Editing Civil Assistance

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'''Civil Assistance''' was a British far-right movement in the 1970s, purporting to be a non-governmental civil defence group. It was a voluntary group that aimed to break any planned [[general strike]]. It was founded in 1974 by retired General Sir [[Walter Walker (British Army officer)|Walter Walker]], Commander in Chief of [[NATO]] forces in Northern Europe from 1969 to 1972. It was a spin-off of [[Unison (civil defence organisation)|Unison]], a civil defence group founded in 1973 by George Kennedy Young, a former deputy director of MI6.<ref name="Sandbrook">{{cite book |last1=Sandbrook |first1=Dominic |title=Seasons in the sun : the battle for Britain, 1974-1979 |date=2013 |publisher=Penguin |location=London, England |isbn=9781846146275}}</ref>

In August 1974 Walker claimed that Civil Assistance had 100,000 members.<ref name="Sandbrook"/> This provoked the then [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] [[Secretary of State for Defence|Defence Secretary]], [[Roy Mason]], to interrupt his holiday to release a statement complaining of a 'near [[fascist]] groundswell'. Then on 25 February 1975 Walker addressed a meeting of around a hundred Civil Assistance members at [[St Lawrence Jewry]] in the City of London. The [[Communist]] newspaper the ''[[Morning Star (British newspaper)|Morning Star]]'' claimed to have infiltrated the meeting and to have counted one [[general]], nine [[Colonel (United Kingdom)|colonel]]s and six [[brigadier]]s and seven other former officers. Walker supposedly made a speech calling the British [[Left-wing|Left]] a '[[cancer]]', organisers of political strikes 'traitors' and [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] MPs subversives.  Walker claimed Civil Assistance would 'act' against these and that its members had 'excellent relationships with chief constables'.

Shortly before this speech [[Margaret Thatcher]] became Leader of the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] and Civil Assistance gradually faded from the media.<ref name="Telegraph">{{cite news |title=Obituary: General Sir Walter Walker |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/gurkha-obituaries/1337219/General-Sir-Walter-Walker.html |access-date=12 April 2022 |work=Daily Telegraph |date=13 August 2001 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100530232551/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/gurkha-obituaries/1337219/General-Sir-Walter-Walker.html |archive-date=30 May 2010}}</ref>

== References ==
{{reflist}}

===Books===
*''Pinochet in Piccadilly: Britain and Chile's Hidden History'' by Andy Beckett (Faber and Faber, 2003) {{ISBN|0-571-21547-5}}

[[Category:1970s in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Assistance]]
[[Category:Far-right politics in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Anti-communist organizations in the United Kingdom]]


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