Derek Beackon - Later BNP Activism

Later BNP Activism

Beackon's profile fell away somewhat after his election defeat as the BNP failed to capitalise on their breakthrough. He remained loyal to Eddy Butler, who had fallen out of favour with John Tyndall, and was interviewed for the first issue of The Patriot, a dissident journal within the party associated with Butler, Lecomber, Michael Newland, Steve Smith and others on the party's 'modernising' wing, all of whom would go on to back Nick Griffin in his ultimately successful challenge to Tyndall's leadership. Indeed Beackon appeared in Moving On, Moving Up, a glossy brochure produced by Griffin during his leadership campaign, endorsing the former Political Soldier for the BNP leadership.

Despite this support Beackon remained a peripheral figure within the BNP under Griffin's leadership and before long he fell in with the group of anti-Griffin activists around John Tyndall. His eulogy to Tyndall was one of the few written by an active BNP member to appear in the final issue of Spearhead, released immediately following Tyndall's death. Still nominally a member of the BNP he has become associated with the 'Friends of John Tyndall', an informal anti-Griffin group largely controlled by Richard Edmonds and John Morse in attending a speech by Valerie Tyndall which they had organised in July 2007. The event included stalls by a number of political parties, although these were limited to the National Front, England First Party and the British Peoples Party, with the BNP not participating.