Nationalist Cc

National Front: What lies behind the conflict

Throughout the Summer and Autumn of 1979 the National Front has passed through a series of internal convulsions which are now practically at an end. A takeover bid for the party has been successfully thwarted and the danger posed by that bid is no longer present. The task now facing the party is that of restoring the morale of those members, for the most part thorough loyalists, who have been deeply affected by events and whose faith in the party’s future has suffered at least temporary setback. In this task it is useful that we should be armed with an accurate perspective and insight as to the anatomy of these internal divisions.

To the politically inexperienced such divisions come as a shattering blow — for such people join our movement so carried away with the ideals that it serves that they cannot conceive of how people holding such ideals in common could quarrel. When the realisation dawns that they can quarrel and are quarrelling, the reaction can at first be

Editor: Richard Verrall

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Spearhead.

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SPEARHEAD

No. 133 NOVEMBER 1979 P.O. Box 105, London E.C.2. (Tel. 01-739 2187) Contributing Editor: Martin Webster

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one of utter incomprehension and then quite often of demoralisation and disillusionment. This reaction, while understandable, misses out on an essential factor in the trouble.

Our movement has political aims which in the very nature of things bring it into a state of war with everything represented by the contemporary political world. Even if we should imagine we can avoid such a war, our enemies nevertheless force it upon us, for they see us, not as people with a viewpoint which — right or wrong — has a legitimate place in political debate, but as a sinister and dangerous force which is subversive to the whole existing order of things. For that reason they have been at war with us from the first moment when we drew political breath.

This war, like modern war generally, has its arsenal of the most complex and varied weapons, tactics and strategies — both physical and psychological. With many of these weapons, tactics and strategies we have become very familiar and no more need be said about them here.

What should concern us particularly in the situation in which we have recently found ourselves is that weapon of psychological warfare which is directed at the spreading of division, confusion and demoralisation in one’s adversary’s camp.

Every modern government, whether it acknowledges it or not, has a_ political policing apparatus — and this is true irrespective of whether that government is a communist or totalitarian one or whether it functions within the framework of a pluralistic democracy. The purpose of such an apparatus is to keep surveillance over political groups deemed to be a threat to the existing establishment, whatever sort of establishment that may be.

One section of such an apparatus is concerned with the gathering of information

about opposition groups. For that purpose agents are placed in these groups as members so that they may obtain such information and pass it back to their paymasters. From this information strategies and tactics are then devised with a view to the neutralising of the groups in question.

It is at this point that another section of the political police apparatus comes into play. Agents of a different sort are placed in those groups and they, acting on the information provided by the previously mentioned agents, deliberately promote division and conflict within the groups concerned.

These operations are of course never publicly acknowledged in official quarters. Occasionally, however, internal and confidential communications concerning them are leaked out and revealed to the outside world. This happened 15 years ago in the United States, where the FBI carries out operations on behalf of the federal authorities against radical groups considered to be outside the establishment pale. This American version of political warfare against the opposition functions under the name of ‘Cointelpro’ (or ‘Counterintelligence Program’). In 1964 an internal memo of this department, which accidentally got into the hands of a patriotic organisation, said the following:

“The purpose of this program is to expose, disrupt and otherwise neutralise the activities of the various Klans and hate organisations, their leadership and adherents. The activities of these groups must be followed on a continuous basis so that we may take advantage of all opportunities for counterintelligence and also inspire action in instances where circumstances warrant . . . In every instance consideration should be given to disrupting the organised activity of these groups and no opportunity should be missed to capitalise upon organisational and personal conflicts of their leadership.”

The exponents of ‘Cointelpro’ here in Britain have been rather more careful in their communications and no such communications have ever suffered similar leakage.. However, on the basis of circumstantial evidence there can be little doubt that such a programme exists in this country and that it has been put into operation several times against the National Front — in 1968, 1970, 1972, 1975 and finally 1979.

In each instance the ingredients of the trouble were similar. Organisational and tactical disagreements existed in the party alongside conflicts of personalities and ambitions on the part of those not holding power to displace those holding power. These are normal human phenomena and would exist in any organisation regardless of any ulterior external influence.

What made them potent as forces of disruption were the methods used by certain people to resolve them. The National Front has always had a written Constitution which provides the means by which disputes in the party can be thrashed out and by which leaders, both at local and national level, can be changed by the votes of the membership if that is the members’ will.

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In every instance of trouble in the NF that trouble has been caused by certain individuals declining to avail themselves of the normal constitutional machinery for the settling of differences and instead employing flagrantly unconstitutional means, as well as other methods of treachery and deceit. Such disruptive periods have always been distinguished by certain recurring symptoms, such as:—

(a) Instead of open and honest criticisms of the running of the party voiced at official meetings of the party, attacks on the leadership are made in shady little circulars sent through the post, invariably anonymous and containing, as well as political criticism, vicious personal attacks on prominent party functionaries, usually based on lies. Where these attacks do not achieve their object of winning support for a particular faction, they can nevertheless demoralise members and open up questions in their mind about the established leadership — which of course is much a part of the intention behind them.

(b) The deliberate fomenting of local mutinies against the central party authority. The technique here is to seize upon — or if that is not possible create — a grievance in the minds of local members. If such a grievance has some modicum of justification, so much the better. If then the leadership attempts to meet the mutiny by a policy of conciliation, it stands to alienate its loyal supporters. If, on the other hand, it meets it by firm disciplinary action and the mutineers are suspended or expelled, the tale is put around that they have been suspended merely for voicing a grievance on behalf of the members. Either way the potential exists for the authority and standing of the leadership to be undermined.

(c) Rumours and scares are deliberately circulated within the party concerning some coming action of drastic consequences. Those who might be affected by such action are thereby prompted to pre-empt it by their own counter-action — thus escalating divisions and confrontation between rival elements.

(d) Personality conflicts between key party officers are created by little stories fed to one about what another has been saying about him — stories sometimes true but mostly untrue.

(e) Particular use is made of those types within the party who by their nature constitute its natural rebels. In every party there are people of a kind driven by grudges, hang-ups, inferiority complexes, jealousies and frustrated ambitions. These are easily identifiable by any skilled psychologist and can almost invariably be mobilised in support of any dissident or disruptive faction in the party — particularly by the bait of increased stature, importance and power when the party is reformed after the rebels’ victory.

(f) These operations are almost always thoughtfully timed. They usually follow shortly after the conclusion of some big

campaign to which the party has committed a great deal of its resources, such as the fighting of a general election. After such large campaigns there is always a certain tiredness — physical, mental and nervous, and no matter how good or bad the political results have been in relation to actual possibilities it is inevitable that they fall somewhat short of some of the hopes optimistically held. It is at such time that some members can be especially vulnerable to suggestions of sweeping change as a panacea for the future and can be persuaded to lend themselves to movements of revolt. It is no accident that three of the revolts in the National Front were staged shortly after the general elections of 1970, 1974 and 1979.

NOT THE ONLY BODIES

We can of course err if we accept this formula as a stereotype to explain all disruptive developments in the history of a party. For instance, government police departments are not the only bodies capable of, and with a reason for, subverting political groups in order to smash them up. Just the same function might be performed by some non-governmental agency, such as a rival and antagonistic political group — or indeed some other sectional interest, perhaps of an ethnic nature, which stands to gain by the demise of the group singled out for destruction.

Similarly, it would be a gross oversimplification if we presumed that every person engaged in disruptive activity within a political movement was working as an agent in the service of some external power. In fact it is usually the case that only a very small number are — perhaps sometimes no more than 2 or 3, even only one. In the circumstances described there are always available any number of people ready to be used as tools in the process, not possessing the intelligence or experience to realise who is using them or for what purpose. It is, however, the agent and infiltrator who orchestrates and directs dissident operations in such a way as to contrive the smashing up of the movement that serves as the intended victim.

Spearhead is convinced that this purpose has been at work in the recent divisions in the National Front. This is not to say that it has proof that any specific individual has been working to that purpose. Such proof would in the circumstances be very hard to establish. It is simply our observation of the course that the troubles have taken, together with our experience of very similar troubles in the past, which lead us to this belief.

Of course, the troubles that we have passed through are marked by singular characteristics which distinguish this campaign from previous ones. Until a year ago, there was only the party organisation itself in which subversive factions could operate. Consequently such activities were exclusively confined to the party’s branches and

especially its National Directorate. The situation today is wholly different. In the complex company structure recently brought into being, a whole new area became available in which subversive activities could be mounted. This area was all the more crucial as it concerned the financial power base of the party. Although the recent subversion involved an attempt to win political control of the National Directorate as well, the key aspect of the recent trouble has been the attempt to separate this new financial power base from the authority of the party’s governing body. Most of those who supported the leaders of the faction did not realise — and still do not realise — that this was the real name of the game.

Naturally, after each bout of such trouble those of us who have been left with the task of clearing up the mess have sought as far as possible to steer the party ship in such a way as to minimise the possibilities of recurrences. However much precaution we take in this regard, though, there is the certainty that someone will try again, sometime — utilising new circumstances to concoct a new brew of poisonous properties. We can only remind members that they have been warned.

RAY OF LIGHT

For the moment what is important is that everyone in the party recognises what has just happened for what it is — and that no one in the party does what it is the dearest hope of the enemy that they should do — drop out in demoralisation and exhaustion from these conflicts.

After the gloom — a ray of light. No previous disruptive attempt has ever destroyed the National Front. On the contrary, after every such attempt the party has squeezed the poison out of its system and entered into a new phase of unity and growth. This was particularly so following the divisions of 1972 and 1975. Sometimes such episodes have even had some beneficial side-effects, sorting out the stalwart of the party from the not so. stalwart and eliminating dead wood that needed to be eliminated. We have confidence that this process will repeat itself again this time and that what has happened will only momentarily delay the inexorable progress of the movement we serve.

BOOKS FOR SALE

Four out of print hardback Douglas Reed’s for £20. From Smoke to Smother, Al! Our

Tomorrows, Disgrace Abounding andA Prophet

At Home. Other rare titles available at £6.00 each. Also a collector's item, Nesta Webster's 1920 edition The French Revolution mint condition £12. Box 7833.

Our magazine, though it believes in racial differences, opposes race-hatred. All those who oppose multi-racialism should attack the

politicians who promote it, not the immigrants, who are merely its victims.

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