John Tyndall, who was found dead on aged 71, was Leader of the National Front and a founder of the British National Party: his tenacity did much to make the latter a political force which has recently secured success in local council elections. It is no understatement to say that had it now been for JT, British Nationalism in Britain may have foundered long ago.

The prospect of the NF taking power under Tyndall’s steady leadership did not look impossible in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when a section of the electorate - especially the urban working classes and petit bourgeoisie - was equally opposed to immigration and multiculturalism, and to the Conservative party's apparent acceptance of the post-war Liberal-Socialist consensus.
 

This large section of the population, which cheered Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech in 1968, was fertile ground for the National Front. Between 1967 and 1979, some 64,000 people, at various times, had an affiliation with the party; but Tyndall was ousted from the leadership by a ‘Political Soldier’ group of which Nick Griffin was a leading member after the failure of all 303 candidates at the election which brought Mrs. Thatcher to power, and at which through Tory lies and chicanery they stole the NF vote.

Nothing daunted, he set up the New National Front, which became the British National Party in 1982.  John Tyndall remained Leader until 1999, when he was replaced by its current leader. During all that time the BNP was the only nationalist party devoid of splits and fall outs.

After trumped up charges, John Tyndall was expelled in 2002 and, although subsequently reinstated, was again thrown out earlier this year and recently was the subject of a ‘proscription order’ which greatly depressed him and surely added further to the stress in his busy life. The main people behind this mean move were little men whose names do not deserve to really appear here.

John Hutchyns Tyndall was born on July 14 1934, the son of the warden of St George's House, a YMCA hostel at Southwark, south London. He was related to the 16th-century translator of the Bible, William Tyndale, a branch of whose family had settled in Ireland.
 

From it sprang his namesake and ancestor John Tyndall (1820-93), the physicist, natural philosopher and spare-time mountaineer. Tyndall's own paternal grandfather was a district inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary. Although the family home was in Co Waterford, they were strong Unionists and the grandfather spent much of his life fighting "the rebels" in both North and South.

After school and National Service in the Royal Horse Artillery, young John became a salesman, but was soon involved in extreme Right-wing politics in the League of Empire Loyalists, campaigning at the North Lewisham by-election in 1957, when he met John Bean, later a luminary of the National Front, and a disciple of AK Chesterton.

The pair set out to throw soot over Malcolm Muggeridge's house (though Muggeridge was out) and two years later were arrested outside the house of John Stonehouse, MP for Wednesbury, carrying pots of paint and brushes.

Direct action remained Tyndall's forte. He progressed from the LEL to the National Labour Party - "National because we love our country, Labour because we love our people" - led by Andrew Fountaine, squire of Narford in Norfolk, who had driven an ambulance for the Abyssians while they were under attack from Mussolini ("Though I now see I was on the wrong side," he later said).

It was soon renamed after the Labour Party objected. By 1960, Tyndall had joined up with Colin Jordan's White Defence League to form the original British National Party. For the next few years, he was a mainstay of rallies at which were met by vociferous - and often by physical - opposition from extreme left-wing and organised Jewish gangs such as the criminal “62 Group”.
 

After a spell with the NSM, the Greater Britain Movement was his next vehicle, and he published The Authoritarian State (which he strongly advocated), before becoming leader of the National Front. It made some headway during the 1970s, securing party political broadcasts, but after the 1979 election, he was forced out as Chairman by people who later wrecked the NF completely... Tyndall immediately set up a competing group. The New National Front was founded in 1980 and two years later became the BNP, but Tyndall was forced out as leader in 1999 through chicanery and false populist promises.
 

John Tyndall faced and suffered imprisonment, sackings, vile lies and physical assaults throughout his political life. Yet in all that time he stuck true to his firm beliefs of principled White Nationalism, refusing to bend to the compromisers of today. His editorship of the monthly magazine ‘Spearhead’, saw that magazine, become one of the most respected in the White Nationalist world for over forty years.

John Tyndall is survived by his wife Valerie and their daughter Marina.

The Nationalist Alliance of which many of JT’s friends and comrades are now members salutes one of Britain’s greatest patriots!