Participation has varied but in recent years numbers have topped 1,000. Originally there were just a few tents, more recently there have been several marquees, fairground rides, helicopter flights, a professional fireworks display and the triumphant arrival of Nick Griffin, the party leader, in a Rolls Royce.

Eyewitness accounts of this year’s event in Denby, Derbyshire, including from the police, BBC and Press Association, estimate attendance at a maximum of 800 over the weekend and around 450 on the Saturday, the main day of the festival.

There were very few regional and branch stalls, no international displays, few overseas visitors, no live music, no fairground and helicopter rides, no fireworks and no beer tent, the latter a body blow to any BNP event. To add to the misery the main beam in the largest marquee developed a crack necessitating evacuation of the audience and subsequent sessions taking place outdoors up against the “truth truck” advertising lorry.

Even before the festival opened on Friday 14 August it had suffered a serious blow when Preston Wiginton, one of the world’s most notorious nazis and antisemites, was refused entry by immigration officers at Heathrow airport under laws to keep out “undesirables”. The US preacher of violence was to have been the festival’s star overseas guest.

Searchlight felt satisfaction that the Home Office had taken note of our exposé of Griffin’s close friend in December 2007. As Wiginton, complete with cowboy boots and Stetson hat, flew off into the sunset, Griffin was engaged in a last-minute effort to find a replacement.

Rumours that Jean-Marie Le Pen, the veteran leader of the French National Front, was coming never held water, nor was his presence halted by protests. Marc Abramsson, the Swedish nazi leader and a regular RWB speaker, was already scheduled to be there.

To the rescue came Griffin’s old political mentor and one-time business partner Roberto Fiore. A millionaire and convicted terrorist, Fiore had been an MEP for a short time after succeeding to the seat held by his ally Alessandra Mussolini when she was invited to join Silvio Berlusconi’s government in Italy.

Fiore produced one of the few fun moments at the event when Lawrence Rustem, the Anglo-Turkish Barking and Dagenham BNP councillor, had to bite his lip through a long attack on Turks and Muslims.

It followed Griffin reminiscing about how in 1981 five people had changed the face of the National Front, then Britain’s main far-right party, and British politics. Apart from himself, Griffin named Joe Pearce, the twice-convicted NF youth leader; another man who was now dead, clearly a reference to Fiore’s business partner and fellow convicted terrorist Massimo Marcello, who died several years ago; and a person who he said was a sitting MP, we believe in Italy.

Griffin said they had been the “Young Turks” of the movement but was interrupted by Fiore who wanted him to use the term “young lions”, no doubt inspired by Benito Mussolini, who said it was better to live one day as a lion than a lifetime as a lamb. Rustem was left looking very gloomy as Fiore abused the Turks for several minutes.

Fiore is also fixated on abortion, marriage and unmarried mothers. He appears to have forgotten his early days in Britain on the run from the Italian justice authorities, when his mistress gave birth to his illegitimate daughter.

The BNP shares his obsession, judging by a proposed motion to its annual conference from the London region, which calls for unmarried mothers aged under 21 to be placed in mother and baby homes, where they would be subject to a 9pm curfew and have to wear skirts “to at least the knees”. Failure to obey the rules would result in the mother being sent to prison and the baby being taken into care.

Griffin also returned to his favourite themes of the English Civil War and his hero Oliver Cromwell. He then harked back to before England was a state, praising Alfred the Great for his resistance to the Danes: we were not even a country, nor did we have an army, but Alfred sent out his unarmed followers to steal weapons and carry out guerrilla warfare before overthrowing the invaders.

He went on to speak about how the BNP would have to “fight back” against the attacks on the party by everyone, from the state down.

Abramsson devoted much of his speech to complaints that his own party in Sweden was not united as a national body but that branches work very independently and often disagree about policies.

Griffin was joined by his fellow MEP Andrew Brons for a question time session. Also on the panel were Jonathan Bowden, a popular speaker now back in the BNP after resigning in 2007, Mark Collett, the party’s head of publicity, and Peter Strudwick.

Strudwick is a more recent arrival in the BNP, after a long career in the Conservative Party and more particularly the senior echelons of the far-right Monday Club. Strudwick, a law lecturer, and Griffin’s father “remember each other from Tory politics in North London back in the 1960s”, Griffin wrote last year.

After all those hints, it was not difficult for Searchlight to identify Strudwick as Sam Swerling, who was briefly a Westminster Tory councillor. That Swerling had joined the BNP was no secret, so why the new identity? What is he ashamed of?

As usual the RWB was blessed by a large cohort of stewards, some in uniform, but they were no match for the 1,500 anti-fascist demonstrators besieging the site’s three approaches.

Police tactics ensured the march pas-sed off mostly peacefully. Derbyshire’s Acting Assistant Chief Constable Steve Cotterill said: “We have made fewer arrests than we did last year and these arrests were for sporadic behaviour.

“At no stage was it necessary to deploy officers in full riot gear.”

A small number of anti-fascists were arrested for being in areas that were closed to the public.

On the nazi side, John Jones and two other south London activists were charged with racially aggravated public order offences committed while they were crossing fields under police escort to get to the festival. They were arrested after receiving three police warnings to stop racially abusing protesters and giving Hitler salutes. They were bailed to appear at Derby Magistrates’ Court.

One thug who entered a local pub wearing a Blood and Honour T-shirt was detained and thrown in the back of a police van after members of the public complained about his provocation. A London nazi was given a £60 on-the-spot fine.

We are grateful to the woman officer who drove an elderly and slightly infirm anti-fascist in her car back to his transport home so that he would not have to be put at discomfort or risk.

The poor attendance at the RWB, protests and lack of facilities have prompted the BNP to look around for an alternative venue. Simon Darby, the BNP’s deputy leader, told the BBC: “There is a school of thought that says we have had RWB in Wales, in the Midlands, in the North, in the East Midlands and we have never had it, for instance, in Scotland, the South West or the South. So I think there will be a lot of competition, there are several sites which want us.”

That is obviously wishful thinking but it does seem likely that the RWB will not return to Derbyshire for a fourth year. HOPE not hate activists are keeping their eyes and ears open for where the BNP might be heading.

© Searchlight Magazine 2009