The British Democratic Party (BDP) was a short-lived far-right political party in the United Kingdom. A breakaway group from the National Front, the BDP was severely damaged after it became involved in a gun-running sting and was absorbed by the British National Party. Formation and naming controversy The BDP emerged following the 1979 general election in which the National Front (NF) had put up the greatest number of candidates in its history. However, despite this results fell way below the party's expectations. 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. Within the NF, the Leicester branch had become one of the most active in the country and, since 1972, this group had been led by Anthony Reed Herbert, a local solicitor whose talent for organisation had made Leicester a model branch. Reed Herbert took the opportunity provided by the 1979 collapse of the NF to launch his own group, initially selecting the name British Peoples Party. 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. The name was thus changed to British Democratic Party even though a British Democratic Party, a minor right wing anti-communist group, had also previously existed in the 1930s. 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. Effectively therefore the BDP sought to present a more "respectable" public image in contrast to that of the NF. Development The BDP quickly gained a following within Leicester, capturing 11% of the vote in the first local elections it contested, a highly respectable score for a new and virtually unknown party. 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. Although never formally a member of the BDP Hill, on instructions from Searchlight, took a leading role in helping Reed Herbert to organise the new