Seeking a return to Calvinism as the basis of South Africa, the party advocated complete racial segregation and the adoption of Afrikaans as the only official language.

[11] The HNP captured 3.3% of the vote in the 1977 general election before increasing to 14.1% in 1981 as right wing disenchantment with the NP grew, but on no occasion did it win any seats[12] and its newly acquired voters soon shifted their support to the Conservative Party.

[14] Under the leadership of Jaap Marais, the former deputy leader who replaced the retiring Hertzog in 1977,[15] the party emerged as a force amongst white South Africans.

From 1987, the CP captured the role of official opposition under Treurnicht with strong support from Afrikaner voters and so the electoral basis for the HNP was drained.

The HNP effectively remained the chief voice of the uncompromising far-right, however, particularly in 1989 when both the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and the Boerestaat Party declared their support for Marais over Treurnicht, who despite his stances was considered a pragmatic opportunist, with a long background in the NP under Vorster's and Botha's leadership.

[24] On the international stage, the HNP built up a number of contacts with far-right groups in Europe and for a time during the 1980s it was responsible for funding the United Kingdom-based League of Saint George.

[26] Between 1980 and 1987 the party bankrolled the English-speaking far-right journal South African Patriot, edited by SANF members John Hiddleston and then Alan Harvey.

The HNP joined the Afrikaner Volksfront of General Constand Viljoen in 1991, but the front collapsed in 1994 when many of the members refused to participate in South Africa's first non-racial elections.

[citation needed] It re-emerged in 2004, when the party lodged an official complaint against the SABC 3 television channel when it broadcast a play entitled ID, which satirised the killing of Hendrik Verwoerd.

When founded, the HNP emphasised above all its Afrikaner identity, attacking immigration, seeking to downgrade the importance of the English language, and endorsing apartheid.

The party also launched an attack on the materialism that it felt was taking over South African society and thus sought to present itself as the voice of working class Afrikaners.