Celebrating the Union on 12th July
Bonfires are being lit across Northern Ireland to celebrate the traditional 12th July holiday – the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
This year the celebrations both in Ulster and across the United Kingdom have a special relevance, as we mark a turning point in the history of Unionism. For the first time in years, Unionists are no longer in retreat.
The election of TUV leader Jim Allister last week as MP for North Antrim was perhaps the most important single result of the General Election.
We look forward to a determined resistance to the previous government’s treacherous policies – no sea border, and no further backsliding towards Dublin and EU control over Northern Ireland.
H&D will be represented at events during today, and reports will appear here and in the next edition of our magazine.
Best wishes to all readers who are celebrating today – to all Friends of Loyal Ulster throughout the world.
30 years on – French nationalist tribute to Sébastien Deyzieu
On Saturday, thirty years after the death of their comrade Sébastien Deyzieu – killed when Parisian police attacked a nationalist demonstration – his successors paid a fine tribute on the streets of the French capital.
Deyzieu was part of a demonstration that sought to highlight disastrous consequences of the Allied invasion of Europe and the post-1945 political settlement – Soviet Russian domination of Eastern Europe and American global capitalist domination of Western Europe.
Parisian authorities banned this May 1994 event, organised by the nationalist student group Groupe Union Défense (GUD), and Deyzieu was killed during an ensuing confrontation with police.
Every year since then, GUD has been part of a cross-party ‘9th May Committee’ that organises a memorial event.
As happened last year, the traitors’ who rule French politics attempted to prevent this memorial march from taking place, but once again the 9th May Committee succeeded in defeating the ban. 1,200 comrades marched through the streets of Paris. A magnificent tribute to Sébastien Deyzieu ensured that his sacrifice was not in vain and his spirit continues to inspire the hearts and minds of new generations of Europeans.
May Day greetings from H&D – “Sumer is icumen in!”
In England as in many other European countries, May Day has been a traditional celebration for centuries. Appropriated by the political left in the late 19th century, the day in fact has no connection to Marxist socialism. The documented history of the festival goes back to the Roman holiday of Floralia, honouring the goddess of flowers, fertility and spring, and its pagan roots go back even further.
At 6 am this morning in Oxford, for example, the Choir of Magdalen College greeted the new season atop the college tower, while thousands of revellers assembled in the streets below. This tradition dates back to 1509, and ‘Sumer is icumen in’, sung by the choir in the video above, dates from the mid-13th century.
Meanwhile many Europeans today celebrated the traditional pagan festival of Beltane, linked to the Celtic god of fire.
In the UK and several other countries the festival is associated with the Maypole and traditional dancing. The famous dances involving intricate patterns of ribbons originated in Wales in the mid-14th century.
H&D sends May Day (or for our Welsh readers Calan Haf) greetings to all our comrades worldwide.
Happy St George’s Day 2024!
The H&D team would like to wish all our English readers not just in England and other parts of the UK, in fact everywhere in the world, a very happy St George’s Day.
St George was not English – as all our enemies will constantly remind us every April 23rd – we all know that; but he is the patron saint of England (although not the original patron saint of the Anglo-Saxon English – that is St Edmund, whose day is celebrated on November 20th) and we celebrate him and his day as such.
While St George’s Day – April 23rd – is mainly forgotten, ignored or even ridiculed by the liberal / left establishment, who by the way have no qualms about promoting everybody else’s national day, culture and heritage apart from ours, we nationalists always remember and celebrate it with pride.
Sadly, some of the old gang parties and their corrupt Westminster politicians are now trying to jump on the bandwagon and to try to hijack our saint’s day, and promote it as some form of multi-cultural/multi-racial fest, and make a mockery of the whole day. We should expect no less of them.
However, just to give you an example of how (not) multi-cultural and/or multi-racial St George’s Day has become, three of the H&D team, including the editor and assistant editor attended a pre – Saint George’s Day event on the evening of April 19th, just outside of Preston city centre, organised by a servicemen’s group. Every single person there was White, and the majority of them were English, i.e. of Anglo-Saxon descent – even though Preston as a city is now well over 20% non-White.
As one of the greatest Englishmen of the 20th Century – Sir Oswald Mosley – said at a meeting in Manchester:
“In the lives of great nations comes the moment of decision, comes the moment of destiny; and this nation again and again in the great hours of fate has swept aside the little men of talk and delay and has decided to follow men and movements who say we go forward to action! Let who dare follow us in this hour.”
While many English (and British) nationalists feel a fierce national pride for the St George’s cross and the patron saint’s day, England in fact shares St George with a host of other countries and places. Each has its own unusual customs surrounding his feast day, including;
Spain – St George (San Jorge in Spanish or Sant Jordi in Catalan) is associated with several places in Spain especially in the north-east, where the army of Aragon was inspired by St George to defeat the Moors and their allies at the Battle of Alcoraz, leading to the ‘first Reconquista’ in the late 11th century. Some of the most colourful celebrations of the ‘Dia de Aragón‘ are in Barcelona. A public holiday is held in the area and has several similarities with Valentine’s Day, with roses and books being exchanged by lovers. Barcelona’s most popular street Las Ramblas becomes awash with flower and book sellers. Catalonia has managed to export the tradition as UNESCO adopted the date as World Book Day. And of course FC Barcelona have the St George cross in their club’s badge.
Ukraine – St George is traditionally venerated in Ukraine and associated with numerous patriotic symbols including St George’s Cathedral, Lviv (mother church of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church); the Kyivan Grand Prince Yaroslaw the Wise (978-1054); and numerous historic churches such as the 19th century wooden church of St George in the village of Zavorychi, Kyiv region, destroyed by Russian artillery during the first month of the invasion on 7th March 2022.
Russia – The Russian Orthodox Church uses the Julian Calendar so St George’s Day is celebrated on the same day but it is 6th May, not 23rd April. As well as this date Russians also mark the consecration of the Church of St George in Kyiv on 26th November. This was traditionally the time of year when peasants were permitted to move to a different landowner. While this tradition has died out the Ribbon of St George is still one of the highest Russian military honours, ironically mainly associated with Stalin’s Red Army which fought for atheistic Bolshevism. The black and orange striped ribbon is also used by civilians as a symbol of what Moscow terms the ‘Great Patriotic War’ against Germany. It has been seen again recently displayed by separatists and Russian occupation forces in Ukraine as a Putinist symbol, because of its ‘anti-nazi’, pro-Kremlin associations.
Albania – Albanians celebrate St George’s day by going out and lighting a large bonfire and playing around it as a sign of joy.
Bulgaria – Roasting a whole lamb is traditional on St George’s Day in Bulgaria as he is the patron saint of shepherds. It is seen as a day when evil enchantments can be broken and a blessed day when the saint blesses the crop and morning dew, so many walk in the early morning to wash their face in the fresh dew.
Croatia – Croats also use fire to mark St George’s Day which is considered the first day of Spring. In the Slavic tradition girls are dressed as goddesses in leaves and sing for locals.
Back in England normally many local pubs in White working class areas (and even a few in the middle class suburbs) would organise events to celebrate St George’s Day, but most would now be content with just putting out a few England flags (then taking them down the next day – so as not to offend!)
However, St George’s Day and the spirit of St George will be celebrated at H&D Towers (where two England flags fly proudly all the year round) where the editor and assistant editor and other members of team will raise a glass a two to our patron saint, to England and to the English, while there’s still a few of us left!
To quote England’s most famous playwright William Shakespeare, from his Henry V, first performed in 1598 but referring to the Battle of Agincourt, fought on the feast day of two other celebrated martyrs, the twins St Crispin and St Crispinian on 25th October 1415:
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhood’s cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
And finally to quote from a song now officially banned from the football terraces of England – but still sung anyway, when and where non-Woke England football supporters can get away with it!
Keep St. George in my heart keep me English,
Keep St. George in my heart I pray,
Keep St. George in my heart keep me English,
Keep me English till my dying day!
No Surrender, No Surrender,
No surrender to the I-R-A!
Happy St Patrick’s Day 2024!
The H&D team would like to wish all our readers on the island of Ireland, and in Great Britain, in fact everywhere in the world, whether you are Irish, Northern Irish or Ulster-Scots/Scots-Irish, a very happy Saint Patrick’s Day.
St Patrick was not Catholic or Protestant, or even Irish but a Christian convert, from maybe Cumbria, or even North Wales, depending on what story you believe.
Sadly, Marxist Republicans have hijacked the saint’s day, and now mockingly refer to it as “St. Paddy’s Day.”
In Dublin and Belfast, and many other city centres all over the British Isles it’s just one big “piss up” now.
In fact, as one of the articles that follows explains, St Patrick’s Day was turned into a massive party day of celebrations and parades in the USA, not the island of Ireland, which only followed suit years later. First by the Boston-Irish (both Catholic and Protestant), then by their kinfolk in New York City, and then in San Francisco, Chicago, Richmond and many other American cities, with Irish or Scots-Irish communities.
Of course this St Patrick’s Day, comes at a crucial time for Loyalists in Ulster and the rest of the United Kingdom. Rishi Sunak’s Conservative and no longer ‘Unionist’ Party has betrayed Ulster by agreeing what amounts to a border in the Irish Sea, as part of a surrender to the demands of Dublin and Brussels. Several ‘Unionist’ parties have cravenly fallen into line. But the Traditional Unionist Voice party has pledged to fight against any Irish Sea Border, and this weekend reached an electoral pact with Reform UK. The question of Ulster will once again be at the centre of the General Election campaign later this year.
So far as other UK ‘nationalist’ parties and groups are concerned, an Editorial from last year in issue #113 of Heritage and Destiny magazine remains relevant. The next issue of H&D will update our response to the developing situation.
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So the Supreme Court (which is made up of five law lords presiding in the highest court in the UK) has now finally slammed the door shut on any hope that the Northern Ireland Protocol could be overturned through legal means. The courts have however agreed that the Protocol contravenes the 1800 Act of Union, article VI of which states: “The subjects of Great Britain and Ireland shall be on the same footing in respect of trade and navigation… all prohibitions and bounties on the export of articles the produce or manufacture of either country to the other shall cease.”
But although the Protocol is contrary to the Act of Union, the courts say it is lawful because Parliament voted for it. This is obviously true: Parliament is supreme, and can make any decision it wants, and whatever it decides is the law. The Act of Union has, as the judges say, been “subjugated” by the Protocol – just as our treacherous government has allowed the UK to be subjugated by the EU both pre- and post-Brexit.
The legal challenge to the Protocol – in two separate cases – was made by a group of unionist and loyalist leaders and activists that included the pro-Union peer and former Labour MP Kate Hoey, the Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister, two former Ulster Unionist party leaders Steve Aiken and the late David Trimble, former Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster, former Brexit party MEP Benyamin Naeem Habib, and the former LVF POW, Clifford Peeples, who is now a Pentecostalist pastor.
The group also argued that it had breached the principle of consent at the core of the 1998 Belfast Good Friday agreement, which most of them supported at the time, although probably regret doing so now. Jim Allister suggested those who had opposed the Belfast Agreement from the outset – as he did – had been vindicated by recent events, particularly the “constitutional change” that followed Brexit, and after, the Protocol hearing, he rightly pointed out that the ruling “confirmed the protocol is dismantling the Union”.
However, what I find almost as shocking as the Protocol itself is the lack of support for our fellow citizens in Ulster from our little movement in Great Britain. Apart from a handful of individuals, British nationalists seem to have all but given up on supporting “Loyal Ulster” – which has always been one of our key policies since the formation of the National Front in 1967.
These days most nationalist street and online activity seems to be concentrated on opposing LGBT+ groups, Muslim grooming gangs and hotels housing fake refugees and asylum seekers – all modish causes that nationalists are right to oppose. However, should we really leave it to people such as former Labour MP Kate Hoey, and Pakistani-born former Brexit Party MEP Benyamin Naeem Habib to oppose the Protocol? Surely not?
British Nationalists in Great Britain should be out on the streets opposing the Protocol and the Irish Sea border and demanding that Northern Ireland stays “British Forever” – just like we always did.
Of course, the only realistic long term solution to what our enemies call “the Irish problem,” would be a “United Ireland.” Not one where Northern Ireland’s six counties join the Irish Republic but where the twenty-six counties of the Irish Republic would abandon their separate existence and re-join the UK. Just like London, anybody walking around Dublin these days will see what the horror of mass Third World immigration has done to that city. We need to be united once again and stand together if we are to win our nations back, because if we don’t it’s all over for the British and the Irish, in fact for all White people on these islands.”
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The H&D editor will no doubt be out in his local today to raise a glass or two to Saint Patrick, as will the assistant editor – who is not known for turning down a pint of Guinness – while proudly wearing a red and white St. Patrick’s cross pin badge!
Click here to read more from H&D about St Patrick’s Day.
They shall not grow old
On this day in 1918 – at the 11th hour of the 11th day – the guns fell silent following Europe’s true Holocaust. The war between European brothers that began in 1914 was over.
Today as every year – both on 11th November (originally known as Armistice Day), and on the following Sunday (Remembrance Sunday) – we remember the fallen.
And this year, ten years after his death, we at H&D remember our great friend and comrade Ralph Hebden, Royal Marine Commando and dedicated racial nationalist, who died during a training accident in Scotland in March 2013 at the age of 32.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Videos from 2023 H&D Meeting now online
Despite many loud threats from the ultra-left and their financial backers, the 2023 H&D meeting went ahead unimpeded, at a hotel in the Lancashire countryside, just outside Preston.
We are have now uploaded videos from this event, courtesy of our media team who put in many hours of hard work on the day and during the following week.
Laura Towler, from Patriotic Alternative, paid tribute to the political legacy of Sir Oswald Mosley, one of the four men honoured at this year’s meeting, 75 years after the foundation of Mosley’s postwar Union Movement. Some of us at H&D knew veteran Mosleyites, and we are certain that they (and especially Lady Mosley) would have been very happy to know that Laura, her husband Sam, and the PA team are advancing the patriotic cause in 2023!
PA’s founder and leader Mark Collett gave the penultimate speech (which for technical reasons is only available in audio).
Mark spoke about his years in the BNP during the first decade of the millennium. As older viewers will remember, he was one of the most effective and hardworking BNP officers of that era, but his work and that of many other sincere patriots came to nothing, due to the corruption and incompetence of BNP leader Nick Griffin. In this frank and cogent analysis, Mark describes what was good about the BNP, and what went so badly wrong.
Professor John Kersey, Vice-President of the Traditional Britain Group, addressed the broken state of British politics and society, and emphasised that “musical freedom comes the moment you say it isn’t about the money or the fame, or about what anyone, powerful or not, thinks of it. It’s about the need to engage with our culture and community, to create, to communicate and to inspire. The reward isn’t money or fame. The reward is doing it and making your audience feel that you have connected with them in a way that nothing else can.”
‘Anti-fascist’ hysteria during the two weeks since the meeting has focused on our European correspondent, Isabel Peralta, who spoke of her conviction that political faith, loyalty, honour and fanaticism can move mountains.
Isabel called on racial nationalists to show the spirit of Leonidas and his 300 Spartans defending Europe at Thermopylae, and of the national socialist martyrs who fell in Munich in 1923, almost a decade before the triumph of their cause.
The true European spirit is alive in our hearts and will triumph: those H&D readers and European nationalists lucky enough to know Isabel Peralta will never doubt it.
The closing speech was given by H&D’s assistant editor Peter Rushton, who also writes the Real History blog. Peter explains who the real “terrorists” are, and exposes their connections to the same establishment and ‘antifa’ organisations that sought to impede this year’s meeting; the same sinister forces that pulled the strings behind UK border security to harass fellow speaker Isabel Peralta.
Paying tribute to the four men honoured at this year’s event – Derek Beackon, Andrew Brons, Sir Oswald Mosley, and Ian Stuart – Peter emphasised that our enemies’ fear is a sign that the flame of European nationalism burns brightly in 2023. As Sir Oswald Mosley told his followers: “Together in Britain we have lit a flame that the ages shall not extinguish. Guard that sacred flame, my brother Blackshirts, until it illumines Britain and lights again the path of mankind.”
Dr Jim Lewthwaite, retired archaeology lecturer, Orangeman, and chairman of the British Democrats, based his speech around an analysis of Professor 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. Despite disappointing council election results earlier this year, they are presently the main electoral force on the British nationalist scene. And unlike the tragic rump of the BNP (which lives off legacies and does no serious political work), the Brit Dems do not pay any staff. All their funds are spent on building the movement and spreading information about the present crisis of our nation.
Stephen Frost, National Secretary of British Movement, 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.
Steve added that 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. Stephen Frost and BM have utilised these propaganda methods, via such means as the ‘Under the Sunwheel’ podcast. Colin Jordan’s political legacy continues to inspire new generations of activists.
Stephen Frost’s co-host at ‘Under the Sunwheel’, Benny Bullman, lead singer of the Rock Against Communism band Whitelaw, spoke in tribute to Ian Stuart, founder of Blood & Honour and lead singer of Skrewdriver, who tragically died 30 years ago this month.
Benny pointed out that Ian Stuart’s dedication to race and nation led him to turn his back on a lucrative career in ‘mainstream’ music (an industry controlled by the usual suspects). Ian achieved far more than the wealth and fame that was accrued by some of his contemporaries after they sold out. The legacy of Ian Stuart and Skrewdriver continues to inspire new generations of patriots throughout the White world.
Due to a slight technical problem with sound at the end of the video (now resolved) our US correspondent Ken Schmidt’s speech to the conference has only just been posted online.
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 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/multi-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.
Jeremy Corbyn – the terrorists’ friend – attacks H&D and Isabel Peralta
Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has launched an extraordinary attack on Heritage and Destiny, calling for our meetings to be banned. In a letter to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, Corbyn has targeted our European correspondent Isabel Peralta, demanding that she should be refused entry to the United Kingdom.
Isabel has never been convicted of any crime, but has twice been detained and questioned by UK Border Force, abusing their powers under the Terrorism Act.
Anyone interested in real terrorism should be looking not at Heritage & Destiny and Isabel Peralta, but at the close allies of Jeremy Corbyn, who has for decades been known as terrorism’s best friend in Parliament.
From 1985 to 1989 Corbyn was national secretary and later president of the notoriously violent group Anti-Fascist Action. AFA’s terrorist core – Red Action – held its meetings in Corbyn’s constituency office in Islington, north London, and provided security for Corbyn and for one of his closest political allies, IRA godfather Gerry Adams.
Even Corbyn’s own party has often been embarrassed by his especially close ties to the IRA. In 1984 Corbyn was reprimanded by Labour’s chief whip for taking IRA terrorists on a tour of Parliament. In 1987 Corbyn tried to appoint a notorious Irish republican sympathiser and anarchist, Ronan Bennett, as his parliamentary research assistant, but the authorities refused on security grounds to give Bennett a House of Commons pass.
Two of Corbyn’s comrades in Anti-Fascist Action and Red Action – Patrick Hayes (AFA London organiser) and Jan Taylor – were given long jail sentences for bombing the Harrods store in London on behalf of the IRA. Their fellow AFA activist, Liam Heffernan, was jailed for stealing explosives on behalf of another republican terrorist gang, the INLA.
A senior police officer later told the Sunday Times that Corbyn “knew they were open supporters of terrorism and he supported them”.
There has never been any suggestion that Corbyn was personally involved in specific acts of terrorism, but for decades police and security services monitored his close connections with terrorists and their active supporters. They were especially concerned that terrorists invited into Westminster premises by Corbyn had been able to familiarise themselves with the layout and security of the Houses of Parliament.
In 1985, Corbyn was the keynote speaker at Red Action’s national meeting. He maintained close ties for years to Red Action, a group whose journal openly stated: “both as an organisation and as individuals we support the activities of the Provisional IRA and the INLA unconditionally and uncritically.”
Some of the paymasters of “anti-fascism” will be embarrassed by the fact that Jeremy Corbyn is now championing their cause. In addition to his support for the IRA, Corbyn has frequently been accused of “anti-semitism”, for example over his praise for a mural that promoted allegedly “anti-semitic tropes”.
H&D has been contacted by several Londoners appalled by Corbyn’s consistent association with terrorists and their propagandists. We have been offered premises in Corbyn’s Islington constituency to hold our next meeting, and we are discussing several options for this event.
Unlike Jeremy Corbyn’s murderous friends and allies, Isabel Peralta – the young Spanish activist whom Corbyn has so disgracefully targeted – has never committed any offence against UK law. In reply to Corbyn’s attack, Isabel writes:
“I honestly find it hard to believe that my mere presence in a country is so dangerous that even one of the main English politicians, former leader of the second-largest political force in England, writes to the Home Secretary asking for me to be banned. I find it difficult to believe that someone who has not committed any crime and has never been convicted is ostracised or exiled from several European countries. But it is like this. Our fanaticism moves mountains and our enemies have more faith in our triumph than we do ourselves.
“One does not fear a madman, one does not take seriously a merely anachronistic or atavistic enemy. There is fear of a revolution. We are a revolution, a living, organic idea, destined to be proudly implemented throughout Europe.”
Let there be no doubt: H&D will continue to expose the truth about Jeremy Corbyn and his crazed Marxist and Irish Republican friends. We shall continue to fight for the true Europe. And we shall contest (at whatever level proves necessary) any attempt to intimidate or exclude our comrade and European correspondent Isabel Peralta.
Ian Stuart Donaldson: 1957-1993. 30 years since the death of a legend
Ian Stuart Donaldson was the lead singer of the most famous White nationalist band of all time – Skrewdriver – a gifted musician, and dedicated movement activist.
In the NF he was known as Ian Stuart, a large Lancashire lad from Blackpool. He had that ‘something’ charisma about him that made him stand out from the crowd. It is very hard to believe that it is now thirty years since he died in that fateful car-crash in Derbyshire on 24th September, 1993.
Ian was born on 11th August, 1957 in the seaside town of Blackpool. His father was an engineer who ran his own toolmaker’s business and his mother was an old-fashioned northern house-wife. He went to Baines Grammar school in Poulton-le-Fylde – which is less than twenty miles from H&D’s Preston office – and was pretty wild as a teenager by all accounts!
On leaving school with a couple of O-Levels Ian did various jobs including apprenticeships, but his heart was really set on a career in music. The first band he joined was Tumbling Dice in 1976, but that soon broke up and Ian formed another and started sending out tapes to record companies. Their luck was in and Chiswick Records asked them to come to London and record a session in their studio. The band not even having a name chose Skrewdriver from a list supplied by Chiswick!
Ian and his band packed their bags, moved to London and around this time adopted the full Skinhead image. They played concerts supporting Motorhead and The Police among many others and began to build a name and a following. At that time Graham McPherson (Suggs), later the lead singer with Madness, was one of their roadies.
After the release of the band’s first album All Skrewed Up there was a showdown with both their management and record company who wanted Skrewdriver to denounce their nationalist, mainly skinhead following and change their image following pressure from the left-wing music press in general and New Musical Express in particular.
They refused to do this, so Chiswick cancelled their contract. Now, for the first time Ian began really to think politically and joined the National Front. Soon after the idea for Rock Against Communism began to take shape and the White Power EP was released. An ‘underground hit’ from the beginning, this poor sound quality first effort was to lead to a White youth revolution in the late 1970s that continues to this day.
Ian Stuart’s music is of a ‘love it or hate it’ variety and like all artistic performances is a matter of subjective individual taste. Ian understood this and combined his political beliefs with a great depth of musical knowledge and variety. So not only did he record as lead singer of Skrewdriver, and in doing so almost single-handedly create a new brand of music which we now know as White Power Rock, he recorded as The Klansmen, which was a combination of Bluegrass Country and Rockabilly; as White Diamond, for heavy metal fans; and with Stigger (Steve Calladine) singing a combination of traditional ballads such as the Green Fields of France and his own compositions such as Suddenly. This is of course, just the merest sketch of Ian Stuart’s life and activities.
Politically Ian was first active in the NF’s Blackpool branch in the late 1970s, before moving to London, where he joined Central London branch. He soon became the branch organiser, winning the NF’s branch recruitment cup two years in a row. In 1987 he resigned from the NF for political and financial reasons and formed a new nationalist organisation called Blood and Honour (commonly known as B&H or “28”).
After almost ten years of living in the last White-run hotel in King’s Cross, London, and after serving a prison sentence for defending himself, Ian gave up on our capital city and moved to Derbyshire at the end of the 1980s. From there he organised concerts, ran B&H and published his magazine of the same name.
The day after that fatal car-crash, in which his good friend Stephen Flint (Boo) was killed, Ian too died of his wounds in hospital. He was only 36 years old and yet left a lifetime of great recordings behind him. Ian Stuart is a movement legend, he will go down in nationalist folklore. Even though he is no longer with us, his music will live on forever.
Millwall – 30 years on (by Tony Paulsen)
16th September 2023 was, as many readers of H&D will know, the thirtieth anniversary to the very day of Derek Beackon’s remarkable win for the BNP in a by-election for the old Millwall ward of Tower Hamlets, at that time way back in 1993 the first victory for an overtly racial nationalist party in seventeen years, and arguably an even more impressive win than the two seats taken by the National Party in Blackburn in 1976, as Derek fought all three system parties, not merely two of them.
Happily, Derek, unlike many other veterans of the struggle in the 1990s, still marches in our ranks in body as well as in spirit, and took the place of honour at a dinner held (appropriately and not perhaps coincidentally) for thirty in a fine venue in South Essex to mark the anniversary. Particular thanks are due to Jane, who organised the function with military precision and did a marvellous job of work in finding the venue and selecting the variety of dishes on the menu.
The guests began to gather around 6.30 p.m., but disruption on the London Underground, especially the eastern end of the Central line meant that we began a little late, which slightly curtailed the speeches, more on that below. By 7.30 we were however all seated for dinner.
After enjoying the excellent food served in a grand old dining room, guests settled down to listen to three very different speakers give us their perspectives in two cases, on the way in which Millwall was won, and in the third, its significance for us to-day.
Chris Roberts, who chaired the proceedings with his usual skill and aplomb, first introduced Steve Smith, sometime BNP organiser in the East End of London (not to be confused with another fine nationalist and winning election strategist, Steve Smith, sometime BNP organiser in Burnley: I am told that there is a photograph of the two of them together, which I would love to see!).
Steve told us about the background to the BNP’s “rights for whites” campaign in the old East End, emphasising that the Millwall victory was not a bolt from the blue. Rather it should be seen as the culmination of a four year long campaign led by a fairly small but very committed group of activists who worked hard and long and applied real political intelligence to the situation to take the ward.
The cadre (to coin a phrase!) responsible for the victory had identified the weakness and complacency of a sclerotic Labour party and seen the potential for an electoral surprise, which they had pulled off in the teeth of violence from political opponents and vicious attempts at intimidation from the Metropolitan Police, by then already a highly politicised and vindictive arm of the state.
Paying tribute to Derek, Steve said that he had been the best councillor that the people of Millwall ward had ever had. While sadly the seat was lost in the “all out” election of 1994, the total number of votes cast for Derek in 1994 was much higher than in 1993, but the Labour party mobilised its London wide activist base to drive turnout up from 44% at the bye-election to an unprecedented 66% in May of 1994 and take the seat back. Nevertheless, that did not detract from the significance of breaking the taboo against electing candidates from outside the system and lighting a beacon, so to speak, for our movement.
Next up was Eddy Butler, who made his name as the BNP’s elections guru in this campaign. He spoke about the strategy and tactics deployed to convert raw electoral potential into a real win. We should not, he said, be coy about “borrowing” winning strategies from our opponents.
He made no secret of the fact that he had both studied and applied the strategy and tactics which the local Liberals had used (despite the misgivings of their national leadership) to progress from no seats at all on Tower Hamlets council in 1974 (when it was a Labour party fiefdom) to overall control by 1986.
The Tower Hamlets Liberals, he said, had used racist dog whistles thinly disguised as localism, notably their “sons and daughters” policy of giving council housing to the families of long standing council tenants, the implications of which policy were obvious.
The BNP learnt from and applied these methods, and also the campaigning skills of the Liberals, notably door to door canvassing, which led to real engagement with the electors.
Eddy paid tribute to the late Richard Edmonds, whose own electioneering skills are not always fully appreciated even by his many friends in the movement.
After Barry Osborne polled 20% of the vote in Millwall ward in 1992, most BNP activists were ecstatic, since the party had never polled so well in a council election till then. Eddy was not ecstatic. He wanted so much more and told Richard that the ward might have been won, had the campaign team found a way to work around the inaccessibility of many blocks of flats in the ward to canvassers by reason of the elaborate entry phone security systems by then already in place. The work around, by the way, was to canvass when the entry phone security system is disabled to allow the postman et al. to get in. Cracked it!
Richard listened, agreed and worked with Eddy to encourage the party’s London activist base to concentrate on a breakthrough on the Isle of Dogs, even if it meant temporarily scaling down activities in other areas of London. Eddy described this strategy as becoming a big party in a small area, on the premise that a localised breakthrough will win massive publicity, raise morale and boost recruitment, so that a geometrical not a merely arithmetical multiplier effect is produced. Reader, bear this tactic well in mind!
Unfortunately, the slightly late start meant that Eddy could not conclude his analysis by explaining what went wrong after the victory, and in particular, the troubles caused by the influence of Combat 18 in Tower Hamlets, culminating in death threats against Eddy and Steve Smith, amongst others. I hope that he will publish that analysis online in due course.
Our last speaker was Laura Towler, who had travelled all the way from Yorkshire with her husband Sam Melia. Laura said that she’d been surprised at being invited to speak, since she was literally a babe in arms in 1993 and was a Yorkshire lass to boot, asked to speak to Londoners about an election campaign in the East End when she’d been in her cradle.
For her, the significance of the Millwall campaign was that it taught a younger generation of nationalists to honour what those who had gone before them had achieved, and reminded her that we all stand in a tradition handed down by such men as Sir Oswald Mosley, John Tyndall and Jonathan Bowden to a new generation of activists. We will, she said, fail that tradition if we do not learn to work together or at least towards common goals. We can disagree about the best way to promote those goals, some will prefer community engagement, others the vehicle of a political party, but we should work towards the same ends, in that manner attainting nationalist unity, without which nothing can be achieved. Laura’s speech was very well received and concluded proceedings on a high note. On a personal note, I was very pleased to meet her and Sam, with whom I’ve corresponded but never met before.
Toasts were proposed to Derek (naturally) and to Gordon “Tom” Callow, a sadly departed veteran of the movement in the East End, who was one of Derek’s running mates in Millwall ward in the all-out election of 1994, after which we wended our ways home, making the wise (or lucky) decision to take the shiny new Elizabeth line back into town and avoid the worst of the transport chaos.
