Ex-National Front member explains just why he left the far-right group
23 December 2019, 12:40
This caller tells LBC when he was in the National Front he would go to football matches and cheer on black players, and amazingly reveals why he left the organisation.
As the national debate around racism in football is at the forefront of the news agenda, one caller told James O'Brien his experiences in the National Front.
He said, "I used to go and see Crystal Palace, and be a member of the National Front when I was younger and then I grew up."
The caller said when he was a teenager he was "easily impressed by older people," and described in detail how he would go and buy National Front merchandise and then go and watch black players at Crystal Palace and "cheer them on."
James said the caller had managed to diffuse one of his biggest questions about football racism.
"You throw bananas at black players on the other team while wearing the face of a black player on your own team on your shirt," James said.
The caller told LBC it was like a "tribal thing" explaining he experiences it "everywhere."
James said he imagined often the caller would have heard "the same thing in a different accent back in your National Front days, but stick it in a chalkstripe suit or a covert coat and suddenly, in this country, it somehow manages to assume a cloak of respectability."
When James asked the former National Front member what made him "grow up," the caller made an amazing admission.
"I loved Ska reggae music," he also admitted he used to go to Clapham Common with Desmond Dekker the Jamaican singer-songwriter.
The caller described standing watching the music and thinking it was "weird" adding "we love black music, and this guy [the skinhead] had an Aswad tattoo on his arm."
James then told the caller his experience of attending a National Front march as a child.
Watch the whole exchange in the video at the top of the page.
