The nineties began with the British far right as small and divided as at any time this century. It was the British National Party, formed in 1982, that rose to dominate the far-right scene at the expense of the National Front and smaller groups such as the remnants of the British Movement. The BNP grew on the back of increased street activity and confrontation. The bringing of its Rights for Whites campaign to London in 1990 signalled a massive concentration of BNP activity in Tower Hamlets, east London. Every Sunday up to 75 BNP supporters from the Southeast would gather in Brick Lane to sell papers and leaflet. They were later to spread the campaign to Bermondsey where, in August 1991, the BNP instigated a race riot by almost 1,000 people. It was this sort of activity that threw the BNP into the headlines and won recruits from other far-right groups. BNP activity, coupled with the government playing the race card over the issue of asylum seekers, took its toll and racist attacks rocketed in London. The highest increases were precisely in those areas where BNP activity was concentrated. Between 1991 and 1993 four black youths were murdered by racists. Bermondsey emboldened the leadership to more confrontation. In early 1992 a new stewarding group was formed to protect the party in the run-up to the general election. While these street thugs were happy to provide the BNP with security, many were also keen to go on the offensive against their opponents. Combat 18 was born. Taking its name from the first and eighth letter of the alphabet, AH - Adolf Hitler, C18 attacked its opponents on the streets and firebombed left-wing bookshops. Increasingly influenced by the US far right, C18 soon began to develop an organisational identity of its own. The growing friction between the two groups came to a head after the BNP won its first and only council seat, in the Millwall ward of Tower Hamlets. With the electoral road seemingly opening up for the party, its leaders sought to break its links with C18. The Millwall election victory caught the BNP completely by surprise. Although its vote had been increasing steadily, the party was not in a position to take full advantage of this success. While 500 people enquired about joining and the BNP vote rose substantially across east London at the local elections six months later, the result had no immediate effect on the organisation, which by this time had become consumed by a bitter battle for membership and influence with C18. The growing influence of US nazi ideas was illustrated in November 1995 when William Pierce, leader of the National Alliance, addressed the BNP annual rally. Pierce was also the author of The Turner Diaries, a fictional account of a race war which, it has been claimed, inspired Timothy McVeigh to carry out the Oklahoma bombing. By the mid-1990s The Turner Diaries was better known on the British right than Mein Kampf. The National Front barely continued to exist. The Dublin football riot in February 1995 was used as the excuse to shut the organisation down. With C18 being blamed for the riot, albeit wrongly, the NF leadership took the universal vilification of the far right as the opportunity to change the party's name to the National Democrats. A few diehards opposed this move and continued with the name NF. However, with fewer than 50 followers each, both groups were consigned further into the margins of obscurity for several years.
C18 also came under attack from other quarters. In 1992 the group used a failed Blood and Honour concert in London to move into the nazi music scene. Its dominance was complete after the death of Blood and Honour founder Ian Stuart Donaldson the following year in a car crash. In 1994 C18 launched ISD Records, named after the former Skrewdriver singer, and over the next three years produced 20 nazi CDs making a profit of almost £200,000. But its control did not go down well with some skinheads, and in 1995 some of them used the C18-BNP battle as a cover to launch their own offensive. One effect of the growth of the music scene was the return to more active politics of the British Movement, which had existed in the shadows for a decade. Inside the Conservative Party, a number of former BNP and NF activists had joined forces with right-wing Tories to establish Right Now, a quarterly magazine. It attracted the support of nearly 20 Conservative MPs despite its pages being packed with racism and racial eugenics. It too was to be heavily influenced by the far right in the US. 1997 began with the arrest of three Danish C18 supporters in Sweden after they posted a number of letter bombs to targets in London, including Sharon Davies, the former Olympic swimmer, whose crime was to have a relationship with the black athlete Derek Redmond. Behind the bombing campaign was Will Browning who had decided that the time for talk was over. The bombing campaign failed in no small part due to C18 leader, Charlie Sargent. A year later World in Action exposed Sargent as a police informer. Sargent was not to last much longer in C18. Only weeks after the bombing campaign failed, he was arrested for murdering a close supporter of Browning. C18 never recovered, rapidly drifting into political obscurity. The BNP meanwhile stood 55 candidates in the 1997 general election. While most attracted little support, the party was able to save its deposits in three constituencies and gained over 25,000 votes in London alone. Considering the Blair landslide that year, the result could have been worse. More importantly the election heralded a new confidence within the BNP which was to act as a catalyst to more prosperous times. With two million Tory voters either staying at home or voting for an anti-European party, and the Conservative Party ripping itself apart over Europe, the BNP targeted Middle England. Farmers, fox hunters, truck drivers, anti-Europeans and university students all became targets of this new, modernising BNP. Having observed the success of fascists on the continent, the BNP's leaders became keen to clothe their extremism in moderate language. While there was no evidence to suggest that the BNP actually recruited many of its targeted audience, the party received considerable press interest. The 1999 European election was the first opportunity for the BNP to test its support in Middle England. Standing a complete slate across the country, the BNP polled 102,000 votes, but they were heavily concentrated in its traditional areas of support. Middle England shunned the BNP, with over a million preferring to vote for the anti-European UK Independence Party. In John Tyndall the BNP had a leader whose public image was tarnished by his national socialist past, especially with the repeated publication of pictures of Tyndall in his nazi uniforms. In 1999 Nick Griffin, formerly of the NF and International Third Position (ITP), successfully challenged Tyndall for the party leadership. Although less in the public eye, the International Third Position and its breakaway, the National Revolutionary Faction, have been the most politically innovative groups on the far right. The brainchild of Roberto Fiore, the convicted Italian fascist terror group organiser, their political cadre soldiers have the best resourced publications and web sites and are active entryists into green, community, religious and even some left-orientated peace organisations.
With Nick Griffin, still close to Fiore and still an adherent of many of the ITP policies, the BNP is entering the new millennium in the belief that political success is closer than ever. However one dark cloud is gathering on its horizon. In April 1999 three bombs exploded in London, killing three people and injuring hundreds of others. The man charged with these bombs has already been exposed as linked to the BNP. |
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1990 Rights for Whites march organised by the BNP
1992 Combat 18 founded. Left Will Browning
1993 Derek Beackon above in glasses elected
1997 Charlie Sargent arrested for murder
1993 A mother grieves. Stephen Lawrence is murdered by racists