Forty years ago today, the National Front attempted to organize a national demonstration through Lewisham, a multi-racial area of southeast London. Against a backdrop of deep economic crisis, its aim was to intimidate the local black community and provoke conflict. A year before, in a local council election, the far right had secured almost half the vote — the stage seemed set for a foothold in Britain’s capital.

In the years following their establishment in February 1967, the National Front (NF) wasn’t taken seriously as a political party. A merger of various fascist sects — the League of Empire Loyalists, the Greater Britain Movement, the Racial Preservation Society — it was widely considered a way station for crankier elements left out by Oswald Mosley’s British Union.

However, from those who remembered the threat posed by even fledgling fascist forces, the NF faced serious disruption from the beginning — including Jewish self-defense organizations such as the 62 Group. Lacking in coherence and unable to demonstrate in public, the NF struggled to develop into a politically meaningful force on the right wing of British politics.