Support base of the National Front (UK)

The NF faced a high turnover in its membership.[14] In 1977, Walker described the party's membership as being "like a bath with both taps running and the plughole empty. Members pour in and pour out."[15] Fielding echoed this, stating that the NF's "stable membership" was lower than the number of people who have "passed through" it;[16] Taylor suggested that during the 1970s, "at least 12,000" people joined and then left the party.[17]

The Front refused to officially disclose the number of members that it had.[18] Thurlow suggested that "the most reliable estimates" were those produced by the anti-fascist investigatory magazine Searchlight.[13] Following its establishment, the NF claimed to have 4,000 members in 1968,[19] and in February 1974 a branch chairman claimed that it had 20,000 members.[19] Fielding suggested that it probably had about 21,000 members in early 1975, of whom 6,000 to 8,000 were "paper members" who had not renewed their membership subscriptions but not officially terminated their membership.[19] Searchlight claimed that from its origins with 4,000 members in 1968, the party reached a peak membership of 17,500 in 1972, which had declined to 10,000 in 1979, to 3,148 in 1984, and to 1,000 in January 1985.[13] An estimate of party membership in 1989 put adherents of the Flag Group at about 3,000 and of the Strasserite faction at about 600.[20] Thurlow noted that even at its peak in the 1970s, the Front's membership was still only half that of the BUF during its 1930s heyday.[21]

No adequate sociological sampling of NF members took place, but interviews with members were carried out during the 1970s by Taylor, Fielding, and Billig.[13] Max Hanna noted that as of 1973, most NF members were "from the skilled working class and lower-middle class" but that there was variation according to branch.[23] Fielding observed that most party members during the late 1970s were working-class,[24] but that the party's South Coast branches had a higher concentration of lower middle-class members.[25] He observed that party activism was generally carried out by upper working and lower middle-class members rather than by their lower working-class and upper middle-class counterparts.[26]

Fielding noted that the party contained individuals of all age ranges, although added that certain branches had a concentration of retirees.[27] He observed a greater number of men in their thirties or fifties rather than their forties, suggesting that the latter were typically too preoccupied with raising families to involve themselves heavily in NF matters.[27] Hanna also described "men in their thirties" as the party's main cohort.[23] The male numerical dominance was in common with most UK political parties in the period, although the Front differed from these other parties in cultivating an image of "overwhelming masculinity" and "virulent machismo".[28]

NF members were sociologically regarded as political deviants, and thus parts of the cultic milieu.[29] Fielding's interviews with NF members in the 1970s led him to conclude that "there is something exceptional about the NF member, and particularly about the activist", for they differed from other members of society in their willingness to join a politically extreme group.[30] Fielding found that NF members were concerned about their image and sensitive to ideas that they were "fascistic" or "cranky", instead thinking of themselves as "patriots" or "nationalists".[31] He found them more accepting of the term "racist", with some referring to themselves as such.[31] He noted that race was the main issue that led members to joining the Front,[32] and that they generally perceived their racial ideas to be "common sense".[33] He added that members made "harsh expressions of prejudice" against non-white Britons,[34] citing one woman member who called on her branch to "get out there and smash that bleedin' wog filth", a group she juxtaposed with "respectable people like us".[30]

A variant of the National Front flag

Fielding found that "ordinary members feel uneasy about Britain's present political life but cannot express why this is".[35] A common perception among members was that life had changed for the worse in Britain and they often used the expression: "the country is going to the dogs".[35] As evidence, they cited what they believed were declining standards of living, the erosion of British identity, and the collapse of the British Empire.[36] Members typically looked with pride on the UK's past military and colonial exploits,[37] and wanted the country to return to a preeminent position on the world stage.[38] There was a widespread perception among NF members that Britain's political leaders were corrupt and cruel,[36] and a tendency toward believing and espousing conspiracy theories.[36]

Fielding believed that some of the membership were "motivated by a search for community and reassurance in a world they find difficult to understand".[39] For some, joining the NF was a psychological act of defiance against society,[35] while many had joined because their friends and relatives had done so.[35] Fielding suggested that the NF's moral indignation regarding perceived slackers and anti-social elements had particular appeal for upper working and lower middle-class Britons because these were the sectors of society which felt that they worked hardest for the least reward.[40] The large number of individuals who joined and soon left the party might in part be due to the fact that many had joined on the basis of its populist appeals against immigration, only to express shock or dismay upon discovering its underlying fascist ideology.[41] In other cases, individuals may have left because they felt that the hardship they encountered—ostracisation by friends and colleagues, job losses, verbal abuses, and on rare occasion physical assault—became too much to endure, particularly as the party's fortunes declined in the latter 1970s.[42]

During the 1970s, the NF consistently attempted to attract youth, having formed specific sub-groups to focus on this campaign.[43] Many of the youth attracted to the group may have done so as a form of youthful rebellion, enjoying the "shock value" that party membership offered; in this they had similarities with the contemporary punk movement of the late 1970s.[44] Ryan Shaffer stated that the party's shift away from traditional campaigning during the 1980s and its growing affiliation with neo-Nazi youth groups resulted in its appeal becoming restricted to "mostly young people".[45]

Various explanations for the NF's 1970s electoral growth held that it was impacted by the levels of non-white immigration into an area. In 1976, Webster claimed that his party did best "when an immigrant problem is in sight nearby", in white-dominated areas close to migrant communities.[63] One argument was that areas with large non-white immigrant communities were most susceptible to NF support; according to this view, the higher the non-white population, the higher the resentment among local whites and the greater the support for the NF. An alternate explanation is that the NF did particularly well in areas where the non-white population was moderately sized rather than large; according to this, local whites turned to the NF because they were fearful that the area's non-white population would grow larger, particularly if neighbouring areas already had large non-white populations.[64]

On examining voting data from the 1977 Greater London Council election, the political scientist Paul Whiteley argued that the NF picked up on the votes of alienated working-class individuals by "providing simple answers to complex problems".[65] He argued that the NF's vote share was best explained by the "working-class authoritarianism" phenomenon examined in the United States by S. M. Lipset.[65] Christopher Husbands instead believed that "local working-class cultures" were "the crucial factor for understanding some pro-NF susceptibility".[66] He cited earlier studies indicating that "territorial sensitivity" was an element of English working-class culture, with this "localism" manifesting as corollaries of "parochialism and a sensitivity to supposed threat".[67] He argued that this led many working-class English people to create personal identities based on their neighbourhood rather than their profession, leaving many more susceptible to far-right appeals based on location rather than leftist ones based on workplace solidarity.[67] He argued that there were parallels with the Netherlands, where urban working-class communities had also expressed support for the far-right, although not in France, Germany, or Italy, where the urban proletariat had not offered substantial support for far-right parties.[66]