and other members appear to have joined the Nationalist Party. A Granada TV World in Action investigative documentary in 1976 exposed the pro-Nazi views of Kingsley Read and others despite the fact that one of the reasons Kingsley Read had left the National Front was because of the neo-Nazi backgrounds of some of its members. Kingsley Read later recanted his far right views and re-joined the Conservative Party. Searchlight magazine claimed that he had given them the entire membership list of the party. In 1979, Andrew Fountaine lead a similar breakaway movement in contempt of the Nazi connections of the National Front, called the Constitutional Movement. However, after little electoral success, it disbanded in 1984. Leading members The NP attracted a number of leading figures from the NF/far right to its ranks. These included: Gordon Brown of the Greater Britain Movement Richard Lawson, editor of Britain First and later associated with the Official National Front and a leading exponent of British folk music. David McCalden, a former NF writer who later emigrated to the United States where he became a co-founder of a Holocaust denial organization the Institute for Historical Review. Roy Painter, a Conservative Party member from Enfield. Denis Pirie, a veteran of the National Socialist Movement, though he later distanced himself from his extremist past. Other members of note included Steve Brady, an influential figure in Loyalist circles in Northern Ireland, a member of the Orange Order, and mainstay of the far right. Richard "Jock" Spooner, who emigrated to Australia where he became a leading activist in the One Nation Party. Robert Hallman, leader of the Blackburn branch of the NP. Hallman stood unsuccessfully for a By-election on Blackburn council in 1976. He was later arrested for possession of a firearm. John Frankman, was elected to Blackburn council alongside Kingsley Read at the 1976 United Kingdom local elections. He was forced to resign as a councillor after it emerged he had had a suspended prison sentence for driving without insurance. National Party elections Given that its brief history mainly fell between two general elections the NP only contested three by-elections for Westminster seats. In each of the three elections the NPUK finished behind the NF candidates, namely Andrew Fountaine, Joseph Parker and Paul Kavanagh respectively. 1977 Greater London Council election Footnotes References A. Sykes, The Radical Right in Britain Palgrave, 2005 S. Taylor, The National Front in English