page_title: National Front (UK)
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: National Front (UK) / Reception
context_page_description: The National Front is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is currently led by Tony Martin. As a minor party, it has never had its representatives elected to the British or European Parliaments, although it gained a small number of local councillors through defections, and it has had a few of its representatives elected to community councils. Founded in 1967, it reached the height of its electoral support during the mid-1970s, when it was briefly the UK's fourth-largest party in terms of vote share.
  The NF was founded by A. K. Chesterton, formerly of the British Union of Fascists, as a merger between his League of Empire Loyalists and the British National Party. It was soon joined by the Greater Britain Movement, whose leader John Tyndall became the Front's chairman in 1972. Under Tyndall's leadership, it capitalised on growing concern about South Asian migration to Britain, rapidly increasing its membership and vote share in the urban areas of East London and Northern England.
context_section_description: By the late 1960s, the National Front was "the principal electoral force on the extreme right in Britain", and in 1981 Fielding noted that the NF "dominated" Britain's "extreme Right". In 1998 Durham stated that the NF and BNP had been the most significant far-right British groups since the Second World War. By 1977, the NF was England's fourth largest political party in terms of electoral support, and in some areas had threatened to replace the Liberal Party as the third largest force in British politics. This success was something which—according to Thurlow—"testified to the significance" of the immigration issue in 1970s British politics. A 1980 study by Martin Harrop, Judith England, and Christopher T. Husbands noted that the NF did not attract the levels of support enjoyed by the Liberal Party in England, the Scottish National Party in Scotland, or Plaid Cymru in Wales.
  The party also proved influential in shaping new far-right subcultures; Shaffer stated that by cultivating the early white power skinhead music scene, the NF created a "cultural project" through which "neo-fascists introduced their ideology through music instead of political campaigning", helping to build the international community of white power music fans. Billig suggested that the NF's long-term importance might not have been in its recruitment or electoral achievements, but its "contribution to the continuity of an unbroken heritage" of anti-Semitism in British society, keeping anti-Semitic ideas afloat at a time when, following the Holocaust, they were at their weakest. Billig also argued that the NF might have played a role in tilting British politics to the right, encouraging the Conservatives to take a harder stance on issues like immigration under Thatcher's leadership.
  During the NF's 1970s heyday, the mainstream media only occasionally paid it attention, thus contributing to its image as part of the political fringe. The NF claimed that this lack of coverage was part of a conspiracy against the party, thus presenting itself as being victimised by the media. It often had a better relationship with local newspapers, particularly in the London area, which were more likely to publish letters sent in by the NF. During the 1970s, NF branches often sought good relations with local police forces to ensure protection of NF events from protesters, in turn receiving what Fielding called "a substantial measure of co-operation from local police". While the party acknowledged sympathy for its views among the lower ranks of the police force, it maintained that the police hierarchy was part of the conspiracy against it.  During the 1970s, the party had cells among prison officers at Dartmoor Prison, Strangeways, Wormwood Scrubs, and Pentonville. By 2011, both the prison service and police had forbidden their employees from being NF members.
caption: One variant of the National Front logo used by the party