“Respectability” is one of the most confusing and controversial words in our kind of politics, since it is used to convey two quite different, indeed, unrelated meanings.
On the one hand, it means doing just what Nigel Farage of UKIP does: staying within (even if at the limits of) permitted political discourse, running with the fox and hunting with the hounds, especially on the immigration issue, shamelessly protesting his supposed anti-racism but all the while courting the large anti-immigration vote.
Farage would never say that a nation is ultimately an extended kin group based in the last analysis upon ties of blood, not a mere social construct based upon shared language, religion, culture or “values” (which to the British political class in any event mean the false, worthless and inverted “values” of bourgeois liberalism).
We however know what ties really bind a nation. So, indeed, does Farage, but he will not say so, because if he does, he will be cast out of the establishment’s big tent into real opposition. He is too cowardly and unprincipled for that. He much prefers to be the system’s enfant terrible, but at the last, he will always be one of them, not one of us, unless, of course, we look like winning, when suddenly he will have been on our side all along!
Respectability can, on the other hand, have quite a different meaning, viz., a strict commitment to democratic legality, the use of lawful and constitutional means only in the struggle for power, and indeed behaving in a fashion that attracts, not repels, the better elements of society (regardless of social class: I would personally welcome dukes and dustmen into the BDP, but that is an article for another day).
Some parties strive for “respectability” in both senses of the word. UKIP is one, the English Democrats another, though their embrace of some genuine patriots has predictably to anyone except perhaps Messrs Tilbrook and Uncles made them more controversial than they might wish to be.
Some on the other hand care nothing for respectability in either sense, then wonder why no-one with any stake in society will join them. For far too long some on the extraparliamentary right pursued the failed tactics of confrontational street politics (even after it should have been obvious that they were taking them nowhere, fast).
The result was that anyone with the “courage” to turn up on potentially violent marches was welcome, even if such people put off 98% of society because they looked like Millwall fans on a rampage (which many of them of course were).
The Millwall anthem is “Nobody likes us and we don’t care”, which more or less became the theme song of the National Front by the early 1980s, when its ghastly youth journal, Bulldog, was promoting something called the league of louts! What would its first chairman, A. K. Chesterton have said? Over time, of course, such bad activists inevitably (and quickly) drove out the good in an example of Gresham’s law transferred to political activism.
It is quite possible to be respectable in the first sense, but not the second. The EDL is desperately anxious not be seen as racist, homophobic etc., ostentatiously parading a Jewish Division, a Gay Division etc. Despite that, the EDL still puts off 98% of society, because of what it is (a football firm playing at politics), not what its leadership believes.
It is however quite possible to be respectable in the second sense, but not the first. Andrew Brons carries that off with aplomb. That is the goal which all Europe’s successful nationalist parties, most notably the Front National in France, have attained, and for which the BDP must in my humble opinion strive. Ideologically, we reject the worthless values of the liberal establishment, but organisationally we shall have no truck with yobs who put off the British people, or with the failed tactic of deliberately seeking confrontation with political opponents, in the mistaken belief that all publicity is good publicity. We need not follow either of those courses. There is, to coin a phrase, a “third way”!
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Some of the EDL are rough and ready, but so were the men of the British army who fought at Waterloo, the battles of Ypres and so on.
While the middle very white class of anti fascists never attract the same venom the EDL attract from the BBC and the rest of the media.
The point is it is the establishment who demonise the EDL, the same establishment who demonise nationalists parties such as the the BDP.
The fight we’re faced with to win back these islands will need the inclusion of both sides of your respectability point, because somewhere along the line, the fight will turn physical.
The political system as it currently exists- even when it works- only works partially, because the party politics split our society into its component parts; the tories for the rich, Labour for the poor; so what nationalism has to do is become all things to all men, and that is possible through a manifesto that puts as its priority the care and welfare of the British people.
I agree with your analysis. We need everyone on board if possible. Most people are afraid, even cowardly, when it comes to taking a stand, but they do respect strength, strength in numbers, which may explain the ‘UKIP surge’.
IMHO we need both the Russell Crowe & the Jamie Oliver types in our movement!
As for the football types, perhaps all they need is strong leadership?
It is part of the tactics of the left to tar patriotism with the stigma of violence. That is why they organise ‘protests’ against EDL marches in order to provoke it.
That’s quite apart from the fact that their protests are an excuse for some enjoyable violence on their part, which is the real reason a lot of them belong to such organisations in the first place.
Much of the nationalist movement enjoys and wants to be outsiders rejected by the majority. Whatever it takes even if people agree with you.
In my view the biggest cause of crisis in our ranks is not Griffin but the fact that nationalist views have become so much less censored and so much more respectable provided tactfully expressed. It’s not long ago that immigration was near unmentionable.
Unfortunately this sea change horrifies many on the right who covet their outsider status. You don’t even need infiltrators with such a mindset. Being broadly accepted is simply too boring.
They won’t let us be respectable. We need mainstream leaders with the guts to make it plain that “It doesn’t matter what those morons say.”
I believe your article is correct,I also believe that the majority of EDL supporters are not aware that the leaders of the EDL are anti nationalist,and to quote “Tommy Robinson” Scum.
The BDP must organise along parliamentary lines as in the not too distant future when both UKIP and the Tories are found out on Europe.The vacumn will need filling.I have contacted the party about getting going in Kent.
I am still awaiting a response.
Great article,but does miss some points.
Those of us who wasted the years from Derek beacons success to abject failure and dismay, to once again regrouping and working hard, will also know the success that the new BNP under the man from Wales received, was not down to John Tyndall being out of touch or out of date, neither griffins boots and suits approach. But mainly down to a change in public opinion, the asylum seeker explosion and extreme Islam raising its head to name but two examples. But while sometimes there is a need to dress down so to speak the fact is while sometimes its necessary to speak respectfully not just to avoid arrest whilst telling the truth. Its also one of the flaws that has eventually destroyed the BNP and others before it, when weak membership is bullied by dictator so called leaders. The British people want strong leadership that sticks up for the rights of its people and providing they say what it does on the tin I believe people would not care if they dress in suits or as telly tubbies. Suits have stolen and lied enough.
The question of respectability which Adrian Davies has raised is actually far more important to the nationalist movement – and whether it has any future at all – than what the policies are.
Like it or lump it your politics have to be sold to people. It’s a marketing job. Very few want to ‘sacrifice themselves for a cause’. Nationalism has mostly been based on cultivating the few with predictable results.
UKIP’s biggest strength – and a large part of the reason for its current prominence – is that it projects itself as assuming people will agree with it since the message is so obviously correct. In the main, people take you at your own estimation. The approach works.
Quite a few doomies predicted that Andrew Brons would attract a torrent of abuse because of his long connection to the nationalist movement. It simply has not happened. He even gets invited to Buck House. He skilfully puts himself over in a manner which radiates the suggestion that to rubbish him would be absurd. Take note and copy.
The BDP has made a sound start. It’s not putting itself over as a hole in corner affair casting nervous glances around for where the next blow will come from. If you behave as though you are going to be beaten you probably will be. Humans are not all that nice.
Stop thinking of yourselves as outsiders and you’ll be surprised the degree to which you are accepted. I learnt that dealing with the press on behalf of another party. I took it for granted that I was on an equal footing with the representatives of the big ones and expected my points to be heard on an equal basis. It works.
A lot of people in our movement remind me of all those whiny ghetto songs which emerged from the US in the 1960s. Even Elvis did one. If you tell people you are from the ghetto – political or otherwise – they’ll mostly avoid you. Or throw a few coppers in your hat and flee. If you are lucky.
Get out the ghetto mindset people – or give up unless you want a little club.
Farage has done well not just because he has remained within the bounds of political respectability, which as we know are a band well the left of what they were until recent times, but because he is personally respectable in a slightly raffish way. His pint drinking and cigarette smoking only add to his Golf Club Bar – type persona which is decidedly Home Counties middle class.
A lot of Tories can identify with Farage. They may not vote for him if the Tories continue to steal his thunder, but only because they fear as always that if they don’t they will let the other leftist parties in to power whom they is dislike even more than Cameron.
Things may change if Cameron lets the Romanians into this country en masse.
The BNP nosedived essentially because the left, especially the BBC, were able to tar Nick Griffin as a
Nazi most dramatically as a result of the Question Time car crash
The British will never vote for a party with such associations, because the national myth is standing alone Against Hitler in the last war.
On the subject of other Political Party’s and movements may I point out that our new British Democratic Party has a well thought out constitution, to avoid the problems and failings of the B.N.P. Our first policy statement clearly shows we are faithful to Nationalist principles. After nearly ten years in the old party I took the plunge and Joined the party of the future. On the old party website I have just read an article called ‘ one way to make Britain Better ‘. Read this ( it’s not bad ) then the comments by regular Kugelschreiber and Jrpaphos ! ! ! Then Join the British Democratic Party Today ! You will KNOW IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO.
I agree wholeheartedly, Tim. The BNP never did shake off the predictable accusations that it was the political home of people with a fetish for the politics of 1930’s Germany. Nick Griffin should have expelled these relatively small number of people when the BNP started its rise. He didn’t and the media and others used it as a stick. Unfortunately, politics is about 90% image and 10% substance and the BDP will have to understand this if it is to progress.
I would say to all patriots”dont get angry….get political!” and instead of looking for confrontation put leaflets out in your local area.The way we behave is noticed by “Joe Public” but behaving in a good way does not stop us from having radical op[inions.
Well said James (above) about putting leaflets out. British Democratic Party leaflets are being delivered to homes in Poole, Dorset on an almost daily basis. Just thirty minutes every so often will give members a great feeling by helping our cause.