Colin Jordan
John Colin Campbell Jordan (19 June 1923 – 9 April 2009) was a British National Socialist involved in various organisations, such as the World Union of National Socialists, the National Socialist Movement (UK, 1962), and the British Movement.
Life
Early life
The son of a lecturer, Percy Jordan, and a teacher, Bertha Jordan, Jordan was educated at Warwick School from 1934 to 1942. During the Second World War he attempted to enlist in the Fleet Air Arm and the RAF but after failing the tests for both he enlisted in the Royal Army Educational Corps. After being demobilised in 1946 he studied at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, graduating in 1949 with second class honours in history. The same year he became a teacher at Stoke Secondary Modern Boys School, Coventry, where he taught mathematics. In 1953 he received his M.A.
At Cambridge Jordan had formed a Nationalist Club, from where he was invited to join the short-lived British People's Party, a group of former British Union of Fascists members led by Lord Tavistock, heir to the Duke of Bedford. Jordan soon became associated with Arnold Leese and was left a property in Leese's will. This became the Notting Hill base of operations when Jordan launched the White Defence League in 1956. Jordan would later merge this party with the National Labour Party to form the British National Party in 1960, although he split from it after a quarrel with John Bean, who was opposed to Jordan's advocacy of National Socialism.
Leading activist
In 1962, Jordan founded the National Socialist Movement (renamed the British Movement in 1968) with John Tyndall as his deputy. In August 1962, Jordan hosted an international conference in Gloucestershire resulting in the formation of the World Union of National Socialists (of which Jordan was the commander of its European section throughout the 1960s). On 16 August Jordan and Tyndall, together with Martin Webster, Denis Pirie and Roland Kerr-Ritchie, were charged under the Public Order Act 1936 with attempting to set up a paramilitary force called the Spearhead. Jordan was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment in October 1962.
In October 1963, while John Tyndall was still in prison, Jordan, who had just been released, married Tyndall's fiancée, Françoise Dior. When Tyndall was eventually released, he split with Jordan in 1964 to form the Greater Britain Movement. Jordan's marriage to Dior proved short-lived though, and she announced the couple's separation in January 1964.
On 25 January 1967, Jordan was sentenced to eighteen months in prison at Devon Assizes in Exeter for breaking the Race Relations Act 1965 by circulating anti-immigration material. In September 1972, Jordan was fined for disorderly behaviour at Heathrow Airport, after protesting against the arrival of Indians into Britain.
Later life
In the 1980s, Jordan revived Gothic Ripples, originally Leese's publication, as his personal political project.
Jordan remained a voice amongst nationalist groups until his death, though in his latter years he was not officially affiliated with any party. In 2000, he expressed scepticism over the efforts of the British National Party to soften its hard right stance.
Death
Jordan and Julianne Safrany became life partners at some point after his divorce from Dior. The two were still together when Jordan died at his Pateley Bridge home on 9 April 2009.
Works
- The Coloured Invasion (1967)
- Merrie England - 2,000 (1993)
- National Socialism: Vanguard of the Future, Selected Writings of Colin Jordan (1993)
- The Way Ahead (1999)
- The Uprising (2004)
