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John Tyndall | |
|---|---|
&sq=Sri Lanka&lang=en&file=File:John_Tyndall_BNP.jpg) Tyndall addressing a Nationalist Alliance meeting in 2005 | |
| Chairman of the British National Party | |
| In office 7 April 1982 – 27 September 1999 | |
| Deputy | Richard Edmonds |
| Preceded by | Party established |
| Succeeded by | Nick Griffin |
| Leader of the Greater Britain Movement | |
| In office 1964–1967 | |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Position abolished (absorbed into National Front) |
| Chairman of the National Front | |
| In office 1972–1974 | |
| Preceded by | John O'Brien |
| Succeeded by | John Kingsley Read |
| In office 1976–1980 | |
| Preceded by | John Kingsley Read |
| Succeeded by | Andrew Brons |
| Personal details | |
| Born | John Hutchyns Tyndall 14 July 1934 Exeter, Devon, England |
| Died | 19 July 2005 (aged 71) Hove, East Sussex, England |
| Political party |
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| Spouse |
Valerie Dawn Olliff (m. 1977) |
| Children | 1 |
John Hutchyns Tyndall (14 July 1934 – 19 July 2005) was a British neo-fascist political activist. A leading member of various small neo-Nazi groups during the late 1950s and 1960s, he was chairman of the National Front (NF) from 1972 to 1974 and again from 1975 to 1980, and then chairman of the British National Party (BNP) from 1982 to 1999. He unsuccessfully stood for election to the House of Commons and European Parliament on several occasions.
Born in Devon and educated in Kent, Tyndall undertook national service prior to embracing the extreme-right. In the mid-1950s, he joined the League of Empire Loyalists (LEL) and came under the influence of its leader, Arthur Chesterton. Finding the LEL too moderate, in 1957 he and John Bean founded the National Labour Party (NLP), an explicitly "National Socialist" (Nazi) group. In 1960, the NLP merged with Colin Jordan's White Defence League to found the first British National Party (BNP). Within the BNP, Tyndall and Jordan established a paramilitary wing called Spearhead, which angered Bean and other party members. They expelled Tyndall and Jordan, who went on to establish the National Socialist Movement and then the international World Union of National Socialists. In 1962, they were convicted and briefly imprisoned for their paramilitary activities. After a split with Jordan, Tyndall formed his Greater Britain Movement (GBM) in 1964. Although never changing his basic beliefs, by the mid-1960s, Tyndall was replacing his overt references to Nazism with appeals to British nationalism.
In 1967, Tyndall joined Chesterton's newly founded National Front (NF) and became its leader in 1972, overseeing growing membership and electoral growth. His leadership was threatened by various factions within the party which eventually led to his losing his position as leader in 1974. He resumed this position in 1975, although the latter part of the 1970s saw the party's prospects decline. Following an argument with long-term comrade Martin Webster, Tyndall resigned from the party in 1980 and formed his short-lived New National Front (NNF). In 1982, he merged the NNF into his own newly formed British National Party (BNP). Under Tyndall, the BNP established itself as the UK's most prominent extreme-right group during the 1980s, although electoral success eluded it. Tyndall's refusal to moderate the BNP's policies or image caused anger among a growing array of "modernisers" in the party, who ousted him in favour of Nick Griffin in 1999. In 2005, Tyndall was charged with incitement to racial hatred for comments made at a BNP meeting. He died two days before his trial was due to take place.
Tyndall promoted a racial nationalist belief in a distinct white "British race", arguing that this race was threatened by a Jewish conspiracy to encourage non-white migration into Britain. He called for the establishment of an authoritarian state which would deport all non-whites from the country, engage in a eugenics project, and re-establish the British Empire through the military conquest of parts of Africa. He never gained any mainstream political respectability in the United Kingdom although he proved popular among sectors of the British far-right.