John Tyndall (politician)
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John Hutchyns Tyndall (July 14, 1934 – July 19, 2005) was a far-right British nationalist politician best known for leading the National Front in the 1970s and for founding the British National Party in the 1980s.
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[edit] Early politics
Tyndall was first politically active in the League of Empire Loyalists (a right-wing pressure group) headed by A.K. Chesterton. In 1957, feeling that the League was not sufficiently active, he and John Bean left to form the National Labour Party. The Labour Party prevented the use of this name, and in 1960 it merged with the White Defence League of Colin Jordan to form the old British National Party (BNP) which was led by John Bean.
[edit] Spearhead
Tyndall became deputy national organiser of this party and deputy commander of a private army set up by Colin Jordan called Spearhead, based on the SA of Nazi Germany. The police prosecuted Jordan, Tyndall and two others for paramilitary organising. Tyndall said that he deeply regretted his involvement with this organisation. Until his death Spearhead lived on as Tyndall's personal magazine through which his political thoughts and comments as well as those of others on the right of the BNP were communicated. Spearhead went to make up a great part of his personal revenue because although he changed parties several times in his life, he retained the copyright over the name "Spearhead".
Tyndall left the old British National Party along with Colin Jordan in 1962 when he set up the National Socialist Movement. He fell out with Jordan over the wealthy French Françoise Dior who, although she was originally engaged to Tyndall, married Jordan in extreme haste, who had just been released from prison before Tyndall, to avoid being expelled from Britain as an undesirable alien. This act provoked a life long schism between the two allies. He formed the Greater Britain Movement in 1964, taking most of the members of the National Socialist Movement with him. Jordan was well in with the proprietor of the headquarters at 74, Princedale Road, London, W11, (the widow of Arnold Leese) so it was Tyndall who was obliged to quit the building but he retained his copy of the keys and during one of Jordan's prolonged absences, emptied the HQ of all the expensive equipment. Jordan attacked him in justice for theft but the court ruled that it was an internal affair and considering that both litigants were members of the same movement at the time in question, no theft had occurred. The Greater Britain Movement drifted from various accommodation addresses varying from an upper room in a pub named "The Silver Sword" in Petty France, London, SW1, to an address in Holborn, and finally invading the basement of the prestige address of "Westminster Chambers" which eventually became the first HQ of the National Front
[edit] Ideology
Tyndall spent much of the 1960s developing his ideological programme. He published the book The Authoritarian State in 1962, in which he claimed that liberal democracy was a Jewish tool of world domination that needed to be replaced by authoritarianism.
Later Tyndall continued to develop his ideological programme and produced in 1966 his Six Principles of Nationalism which appeared to break with the neo-Nazi NSM and instead looked to electoral paths to government, which would be characterized by leadership, corporatism and racial purity and would be regularly ratified by referenda, bringing to mind the earlier calls of Sir Oswald Mosley who, along with his mother, Tyndall deeply respected. He would spend hours in front of a mirror perfecting Mosley's gestures. Tyndall’s new work impressed A. K. Chesterton, who at the same time was helping to reorganise the demoralised far-right.
[edit] National Front
When the National Front was formed in 1967 Tyndall pressed for the inclusion of the Greater Britain Movement. Eventually a compromise was reached to allow individual members to join the NF, and Tyndall disbanded the Greater Britain Movement when they all had. Tyndall swiftly rose to the rank of Chairman when A.K. Chesterton resigned, in which his principal responsibility was theory and political thinking.
[edit] Forms the BNP
Under Tyndall's guidance the Front grew in membership and gained many votes, peaking during the February general election of 1974. This success was not so much due to Tyndall's leadership but was a direct result of Martin Webster's tactics of banging the drums in the streets. For the 1979 general election, the Front put up 303 candidates but the results were disappointing: it lost its deposit everywhere. Internal recriminations saw Tyndall removed from all his positions and he opted to depart, setting up first the New National Front, then changing its name to the British National Party in 1982.
During his tenure as leader of the new BNP, Tyndall did little to dispel the perception among some that the BNP was a neo-Nazi organisation, and strongly resisted any attempts to soften the party's policies or image. Tyndall was convicted of incitement to racial hatred in 1986 and was jailed three times. During his time in prison he completed the part-autobiographical part-political book The Eleventh Hour (ISBN 0-9513686-2-1), which he subsequently revised several times.
[edit] Deposed as leader
In 1999 Tyndall lost the leadership of the BNP to Nick Griffin. Afterwards he threatened, at times, to run against Griffin to regain the leadership, although he did not act on his threats. Griffin briefly expelled Tyndall, along with his two closest allies in the party Richard Edmonds and John Morse, from the BNP in 2002 for being a disruptive influence although Tyndall was reinstated after a court case. In 2004, Tyndall joined in signing the New Orleans Protocol. The New Orleans Protocol seeks to "mainstream our cause" by reducing violence and internecine warfare, and was written by David Duke. When he signed, Tyndall made it clear that he was not acting on behalf of the BNP.
On December 12, 2004 Tyndall was arrested on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred following a BBC documentary aired in July 2004. On April 6, 2005, he was charged by police with two offences of using words or behaviour intended or likely to stir up racial hatred.
Tyndall was found dead at his home in Hove, Sussex, on July 19, 2005, less than a week after his 71st birthday. He was due to stand on charges of incitement to racial hatred at Leeds Magistrates just two days later (July 21, 2005).
His wife, Valerie – who he met while both were in the National Front in the 1970s - stood as a NF candidate in Brighton, Kemptown, in the 1979 general election, and as BNP candidate in Hackney, South & Shoreditch in the 1983 general election and at Old Bexley & Sidcup in the 1997 general election. Her father, Charles Parker, became a leading member of the BNP in its early years and provided the party with a source of funding.
[edit] Elections contested (John Tyndall)
Date of election Constituency Party Votes % 3 May 1979 (general) Hackney, S & Shoreditch NF 1958 7.6 9 Apr 1992 (general) Bow & Poplar BNP 1107 3.0 9 Jun 1994 (by-election) Dagenham BNP 1511 7.0 1 May 1997 (general) Poplar & Canning Town BNP 2849 7.3 7 Jun 2001 (general) Mitcham & Morden BNP 642 1.7
[edit] Elections contested (Valerie Tyndall)
Date of election Constituency Party Votes % 3 May 1979 (general) Brighton, Kemptown NF 404 0.9 9 Jun 1983 (general) Hackney, S & Shoreditch BNP 374 1.0 1 May 1997 (general) Old Bexley & Sidcup BNP 415 0.8
[edit] External links
- John Tyndall Video Clip
- Recent BNP arrests BBC report of 14 December 2004
- BNP men bailed in race case The Guardian, 8 April 2005
- Guardian obituary of John Tyndall, July 19, 2005
- Guardian story: A racist, violent neo-nazi to the end: BNP founder Tyndall dies, July 20, 2005
- BNP News : OBITUARY: JOHN TYNDALL 14/7/1934 – 18/7/2005 (19 July 2005)
- Photo of Tyndall with Savitri Devi, in Salzburg, Austria, 1968.
- Information on Tyndall from the Anti-Nazi League
| Preceded by: John O'Brien |
Chairman of the National Front 1971–1974 |
Succeeded by: John Kingsley Read |
| Preceded by: John Kingsley Read |
Chairman of the National Front 1976–1979 |
Succeeded by: Andrew Brons |
| Preceded by: none |
Chairman of the British National Party 1982–1999 |
Succeeded by: Nick Griffin |
