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| John Tyndall, Chairman, BNP |
John Tyndall takes a look at the destructive role of "Combat 18" and its allies
Spearhead
September 1995
THIS ARTICLE is one which for a long time I hoped I would not have to write. It goes very much against the grain to give space in this magazine to people who are both personally contemptible and personally insignificant and who, moreover, are likely to enjoy as a huge bonus the feeling of importance that will come to them as a result of getting such a mention. Developments over the past couple of years, however, give me little alternative. In fact, if I am at fault it is for not saying sooner what I am going to say here.
Perhaps the best point at which to begin this story is to go back to September 1993. Readers ought to remember that month, for it was the month in which the British National Party won its magnificent election victory in East London's Tower Hamlets. By all normal calculation, this achievement should have raised the morale of our party members to new heights, giving them all the more incentive to throw their full weight into the struggle and strengthening yet further the bonds of unity and comradeship that had always been a notable feature of the BNP since its formation eleven years earlier, and which had endured throughout the difficult 1980s when progress forward for our politics in Britain was tortuously slow.
But it was not long before I began to find that in the wake of this great triumph there were rumblings of discontent in the party ranks in many areas. Branches were becoming racked with internal divisions. Friends were turning against friends. Many activists were dropping out, and nasty rumours were starting to circulate throughout our movement. I found myself the target of some vicious personal smears, and I was not the only one to suffer; some of my chief colleagues in the party leadership were getting the same treatment, including one or two who had played major roles in the successful election campaign that had put the BNP on the British political map as never before.
What was it that was poisoning our party from within just at a time when it ought to have been in better shape and better spirits than ever before? I began to enquire earnestly into this strange phenomenon. There were many discussions with my fellow party leaders. It was at this time that I began to become acutely conscious of the existence of a group of people calling themselves "Combat 18."
Of course I had heard of this outfit before, but nothing about it had suggested that it should be regarded in any more significant light than the countless other forgotten and forgettable minuscule grouplets that flit across the political scene from year to year accomplishing nothing beyond a few lines in the Jewish Chronicle or Searchlight magazine. Sometimes one gets the impression that the people who report on these grouplets invent them where they don't even exist -- just for the purpose of an occasional "scare" article to justify the existence of what has become the "anti-fascist industry," a booming and lucrative but highly competitive sector of the mostly stagnant British economy. When I first heard the name of "Combat 18" mentioned I had no reason to believe that it should occupy five seconds more of our thoughts than any of the others.
But as my enquiries proceeded I came to alter this view.
One report after another came through to me from all over the country indicating that the agents of Combat 18 were at work sowing the seeds of disaffection among BNP activists and inciting them to abandon their loyalties to our party. With the more steadfast and sensible of our people they were not succeeding, but there undoubtedly was an element in the party on whom their poison was having some effect.
So what was the attraction of this little circle which liked to work in the shadows? What was it about them that, to some, seemed to offer more than was offered by a party that had just demonstrated it could win a municipal election? Not least, why were people who proclaimed themselves to be nationalists doing all they could to undermine the BNP? The phenomenon at least deserved some closer study. What was the appeal of the Combat 18 programme -- if indeed it could be said to have one?
POLICY OF VIOLENCE
The purported objective of Combat 18 was said to be "direct action." In other words, the enemies of nationalism needed to be singled out and attacked, not just with words, but literally and physically. The terror that they had for so long carried out against nationalists should be turned around and directed against them. Combat 18 touted itself not as a political party like the BNP but as something of an "action group" that would track down extreme left-wing nasties and deal with them in the only language they would understand: violence and intimidation.
Such a concept was bound to have a seductive ring to nationalists who had for years endured the violence and intimidation of the militant left. In terms of actual sentiment, it was difficult to feel repugnance towards the policy. How many of us, if we are honest, would claim that we would lose sleep at night knowing that a few of these pieces of garbage who had terrorised our people had been given a dose of their own medicine?
But at the same time it was equally plain that the BNP would have to dissociate itself completely from any such activities, both in public declaration and in actual practice. To do otherwise would be to invite certain draconian action by the establishment against our party and the incarceration of its leadership and activists in jail. The Government had already shown its preparedness to imprison BNP leaders on trumped up charges resulting from activities that were perfectly lawful. What would it stop at if our party was foolish enough to engage in criminal activities -- or even to be tied by association to others engaged in such activities?
Back in 1962 I became aware of a piece of legislation at the disposal of governments in this country known as the Public Order Act of 1936, Chapter 6, Section 2 (lb), which said:
If the members or adherents of any association of persons, whether incorporated or not, are:--organised and trained or organised and equipped either for the purpose of enabling them to be employed for the use or display of physical force in promoting any political object, or in such a manner as to arouse reasonable apprehension that they are organised and either trained or equipped for that purpose; then any person who takes part in the control or management of the association, or in so organising or training as aforesaid any members or adherents thereof, shall be guilty of an offence under this section...
I came to know about this legislation by being involved, along with three others, in a prosecution in which it was invoked. In fact the prosecution failed to supply a shred of evidence that we had used physical force in promoting any political object at all, and we were acquitted on one charge in connection with that. We were nevertheless found guilty on another charge, namely that the general style, presentation, and activities of our organisation had given ground for "reasonable apprehension" that physical force was our purpose. We were sent to prison.
My memory of this prosecution convinced me that the slightest connection on the part of the BNP with Combat 18 would lay us open to the danger of similar action by the Government of our own day to imprison our leaders and close us down. By unanimous consent of all involved in the national leadership of the party, it was agreed that we would need to put a very large space between ourselves and C18.
ATTACKS ON NATIONALISTS
After a little while, however, it became clear that for all Combat 18's boast that it was going to carry the physical war into the enemy's camp by direct attacks on red militants little, if anything, was being done in this sector. In the weeks shortly following the BNP's election victory in Tower Hamlets in September 1993 there were three savage assaults on key party personnel. First, Administration Officer Alf Waite was injured by a letter bomb -- he might have been blinded had his glasses not protected his eyes from the blast. Next, a red mob set on and beat up Newham election candidate Michael Davidson when he was out canvassing, causing him to lose the sight of one eye. Not long after this, a gang called at the home of Press Officer Michael Newland and viciously beat him up, causing extensive injuries to his face and body.
If ever there was a time for Combat 18 to demonstrate its mettle and translate its big talk into deeds, this was the time. Had it been true to its professed policies its activists would have carried out retaliatory attacks on selected left-wing terrorists or preachers of terrorism, of which there are ample number, whether or not they could actually be proven to have taken part in the assaults on the BNP men.
But Combat 18 just did nothing.
Correction -- it did carry out one or two attacks at about that time, but in each case they were attacks on fellow nationalists. One young man, slightly built, was set upon on his own and beaten by a mob of these brave warriors outside a pub in London just before a BNP social was about to start. This same young man had previously been subjected to a similar attack, in which he was also substantially outnumbered, at a gathering of European nationalists in Belgium. On that occasion too, the heroes were supporters of Combat 18. Not long after the London attack on this man, BNP officials Tony Lecomber and Eddy Butler were assaulted by personnel belonging to Combat 18. Oh no, Combat 18 was far from inactive when it came to violence, but strangely it was BNP people who were the targets of the violence, not left-wingers!
LITERATURE OF LIES
In our researches into the activities of Combat 18 directed to undermining the loyalty of BNP party members, we began to obtain some samples of the publications put out by this organisation. Here we started to become aware that the group known under that name is in fact part of a network of interlocking organisations, with extensive cross-membership. Quite possibly the organisations are in fact all one but carry out different operations under different aliases. At any rate, there is clearly enough that they have in common, and clear enough evidence of collusion between them, for us to link them together as speaking virtually with one voice. At one moment they may appear as "Combat 18," at another as the "National Socialist Alliance," at another as something else. Publications that bear the name of one can be seen quite manifestly as speaking for the others.
From a study of these publications, three things stand out. First of all, the publications were so illiterate as to be a disgrace to the nationalist movement, as well as seeming not to be able to express anything strongly without resort to four-letter expletives. Few of us can pretend that we never use such language privately as a means of giving release to our annoyances and frustrations, but in literature intended for public consumption it is counter-productive and therefore just plain stupid.
Secondly, they seemed to take up at least as much space making attacks on the BNP and its personnel as they did with attacks on the left. Thirdly, in their use of vicious lies against the BNP they were well up to the standards set by Searchlight magazine, while their falsehoods were likely to be more damaging because more willingly believed by nationalists.
A few examples of these lies will suffice. In one issue it was claimed that the BNP welcome transvestites as members. The facts about this story are as follows: Some months ago a person wrote to our office offering to organise a unit in East Anglia. We knew nothing whatever about this person but it was agreed that a meeting be set up in the region to discuss the formation of the unit. At this meeting some people claimed that the person in question was a practising transvestite. Later investigations revealed that this person was in fact a hermaphrodite, better known as a sex-change case. Transvestite or hermaphrodite, it was quite clear that he/she could not remain a member of the BNP, and I directed immediately that his/her membership of the party be terminated.
In a recent issue of one publication known as The Order mention was made of the raid (by persons unknown) on the home of BNP Head of Administration Alf Waite in which Mr. Waite's wife was assaulted and some computers were stolen. It was stated that the raiders took with them "five computer disks containing the entire BNP membership and mailing lists," and that "the BNP leadership decided not to inform the regional organisers of these thefts, and it was sadly left to the staff at the Order magazine to inform people of these thefts..."
Here are two more lies. In fact the computer disks containing the membership lists were hidden away at another location and not taken. Mr. Waite has told us that all the lists had been deleted from the computer's hard drive after being copied onto these disks, as it had been agreed with me long beforehand should be done. As for our not informing regional organisers, a very short time after the raid took place a bulletin was issued to party organisers around the country telling them what had happened. What is true about the statement is that almost immediately after the raid, and before the bulletin had been posted, a well-known spokesman for Combat 18 was telephoning BNP officers up and down the UK telling them about what had happened in such tones as to suggest the obvious intent of spreading alarm and demoralisation and undermining the confidence in the party. One person who reported one of these calls to me a little later spoke of the evident glee in the voice of the C18 caller. Clearly, C18 was attempting to exploit this very regrettable incident so as to damage the BNP as much as possible.
We do not yet know the identity of the people who raided the home of Mr. Waite and assaulted his wife in the act of stealing the computers. What we do know is that these telephone calls by C18 to our organisers started a very short time afterwards and at a time when very few people could have known about what had just happened.
In another item in the same issue of The Order it was stated that the BNP welcomed Jews to party membership. This is another falsehood based on a misinterpretation of something said by Richard Edmonds in answer to a person who approached him at the bar at the end of a recent BNP meeting. In fact, just a year ago a situation arose in which it was necessary for me to make a ruling on the question of whether membership of the party should be open to Jews. I ruled that it should not. In an explanatory circular letter to some party officers on the subject immediately afterwards, I said that this ruling was made in recognition of the fact that in a situation in which the majority of members of the Jewish community in Britain, and certainly all organised Jewish bodies in the country, regarded themselves as being in a state of war with our party it would be utterly impractical for the party to admit Jews as members, among other reasons because of the fact that their membership would only be conducive to internal divisions and lowering of internal morale in the party. In this I cited laws in operation in World War II whereby German, Italian and Japanese nationals in the United Kingdom were deprived of normal residents' rights, and in some cases imprisoned, because of the state of war that existed between Britain and their countries of origin.
In the same circular letter I also said that the ruling was "without prejudice to the party's overall policy towards Jews resident in Britain, which is that no harm will come to any such persons who have not in any way acted in a manner harmful to the British Nation." Richard Edmonds, in underlining this latter point in answer to the questioner, was misinterpreted as having said that Jews were acceptable as members of the BNP "if they are pro-British." Clearly, if Combat 18 seriously wanted to ascertain the truth about our party's position on Jewish members they would have contacted me for a clarification of the matter. They did no such thing because it suited them to interpret Richard Edmonds' statement in the way that they did. Whatever stones these people can find to throw against our party they will find and they will throw. Truth is unimportant to them when it comes to utilising any story, or any foul rumour, in the task of damaging the BNP. More recently, information has reached me that these reptiles are circulating stories to the effect that money raised by special fund appeals launched by our party is going into the pockets of its leaders for the purchase of yachts by the seaside and other similar luxuries. I happen to live by the seaside myself but if I am in possession of a yacht moored at the local Marina I have yet to be informed of it -- perhaps someone would tell me where it is, as it would make a useful venue for BNP conferences!
IDEOLOGY
Parallel with all this claptrap is the suggestion that somehow the BNP is abandoning the hard cutting edge of its ideology and opting for weaker policies. Those who believe such talk show their incapacity to distinguish substance from shadow.
Most certainly our party is constrained by changing times, and a vast extension of its opportunities for political growth, to make its organisation more professional and its message more relevant to the concerns of the masses of people in Britain who are now, or soon could be, its potential supporters. In times when a movement has no hope of an appeal beyond the fringes, it can afford the indulgence of pandering almost solely to fringe opinion -- and it is indeed to some extent forced to do so if it is to keep its active nucleus intact. When, on the other hand, it sees open the door to support among the mainstream, it has to adjust both its targets and its approaches. This does not have to mean, and in our case it most decidedly does not mean, diluting its principles or policies; it does mean presenting those principles and policies to the public in a manner geared to modern necessities, and above all to the quest for power.
Those who do not understand this distinction reveal the shallowness of their minds and the basic lack of seriousness in their approach to politics. But because so much of the propaganda of C18 is directed at those with shallow minds and an inability to be serious it can have some corrosive effect. One of the seductions of C18 propaganda is that it appeals to the type who is too lazy-minded and too much of a thrill-seeker to apply himself to the basic disciplines necessary to activity that is geared to real politics, who just wants to play at something which requires serious organisation and serious work. To be an activist in the BNP involves making a certain commitment. It has its pressures and it makes its demands. Such an activist puts himself in the front line, where there can on occasions be some troublesome repercussions. Some people just are not up to this commitment, and prefer instead the soft option of escapism into pursuits which amuse and titillate. To this mentality the C18 way appeals. It makes no demands. It requires no disciplines. It asks for little or nothing in the way of commitment. It is the easy way out.
Those who do not understand this distinction reveal the shallowness of their minds and the basic lack of seriousness in their approach to politics. But because so much of the propaganda of C18 is directed at those with shallow minds and an inability to be serious it can have some corrosive effect. One of the seductions of C18 propaganda is that it appeals to the type who is too lazy-minded and too much of a thrill-seeker to apply himself to the basic disciplines necessary to activity that is geared to real politics, who just wants to play at something which requires serious organisation and serious work. To be an activist in the BNP involves making a certain commitment. It has its pressures and it makes its demands. Such an activist puts himself in the front line, where there can on occasions be some troublesome repercussions. Some people just are not up to this commitment, and prefer instead the soft option of escapism into pursuits which amuse and titillate. To this mentality the C18 way appeals. It makes no demands. It requires no disciplines. It asks for little or nothing in the way of commitment. It is the easy way out.
PREACHERS OF THE COUP D'ÉTAT
There is one other noticeable feature of the literature of Combat 18 and similar and interlocked groups. They all espouse the theory that no progress can be made in Britain by the constitutional methods of fighting through the ballot box -- from which one can only draw the conclusion that the strategy they favour is one of terror and violence, a conclusion they confirm by repeated advocacy of such methods.
This is the kind of counsel that can only appeal to stunted minds. Were Britain some sort of banana republic with conditions that made armed insurrection against the state both feasible as well as hallowed by tradition and habit, there might be some sense and logic in such an approach. For the United Kingdom in the 1990s and 2000s this is a prescription so crazy in its remoteness from reality that its champions qualify only to be consigned to mental institutions where, under the charitable care of men in white coats, they may run around the gardens insisting to everyone that they actually are Pancho Villa and Fidel Castro.
Just where are terror and violence going to lead in this country? Is there going to be a coup d'état against the state? If so, who is going to lead it? What are going to be the forces through which it is accomplished? These meat-heads have never sat down for five minutes to read their history and analyse the conditions under which the achievement of political power by armed force has been possible. If they had, they would understand that the elementary requirements are: a largely revolutionary population, substantial support in the higher ranks of the armed services and police, vast resources of money and, not least, fifth-columnists placed within the apparatus of the state itself. Perhaps we are underestimating Mr. Charlie Sargent[1] when we presume that he does not have, and is not likely ever to have, such battalions standing by ready at the moment of destiny to respond to his command, but I rather think not. It would seem to me that the furthest horizons to which these people's minds are capable of extending are threatening phone calls at night to left-wing activists and the occasional brick through the window of some Pakistani shopkeeper -- when there is time that can be spared from attacking the BNP. On such solid foundations does the plan to seize power by methods other than the ballot box seem to rest, so that perhaps we may not live to witness the day when the crack troops of C18 stage their assault on the House of Commons, with their tanks lined up in Parliament Square and their machine-gun-toting einsatzgruppen storming the citadels of Westminster!
No, in Britain the constitutional way, difficult though it may be, is the only way, while terror and violence lead only in one direction: to the criminal court and the jail cell -- unless by some mysterious and esoteric design they enjoy the protection of the state which the latter gives for arcane purposes of its own -- of which the morons who blab about these things have not the tiniest comprehension. Here it is perhaps opportune to examine some curious developments and ask some penetrating questions.
WHY NO PROSECUTIONS?
I have mentioned one prosecution in which I was involved -- a long time ago. However, the law that applied then still applies now. Not so long ago I was involved in another prosecution, this time under a section of the Public Order Act of 1986 concerned with "race relations." Along with the editor of British Nationalist, John Morse, I was put in the dock for having written and published material likely to stir up "race hatred." We were both given sentences of one year each, later reduced on appeal to six months. This was in 1986.
Just a year ago, I was given a copy of a publication bearing the name of Combat 18. It was printed on glossy paper and must have cost money to produce. On reading some of the contents, I saw immediately that references to members of ethnic minority groups far exceeded in the extremity of their language anything that John Morse or I had ever written in our own publications. In one section there was talk of sending Blacks home "in body bags."
In this and other publications turned out by these jokers there are constant incitements to people to commit acts of violence in pursuit of their political aims, and in another glossy product again bearing the name of Combat 18 there were instructions on bomb-making. If ever there was a case of there being "reasonable apprehension" that these people were organised and trained "for the purpose enabling them to be employed for the use or display of physical force in promoting any political object," these items supplied all the evidence that should have been needed.
So were the leaders of Combat 18 prosecuted? Well, there was a police raid on the homes of two of them a few months ago, and hundreds of these items were taken away as evidence.
But in the final outcome the decision was made not to prosecute. Why?
This is a very big "Why?" for it opens up some very interesting questions. The establishment jails Morse and Tyndall in 1986 and Tyndall and others some years earlier, in one case for "racial hatred" and in another for "reasonable apprehension" that they were organised and trained for the use of physical force in promoting a political object. Yet with far greater evidence in the hands of prosecution in both these regards no action is taken against the leaders of Combat 18. Is there not a peculiar stink in this?
SO WHO IS BEHIND COMBAT 18?
For myself, I can see no logical reason whatever for this failure to prosecute the C18 people other than that it suits the establishment to keep C18 in existence. And why should it do so -- other than to enable C18 to be used as a weapon for damaging, and if possible destroying, the British National Party?
Does this mean that the chief operatives of C18 are conscious and willing agents of the state, deliberately working against the Nationalist cause? Not necessarily.
I myself am very little acquainted personally with the people of whom I am talking. For my knowledge of them I rely on the intellectual content of their publications -- which beggars description -- and the personal assessments of some of my friends and colleagues who know them a bit better than I do. From this information the profile that forms is one of people of very meagre intelligence albeit equipped with a certain destructively low cunning. It is difficult for me to believe that such people are capable of masterminding such a complex operation as the one in which I suspect they are engaged, namely an operation to sabotage the Nationalist movement in general and our party in particular. It seems much more likely that they are just small-time gang leaders, class warriors with huge chips on their shoulders, ambitious to build their own little back-street empires and resentful of others who seem to stand in their way. This alone could not account for all of the activities in which they have been involved. Somewhere there has to be a directing brain, much superior to theirs, able to manipulate them to purposes which they would scarcely begin to understand. So who might this be?
ENTER THE MYSTERIOUS MR. COVINGTON
In our investigations into people with contacts with Combat 18 one name kept on cropping up again and again. This was an American called Harold Covington, who was found residing in Britain for a while some years ago and was closely involved with a number of people from whose rands C18 emerged. It has even been suggested that he was C18's founder. Mr. Covington's political ideas closely parallelled those being peddled by C18 today.
It seems that at that time he was doing a lot of jetting around the world while pleading poverty to his supporters. It was a matter of interest to us that Mr. Covington was able to stay in this country for some while, while having no trouble with immigration authorities as an "undesirable" -- a hospitality not extended to revisionist Fred Leuchter, as many of our readers will recall.
I happened to meet Harold Covington when he called at my home back sometime around 1981. I certainly found him to be intelligent, though there was something about the man's personality that told me I should be on my guard. I did not think very much more about him until the C18 business forced us to take a further look at him.
I promptly did some writing and telephoning to my numerous friends and contacts in the United States to see what they could tell me about Mr. Covington. The picture that emerged only deepened my suspicions concerning his liaison with people over here.
Covington, I learned, had built for himself a notorious reputation throughout the racial movement in America as a catalyst of internal conflict, distrust and division. He made a speciality out of condemning some of the leading activators of the American Right, either just by disparaging their efforts as being of no value or by going yet further and blackening their characters with highly personalised smears. He spent a great deal of time sending circulars to people all around the world the contents of which were occupied with attacks made more on fellow racial nationalists than on our common political enemies. This latter I could confirm because one or two of these circulars had been posted to me. One leader of the movement in the US whom I know personally and whose judgement I greatly respect told me he thought it very likely that Covington had for some years been working for the FBI, though I have no way of proving or disproving this.
What is known is that Combat 18 had for a while used an American contact address for some of its literature so as to get around Britain's draconian race laws. This address, when traced, turned out to be one supplied by Harold Covington. If my American contact's theory about Covington's connections are correct, it would mean that large numbers of people in Britain who have written off to his mailing address in response to C18 literature would have had their names and addresses passed on straight away to the FBI, who would in turn have supplied them to the political police in this country, whether MI5, Special Branch or both.
It is an interesting diversion from this story to reflect that one of C18's major weapons in its war of words against the BNP has been its focus on some of our real or imagined security lapses. We have never claimed that BNP security is without flaw; such a thing is almost impossible to achieve with our limited financial resources and in the environment in which we operate. But it ill becomes C18 to cast stones of this kind when its own security record is put under scrutiny. In the police raid on the C18 members referred to earlier it is understood that computers were taken which could well have contained some sensitive information (membership lists perhaps?).
C18 has been strangely quiet about this -- which provides quite a contrast with the noise that its people have been making about the computers stolen from Alf Waite.
In another case, a man called Hitchcock was elevated to a major position of power and seniority within C18 ranks, only later for it to be found that he was passing information on to the police, one piece of which enabled them to ascertain the location of a "Blood and Honour" concert and thereby get it cancelled.
But to return to Harold Covington, there would appear to be a great deal of circumstantial evidence to support the theory that Covington, among others several degrees more intelligent than the known C18 leaders in Britain, has been using his influence with those people to encourage them in the tactics of character assassination and division that he has practised to no small effect on his own side of the Atlantic. What connection all this has with the political establishment and its anti-nationalist policing operations is hard to ascertain in terms of absolute proof. Certain people within the nationalist camp are undoubtedly doing the work of the establishment by, sowing division among nationalists and thus helping that establishment to neutralise them. Why they are doing this is harder to pronounce upon with absolute assurance. Are they people of anti-nationalist convictions who are working against us for genuine ideological motives? Are they doing the dirty work of the ruling power because they are being paid to do it or because some circumstances in their personal lives and background give the police a hold over them? Or can their actions be explained by nothing more complicated than pure stupidity? At the moment of writing I cannot claim to know the answers to these questions, while in any event those answers may differ from one individual to another. In matters like these one must, at a certain point, step back from the minutiae of the matter and take in the whole broad picture. In this regard I might have some experience to offer which others will find helpful.
IT'S ALL BEEN TRIED BEFORE
Most readers will know that I was deeply involved in the National Front in the 1970s, being that party's leader from the middle of 1972 to the start of 1980, with a brief break between October 1974 and February 1976. During those years the NF was enormously successful, and undoubtedly frightened the establishment out of its wits. Every effort was made to smash it by way of media propaganda and physical violence on the streets, but all this failed. Eventually only one thing could, and did, stop the onward march of that movement and that was for a split to be engineered within.
Four attempts were made to bring this about during the time of my involvement with the NF: in 1970-71, in 1972, in 1974-75 and finally in 1979-80. The first three attempts were thwarted, though with much damage caused. The final attempt succeeded, and from 1980 the National Front was effectively finished, though it staggered on in truncated form for another 15 years.
Witnessing from close-up these repeated efforts to smash the party by the tactics of "divide-and-conquer," I became convinced eventually that behind them -- certainly the last two of them -- there was the hand of the establishment working in concert with our political enemies on the left. Some people at the time thought my analysis far-fetched, but later it was confirmed when certain key figures in the engineering of these splits were found beyond doubt to have been working for our adversaries.
It was always probable that the establishment would be ready to employ similar methods to smash up the BNP once it began to have reason to fear us as it did the Front in former times. If ever there was a moment when this establishment would have become convinced that the time had arrived to strike at the BNP, that moment was our election victory in Tower Hamlets in September 1993.
I am convinced it is no accident that that was when disruptive action against our party started to move into top gear.
I believe that what we are dealing with today is a strategy employed by the establishment to divide the nationalist movement, and thereby neutralise it, in exactly the same way as was done in the 1970s. The tactics to some degree differ -- in those days they attacked my supporters and me for being "too extreme," while this time we are attacked for being "not extreme enough" -- but the end being pursued is identical in all essentials. Meanwhile, the time-honoured methods of lie, smear, and malicious rumour are alive and kicking. I know these kinds of people, and I know their game.
Over the past year or two the British National Party has been fighting a battle on two fronts. Before us are our overt and known political enemies, with whom we have shown we can deal as long as our ranks remain firm and united in their loyalty and resolve. Behind us are the back-stabbers, who work to destroy our movement by pretending to be part of it and thus gaining the trust and confidence of credulous people, most of whom mean well but do not understand the complexity of the war in which they are engaged.
There is no doubt, from the evidence that I have seen, that those whom I have described as "back-stabbers" have caused considerable damage to our party. Bit by bit, by diligent application, we have repaired much of this damage. But there is still more repairing yet to be done.
I end this article -- which is necessarily long because of the detailed nature of the evidence supporting it -- by urging all nationalists in Britain, and most particularly those in our own party, to shun like the bubonic plague that coterie of big talkers, small doers and fantasy revolutionaries who employ various AKAs but are best known as "Combat 18." Whether these people know it or not -- and my observation is that most of them are too pea-brained to know it -- they are doing our enemies' work. They have had some success due to the gullibility of some of you. To those I urge: don't be gullible any longer! With the worsening political situation in Britain, the opportunities now awaiting our party are tremendous -- but only if we rid ourselves of this cancerous growth that has battened like a parasite on our rear.
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1. In February 1997, seventeen months after Mr. Tyndall's essay, Charlie Sargent, known as the founder of Combat 18, was involved in the murder of Combat 18 member Chris Castle, for which he was sentenced to life in prison.
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1. In February 1997, seventeen months after Mr. Tyndall's essay, Charlie Sargent, known as the founder of Combat 18, was involved in the murder of Combat 18 member Chris Castle, for which he was sentenced to life in prison.
Another Instance of Disruption through Provocateurs
From BNP Reform 2011:
Who is the “Secret Agent?”
By News Team on November 25th, 2011
An Agent Provocateur set on disrupting the British nationalist movement would set about getting rid of all decent people, replacing them with low-quality personnel, and then parading this gang in public as “the face of nationalism”—just like BBC infiltrator Andy Sykes did to the BNP a few years ago. Nationalists with long memories will recall that Sykes joined the BNP in 2001, and almost from the word go, worked as an informant for the Communist Party front organisation Searchlight.
Sykes became the BNP’s Bradford regional organiser, and studiously worked hard at expelling and sidelining anyone normal in the local party structure. In their place, Sykes deliberately recruited the lowest-quality, most extreme, poorly-educated and downright stupid people he could find into the branches under his control. Once this had been set up, Sykes then introduced undercover BBC reporter Jason Gwynne to these people, and he was able to film them making outrageous comments and statements for a TV show called “The Secret Agent.” As it later transpired, even some of the people making the “outrageous comments” in The Secret Agent, were also working for Searchlight – making it one of the most fraudulent, pre-arranged, smear campaigns ever seen.
The “Secret Agent” project did immense damage to the BNP’s public image, and resulted in the party’s bank accounts being closed and criminal prosecutions (which ended, famously, in the “free speech trials” which were lost by the state).
Nonetheless, the tactics used by the Communists and the BBC in causing all the mayhem are worth studying, because they are the tactics used by all agent provocateurs against the nationalist cause. These tactics are:
1. Gain a position of authority under false pretenses;
2. Get rid of all people who are decent, intelligent, normal and most able to propagate the party’s viewpoint in a reasonable and acceptable manner;
3. Replace them with halfwits, morons, criminals and assorted scum;
4. Put these people forward as the “face of nationalism” and let them loose on the media;
5. Stand back and watch the party collapse into chaos.
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