John Kingsley Read (18 April 1936 – 18 September 1985) was a Britishfascist politician andHolocaust denier. He was chairman of theNational Front (NF) from 1974 until 1976, when he founded theNational Party.
A former member of theConservative Party and chairman of theBlackburnYoung Conservatives, Read left to join the NF in 1973 having addressed a rally against the arrival ofUgandan Asians in Britain earlier that same year inBlackburn.[1]
A strong orator, Read rose quickly through the NF ranks, his style drawing comparisons to American politicianGeorge Wallace, to whom he also bore a passing physical resemblance.[2] Read was later denounced as a drunkard byAndrew Fountaine.[3]
After securing the support of potential rivalRoy Painter, Read was elected chairman of the National Front in 1974, with the neo-imperialistJohn Tyndall his deputy chairman, in what was regarded as a vote by the "populist" orStrasserite wing of the party against the authoritarian Tyndall.[4]
Later, Read himself "drifted" into the populist camp but was only narrowly re-elected as chairman in 1975.[5] He tried to expel Tyndall from the party but Read's decision was overturned at the High Court.[citation needed]
In 1976, Read left the NF along with many of his followers to establish theNational Party (NP), which won two seats onBlackburn Council, one of them held by Read, but their other councillor was disqualified for election irregularities.
Read designed the front cover motif for the British edition ofArthur Butz'sHolocaust denial book,The Hoax of the Twentieth Century,[6] which was circulated by the NP. After the murder of a young Sikh man, Gurdip Singh Chaggar, in a suspected racist attack, Read allegedly remarked during a speech at an NP meeting, "One down, a million to go," which effectively ended his presentation of a more "moderate" stance. Read was later acquitted of making the statement in a decision which aroused "furious controversy".[7]
Following Read's death in 1985,Nick Griffin said that Kingsley Read had been working with the knowledge of other leading members of the NF to feed false information toSearchlight magazine, although John Tyndall was convinced that Read had been a double agent.[8]Searchlight stated that Read had supplied them with the entire membership list of the National Party.[9]
In 1984, Read appeared inThe Other Face of Terror, a British documentary about far-right groups. Read openly admitted designing and helping to distribute Holocaust denial material.[10][non-primary source needed]
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| Date of election | Constituency | Party | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 1974 | Blackburn | NF | 1,778 | 4.2 |
| October 1974 | Blackburn | NF | 1,758 | 4.4 |
| 4 March 1976 | Coventry NW | NP | 208 | 0.6 |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
