RIP JOHN BEAN, A GREAT BRITISH NATIONALIST

by Colin Liddell

John Bean, one of the greatest figures in British nationalism, has passed away at the grand old age of 94. Sadly, being "one of the greatest figures in British nationalism" doesn't count for much, as British nationalism is a failed political movement. 

On the week Bean died, British fertility rates were hovering under 1.5 children per women (a 25%+ generation-on-generation depopulation). Also grooming gangs were still active in British cities, and hundreds of illegal immigrants effortlessly crossed the English channel in inflatable boats, most of whom will end up staying there.

This story could have been so different if British nationalism had been shaped more by the likes of John Bean rather than by the colourful cast of unhinged idiots and mental deviants who led it into oblivion and failure.

This online publication had several interactions with John, whom I already knew from my work on the BNP's Identity magazine, of which he was the editor. Interestingly, the dysfunctional side of British nationalism was also represented at that magazine in guise of its graphic designer, a certain Mr Mark Collett, who later became an out-an-out Neo-Nazi (or Deep State plant) who is now running the so-called "Patriotic Alternative," which laughably claims to be a nationalist political party even though it has yet to field a single candidate.

Bean is one of the reasons why I was attracted to the cause of British nationalism, as he was an erudite, down-to-earth, and entirely reasonable man, who merely wanted what was best for the British people, especially the working class. But for this very reason he attracted much less attention than the sociopaths and "refugees from reality" who came to the fore in the movement, or "the stuckment" as James Lawrence has christened it. People in dissident movements either have an attraction for such leaders, or else the Deep State finds ways to promote them in order to sabotage those movements. A bit of both in all probability.

The best piece of content generated by our association with John was an in-depth interview I conducted with him in 2021, which can be found here:

INTERVIEW: JOHN BEAN, VETERAN BRITISH NATIONALIST

We covered many topics, including his meeting with Sir Oswald Mosley, a figure who, in many respects, cast a dark shadow over British nationalism and poisoned its prospects long after his death. Bean recounted their meeting as follows:

On reflection my tea-time meeting with Mosley at the Eccleston Hotel gave classic examples of the duality of his character. In the preliminary discussion, which centred on my support for European co-operation and even a confederation, he listened attentively to my argument, courteously making non-committal acknowledgements although without entering into any debate. It was when I said that due to his past actions and positions, such as anti-Semitism, and the way he had been woefully misrepresented in the media on so many issues, he had no chance of being elected to any form of power, that he became irritated and changed to the imperious Mosley. Additionally, I had the impression that for him this was a another case of déjà vu where he, an aging man whose contemporary critics admitted could have been prime minister, was being told where he had gone wrong by a political tyro. Immediately after the meeting, in some ways, I regretted this additional disappointment I had given him.

As this passage suggests, Bean's attitude to the JQ developed in the 1950s, during the period of violent street politics provoked by Mosley's previous alignment with Naziism in the pre-war period and his failure to distance himself from it. The result was that Bean evolved a nuanced and humane understanding of the JQ that sought to understand and sympathise with Jews, rather than to castigate and demonise them as lesser "British nationalists" have constantly done:

"I believe that a case can be made that many Jewish interests are antithetical to traditional Western values and interests. The effect of religion is minimal, not least because Christianity has its roots in Judaism. For that reason I have decried the hate-filled and religiously inspired anti-Semitism of the past. The origin of the antithesis between the European and Jewry lies in the Diaspora. In order to survive as small minorities, originally exclusively as a religion then latterly as a people whose beliefs ranged from orthodoxy to agnosticism, putting all Jewish interests first within each host nation of Europe became paramount. Thus over a millennium we saw the rise of powerful Jewish groups that became operative as one international body. With the media power that resultant Jewish money was able to buy, came its antithetical nature to Western civilisation, which you quote above from Professor Kevin McDonald."

His essentially humane and sympathetic attitude to the JQ is also reflected in his fiction, which he came to extremely late in his long life, especially in his first novel, Blood in the Square, which he published when he was 87. 

Blood in the Square is not just an fascinating picture of British nationalism in the 1960s, it is also an extremely effective and readable piece of fiction. It was well reviewed in these pages by Mike Newland:

"John Bean’s book is worth reading not just as a didactic warning about how little the right has progressed in its ability to do politics in 50 years but also as a very good story of a time most will not have known and one so different from our time now. It’s also for the novice in politics an education about the real workings of the state as it tries to snuff out genuine dissent using dubious policing and a rigged press."

My own positive review can be read at The Occidental Observer (link).

His second, more ambitious novel, Trail of the Viking Finger: A Northern Family Saga, published just three years ago, when he was already in his 90s, was not quite as readable, but was nevertheless an interesting attempt at intergenerational fiction. As Bean explained in the preface:

"I was inspired to write this historical novel as a result of preparing my own family tree, which I managed to trace back to a Brian Beane born at Saxton in Elmet — near York — around 1570. Nearly all locations, many Christian or forenames and occupations that are given in this novel are those of my family over the generations."

Several articles by Bean were also published here:

• A WAY FORWARD FOR THE BNP (1st November, 2011)
• WHY I AM SUPPORTING THE BRITISH DEMOCRATIC PARTY (13th January, 2013)
• HOW SMALL GENETIC DIFFERENCES CREATE RACIAL DIVERSITY (26th August, 2013)
• SHOULD WE VOTE UKIP? (28th April, 2015)
• BOOK REVIEW: "THE MEANING OF AN ENEMY" (9th March, 2018)

The most significant of these is probably "How Small Genetic Differences Create Racial Diversity" as this shows his grasp of the science that ultimately underpins all nationalism.

Obituaries for Bean can also be found at Heritage and Destiny and the Nazi-supporting Counter Currents website, where Greg Johnson has got fellow homosexual Martin Webster to pen a few lines.

Webster, of course, epitomises the Naziist tendency that sensible nationalists like John Bean view as the death of nationalism. But don't take my word for it. In his magisterial survey of British nationalism, Many Shades of Black (1999), which also serves as Bean's autobiography, he has much to say about the disruptive role that idiots like Webster played in British nationalism, in the case of Webster, destroying the National Front as the effective political force it could so easily have been.

In the final chapter of the book, Bean gives six reasons for the failure of that NF. Interestingly reason five specifically mentions Martin Webster:

People interested in joining the NF did so primarily on the issue of immigration, When they wrote in for further details most found that they also had sympathy for some of the other NF views, such as opposition to Britain's membership of the Common Market; the return of capital punishment for child murderers and murderers of police officers; denouncing the international bankers who put profit before national interest and jobs. But when they looked through the pages of National Front News and Spearhead they would see other issues that did not appear in the general leaflets and the usually well-written election addresses. These would be articles on Jewish financial power, alleged Jewish control of the media and Zionist influences over British and American foreign policy. Particularly sickening to many people would be the articles nit-picking over the number of Jews done to death in Poland and Russia and in the Nazi concentration camps. There would also be numerous adverts for books and magazines from the so-called historical revisionists asking "Did Six Million Really Die?", and even denying that the holocaust ever existed! It is small wonder that many would-be members decided that it was true after all. The National Front were anti-semitic, and they could see why they were being called Nazis.

Apart from this Jewish issue, by 1979 National Front News, under the editorship of Martin Webster, had moved away from condemning the policy of allowing immigration to continue, to open racial abuse on several occasions.     

A fitting way to show one's appreciation of this fine upstanding nationalist would be to buy and read this book, and also take its lessons to heart.

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Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Affirmative Right and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by it here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia). He is also featured in Arktos's 2016 collection A Fair Hearing: The Alt-Right in the Words of Its Members and Leaders.