Customer Reviews

Contemporary British Fascism: The British National Party and the Quest for Legitimacy

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The rise and rise of the British National Party is a source of much consternation in contemporary Britain, among the more traditional political parties (Labour/Conservative/Lib-Dem) and the extreme left alike. There aren't currently any other histories of the BNP in print, which really is rather a shame as the BNP is the only UK political party that offers a valid alternative to the traditional parties which all support more or less unlimited immigration and are unwilling to take a stand on the Islamic/Immigrant culture threat that exists within current British society as a result of their past policies. That little polemeic out of the way, there is some utility in this book, although I wouldn't call it "insightful" or even particularly useful though.

The author, Nigel Copsey, is "reader in modern history" at the University of Teeside. It should be said from the outset that this work is aimed at academics rather than the general reader, but don't let that put you off. It is fairly accessible and while Copsey isn't a literary stylist manqué, he at least writes well enough to keep you awake.

In describing the BNP as "fascist" and "racist" from the outset, the author places himself firmly in the camp of those strongly opposed to the BNP, and that bias is evident from the title onwards. The author's basic thesis is indicated by the subtitle, `the British National Party and the quest for legitimacy', so don't expect an unbiased or pro-BNP book. The author is also dreadfully earnest. Copsey sometimes seems horrified to record that even condemnation by local clergy, the distribution of 20,000 antifascist broadsheets or ghost-written pleas by Tony Blair do not always put people off the BNP. Oh deary me! To quote a UK reviewer, "it seems to have been written for an audience of terribly earnest goldfish or well-spoken types who live with a cordon sanitaire between themselves and..." reality.

The historical side to the book is perhaps the least controversial. Copsey's work provides a concise, but still detailed, history of the BNP, which is highly illuminating. He opens with a biographical sketch of John Tyndall, which pays great attention to his various political apprenticeships: he came into politics through the League of Empire Loyalists, a pro-British Empire group on the fringes of the Tory Party. The LEL's leader was AK Chesterton, cousin to the author GK Chesterton. Through the LEL, Tyndall met many future associates, including Martin Webster and Colin Jordan. Before long, all had tired of the LEL's disorganised political work and after a complicated series of factional struggles, Tyndall and Jordan were united in the 1960s incarnation of the BNP.

Within its ranks, an increasingly eccentric Jordan formed a militant organisation called Spearhead, including Tyndall - it is this group, and the self-explanatory National Front that grew out of it, which would dog Tyndall for the rest of his career, photographic evidence of the stiff-arm-saluting Spearhead cadre providing precious ammunition to opponents. Tyndall would later call it a "profound mistake". The shambolic end to the NSM resulted in the long run in Tyndall's abandonment of `hard' activism for the racialised British nationalism of the National Front and later the BNP. Copsey's view of the history of the BNP is highlighted by his subtitle - the British National Party and the quest for legitimacy. Tyndall is portrayed as flirting with the big time, but consistently falling back on `hard' fascist ideology as a means of cementing his own power over the organisation.

The BNP itself emerged from the milieu of the National Front with the current leader, Nick Griffin, as the leading moderniser of the party. It does give a good blow by blow account of the struggle between John Tyndall and Nick Griffin. A key turning point is the first BNP victory in a local council seat, in a Millwall by-election in 1993. Copsey devotes a chapter to this episode, and the subsequent drop-off in support. Behind the apparent breakthrough lay a strategy of patient community organising among the white population of Tower Hamlets, a notoriously deprived borough racially divided primarily between whites and ethnic Bangladeshis.

Copsey then devotes a lot of time and effort to portraying the BNP as "fascist", and in this he's on very shakey ground and, typical of academics of the left, becomes rather pedantic theoretical. And what, we can legitimately ask, does it all have to do with the price of eggs? Copsey's answer is conterminous with his politics - a `revolutionary' formation cannot be considered `legitimate' by the regime it seeks to destroy; thus he provides a rationale for escalating state sanctions against the BNP (and who knows who else?). Alas, he opines, "given the rapid expansion of electronic media", to "exclude its representatives from the mainstream social and political arena" is "not as easy as it once was" (p200). Instead, anti-fascists must tackle the BNP "head-on": not with "physical force" (bad news for some on the left....), but by "setting the record straight" on the grievances exploited by the BNP, and winning its broader base back to liberal democracy (pp201-02).

He also advocates an alternative voting system to replace the current first-past-the-post method (p202). In this, (a personal comment) I personally would support him for different reasons - an alternative proportional reprentative system would, in the recent British elections, have given the BNP at least 12 seats, and possibly a lot more...). Overall though, the book is reasonably objective in it's actual historical treatment of the BNP and for once, despite the authors own professed opposition to the BNP, generally gives a fairly balanced account of the history of the radical right in Britain for the 1950's up to 2008.

A worthwhile read overall for any BNP supporter (but please, buy it second hand, don;t dignify the author with income from this), but keep in mind of course that Copsey is no great lover of British Culture and values or of British Nationalism!