Sadly do you remember the national front?

Remember them? The N.F? Awful times...My parents arrived in the UK in 1971, the height of The National Front, John Tindal was their man in charge...then the 1976 riots, Blair Peach in 79....and Enoch Powell-how odd that the Dockers supported him when Gandhi 30 years earlier came to the UK only for them to support his ideals...Was it the Winter of impending discontent that changed things? Doubly ironic that it was Powell who motioned the arrival of Asian and Black Doctors and Nurses from The CommonWealth and dying days of Empire to plug up the holes in the NHS in its heyday - it was their families he didn't want here...hence his 'Rivers of Blood' speech...

My Father told me of the racism he faced at work, one fine example was payday-brown pay packets handed out by the foreman and he said all the Caucasian workers would literally huddle together, then one day a nice chap my Father worked with who was English said loudly that the reason they all did that was because they (meaning the huddlers) got a fiver extra-simply for being White....

My Dad used to work nights as a Lino typesetter for the newspaper industry and would come home early mornings. One night or was it after his shift in the early morning he was stopped by the local Bobby on the Beat (you can picture him now in his traditional uniform you only see on parades these days and his pith style helmet) and he said he'd regularly seen my Father walking home and suggested he buy a bicycle to get home more quickly as there'd be a chance he could get beaten up seriously by racist thugs....My Dad took that advice and bought a bike....

I wonder what it was like for them back then - it was all the more overt.

I've posted this topic as theres a Panorama on the BNP right now being so corrupt as an operational party...

My Mum told me that there'd been a member of the Lyons foods family who'd become a politician who was Powells enemy in parliament and pro ethnic people-is that right? She said his name was Joe Lyons....

[Sly]

Re: Sadly do you remember the national front?

Someone I went to school with dad was one of the BNP candidates and had very heavy ties with the NF. In the late 90's there was a lot of graffiti and flyers doing the rounds for Combat 18. I'm bewildered to why these groups exists, but then again I don't understand a lot of movements. Especially when their agendas are as loose as these are.

[vanhelsing]

Re: Sadly do you remember the national front?

I've posted this topic as theres a Panorama on the BNP right now being so corrupt as an operational party...

They're ALL corrupt. Why else d'you think bankers're getting away with massive bonuses and prices're increasing beyond control.

I was around in the '70s myself and remember th NF myself. I've even been accused of being a ...... lover on Youtube (I can't repeat what was said as I'd be rightly banned for breaking the rules) just for praising Somalian and Polish immigrant workers and one of the best people I've ever worked with was afro-carribean. I bet these neo-nazis won't complain when they're losing blood after an accident and the ambulance crew're all of ethnic origin. I've been hospilatised a few times with athma and have been seen to by foreign staff/medical students and never complained.

[sf1378]

Re: Sadly do you remember the national front?

Aye. They are ALL corrupt.

Going back to the BNP etc, I often think to myself when I see the like of Nick Griffin and his BNP cronies that they may be racists but they probably shop at Asian Corner shops, buy clothing imported from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and definitely eat curry at an Indian Resturant-or order takeaways ranging from the kebab to Chinese or Thai...They probably even go on holidays to the likes of Antigua and Barbados...and like you say, they probably are happy for treatment and blood from any colour if needed....

The other thing is, I actually keep an open mind to the notion that possibly the Far Right may one day come to power here...I'd go instantly back to Sri Lanka no qualms. Have to. Also, I find it hypocritical that racists don't like immigrants and yet eat foreign food and go on holidays. It adds to the morally corrupt line of thought about them...Another thing is, and it is ponderous too, that this country has had many chances to vote them in...but they don't. Why? I wonder if its to do with this country loosing more than gaining a White Only Britain...economically and in other ways, it'd loose a lot and furthermore, what do they really offer? Not much except a repatriation rule...the funniest thing is with all the racial intermixing over the centuries if dna tests were done, most racists would find out they've probably got foreign stock in them as well...

[vanhelsing]

Re: Sadly do you remember the national front?

You forgot to mention their mobile phones/MP3s also being Chinese made like their Union Jack t-shirts and i did read something in a newspaper about a BNP youth camp when one of the BNP turned down a can of Stella Artois and said that Carling's British. But in fact Carling lager's actually brewed by Coors, a Canadian firm.
I bet they don't know that Cobra lager was actually invented in India by a British Ghurkha genenral?

NF=BNP=EDL= RACIST PR~CKS!

[Roxxy]

Re: Sadly do you remember the national front?

I remember the furore when the BBC allowed a BNP party political broadcast to be shown featuring former NF Fuhrer John Tynedale- he died soon after that was shown, but the BBC have never lived it down and rightly so.
The head of the science dept. at my old school was an open supporter of the NF, he used to stop black pupils in the corridor and demand that they repeat racist slogans after him- if they didn't he'd put them in detention for 3 hours, fortunately he was packed off to a secure unit shortly after I left the place.
The BNP have now been all but eliminated politically, God rot them- we must all make sure that they remain that way.

[sf1378]

Re: Sadly do you remember the national front?

I remember the furore when the BBC allowed a BNP party political broadcast to be shown featuring former NF Fuhrer John Tynedale- he died soon after that was shown, but the BBC have never lived it down and rightly so.
The head of the science dept. at my old school was an open supporter of the NF, he used to stop black pupils in the corridor and demand that they repeat racist slogans after him- if they didn't he'd put them in detention for 3 hours, fortunately he was packed off to a secure unit shortly after I left the place.
The BNP have now been all but eliminated politically, God rot them- we must all make sure that they remain that way.

That made me smirk-the bit about Tyndale dying....lol.

As for that teacher-if that were my kid putting up with it I'd have gone in and beat the hell out of the guy...well, you couldn't actually do that back then but ironically you probably could now...So he got carted off to the Padded Hotels of the NHS? Was he really a loony?

[Marillion]

Re: Sadly do you remember the national front?

I think it's very unlikely that the BNP or any other far right party will ever come to power. Most people detest them. They appeal mostly to weak people who go around blaming their problems on scapegoats because they haven't got the backbone / sense to try to do something positive about it. Fascist parties came to power in the 1930s, and the present economic situation has been compared with the 1930s, but the comparison is quite superficial. People will always remember what the Nazis did and won't let it happen again, whereas at that time, fascism was new.

I certainly remember the National Front. They targeted our school a few times, despite the fact that at least a quarter of the pupils were black or Asian. Someone brought one of their leaflets into the classroom and passed it round for everyone to read. A lot of the black kids in my class were genuinely worried, but the NF came and went, and I think the same will happen with the BNP.

[sf1378]

Re: Sadly do you remember the national front?

I think it's very unlikely that the BNP or any other far right party will ever come to power. Most people detest them. They appeal mostly to weak people who go around blaming their problems on scapegoats because they haven't got the backbone / sense to try to do something positive about it. Fascist parties came to power in the 1930s, and the present economic situation has been compared with the 1930s, but the comparison is quite superficial. People will always remember what the Nazis did and won't let it happen again, whereas at that time, fascism was new.

I certainly remember the National Front. They targeted our school a few times, despite the fact that at least a quarter of the pupils were black or Asian. Someone brought one of their leaflets into the classroom and passed it round for everyone to read. A lot of the black kids in my class were genuinely worried, but the NF came and went, and I think the same will happen with the BNP.

I like to keep an open mind on the likelyhood...there may just come a time that madmen would come to power via racism in the UK. History never seems to extoll lessons humanity learns from it seems....Two immense World Wars, a Holocaust, and subsequent tragedies prove that fact. As the son of immigrants and having my colour preceed me wherever I go...I never say never sadly.