‘The National Front is a Nazi Front!’: Opposition to the National Front, 1967–79

Abstract

In all probability, the moment that opposition to the National Front (NF) is mentioned, it is the Anti-Nazi League (ANL) which springs to mind. This organisation, formed in late 1977, grew rapidly to become the Front’s most memorable opponent. In its first year, it recruited some 40,000–50,000 members, distributed over five million leaflets and sold around one million anti-Front badges and stickers. Such was the level of its popular support, the Anti-Nazi League was widely regarded as the largest extra-parliamentary movement since the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the early 1960s.1 By mobilising mass opposition to the National Front, and by smearing the Front with the lethal Nazi label, the Anti-Nazi League has been judged an unqualified success. Many claim that the ANL was largely responsible for the electoral demise of the National Front at the end of the 1970s and have urged others, such as opponents of the Front National in France, to follow its example.2 But in point of fact, support for the National Front may have already peaked by the time the Anti-Nazi League was launched. Moreover, the concentration on the activities of the Anti-Nazi League has meant that the work of other anti-fascist groups that either pre-dated or paralleled the ANL has been largely ignored. This narrow focus has also precluded wider consideration of other sources of anti-fascism. It may well have been the case, for instance, that hostility from the mainstream media impeded the National Front more than the activities of opposition groups. Certainly this was the view of the National Front, who after the 1979 general election identified the media and not the ANL as its ‘number one enemy’.3 KeywordsTrade UnionLabour MovementLabour PartyNational PartyNational FrontThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.