Tony Lecomber

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Anthony "Tony" Mark Lecomber (born 1963) is a former Group Development Director for the British National Party, an anti-immigration party in the UK. [1] He was editor of Young Nationalist, which the BBC describes as a racist and antisemitic magazine.[1]

Contents

[edit] Background

Lecomber has been active in far-right politics since the early 1980s. His role is mainly behind the scenes in planning BNP election campaigns, but his history of convictions for violence have given him prominence in anti-BNP publicity.

He joined the National Front in the early 1980s, but allied with John Tyndall who was being blamed for the NF's poor performance at the 1979 general election. When Tyndall split to form the New National Front and later the British National Party, Lecomber followed him.

[edit] Convictions

Lecomber was convicted for criminal damage in 1982, offences under the Explosives Act in 1985, and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in 1991 for an attack on a Jewish teacher.[1]

In 1985, he was injured by a nailbomb that he was carrying to the offices of the Workers Revolutionary Party. Police found 10 grenades, seven petrol bombs and two detonators at his home.[2]

In 1991, when he was Propaganda Director of the BNP,[3] Lecomber saw a Jewish teacher removing a BNP sticker at a London Underground station and attacked him. [2] Lecomber was released from his three-year sentence in time to play a key part in the BNP's by-election win in Millwall ward of Tower Hamlets in September 1993.

Later in the 1990s, Lecomber became closer to Nick Griffin and supported Griffin when he successfully challenged John Tyndall's leadership of the BNP in 1999. Tyndall identified Lecomber as the man primarily responsible for undermining him. Under Griffin, Lecomber became, in effect, Deputy Leader of the BNP, and acted as national agent during election campaigns.[citation needed] In 2006 Lecomber was sacked from his position as Group Development Officer after being found out trying to hire a hitman to murder a leading politician[4].

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b BNP: Under the Skin, BBC News.
  2. ^ Nick Cohen, "Hold On a Minute ... Will It Be Boots and Broadcasts at the BNP?", The Observer, 5 January 1997.
  3. ^ "On the seamier side: the shadow of racist politics", The Economist, 7 December 1991
  4. ^ >> Searchlight Magazine <<