European fascists are mourning the death of the last man to attempt an old-school fascist coup, Lt Col Antonio Tejero of the Spanish Civil Guard, who died this morning aged 93.

Veteran Searchlight readers will remember him as, resembling Peter Sellers, he stormed into Madrid’s parliament on 23 February 1981 with heavily armed fellow Guard officers, shooting into the air and barking at parliamentarians to: “Sit down, you cunts!”

The coup attempt failed within 24 hours, but the most interesting thing is that this wasn’t Tejero’s first coup.

“Years of lead”

In effect this was the closing chapter in Europe’s “years of lead”, the period during the late 1960s, 1970s, and start of the 1980s when far-right conservatives as well as fascists either considered or actively plotted coups against Western democracies.

Sometimes this was due to deeply held fascist or nazi beliefs. More often it was because these elites thought they needed to use fascist methods to crush trade unions and the left, and to enforce authoritarian conservative policies for Europe’s social and economic crises.

Searchlight reported many of these sinister activities during those years.

In Tejero’s case he was already know to have been involved in another coup plot more than two years earlier in November 1978, during the early stages of Spain’s transition to democracy.

Got off lightly

The fact he and fellow plotters were punished so lightly for this earlier plot indicated the extent to which fascists and authoritarian conservatives remained influential in Spain’s judicial, political and military leadership for several years after Franco’s death in 1975.

Tejero was released from prison after only seven months after that earlier attempt and allowed to retain his rank and position in the Civil Guard.

The son of one of his co-conspirators later led a far-right party in the 1990s and 2000s. This party AUN hosted international gatherings of European fascists including members of the BNP and several German neo-nazi parties, before dissolving in 2005.

Tejero meanwhile was in prison from 1981 to 1996. Even in his late 80s and 90s he was an unrepentant fascist and a hero to a new generation of violent extremists in Spain.

UPDATE: It appears his comrades went into mourning a little prematurely. According to his son he is still alive, though critically ill in hospital. We will keep you posted.