Trump’s ‘Thatcher Effect’: Obstacle to White Nationalism?

“While anti-fascists had eroded the organisational capacity of the National Front in the late 1970s, Margaret Thatcher had stolen their ideological clothing. As prime minister, she had successfully held together a coalition of support with her blend of jingoism and watered-down Powellism.
Daniel Trilling, Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain’s Far Right (2012)
A rising White Nationalist movement that is somehow stunted in what should be its greatest moment of opportunity. A politically incorrect candidate for office, seemingly unafraid to discuss immigration, and who uses controversial rhetoric touching on race to attract mass support and move victoriously into government. An anti-fascist and left-liberal coalition driven to apoplexy by the repeated intrusion of “racist” arguments and ideas into the national discourse. And a mass influx of coloured migration that somehow continues unabated, perhaps even getting worse. This would be a useful and accurate summary of Donald Trump’s first term in office, which continues to frustrate and confuse those looking for tangible results. As discussions continue on Trump’s putative utility for the anti-immigration cause and on the alternative possibilities of “accelerationism” under a radical left-wing Democrat government, the following essay attempts to offer some advice and lessons from history — a relatively recent history, and one in which all of the important aspects of the Trump phenomenon listed above can be clearly seen. As will be demonstrated from the example of Margaret Thatcher and Britain’s National Front, it is argued here that Trump is an obstacle, and not the way, to the advancement of the Dissident Right.
A Movement on the Rise
The years 2014–16 may in some sense be regarded as a watershed in the recent history of Dissident Right ideas in the United States, and yet they were truly dwarfed by the progress of the Dissident Right in 1970s Britain. Founded in 1967 from a union of the British National Party and the League of Empire Loyalists (and later, the Greater Britain Movement), the National Front was a vehicle for racial thinking and anti-immigration viewpoints at a time when Britain was being swamped by successive floods of coloured migrants from former British colonies. Much like today’s political context, there was a relative neglect of immigration and race-related issues by the mainstream political parties. In yet another important similarity, British industry was beginning to undergo dramatic changes, with the emergence of increasingly troubled and alienated classes of Whites forced to live alongside growing Black and Pakistani enclaves. Simmering inter-racial tensions were being managed, barely, via the gagging of Whites under an increasing number of “race relations” laws, devised almost exclusively by a body of Jewish lawyers. The National Front was able to exploit this context and force its way into the political arena, taking voters from both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party throughout the 1970s.[1] During the period 1972 to 1974, the Front boasted an active and paying membership somewhere between 14,000 and 20,000, and achieved advancement during local elections in 1973, 1976, and 1977. Its electoral influence has been described by scholars as “significant,”[2] and its cultural impact was such that every voter in Britain knew exactly what the movement was, as well as the basic thrust of its ideological trajectory. It was a movement on the rise, and confidence was high. Read more













