National Party (UK, 1976)

The National Party (NP) was a short lived neo-fascist splinter party from the British National Front (NF). It was formed on 6 January 1976, and was dissolved before the 1983 general election.

The origins of the party were the result of internal dissention within the Monday Club over "entry to the EEC and immigration" which led to "several leading Powellites" leaving the Conservative Party for the NF, and of later ideological disagreements within the National Front.

John Kingsley Read became leader of the NF in 1974, but faced resistance from John Tyndall and his supporters for his 'populist' approach. The electoral results from the General Election in 1974 showed the three most successful NF candidates "were all from the 'Populist' wing". With Tyndall proposing constitutional reform of the NF the Populist counter-moves to expel him ended in failure. Tyndall went to court which resulted in the reinstatement of "Tyndall and his supporters. Subsequently, the courts also restored the NF headquarters and the membership lists to the Tyndall faction".

Kingsley Read broke from the NF altogether and formed the NP with several other leading NF members. In all over 2000 members, or one quarter of the NF's total membership, joined the new party, which thus represented a considerable loss of support to the NF. At its inaugural meeting the party narrowly voted not to purge the party of "all those with Nazi, Fascist or Communist backgrounds".

Richard Lawson helped shape the ideology of the party the source of which was "the 'soft' National Socialism of Rohm and the SD". Lawson edited the party journal, Britain First, which was published between 1974 and 1977. As well as Powellite Conservatives and NF Populists a number of members were "socially radical Strasserites". The National Party "claimed to be more opposed to immigration than the NF" and sought the "repatriation or resettlement abroad of all coloured and other racial incompatible immigrants, their dependents and descendents". The National Party also circulated Holocaust denial material such as Arthur Butz's The Hoax of the Twentieth Century.

...
Wikipedia