Walker was born in Bishop Auckland in 1969 into a working-class background. The eldest of three children, his father was a joiner and his mother a seamstress.
Military and teaching career
According to Walker, on 14 June 1985, two months after his sixteenth birthday, he joined the 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars and served for five years as a battle tank crewman. Following discharge from the army, Walker states that he worked for some time in the construction industry before studying for a National Diploma in land use and recreation and later became a technology teacher at Houghton Kepier College near Sunderland, a post from which he was dismissed following allegations of "using school computers to look at extremist literature and engage in racially and religiously intolerant chatter online during school-time". In September 2012, Walker was given a six-month suspended jail sentence and twelve month driving ban for an incident on 23 April 2011, in which he verbally abused three schoolboys, who were between the ages of 10 and 12, chasing them in his Land Rover Discovery and slashing the tyres on their bikes with a sheath knife. After investigation by the General Teaching Council, Walker was banned for life from the profession in 2013. He challenged the ban in court, but his legal challenge was dismissed in February 2014.
Political career
In 2010, Walker represented the BNP as part of a delegation led by French National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen to Yasukuni Shrine in Chiyoda, Tokyo. The Shinto shrine commemorates Japanese war dead and is revered by the far right in Japan. Visits to this shrine have traditionally been a sensitive point in international politics between Japan, Korea, and China. Before becoming party chairman, Walker had been the BNP's deputy chairman. He described Britain in a November 2013 speech as a "multicultural shithole". He further said that Britons were facing "ethnic cleansing." He worked for the party with its two MEPs, Griffin and Andrew Brons, as well as serving as President of Solidarity – The Union for British Workers, a trade union established by the BNP. During the 2010 general election Walker campaigned alongside Griffin wearing army uniform, which attracted widespread criticism. In a subsequent interview with Jeremy Paxman on BBC's Newsnight programme, when asked if the male in army uniform had been a "real soldier", Griffin replied, "The chap who's been there in army fatigues, they're his army fatigues from the first Gulf because he served there. He's there in that uniform to attract attention to the fact that we're the only major party saying we shouldn't be in Afghanistan – it's a war that's got nothing to do with Britain." When subsequently questioned Walker himself said that he was not a current member of the British Army. Commenting on a fire bombing of a synagogue in Germany by a Muslim, Walker said, "While out campaigning several months ago, I spoke to a Jewish man who stated that he was considering moving with his family to Israel in light of the rising anti-Jewish sentiment from Muslims. We don't have an Israel, I said – we lose Britain, we've lost everything!" After Nick Griffin stepped down as BNP leader on 19 July 2014 to become the organisation's president, Walker became interim leader until the leadership election in 2015. This was contested by Walker and Paul Hilliard, the BNP Derbyshire Sub Regional Organiser. The results were announced on 27 July 2015, with Walker winning with 523 votes against Hilliard's 145, with 15 spoiled ballot papers. Walker is from Spennymoor, County Durham, and has two children.
