Richard Lawson

Richard Lawson has been a member of various British fascist groups in the United Kingdom. He has been a member of the Odinic Rite, a neopagan organization. Julius Evola is said to serve as his principle intellectual and ideological inspiration.

Life

Lawson was the Student Organiser for the British National Front. In 1976 he was part of the Strasserite split away from the NF which formed the National Party. He founded the NF-affiliated IONA (Islands of North Atlantic) group in the mid 80s for the purpose of "the study, revival, promotion and development of the islands of the North Atlantic". Presnting itself as an intellectual elite concerned with British culture and environment, it was closely linked to the magazine Scorpion. IONA has subsequently been characterised as a National Socialist group. .

"Joining the NF while still at Grammar School in Plymouth, Richard Lawson rose quickly in the organisation in the early 70s. to become the joint editor of the then NF newspaper Britain First. (His co-editor was Dave McCalden, later to become a leading 'revisionist'). Under Lawson and McCalden, the NF's propaganda became both more overtly anti-semitic (a series called 'The Nation Wreckers' sought to expose the Jewish nature of opposition to the NF) and more 'left-wing' in tone, as the two young men sought to attract trade unionists by anti-capitalist rhetoric and calls for 'British jobs for British workers'. After the major split in the NF which occurred in 1975 - during which Lawson was accused by Richard Verrall of being a 'Racial Trotskyite' – Lawson joined Kingsley Read, Roy Painter and others in the split which led to the setting up of the National Party. Lawson continued at the helm of Britain First (which transferred with him), until both he and the party disappeared from view. Lawson re-emerged in the early '80s, as editor of Heritage and Destiny, one of the journals that sought to promote Strasserite and ruralist ideas, associated with the Italian 'Third Position'. He was a key figure in the Strasserite take over of the NF and at its 1984 AGM co-sponsored a motion on England's heritage. His co-sponsor, Michael Walker, safe housed Italian terrorist Roberto Fiore. Lawson now lives in South London."

Lawson contributed articles to Michael Walker's Scorpion magazine, as well as co-organising at least one conference with the publication. In 1989 Lawson was involved with setting up the Transeuropa Collective to discuss "European identities, autonomies and initiatives". Transeuropa published ten issues of a journal titled Perspectives. The magazine was criticised by Ziono-communist magazine Searchlight for being part of the green movement and anti-Semitism.. Here & Now magazine's review stated that Perspectives "says 'Green' but means 'White'" .

In 1995 Lawson launched the Fluxeuropa website as "A postmodernist cultural review of art, books, films and music focusing on the creative tension between tradition and modernity." Around this time, he also became involved with Alternative Green magazine along with Troy Southgate. In 1997 Transeuropa launched a new magazine called Radical Shift. in 1999, Richard Lawson was best man at Anthony "Tony" Charles Wakeford's (musician; Death in June, Above The Ruins, Sol Invictus) wedding, which also included guests like Patrick Harrington and National Socialist Movement leader Tony Williams.

Quotes

• "For me, the assertion of an ethnic and cultural identity is in the forefront of the struggle against the dehumanisation of modern life." – in: "The Scorpion", # 12, Winter 1988/9, p. 9

Writings (selection)

• Nationalism, Racialism and Early British Socialism, 1980