British National Party

The British National Party (BNP) was a neo-Nazi political party in the United Kingdom. It was led by John Bean. The group, which was subject to internal divisions during its brief history, established some areas of local support before helping to form the National Front in 1967. Scholar Nigel Fielding described the BNP as having a "firmly Nazi" ideology. Formation The party was formed in 1960 by the merger of the National Labour Party and the White Defence League (WDL), two political splinter groups from the League of Empire Loyalists pressure group. Both groups had been active in Notting Hill and had been co-operating closely there since the previous year when a merger was agreed. The new group, which was based at Arnold Leese House in Notting Hill (the former home of the Imperial Fascist League leader, used by WDL leader Colin Jordan as his base of operations), adopted the motto "For Race and Nation" and pledged to oppose the "international Jewish-controlled money-lending system" in its founding policy statement. Indeed, so strong was BNP antisemitism that the party advocated the immediate deportation of all Britain's Jews to either Israel or Madagascar, recalling the Madagascar Plan that was briefly considered by Nazi Germany. It also demanded an end to immigration, repatriation of immigrants, and the impeachment of the Conservative government for what the BNP felt to be their complicity in allowing uncontrolled immigration. The party was led by John Bean, with Andrew Fountaine holding the position of Party President, and other leading members including John Tyndall, Colin Jordan (who served as Activities Organiser), Denis Pirie and Ted Budden. Leese's widow, who had given Jordan access to her home during his time as WDL leader, served as vice-president of the party. Activities The party's early activities were hamstrung by a lack of money, and so it was restricted to the sort of headline-grabbing that had been the stock-in-trade of the WDL. These included demonstrating at railway stations where immigrant-carrying trains were arriving, holding a counter-demonstration to one organised by the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and holding a rally to oppose the Lord Mayor's Show because the presiding Lord Mayor of London, Bernard Waley-Cohen, was Jewish. Even so, the BNP managed to secure an 8.1% share of the vote in Deptford in the 1960 London County Council (LCC) election, a large result for a new party without name recognition.