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. 

Chris Roberts, chairman of the tribute 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. 

Steve Smith

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. 

Eddy Butler

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.

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