UK Local Elections 2023

Nominations have closed for more than 8,000 contests at this year’s local elections in England and Wales. (Northern Ireland’s council elections have a slightly different timescale, and there are no elections in Scotland this year.)

The nationalist and broadly patriotic cause in the UK is still going through its post-Brexit transition, and this is reflected in the small numbers of candidates from racial nationalist parties. You can find a comprehensive list of candidates and parties by clicking this link, but these are the main headlines.

• The British Democrats are the main electorally focused racial nationalist movement, and have five candidates this year, including Julian Leppert who will be defending the seat he won four years ago in Waltham Abbey Paternoster ward, Epping Forest. Mr Leppert won that seat as a candidate of the now defunct For Britain Movement, but he joined the Brit Dems after FBM leader Anne-Marie Waters closed down her party.
• Britain First, led by former BNP official Paul Golding, is the main electoral voice of the anti-Islam movement. It is in principle a non-racial, anti-Islam party, though it includes several veteran racial nationalists. They have eight candidates this year, and their main campaign is likely to be in Walkden North, Salford, where Ashlea Simon will seek to build on the 21.6% she won last year.
• Another anti-Islamist party which has grown slightly during the past year is the National Housing Party, which has three candidates this year, including former BNP and FBM activist Gary Bergin in Claughton ward, Wirral.
• Patriotic Alternative (the country’s most active racial nationalist movement) is still not registered as a political party and therefore unable to contest elections.
• The British National Party, which during the 2000s won many council seats and elected two Members of the European Parliament, has effectively ceased to exist: once again this year there are no BNP candidates anywhere in the UK, and in all likelihood there never will be again.
• The National Front, which during the 1970s was one of Europe’s largest racial nationalist parties, still ticks over as a guardian of racial nationalist ideals, but has only one candidate this year: Tim Knowles in Codnor, Langley Mill & Aldercar ward, Amber Valley.
• Former BNP organiser Dr Andrew Emerson is again standing in his home city of Chichester for his small party Patria.
• Two nationalist independents are standing this year: former councillor Graham Partner in Coalville, NW Leicestershire, and Gary Butler in Shepway, Maidstone.
• The English Democrats, who are a non-racial party but who campaign for an English Parliament as well as immigration restrictions and other issues of interest to H&D readers, have five candidates this year, including party leader Robin Tilbrook in Shelley ward, Epping Forest, and husband and wife team Steve and Val Morris in Bury. Two former ED activists have defected to the rival English Constitution Party and will stand in Barnsley.
• Various civic nationalist parties that grew out of UKIP remain bitterly divided and ideologically confused. Reform UK (by far the largest and best funded) have 480 candidates this year, but unless they can make a serious impact this might be their last serious campaign. UKIP itself has only 48 candidates this year, while rival splinter groups include the Heritage Party with 64 (plus a mayoral candidate) and the Alliance for Freedom & Democracy with 23.

(Please note that election reports and statistics on the H&D site do not usually include parish/town council elections. We only focus on the borough/district council level and above.)

Nigel Farage’s UK Independence Party (which was the main vehicle for the pro-Brexit cause) split in 2018 with Farage founding the Brexit Party, which eventually evolved into today’s Reform UK, led by Farage’s close associate Richard Tice.

Reform UK remains by far the largest vehicle for the broadly civic nationalist cause in the UK, but it is ideologically poles apart from most H&D readers. Tice’s party is blatantly non-racist, and economically liberal. H&D has long argued that the slow death of Reform UK (and of Farageist politics in general) is necessary before the British racial nationalist tradition can revive.

After at least two years of generally dismal election results, Reform UK has (on paper) done well to field 480 candidates at this year’s council elections. But it has very few serious functioning branches. Tice’s best branch by far is in Derby, where the entire council is up for re-election, including the six seats presently held by Reform UK who have a full slate of 51 candidates for the new council.

In addition to Derby, Reform UK has three other really substantial slates of candidates: Bolton (34), Amber Valley (28), and Sunderland (24).

Who is standing where in the 2023 local elections

On this page you will find a comprehensive list of nationalist results at the 2023 elections, and also lists from various parties that grew out of the pro-Brexit movement and that some would consider broadly nationalist/patriotic despite being multiracialist.

Nationalists standing this year included –

British Democrats: 5 candidates

Wyke ward, Bradford: Dr Jim Lewthwaite 140 votes (5.1%)
Laindon Park, Basildon: Chris Bateman 89 votes (4.2%)
Waltham Abbey Paternoster, Epping Forest: Julian Leppert 187 votes (25.2%)
Saffron, Leicester: Dave Haslett 34 votes (1.9%)
Kursaal, Southend: Steve Smith 42 votes (2.6%)

Britain First: 8 candidates

Darenth, Dartford: Nick Scanlon 61 votes (10.2%)
Swanscombe, Dartford: Paul Golding 107 votes (6.9%)
Ballard, New Forest: Nick Lambert 108 votes (12.6%)
Hockley & Ashingdon, Rochford: Paul Harding 214 votes (13.1%)
Walkden North, Salford: Ashlea Simon 405 votes (18.2%)
Bideford South, Torridge: Philip Green and Anne Townsend 108 and 96 votes (15.0%)
Broadheath, Trafford: Donald Southworth 153 votes (3.6%)

National Front: 1 candidate
Codnor, Langley Mill & Aldercar, Amber Valley: Tim Knowles 40 votes (1.8%)

Patria: 1 candidate
Chichester East, Chichester: Dr Andrew Emerson 92 votes (6.4%)

National Housing Party: 3 candidates
Hollinwood, Oldham: John Lawrence 205 votes (7.6%)
Dodington, South Gloucestershire: Callum Leat 228 votes (10.3%)
Claughton, Wirral: Gary Bergin 149 votes (4.1%)

English Democrats: 5 candidates
Old Leake & Wrangle, Boston: David Dickason 75 votes (7.0%)
Besses, Bury: Steve Morris 139 votes (6.1%)
Holyrood, Bury: Val Morris 102 votes (2.9%)
Leighton Linslade North, Central Bedfordshire: Antonio Vitiello 133 votes (4.0%)
Shelley, Epping Forest: Robin Tilbrook 34 votes (10.3%)

English Constitution Party: 2 candidates
Dearne North, Barnsley: Maxine Spencer 118 votes (8.2%)
Dearne South, Barnsley: Janus Polenceusz 37 votes (2.1%)

Independents:
Cannock South, Cannock Chase: David Hyden 81 votes (5.7%)
Shepway North, Maidstone: Gary Butler 114 votes (7.0%)
Hermitage, NW Leicestershire: Graham Partner 94 votes (15.9%)

A broader analysis of the results and their significance will appear on this website during the weekend. Candidates from civic nationalist and pro-Brexit parties included:

Reform UK: 480 candidates
Amber Valley 28
Ashford 1
Barnsley 4
Basildon 1
Bedford 2
Blaby 1
Blackpool 5
Bolsover 1
Bolton 34
Boston 1
Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole 1
Bracknell Forest 1
Bradford 3
Braintree 4
Breckland 2
Brentwood 1
Broadland 5
Bromsgrove 1
Bury 1
Canterbury 3
Castle Point 2
Central Bedfordshire 6
Charnwood 6
Cheshire East 2
Cheshire W & Chester 3
Chichester 2
Colchester 4
Coventry 1
Crawley 1
Dacorum 4
Dartford 5
Derby 51
Dover 1
Dudley 4
East Hampshire 3
East Herts 1
East Lindsey 1
East Riding of Yorks 4
East Staffs 2
Eastbourne 2
Eastleigh 1
Elmbridge 2
Epping Forest 2
Exeter 1
Fenland 1
Folkestone & Hythe 3
Fylde 1
Gateshead 1
Gravesham 3
Great Yarmouth 2
Halton 1
Harborough 1
Harlow 1
Hart 1
Hartlepool 10
Havant 1
Herefordshire 6
Hertsmere 2
High Peak 1
Hinckley & Bosworth 4
Horsham 2
Hull 1
Hyndburn 1
Ipswich 1
Kirklees 1
Leeds 3
Leicester 1
Lewes 1
Lincoln 5
Lincolnshire 1 [county council by-election]
Liverpool 1
Luton 2
Maidstone 1
Malvern Hills 2
Manchester 2
Mansfield 1
Medway 2
Mid Devon 1
Mid Suffolk 2
Milton Keynes 7
Newark & Sherwood 1
North Herts 2
North Kesteven 5
North Norfolk 2
North Tyneside 5
NW Leics 2
Peterborough 1
Plymouth 2
Portsmouth 2
Redcar & Cleveland 2
Reigate & Banstead 1
Rochford 2
Rugby 2
Runnymede 1
Rushcliffe 1
Rushmoor 1
St Albans 1
Salford 1
Sandwell 9
Sefton 1
Sevenoaks 1
Sheffield 5
South Gloucs 2
South Holland 1
South Kesteven 3
South Norfolk 1
South Oxfordshire 2
South Tyneside 1
Southampton 5
Spelthorne 2
Stafford 7
Staffs Moorlands 1
Stevenage 1
Stockport 4
Stockton-on-Tees 10
Stoke on Trent 1
Stratford on Avon 1
Sunderland 24
Surrey Heath 2
Swale 4
Tamworth 1
Teignbridge 1
Tendring 4
Thanet 2
Thurrock 3
Tonbridge & Malling 2
Trafford 2
Tunbridge Wells 1
Uttlesford 3
Vale of White Horse 1
Wakefield 2
Walsall 9
Warwick 1
Watford 5
Waverley 2
Wealden 1
Welwyn Hatfield 3
West Berkshire 2
West Devon 2
West Lindsey 6
West Suffolk 2
Wigan 3
Winchester 1
Windsor & Maidenhead 1
Wirral 5
Wolverhampton 1
Worcester 1
Worthing 1
Wychavon 2

UKIP: 48 candidates
Braintree 1
Breckland 1
Brighton & Hove 3
Cambridge 1
Chelmsford 1
East Cambridgeshire 1
Eastbourne 3
Elmbridge 1
Folkestone & Hythe 1
Hinckley & Bosworth 1
North Lincs 1
North Tyneside 4
Nottingham 2
Pendle 1
Rother 10
South Staffs 2
Surrey 1 [county council by-election]
Tamworth 2
Tendring 1
Test Valley 1
Thurrock 1
Torridge 2
Warwick 1
Wealden 2
West Berkshire 1
Wigan 2

Heritage Party: 64 council candidates + 1 Mayoral
Arun 3
Bedford – Mayoral Election
Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole 1
Bracknell Forest 1
Braintree 1
Broadland 1
Burnley 1
Cambridge 1
Chelmsford 1
Chichester 1
Cotswold 1
Crawley 3
Dover 1
East Devon 1
East Hampshire 1
East Herts 1
East Suffolk 1
Elmbridge 3
Hart 1
Horsham 1
Ipswich 1
King’s Lynn & W Norfolk 1
Maidstone 1
Medway 1
Milton Keynes 1
North Lincs 1
N Warwicks 1
Plymouth 2
Runnymede 1
Rushmoor 1
Slough 1
South Hams 2
South Staffs 1
Southend 2
Swale 1
Tandridge 1
Teignbridge 7
Test Valley 1
Tonbridge & Malling 1
Warwick 1
Watford 1
West Berkshire 1
West Oxfordshire 2
Wigan 1
Woking 3
Wokingham 1
Worthing 1

Alliance for Democracy & Freedom: 23 candidates
Blackburn with Darwen 1
Broxtowe 1
Charnwood 1
Cheshire W & Chester 1
Coventry 1
East Riding of Yorks 1
Fenland 2
Fylde 1
Havant 1
Ipswich 1
Leicester 1
Oldham 3
Preston 1
Rochford 1
South Ribble 3
Wyre 3

Post-Brexit civic nationalists face High Noon in Yorkshire and Devon by-elections

Nominations closed this afternoon for two parliamentary by-elections to be held on 23rd June in the West Yorkshire constituency of Wakefield and the Devon constituency of Tiverton & Honiton.

Each of these by-elections follows scandals that disgraced the previous Conservative MP. In Wakefield a homosexual Muslim Conservative – overseas readers might think we are making this up but it’s absolutely true – resigned after being convicted for sexually assaulting a teenage boy. He has since been imprisoned.

In Tiverton & Honiton, the local Conservative MP resigned after he admitted viewing pornography on his phone while at work in the chamber of the House of Commons. Readers will appreciate that parliamentary proceedings can be boring, but this was probably not the best way to relieve the tedium.

Each by-election has attracted a range of civic nationalist, populist and/or anti-Islam candidates.

In Wakefield voters can choose between:
Ashlea Simon of Britain First, an anti-Islamist party backed by former BNP official Paul Golding – as reported in the current edition of H&D, Miss Simon achieved the best nationalist vote at the recent local council elections, polling 21.6% in Walkden North, Salford;

Jayda Fransen, Mr Golding’s former partner both in Britain First and in private life, who is now based in Northern Ireland where she works for Christian businessman Jim Dowson and his political frontman Nick Griffin – they call their outfit the British Freedom Party but it is not in fact a registered political party, so Ms Fransen is listed as Independent on the ballot paper;

Chris Walsh, a Wakefield gym owner and the most local of the civic nationalist candidates, representing the Reform UK party backed by former Brexit Party and UKIP leader Nigel Farage;

Therese Hirst, a frequent candidate in Yorkshire elections for the English Democrats, a party led by Essex solicitor Robin Tilbrook which campaigns for an English Parliament – Ms Hirst (a Theology graduate of Durham University) finished runner-up at the Batley & Spen parliamentary by-election in 2016, polling 4.8%;

Jordan Gaskell, who at the age of 19 received UKIP’s best vote at the recent local government elections: 10.4% in Hindley ward, Wigan – like Ashlea Simon he has what might prove a big disadvantage of coming from the wrong side of the Pennines, though unlike Jayda Fransen he is at least based in England.

Other anti-establishment parties contesting Wakefield include the CoVID-sceptic ‘Freedom Alliance’, the Christian Peoples Alliance, the Yorkshire Party, and the left-populist Northern Independence Party.

Wakefield’s Conservatives have (perhaps surprisingly) selected another Asian candidate. There is also an Asian independent standing, as well as the ‘Monster Raving Loony Party’, and the usual Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green parties.

The by-election is almost certain to be won either by Labour or the Conservatives, but an unusually poor or good result might either finish off one of the crowded field of nationalist or semi-nationalist parties, or give one of them the boost required to raise their profile.

At present none of these parties has anything like the profile achieved by the National Front in the 1970s, the BNP in the 1990s and 2000s, or UKIP and the Brexit Party in the 2010s.

Tiverton & Honiton in contrast to Wakefield is almost certain to be a battle between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Here there is a slightly different range of civic nationalist candidates:
Frankie Rufolo is Exeter organiser of the For Britain Movement, the anti-Islamist party founded by former UKIP leadership candidate Anne-Marie Waters. Mr Rufolo has stood several times in Exeter City Council elections, most recently polling 7.7%.
Andy Foan, a former Royal Navy and RAF pilot, is standing for Reform UK.
Ben Walker, also a Royal Navy veteran, is standing for UKIP, for whom he was once a councillor in South Gloucestershire. In 2019 he was fined more than £11,000 for breaking building regulations.
Jordan Donoghue-Morgan is standing for the Heritage Party, which has absolutely no connection to H&D and is a splinter from UKIP.

Since UKIP were runners-up with 16.5% in this constituency in 2015, there is a fairly substantial civic nationalist or populist right-wing vote to share between these candidates, especially given the Conservative Party’s recent problems.

As in Wakefield, an especially good or bad result for any of the above four candidates could propel their party either into significance or into extinction.

Other candidates in Tiverton & Honiton are the usual ‘big four’: Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Labour and Green.

Neither of the two fastest-growing nationalist organisations in Britain is contesting either of these by-elections. Patriotic Alternative is not yet a registered political party so cannot yet appear on ballot papers. The British Democratic Party has decided (probably wisely) not to enter a crowded field that is likely to turn into a media circus.

Nationalist results at 2022 local elections

Votes have been counted across most of the UK in local council elections, as well as crucial contests for the Northern Ireland Assembly.

As previously explained in H&D, there were much reduced numbers of candidates this year from the UK’s various racial and civic nationalist parties. The once-mighty BNP now seems totally defunct, having no candidates anywhere in the country and no longer even a functioning website.

By far the best result so far was achieved by Ashlea Simon of Britain First, who finished runner-up in Walkden North, Salford with 508 votes (21.6%). H&D has been very critical of Britain First’s leader Paul Golding on both ideological and personal grounds, but we have to admit this is a very good result and a credit to Ms Simon and her campaign team.

The other nationalist party making progress this year is the British Democrats, and even they only had four candidates nationwide. Lawrence Rustem achieved 117 votes (13.7%) in Shepway South ward, Maidstone. Last year Mr Rustem polled 25 votes (2.6%) in the same ward as a For Britain candidate.

British Democrat leader Dr Jim Lewthwaite finished third of six candidates in Wyke ward, Bradford, with 214 votes (7.1%), slightly up from 6.2% in the same ward last year.

Among other Brit Dem candidates, Chris Bateman polled 100 votes (4.6%) in Laindon Park, Basildon. This was the first ever British Democrat campaign in Basildon. Similarly breaking new ground for the Brit Dems was former BNP candidate Michael Jones who polled 253 votes (5.7%) in East Wickham ward, Bexley.

By contrast the For Britain Movement seems to be going backwards: its leader Anne-Marie Waters was heavily defeated in De Bruce ward, Hartlepool. Click here for our analysis of that result.

What had been For Britain’s strongest branch in Epping Forest was marking time this year with token campaigns. Eddy Butler polled just 11 votes (1.3%) in Loughton Alderton, and former BNP councillor Pat Richardson 16 votes (2.0%) in Loughton Broadway.

Former BNP activist Gary Bergin polled 57 votes (1.7%) as For Britain candidate in Claughton ward, Wirral, down from 1.9% last year, while in nearby Shevington ward, Knowsley, Christine Dillon managed only 18 votes (1.0%). One of the party’s few substantial branches is Exeter, where organiser Frankie Rufolo polled 192 votes (7.7%) in Exwick ward. Mr Rufolo’s Exeter colleagues fared a lot worse: Eric Bransden polling 35 votes (1.2%) in Topsham ward, and Chris Stone 25 votes (0.9%) in St Thomas.

Among the other early results was Langley Mill & Aldercar, Amber Valley, where the National Front’s Tim Knowles polled 28 votes (2.6%), a fraction down from 2.7% in 2018. Another veteran NF candidate Chris Jackson (once North West regional organiser for the BNP) yet again contested his home ward of Todmorden, Calderdale, polling 101 votes (3.1%), up from 2.3% last year.

On the civic wing of nationalism, Reform UK – the main faction of the old UKIP, backed by Nigel Farage and led by Richard Tice – is fading badly. In Chipping Ongar, Greensted and Marden Ash ward, Epping Forest, Reform UK’s Peter Bell finished bottom of the poll with 26 votes (2.7%), behind Robin Tilbrook of the English Democrats with 72 votes (7.5%).

Other English Democrat results included 8.3% for Maxine Spencer in Dearne North, Barnsley and 5.5% for her neighbour Janus Polenceusz in Dearne South.

Reform UK seems now to have just one strong branch – Derby, where they held on to the two council seats they were defending – plus one semi-strong branch, Bolton, where as in Derby they had a full slate of candidates, three of whom managed above 10%. In the rest of the country the party barely exists.

The remaining fragment of UKIP – which was the country’s largest party at the 2014 European Parliamentary elections – had only seventeen candidates for English councils plus eleven candidates for Scottish councils. Only Jordan Gaskell in Hindley ward, Wigan with 10.4% achieved a remotely credible vote.

Two UKIP splinter groups still just about function. The Heritage Party, led by half-Jamaican former London Assembly member David Kurten, had fourteen English council candidates and one Welsh, plus one candidate for the Northern Ireland Assembly. Their best vote was 7.9% for Nick Smith in Cippenham Green ward, Slough, while most others polled tiny votes. An even smaller UKIP splinter is the Alliance for Democracy and Freedom, the best of whose five English council results was 7.3% for Phillip Moulson in South ward, NE Lincolnshire.

Gary Butler – who has contested elections during the past twelve years for the National Front, BNP and English Democrats – this year polled 49 votes (3.3%) as an Independent in Heath ward, Maidstone. His wife Melanie Butler polled 94 votes (5.8%) in Shepway North, Maidstone.

Graham Williamson – a leading activist in the National Front during the 1980s – has long since abandoned racial nationalism in favour of ‘community politics’. He was easily re-elected in South Hornchurch ward, Havering, for his ‘Rainham Independent Residents Association’.

Click here to see full breakdown of nationalist / UKIP type candidates and their results.

A party on its deathbed: no BNP candidates in this year’s elections

See also updated list of candidates

Regular H&D readers will know that our editor and assistant editor were once leading activists in the British National Party. Twenty years ago our editor raised money for Nick Griffin (then party leader) and paid for the Griffin family’s holiday in the USA.

Unfortunately Griffin betrayed us all and destroyed the party, leaving a political wreck to be steered round hopelessly by his successor Adam Walker and his crooked treasurer Clive Jefferson.

The BNP now only exists to obtain donations and legacies for the benefit of its leaders, not for any sort of serious politics: and now the slow death of the party has been confirmed by its failure to field a single candidate anywhere in the UK at this year’s local council elections.

Other nationalist parties are at least making an effort, devoting their far more modest financial resources to actual politics rather than to their leaders’ personal benefit.

The National Front has two candidates this year, Chris Jackson in Calderdale and Tim Knowles in Amber Valley.

H&D expects Dr Jim Lewthwaite, leader of the British Democrats, again to run the most effective nationalist campaign, standing again in Wyke ward, Bradford. This year he has three fellow British Democrat candidates, all in the south of England and all ex-BNP: Michael Jones in Bexley, Chris Bateman in Basildon, and former councillor Lawrence Rustem in Maidstone.

Eddy Butler who masterminded the BNP’s first ever election victory in East London in 1993, is now in the For Britain Movement, a populist anti-immigration party whose leader Anne Marie Waters (a former UKIP leadership candidate) is sincerely ‘anti-racist’ but many of whose candidates and activists are ex-BNP, including its only elected councillor Julian Leppert.

Ms Waters will make a second attempt to win De Bruce ward, Hartlepool, after her near-miss last year, while Eddy Butler and former BNP councillor Patricia Richardson are contesting wards in Epping Forest. There are a total of 14 For Britain candidates nationwide.

Paul Golding, who twenty years ago was one of Nick Griffin’s young favourites, had promised fifty candidates or more from his anti-Muslim party Britain First, newly re-registered with the Electoral Commission, but has delivered only three. One of these is Golding’s girlfriend Ashlea Simon, standing in Salford; while another is ex-BNP candidate Nicholas Scanlon in Greenwich.

Robin Tilbrook’s English Democrats, at the opposite end of the spectrum from Paul Golding in terms of respectability but very much a ‘civic nationalist’ party, have five candidates including Mr Tilbrook himself in Epping Forest and Steve Morris in Bury, each of whom have been doggedly contesting the same wards for several years.

The only remaining unresolved controversy about Brexit is how it will affect the Union with Northern Ireland. We shall be looking at Ulster politics soon in another article. On the mainland it seems that the various pro-Brexit parties are steadily declining. The largest of them is Reform UK who have 123 candidates this year, and who are contesting every seat in two council areas: Bolton and Derby.

UKIP is now almost dead but has managed to find 28 candidates, while the Heritage Party (no connection to H&D!) led by half-Jamaican former UKIP leadership candidate David Kurten has 15 candidates.

H&D will have full reports on the local election campaign and analysis of the results in Issue 108 of our magazine which will be published the week after polling day in May.

Note: The statistics in this article and the accompanying candidate list have been obtained from many hours of research on local council websites across the UK during the past two days. Inevitably there is the possibility of error either by ourselves or by council returning officers. H&D will continually update and correct all facts relating to this year’s elections and this site will continue to be the most accurate and impartial source for electoral news regarding British nationalist parties across the ideological spectrum.

Civic nationalism wiped off the map

For at least twenty years we have grown used to being told that racial nationalism is ‘unrealistic’ and that the only ‘electable’ alternative to the political establishment is ‘civic nationalism’. We should forget about race, forget awkward aspects of British or European history, forget all essential principles, and focus on a vague form of protest vote combined with strictly non-racial ‘patriotism’: so the argument has traditionally gone.

The high tide of civic nationalism was the Brexit referendum victory in 2016. Before and after that result, parties led by Nigel Farage (first UKIP, then the Brexit Party) seriously challenged the party system, but once Brexit had been achieved, Farage’s politics (essentially an ultra-reactionary version of Thatcherism) lost all relevance.

Several different parties and independents have competed for the same political territory: waffling about immigration while determined not to be ‘racist’; still fighting the Brexit war long after it ended; and obsessed by some version or other of anti-vaccination conspiracy theory. What has been entirely lacking has been any serious political ideology or vision.

There are only two good reasons to be in politics: either to win, obtaining at least some portion of power over the fate of our nations and peoples; or to set out a clear and consistent ideology capable of rallying and inspiring our people if future political circumstances afford any chances to do so.

Civic nationalism does neither: it is the politics both of defeat and of ideological vacuity.

Just before 1.30 this morning, the credibility of civic nationalism ended for good, finally burying the era when Brexit dominated British politics.

At yesterday’s Southend West by-election, none of the major parties stood against the Conservatives, out of respect for the by-election having been caused by the murder of the late MP David Amess.

This meant that from the start of the campaign, there was an open goal for any ‘minor’ party or candidate who could demonstrate the slightest shred of credibility: none of them could do so.

By polling day the government had discredited itself to a barely imaginable extent, so there was obvious potential for a ‘protest vote’. Not one of the various civic nationalist candidates was able to mobilise such a protest.

The once mighty UKIP had furthest to fall, and duly did so, polling a mere 400 votes (2.7%) across the entire constituency and pushed into third place behind the unlikely runner-up on 3.4%, Jason Pilley of the Psychedelic Movement, whose main policy seems to be legalising cannabis but in other respects is yet another cut taxes, cut government spending, neo-Thatcherite libertarian.

The obvious political space in Britain today is for a credible form of radical racial nationalism, but no such party of any size has existed since Nick Griffin turned the BNP into his personal retirement fund.

Griffin’s latest scam – the British Freedom Party – was not able to put its name on the ballot paper due to not being officially registered, so its leader Jayda Fransen stood as an independent. She polled 299 votes (2.0%), finishing fifth of the nine candidates, and most of these votes were probably due to her being the only candidate described on the ballot paper as an independent. In reality her campaign was just another fundraising stunt by the men who really run her party – Nick Griffin and his ‘business adviser’ Jim Dowson.

Griffin and Dowson weren’t even prepared to spend money on a leaflet to take advantage of the free mailshot to voters that candidates are given in return for their £500 deposit. Any donors to ‘British Freedom’ who expected a serious campaign have (yet again) been conned.

By far the most creditable performance among the civic nationalist fringe candidates was by English Democrat candidate Catherine Blaiklock, who finished fourth with 320 votes (2.2%) despite competing for many of the same voters as UKIP (a far better known and publicised party). Many H&D readers will dislike Ms Blaiklock for having twice married non-Whites, but she has never pretended to be a racial nationalist and cannot be accused of hypocrisy. Moreover her party leader Robin Tilbrook is a thoroughly honest and able spokesman for his cause. Sadly that cause – primarily focused on an English Parliament though also commendably drawing attention to failures of immigration policy – is too limited to rally much support from racial nationalists.

The Heritage Party – a UKIP splinter led by a half-Jamaican and obsessed by anti-vaccination issues, polled only 1.6%, and other versions of the same message received even less support – just 1.1% for the ‘Freedom Alliance’ and 0.6% for the most conspiracist version of the anti-vaccination cause, offered by Graham Moore of the English Constitution Party.

With the exception of Mr Tilbrook who is a good spokesman for a limited cause, the rest of the civic nationalist candidates and leaders should take a long hard look at themselves after this latest debacle. Their only honest conclusion must be that they are simply not good enough: not of serious calibre as parliamentary candidates, not serious as parties, and offering no serious ideological challenge to the system they profess to oppose.

Our own movement also needs to take a good look at itself. First we need to sort out what are the essentials of our ideology and put in place a proper system of ideological and political training for our recruits. Second we need to sort out our attitude to the electoral process: when and where do we fight elections, and what will be our vehicle for doing so?

There’s no need for defeatism; there is need for realism – and the death of civic nationalism leaves us with no excuses for our own failures.

H&D will seek to play its part during 2022 in the long overdue relaunch of a serious racial nationalist challenge to Britain’s morally and ideologically bankrupt politics.

Civic nationalism’s last stand fails in Bexley by-election

The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) changed British politics under Nigel Farage’s leadership. Despite the British electoral system preventing Farage from ever winning a Westminster seat, electoral pressure from UKIP forced Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron to hold the 2016 Brexit referendum, and Farage’s campaign skills played a large part in the narrow victory for ‘Leave’ at that referendum.

Yet UKIP never built anything like a proper infrastructure of branches and activists. Its members (indeed almost all of its councillors) were a ragbag of contrarians and cranks, without a coherent ideology beyond Euroscepticism.

Eventually UKIP split in several directions: its most anti-immigration faction (containing a few good racial nationalists but unfortunately at leadership level obsessed by Islam) created the For Britain Movement, led by Anne-Marie Waters. Multiple other splinters ensued, and as in every party split the majority of members simply gave up.

The main successor party to UKIP was the Brexit Party, what remains of that becoming Reform UK, launched by Nigel Farage (who has since given up party politics in favour of broadcasting) and now led by Farage’s ally Richard Tice.

The leader himself was Reform UK’s candidate at a parliamentary by-election yesterday in Old Bexley & Sidcup, on the outer borders of South East London. Richard Tice and his party spent a fortune on their campaign, mobilising their entire London activist base.

Moreover they were up against a weak Tory candidate and a (temporarily at least) weakened Tory Prime Minister. The constituency was strongly pro-Brexit, and the election took place right at the moment when the government’s Covid strategy, until now seen by the vast majority of voters as broadly successful, seemed to be wobbling.

Yet Reform UK’s last stand fizzled out. At least they avoided the sort of joke vote that their handful of local candidates have polled. Tice saved his deposit and finished in third place: but it was a very distant third place indeed, 6.6% (1,432 votes). The seat stayed fairly safe for the Conservatives, though their majority over Labour was slashed from 18,952 to 4,478.

To put this in perspective, this constituency was never especially strong for the BNP even in that party’s glory days, but even the BNP – with a mere fraction of Tice’s financial resources – polled seven hundred votes more, though a lower percentage, 4.7% (2,132 votes) here at the 2010 general election.

Needless to say, Tice’s various rivals for the civic nationalist vote fared even worse yesterday: Elaine Cheeseman for the English Democrats polled 1.3% (271 votes); John Poynton for the rump UKIP 0.9% (184 votes); and the mixed-race. ex-UKIP, ex-GLA member David Kurten – leader of the Heritage Party – just 0.5% (116 votes).

Of the eleven by-election candidates, Kurten was the most outspokenly anti-vaccination, anti-lockdown, Covid-sceptic. His joke vote should be a sobering influence on those in the broader nationalist movement who believe that Covid conspiracy theories can be politically fruitful.

More seriously, Tice’s Reform UK campaign – despite spending a fortune for a pretty miserable return – just about avoided disaster and might keep his donors interested for a while longer. Racial nationalists have long known that the UKIP legacy would have to fade away before our own movement could have any realistic chance of renewing its electoral impact at the level of the 1990s and 2000s, let alone anything more ambitious than that.

Tice’s failure was a step in that direction, and we can safely predict an even worse result for the assorted candidates of civic nationalism in a fortnight’s time at the next parliamentary by-election in North Shropshire.

For us the message should be: get our own ideological and organisational house in order. We no longer have the excuse of an unbeatable civic nationalist obstacle on UK ballot papers – and there is no insuperable anti-White conspiracy. Both in electoral politics and in the broader cultural struggle, our future and the future of White Britons is in our own hands.

Civic nationalism crashes to defeat in Yorkshire by-election

Parts of the Batley & Spen constituency in West Yorkshire were among the strongest racial nationalist areas in Britain during the first decade of the 21st century. The BNP’s David Exley won the mainly White working-class Heckmondwike ward at a by-election in August 2003 – one of a series of BNP victories either side of the Pennines, triggered by the Oldham riots of May 2001. Cllr Exley retained his seat in 2004 and a second Heckmondwike councillor was gained in 2005. Even as late as 2010 when the local BNP fought its last campaign, they managed 17.6%.

Admittedly this is just one of the six wards that make up Batley & Spen, but the party also polled very well elsewhere in the constituency in the 2000s, including the Tory wards Liversedge & Gomersal and Birstall & Birkenshaw. Any parliamentary by-election in Batley & Spen should have been (and should still be) good news for any serious pro-White nationalist party.

Yet when such a by-election first occurred here, it was in dramatic circumstances that made racial nationalist campaigning appear distasteful. A week before the Brexit referendum in June 2016, Batley & Spen’s Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by a deranged Heckmondwike resident who was quickly labelled a ‘far right terrorist’ by the media. Despite living in Heckmondwike, Thomas Mair had no connection whatever with the BNP and was totally unknown to any other British nationalists, apart from the eccentric Alan Harvey (a former NF member long resident in South Africa) to whose newsletter South African Patriot Mair subscribed.

The other mainstream parties gave Labour a clear run in the ensuing by-election held in October 2016 and Labour’s Tracy Brabin won a majority of more than 16,000, with the civic nationalist English Democrats in second place on 4.8% and a much-diminished BNP third on 2.7%.

Reaction to Jo Cox’s murder only briefly disguised an anti-Labour trend among White voters. As in neighbouring Dewsbury, many White voters have been repelled by what they see as an Asian takeover of the local Labour party and by policies of the Asian Labour-led Kirklees council. To some extent these voters (using Brexit as a proxy issue for unmentionable racial concerns) have drifted to the Tories in recent elections. Even though UKIP and the Brexit Party failed to make much progress here, a former UKIP activist formed a populist movement called the Heavy Woollen Independents (a reference to the former staple industry of this area) who polled 12.2% at the 2019 general election, leaving Labour even more dependent on the presumed loyalty of Asian voters, concentrated in the Batley part of the constituency.

So when Tracy Brabin won the inaugural mayoral election for West Yorkshire in May this year, causing a second Batley & Spen parliamentary by-election in five years, one can understand eyes lighting up across various populist and broadly nationalist movements. All the more so because of a mini-scandal that pushed Batley into nationwide headlines in March this year, when a teacher at Batley Grammar School was briefly suspended for showing his pupils a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.

A crowded ballot paper of sixteen candidates for the by-election – held on July 1st – included several from the spectrum of pro-Brexit, populist, Islam-obsessed or broadly civic nationalism. Perhaps the best known to H&D readers were Anne-Marie Waters – the multiracialist but Islam-obsessed leader of the For Britain Movement, whose party includes several experienced racial nationalists even though its leader and her coterie are sincerely ‘anti-racist’; and Jayda Fransen, the anti-Islam campaigner and former deputy leader of Britain First who is nominal leader of Jim Dowson’s donation-hunting enterprise that calls itself the British Freedom Party (even though it isn’t and perhaps never will be a registered political party – so Ms Fransen had to stand as an Independent).

At the start of her campaign Ms Waters publicised an endorsement from ‘Tommy Robinson’, an ultra-Zionist career criminal who founded the English Defence League. Perhaps she hoped For Britain could become the political wing of the now defunct EDL – if so it was a foolish ambition.

The results declared early on the morning of July 2nd told their own story. Ms Waters finished twelfth of sixteen candidates with 97 votes (0.3%), while Ms Fransen was fifteenth with 50 votes (0.1%). This was little short of a disaster for civic, Islam-obsessed nationalism – especially since unlike Ms Fransen and her paymaster Dowson, Ms Waters and For Britain had attempted to fight a serious campaign, with seasoned political veterans including Eddy Butler and his wife Sue travelling from Essex, and former BNP activist Gary Bergin travelling from the Wirral.

Nor can they point to any other candidate from the same spectrum having cornered the White vote, as this entire spectrum polled poorly. The English Democrats (who at least had a relatively local candidate) fared best of a bad bunch with 207 votes (0.5%), followed by UKIP on 0.4%, the anti-lockdown Freedom Alliance on 0.3%, the SDP (once a centrist party but now pro-Brexit populists) on 0.1% a fraction ahead of Ms Fransen, and the ex-UKIP splinter Heritage Party (absolutely no connection to H&D!) polling even worse than Ms Fransen with a truly microscopic 0.05%.

Unlike the May local elections covered in Issue 102, one cannot explain these results in terms of a resurgent Tory Party taking the votes of pro-Brexit, racially conscious Whites. Contrary to expectations, the Tory vote actually fell here compared to 2019, and despite maverick charlatan George Galloway taking most of the Muslim vote, Labour managed to hold the seat, confounding pundits and bookmakers’ odds. The Tory campaign in the final few days was handicapped by the scandal that forced health minister Matt Hancock to resign last weekend, but almost every observer assumed this would merely reduce the size of an expected Tory victory.

I’m writing this article within hours of the result, so this is very much an instant analysis, but these are some of the lessons I think we can draw from what was surely the most significant by-election in years for our broadly-defined movement.

• Lunatic acts of political violence are a disaster for every wing of our movement, since even the most moderate civic nationalists are tarred by association in the minds of many potentially sympathetic voters. I’ve no doubt that many racially conscious folk cast their votes for Labour’s Kim Leadbeater because she is the sister of murdered MP Jo Cox.
• Outside Northern Ireland and some Scottish islands, very few Whites in the UK now define their politics in religious terms – and they regard those who do as a bit mad. No offence to those H&D readers who are religious believers and for whom this is the centre of their lives, but we should not fool ourselves about faith’s lack of electoral impact. Even racially conscious voters do not respond well to a campaign that is ‘over the top’ in shrill references to Islam. We can imply such things in sensibly worded racial nationalist leaflets, but hysterical ‘Islamophobia’ is not a vote-winner.
• George Galloway won most of the Muslim vote in Batley by campaigning on issues related to Palestine and Kashmir; but there is no equivalent bonus to be won among White voters by wrapping oneself in the Israeli flag. Aggressive Zionism is not a vote-winner among non-Jewish Britons, neither does it serve as an alibi for ‘racism’ as some former BNP veteran campaigners seem to believe.
• While Kim Leadbeater undoubtedly lost many Muslim votes because she is a lesbian (in addition to other factors depressing the Asian Labour vote), and Anne-Marie Waters perhaps lost a few socially conservative White voters for the same reason, homosexuality is no longer an issue for the vast majority of White voters, though the ‘trans’ nonsense is another matter.
• There continues to be no electoral benefit in campaigning against the government’s handling of the pandemic. Several parties focused on anti-lockdown policies all polled very poorly, especially the one for whom Covid-scepticism is its raison d’être, the Freedom Alliance whose candidate attracted only 100 votes (0.3%).
• Brexit’s electoral relevance is at last fading, and the Tory party’s hold over sections of the White working class is a lot weaker than many pundits have assumed. It’s Hartlepool (the ultra-Brexity constituency that fell to the Tories by a big majority two months ago) that’s the exceptional ‘outlier’; there are far more constituencies broadly similar to Batley & Spen, including neighbouring Dewsbury, presently held by the Tories.
• Kim Leadbeater won mainly due to White voters retaining (or returning to) traditional Labour loyalties. She lost most of the Muslim vote to George Galloway. In the probably unlikely event that Galloway can recruit high quality Muslim candidates to his new ‘Workers Party’, Labour might have difficulties in some other seats, but it’s more likely that they will just have problems turning out their Muslim voters after Keir Starmer’s shift of Labour policy away from hardline anti-Zionism. Most especially the modern left’s obsession with issues such as ‘trans rights’ will be a handicap in Muslim areas across Britain.
• The many and various consequences of multiracialism continue to provide rich electoral potential for racial nationalists, if and when we get our own act together. Many For Britain activists logically belong in the same party as British Democrats leader Dr Jim Lewthwaite and Patriotic Alternative leaders Mark Collett and Laura Towler, as well as many other movement activists and veterans of the old BNP who are (temporarily?) in political retirement.

All of these questions and more will be the background to a discussion of nationalist strategy post-Brexit and post-Covid. We look forward to hearing readers’ views in forthcoming editions of H&D.

Detailed results from 2021 Elections

further details will appear on this page as they are processed

Nationalist independents and small parties

Pete Molloy, Spennymoor, Durham
20.4% [ELECTED]

Mark Cotterill, Independent, Ribbleton, Preston
15.7%

Chris Roberts, Independent, Boyce, Castle Point
9.3%

Mark Cotterill, Independent, Preston SE, Lancashire
8.8%

Chris Roberts, Independent, South Benfleet, Essex
8.3%

Gary Butler, Independent, Shepway North, Maidstone
5.5%

Gary Butler, Independent, Maidstone South, Kent
2.5%

Andrew Emerson, Patria, Chichester West, Chichester
2.2%

Teresa Skelton, Justice & Anti-Corruption, St Bartholomew, Winchester
2.0%

Teresa Skelton, Justice & Anti-Corruption, Winchester Eastgate, Hampshire
1.1%

Andrew Emerson, Patria, Chichester West, West Sussex
0.8%

———

For Britain Movement

Of the For Britain Movement’s 59 candidates, only eight (including their two contenders in De Bruce ward, Hartlepool) polled over 5%.

Twenty-five of the For Britain candidates polled below 2%.

De Bruce, Hartlepool: 23.4%
Waltham Abbey Honey Lane, Epping Forest: 18.2%
Trimdon & Thornley, Durham: 16.3%
Grange, Halton: 7.2%
Waltham Abbey, Essex: 6.8%
Waltham Abbey SW, Epping Forest: 5.8%
Exwick & St Thomas, Devon: 5.5%
Waltham Abbey NE, Epping Forest: 4.5%
Darfield, Barnsley: 4.2%
Coalville N, Leicestershire: 4.0%
Northfield Brook, Oxford: 4.0%
Thorpe, Southend: 4.0%
Walker, Newcastle-on-Tyne: 3.5%
Whitefield, Knowsley: 3.4%
Churchill, Westminster: 3.4%
Leys, Oxfordshire: 3.3%
East Preston & Ferring, West Sussex: 3.3%
Loughton Broadway, Epping Forest: 3.2%
Town Centre, St Helens: 3.1%
Wakefield West, Wakefield: 3.0%
Pulborough, West Sussex: 3.0%
Westbury N, Wiltshire: 3.0%
St Thomas, Exeter: 2.9%
Newington & Gipsyville, Hull: 2.7%
Shepway South, Maidstone: 2.6%
Fontwell, West Sussex: 2.5%
Shoeburyness, Southend: 2.3%
Welham Green and Hatfield South, Welwyn Hatfield: 2.3%
Foggy Furze, Hartlepool: 2.1%
Charlemont with Grove Vale, Sandwell: 2.1%
West Shoebury, Southend: 2.1%
Laindon Park, Basildon: 2.0%
St Andrews & Docklands, Hull: 2.0%
Haydock, St Helens: 1.9%
Compton & N Lancing, West Sussex: 1.9%
Claughton, Wirral: 1.9%
Mannington & Western, Swindon: 1.8%
Moss Side & Farington, Lancashire: 1.7%
Walkergate, Newcastle-on-Tyne: 1.7%
Derringham, Hull: 1.5%
Speke-Garston, Liverpool: 1.5%
Keighley West, Bradford: 1.4%
Middleton, West Sussex: 1.4%
The Witterings, West Sussex: 1.4%
Tendring Rural East, Essex: 1.3%
St Loye’s, Exeter: 1.2%
Sileby & The Wolds, Leicestershire: 1.2%
Bretton, Peterborough: 1.1%
Cissbury, West Sussex: 1.1%
Red Hall & Lingfield, Darlington: 1.0%
Heavitree & Whipton Barton, Devon: 1.0%
North Evington, Leicester: 1.0%
East Barnet, Barnet: 0.8%
Hummersknott, Darlington: 0.7%
Imberdown, West Sussex: 0.7%
Guiseley & Rawdon, Leeds: 0.5%
Little Lever & Darcy Lever, Bolton: 0.4%
Clacton West, Essex: 0.3%

———

English Democrats

Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner, Essex: 9.8%
Dearne North, Barnsley: 9.4%
High Ongar, Willingale and the Rodings, Epping Forest: 6.5%
Besses, Bury, 5.1%
Ongar & Rural, Essex: 4.8%
Wombwell, Barnsley: 4.2%
Dearne South, Barnsley: 3.4%
Police & Crime Commissioner, Bedfordshire: 2.8%
Mayor of West Yorkshire: 1.5%
Mayor of Greater Manchester: 1.4%

———

Alliance for Democracy & Freedom

The Alliance for Democracy & Freedom is one of several parties that resulted from factional splits in UKIP: in this case it’s the faction that supported Mike Hookem, a former MEP and UKIP leadership candidate.

Normanton, Wakefield, 7.1%
Dibden & Hythe, Hampshire, 4.8%
Ware South, Hertfordshire, 3.6%
Mansfield North, Nottinghamshire, 0.8%

---

Farage candidate quits after IRA link revealed

In response to the developing scandal over the Brexit Party’s number one candidate in North West England, a fellow candidate today resigned from the party’s slate for this month’s European Parliamentary elections.

As detailed yesterday by H&D, Claire Fox is a lifelong Marxist who was a senior activist in the Revolutionary Communist Party for many years. Together with her sister Fiona she contributed regularly to the bulletin of a pro-IRA front group called the Irish Freedom Movement: see yesterday’s article for details.

In response to these revelations, Claire Fox spoke on the telephone yesterday to Colin Parry, whose 12-year-old son Tim Parry was murdered alongside 3-year-old Johnathan Ball by the IRA in their infamous 1993 bombing of Warrington.

Yet again Claire Fox refused to dissociate herself from her previous statements supporting IRA terrorism: Mr Parry wrote – “the fact that she repeatedly refused to disavow her comments supporting the IRA bombing which took Tim’s and Johnathan’s young lives proves she hasn’t changed her original views.”

Now Ms Fox’s Brexit Party colleague Sally Bate, who was seventh on the Brexit Party’s European Parliamentary slate in the region, has resigned. She technically remains on the ballot paper as it is too late for this to be altered before polling day on May 23rd.

The Claire Fox scandal raises a serious question mark over Nigel Farage’s judgment in selecting an apologist for IRA terrorism to stand for the European Parliament representing his new party. It remains to be seen whether North West voters will desert the Brexit Party over this issue – if so the beneficiaries could be the English Democrats, UKIP, or independent candidate Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, alias Tommy Robinson.

However ‘Robinson’ is himself an apologist for terrorism, in his case supporting the US and Canadian based Zionist terrorist group Jewish Defense League – see H&D‘s exposé here.

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