FOCUS Marxism Today April 1982 5

finance, served to make the party credible as an electoral entity. Academic research also bolstered the party's apparent credibility, with one opinion survey predicting 25 NF Members of Parliament in an election based on proportional representation. As it hap- pened, the trend away from the high point of 1976 signalled by the 1978 council elections was amplified to the proportions of an elec- toral debacle in the 1979 general election. Its candidates averaged but 1.6% of the total vote, the worst ever showing in a British election by a party with more than 100 can- CHANGE ON THE ULTRA RIGHT didates, and £45,000 went in lost deposits. Having presented it as the test of 10 years of From 1975 to 1979 the National Front pur- political activism the lesson of the election sued a strategy unique on the ultra-right. It seemed obvious to the leaders of the ultra- aimed to achieve political power, and to right. weld together its own uneasy coalition, The immediate effect of electoral failure through success at the polls. While the strat- was to shear apart the party's unruly fac- egy, and the rhetoric supporting it, had been tions. The NF itself fragmented into 4 present in party statements in both 1974 groups: the Constitutional Movement general elections, the 1979 general election under the former Deputy Chairman; the was widely presented as the ultimate test of New National Front under John Tyndall, the viability of this strategy. Chairman during the election; the British The National Front put forward 303 can- Democratic Party formed around the didates in the 1979 election, representing a Leicester branch, the party's largest branch considerable investment in campaign depos- outside ; and the rump of the party its alone. This, and the party's move to more under former Activities Organiser Martin business-like headquarters, while provoking Webster. Estimates of membership were some speculation on sources of party recently put at 750 members of the CM, 600 FOCUS Marxism Today April 1982 7 members of the BDP, 750 members of the the present, resolved. to suggest that their intervention is required NNF, and 800 members of the NF (which Several factors contributed to the mobili- to manage the breakdown of consensus indi- claims 4000 members). As the NF disinte- sation of youths behind such groups. cated by militant clashes. grated an obscure ultra-right group, the Unprecedented levels of unemployment These developments have projected , began to achieve increas- have combined with the re-birth of a ski- young militant activists into a position of ing attention. Its rise to prominence is nhead youth culture. The recruiting policy importance as supporters of ultra-right indicative of significant and disturbing of the British Movement and, later, the NF, groups, and considerable attention has been changes in strategy. was also influential, as was the growth of paid to this trend. More neglected have been The British Movement was founded in racism amongst the young, documented by the implications of the strategy change for 1968 from the remnants of the National recent research. There is certainly evidence the former stalwarts of the ultra-right, older Socialist Party, a tiny group of avowed Nazis of higher levels of racist behaviour at foot- supporters and particularly those drawn led by . Jordan was not elec- ball matches, violence at concerts and from the traditional seat of the ultra-right, torally oriented, being content to await the attacks on ethnic minorities. However, it the lower middle class. One particular devel- call to power to save Britain from the Bol- would be wrong to infer that such groups opment seems significant in this respect. shevik hordes. His. lieutenant, Michael appeal only to the young working class. At The less public ultra-right organisations, McLaughlin, took over in 1975 on Jordan's least one study has reported widespread NF such as the League of St George, have resignation after a shoplifting charge. support among 14-19 year olds in a middle increasingly given attention to programmes McLaughlin set about widening member- class suburban area as well as in communi- of civil defence and survival training, urged ship. After 1979 he was well-placed to ties with a tradition of racism. This suggests on supporters as necessary responses to the siphon support from the collapsing NF and that the NF and BM are now associated with crisis in East-West relations. The older sup- by the end of 1980 had nearly 3000 members a developing sub-culture amongst the young porters are recommended to participate in in his overtly revolutionary Nazi party. This generally, regardless of class or locality. The programmes which reflect their now more shift towards a group whose supporters are role of groups such as the BM in these activi- marginal place in the movement and the overwhelmingly young and working class ties seems clear; for example, the BM declining importance of electoral activity. represents the principal consequence of the appeared to play a part in the worsening of By suggesting attendance at survival camps, Front's failure in 1979. The approach pur- race relations in Coventry in early and mid the purchase of protective equipment and sued by the ultra-right moved from electoral 1981. There appears to have been a signifi- guerrilla warfare manuals, the ultra-right activity towards a 'militant, active and vio- cant shift of strategy on the ultra-right, a puts before its older supporters a goal more lent strategy for gaining power' (S. Taylor, pincer movement deploying militant action apocalyptic than electoral success. It may be 'Strategy changes on the ultra-right', New on the one hand and electoral efforts on the that the older members are being prepared Community, 9(2) Autumn 1981). That this is other. Groups such as the BM may concen- both for continuing electoral failure and for not a consequence simply of the dissension trate on the former but even the backlash surviving the chaos in which the younger in the NF is clear in the Front's pursuit of caused by such activities can be used by members will more directly participate. electorally-oriented groups such as the BDP the same strategy after its divisions were, for Nigel Fielding