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

Another Reform UK lost deposit: when will the Farage-Tice party achieve anything?

Within the past hour the result of yesterday’s parliamentary by-election in West Lancashire was declared.

Predictably it was an easy victory for Labour, and the swing between the two main parties was broadly in line with trends in other recent by-elections and national opinion polls, confirming that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party are on a path to defeat at the next General Election, which must be held within the next two years.

But for H&D readers a lot of attention will have focused on Reform UK, the rebranded version of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, led by Farage’s close ally Richard Tice.

Reform UK’s candidate Jonathan Kay polled 994 votes (4.4%): the party’s seventh successive lost deposit in parliamentary by-elections, despite months of hype from their allies at GB News and from academics such as Dr Matthew Goodwin, who continue to insist that the party’s brand of post-Thatcherite populism will achieve significant support from British voters.

On this occasion (unlike many of those earlier by-elections) Reform UK had no competition from any other candidate to the ‘right’ of the Tories. There was no candidate from UKIP or any of its many splinters, other than Reform UK.

This West Lancashire constituency is very divided socially, including some very poor areas in Skelmersdale but also some affluent and traditionally Tory-voting villages. In 2015 UKIP candidate Jack Sen (who became a very controversial figure within nationalism and has since disappeared from politics) polled 12.2% here (6,058 votes), despite having been expelled and denounced by his own party before polling day for ‘anti-semitism’!

Yet this week UKIP’s successor party Reform UK polled only 994 votes (4.4%), despite the Tory vote having collapsed to a record low for this area. Most of the previous Tory voters (and pro-Brexit voters) stayed at home rather than backing Reform UK, even at a by-election. This suggests that the party needs a fundamental rethink if it is to pose any significant challenge at the next general election.

The truth is that Farage, Tice and Reform UK have little of any relevance or interest to offer to the voters of West Lancashire, or to other Britons (especially those in impoverished areas).

The Farage-Tice agenda of a US-style largely privatised economy, with ‘free markets’ (i.e. global capitalism) very much dominant, is a recipe for internationalism, mass immigration and continued impoverishment for the White British working class.

Farage and his fellow City spivs always intended Brexit to turn London into Singapore-on-Thames, with other British towns and cities as its satellites in a small-state, low tax, low spending, ultra-capitalist, Disunited Kingdom.

The only serious challenge to that vision will come when racial nationalists abandon their recent cranky obsessions and factionalism, and unite with a clear and credible vision for national and racial renaissance. There are some signs that such a renaissance will not be too long delayed, and H&D looks forward to reporting more positive news later this year.

A telling result in a historic Rotherham council ward

There have been some doubts as to whether Labour’s revival under Sir Keir Starmer would extend into White working class areas of the North, and tonight’s by-election gain for Labour in a working-class Rotherham council ward hasn’t quite resolved those doubts.

It now seems pretty clear that Sunak’s Tories are in big trouble in the ‘red wall’ (formerly solid Labour areas where the party declined sharply in or before 2019). But neither Reform UK, nor any of its civic nationalist rivals, nor (needless to say) any racial nationalist party, has yet even laid the foundation for a serious electoral challenge any time soon.

Tonight Labour gained Keppel ward, Rotherham, from the rebranded local branch of UKIP, the Rotherham Democratic Party,

For our readers, this is a ward that will evoke poignant memories.

The late Marlene Guest fought Keppel ward three times for the BNP, polling 16.4% in 2004, then finishing a close second to Labour in 2006 and 2007 with 27.7% and 28.5%. A few years after the collapse of Griffin’s party, UKIP were the beneficiaries, gaining the ward in 2014 and 2015, and holding on to two of its three seats in the 2016 all-out election.

Following Rotherham council’s well publicised problems and reorganisation, Labour took two of the three seats in May 2021, but the third was retained by one of the surviving UKIP councillors now rebranded as a Rotherham Democrat.

This Rotherham Democrat was thrown out for non-attendance at the end of last year and his party didn’t even field a candidate in this week’s by-election.

Neither was there a candidate from any other civic nationalist party, though an ex-Labour councillor stood as an independent and the Yorkshire Party (regionalist populists) had a candidate who took 15%. The Brexit Party polled 17.2% in the Rotherham constituency in 2019, but its successor Reform UK again showed no interest in contesting a local by-election, even in such a promising area.

Labour ended up with a majority of 300 tonight, with an Asian Liberal Democrat in a surprisingly close second. The Tories also put up an Asian candidate and slipped to fourth place with a truly appalling vote, down from 24% to 5.8%.

Lab 36.1% (+4.6)
LD 21.6% (+14.7)
Ind 18.5%
YP 15.2% (+3.5)
Con 5.8% (-18.2)
Grn 2.9%

Sunak’s Tories start 2023 in deep trouble – but Reform UK’s challenge is weaker than it looks

Five opinion polls have been taken since Christmas, and all show Rishi Sunak’s government in deep trouble with British voters. Traditionally the Tories might expect to benefit from industrial unrest: strikes famously helped Margaret Thatcher win her first general election in 1979 and weakened Labour in the run-up to her third victory in 1987. But Sunak seems to be failing in his main (political) task of restoring the Conservative Party’s reputation for economic competence.

From H&D readers’ point of view, the big question is whether a civic nationalist party is capable of making the sort of breakthrough that Nigel Farage’s parties achieved during the 2010s: first UKIP, and then the Brexit Party – making such an impact that the Tories were forced to allow British voters a referendum on EU membership in 2016, then forced to deliver Brexit against the wishes of most Tory grandees.

For reasons we have examined repeatedly in the magazine (and which we re-examine in the January-February 2023 edition that has just gone to press) Farage’s latest (and probably last) party, Reform UK, does not seem capable of achieving similar results.

Reform UK (presently led by Farage’s right-hand man Richard Tice) has failed badly at six successive parliamentary by-elections (most recently polling 2.7% in Chester and 3.5% in Stretford & Urmston). None of these lost deposits suggest that its nationwide opinion poll scores (much hyped by some academics and by the GB News channel where Farage has a regular show) are anywhere near accurate.

The most recent polls differ widely in this respect: for example the new company People Polling (commissioned by GB News) gave Reform UK 8%, and showed Sunak’s Tories falling to just 19%, 26 points behind the Labour Party; while a rival firm Redfield Wilton gave Reform UK 5%, but again showed the Tories losing heavily, this time 20 points behind Labour. Three other polls taken during the first week of 2023 show Labour leads of 21% or 22%, with Reform UK scoring anywhere between 4% and 8%.

Part of the explanation for this disparity might be straightforward, involving: (a) prompting of voters with the name of Reform UK included in the initial question, rather than held back for a supplementary question; and (b) a different method of adjusting the raw figures, taking less account of previous voting preference. Most pollsters use this method in an attempt to tease out ‘shy Tories’; if People Polling do not, or use it less radically, it could account for their lower Tory and higher Reform and Green vote shares.

Whatever the technical reason, H&D would be very surprised to see Reform UK poll higher than 2% of the nationwide vote at a general election. For ideological and other reasons, Faragism is finished as a serious political force. If Farage himself stands, then he along with Tice and a handful of others might manage 10% or more and (most crucially) help push the Tories to defeat in a small number of marginal seats, but in most of the country Reform UK will remain an irrelevance.

Which leaves the big question – if not Farage and Reform UK, then who and what will present the badly needed challenge to the UK’s failing political mainstream.

Recent polls suggest that 20% or more of those who voted Conservative at the last general election three years ago are now answering “Don’t Know”. Even the People Polling survey that seems to exaggerate Reform UK’s strength suggests that it is taking 12% of that previous Conservative vote, and little or nothing from the other parties; while 17% of those Tory voters have switched to Labour.

Sunak might yet win back some of those ‘Don’t Knows’, but many of them ought to be persuadable by a credible racial nationalist party (if and when such a party gets off the ground).

The British Democrats presently seem to be the best organised and most realistic option for those seeking a racial nationalist challenge at the ballot box, but even they are only just getting started in most of the country. 2023 will be an important transitional year for our movement, as Faragism is finally buried and the Brit Dems gradually build up a nationwide branch structure. Meanwhile Patriotic Alternative is building a broader political challenge away from the electoral arena (PA is not yet a registered political party and shows no sign of becoming one); the British Movement continues to maintain the core ideology that exposes the roots of British and European decline since 1945; and the National Front keeps the flame alive for the first UK party to present a serious electoral challenge to multiracialism during the 1970s.

Whatever nationalist party or group you belong to, or if for the time being you are working independently for our cause, H&D wishes you an active and successful New Year!

Civic nationalism fails again in Chester by-election

Last night’s by-election result in the City of Chester constituency gave further proof that the Farage era is over – a fact that will not surprise regular H&D readers but might be news to others.

During recent weeks there had yet again been media hype (encouraged by some academic observers) suggesting that civic nationalism of the Nigel Farage variety might again be on the rise in the UK.

Farage is no longer a party leader, but is closely associated with Reform UK, led by his close associate Richard Tice and backed by some of the same donors who financed Farage’s previous ventures, the Brexit Party and UKIP.

Pollsters and academics have recently argued that Reform UK might be the beneficiary of public disgust with the Conservative governments of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, and Farage has hinted he might make a comeback to assist Tice.

Yet as regular H&D readers will know from our detailed analyses of local elections across the UK, the truth is that Reform UK barely exists at grassroots level. It hardly ever contests local elections, and when it does the results have been dismal.

Parliamentary by-elections are a different matter, because Reform UK is lavishly funded by Eurosceptic tycoons, so its lack of activists can be masked by throwing money at glossy leaflet and poster campaigns.

Even so, the ballot box is pitiless in revealing the truth about a dying party. Reform UK’s candidate Jeanie Barton polled only 773 votes (2.7%), losing her deposit and finishing a distant fifth.

In Chester yesterday the circumstances should have been ideal for a ‘right-wing’ protest party. Everyone knew the Tories couldn’t win this by-election, so the ‘wasted vote’ argument that often damages smaller parties did not apply. Moreover, Sunak’s Conservative Party is unpopular in any case. We are facing an economic crisis with many households struggling to make ends meet. And in the very week of the by-election, UK census figures were released that should have alarmed every racially-conscious voter. Nigel Farage did his best to make immigration an election issue, but voters simply aren’t interested in Reform UK.

And there’s a good reason for that lack of interest. You can’t fool the voters for ever, and it’s now obvious to even the uneducated that Farageism is simply a form of ultra-Toryism. Reform UK is dedicated to the values of global capitalism: the very values that have driven mass immigration for decades. Its ‘free market’ ideology would (as Liz Truss showed when she attempted a milder version) be disastrous for most Britons.

Since last December when Tice himself spent a fortune in the Old Bexley & Sidcup by-election and polled 6.6%, his party has contested a further five parliamentary by-elections and lost its deposit each time, with its highest vote being 3.8% in North Shropshire almost a year ago.

Reform UK’s latest lost deposit reflected its utter irrelevance in the eyes of almost all Chester’s electorate, and similarly dire results can be expected at the next parliamentary by-elections, again in North-West constituencies, at Stretford & Urmston on December 15th, and West Lancashire on a date yet to be fixed in January or February.

The only good news for Tice and Farage is that their party finished well ahead of its two populist rivals (which is scarcely surprising since they are equally irrelevant to the concerns of most voters, and have far less money than Reform UK to spend on their campaigns).

UKIP – the party Farage led in its heyday – now barely exists. Its candidate Cain Griffiths finished seventh with 179 votes (0.6%).

And the anti-lockdown, anti-vaccination party Freedom Alliance finished bottom of the poll with only 91 votes (0.3%) for its candidate Chris Quartermaine. There are many H&D readers who sympathise with Mr Quartermaine’s interest in what might politely be termed fringe science and contrarian attitudes to the CoVID pandemic. These things are of course open to debate, but frankly only a fool would now believe there is any electoral potential in CoVID conspiracy theories.

It’s time for nationalists to cut the crankism and return to the basics of racial nationalist politics. While there is a long hard road ahead to achieve either an ideologically credible movement or an electorally credible party (or ideally both), the recent Census results have emphasised that only racial nationalists – not civic nationalists or conspiracist cranks – have answers to the UK’s long-term crisis.

Anne-Marie Waters closes down For Britain Movement

H&D has for the past couple of years been reporting on the crowded yet feeble state of British nationalism (both racial and civic). It’s been clear for a long time that several of the parties now competing for the same political space couldn’t survive for much longer.

Today there was news of the first major casualty. Anne-Marie Waters, leader of the For Britain Movement, announced that she was closing down the party – although it’s not yet certain that she has the legal / constitutional power to do so.

Ms Waters told her followers that “support for patriotic politics has collapsed, at least publicly, in recent years”. We don’t disagree with her, though we might question her reasons.

Characteristically, Ms Waters blames opposition violence, which she claims is supported by the mainstream media and politicians. She doesn’t explain why in the face of far worse violence during the 1990s and 2000s, nationalist politics made progress.

Ms Waters says that she is immediately moving away from electoral politics but will continue her anti-Islamist work, with a particular focus on “a support service for victims of rape and sexual assault”. She asks for financial support in this work, but states that “the process of closing everything down” at FBM has started today.

H&D understands from several FBM organisers that they will resist their leader’s decision and will if necessary argue that she does not have the legal power to close down the party. The Electoral Commission requires political parties to abide by their constitutions, and FBM remains registered as a party. In the first instance, however, anyone wishing to stand as an FBM candidate would need the signature of the party’s nominating officer Mike Speakman, a former police officer who is a long-time ally of Ms Waters.

Those FBM activists who accept that the party is over are likely to join the British Democrats and/or Patriotic Alternative, though the latter is not registered as a political party. The sole elected FBM councillor – former BNP councillor Julian Leppert – is due for re-election in his Epping Forest ward next May.

In the next H&D we shall look back on the strange history of the For Britain Movement, a party founded by an ultra-Zionist but which attracted (notably in its most successful branch) significant figures from the old BNP. Perhaps the party’s death (if confirmed) goes to prove that ideological consistency still matters, even in the ‘post-modern’ politics of 2022.

By-election voters reject entire nationalist movement: time for a reboot

Two dramatic parliamentary by-election results tonight delivered a potentially fatal blow to the authority of Boris Johnson. But they also showed that voters even in strongly pro-Brexit constituencies have rejected the entire nationalist movement as presently constituted.

A wide range of different nationalist parties and independents were on the ballot papers in the West Yorkshire constituency of Wakefield, and the Devon constituency of Tiverton & Honiton, offering various combinations of UKIP-style politics; criticism of immigration; rejection of ‘woke’; traditional patriotism; opposition to Islam; racial or semi-racial nationalism; and/or conspiracy theories about the pandemic. Yet the voters were decidedly unimpressed.

On the issues listed above (with the likely exception of CoVID conspiracism which has niche appeal at best) there are undoubtedly many thousands of voters across the two constituencies (as elsewhere in the UK) who agree with civic or racial nationalist policies.

As recently as 2010, the BNP (which of course no longer even pretends to function as a proper political party) polled 2,581 votes in Wakefield (5.8%).

Yet this week all six of the nationalist or anti-lockdown parties in Wakefield added together polled only half this total: just 1,293 votes!!

In Wakefield the most active nationalist campaign was fought by Ashlea Simon of Britain First, who had achieved the country’s best nationalist result at last month’s local elections, polling 21.6% in Walkden North ward, Salford.

Wakefield is of course on the other side of the Pennines, but this West Yorkshire city has many of the same racial problems that led to strong BNP votes in the 2000s. And the fact that the by-election was caused by a homosexual Muslim Conservative MP being jailed for sexual abuse of a 15-year-old boy, ought to have been a gift for even a semi-racial nationalist party.

Ms Simon and her team (including Britain First leader Paul Golding) put in a serious effort, but polled only 311 votes (1.1%), finishing 8th of 15 candidates.

This wasn’t a great result, but the outcome for other nationalist contenders in Wakefield was truly dire. Jayda Fransen of the British Freedom Party was bottom of the poll with only 24 votes (less than 0.1%).

Ms Fransen had to stand as an independent because her party isn’t yet registered. She and the two men who pull the strings in her ‘party’ – Ulster ‘businessman’ Jim Dowson and former MEP Nick Griffin – talk a good fight online, but are effectively seeking to con potential donors that they are running a serious political force (rather than the farce that it truly is).

In a rational world, Fransen, Dowson and Griffin would never show their face again in any political forum, online or in person. But doubtless they are shameless enough to keep the con going.

The best of a feeble bunch of civic nationalist results in Wakefield was Reform UK – successor to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party – finishing sixth with 513 votes (1.9%). But given the comparatively vast resources expended by Richard Tice’s party, this is another shockingly meagre return. Tice’s donors must be running out of patience.

The rump of UKIP polled 124 votes (0.5%), beaten by the English Democrats with 135 votes (0.5%).

And while the anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination movement continues to make a lot of noise both online and in occasional demonstrations, their standard bearer in Wakefield – the Freedom Alliance – barely registered with 187 votes (0.7%).

Meanwhile in Tiverton & Honiton – a traditionally safe Conservative and strongly pro-Brexit seat in Devon – nationalist results were equally dismal.

Reform UK’s total here was even worse than in Wakefield: 481 votes (1.1%). UKIP again failed miserably with 241 votes (0.6%), just ahead of one of the splinter groups from UKIP, the Heritage Party (led by a half-Jamaican and focusing heavily on CoVID-scepticism) who took only 167 votes (0.4%).

The wooden spoon went to Frankie Rufolo of the anti-Islam party For Britain Movement, who polled 146 votes (0.3%). For Britain is led by a former UKIP leadership candidate Anne-Marie Waters, who is now allied to EDL founder ‘Tommy Robinson’ and claims that she is building towards winning a seat in Parliament at the next general election. On present trends she wouldn’t win a parliamentary seat if she lived for another millennium.

Ever since the collapse of the BNP a decade ago there has been nothing even resembling a large-scale, successful racial nationalist party. The BNP no longer even pretends to function as a proper political party. Patriotic Alternative (the fastest growing racial nationalist force in the UK) is not registered as a party and so is unable to contest elections. And various smaller parties ranging from the British Democratic Party to the National Front are not yet a substantial presence in parliamentary elections.

Both of the constituencies that had by-elections yesterday were strongly pro-Brexit, and were won by Boris Johnson’s pro-Brexit Conservative Party in 2019. Yet the by-elections were caused by personal scandals forcing the resignation of Conservative MPs. So there ought to have been potential for various types of nationalist to attract voters who had previously backed the Tories.

In this context the Wakefield and Tiverton & Honiton results were frankly an embarrassment not just for the parties concerned, but for everyone who calls himself a British nationalist.

Many of those who were active in these campaigns are decent patriots. Yet their political strategies and in most cases their entire party structures should be consigned to the scrapheap.

If we cannot now escape from crank ideas and personal bitterness; if we cannot now agree some form of realistic yet principled agenda and create a serious political movement (whether that movement is electorally focused, or at least for now concentrates on non-electoral politics) – then we deserve the contempt of our fellow Britons and we are unworthy of our ancestors.

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.

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