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Will Wright

The history of the British extremist Left

I have always believed that in any group of people, those individuals who are most sure of themselves will influence the rest of the group. In politics, a person who is convinced that he is right will influence someone who is not sure what he really believes.

When a convinced political type is placed among people who are already halfway towards agreeing with him, the job of winning them over should be so much easier.

When the Trotskyites infiltrated the Labour Party, in the 1970s, they formed an organised group, originally called the Militant Tendency. I believe that they influenced a lot of more moderate socialists and dragged the Labour Party leftwards.

The Militant was especially effective in recruiting the Labour Party Young Socialists. From a British Nationalist perspective, Labour Party Trotskyites were largely indistinguishable from Socialist Workers Party Trotskyites.

The ‘Entryist’ Trots were so successful that Neil Kinnock (himself very left-wing) had a tough job expelling all of them from the Labour Party. Outside of Labour, they formed the Socialist Party and were never as effective again.

A second attempt

Much more recently, a campaigning group within the Labour Party, called Momentum, threw its weight behind the leadership ambitions of Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn was always careful to insist that he was a “democratic, mainstream socialist.”

Gormless Ed Milliband had changed Labour’s internal rules, so the rank-and-file members could elect the party’s leader. Corbyn was twice elected as leader, by a big majority.

Momentum had to avoid what Militant did and not identify too closely as a party within a party. But they were successful in enthusing left-wingers inside the party. The Labour Party was dragged leftwards, from an already left-wing position.

A personal experience

In the 1980s, I worked with a member of the Militant, at the Post Office. Whenever I worked with him, he was fine and we got along okay. But we clashed at union meetings.

He would put forward a motion, that had nothing to do with the workplace – some far-Left cause, often involving donating branch funds. Trade union membership was compulsory, at that time, but only the more left-wing people actually attended union meetings.

Our Trotskyite colleague was intelligent and articulate and could easily persuade more moderate people to go along with him – until I spoke up. When a vote was taken, his motion was voted down.

After a meeting, about ten of us would go to a pub. That included the Militant and me. He usually sulked with me for the first half an hour but then came around.

This experience showed me how the extremist Left operated and succeeded.

Nigel Farage’s parties

UKIP, the Brexit Party, and currently Reform UK have all constitutionally barred the way to membership for anyone who ever belonged either the National Front, or the British National Party.

Either Farage, or someone working with him behind the scenes, recognised that authentic British Nationalists might very likely turn the rank-and-file membership Nationalist. That would be likely to happen even without an organised bloc. Because we Nationalists have an ideology, which Farage’s parties have always lacked.

Farage clashed with UKIP’s National Committee and so he wanted to rule the party as a dictator. When that could not happen, he left to start another party.

Both before and afterwards, Farage has always driven out those who disagree with him, as well as anyone who appears to have an independent charisma of their own.

When Farage did that with Rupert Lowe, Lowe created his own party and had a success that surprised Farage. Restore Britain was born.

The opportunist mind of Nick Griffin

Nigel Farage had boasted to Establishment figures and the mainstream media that he was the bulwark against ‘far right extremism.’ He claimed that his presence in British politics destroyed the BNP. When Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons entered a Brussels bar that Farage’s MEPs frequented, Farage boasts that he had them thrown out.

Rupert Lowe complicated the picture. Restore Britain did NOT ban British Nationalists from membership. Nick Griffin quickly spotted that.

In his Substack column, Griffin stated that ALL British Nationalists should now join Restore Britain. Nationalists are very thin on the ground these days. But some followed Griffin’s suggestion and did join Restore Britain.

Others decided to do that quite independently of Griffin, people who are not fans of his. I am told that included Steve Laws of Remigration Now.

Griffin believes that the patriotic cause cannot succeed electorally. But he also thinks that British Nationalists could influence and eventually recruit Restore Britain’s members for the community-building work which Griffin believes will become necessary for White survival.

I think Griffin is right that ideological Nationalists could and should influence Restore Britain’s rank-and-file. Griffin points out that Restore Britain’s membership is ten times the strength of the BNP’s membership at its peak.

I think that both Reform UK’s and Restore Britain’s rank-and-file members are closer to us than to their own leaders.

In the era of internet influencers and online booksellers, any party which does not have an ideology is open to influence from people who do have an ideology and clear aims.

Can two strategies both work at the same time?

Nick Griffin is not the only prolific Nationalist writer on Substack. His former protégé, Mark Collett, writes there too.

I now think that Collett has matured into a good Nationalist. He is now a middle-aged married man and a father. He has had other ‘mentors’ since he parted company with Griffin.

Collett too has been observing Reform UK and Restore Britain. Collett, like Griffin, now appears to think that Nationalist efforts at elections are futile. But unlike Griffin, he has not abandoned hope of remigration.

Collett thinks that Nationalists should want a Reform UK general election victory. But why? He believes that would destroy the Conservative Party. I am not sure without re-reading him whether he also believes that Labour could go into terminal decline too.

Collet states that the two main parties have been entrenched for a century, but Reform UK would have much shallower roots, if ever a real Nationalist revival takes place.

I do not disagree with Mark Collett, in principle. Both main parties certainly deserve to die.

But if Reform UK is to win, that would need Restore Britain to disappear. Either to merge with Reform UK or have a pact. That thinking puts Collett up against some of his colleagues in the Patriotic Alliance. Those following Griffin’s entryist strategy with Restore Britain.

Could Griffin’s and others’ ‘entryist’ strategy with Restore Britain work in tandem with hoping for a Reform UK government? It seems unlikely. That puts me in a quandary.

It depends on whether you think Reform UK could actually win a general election and whether you believe that is desirable. It is far less likely to happen if Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain takes say 10 percent of the votes, that would otherwise have gone to Farage and Reform UK.

If we were to believe that instead of Reform UK, Restore Britain could win a general election, then we should support them. But no one believes Restore Britain could do that.

Are both Griffin and Collett right? Or are they both wrong? Or should we choose one strategy over the other?

Copyright (c) 2026 Will Wright. For permission to reproduce this post please contact the author through this web site.

Will Wright

Real, serious politics is about winning political power. Serious political movements need to know how to win power. In the Western World, that means knowing how to win a general election, because that is the only way to form a government.

A Mass Movement led by competent professionals

Beware those who believe that British Nationalism could seize power in a military coup d’état. That is a fantasy in any modern developed country. Modern states are just too powerful for an existing regime to be toppled by a rebel army. British military leaders are extremely unlikely to ever want to take charge of the country. In any case, they would not be influenced, even less controlled, by British Nationalist politicians.

If our political Idea can grow into a mass movement, and build an election-winning political party, then that is how political revolutions happen in the modern world.

Successful movements win over the masses, but they cannot do that without also winning over large numbers of competent professional people. British Nationalism needs to be a truly classless movement.

Intelligent, capable, professional types can build and run a political party. They can create and develop strategies to win power.

But there is no point winning political power if you do not know what you want to do with it. Political thinkers need to develop an all-embracing political ideology. But then practical politicians need to turn the ideology into workable policies.

All of the above ought to be obvious. But it seems that it is not.

Fantasists

Some British Nationalists think that if they just go on pottering about, in their amateurish way, then one day the political tide will miraculously change in our favour, and we will be swept to power by the forces of Destiny. That will never happen. Destiny favours those who work extremely hard, and intelligently, towards their goals.

There are some people who do not want power – they want to influence those who currently hold power. But if you want to influence the politicians in power, then you still need some form of power yourself. That could include a very well thought out new political Idea – put across very persuasively by expert propagandists. It might involve having a very large, and very active, mass movement. Politicians keep a watchful eye on mass movements that could threaten their own powerbase. And influence might include having lots of money.

But if you have not got a persuasive set of ideas, nor a mass movement, nor huge amounts of money, then you are very unlikely to have any influence at all.

There is something else to consider too. Those who only want ‘influence’, rather than power, are ranked much lower than those types who want power. That is the natural order of things.

The secretive nature of corrupted power

Some types very much want political power. But it is just that they do not want to be public figures. They do not want to be campaigning politicians, or government ministers. Those people with colossal amounts of wealth use some of that wealth to control corrupt political parties. That is not simply ‘influence’. It usually means calling the tune. Because ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’.

Billionaires, who have never been elected to power, can never be thrown out by the electorate. They believe that they can buy whichever political party is in power. Only a new movement with a firm purpose, and a comprehensive ideology, can rout such types.

But people who have no powerbase of their own will never successfully challenge for government power. Nationalists need good ideas, good quality people, and a mass movement, to be able to challenge those who rule from the shadows. Even then, British Nationalism still needs an election winning mentality and a political party with a successful election strategy that takes winning political power seriously.

Beware losers!

There is unmistakeably something wrong with people who continually lose at life. They might have a bad attitude. They might be of very low intelligence. They might attract recurrent bad luck. But successful people shun such types. Bad luck is infectious.

Those who have bad luck need to recognise what they are doing wrong, and strive to achieve permanent change.

Groups which publicly appeal to nationalist sentiments, but are not set up to fight elections, are very likely a waste of time. Even a mass movement does not hurt the Establishment parties, unless it is taking large numbers of votes from them. Then it begins to hurt them.

A movement that makes a lot of noise, but does not hurt the Establishment, can become a safety value for the building pressure of public opinion. That can actually help the Establishment parties stay in power.

It could be argued that UKIP influenced the Conservatives to allow an In-Out EU referendum. But that probably would not have happened if UKIP had not won nearly four million votes from established parties.

A mass movement can, should and must, educate the public about politics. But to be truly effective it must start winning votes, as a political party – and eventually, start winning elections.

Sometimes, small political parties fight a token election campaign. They register a candidate, but do no electioneering, and then receive a very poor vote. Sometimes they do not even attend the election count. That is amateurish. Nationalists need to up their game – if they are serious about winning elections. If they are serious about winning political power. If they are serious about winning back our country!

Copyright (c) 2023 Will Wright. For permission to reproduce this post please contact the author through this web site.

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