By Adrian Davies.
As predicted on this site at the end of March, the Front National has achieved truly stunning success in the French vote for the European Parliament. It has polled over 25% of the popular vote, some 4% to 5% more than the fractious establishment conservative UMP party, and is now the largest party in France in terms of electoral support. It will take 24 or 25 of the seats in the European parliament, up from only three at the last election (in 2009).
Both the FN and the UMP massively out-polled the ruling Socialist party, which managed a score of only 11%. The panic stricken, inept, calamitous Socialist President of France, François Hollande, who makes Ed Milliband seem a winner, now proposes to address the nation, presumably to beg the French people to stop voting outside the system box, so allowing the FN to make the weather even more than it is doing already, if that is possible.
The BBC, has published a remarkably objective and fair analysis of the FN’s triumph, which is well worth reading: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-eu-27577964
This magnificent result is a tribute to Marine Le Pen’s inspired leadership of her party. While some hardline elements in French nationalist circles have criticised her for trimming, it is surely better to make some compromises and take 25% and more of the vote than boast about how ideologically pure you are, and poll derisory votes.
It is moreover important to bear in mind that the FN’s supposed trimming only goes so far. The FN explicitly rejects neo-liberalism, the rule of alien financial interests and dogmatic market fundamentalism, as well as supranational government and mass immigration. It also rejects the whole neo-conservative project for world domination by armed force. Marine Le Pen is on excellent personal terms with Russian President Vladimir Putin. If the day comes when she leads France, her country will not be participating in any more wars to bring a misshapen simulacrum of democracy at the point of a gun to countries that do not conform to the neo-conservative world view.
The FN believes in a bigger, less tightly bound and yes, more diverse (in a positive sense!) Europe, extending from Portugal to the Urals, rid both of the fratricidal wars inspired by petty, malign nationalism that devastated the continent twice in the twentieth century (and had already done plenty of damage in the nineteenth century) but unconstrained also by a centralising proto-government of Europe that, by riding rough shod over national sensibilities, is more likely to inflame the worst kind of nationalism than to unite Europe, so far as such an unity is attainable. Such an ideal is surely worth striving for.
The FN’s future prospects are very promising. While elections to the French National Assembly (equivalent to our House of Commons) are conducted on an electoral system that has up to now proved less favourable to the FN than the d’Hondt system (well explained here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27187434) which is used in elections to the European Parliament in France and in Great Britain (Northern Ireland uses the single transferable vote instead), the ruling Socialists are caught in a dilemma of seeking a new mandate now and facing a large influx of FN deputies into the National Assembly or clinging on to power in defiance of the popular will, and perhaps facing an even worse defeat when they are forced to face the French people a little way down the line.
Could the FN actually take power in France? That is now a real and exciting possibility, but will not happen quite yet. Its realisation would probably require a major economic crisis in the Eurozone that would finally discredit the existing political class so completely that an electoral majority can be found for radical change.
The European single currency, essentially part of a political project for supranational government with no underlying economic logic, has proved a strait-jacket for many countries, particularly in southern Europe. The FN is the only important party in France to call for the abandonment of the Euro and the return of France’s national currency, the Franc, so allowing France to become more competitive compared to Europe’s economic locomotive, Germany, by letting the currency take the strain. The alternative is endless wage cutting and hated austerity measures.
Were the Euro to collapse amidst widespread economic dislocation exceeding even the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, the FN would probably sweep to power. Such an outcome is quite likely, though not written in the stars.
In the meanwhile, since success breeds success, it is reasonable to expect further progress even without an existential crisis in the Eurozone, though something more than even the present wave of discontent will be necessary to transform strong nationwide support for the FN into an overall majority of the French people.
Turning now from France to home, the United Kingdom Independence Party has been the big winner in Great Britain (Northern Ireland following its own path in Europe). It has handsomely topped the poll, taking votes from the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Labour Party, and (last but not least) the British National Party, which suffered complete electoral collapse and the loss of its two seats in the European parliament.
There is another good and objective report from the BBC here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27571451
The BNP’s vote plummeted from 943,598 votes or 6.3% in 2009 to 179,694 or 1.14 % in 2014, while UKIP’s vote soared from an already high 2,498,226 or 16.5% and second place nationally in 2009 to 4,352,051 or 27.49 % and first place nationally in 2014. The BNP lost its deposit in every region of England, Wales and Scotland, suffering abject humiliation of an unprecedented order. Even the Lib Dems had a better night.
Establishment commentators have been quick to pretend that UKIP’s appropriation of the BNP vote shows a considered rejection of the politics of identity.
An especially striking example is this gem from the supposedly conservative Spectator’s columnist Fraser Nelson (I have corrected some at any rate of Mr Nelson’s spelling mistakes: perhaps he was “tired and emotional” when he wrote it, as the old Fleet Street saw has it!):
“Amidst all the fuss tonight, we may miss a wonderful moment: the destruction of the BNP. The last Euro elections were the high point for British neo-fascism, with the BNP winning almost a million votes – far more support than the National Front or Oswald Mosley mob ever managed. For five years the BNP have been parliamentarians with seats -and, ergo, the right to appear on Question Time. They did well not because voters shared its racist agenda, but because voting BNP seemed to be the best way of throwing a stone on the Westminster greenhouse. No longer. Ukip has given a non-racist, anti-establishment alternative. For this and other reasons the BNP is in meltdown tonight, the odious Nick Griffin has accepted that he has lost his European Parliament seat and the party is being buried because it has tried to hawk racism in the most tolerant country on earth.”
Well, er, no, the reasons why the BNP has been buried and the odious Nick Griffin has lost his seat are twofold.
First, UKIP now “hawks racism” (or, put another way, voices the concerns of ordinary men and women outside the loathsome metropolitan politico-mediatic class of which Mr Nelson is so egregious a representative at seeing their country transformed into part of the third world) in a prettier package than the BNP (moral: never, ever underestimate the importance of branding and presentation in politics).
Even more fundamentally, BNP chairman for life “Nick Nick” Griffin, a moral, financial, intellectual and political bankrupt, has long practised the political equivalent of slash and burn agriculture.
He has completely failed to understand that successful challenger parties must sink deep local roots and undermine the edifice of two party system politics by picking away at its foundations in local government, a lesson that Eddy Butler strove in vain to teach him.
Instead Griffin grandstanded on national television with disastrous results in his utterly abject Question Time performance, which will surely be remembered as the beginning of the end, while marginalising, undermining and in the last resort purging competent people in his own party rather than building a winning team.
Now he has paid the price of such huge failures of leadership, vision, and moral character. The many good patriots whom he has so grievously and so often wronged over the long years of his undeserved predominance in nationalist politics will shed no tears at his utter undoing. The verdict on his party is wilful suicide.
How the UKIP phenomenon will play out is not at present foreseeable. It might evolve into a broadly based populist party of the right, articulating the legitimate fears and concerns of the British people, or it might cosy up closer to the system parties, seeking an arrangement with the Tories, now that their coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, have lost ten of their eleven European seats and are on their way out of government within the year.
Anyone who witnessed, as I did, the comical ravings of Conservative Members of the European Parliament including the supposedly “right wing” Daniel Hannam (personally close to UKIP leader Nigel Farrage) against the Front National will know where that choice would take UKIP. Only time will tell which path UKIP takes.
Moreover, UKIP has been a major beneficiary of the d’Hondt system for elections to the European parliament, which allows roughly proportional representation, whereas next year’s general election will of course be under the “first past the post” system that is unfavourable to parties such as UKIP with a high but quite evenly distributed level of support. The “first past the post” system favours parties whose support is concentrated in key constituencies so that next year the Liberal Democrats might well win many more seats with c. 8% of the vote than UKIP with twice that share.
Finally, turn out in the European and local elections has been low. It will more or less double at the general election next year, with unpredictable results. We are in the territory of known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
Against this background, after congratulating our French friends and comrades, who are such a shining example to us of what can be done with a fine leader and a sensible party, we need to reflect carefully on what can be achieved in Great Britain under current circumstances.
There are plainly limits to what a small party can achieve at the ballot box when faced with UKIP candidates enjoying the afterglow of their remarkable success in Europe. It might be thought more productive to concentrate our limited resources upon influencing the future direction of UKIP through online and hard copy publications that seek to educate UKIP members about the deeper ideological questions which their leaders will not address.
On the other hand, it is by no means certain that four party politics (or five, don’t forget the so-called Greens, who are more red than green, but are emerging as the pseudo-radical alternative to the system parties) will actually come to pass, for the reasons that I have explained above.
For the moment it seems to me (and I am offering only a personal view, and do not purport to speak for anyone but myself) advisable to pursue a two track strategy of limited electoral interventions (especially if we have reason to believe that UKIP will not be contesting a poll, as they did not in Elswick) while also engaging in a metapolitical struggle intended to reach out to and educate the tens of thousands who will now join UKIP, as well as some part of the millions who vote for it.
A full, open and honest debate without preconceptions is now needed.
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Fraser Nelson is the Pollyanna of British Neo Conservatism. Multiculturalism and multiracialism are doing just fine in Britain, which is ‘the most racially tolerant in the world’ ( another First for Britain!)
If there were racial rioting in the streets ( there has been) Nelson would hail it as a wonderful manifestation of vibrant social interaction and cultural enrichment.
The man is, frankly, a ridiculous Utopian with a feeble grasp on the realities of life , no doubt because he personally has never had to get to grips with them as less lucky individuals down the social scale have had to.
As the last church in Britain is turned into a mosque and the mullahs ascend the minarets of Oxford to call the inhabitants of that City to Friday prayers, Nelson would be singing the praises of Mohammed as veiled women throng the streets,and Sharia law is proclaimed.and homosexuals are executed .
He is an odious Tory who was ‘educated’ at one of Scotland’s leading public schools (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_Academy) http://www.dollaracademy.org and has the same feelings of utter contempt towards the ‘lower orders’ as David Cameron, George Gideon Oliver Osbourne and Boris Johnson have.
No doubt like the rest of his expensively-‘educated’ middle-class chums like the sneering snob David Dimbleby he personally would reject living in the kind of areas these people help to create.
David Dimbleby (educated at one of England’s top public schools ie Charterhouse School) (www.charterhouse.org.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charterhouse_School) lives in a very pleasant English village on the River Dart in Devon which so far has no doubt escaped the wonders of ‘enrichment’. It is no wonder then he personally can afford to be so rude and contemptuous towards so-called ‘racists’.
Billy Bragg is another who whilst living in an expensive detached house on a cliff top somewhere in the West Country, which might as well be a million miles from the nearest immigrant, preaches to people where he was brought up and moved away from, Dagenham and Barking, that they should welcome the huge influx of aliens which has transformed their towns into somewhere like West Africa.
Yes, I believe he lives in the pretty and quintessentially English village of Burton Bradstock in Dorset which even has some quaint thatched cottages in it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burton_Bradstock
http://www.picturesofengland.com/England/Dorset/Burton_Bradstock/pictures/1026451
It must be so wonderful to be a millionaire PC globalist leftie and be able to move away from the kind of areas his type create ie Barking to somewhere so pretty and so very English!
I disagree for a political party to focus on ‘limited electoral interventions’ won’t work. Parties are there to fight elections. One has to lose to win. UKIP will stand in most places people have to live with it and adapt. The best way to recruit members, build morale, influence people is through contesting elections. Parties lose momentum if they fail to contest enough seats. One can give UKIP members ‘ideology’ but they will remain in UKIP until another credible nationalist party regularly contests elections and shows signs of progress structurally, in marketing and electorally. Elections are what is needed for a party to grow and lots of them.
I have to agree. A party can’t really grow until it tries its hands at elections. Of course, you can try to just stand in ‘promising’ areas but eventually you do have to branch-out into the other areas otherwise you won’t be seen by the electorate as a serious party.
(Party Member) As constantly predicted by me, people are moving towards Nationalism by voting Ukip. The tragedy is they have been mislead. I have urged us Nationalists to consider ‘ false flag nigel a ‘ doorman’ who, by breaking the mould of British politics, has opened the door for us. NOW is our time and we must increase our efforts to get people to TAKE THE NEXT STEP to our decent, truly Nationalist, BRITISH DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
I think the only thing you can say with any confidence about the large numbers of people voting UKIP is that they have very little, if any confidence, in the Lib/Lab/CON party and the utter mess they have made of our country over the last six decades. In short, apart from agreeing with the notion of EU withdrawal, they are using UKIP as a vehicle to express their contempt towards those who have so badly misgoverned us.. Beyond that, it is difficult to discern any uniting factors in their support.
(Party Member) Once again I totally disagree. They actually think they are voting against Immigration !
They are moving towards UKIP because it seems respectable, middle class and hasn’t been smeared as racist despite the best efforts of the media.
A lot of people who voted for UKIP would vote for the BDP if it had the same kind if image.
I don’t think they have been misled. I think most of them are well aware of its limitations but they think that it has got a chance at the polls and so is the best anti establishment party available.
UKIP had done nationalism a service by opening up the issue of immigration, even if it is not the answer.
Once this issue has been normalised, nationalism will be able to take advantage of the new atmosphere.
(Party Member) Well said Vita Brevis. We have been explaining for the last twelve months or so that ‘ false flag Nigel ‘ will ” open the door ” for us Nationalists. There are boom times ahead as the Country throws off the shackles of the E.U.Superstate,no values liberalism and old style party class warfare !
Excellent article, greatly appreciated Adrian. I suppose one could say that the whole history and fine art of politics is all about compromise, accommodation, manouvering, useful alliances (like the Lib Dems and Tories at present), and creating at least an image of competence. If only the BNP could have sacked Griffin long before before the “Question Time” debacle and, instead, elected a chairperson who had political savvy, some intellectual ability, leadership qualities and the ability to not loose their temper or visibly appear rattled… My Goodness, I think I just described Nigel Farage!
The biggest barrier for our nationalism in Britain is a lurking culture within it which has persisted for decades. This can be summed up as ‘we are right and to hell with the presentation’. Or to put it another way, we know we are right and don’t care if everyone hates us.
This arrogant attitude was encouraged by Griffin for his own purposes since it meant that however destructive he was it did not really matter since the core beliefs were correct.
If we don’t want to stand in a smoking ruin smirking about ‘we told you so’ then we have to become political in the manner of the FN.
Spot-on, Mike. Perhaps it might be said that British nationalism is still rooted in the Oswald Mosley era? If one looks at all the right-wing European parties who achieved significantly increased votes in the recent election, the majority of them can be seen to have evolved away from overt fascism and are – like Marine LePen – starting to employ the accepted tools of modern politics to demonstrate and prove their case. It just seems to me that the BNP is anchored to a political approach which is some 70 years behind the times. And – as always – it finally comes down to the limitations and inflexibility of a secure and immovable leadership.
I think you are totally correct in this assertion. Our party HAS TO make a clean break with the past like Marine Le Pen’s party has done in France.
That will involve some changes to how we approach certain subjects as well. Marine Le Pen has demonstrated the FN is a party for the 21st century and not the 20th and as a result her party has been rewarded by the French electorate.
This obviously intelligent blogger who has unfortunately ceased to blog seems to have the right idea:
http://durotrigan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/beyond-fringe-building-credible.html
http://durotrigan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/beyond-fringe-building-credible.html
http://durotrigan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/beyond-fringe-building-credible_16.html
http://durotrigan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/beyond-fringe-conclusion-and.html
The recent results for UKIP demonstrate that many people are totally disillusioned with the globalists of Lib/Lab/CON yet not many are solid supporters of UKIP’s form of globalism (ie its embrace of the economic kind)
We need to be a sensible and credible anti-globalist counter to UKIP.
BTW, amid the Farage-mania yesterday the loathsome Blair creature was given the top slot on BBC Radio-4 ‘Today’. He was given over 10 minutes, uninterrupted, to push his globalist propaganda (for which he is fabulously rewarded) sneering at the little Englanders in UKIP and implying we couldnt make it outside the EU(SSR)! This fits nicely into his Roman Catholic Universalist cult. Tragically, the Protestants failed to ditch several wicked key Romanist dogmas at the Reformation.
Of course all the ‘free’ markets are heavily rigged in the elite’s favour, and when all the Western borders are finally abolished they will force our Celto-Saxon remnant to race-mix into oblivion. Game, Set and Match. But they will not succeed.
Farage does get rattled and lose his temper at times, anyone who heard his LBC radio performance will not have been impressed nor when he was questioned about employing his wife. Mind you it’s nothing like when Griffin underperforms. Maybe NG should have done a few more of those mock hostile press interviews at the RWBs???
Sometimes, the electorate appreciates a politician getting ‘rattled’ and losing his or her temper provided he or she doesn’t do that too often as it shows a bit of ‘character’. However, when they do it too often it can appear to be an inherent character flaw. Infact, I would go so far as to say it is better to do this than appear weak and apologetic as NG appeared to be on Question Time. The electorate can warm to a politician who is assertive and thereby appear confident in their beliefs.
I watched Griffin on Sky News on election night. He was terrible. Not only was his bloated physical appearance unpleasant but his arrogant boast about continuing to pocket EU (i.e. our) money for another six months by way of a settlement package for out-going MEPs got my blood up! Is he really trying to alienate supporters or doesn’t he understand that MEP/MPs expenses are still a sore point with the general public?
My opinion, for what it is worth, is that UKIP will come unstuck at the next General Election when they will fail to transform support into seats won. That, I suggest, will disillusion many in UKIP. That is the point that we need a national network of activists and branches in place to begin the process of exploitation and recruitment. It is therefor my hope that the BDP will become more proactive in that direction, indeed – through this excellent site, of building the machine.
I suspect it will happen too because UKIP has little in the way of a coherent political philosophy underpinning it and that which it does have ie Thatcherite economic globalism isn’t very attractive to all but the most well-heeled of Tories. Gaining the votes of people who are supporting you not because of what you are but what you are not can only get you so far as the Liberal Democrats have found out to their cost. The Labour Party has apparently already set-up a specific attack unit to make the electorate aware of what UKIP really represents in this respect.
(Party Member) Yes, Steven. I can believe that the Labour Party has set up a specific attack unit to make the electorate aware of what Ukip really represents. Whilst pretending to be a supporter, they write in to other peoples websites and constantly undermine them and their message. They are always Labour Party members and often espouse causes like Gay rights or legalising soft drugs, under the guise of promoting the view that the party targeted become more inclusive in it’s general appeal to voters !
No, the Labour Party has set-up this unit because they want to protect their electoral base which is still mainly comprised of ordinary working-class people. Being a Thatcherite Tory Party IE NOT NATIONALIST, UKIP have no credible answers to the hollowing-out of Britain’s industrial base ect. which UKIP’s economic approach would make even worse. It is therefore perfectly reasonable for a party like Labour to point this out to a mostly ill-informed electorate.
On the subject of gay rights, most people in Britain support them nowdays in this 21st century and you certainly don’t have to be any kind of Labour supporter to agree with them. You can be a Green Party, Labour, Lib Dem and yes even a Tory, UKIPPER and nationalist to support most of them if not all of their rights. After all, Marine Le Pen is a French nationalist and she supports nearly all of them!
Perhaps, the FN’s stance on this subject is more inline with 21st century thinking and was one small reason (along with many others) hers is a CREDIBLE nationalist party and as a result gained a stunning victory last Sunday?
I agree with John Shaw. The majority of people who voted UKIP kidded themselves that UKIP was actually opposed to immigration. It is up to us to constantly quote the words of Farage et al to show that what they really want is to replace Poles and other East Europeans with Africans and Asians.
That’s true John but the message from the big vote was what they thought they voted for and not what UKIP actually stands for (as far as anyone can tell in view of the contradictory statements).
Indeed. People THOUGHT they were voting for a party that was intellectually against mass immigration but were really voting for a Thatcherite Tory Party that is merely anti-EU and who uses the immigration issue not because they genuinely are anti-immigration but in the manner their Tory forbears use it ie as cheap electoral ploy and something to throw to the ‘plebs’ and ‘oiks’.
Spot-on, John. It amazes me how so many supposed nationalists have been taken-in by Farage and company. The man and his party are Thatcherite Tories and NOT nationalists. I would have thought the distinction was clear between being a Thatcherite Tory and a nationalist but it apparently isn’t!
John.by voting UKIP the British people did what they have been doing since 1945 , looking for the easy way out. I am sick to death of listening to people spout on about UKIP this and UKIP that , all this election has given us is more of the same. We now have to endure another five years of this unrelenting immigrant tide and the lies of a sham Patriotic Party .
Indeed and sadly that tsunami of immigration may be given more of a push by UKIPPER’S themselves if they are silly enough to vote UKIP in crucial Tory-held marginal seats over Labour.
UKIP is, in many ways, a menace. I would be more well-disposed to them if they took EQUAL amounts of votes away from the Tories AND the Labour Party but the fact is whilst they have picked-up some former Labour supporters they still tend to eat into the Tory vote more and as a result we may have a majority Labour government next year with Ed Milliband in No.10 and god only knows what he intends to do about this subject of mass immigration!
(Party Member) Steven, having been proved totally wrong (by events) and also been rumbled as probably part of the Labour attack unit against Ukip, I am amazed that you are still commenting on these matters. For the record, as many traditional Labour voters went for Ukip as traditional Tory ones. This happened in the north of England as well as Scotland due to people believing (wrongly) that they were voting against Immigration. Having taken the big step of not voting LibLabCON they will soon take the smaller step of voting British Democrat.
John, I can assure you I have NEVER voted Labour in my entire life and could never see myself doing that unless I lived in Wales or Scotland and it was the only way to prevent an SNP or Plaid candidate from winning.
You seem to be under the impression that nationalism is all about the EU issue. It isn’t. No real nationalist should need reminding of the fact that a nation can be deprived of having its own state or self-governance but can still exist and its existence is what is most important. After all, foreign rule unless it is imposed by military force can be cast-off anytime.
UKIP IS attracting voters from all sides of the spectrum I agree but IT IS a FACT that out of the supporters of the three major parties, it IS the Tories who are having their votes eaten into by UKIP the most and why is that? Well, it is quite simple really. It is because UKIP’s economic stance of ‘Thatcherism on steroids’ is more attractive to Tory voters than it is to Labour or Lib Dem ones.
How many Labour councillors have defected to UKIP? Not nearly as many as Tory ones have done!
Infact, many of UKIP’s councillors were not elected in their own right but are simply people who have defected straight from the Tories to UKIP.
You are aware, I presume, there is a rather important referendum due to take place on the 18th September this year? Surely, it not beyond the realms of possibility that Unionists in Scotland from a wide variety of political backgrounds voted UKIP in order to deprive the SNP of a third seat and thus slow down the SNP and the Yes campaign’s momentum?
The Scots virtually invented the concept of tactical voting in the United Kingdom! They have been doing it very successfully for about twenty to thirty years so that the Tories don’t win many seats up there!
UKIP is, on average, attracting less than 10% of Labour voters. The ones it has managed to get supporting it are the ‘old’ Labour types who were always Eurosceptic.
It should never be forgotten that that it was the LABOUR PARTY (admittedly in its ‘old’ guise) that was the MAJOR party of ‘euroscepticism’ in Britain until they changed their stance in the
late 1980’s.
After all, it only under a LABOUR government we have ever had a national referendum on the subject.
The allegedly ‘eurosceptic’ Tories have been giving away our national sovereignty to Brussels since the time of Edward Heath. Yes, even the blessed ‘eurosceptic’ Margaret Thatcher herself signed the Single European Act and thus gave her backing to this process.
UKIP has also been attracting a bigger percentage of Lib Dem voters (the ones who chose to vote Lib Dem not because they were staunch Lib Dems but because they hated the Tories and Labour) and also a few people who had before given-up on politics entirely.
I wouldn’t disagree Steven, although it’s probably fair to say that Griffin gets, and got, a lot harshly treated by the media than Farage did. Indeed Farage and his party was greatly media hyped at first, they are getting a harsher ride nowadays and he’s already lost it twice in quick sucession! Granted he hasn’t resorted to that squirming, cringeworthy face pullling stuff yet!
As for UKIP/immigration … As well as reminding people about UKIP “wanting immigration” how about printing that photo of all their ethnic (is the current favoured term BME?) candidates too, just to reinforce the fact that anyone can be and will be British in a UKIP Britain
Yes, many seem to forget (or never knew in the first place) that there was a strong anti Common Market (EU) faction within Socialist/Labour circles evidenced by the fact that recently deceased Bob Crow was preparing to stand on an anti-EU ticket. From the time I was entitled to vote, even though coming from a working-class background, I chose Conservative, in the mistaken belief that these were the kind of people who would preserve that which was important to me. It was only with the Maastricht Treaty that I realised that the Tories were prepared to sacrifice their own members and core supporters on the altar of Europe, and had to look elsewhere.
Indeed. It is too often forgotten that the Labour Party was the MAIN party of ‘eurosceptism’ in Britain. In the 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s and even into the 1990’s the Conservative Party used to boast about being ‘the party of Europe’.
We must NEVER forget it was a TORY government that first applied to join what was then the Common Market ie Harold Macmillan’s and it has been Conservative governments that have given most of the power away with Mrs Thatcher’s signing of the Single European Act in the mid 1980’s and John Major’s signing of the Maastrict Treaty in the early 1990’s. Infact, the last Tory PM who was a true ‘eurosceptic’ was Anthony Eden way back in the 1950’s.
Yes, John Major signed the Maastricht Treaty which turned the European Community into the European UNION (EU) and like ALL previous Tory PMs before him didn’t give the British people a chance to say whether they agreed with his signing of the treaty (which turned Her Majesty The Queen into just another EU citizen!) or not in a national referendum.
No wonder then he ‘led’ the Tory Party to its biggest landslide defeat since 1906 (in terms of seats won) and the biggest loss (in terms of votes) since the Great Reform Act!
Good stuff Adrian.
Let us be optimistic. There are a million and one conundrums as to how British Politics will pan out over the next twelve months.
There are a good number of radical Nationalists amongst the regular members of UKIP their Party has rattled the cage of the Liberal Elite that is fact. Oh yes, the likes of ‘David Hannan’ have been hovering around Mr Farage for quite some time but will they have the bravery to turn their backs on David Cameron. I doubt it.
What we have to realise, UKIP are currently 38,000 strong, and if their membership were to, quadruple they would be in a very strong position. (The BNP membership after the EURO Elections of 2009 grew to 14,000.) One way or another we as patriotic Nationalists have to be amongst them.
People voted for UKIP because they were thrilled to back a political Party that seems fresh clean and patriotic. Mr Farage stood his ground and made some excellent nationalistic points: he gave our people hope.
Politics is all about timing: maybe the momentum of UKIP can push through the door of Westminster. Let us not have hang-ups about the perfect utopian nationalistic ideology. The present political uprising has split the ‘Left’ they just do not know how to tackle the current outpouring of anti immigration politics. There all racists want wash with UKIP. As for those toffee nosed traitorous Tory bastards, they could be in for hiding in next week’s by election.
Or how about linking UKIPs immigration policy to the recently revealed fact that immigration costs us £22m everyday…….. Something along the lines of “Can you afford to support UKIPs immigration policy”. Kill two birds with one stone sort of thing!
(Party Member) Please read our Policies section if you LIKE UKIP. You will LOVE THE BRITISH DEMOCRATS !
Essentially what UKIP has done is very similar to what Margaret Thatcher did in the 70s – stolen Nationalism’s thunder, taken the anti immgrant vote share and thwarted Nationalism and nigh on killed it… Just like Thatcher did and it took years for nationalism to recover from that!
No wonder Farage is reported as saying “no one has harmed the BNP more than me” – for BNP you might just as well say Nationalism.
I could be wrong (often am) but any Nationalists who hope UKIP will suddenly or even gradually adopy Nationalistic polocies are likely to be as disappointed as all those in the 70s who backed the Tories/Powell/Monday club were.
and if anyone needs any further proof of how bogus UKIP’s ‘nationalism’ is you only have to look at how many asian/african/foreign names its candidates had. Many of whom may well have been elected!
Nationalism is being run by retired people and those close to retirement who can’t be bothered with electoral politics, holding meetings, using social media or change how the movement is marketed. They would rather attend debating societies and reading groups or come up with silly gimmicks in the case of Griffin. These people are condemning the next generation to life of hell. But I’m not surprised the same demographic flew like flies in the 1980s.
Until people under 45 take control of the movement it will never put in the hard yards, embrace marketing reforms or any great changes. As such it is stuck in no mans land. Such people have tried to reform previous parties but were blocked by the ‘old guard’ and had to defend the actions too. For this party to be successful it needs handing over to the next generation, it needs ideas and hard slog.
Last time I checked:
Only 9% of UKIPs vote is those under 35s meaning it won’t be successful long -term.
There are 35k former BNP members who can’t join UKIP
UKIP avoid most nationalist parties in Europe
They support the Islamification of the UK
UKIP Won’t stop immigration, they like and want immigration
There is plenty of potential but people need to start exercising!
B Philips is right UKIP are doing a Thatcher and the same foolish people are making the same mistake. However, history can be used to prevent a repeat of the aftermath of that.
There is plenty of potential but people need to start exercising more and stop moaning and trying to kid themselves over UKIP!
I don’t think it matters if people are being fooled by UKIP at the moment and I don’t think they are being fooled by UKIP to the degree claimed by many.
Voting UKIP sanitises views on protecting identity. UKIP may not intend it but that’s what happened. Vastly more important than a real nationalist party picking up a council seat or two.
Also UKIP is now prisoner of its own voters’ assumptions. If it backtracks on immigration it will suffer a collapse in support.
We might not like seeing real nationalists sidelined but after the Griffin disaster we can’t offer any substantial alternative at the moment.
As for the age of participants older people have got time on their hands to do it. As for the lack of younger UKIP voters people change their views as they get older.
(Party Member) Mike, I thought WE were the substantial alternative ! WE certainly have the best POLICIES.
Yes we do have the best ideas. A very honourable and vital role, But you can’t simply ignore the fact that we don’t have the size to offer the country an alternative in terms of candidates all over to vote for in the way UKIP can.
That is what I meant by a ‘substantial alternative’. UKIP is whether it intends to or not by sheer weight of numbers changing the political climate in a positive direction for our ideas. Anyone disagree or think that a bad thing?
They have certainly changed the political climate in relation to the EU issue but then it is a ‘safe’ issue and one where even many Labour Party and other lefties would agree with them (even for different reasons).
How about the issue that DEFINES nationalism? ie mass immigration and ALL of its ramifications ie NOT JUST the ECONOMIC ones but the SOCIAL aspects too? I would say that is much more debatable.
If the British people are silly enough to vote for a party that APPEARS to offer what they want but in reality DOESN’T then I can’t help them. It’s time they educated themselves about different parties and their UNDERLYING philosophies. It is not that difficult to do this. After all, even the ‘frogs’ (the word that British xenophobes so casually use to describe the French) manage to do this so why can’t we? That, of course, is why the French are voting for Marine Le Pen’s Front National and not a the French equivalent of a Tory ginger group!
The collapse should have already happened. Mr Farage has made it quite clear he has no serious proposals to deal with a VERY SERIOUS situation.
It’s no use complaining that the voters are blind siding much of what’s happening. Calling them ignorant won’t get their support any more than calling them ‘racist’ worked for the big parties trying to halt UKIP.
Politics is about winning people round. You apparent approach is to demand they agree with you and then get vexatious if they don’t. It’s a recipe for tiny grouplets meeting in telephone boxes and congratulating themselves on being right. A common nationalist failing.
Constructive criticism of UKIP is the political way. Their proposals are fine but don’t go far enough.
Well there is certainly a great deal to be critical of UKIP for:
There is their mania for globalist economics which would lead to an greater ‘hollowing-out’ of British industrial capacity than has already been the case, then there are their flat tax proposals which would see a dustbin man paying the same rate as a duke, their weak and ineffectual proposals for immigration controls which don’t seem to apply to non-EU countries and finally there is the high probability their voters will vote for them in high enough numbers to not win any seats for themselves but to enable ‘Red Ed’ Milliband to enter No.10 Downing Street next year with a comfortable majority with all that portends with regard to this crucial subject of immigration. After all, the last Labour government done us all proud on that subject, didn’t it?
Frankly, what is there not to like about UKIP?
Steven, a flat tax is simple, fair and doesn’t deter citizens from working harder or longer or getting promotion. (It is also Biblical, and only on increase rather than on compensation for work-done, which is legalised theft, and ought to be no more than about 10-15% of your income.)
So-called progressive income tax, so beloved of far left Marxists such as Lawson, Brown, Darling and Osborne, is straight out of the Communist Manifesto and Frankfurt School. It destroys the incentive to work. The mega-rich either are Non-doms or have fancy schemes to avoid tax thorough their companies etc.
Working every year to June the 6th or so entirely for the State is simply SLAVERY.
Our broadly honest beleaguered natives pay most of the income tax anyway.
I agree, our many good French ethnic cousins have always been more interested in philosophies, but so many of them were murdered-off in the Judeo-Jesuit inspired holocausts against the Clergy and the Huguenots, and then the Illuminate inspired ‘French’ Revolution which gave the world bloody Communism (allied to Global capitalism) which now rules the world.
Our people, now steeped in TV, spectating professional sport, beer and ‘Free’ Welfare and absurd tolerance are more like the proverbial FROGs in the ever-warming pot!
The SOCIAL aspects of this issue are still the ‘elephant in the room’ which can’t be mentioned in polite company by the media ect.
(Party Member) Yes Mike, of course you are right. We all need to work hard to make sure that it is the British Democrats who become the Premier Nationalist Party in Britain.
The problem/dilemma is that the greater UKIP becomes the less substanial Nationalism will be, it will be a return to dark, wilderness days of the 80s for nationalists, so maybe some dark days ahead for us until the UKIP bubble bursts because it is hard for us to be part of it as we are barred from membership even if we wanted to join.
Not entirely convinced people werent taken in by ukips posturing either, cant really see people voting for something they want knowing they are not going to get it. Hopefully they’ll soon learn and ukips bubble will burst sooner rather than later and whilst nationalism is still in a position, just about, to take advantage of it.
UKIP could prove to be a fatal ‘roadblock’ to real nationalism in Britain which I am sure is your opinion rather than a softer and milder path to it. The fact is UKIP has NO UNDERLYING nationalist philosophy and that is proved by their opinion that there are no indigenous ethnic peoples in Britain. I beg to differ. I’m sure Marine Le Pen and her Front National party would never say an indigenous French person was a figment of the imagination!
and I think that hits the nail on the head – many would feel a bit more comfortable if ukip had been a nationalist party and moderated their approach just as the FN has, rather than a non nationalist party pretending to be one…. the former works, the latter lacks conviction
It does lack conviction but would we be better off without UKIP?
I see the argument but I argue that UKIP opens doors by making a more genuinely nationalist politics far nearer ‘respectability’.
Helmer said he saw no objection to voluntary repatriation grants according to the Mail so UKIP is something of a mixed bag. The Tories are talking of EU migrants without jobs being sent back. So the concept of stronger controls is increasingly on the agenda and repatriation is not quite the satanic idea it was once represented to be.
A changed climate of opinion has to occur before any action could ever come about.
I believe I am correct in asserting that the Daily Mail (probably the most loathsome and utterly vile Tory rag in existence) was shocked and appalled that Helmer had said this. Perhaps, they need to be reminded this idea of voluntary repatriation was an OFFICIAL Tory Party policy even when that pro-Common Market liberal Edward Heath was leading them!
You can’t get much more of a ‘seal of approval’ for nationalist politics than a main party leader and (at the time) soon to be prime minister copying nationalisms words, yet Thatchers swamping speech did the NF no good at all in fact it took 20 years for Nationalism to recover. It certainly didnt make nationalist politics respectable or the party electable. Hope it proves different this time round and Mike is right.
As for the subject of repatriation it remains to be seen whether mentioning it will do ukips candidate any good, although again not convinced VOLUNTARY, financially assisted repatriation was ever that much of a hot potato considering there has been such a scheme in place since at least the 80s when Richard Edmonds first made me aware of it…… Indeed I think it was Nick Griffin who stated when asked about sending people back that “our (bnp) policy is no different to the governments scheme”. It did take the wind out of that interviewers sails!
That is a excellent point but the NF never became a credible vehicle for the expression of nationalist sentiment and one reason for that was its practice of holding street marches all the time. This gave the anti-British hard-left a perfect excuse to attack them and the resulting violence was, of course, blamed on the NF rather than the hard-left even when it wasn’t the NF’s fault because of the media’s bias. In essence, therefore, the NF was not in a position to capitalise on Mrs Thatcher’s remarks. Street marches just make you look like a bunch of thugs spoiling for a fight rather than a credible political party.
A credible party has to get not just its policies right but its presentation and tactics/strategy. Marine Le Pen and her FN party have managed to achieve this. Unfortunately, politics is about 80% perception and about 20% reality.
Voluntary and financially-assisted repatriation was introduced under Edward Heath’s Immigration Act of 1971. Of course, the powers-that-be made sure hardly anyone knew about the scheme.
(Party Member) The no nonsense British Democratic Party lead the way on the subject of repatriation. See our Policy Section for a much needed strategy to save the British People from being totally overwhelmed in their own lands.