White Defence League | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Abbreviation | WDL |
| Leader | Colin Jordan |
| Founder | Colin Jordan |
| Founded | 1957 |
| Dissolved | 1960 |
| Preceded by | League of Empire Loyalists |
| Succeeded by | British National Party |
| Headquarters | Arnold Leese House,Notting Hill,London |
| Newspaper | Black and White News The Nationalist |
| Ideology | Neo-Nazism British nationalism White nationalism Anti-capitalism Anti-communism Antisemitism |
| Political position | Far-right |
| Colours | Red White Blue |
| Party flag | |
 | |
TheWhite Defence League (WDL) was a Britishneo-Nazipolitical party. Using the provocative marching techniques popularised byOswald Mosley, its members includedJohn Tyndall.
The WDL had its roots inColin Jordan's decision to split from theLeague of Empire Loyalists in 1957. Jordan had wanted a ban on Jews and non-white members enshrined in the League but this had been rejected by League chiefA. K. Chesterton, due to the group's links to theConservative Party. Jordan further called for the building of a mass party but this too was rejected due to the Tory links.[1] At the time Jordan was also close to theBritons Publishing Society and both groups ran out ofArnold Leese House, the name given to 74 Princedale Road, the Notting Hill home of the lateImperial Fascist League leader which Leese's widow Mary allowed Jordan to use as his base of operations.[2] Mary Leese also provided most of the group's funding.[3] Because of this shared space with the Britons the WDL was able to publish its own magazine,Black and White News, as soon the group was founded, and it reached a circulation of around 800 with a focus on anti-immigration rhetoric.[4] A further WDL paper,The Nationalist, appeared in 1959, focusing more onantisemitism and the desire for racial purity.[5]
Unlike the LEL, which stressed British identity and patriotism, the WDL was fairly open in its admiration forAdolf Hitler andNazism.[6] Seeking to distance itself from LELconservatism and to build links with like-minded groups in continentalEurope, the party's journals became notorious for their rabid racial hatred.[7] By personal conviction Jordan's main belief was in antisemitism but, whilst the WDL did stress theJews as an enemy "out-group", the League also emphasisedanti-immigration rhetoric.[8] However the WDL has been contrasted with theUnion Movement, a contemporary group led byOswald Mosley as, whilst the Union Movement had a coherent ideology that sought to remodel pre-Second World War fascism, the WDL was more crudely racist and had a much less developed political programme.[9] Hans-Georg Betz has characterised the WDL as part of a tendency within British fascist extremism to place a "recidivist orradical neo-Nazism" as the ideological core rather than thepopulism ofScandinavian protest parties or the "hybrid appeal" that fuses elements of fascism to populism typified by the likes theFront National (italics are after Betz).[10]
The WDL gained notoriety after members of the group were widely reported in the press as having taken part in the1958 Notting Hill race riots.[11] Indeed, during that summer the WDL held rallies throughimmigrant neighbourhoods on a nightly basis.[8] Towards the end of the riotsAntiguan immigrantKelso Cochrane was murdered and local black opinion often suggested that the WDL was responsible although ultimately no one was arrested for the killing.[12] Like the Union Movement, which was also active in the local area, the WDL co-operated with gangs of racistTeddy boys who harassed and launched attacks on blacks in the area.[13] Indeed, in the run-up to the riots followers of the Union Movement and the WDL had come into immigrant neighbourhoods in the area to indulge in what they called "nigger hunts".[14][15]
In 1959 the WDL began to co-operate with theNational Labour Party, a group led by another former LEL dissidentJohn Bean which was also active inNotting Hill. The WDL helped Bean's group with their election campaigns and the two groups held a joint rally calledStop the Coloured Invasion inTrafalgar Square in May 1959 with banners that readKeep Britain White.[2] Some marchers wore armbands containing the WDL logo; a whitesun wheel within a red circle on a dark blue background. Jordan, who had developed a network of international contacts throughThe Nationalist, impressed both Bean andAndrew Fountaine and in February 1960 the two groups fused to form theBritish National Party, which was also to be based at Arnold Leese House.[5]