• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• Tyndall expelled from BNP

Tyndall expelled from BNP

01 August 2003

The far-right British National Party (BNP) has expelled its founder and ex-leader, John Tyndall, in what has been described as "the night of the long knives". Tyndall, who founded the organisation along broadly national socialist principles in 1982, led it until he was ousted by the "reformist" Nick Griffin in 1999. With Griffin’s rise to power it was only a matter of time before Tyndall, a constant irritant to his leadership, was expelled. Griffin was concerned that the former leaders overt fascism and outspoken racism are a constant reminder of the BNP's violent and bloody history. Griffin shares a history of involvement in the same organisations. Among the key players in the reformed party is Tony Lecomber (aka Anthony Le Comber, Tony East, Tony West) who was nicknamed the "mad bomber" after detonating a car bomb outside a left political party in south London. He was jailed for three years for this offence, and has also received a separate jail sentence for an anti-Semitic attack on a man at a railway station. Griffin wants to repackage the BNP as popularist nationalist party with a respectable electoral image in the European mould.