Voices of Liberty: Interview with Ian Anderson, 1991 from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.

In and around 1991, David Botsford (d.2013) recorded a series of interviews for a programme that he called “Voices of Liberty”. Those he interviewed included many in the British libertarian movement, together with several prominent critics of libertarianism.

The programme was never made. In December 2007, however, David handed the analogue tapes of the interviews to Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance.

Beyond making a few obvious joins, where interviews span more than one tape, Sean decided not to edit the footage. This means occasional comedy and much dullness. But these are now important video sources from the moment when some thought the libertarian movement was on the point of political breakthrough, but it was really on the verge of decline.

The following is copied verbatim from the comments made by a white nationalist on YouTube ith regard to the present file:

This is Ian Anderson who was chairman of the National Front from 1989 to 1994 and then formed the National Democrats from 1995 to 1999 (from which Simon Darby, Martin and Tina Wingfield, Clive Potter, Sharron and Steve Edwards were active members). Ian Anderson had been in the NF since the 1970s, he had stood for Oxford in the 1974 October General Election gaining 572 votes (1%), Birmingham Northfield by-election 411 votes (0.9) and Newham South 993 votes (3.7%).
In the days when the NF went through organisational problems in the 1980s, the NF had a split in which there was the Flag Group (the basic National Front group) and the International Third Position (the Official National Front). The former is the one today that was led by Martin Wingfield, Ian Anderson and Steve Brady whereas the latter was led by Nick Griffin, Derek Holland and Patrick Harrington which lasted not for very long because Harrington formed the Third Way (aka National Liberal Party) and Griffin and Holland were out of politics; until 1995 when Griffin joined the BNP, became its chairman in 1999 and elected as the BNP’s first ever Member of the European Parliament for the North-West Region in the 2009 European elections.
Ian Anderson led the National Front in opposition to Tyndall’s BNP in the early 1990s from which he perceived as extreme and “neo-Nazi” and tried to get everyone to vote NF rather than BNP. In 1995, having stood in the 1994 European elections, Anderson realised that the NF was still receiving bad publicity and he along with Wingfield to split off and form the National Democrats which rejected compulsory repatriation in favour of voluntary as did Griffin to the BNP in 1999. The NatDems was intrinsically anti-BNP and competed against them in the 1997 General Election in most of the West Midlands and London constituencies where Anderson stood in the East Londonderry constituency gaining 157 votes (0.5) but only one deposit was saved by Steve Edwards in West Bromwich West constituency having gained 4,181 votes (11.4%) whereas the BNP saved three deposits. Anderson also stood in the Uxbridge by-election 1997 where he competed against both the BNP and the National Front but only gained 157 votes (0.5%) and beaten by the BNP candidate.

In 1998 most official NatDems candidates such as Simon Darby, Sharron and Steve Edwards left to join the BNP and stood as Euro candidates for the 1999 European elections whereas the NatDems stood none at all but only stood in its last ever by-election in Wigan where Stephen Ebbs received 100 votes (0.6%). In 2001, when the BNP received a great number of votes and 7 deposits saved, the NatDems members like Clive Potter and Martin and Tina Wingfield left and joined the BNP leaving the NatDems with one chairman Ian Anderson which was no longer a political party but just a tiny campaign group. The NatDems website is no longer in function and Anderson will not join the BNP because he still regards them as “extreme”.

As for this interview Anderson talks about the theory of distributism, as opposed to capitalism where a large firm can easily be closed down and reopened in another part of the world because of the City’s Stock Exchange and at the end of the day it is run by only a few individuals whereas distributism allows workers to have a stake based in their locality which means that it does not have to face closure nor unemployment. Examples of this are in the Mondragon region in Spain.
Distributism opposes Marxism because the latter calls for the abolition of private property and everything owned by the State where there can be no competition and no increase of wages all for the sake of “equality”.
Anderson also mentions about the National Front’s immigration policy in which mass immigration can cause problems for the national good such as the Brixton riots and the undercutting of workers’ wages and he states that banking needs to be regulated as well by the State since the banks determine the nation’s economy because of the printing of money.