The recriminations that followed this financially costly defeat saw Andrew Brons replace John Tyndall as chairman whilst a number of groups broke away from the NF, notably the New National Front and the Constitutional Movement.
However, the name was quickly changed in order to avoid association with the earlier British People's Party, a splinter group from the National Socialist League, organised either side of the Second World War.
[5] The BDP shared with the Constitutional Movement a desire to move away from open neo-Nazism in general and Tyndall and Martin Webster in particular, with Reed Herbert reasoning that a stream of press exposures of the more extreme views of both men had hit the NF's election chances hard.
[6] However the British Movement's Ray Hill also became involved and, after giving a copy of the party's membership list to Searchlight magazine, soon began secretly working for the anti-fascist publication full-time.
[13] BDP member John Grand Scrutton was chosen to ferry the weapon, a luger pistol, to a secret location arranged in advance with 'Matthews' before phoning the American to let him know more details.
The resulting phone call, in which Scrutton suggested that the BDP could get hold of six more guns and told 'Matthews' to send payments to Reed Herbert's address, was recorded by World in Action and broadcast on the show.
[21] Nonetheless, the gun-running incident forced the BDP to cease almost all operations, and it came as little surprise when it was brought to a conclusion in 1982 by re-joining Tyndall and Hill as founder members of the British National Party.