a working committee to determine what policies they could agree on. The committee's initial policy platform revolved around opposition to Britain's political establishment, anti-communism, support for the white minority governments in Rhodesia and South Africa, a ban on migration into Britain and the expulsion of all settled non-white immigrants. They considered various names for the new party, before settling on "National Front" in December 1966. The National Front (NF) was founded on 7 February 1967, with Chesterton its first chairman. At the time it had approximately 2,500 members, of whom 1,000 were from the BNP, 300 from the LEL and over 100 from the RPS. The historian Richard Thurlow described the NF's formation as "the most significant event on the radical right and fascist fringe of British politics" since the internment of the country's fascists during the Second World War. Early growth: 1968–1972 The NF's first year was marked by a power struggle between the ex-LEL and ex-BNP factions. The former were unhappy with the behaviour of ex-BNP members, such as their propensity for political chanting, while the ex-BNP faction criticised Chesterton's elitist pretensions. At the invitation of the ex-BNP faction, in June 1967, Tyndall discontinued the GBM and called on its members to join the NF. Despite his own earlier commitment to keep Tyndall out, Chesterton welcomed him into the party. Tyndall's magazine, Spearhead—originally sold as "an organ of National Socialist [i.e. Nazi] opinion in Britain"—dropped its open neo-Nazism and backed the NF, eventually becoming the party's de facto monthly magazine. The party held its first annual conference in October 1967; it was picketed by anti-fascists. In 1968, Chesterton's leadership was unsuccessfully challenged by Fountaine, who then left the party. There were further internal arguments after its lease on its Westminster headquarters ended. Ex-LEL members wanted another base in central London, while the ex-GBM and ex-BNP factions favoured moving into the GBM's old headquarters in Tulse Hill. Chesterton backed the ex-LEL position, and offered a small office in Fleet Street. In April 1968, immigration became the foremost political topic in the national media after the Conservative Party politician Enoch Powell made his Rivers of Blood speech, an appeal against non-white immigration into Britain. Although Powell proposed more moderate measures for expelling migrants than the NF, his use of language was similar to theirs, and some individuals on the right-wing of the Conservatives defected to the NF. The NF fielded