1999 British National Party leadership election

Last updated

1999 British National Party leadership election
October 1999 (1999-10) 2011  
  Nick griffin bnp from flickr user britishnationalism (cropped).jpg
Candidate Nick Griffin John Tyndall
Popular vote1,082411
Percentage72.5%27.5%

Leader before election

John Tyndall

Elected Leader

Nick Griffin

The British National Party (BNP) leadership election of 1999 occurred on 28 September, and was intended to select a new leader for the BNP. It was triggered when Nick Griffin stood against John Tyndall for leadership of the party, after Tyndall had served for 17 years as leader of the party. Griffin won the election with 72.5% of the vote. The election returned a new leader of the BNP, and marked a shift in the party towards a more modern organisation, and with the intent of gaining broader appeal and legitimacy. [1]

Contents

Candidates

Results

British National Party leadership election, 1999 [2]
CandidateVotes%
Nick Griffin 1,08272.5
John Tyndall 41127.5

The election saw roughly 80% turnout from members eligible to vote. [1]

History

In October 1999 Nick Griffin, supported by Tony Lecomber, stood against Tyndall for leadership of the BNP. John Tyndall received just 411 votes (27.5% of the total), while Griffin received 1,082 (72.5%). After Griffin won, he began modernising the party's image, though the crucial policy change from compulsory to voluntary repatriation which had already been suggested under Tyndall's leadership. A new monthly newspaper, The Voice of Freedom, was initiated, as well as a journal, Identity.

In his 1999 leadership campaign Griffin embarked on a strategy to make the party electable by taking it away from Tyndall's extremist image. He was helped by Tyndall's lack of familiarity with the mainstream media, and in the party's September election he defeated Tyndall to become head of the BNP.

Related Research Articles

The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and is led by Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK government. The party was founded in 1982, and reached its greatest level of success in the 2000s, when it had over fifty seats in local government, one seat on the London Assembly, and two Members of the European Parliament. It has been largely inactive since 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Tyndall (far-right activist)</span> British neo-Nazi (1934–2005)

John Hutchyns Tyndall was a British neo-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 (NF) from 1972 to 1974 and again from 1975 to 1980, and then chairman of the British National Party (BNP) from 1982 to 1999. He unsuccessfully stood for election to the House of Commons and European Parliament on several occasions.

John Edward Bean was a British political activist and writer, who was a long-standing participant in far-right politics in the United Kingdom, and a number of its movements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Fountaine</span> British political activist

Andrew Fountaine was an activist involved in the British far right. After military service in a number of conflicts, Fountaine joined the Conservative Party and was selected as a parliamentary candidate until his outspoken views resulted in his being disowned by the party.

Derek William Beackon is a British far-right politician. He is currently a member of the British Democratic Party (BDP), and a former member of the British National Party (BNP) and National Front. In 1993, he became the BNP's first elected councillor, although he served for only eight months.

Martin Wingfield is a British far-right politician. Wingfield is long-standing figure in the British nationalist movement, he and his wife, Tina Wingfield, having contested several elections since the 1980s.

Andrew Henry William Brons is a British politician and former MEP. Long active in far-right politics in Britain, he was elected as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber for the fascist British National Party (BNP) at the 2009 European Parliament election and held the seat until May 2014. He was the chairman of the National Front in the early 1980s. He resigned the BNP whip in October 2012 and became patron of the far-right British Democratic Party. He did not seek re-election in 2014.

Anthony "Tony" Mark Lecomber is a British far-right activist and former British National Party (BNP) politician who was deputy leader of the BNP from 1999 to 2006.

Mark Adrian Collett is a British neo-Nazi political activist. He was formerly chairman of the Young BNP, the youth division of the British National Party (BNP), and was director of publicity for the party.

Edward Mark Butler is a former National Elections Officer of the British National Party (BNP) and was dubbed the party's "elections guru" by its newspaper, Voice of Freedom, until being suspended and expelled from the BNP in 2010 by Nick Griffin. He then became a member of the English Democrats before becoming associated with the For Britain Movement.

Richard Charles Edmonds was a British far-right politician and activist. He was the deputy chairman and national organiser of the British National Party (BNP) and also prominent in the National Front (NF) during two spells of membership.

John Morse is a British political activist involved with the far-right. He was a leading figure in the British National Party under John Tyndall, serving alongside Richard Edmonds as Tyndall's closest ally in the party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Darby</span>

Simon Darby is a British politician and former deputy chairman of the British National Party.

This article lists the British National Party's election results in the UK parliamentary, Scottish parliamentary and Welsh Assembly elections, as well as in the European Parliament elections and at a local level.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Griffin</span> British politician

Nicholas John Griffin is a British far-right politician who was chairman of the British National Party (BNP) from 1999 to 2014, and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for North West England from 2009 to 2014. Following this, he was president of the BNP between July and October 2014, when he was expelled from the party.

The British National Party (BNP) leadership election of 2011 was triggered on 28 June 2011 when the party adopted a new constitution that required a leadership election to take place every four years. Two candidates stood in the leadership election: Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons. On 25 July 2011, the results of the leadership election were announced, with Griffin being named the winner by just 9 votes. Griffin had secured 1,157 votes compared to the 1,148 votes for Brons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Democratic Party (2013)</span> British far-right political party

The British Democratic Party (BDP), commonly known as the British Democrats, is a British far-right political party. It was registered with the Electoral Commission in 2011, and officially launched in 2013 at a Leicestershire village hall by a ten-member steering committee which included former members of several political parties including the British National Party (BNP), Democratic Nationalists, Freedom Party and UK Independence Party (UKIP).

The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right political party in the United Kingdom formed as a splinter group from the National Front by John Tyndall in 1982 and was led by Nick Griffin from September 1999 to July 2014. Its current chairman is Adam Walker. The BNP platform is centred on the advocacy of "firm but voluntary incentives for immigrants and their descendants to return home", as well as the repeal of anti-discrimination legislation. It restricted membership to "indigenous British" people until a 2010 legal challenge to its constitution.

Adam Walker is a British far-right politician who is the chairman of the British National Party (BNP). He was elected in a leadership election on 27 July 2015, having previously been appointed acting chairman by the National Executive when the then-leader, Nick Griffin, resigned.

References

  1. 1 2 Copsey, N (2 February 2016). Contemporary British Fascism: The British National Party and the Quest for Legitimacy. Springer. ISBN   9780230509160 . Retrieved 1 April 2016.
  2. Quinn, Thomas (2012). Electing and Ejecting Party Leaders in Britain. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 201.