National Socialist Movement (UK, 1962)
National Socialist Movement | |
---|---|
Abbreviation | NSM |
Leader | Colin Jordan |
Founder | Colin Jordan |
Founded | 1962 |
Dissolved | 1968 |
Preceded by | British National Party |
Succeeded by | British Movement |
Headquarters | Arnold Leese House, Notting Hill, London |
Student wing | National Student Front |
Ideology | Neo-Nazism |
Political position | Far-right |
International affiliation | World Union of National Socialists |
The National Socialist Movement (NSM) was a British
Formation
The 1960s BNP, which had been formed by a merger of Colin Jordan's White Defence League and John Bean's National Labour Party, soon became defined by clashes between the two rival leaders. Impetus for the formation of the NSM had initially come from a 1961 letter to Jordan from George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party. Rockwell stated that he agreed with the BNP, except over their lack of openness about Nazism.[2]
Bean however felt that Jordan and his ally Tyndall were too open about Nazism and argued that this damaged the chances of the BNP making any political headway, an issue which came to a head in February 1962 when Bean presented a resolution condemning Jordan's open Nazism at a meeting of the party's national council.[3] The resolution was passed 7 votes to 5 and, after a struggle, the party split with around 80% of the membership backing Bean and the rest leaving with Jordan.[4] Jordan managed to secure the support of both Tyndall and Denis Pirie, whilst also gaining control of the BNP's Notting Hill headquarters and the paramilitary Spearhead group, and on 20 April 1962 the new group was inaugurated at a party to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday.[4] As well as Tyndall and Pirie, Roland Kerr-Ritchie and Peter Ling both resigned from the BNP National Council to support Jordan.[5] The new group's membership was largely made up of young, working class activists.[6]
Activities
With displays proclaiming "Free Britain From Jewish Control",
The NSM also endeavoured to keep Spearhead running and to increase its efficacy but
Crackdown
In the aftermath of the Trafalgar riot the
Soon afterwards both Jordan's home in Coventry and the party's London headquarters were raided by police with a wealth of evidence seized, ranging from guns and knives to Nazi insignia and memorabilia and even cans of weedkiller on which the labels had been changed to "Jewkiller".[12] Jordan, Tyndall, Kerr-Ritchie and Pirie were all arrested on 16 August.[12] All four were found guilty of being involved in the formation of Spearhead, an offence under the Public Order Act of 1936, and sentenced to nine months (Jordan), six months (Tyndall) and three months (Pirie and Kerr-Ritchie) in prison with Pirie giving the Nazi salute to the court as they were led out.[15] During their time in prison the NSM was left in the hands of Martin Webster, a youthful member who had come to the NSM from the Young Conservatives where he had also been linked with the League of Empire Loyalists.[16]
Split
French heiress Françoise Dior had been linked to the NSM from 1962 and had become romantically involved with Jordan, before also taking up with Tyndall following the latter's release from prison. However following Jordan's own release the two were back on and they were married on 5 October 1963 in a ceremony that involved each allowing a drop of blood to fall onto a copy of Mein Kampf.[17][18][19] Although the couple separated only three months later and were divorced, following a failed attempt at reconciliation, in 1967 the marriage drove a rift between Tyndall and Jordan which was complicated further by increasing ideological differences between the two men and a growing power base for the London-based Tyndall against the Coventry-based Jordan.[17] Tyndall had increasingly echoed Bean's earlier criticisms of Jordan's open Nazism and at the April 1964 NSM conference Tyndall demanded that control of the movement be handed over to him.[17] Tyndall was expelled on 11 May 1964 and the following day Tyndall claimed that he had expelled Jordan and assumed control of the movement. However ultimately Tyndall broke from the NSM, taking most of the HQ staff with him, and his followers would later emerge as the Greater Britain Movement.[20] Before long the National Student Front, small group led by James McIntyre that worked for the NSM in universities, had also departed to offer support to Tyndall instead.[21]
Final years
During the
The campaign against Walker intensified in 1965 when Colin Jordan took to the stage of a public meeting addressed by Denis Healey, who punched Jordan.[24] Membership of the group fell to almost nothing overnight, after the arrest of several members accused of burning synagogues and convictions for such incidents in Clapton, Ilford, Bayswater and Kilburn.[25] Even Dior was imprisoned for such an attack in 1968[25] and in all during the 1960s, NSM supporters organised 34 arson attacks against Jewish owned buildings.[7] By this time Dior's marriage to Jordan had ended and as a result her funding of the NSM had ended.
The movement was affected by new race relations legislation. Jordan was arrested under the new laws and gaoled for eighteen months in January 1967 for distributing a leaflet entitled The Coloured Invasion which was described as "a vituperative attack on black and Asian immigrants" in Jordan's 2009 obituary in
Legacy
Following the collapse of the NSM Jordan used elements of it to establish a new group, the British Movement, in May 1968. This group has continued to exist in various forms to date. Not all members joined the British Movement with other turning up in more "respectable" groups on the far right that avowedly eschewed Nazism such as the NF.[28] Not least among these was Andrew Brons, who served as MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber from 2009 to 2014, who was an early member of the NSM in the 1960s.[29]
Another group bearing the NSM name was set up in the late 1990s by David Myatt and other Combat 18 dissidents but it is not directly related to either the original NSM or the British Movement.[citation needed]
See also
References
Notes
- ^ Roger Eatwell "Obituary: John Tyndall"[dead link], The Independent, 21 July 2005
- ^ a b "Colin Jordan: leader of the far Right". The Times. 16 April 2009. Retrieved 22 February 2015. (subscription required)
- ^ Martin Walker, The National Front, Glasgow: Fontana, 1977, pp. 36-37
- ^ a b Walker, The National Front, p. 37
- ^ John Bean, Many Shades of Black - Inside Britain's Far Right, London: New Millennium, 1999, p. 155
- ^ Nigel Fielding, The National Front, Taylor & Francis, 1981, p. 195
- ^ a b Gerry Gable Obituary: Colin Jordan", The Guardian, 13 April 2009
- ^ a b Walker, The National Front, p. 39
- ^ Transcript of Colin Jordan interview Midlands News, Associated TeleVision, 5 July 1962, as reproduced on the Media Archive for Central England website.
- ^ Walker, The National Front, p. 172
- ^ Walker, The National Front, pp. 39-40
- ^ a b c Walker, The National Front, p. 40
- ^ Walker, The National Front, p. 41
- ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity, New York University Press, 2003, p. 103
- ^ Walker, The National Front, pp. 44-45
- ^ Walker, The National Front, p. 45
- ^ a b c Walker, The National Front, p. 46
- .
- .
- ^ Walker, The National Front, pp. 46-47
- ^ Peter Barberis, John McHugh, Mike Tyldesley, Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000, p. 190
- ^ Walker, The National Front, p. 55
- ^ Richard Thurlow, Fascism in Britain A History, 1918-1985, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987, pp. 269-270
- ^ 'I don’t think there’s any bad feeling in Leyton at the moment. '. BBCPanorama. 23 October 2009. Archived from the original on 13 January 2017. Retrieved 12 October 2021 – via YouTube.
- ^ a b Thurlow, Fascism in Britain A History, 1918-1985, p. 270
- ^ Walker, The National Front, pp. 64-67
- ^ Walker, The National Front, p. 77
- ^ Fielding, The National Front, p. 178
- ^ Duncan Campnell, 'Andrew Brons, the genteel face of neo-fascism', The Guardian 8 June 2009
Bibliography
- Cooper, Terry (2013) Death by Dior: Françoise Dior. Dynasty Press. ISBN 978-0-9568038-6-3)