First Published November 1977. August 31 2001 Edition.

Dr. Jim Saleam

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This document appeared first as a thesis in the Department of History at the University of Sydney in 1977. The present production differs in certain respects. It has corrected printing errors and a few errors of fact. In some places I provide a 'note' about a matter where new evidence has been acquired.

This pamphlet is offered to the reader on several bases:

First: it was written, not by a detractor of the various movements of British Nationalism (I have retained the title that referred to ‘neo-fascism’ only to place the piece within a certain scholarship, the reasons for which will become apparent), but composed by someone keen to introduce the material to Australian readers such that they could assimilate the lessons of a movement as it rose to challenge state ideology and politics. Nonetheless, the original text was written in a university environment where free inquiry is shackled to political-correctness. The reader will note certain comments designed at the time to avoid the heavy-land of the tolerant liberal-internationalist.

Second: this document played in its original character – a small part in the evolution of Australian Nationalist ideology and politics. In 1977, Messrs. E.F. Azzopardi and F.K. Salter were among the founders of the Australian Nationalist group, ‘National Resistance’. They requested me to use my position as a student to undertake "the research of the British Nationalist scene". These comrades wished to apply the lessons derived of the British experience so Australians could avoid local pitfalls in strategy and tactics. In 1978, the ‘thesis’ was photocopied and passed around Nationalist ranks for study purposes, under the guiding hand of these comrades.

Third: in 1977, the British National Front (NF) was a rising star. It was obvious that certain Australians of the ‘Anglo-Celtic’ frame of mind, were going to attempt to hitch the development of an Australian Nationalist movement to the coat-tails of a British movement. This strategy was – naturally – rejected by the genuine Nationalists. The Australian Nationalists were ‘European’ not ‘Anglo-Celtic’ in underlying perspective, but thoroughly nativist in formulating the Australian Identity which was under threat by both the refugee invasion and the internationalization of the Australian economy and political order. The National Resistance (and its successor, Australian National Alliance, founded in January 1978) set out to uncover the ‘politics’ of the British NF and gain a better appreciation of the origins and nature of its scheme to resurrect the British Commonwealth as a military-political-cultural bloc. By understanding this aspect of the British programme, it could be more successfully – repudiated! We would deal with all the British groups as friends and possible long-term allies in the struggle against international capital, but not as colonials looking to the motherland for succour. We reasoned that this phase of Australia’s relationship with Britain was over.

Fourth: by gaining a sober assessment of all the trends in British Nationalist ideology and politics, it was hoped that the ‘Radical-Nationalism’ of National Resistance/Australian National Alliance would dominate any local Nationalist movement fending off the challenge of a local ‘National Front’, while modernising other movements concerned with the State’s policy of ‘racial change’ through our own particular idea of Australian Heritage, Identity and Independence. As it was, we fended off the local ‘NF’ challenge.

The present document is a short guide (even now) to the British scene of yesteryear. Of course, the scholarship of the British ‘Right’ has undergone significant development since 1977. This pamphlet does not compete in any way with this scholarship (as below). It does however, from the position of an ‘insider’ of the so-called ‘Right-scene’, confirm some of the argument of the outsider academics who look at ‘our’ movements both to explain them and to provide perspectives with which to oppose them. Interestingly, the view of fascism/neo-fascism offered here, anticipated in a general way, the generic theory of fascism now on offer from the new scholars. The fact was, that Azzopardi and Salter had worked much of it out, along with a broad perception of the British Right, now confirmed in the academic literature of the present. Nonetheless back in early 1977, when I checked out their ‘ideas’, I was sure they were right and this document developed from there. However, where the interpretation is mine, I accept responsibility for it.

The reader should consider the latest findings on fascism/neo-fascism and the British Right when this pamphlet is digested.

First: the study of fascism has been fundamentally altered by the work of Roger Griffin and a number of co-thinkers - Roger Eatwell, Stanley Payne, A. James Gregor and Zeev Sternhell - who make up a "new consensus" in the field. Griffin has said that fascism reduces to a "mythic core" of ideas "in various combinations", a form of "populist ultra-nationalism" which is inspired by the idea of "rebirth" (of the nation, race, culture etc), and possesses the will to create a New Man. Griffin separates fascism from the Right, particularly in its conservative modes. Eatwell has looked at the idea of a "national radical Third Way" in politics to define both fascism and neo-fascism. Payne and Gregor (who is a thorough student of Italian fascist ideology) generally concur on the idea of "rebirth" at the centre of a synthetic political experiment which drew from the Right and the Left to equip a nascent New Man with a political method to overturn the liberal world. The base of Sternhell’s concept lay in the analysis of the development of fusionary nationalist/socialist systems of thought inspiring an effort to win the working people for a Nationalist cause. His views differ from the others in his separation of Nazism from fascism, but his analysis of the revolt against materialism in certain Left thinkers, serving to ground proto-fascism, seems unanswerable. The analysis of the contemporary (and pre-1945) ‘Right’ has seen these principles applied in a growing literature. The reader should examine:

Roger Griffin, The Nature Of Fascism, London, 1993.
Roger Griffin, Fascism, Oxford, 1995.
Roger Eatwell, Fascism: A History, London, 1995.
Stanley Payne, A History Of Fascism, Madison, 1995.
A. James Gregor, Phoenix: Fascism In Our Time, New Brunswick, 1999.
Zeev Sternhell, The Birth Of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion To Political Revolution, Princeton, 1994.

Second: the British Right cannot be viewed through the prism of Nazism. That is propaganda, although it is pervasively argued by the Trotskyite Left and sections of the liberal media. Essentially, the literature has shown that with the exception of specific groups, the label of neo-nazism did not fit the main forces of the Right. This did not mean however, that neo-nazism did not find ways to 'penetrate' various forces and distort their paths - as occurred when neo-nazis around, or close to Tyndall, played a role in the 1970's National Front. See: Mike Cronin (ed.), The Failure Of British Fascism: The Far Right And The Fight For Political Recognition, London, 1996. An objective autobiography by a participant amplified this position. See: John Bean, Many Shades Of Black: Inside Britain’s Far Right, 2000. Bean points out how sections of the British Nationalist movement actually struggled to exclude neo-nazism from the broad church. Indeed, Bean's book has such authority as an 'insider-source' on the movement's entire history from the 1950's down to 2000, that it is recommended that the reader may obtain it for $A25 from John Bean P.O. Box 97 Newmarket, Suffolk, CB8 8WT, Great Britain.

Third: the question of political ‘failure’ has been investigated in those works that look to ‘State Management’ of the British Right. In particular, see: Nigel Copsey, Anti-Fascism In Britain, Basingstoke, 2000. Mike Cronin (as above) documents organizational faults, social factors, ‘anti-racist’ action and political police activities over time, as factors in the "failure" of the Right.

Fourth: the post-war Right was dominated by five key figures: Sir Oswald Mosley, Arnold Leese, A.K. Chesterton, Colin Jordan and John Tyndall. A new history of Mosley’s post-war efforts is under production. In the interim, see: Kevin Coogan, Dreamer Of The Day: Francis Parker Yockey And The Post-War Fascist International, New York, 1999. This work contains a section on Mosley and is otherwise a first class introduction to ‘neo-fascism’. A.K. Chesterton has been assessed in: David Baker, The Ideology Of Obsession: A.K. Chesterton And British Fascism, London, 1996. Here (as in Coogan) we find that the ostensibly conservative Chesterton was more ‘anti-American’ than ‘anti-Soviet’ and saw his defence of ‘Empire’ as offering an opportunity for a new mobilization. The other named figures are assessed in the various works cited in this introduction. The collective-shadow of these five men has in one way or another, dominated the pattern of the ‘Right’ until recently. Leese led to Jordan, who although still alive is marginalised - yet neo-nazism lives on. Mosley’s European ideas found a new audience, although not precisely in the forms he pursued. Chesterton is a memory now, while Tyndall, was recently voted down from the leadership of his party (1999). His legacy might be that he kept resources in the field at a crucial time for the benefit of a new beginning. New men and women are in the wings and we can anticipate the development of new ideas relevant to a new century.

This pamphlet includes footnotes to assist the reader. I aver that those who embrace Nationalist ideology and politics should study facts closely and trust the strength of original research in getting the data upon which we can base general truths. The author’s Preface to the 1977 edition is not reproduced here. It discussed at length to the weakness of the then-scholarship and the difficulty in amassing some primary documentation. All that has now been solved for the student by the depth of new scholarly research.

The author also made one major error at the time which deserves comment here. Briefly: I could not conceive that certain leaders of the British NF were serious in their desire to revamp the Empire as a ‘White Commonwealth’ in which Australia would be a minerals’ quarry and its national identity simply - denied. The propaganda about that sounded ridiculous, and could be conceived as a sop dished up to old Tories who might be nostalgic for imperial glories. Still, who could have a problem with a bit of cynical marketing? How wrong this was! The imperial myth was adhered to by the John Tyndall group long-throughout the history of the British Nationalist movement. His book The Eleventh Hour (1988) bore this out. It died slowly, with the leading British Nationalists long-before-today accepting the idea of a Europe Of Peoples And Nations to replace the bankers’ Europe, and in which the future Britain may participate, and further - that Australia was a cultural identity of its own, deserving of full national independence.

The study of the British Nationalist movement after 1975 is also very rich in lessons for Australian Nationalists and it may be studied through the publications mentioned above. Much has happened and the struggle in adverse conditions continues. In 2000, it was reported in the daily press, almost matter-of-factly, that sometime this century Britons will become a minority in their native land. The position taken on immigration and the sickness called liberalism was always correct! The stance taken by the British Nationalists on ‘Europe Of The Bankers’ was generally right and their criticism of the decline of British industry through free trade, was absolutely confirmed. The road has been difficult for the British comrades in finding an ‘internal’ faith which is valid and an ‘external’ form that works. In the 1980’s this crisis led to the break-up of the old National Front and several challenging but failed experiments. Lessons took a long time to be assimilated and only now are some of the experiments of earlier periods being put to account. The present work might assist the reader in finding why that was so.