Founded in 1967, few other parties (on either the extreme right or even the extreme left) have split, factionalised and even stood against itself in elections as much as has the National Front.

Once a party with 17,500 members, today’s incarnation is a mere shadow of the party it once was. With each passing year the NF becomes more tired and irrelevant but we have long accepted there will likely always be some individual somewhere, trying to keep the flame of perpetual failures alive.

The NF’s current leader Tony Martin has put extraordinary time and effort into building some kind of cult of leadership around himself. But other than diminishing numbers around a pub table in Croydon, south London, Martin’s leadership has had – if such a thing were possible – a further detrimental effect on the party.

Previous conversations around merging other far-right groups into the NF proceeded on the basis that, by reputation at least, the NF would have some kind of party apparatus. They broke down when it became apparent that other than an old name, the NF has no such apparatus to speak of, little or no membership and as the old saying goes, no future.

The NF’s leadership has from its very early days been mired by ambitious incompetents. The current leader has never ceased to surprise us just with how ineffectual his leadership is.

With no apparent party business to keep him occupied, Martin now trawls events across London organised by other people, making vain attempts to cajole political activists into debate. Martin is blissfully unaware that he is intellectually incapable of engaging in actual or coherent political debate.

Previously active branches and individuals in Yorkshire and Lancashire have walked away or folded and currently we’re not even sure the NF has a membership to speak of. The annual Remembrance Day parade persists, but despite an increase of far-right activity in general, the NF’s leader could not attract more than 20 participants to last November’s insult to British and Commonwealth war dead.