troubles. As to whether Webster's story of a homosexual affair with Griffin was true or not, I simply don't know.



But what I do know is that if it was not true Griffin should have sought satisfaction in a court of law. He did not, and it is now well past the time limit for him to do so. If the story is again raised either by Webster or anyone else, it will be his duty to take immediate legal action to squash it - because the good name of the BNP is at stake, not just his own.



It will be gleaned from what I have said in this article that I believe that the removal of Nick Griffin from control of the BNP is essential to the party's long-term health and national credibility - and, in the shorter term, to its internal harmony and unity. The man is a wrecker, wherever he goes and whatever he gets into. Throughout his political career he has left a long trail of disillusioned one-time supporters and betrayed and disgusted one-time friends.



The takeover tendency

Griffin's takeover of the BNP might be likened to the familiar practices of certain people in the world of business. First, an enterprise is founded and built up by the vision, dedication, hard work and sacrifice of a number of pioneers, who have faith in the idea behind it and slave away with perseverance to make it a going concern. Then, once it becomes just that, a going concern, the big business sharks move in and through unscrupulous boardroom politics take it away from its founders to exploit it for themselves. We know who are the people most adept at this kind of operation.



When the BNP was founded in 1982, Nick Griffin was one of those on the sidelines, sneering at and deprecating our efforts in the columns of the publications with which he was then involved - all publications, incidentally, which folded up a long time ago and have not been seen since (these people can never sustain anything for long).



But when in the early 1990s the BNP started to move ahead and show some excellent results in elections it was then that our Nick changed his attitude towards us. He began to become friendly, and he built some fraternal contacts with our Croydon branch. It was not very long after we won our first council seat in Millwall in September 1993 that he started to write to me. One thing led to another and, bit by bit, Nick got his feet under the table of the BNP - something for which I must bear the main share of the responsibility, notwithstanding the mitigating circumstances I have explained earlier in this article.



Talent wasted

Now in a position of control, Griffin is directing the party on a basis of favouritism towards his friends and vicious hatred towards those of talent and ability who are prepared to stand up to him. The result is that the BNP is only employing a part of its real human resources: promotions are made of those prepared to be subservient - or, if people of genuine merit do get promoted inadvertently, they will be doomed to have their rise in the party curbed the moment they give the slightest hint that they are unprepared to accept lackey status. I have numerous witnesses to this.



There are still some fine and very able people in the senior circles of the BNP, not-withstanding all this. But they are aware of the need for them not to show dissent if they are to continue occupying responsible positions and giving the party the full benefit of their abilities. For the most well-meaning of reasons, their dissatisfaction is muted. Were it not, Griffin would have a whole lot more problems of personnel than he already has, and he has problems enough.



And indeed we would be witnessing yet more expulsions!



But alongside these excellent servants of the BNP there are also, inevitably, a number of pure toadies of the kind that get close to the top of any political party, not by performance but by flattery and yes-manship. I have come to see a number of them through close acquaintance over the years - people who, when I was seen to be 'on top', were eager to declare their loyalty to me but underwent an indecently rapid change of allegiance once this situation no longer applied. They are of the type who, if Griffin were defeated and down tomorrow, would be pushing to the front of the queue to kick him.



Last, but not least in importance, there are a few who have their own particular agendas. I suspect that these people mostly harbour the same personal contempt for Mr.Griffin as I have, but find him a useful tool in their designs.



Riding on a roll

At the moment the one thing going for Nick is the fact that the BNP is, election-wise, on a roll - with the Thurrock win just the latest case in point. As long as there is the widespread perception in the party, however mistaken it is, that he and his policy somersaults have some connection with this, he will survive for a while, and any premature bid to unseat him in an election would be a charge of the Light Brigade. Not only do I and my allies know this, but he also knows it. Hence his insufferable arrogance and hubris and his belief that he can carry on conducting purges against anyone who crosses him - and get away with it.



For four years, while being critical of some of Nick Griffin's policy decisions, I have held back from giving him the full treatment in terms of personal assessment. In view of recent events, I no longer feel constrained to do so. Hence this article and the one preceding it.



At my stage of life, I do not care over-much whether I ever again become BNP leader or not. I never was obsessed with this position as Nick Griffin very clearly is. If future events should take a turn that led to a demand for me to come back, I would be available as a matter of duty. However, from my point of view the much preferred solution is that a younger man emerge from out of the many talented people we are now recruiting and show the ability and willing to take over the reins and lead the party forth into the future. If such a person does appear he will have no firmer supporter than me.



But first things first. Before anything permanent can be done, we have to get rid of the wrecker-in-chief.









Action for reinstatement of John Tyndall - Legal Fund

Last month, at the end of a report on the expulsion of Spearhead editor John Tyndall from the British National Party, it was stated that Mr. Tyndall would be taking legal action to secure reinstatement, and that we would be launching a fund to help meet the costs involved.



Mr. Tyndall has in fact placed the case in the hands of a London solicitor, and just before our going to press with this issue he received a letter from the solicitor giving a favourable opinion on his prospects of success in the action.



It has, however, been necessary to supply our solicitors with an 'up-front' payment in order to get the case on the move, and further costs of this kind will be incurred in due course.



Mr. Tyndall does have access to a special fund arising from a legacy from a deceased supporter, which has been placed at his disposal for political use to be decided at his own discretion. However, we wish to dip into this fund to the very minimum extent necessary. We are therefore launching what will be known as the 'Spearhead Legal Fund' with a view to raising the money to cover most, if not all, of the costs incurred in this action. Should Mr. Tyndall win the case and be awarded his full costs, the money will of course be recovered. In that event we will confer with the main contributors concerning its disposal.



A supporter in Lancashire has kick-started the fund with a donation of £50.00, for which we are most grateful. Further donations should be made out to our publishers, Albion Press, and sent to our usual address at: P.O. Box 2471, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 4DT.



Spearhead Online

Statement from Griffin's former colleagues in the International Third Position

"Despite the fact that Mr Griffin has launched some truly vile accusations against the leadership and activists of the ITP - accusations both personal and political in nature - we have never responded. However, we would like to take this opportunity to indicate the kind of  'managerial flair' and 'financial astuteness' that Mr Griffin would have us all believe he possesses, and which were really the fundamental cause of his separation from the ITP.

"In 1990 it was decided by the ITP to buy in printing equipment, so as to enhance our political independence and to provide the beginnings of an economic base for the movement. This was our first major step in the Counter-Power strategy. Mr Griffin was, unfortunately, put in charge.

"He promptly found the only alcoholic, suspect-homosexual vendor of printing equipment in the country. He paid down many thousands of pounds of another nationalist's money for a set-up that we were told would be ample for our needs. Four or five months after the money had been paid down, we still had not received the equipment. It was only through the perseverance of other leaders that we tracked down the shyster businessman who had been paid for it and forced a delivery. The upshot, however, was that Mr Griffin had outlaid a huge sum for what can only be described as junk. Of course, by this time Mr Griffin had lost interest in this particular venture and was moving on to other 'get-rich-quick' schemes. This event, coupled with too many others of a similar, if less serious, nature, led Mr Griffin to be kept wholly out of anything connected with money."

Statement from ITP of August 20th 1999 (submitted to and published in Spearhead, September 1999).

This sounds familiar, does it not? Magnify the scale and we have the £600,000 debt which is crippling the British National Party. Some people are just no good with money - and never change.

What more need be said?

The following is an extract from an article first published in the independent nationalist magazine NST, and   re-published in "The Griffin File: the spotlight on an erratic record", Leeds: Imperium Press.

"The damage he [Griffin] has done to our cause is due to his being a career politician who is solely out for his own gain. Everything that Nick does is geared towards promoting himself and lining his pockets...History is repeating itself when one of the first things Griffin does after taking charge of the BNP is to send himself a large portion of the party's funds to extend his own house. Anyone who has ever had any significant contact with Griffin can only be struck by the man's arrogance and the indifference he shows to anyone he does not consider his intellectual equal or whom he cannot use to his own advantage.

"Griffin is bad news for the survival of our folk because his only interest is himself, and this is at the expense of everyone else..."

Reform is key to unity: unity key to survival

A heart-warming gathering of eighty British National Party activists, organizers and councillors took place last weekend at a five star hotel in the BNP heartland of  South Yorkshire.

The event was the first fully-fledged national conference of  BNP Reform, with delegates attending from the length and breadth of the land, from Scotland to Cornwall.

The weekend kicked off with a truly mouth-watering banquet, which put everyone in a very good mood for the formal business of the conference.

The affable Nick Cass, former squash champion and party manager, delivered an impressive and moving after dinner speech in which he described with just what contempt and indifference he and his young family had been treated by the party leadership. For example, he informed us how an image of himself, his wife and his three young children had been used on BNP leaflets that were subsequently delivered to millions of homes - without his permission!

It says a great deal for Nick's commitment to the BNP that he is still a member of the party after treatment like that. It also speaks volumes about the turpitude of the current leadership of the party.

After a good night's sleep and a generous cooked breakfast the following morning, the conference proper got under way, Nick chairing proceedings in his firm but fair and friendly way.

The delegates were treated to a succession of well conceived and executed presentations by some of the most active proponents of party reform.

Former regional organizer Peter Mullins spoke on setting up the Reform committee, which provoked a lively discussion.

Former party manager Michaela Mackenzie spoke very movingly about her successful action for unfair dismissal, and Mr Griffin's duplicity and delaying tactics. From her bitter personal experience she proffered the sound advice: never take a paid position under the current leadership of the party, if you wish to keep your hands clean.

Web editor Rowena Savage and webmaster Simon Bennett gave a fascinating power point presentation of the Reform's web presence. The upward movement on the Alexa ratings of http://bnpreform.com/ compares favourably with the regrettable downward movement of the http://www.bnp.org.uk/ site on the same rankings.

Chris Beverly delivered a message of greetings from his employer, Andrew Brons MEP, and asked, on Andrew's behalf, for concrete proposals for constitutional reform to be submitted to him for consideration by the party leadership.

Fundholder Frank Carlin then spoke for about an hour on the Reform's constitutional proposals, the product of many hours of work by a small working party that included a university law lecturer. The constitutional proposals provide the democratic machinery for oversight of leadership performance, free the political leadership to concentrate on external affairs rather than internal administration, and deliver transparency, openness and effectual financial control, all of which have been lacking till now, and the absence of which has been harmful to the party.

After a break for lunch Sue Bowen made a very interesting multi-media presentation on the valuable work of the cultural umbrella organization, Broadsword.

Una Rice then spoke on novel, and successful, approaches to local campaigning, with the view of election as a local councillor, recruiting new members to the party, and building a good local image for the party. Her ideas were very well received, especially by the councillors in attendance, among whose number were Mrs Collett, and Roger Robertson, the former regional organizer.

Dr Andrew Emerson then spoke about the leader's factiousness, censuring his recent implication, in an article on the party web site, that those BNP members who sought to facilitate a leadership challenge were clandestinely paid agents of the state, or of Searchlight, or in some other way acting contrary to the party's interests.

Dr Emerson called on Mr Griffin to meet the reformers half-way, so that the party could reunite and move forward again, without recriminations.

Peter Phillips, the architect, then gave a very well received talk on the need for new leadership of the party.

Peter Mullins spoke again, this time on Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson, Strafford to Griffin's Charles I.

Eddy Butler, the party's former national organizer, and national elections officer, delivered the keynote speech of the conference, on what the Reform needs to do in order to maintain the pressure for internal change. Amongst other things, he told the conference that local activity was essential.

BNP founder member, and former advisory council member, Richard Edmonds, then delivered the closing address to conference, vintage Edmonds oratory, which enthused the appreciative audience, and put them in the right frame of mind to take part in the question and answer session which then followed.

Conference chairman Nick Cass then thanked the delegates for their attendance and, wishing everyone a safe journey home, closed the conference in the late afternoon.

This was undoubtedly one of the best political conferences I have ever attended, and I've attended a fair number in my time. If the party as a whole were to be run as efficiently as the Reform conference, our present troubles would soon be over.

All credit to Eddy Butler for exercising his superb organizing talent to such good purpose and effect.

Another insight into the mind of Nick Griffin

"Brady responded to this comradely gesture with lies and a stab in the back. This is a reflection not only of his personality, but also of his intense desire to get a seat on the Directorate, which he hoped would be his reward from Wingfield. He too this affair, however, so that he will now never miscalculated in again be a member of the National Front, let alone a member of its governing body. Another lesson has been learned the hard way - never trust gossips or social inadequates."

Extract from 'Attempted Murder', a 1986 pamphlet in which Mr Griffin publicly assassinates the characters of people who are now supposedly his highly valued and respected colleagues.

What think you of Mr Griffin's literary ability? My favourite is the third sentence, the one that begins "He too this affair, however, so that he will now never miscalculated in again be a member of the National Front..."

Was Mr Griffin inebriated when he wrote this sentence? One can only hope for his sake that he was.

Mr Griffin advises us never to trust gossips or social inadequates.

Should we trust a man who has such a tenuous grasp of reality?

More from that Griffin classic, Attempted Murder

"Below: Petty cash book pages kept by Anderson over the period of the counter cheque. Income is on the left. There is no record of £300 taken from the bank. Incompetance or fraud? Wingfield, Brons and Co. did not care.

"At about this time, Anderson told Denny that he had been arrested driving drunk down the Barking Road at 70 m.p.h. He had also ignored several red traffic lights. Denny was living with him at the time and told Pearce that Anderson was so depressed and unstable that he thought that he had probably been trying to kill himself."

"Incompetance": Griffin's poor spelling...or something more sinister?

It should be evident that Mr Griffin had no scruples about bringing the National Front into disrepute by hawking this tittle-tattle around to anyone who would take the trouble to read it.

Being top dog in this tiny organization (it would become smaller still once he became its chairman) was demonstrably more important to him than maintaining party unity, and campaigning for the survival of our people.

Mr Griffin never changes does he?