Fascism on the Fringe: The Ideology of Tyndall’s British National Party

Abstract

‘Fascism was Italian; Nazism was German. We are British. We will do things in our own way; we will not copy foreigners’.¹ In the question and answer section of its 1992 election manifesto, this was how the British National Party defended itself against the accusation that it was a ‘fascist’ or ‘Nazi’ party. Meanwhile, the party’s propaganda handbook — Spreading the Word — offered guidance for those activists on the doorsteps who might otherwise be tongue-tied when confronted with the awkward question ‘Are you Nazis?’ Answer an emphatic ‘no’, the handbook recommended, and since mainstream politicians like Enoch Powell have been called ‘Nazis’ for raising ‘quite moderate objections to immigration’, maintain that the word ‘Nazi’ has become a meaningless term of abuse.² For sure, since the words ‘fascist’ and ‘Nazi’ are all too frequently used in order to smear political opponents, they have been stripped of much of their meaning. Nonetheless, we will resist the temptation to disparage or remove them from the pages of our study. On the contrary, as we lay bare the extent to which the British National Party’s political ideology over the 1982–99 period assumed a distinctly fascist form, we will insist on their correct usage. Moreover, since this provides the yardstick against which we can measure Nick Griffin’s later programme of ‘modernisation’, this chapter provides an all-important background context to the latest phase in the evolution of the British National Party.