ABSTRACT
The National Front was founded in 1967 following a year of discussions between three right-wing groups: A. K. Chesterton’s League of Empire Loyalists, John Bean and Andrew Fountaine’s British National Party and the Racial Preservation Society. The prominence of these three groups within the British right was down, in part, to the failure of other previously better-known figures. While all the internal intrigues were taking place, the National Front faced a further difficulty, which was how to maintain press interest in its activities. The National Front targeted the various community relations officers, appointed by local authorities to give effect to their duties under the Race Relations Act. The National Front responded to a strike by around five hundred Asian workers demanding equal conditions at Imperial Typewriters in Leicester by seeking to organise the white workers as strike-breakers. The key grievance was the restriction of the best-paid manual roles to whites.
