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For the earlier party by the same name, see National Party (UK, 1917).

The National Party was a short-lived British far right political party. This splinter group of the National Front, formed on January 6, 1976, came about as a result of a dispute within the NF between John Kingsley Read and John Tyndall.

Kingsley Read had become leader of the NF in 1974 and had moved the party towards more a populist platform. Tyndall, however, refused to accept the result and went to court in order to get it overturned, whilst also leading opposition to the new leadership from within the party. After initially remaining as leader the embattled Kingsley Read decided to break from the NF altogether and formed the National Party with other leading NF members. In all around 2000 members, or one fifth of the NF's total, joined the new party, which thus represented a considerable loss of support.^[1] Seeking a less confrontational solution to immigration than the NF, the NP adopted a more populist and neo-Imperialist approach and totally rejected the perceived sympathies which the rival NF faction under the leadership of Tyndall had towards the Nazis. The NP became the first British political party to advocate a policy of privatization of public utilities (even prior to the Conservative Party), which it termed de-nationalization.^{[citation needed]}

Essentially the party was a gathering place for all those who had flocked to the NF after the actions of Enoch Powell but who had found the NF too extreme. Initially the party looked poised for success, and in local elections of 1976 it had two councillors elected in Blackburn, Lancashire.^[2] A party journal, Britain First, was published for a while, but the NP did not last long, largely because the party had been formed out of disillusioned NF members, most of whom were former Tories who returned to the Conservative fold after Margaret Thatcher became leader. Alongside this tendency, a minority of members were Strasserites, who had also split from the NF due to clashes with Tyndall. These ideological differences, which had largely united the two, otherwise disparate, wings against the leadership of John Tyndall soon proved too deep to be housed within one group and, combined with personality and financial differences, the party fell apart ^[3].

During its early days the NP, largely as a result of the high regard in which Kingsley Read was held, attracted a number of leading figures from the far right scene to its ranks. These included:

• David McCalden, a former NF writer who later emigrated to the United States where he was a founder of the Institute for Historical Review.
• Richard Lawson, editor of Britain First and later associated with the Official National Front.
• Alan Harvey, who subsequently emigrated to South Africa where he edited the magazine S.A.Patriot and now organises the Springbok Club.
• Roy Painter, a leading Conservative Party member from Enfield.
• Paul Kingsley, now a lecturer at the University of Ulster.
• Anthony Hancock, a former British Movement member who was widely regarded as the leading publisher of far right material in the 1970s in Britain (he and his father Alan Hancock owning a prinitng firm),.
• Richard "Jock" Spooner, who emigrated to Australia where he became a leading activist in the One Nation Party.
• Denis Pirie, a veteran of the National Socialist Movement who was later involved in Martin Webster's One Nation.
• Steve Brady, an influential figure in Loyalist circles in Northern Ireland as well as the League of Saint George.^[4]

The party should not be confused with the Nationalist Party which, although having similar roots to the National Party, was an alternative name for the Constitutional Movement of Andrew Fountaine. Similarly it had no connection to the National Party which briefly emerged from the National Fellowship.

Given that its brief history fell between two general elections the NP only ever contested three by-elections for Westminster seats. In each of the three elections the NP finished behind the NF candidates, namely Andrew Fountaine, Joseph Parker and Paul Kavanagh respectively.

• S. Taylor, The National Front in English Politics, London: Macmillan, 1982
• M. Walker, The National Front, Glasgow: Fontana Collins, 1977