John O'Brien (20 January 1922 – 21 September 1982) was a leading figure on the far right of British politics during the early 1970s. John O'Brien was born in Shropshire in 1922. He was educated at St. Peter's College in Birmingham before beginning work as a publicity copywriter and served for five years in the REME during the Second World War. After the war, he spent some time in industry before returning to Shropshire where he ran his own horticultural business. A fruit farmer by trade, O'Brien had initially been a member of the Conservative Party in Shrewsbury. A supporter of Enoch Powell, he attempted to organise a 'Powell for Premier' movement following the Rivers of Blood speech. When this failed to get off the ground he briefly joined the National Democratic Party before emerging as a member of the National Front. O'Brien gained a reputation for working towards unity on the far right, establishing contacts not only with the NDP, but also the Monday Club, the Union Movement, the Integralists led by white Russian George Knuppfer and a number of local anti-immigration groups, with the NF ultimately absorbing a number of such groups. Following internal wranglings within the party, O'Brien was appointed leader of the NF in 1970, following the resignation and removal of A. K. Chesterton (who had brought O'Brien in to be NF Office Manager). Initially seen as a compromise candidate (after the rebellion against Chesterton, no one was willing to take the post), he soon set about trying to modernise the party and clashed with John Tyndall and Martin Webster over the issue, who had backed the O'Brien candidacy because they thought erroneously that he could be easily manipulated. The simmering conflict came to a head when O'Brien accused Webster of working with the Northern League, which had been proscribed in the NF. O'Brien moved to expel Webster but failed to get Tyndall's backing leading to open conflict. During the resulting struggle O'Brien briefly departed from the scene to go on honeymoon and during his absence the pro-Tyndall contingent made moves to expel a number of his supporters. O'Brien and his supporters, appalled at the extent to which a small neo-Nazi clique around Tyndall had taken over most of the facets of the party, failed to win the struggle and left to join John Davis' National Independence Party as a group. Although the NIP initially looked