Fortnight Publications Ltd.

The National Front and the Ulster ConnectionAuthor(s): Cathy JohnsonSource: Fortnight, No. 242 (Jul. 7 - Sep. 7, 1986), pp. 7-9Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25550917 .

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THE NATIONAL FRONT AND

THE ULSTER CONNECTION What is the relationship between loyalist paramilitary groups in the North and fascist organisations? CATHY JOHNSON writes that both the UVF and the UDA have links with extreme right-wing groups and claims the relationship has grown closer since the Anglo-Irish Agree

ment was signed. IN THE months following loyalist opposi tion to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the

disappearance of Peter Denby, former aide to Enoch Powell and prominent London

solicitor, has raised fresh speculation about National Front involvement in the ranks of the loyalist paramilitaries. Detail ed analysis of National Front activity both in Northern Ireland and in Britain reveals that there has been a fluid and many faceted relationship between the UVF, the

UDA and a network of right-wing Euro terror groups.

It is a relationship, however, which in its

early years at least, has been more characterised by bungling incompetence and grand words than by any kind of effec tive intervention.

First evidence of direct fascist links with the UDA came in 1974, in Yorkshire. Three

leading fascists, John Gadd, an NF

member, Roy Forbes, of the Monday Club and UDA Leeds Captain, John Griffiths, were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for

conspiring to supply arms to the UDA. Several years later, following a series of ar rests among Scottish loyalists under in

vestigation for gun-running, loyalist paramilitaries put out a contract on Mar

tin Webster, whom they blamed for infor

ming to the Special Branch. It was around this time that the so-called

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Steve Brady, made his first appearance. Following Brady's career is akin to

unravelling a bowl of spaghetti with box

ing gloves. Brady, a Belfast born Catholic, started his career as a "follower of

Paisley". This affiliation was, however, to be short-lived as he quickly found Paisley too slow for his tastes and joined the UVF.

NAZI TERROR GROUPS Brady soon left Belfast for Britain, where he joined the League of Saint George, ris

ing quickly through the ranks to become International Liaison Officer, while main

taining dual membership with the UVF. At some stage he switched his primary affilia tion from the UVF to the UDA, although he has variously claimed simultaneous

membership of both organisations. Early in 1980 Brady began to develop a

"master plan" to foster links between

European Nazi terrorist groups ahcl the UDA. In May 1980 he sent a detailed let ter to Andy Tyrie, suggesting a number of

organisations with whom the UDA should establish contact. Among these were the Italian Ordine Nuovo whose main ac

tivities, according to Brady, were "machine gunning Red marches, blowing up Red offices, car bombing of Reds, assassination of leading Reds and good clean fun of that sort".

Another of Brady's favourites were

Turkey's Grey Wolves, one of whose ?

members, Ali Agca, was later convicted of

attempting to assassinate the Pope. The

Grey Wolves are a paramilitary youth wing of the MHP, "whose main activity appears to be killing Communists". He further urg ed Tyrie to give some attention to the Vlaamese Militanten Order, an illegal Flemish paramilitary organisation that once backed the Provisional IRA. Brady boasted of his personal friendship with VMO Deputy Commander Roger Spin

newijn, and advised Tyrie that it would be worth transporting the VMO to Belfast and

giving them hard evidence of "Marxist

rantings in Provo papers". Brady ended his letter by renewing a previously given pro

mise to write anti-Communist articles for Ulster? the UDA's magazine.

For the next two years Brady maintain ed on-off contact with a wary Tyrie. In deed in June 1982 he made an all-expenses paid trip to Belfast to brief UDA officers on the contacts he had already establish ed and the best way for them to go about

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National Front member Steve Brady

establishing relations with them. His visit followed raids on the UDA's offices and the arrest of, among others, Andy Tyrie.

GUN-RUNNING Almost exactly one year later, on 11 April

1983, Joe Bennett and another 14 members of the UVF were jailed for a total of 200

years. Bennett, who had turned

supergrass, told the court that UVF members had travelled to Belgium to ar

range a massive purchase of weapons from none other than the VMO. Bennett and another UVF member had, according to

Bennett, travelled to Antwerp. There they met VMO Commander Albert Eriksson at his bar, the Cafe Odal, a meeting place for

Belgian Nazis. The deal was simple: the VMO would provide ?50,000 worth of

guns with a free offer of explosives on con dition that the UVF began a campaign of bomb attacks against Jewish targets in Bri tain. The following Christmas, represen tatives of the VMO travelled to Belfast for further talks. The deal eventually fell

through, but VMO activists did go to Belfast later for training in bomb making and explosives.

Eriksson and Spinnewijn have both con firmed that they did meet the UVF in Ant

werp and that they did travel to Belfast. When questioned about Brady's work with

the UDA Spinnewijn replied, "yes I knew at the time Steve Brady mentioned us in a

Fortnight 7th July 1986 7

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Fascist link continued from page 7

letter to the UDA." Given Brady's claims of joint membership of both the UDA and the UVF, such events are unsurprising. In

deed, the singular point of these exchanges would seem to be their lack of success.

Home-grown or Orange fascism has

possibly more sinister and long term im

plications than National Front imports. Although the NF has boasted of

establishing a number of branches in Nor thern Ireland these claims seem to be ex

aggerated. They have at least one full-time

organiser, Jim Morrison, with another

organiser, Andy White, who devotes much of his time to the organisation in Larne and there are several small branches in the east of the province and in Belfast.

NF PROPAGANDA One local NF-linked publication is worthy of mention. The Ulster Sentinel which first

appeared in 1977, "is dedicated to the cause of World White Solidarity and Na tional Revival. We support the White

Solidarity Movement and the League of Saint George in their efforts for this cause". The Sentinel is published by the

pseudonymous Keith White at PO Box 3, Newtownabbey BT37 9ER.

In 1985 White openly admitted to bor

rowing art work and slogans from English National Front recruiting leaflets, saying he was originally "critical of the National Front as it was then led by a bunch of ultra

Tories, sexual perverts and egotistical neo Nazi cultists. This is no longer the case.

We feel free to applaud anyone who ge nuinely seeks to promote Ulster's cause."

At the same time he disclaims any connec tion with the ubiquitous Steve Brady,

which is strange as they were both members of the League of St George in

1978.

Alongside confused articles about the

growth of Ulster Nationalism is informa tion about international fascist groups such as the United Nationalist Movement of Hellas (a Greek paramilitary group) and the Ku Klux Klan. Local links are surpris ing. One recent article on the Flags and

Emblems Act was credited to the North Belfast Independent Unionist Association, while a self-styled column "Backchat" had items on the Animal Rights Movement and a nasty little piece of Anti-Semitism,

written by "D. MaCara."

The North Belfast Independent Unionist Association is headed by one-time Ulster

Vanguard stalwart and present day mainstay of the Lord's Day Observance

Society, Nelson McCausland. His agent in several bids for a seat on Belfast City

Council was one Davy Kerr who first came to public attention by making off with a Sinn Fein tricolour during an election

campaign.

SEAWRIGHT LINKS Belfast councillor George Seawright has also had contacts with the National Front.

Most recently, on St Patrick's Day this year he led a National Front contingent which had come over from England in a counter

march against the traditional Irish National Foresters parade. And early in 1984,

Seawright, in an interview with NF Na tionalism Today said, "Britain has no room for three million or more coloured

immigrants", and that "native-born Britons should have priority in jobs and houses".

i^i^^^S_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_l_^i^^^^^^K -

George Seawright

At the National Front's AGM two months later, a message of goodwill from

Seawright was read out alongside one from Jianu Danieleau of the "Exiled Rumanian

I NORTH DOWN BOROUGH COUNCIL

VISITORS &

HERITAGE CENTRE situated at the rear of the Town Hall, Bangor Castle

CURRENT TEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS

150 Years of Ordnance Survey Maps

Norman Ball?A Bangor inventor

PLUS AWARD-WINNING PERMANENT

DISPLAYS

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NOTICE TO READERS We apologize for being a bit late in getting this issue out. As you can see

from the above cartoon things got somewhat hot in the office recently. But we are back in business, having risen from the ashes, and we would

like to thank all those who offered their help and support following the

fire. We are also pleased and relieved to report that Robert Johnstone, our

resident high-flying poet, is now well on the road to recovery. With this

issue, we now begin our annual summer break. Fortnight will begin

monthly publication in September.

8 Fortnight 7th July 1986

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SUMMER NI6Hf$

Iron Guard". The Iron Guard were notorious butchers who carried out the anti-Jewish genocide programmes of Hitler's SS during the nazi occupation of Eastern Europe.

More recently, of course, Seawright's

younger brother, David, a student in

Glasgow had a charge of conspiracy to fur ther the purposes of the UVF by criminal

means 'not proven' in court. The trial

followed a police raid on a flat in which two sticks of explosives, a revolver hidden in a child's toybox and National Front

recruiting leaflets were found. A man ar rested with Seawright, Steve Martin, a Na tional Front member from Stamford Hill,

London, wept openly as he left the court, overcome with emotion at being freed after it was ruled that there was insufficient evi

dent against him on gun running charges.

POLITICAL SOLDIERS

Current NF involvement in loyalist reac tion to the Anglo-Irish Agreement is con troversial. Beyond controversy, however, is the fact that in recent months the UDA

has begun a recruiting move through the National Front in mainland Britain.

, In Augi^st 1985, two Yorkshire Post

reporters successfully infiltrated the Leeds

branqh of the National Front, traditional

ly regarded as the most active party unit outside London. They found conclusive evidence that the National Front's new direction was drawing it further into links with the UDA, arid that it was attempting to recruit locals to fight as 'political soldiers' with the UDA for an independent

Ulster.

Despite their sometimes comic opera quality, the emerging links have worried at least two Unionist MPs enough to launch their own investigations. Both Official

Unionist leader James Molyneaux and the man most likely to succeed him, Martin

Smyth, have said that they are amassing dossiers on the far right's influence on the

fringes of unionism. Their worries are founded on the fact that at a time when hard-line loyalists find themselves increas

ingly isolated and, in their own terms, misunderstood, the siren calls of people whom they would normally write off as

history's losers have a strangely comfor

ting ring to them. The effect can be in

creasingly seen in UDA publications where myths of racial purity and an ethnic Ulster identity jostle side by side with references to the 'armed party' borrowed

straight from current National Front

ideology.

I11

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Fortnight 7th July 1986 9

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