Constitutional Movement

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The Constitutional Movement was a right wing political group in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1979 by Andrew Fountaine as the National Front Constitutional Movement, a splinter group from the British National Front. Offering a more moderate alternative to the NF, the Constitutional Movement claimed to have 2000 members by 1980.[1]

[edit] Overview

The party was born in a time of serious division in the British far right and competed with a number of other parties for attention. Such was the confusion at the time that party operations were even based at Excalibur House (London, EC2), which continued to be the HQ of the main NF.[2] The party campaigned for the 1981 GLC election although the result s proved disappointing and during the course of the campaign their Excalibur House HQ was damaged by a fire and a camapigner, Anthony Donnelly, was murdered in Hackney.[3]

The failure of this campaign, in which the party lost out ot both the original NF and the New National Front saw the party go in to decline. Fountaine called an end to his political career in 1981, leaving them without a strong leader whilst in 1982, it lost many members to the newly-formed British National Party.

After it changed its name to the Nationalist Party, it contested only five seats in the 1983 general election. It performed very poorly, and made its last appearance in a 1984 by-election in the Southgate constituency, with James Kershaw polling only 80 votes in a seat won by Michael Portillo. The party was gone soon after this, with most of the members joining the British National Party.

During its lifetime the Movement produced a newspaper, Frontline News as well as a magazine Excalibur, the latter edited by Terry Savage, a veteran of the National Labour Party.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ S. Taylor, The National Front in English Politics, London: Macmillan, 1982, p. 91
  2. ^ John Bean, Many Shades of Black: Inside Britain's Far-Right, London: New Millennium, 1999, p. 221
  3. ^ Bean, op cit, p. 222
  4. ^ Bean, op cit, p. 222
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