National Liberal Party (UK, 1999)

National Liberal Party
FoundedMarch 1999
Ideology
Political positionFar-right
Colours
Website
http://nationalliberal.org/

The National Liberal Party is a far right political party formed in the United Kingdom in 1999 with several former National Front activists as its most prominent members. Graham Williamson is listed as Nominating Officer and Upkar Singh Rai is listed as Leader and Treasurer. It has a number of ballot paper descriptions authorised by the Electoral Commission including: 'National Liberal Party – The Radical Centre' and 'National Liberal Party – Liberty, Independence, Democracy'. The group sporadically contested elections until emerging more prominently in the run-up to the 2014 European Parliament election, where it fielded eight candidates for the London constituency, but failed to meet the threshold of votes for its first list-candidate to be elected.

Background

The National Liberal Party was founded by Graham Williamson and Patrick Harrington. It appeals for ethnic minority votes by focusing on national struggles abroad, with particular emphasis on injustices in Sri Lanka and India.

The party ran in the 2010 general election, contesting the Eastleigh seat. Its candidate, Keith Lowe, ran a campaign criticising the sitting MP Chris Huhne for his failure to support a referendum for the public to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon. During the election, the presence of several former National Front (NF) members in prominent positions was raised in the local press, although the general secretary, David Durant – himself a former NF member – said that the party belonged to the "patriotic centre".

Despite the far-right and fascist backgrounds of its leaders, the party fielded eight candidates for the 2014 European Parliament election in London, on a multicultural election list including Tamil, Sikh and Kurdish candidates. The party manifesto gave no indication of its far-right origins. It said, "The National Liberal Party is putting forward a team of 8 ethnically and racially diverse candidates – Tamil, Sikh, Azerbaijan, Kurdish, English, north Borneo (Sabah-Sarawak), to represent the real grassroots London." One of the group's candidates, Yussuf Anwar, appeared on BBC's Daily Politics and declared himself proud of Graham Williamson, arguing that his NF membership was a youthful mistake.

Criticism from the extreme right

Following revelations about the party's origins by Channel 4, the NLP was pilloried in Heritage and Destiny, a longstanding periodical closely linked to several groups including the nationalist, frequently neo-fascist and anti-Semitic International Third Position. The article focused on the party's website which named its political progenitors as the Earl of Rosebery, Joseph Chamberlain and Leslie Hore-Belisha and criticised the establishment Jewish links of all except Chamberlain as well as the perceived lack of ideological connection between the three and even the poor spelling of their names.[better source needed]

Elections contested

Parliamentary elections

General election, 6 May 2010

Constituency Candidate Votes %
Eastleigh Keith Low 93 0.2

General election, 7 May 2015

Constituency Candidate Votes %
Ealing, Southall Jagdeesh Singh 461 1.1
Ruislip, Northwood & Pinner Sockalingam Yogalingam 166 0.3

European Parliament elections

2014 European elections

Regional lists Candidates Votes % MEPs
London Graham Williamson
Jagdeesh Singh
Sockalingam Yogalingam
Doris Jones
Upkar Singh Rai
Yussef Anwar
Araz Yurdseven
Bernard Dube
6,736 0.3 0

London Assembly elections

2021 London Assembly election

List Candidates Votes % AMs
London-wide list Upkar Rai
Arunasalam Rajalingam
Faisal Maramazi
Araz Yurdseven
Ponniah Yogaraja
2,860 0.1 0

This page was last updated at 2023-11-30 05:53 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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