page_title: John Tyndall (politician)
section_title: Growth of the British National Party: 1990–99
hierarchical_section_title: John Tyndall (politician) / Later career / Growth of the British National Party: 1990–99
caption_attribution_description: English: Nick Griffin MEP speaks at a British National Party press conference in Manchester.
context_page_description: John Hutchyns Tyndall was a British fascist political activist. A leading member of various small neo-Nazi groups during the late 1950s and 1960s, he was chairman of the National Front from 1972 to 1974 and again from 1975 to 1980, and then chairman of the British National Party from 1982 to 1999. He unsuccessfully stood for election to the House of Commons and European Parliament on several occasions.
  Born in Devon and educated in Kent, Tyndall undertook national service prior to embracing the extreme-right. In the mid-1950s, he joined the League of Empire Loyalists and came under the influence of its leader, Arthur Chesterton. Finding the LEL too moderate, in 1957 he and John Bean founded the National Labour Party, an explicitly "National Socialist" group. In 1960, the NLP merged with Colin Jordan's White Defence League to found the first British National Party. Within the BNP, Tyndall and Jordan established a paramilitary wing called Spearhead, which angered Bean and other party members. They expelled Tyndall and Jordan, who went on to establish the National Socialist Movement and then the international World Union of National Socialists.
context_section_description: In the early 1990s, a paramilitary group known as Combat 18 (C18) was formed to protect BNP events from anti-fascist protesters. Tyndall was displeased that by 1992, C18 was having an increased influence over the BNP's street activities. Relations between the groups deteriorated such that by August 1993, activists from the BNP and C18 were physically fighting each other. In December 1993, Tyndall issued a bulletin to BNP branches declaring C18 to be a proscribed organisation, furthermore suggesting that it may have been established by agents of the state to discredit the party. To counter C18's influence, he secured the American white nationalist militant William Pierce as a guest speaker at the BNP's annual rally in November 1995.
  Tyndall had observed the electoral success achieved by Jean-Marie Le Pen and the French National Front during the 1980s, and hoped that by learning from their activities he could improve the BNP's electoral prospects. He saw the issue as being one of credibility among the electorate, declaring that "we should be looking for ways to overcome our present image of weakness and smallness". He ignored the significant impact that had been achieved by the French NF through moderating its policies and thereby gaining greater respectability among the electorate. While Tyndall had sought to keep skinheads and football hooligans out of the BNP, he still kept a range of Holocaust deniers and convicted criminals close to him. He expressed the view that "we should not be looking for ways of applying ideological cosmetic surgery to ourselves in order to make our features more appealing to our public". Conversely, in the early 1990s a 'moderniser' faction emerged in the party that favoured a more electorally palatable strategy and an emphasis on building grassroots support to win local elections. They were impressed by Le Pen's move to disassociate his party from biological racism and focus on the perceived cultural incompatibility of different racial groups. Tyndall opposed many of the modernisers' ideas and sought to stem their growing influence in the party,
  In the 1992 general election, the party stood 13 candidates. Tyndall stood in Bow and Poplar, gaining 3% of the vote.
  In a council by-election in September 1993, the BNP gained one council seat—won by Derek Beackon in the East London neighbourhood of Millwall—after a campaign that targeted the anger of local whites over the perceived preferential treatment received by Bangladeshi migrants in social housing.
  At the time Tyndall described this as the BNP's "moment in history", deeming it a sign that the party was entering the political mainstream. Following an anti-BNP campaign launched by anti-fascist and local religious groups it lost its Millwall seat during the 1994 local elections.
  Tyndall stood as the BNP candidate in the 1994 Dagenham by-election, in which he gained 9% of the vote and had his electoral deposit returned. This was the first time that an extreme right candidate had retained their deposit since Webster's 1973 showing for the NF in West Bromwich. 
  In the 1997 general election, the party stood over fifty candidates. Tyndall stood in the East London constituency of Poplar and Canning Town, where he received 7.26% of the vote. Tyndall claimed that following the election, the party received between 2,500 and 3,000 enquiries—roughly the same as they had received after the 1983 general election—although far fewer of these enquirers became members.
  The party was stagnating, and Tyndall's "political career was now on borrowed time".
  After the BNP's poor performance at the 1997 general election, opposition to Tyndall's leadership grew. His position was damaged by a lack of financial transparency in the party, with concerns being raised that large donations to the party had been used instead by Tyndall for personal expenses. The modernisers challenged his control of the party, resulting in its first ever leadership election, held in October 1999. Tyndall was challenged by Nick Griffin, who offered an improved administration, financial transparen
caption: In 1999, Tyndall was replaced as BNP chairman by Nick Griffin (pictured at a BNP press conference in 2009).
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