[1] Wallace Lawler was a prominent local Liberal councillor who campaigned for a hard line immigration policy in the aftermath of Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech.
[5] In Doris Fisher, Dr. Louis Glass and Wallace Lawler the three major parties all picked candidates who were members of the local council.
[6] Lawler, however, had a strong reputation for campaigning in the area, having previously used issues raised by the television drama Cathy Come Home (1966) to highlight poverty in the area,[7] organised a petition to protest against increases in electricity prices[8] and arranged a protest demonstration of mainly Birmingham pensioners to travel to London to hand in letters and petitions at 10 Downing Street.
[10] Colin Jordan ran as a candidate for the far right British Movement and, with Ray Hill as his election agent, their campaign, in which their literature attacked Jews and immigrants and proclaimed loyalty to Nazism, led to some violent scuffles with opponents.
[11] Although Jordan finished a distant fourth the result was frequently cited by those who advocated Nazi orthodoxy on the far right as the British Movement won 282 votes (3% share), despite openly wearing swastika insignia and featuring Adolf Hitler's image on their literature.