Colin Jordan
Colin Jordan | |
---|---|
3rd Leader of the World Union of National Socialists | |
In office 1968 – 9 April 2009 | |
Preceded by | Matthias Koehl |
Succeeded by | Matthias Koehl |
Leader of the British Movement | |
In office 1962–1975 | |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Michael McLaughlin |
Leader of the National Socialist Movement in the United Kingdom | |
In office 1962–1968 | |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Position abolished |
Personal details | |
Born | John Colin Campbell Jordan 19 June 1923 Birmingham, England |
Died | 9 April 2009 Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire, England | (aged 85)
Political party | British Peoples Party White Defence League British Movement British National Party National Socialist Movement |
Spouse | |
Domestic partner(s) | Julianna Safrany (?? – his death) |
Residence | Pateley Bridge |
Alma mater | Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge |
Occupation | Teacher, politician, activist, writer |
John Colin Campbell Jordan (19 June 1923 – 9 April 2009) was a leading figure in post-war
Early life
The son of a lecturer, Percy Jordan, and a teacher, Bertha Jordan,
At Cambridge Jordan formed a Nationalist Club,[6] from which he was invited to join the short-lived British People's Party, a group of former British Union of Fascists members led by Lord Tavistock, heir to the Duke of Bedford.[7] After the Second World War Jordan joined the British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women, a pro-fascist group led by Sir Oswald Mosley's secretary, Jeffrey Hamm,[8] but Jordan soon became associated with Arnold Leese and was left the use of a house in Leese's will. This became the Notting Hill[6] base of operations when Jordan launched the White Defence League in 1956.[9] Jordan later merged this party with the National Labour Party to form the British National Party in 1960,[10] although he split from it after a quarrel with John Bean, who was opposed to Jordan's advocacy of Nazism.
Leading activist
In 1962, Jordan founded the
In August 1962 Jordan hosted an international conference of Nazis at Guiting Power in Gloucestershire, which resulted in the formation of the World Union of National Socialists. Jordan was the commander of its European section throughout the 1960s and was also elected "World Führer" with George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, as his deputy.[14] On 16 August Jordan and Tyndall, together with Martin Webster, Denis Pirie and Roland Kerr-Ritchie, were charged under the Public Order Act 1936 with attempting to set up a paramilitary force[15] called the Spearhead, which was modelled on the SA of Nazi Germany. Undercover police observed Jordan leading the group in military manoeuvres.[16] He was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment in October 1962.[6][17]
On 5 October 1963, while John Tyndall was still in prison, Jordan, who had just been released, married Tyndall's fiancée, Françoise Dior, the former wife of a French nobleman and the niece of the French fashion designer Christian Dior. This hasty marriage was ostensibly to prevent her deportation as an undesirable alien. When Tyndall was eventually released, the marriage caused friction, and he split with Jordan in 1964 to form the Greater Britain Movement. Jordan's marriage to Dior proved short-lived, though, and she announced the couple's separation in January 1964. She claimed that Jordan had become "bourgeois".[18]
During the
In September 1972, Jordan was fined for disorderly behaviour at Heathrow Airport when, after protesting against the arrival of
Jordan reorganised the National Socialist Movement as the British Movement in 1968, but in 1974 he was obliged to step down from its leadership in favour of Michael McLaughlin. His demise was further accelerated by his arrest and subsequent conviction for shoplifting three pairs of women's red knickers from Tesco's Leamington Spa[19] branch in June 1975. Magistrates fined him £50 for the offence.[3][25]
While leader of the British Movement, Jordan stood for
Later life
Jordan maintained ties to groups led by Eddy Morrison and Kevin Watmough, such as the White Nationalist Party and the British People's Party as well as the American National Socialist Workers Party. In 2000, he expressed scepticism over the efforts of the British National Party to soften its hard right stance.[27]
In the 1980s, Jordan revived Gothic Ripples, originally Leese's publication, as his personal political project.[28] He once declared that there was "no reliable evidence whatsoever" that six million Jews had been murdered in the Holocaust.[25] In 1989, he stated his belief that Jesus was "counterfeit" and Adolf Hitler was the real "messiah" and "saviour", whose eventual "resurrection" would make him "the spiritual conqueror of the future".[25] Democracy, he thought, was really a form of dictatorship because it prevented the defence of the Aryan people.[29]
Jordan was back in court in 2001, after being charged with publishing racist literature, but the judge ruled that his serious heart condition made him unfit to stand trial.[25] He dedicated his 2004 book The Uprising to the jailed white supremacists Richard Scutari and David Lane.[30]
Jordan and Julianne Safrany became life partners at some point after his divorce from Dior.[3] The two were still together when Jordan died at his Pateley Bridge home on 9 April 2009.[3][25]
In fiction
Jordan features in the 2014 historical novel Ridley Road by Jo Bloom.[31] In its 2021 BBC television adaptation, he is portrayed by Rory Kinnear.[32]
Works
- Gothic Ripples Newsletter
- Fraudulent Conversion: The Myth of Moscow’s Change (1955)
- The Coloured Invasion (1967)
- Merrie England— 2,000 (1993)
- National Socialism: Vanguard of the Future: Selected Writings of Colin Jordan (1993, ISBN 87-87063-40-9)
- The Uprising (2004)
References
- ^ Jackson, Paul; Colin Jordan and Britain's Neo-Nazi Movement: Hitler's Echo, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017, p.6.
- ^ Martin Walker, The National Front, Fontana/Collins, 1977, p. 27
- ^ a b c d Gerry Gable Obituary: Colin Jordan, The Guardian, 13 April 2009
- ^ a b "The day a Coventry fascist gave Nazi salutes near the Cathedral", Coventry Telegraph, 30 September 2009
- ^ Goodrick-Clarke (2001), pp. 32-33
- ^ a b c d e "Colin Jordan: leader of the far Right". The Times. 16 April 2009. Retrieved 9 November 2017. (subscription required)
- ^ Stephen L. Frost, Twaz a Good Fight: The Life of Colin Jordan, NS Press UK (2014), pp. 29-34
- ^ Stephen L. Frost, Twaz a Good Fight: The Life of Colin Jordan, NS Press UK (2014), pp. 25-27
- ^ Sykes, Alan The Radical Right in Britain Palgrave (2005), p99
- ^ Sykes, Alan The Radical Right in Britain Palgrave (2005), p100
- ^ a b "Leader of British National Socialists Suspended From Teaching Job", Canadian Jewish Chronicle, 13 July 1962, p.7
- ATV, 5 July 1962, Media Archive for Central England
- ^ "Colin Jordan to Lose Teaching Job", Glasgow Herald, 30 August 1962
- ^ Sykes, Alan The Radical Right in Britain Palgrave (2005), p101
- ^ Goodrick-Clarke (2001), p. 38
- ^ David Botsford "British Fascism and the Measures Taken Against It By the British State" Archived 2 October 2009 at the Portuguese Web Archive (.pdf file)
- ^ "Jail Ordered For 4 Britons", Spokane Daily Chronicle, 15 October 1962
- ^ "Mrs Jordan Confirms Separation", The Age (Melbourne, Australia), 9 January 1964, p.3
- ^ a b "Obituary: Colin Jordan". The Daily Telegraph. 27 April 2009.
- ^ Clayton Goodwin "'If you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Liberal or Labour'", New African, October 2004 as reproduced on the Find Articles website
- ISBN 978-1472509314.
- ^ Jackson, Paul (2016). Colin Jordan and Britain's Neo-Nazi Movement: Hitler's Echo. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 129.
- ^ a b "Colin Jordan Sent to Prison for 18 Months on Race Act Charges", The Glasgow Herald, 26 January 1967, p.7
- ^ "Colin Jordan fined over airport protest". The Times. 14 September 1972. p. 4. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
- ^ a b c d e David McKittrick "Obituary: Colin Jordan", The Independent 28 April 2009.
- ISBN 1349023485. Retrieved 1 October 2021 – via Google Books.
- ^ "The day a Coventry fascist gave Nazi salutes near the Cathedral". Coventry Telegraph. 30 September 2009. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
- ^ Griffin (1995), p. 325
- ^ Colin Jordan (1994). "National Vanguard ~ Part 1 - Democracy Brings the Police State". Gothic Ripples (22–23). Archived from the original on 15 April 2009.
- ^ Macklin (2020), p. 309
- ^ Whiteside, Shirley (29 November 2014). "Ridley Road by Jo Bloom, book review: An ambitious, but not wholly successful debut". The Independent. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
- ^ Cumming, Ed (3 October 2021). "Ridley Road review: Rory Kinnear is a Sieg-Heilling rabble rouser in this fresh action thriller". The Independent. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
Further reading
- Coogan, Kevin (1998). Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International. ISBN 1-57027-039-2.
- Cooper, Terry (2013). Death by Dior. Dynasty Press. ISBN 978-0-9568038-6-3.
- Frost, Stephen L. (2014). Twaz a Good Fight: The Life of Colin Jordan. NS Press UK.
- Jackson, Paul (2016). Colin Jordan and Britain's Neo-Nazi Movement: Hitler's Echo. ISBN 978-1-4725-1459-2.
- ISBN 0-8147-3155-4.
- ISBN 0-19-289249-5.
- Macklin, Graham (2020). Failed Führers: A History of Britain's Extreme Right. ISBN 9780415627306.
- Schmaltz, William H. (2000). Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. Potomac Books. ISBN 1-57488-262-7.
External links
- "Colin Jordan". The Guardian. 13 April 2009.
- "Colin Jordan". TheDaily Telegraph. 27 April 2009.
- BBC Panorama documentary about the White Defence League featuring an interview with Colin Jordan, YouTube
- British Pathe interview with Colin Jordan at the London Headquarters of the WDL, YouTube
- British Pathe film footage of the wedding of Colin Jordan and Françoise Dior, YouTube
- Midlands News TV interview with Colin Jordan, Media Archive for Central England
- BBC Panorama report on the Leyton by-election featuring Colin Jordan, YouTube
- ATV film coverage of the Ladywood by-election including an interview with Colin Jordan, Media Archive for Central England
- British Movement archive video interview with Colin Jordan and the BM's review of the BBC Ridley Road TV series