National Independence Party (UK) - Development

Development

The party was found by John Davis who had previously been an ally of Andrew Fountaine before establishing his own group in the late 1960s. Davis was a well-established friend of John O'Brien and when the latter became NF chairman in 1970 co-operation between the two parties increased, as was evidenced by the role Davis played in convincing the National Democratic Party to drop their candidate for the St Marylebone by-election and instead campaign on behalf of the NF's Malcolm Skeggs.

The close work between the NIP and NF came to an end when John Tyndall took charge of the latter. However the struggle to gain the leadership had proven divisive and the NIP's ranks were swollen by the defection of O'Brien and his supporters away from the NF. The overall impact was not great however as Tyndall and Martin Webster were able to use Spearhead to successfully portray O'Brien as merely a tool of an establishment determined to smash the NF whilst the NIP was little known in comparison to the NF, meaning that some NF members who sympathised with O'Brien were nevertheless not prepared to switch sides. Nonetheless Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett, a leading opponent of the Common Market, was amongst the figures to at least temporarily make the NIP the focus of his patronage following O'Brien's defection.