The National Front (NF) was a far-right, openly racist organisation formed as an alliance of several small, far-right groups operating on the fringes of British politics in the 1960s, including the British National Party and the League of Empire Loyalists.
The group formed in 1968, the year that the Special Demonstration Squad was founded. Historians look back on 1968 as a significant year for the left, but it was also a significant year for the right; Enoch Powell gave his infamous Rivers of Blood speech that year.
However, the NF was most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s, when it organised marches and fielded candidates in local and national elections.
Never a focus for SDS monitoring, the NF concerned many anti-fascist groups that the SDS infiltrated and reported on. HN303 ‘Peter Collins’ was asked to spy on the NF – not by the Metropolitan Police but by the Workers Revolutionary Party, the left-wing group that the SDS had sent Collins to infiltrate.
Documents published by the Inquiry relating to the NF highlight SDS interest in anti-fascist groups, revealing little sustained police concern about the far-right group itself.