Remembering Four Great British Nationalists – H&D Annual Meeting salutes Derek Beackon, Andrew Brons, Sir Oswald Mosley and Ian Stuart

On 9th September in the Lancashire village of Samlesbury, just to the east of Preston, over 80 nationalists – mainly from the North-West and Yorkshire – attended the annual H&D meeting. Over the past fifteen years or so H&D have hosted cross-party memorial meetings in and around Preston and that tradition continued.

This year the meeting was entitled “Honour the Past – Conquer the Future” and we honoured four great British nationalists, Derek Beackon, Andrew Brons, Sir Oswald Mosley and Ian Stuart Donaldson.

Despite the best efforts of the Lancashire Post, the Preston Blog, Labour Party, SWP, Red Flare (a nutty online Marxist Republican group) and local LGBTQ+ loons to stop it, H&D‘s annual meeting went ahead as planned, with no serious problems.  All credit to Lancashire Police who respected our right to hold a legal political meeting in our free and democratic society and did not interfere with it.

While we were holding our successful 80 strong meeting in a first-class hotel in the beautiful Lancashire countryside, the loony lefties could only muster twenty-one (yes 21!) to their pathetic demonstration on Lune Street, many miles away in Preston city-centre! How ironic the loonies holding their demo on Lune Street!

Chaired by former NF and BNP organiser, and longstanding H&D subscriber Keith Axon, the meeting got underway with the traditional one minute’s silence for all the H&D subscribers who had passed away since our last meeting in September 2022, including Mr Ian Lofthouse, Dr. Roger Pearson, Mr K.D. Russell, Mr M. Sharp, Mr Ken Stead and Mr. P. Trelawney.

For only the second time we had two women speakers. This was one of many aspects of this year’s meeting that both on the panel and in the audience (over 20% were female) showed the increasing diversity of European nationalism.

Also, for only the second time we had two overseas speakers; H&D‘s European correspondent Isabel Peralta, who overcame another detention by UK Border Force at Manchester Airport; and Ken Schmidt H&D‘s American correspondent, who thankfully entered the UK without any problems.

Our Spanish and American guests were delighted to meet so many excellent new comrades from all over Great Britain, especially the large delegations from the British Movement and Patriotic Alternative.

After Keith Axon’s opening remarks, he introduced the first speaker of the afternoon; Benny Bullman, a British Movement activist, and the lead singer of the RAC band Whitelaw. Benny gave a fine tribute to the founder of Blood & Honour, Ian Stuart, who was born 66 years ago in the Lancashire town of Poulton-le-Fylde. It’s 30 years now since his death in 1993, but Benny emphasised that great comrades such as Ian Stuart still live with us in spirit, and we are all determined to be worthy of their legacy.

Our second speaker was Professor John Kersey, educationalist and musician, who leads several international university-level institutions dedicated to bespoke professional education for high achievers, gave a cogent analysis of the burgeoning threats to traditional British values and freedoms – and to the Christian values that are the bedrock of British and European civilization. The dictatorial grip of the political establishment is at last being resisted: the forces of resistance are no longer marginalised – our agenda of maintaining and restoring British traditions is now at the centre of political debate.

Our third speaker was Laura Towler, deputy leader of Patriotic Alternative. Laura talked both about Sir Oswald Mosley – this being the 75^th anniversary since he formed his Union Movement, after the end of WWII in 1948 – and Patriotic Alternative, which for the past four years has been fighting to get across the message that White Lives Matter – across a broad front of activities from demonstrations to leafletting, mountain hikes to tea retailing! PA has grown rapidly in its four years of existence. Despite the setbacks of the Electoral Commission constantly rejecting their applications to register as a political party, the PA has combined some of the best veterans of older nationalist parties with a proven ability to attract the best of the younger online nationalist community.

Just before the lunch break, Keith Axon and meeting organiser Mark Cotterill auctioned off a number of books, a George Lincoln Rockwell magazine, framed photographs, Ulster flags and a Whitelaw LP that had been donated by H&D subscribers. The auction raised over £300.

The meeting was then adjourned for a twenty-minute lunch break. An excellent buffet was provided by the BM’s Women’s Division, who as always put on a fine spread.

Keith Axon then opened the second part of the meeting and introduced the afternoon’s fourth speaker Dr. Jim Lewthwaite, an archaeologist and former Bradford city councillor, now chairman of the British Democrats. His speech was based around Nigel Biggar’s new book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning – which was reviewed in Issue 115 of H&D. Jim talked about the positive side of the British Empire, as well as slavery and how the British were the first of the major powers of the time to ban it. The British Democrats are now beginning to attract significant numbers of experienced activists as well as those new to electoral politics, however their results at this year’s council elections were disappointing.

Our fifth speaker of the afternoon was Isabel Peralta (speaking in Spanish with an English translation being read by Peter Rushton): she explained that the NS revolution did not end with the defeat at Berlin in 1945, and that faith in the true European cause was capable of moving mountains. She spoke of the great Spartan army, led by Leonidas, whose 300 Spartans stood fast and fought to the death against the mighty 200,000 strong Persian Army at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. The Spartans showed the true spirit of Europe that we again need now.

The spirit of unity in the real Europe which Isabel spoke about, will soon be reflected in stronger connections between European nationalists – keep checking our website and magazine for details!

Our sixth speaker was Stephen Frost:  National Secretary of the British Movement, longstanding friend of Colin Jordan and author of the Colin Jordan biography ‘TWAS A GOOD FIGHT’! He acknowledged that our movement of resistance to multicultural decay is a ‘broad church’ of patriots, not all of whom by any means are national socialists (as represented by BM and Colin Jordan’s earlier organisations). Yet as he emphasised, BM has always been prepared to lend its support to sincere comrades from other groups and parties – at demonstrations, election campaigns and at meetings such as this one. He said the task of all nationalists is to spread propaganda for our cause by any and every means and format: whether old-school with hard copy leaflets and newspapers or by more modern means using the internet including social media. The propaganda war is bringing increasing numbers to realisation of the essential truth of our values.

Just before the second break of the afternoon H&D Editor Mark Cotterill held the raffle, ably assisted by one of the young ladies who were manning the H&D merchandise stall. There were around thirty raffle prizes this year – again all kindly donated by H&D subscribers.     

Keith Axon then opened the third and final part of the meeting and introduced the afternoon’s seventh speaker Ken Schmidt. Ken has been an activist and writer in the American nationalist movement since the 1980s. He writes a regular column in H&D entitled “From the other side of the Pond”. He is now a member of the League of the South, although he is now living back in the north – in New Jersey.

He spoke firstly about Donald Trump and the US presidential election and then about how the USA as a country is breaking up due to multi-racialism/culturalism. And then about the various movements who support secession and the break-up of the USA as the only long-term solution if White people are to have any future in North America.

Our eighth speaker was Mark Collett, the former chairman of the young BNP, director of publicity and editor of the BNP magazine Identity. Mark is the leader of Patriotic Alternative which he formed in September 2019. Mark has been an active nationalist since the turn of the century and is the most debanked person in the UK! The PA is the fastest growing nationalist organisation in Great Britain and holds regular activities and events every single week.  Mark’s speech was about his ten years inside the BNP, working his way up from the very bottom to the very top – what the BNP did right and what they did wrong, and how modern-day nationalists can learn from their mistakes.

Be sure to check this website in a few days time so that you can see videos of our event’s speeches, including Mark’s excellent insight into our movement’s recent history, which conveys important lessons for a new generation of activists.

Our ninth and final speaker of the afternoon was Peter Rushton: H&D‘s Assistant Editor and webmaster, historian, author of the new Real History Blog, and TV commentator. In his speech concluding the event, Peter mocked those ludicrous fake leftists who (with lavish funding from the usual suspects) had set out to stop our meeting. They had pulled out all the stops to defeat us, not because they feared “terrorism”, but because they feared the truth. “Anti-fascists” and their useful idiots (some of whom call themselves “nationalists”) spend most of their time spreading foul slanders (including against some of our guest speakers), but we carry on regardless with the task of rebuilding the true Britain and the true Europe.

This is the legacy of the four men whom we honoured at this event. If the authorities or the anti-fascists wished to talk about terrorists, Peter said, we were very happy to do so. We are happy to talk about the Zionist terrorists who bombed London, one of the worst of whom is still alive in Paris and untouched by the British counter-terrorist squad, who prefer to carry out political harassment of H&D writers such as Isabel, Peter and Mark. And we are happy to talk about the IRA terrorists to whom Conservative and Labour governments alike have betrayed our nation.

We should be in no doubt, Peter concluded, that reactionary Conservative capitalists are an even worse enemy than the so-called “Left” – the Tweedledum and Tweedledee whom Mosley ridiculed decades ago. Soon after the arrival of the Windrush in the 1940s, Labour MPs had warned about the consequences of mass non-White immigration, using language that would nowadays lead to them being raided by police. Peter thanked Mark Cotterill and his colleagues who have to remain nameless, for making this excellent event possible. He said he was proud to be fighting alongside his fellow speakers and audience members – drawn from many different groups and tendencies within the racial nationalist family – confident in the ultimate victory of our race and civilisation.

H&D editor Mark Cotterill ended the meeting by thanking everybody who helped organise the event and those in the audience who had made the effort to attend, some travelling considerable distances, including two from the USA, Germany and Spain.

Before the meeting and during the two intervals our audience browsed the many literature/merchandise stalls. Apart from the H&D table there were stalls from British Movement, Candour, Patriotic Alternative, The Supplement, Historical Review Press and Yorkshire Forum.

The evening before the meeting we held a social in a nice city centre pub, and after the meeting we returned back to the very same pub, as the landlord (an ex-squaddie himself) was so welcoming the first night, we thought we would give him another evening’s business! Around twenty nationalists attended both socials, some staying until just after 1am on the Saturday – a few sore heads on Sunday morning were reported!    

And finally, special thanks again to the British Movement Women’s Division who provided an excellent buffet; and to the British Movement Leader Guard who carried out security duties in their usual highly efficient manner to ensure that our speakers and audience were entirely safe from the loonies of Lune Street, had they been able to afford the bus fare up to Samlesbury – which of course they could not!

Hopefully we can hold another similar event next year, maybe in a different part of the country, but only time will tell.