While the news has been overshadowed somewhat, by some other political party having a leadership election contest, a week or two ago, I took the decision to rejoin my true political home: The British Democrats. 

That’s ‘rejoin’ as opposed to just ‘join’, as the Brit-Dems were my first port-of-call back in 2012 following the effective demise of the British National Party. For the Brit-Dems, I then re-contested my old BNP council seat in Hainaut, East London and got about 8 percent for us in 2014. 

And within this party I would have happily remained, but for the increasing fragmentation of nationalist politics at the time which left many London/Essex activists either persisting with the BNP or dropping out of the struggle altogether. While the presently reinvigorated Brit-Dems are now expanding throughout the country once again, a decade ago the party seemed to have become rather Yorkshire-focused, leaving me to feel a little isolated in my own region. For a few years afterwards then, I did little politically, aside from some campaigning for the Brexit vote. Then Ann-Marie Walters came along with her new For Britain party, and together with Eddy Butler and some other key local people I got on board with that. For Britain, as I saw it, was an attempt to bridge the divide betwixt the old BNP vote and the old UKIP vote, thereby attracting support enough from both elements to find success at the ballot-box. Soon afterwards, thanks in large part to Eddy’s virtuoso campaign organisation skills, I won the seat I currently hold on Epping Forest District Council. On the same night, we enjoyed further success up in Hartlepool and victory at the polls for Cllr Karen King. For various reasons though, that was as good as it got – results-wise. The party failed to progress and was wound-up and dissolved a week or two ago. I’ll make no criticism of Anne-Marie or any For Britain people over this. It just didn’t work out and that’s that. 

With one less party in the equation of Britain’s broadly-defined nationalist movement however, this does bring us one step closer potentially, to the ‘nationalist unity’ everyone talks about but has proven so elusive. The Brit-Dems in my view, are by far the best placed to help achieve this aspiration going forward. In ‘British Democrats’ we have the best party name in patriotic politics, by far the best manifesto of the three parties I’ve been involved in, and an ethos comprised of a strong ideological core, laced with just enough pragmatism to attract a broader public appeal in the longer-term. In the meantime, one of our primary tasks must be to maintain the highest levels of goodwill and cooperation with all of the different groups and individuals who are basically ‘on our side’ as we work toward a realignment of the patriotic movement under a single banner of British resistance. 

I hope you’ll come and join us. 

Cllr Julian Leppert 

British Democrats