Issue 86, December 2011

Nation Revisited

# 86, December 2011.

Creating Jobs
 

Governments all over the world are trying to stimulate their economies and create jobs. In the 1930s Benito Mussolini drained the Pontine Marshes, Adolf Hitler employed 100,000 men to build the Autobahns and Franklin D Roosevelt created the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Public Works Administration. Great construction projects helped to get the world out of recession before the war and they can do so again. Britain has a good infrastructure but we urgently need a network of modern power plants; not expensive nuclear reactors or “absolutely useless” wind turbines, to quote the Duke of Edinburgh, but tried and tested gas-fired generators.

The government should abolish National Insurance contributions as a separate charge and fund the system through general taxation. Dedicated insurance contributions act as a tax on employment and put off potential employers. We should also use the benefits system to drive people back to work. The genuinely disabled must be helped but work dodgers should not be given the chance to live off the state.

And good workers should be rewarded for their efforts. Overtime should not be taxed. Tax should be calculated on the basic working week - overtime and bonus payments should be kept by those that have earned them. We must create a culture of work and reward that is almost totally lacking at present. People should take pride in their work and be well paid for doing it.

Unrestrained welfare has created a parasitic class that depends on state handouts. And not content with homegrown scroungers we have imported them from all over the world. If their payments were cut off a great many of the foreign scroungers would simply go home; they have no attachment to this country other than as a source of dole money. 

Nick Clegg’s Youth Contract scheme is a step in the right direction. It will ensure that young people are in full-time education or apprenticeships. This will prevent them from wasting their lives in idleness and equip them to be useful members of society. The unemployed must learn to get up in the morning and take the jobs that are available. At the moment we have 2.6 million unemployed but we still have to bring in workers from overseas to fill job vacancies. 


The unemployed must take the jobs that are being done by immigrants. The government must enforce the minimum wage and make sure that people are not being exploited. But there’s nothing shameful about cooking, cleaning, security or waiting on tables. The recession must take its course but by taking positive measures we can get people back to work.

The Alternative Press
 

           I read four political publications in November; European Socialist Action, Comrade, The Quarterly Review and Heritage and Destiny. The Internet has largely replaced hard copy publishing but there is still a market for well written and entertaining magazines. The Spectator is supposed to be the oldest magazine in the world; it was founded in 1828 and is still going.
 

European Socialist Action is published by cartoonist and writer Robert Edwards, a former member of Union Movement. It’s a full colour, bi-monthly tabloid with a good team of writers. 

Issue No 37 carried a front page article by the editor entitled: “The Greater Europe – or Little England.” This demolishes far right arguments against European unity and calls for a complete revision of global capitalism. The Editorial lists Colonel Gaddafi’s achievements as well as his crimes and points out that he was deposed by Western interests because of his plans for a value-based African currency. Robert Edwards marks the 75^th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street by examining the fantastic claims made by surviving “anti-fascists.” 

Dermot Clark looks at the growing menace of American killer drones – now being bought by Britain at a cost of £860 million. Scott Ullah gives his views on Dale Farm and the problem of itinerants. John Roberts remembers The Somme and describes a tour of the battlefields. And a lively letters page occupies the back page. www.europeanaction.com
 

Comrade the journal of the Friends of Mosley has made a welcome return. Published in A4 format in retro style it combines up to the minute analysis of current affairs with historical articles and book reviews. Gordon Beckwell, John Anderson, RE Stanton, Curtis Eastligh, George Swift, Derek Smethurst and Adrian Pearce have contributed to an informative and interesting publication. Comrade inevitably devotes much of its coverage to Oswald Mosley’s pre-war British Union of Fascists and his post-war Union Movement. There are not many old campaigners left but Mosley’s policies are attracting younger supporters. After all, the problems of cheap labour and global capitalism haven’t changed since the 1930s when he first called for a self-contained economy based on the British Empire. After the war he developed the policy of Europe a Nation. www.oswaldmosley.com
 

The Quarterly Review is a conservative magazine produced in Readers Digest format and edited by Derek Turner. An article by Dr Geoffrey Partington about Gyorgy Lukacs and Antonio Gramsci is typical of an academic who attaches great importance to the writers and thinkers of the last century. In fact most people are influenced by television and the popular press rather than long-dead intellectuals. I knew Geoff Partington when he was a young schoolteacher and an active communist. He is now an internationally acclaimed educationalist but he still lives in the rarefied atmosphere of academia and lacks common sense. The decline of the West is more to do with the rise of global capitalism than the confused ramblings of Marxist theoreticians. The rest of the magazine is an enjoyable mix of historical articles and book and cinema reviews. Contributors include Frank Ellis, Leslie Jones, Roy Kerridge and the inimitable Taki Theodoracopulos. editor@quarterly-review.org

Heritage & Destiny is associated with the England First Party but it’s an independent journal that reflects a cross-section of opinion. It’s a quarterly A4 magazine edited by Mark Cotterill with Martin Kerr and Peter Rushton. Two book reviews are featured in the current issue. Why we Fight by Guillaume Faye calls for the creation of an empire from Lisbon to Vladivostok. This is too much for the reviewer Ian Freeman but he does concede that: “something like this might end up happening de facto if the Race unites.” At least H&D acknowledges the existence of the European idea. Gil Caldwell from the United States reviews Troy Southgate’s biography of the dissident Nazi Otto Strasser. The reviewer equates Strasser’s state socialism with the author’s libertarian nationalism; an unlikely comparison but all things are possible in the world of political theory. Peter Rushton brings us up to date on the disintegration of the BNP and reports on the state-sponsored vandalism of Rudolf Hess’ grave. heritageanddestiny@yahoo.com  

Roy Chester
 

Few men combined the arts of street fighting and oratory as successfully as Roy Chester. He was one of the original BNP team of the early Sixties who stayed onside when the Spearhead gang defected to the National Socialist Movement. He was a firebrand from Monmouth with a gift for singing hymns and arias. He settled in South Africa with his family in 1965 but he still contributed to Nation, our predecessor paper. Roy was on the left of the BNP and always laughingly described himself as a fascist-anarchist. He was an admirer of Huey Long, the assassinated “share the wealth” Governor of Louisiana who coined the phrase: “Every Man a King but no Man Wears the Crown.” He was also inspired by Antonio Gramsci, the father of “cultural hegemony” who was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini. Gramsci was recently discovered by the far-right and blamed for almost everything. But Roy was not frightened of socialism; he was a revolutionary who rejected myths and fantasies. He once dismissed Professor Raymond Bamford’s racial theories with the words: “up your hole with a race soul.” 

Compare his accurate predictions about Africa to the swaggering imperialist bluster of the time. Unfortunately very few people were calling for white solidarity in the early 70s; as a result the Portuguese, Rhodesians and Afrikaners were all defeated by Africans who made the effort to rise above tribalism. I remember him telling me in 1966 as we looked at the impressive skyline of Johannesburg: “De Beers and Anglo American don’t care who runs this country so long as they keep the profits.” It was therefore no surprise to him when Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa in 1994.

Letter from South Africa (from Nation # 8 July 1974)

The 8^th June 1974 was a day of National Disaster for South Africa; the Springboks were beaten 12-3 by the British Lions.

I listened to the commentary in a local bar and, if I had not known what was happening I would have assumed that we were listening to the declaration of a Third World War. It is the first time that I have heard eighty minutes silence in a pub. The landlord was kind enough to lend me a portable to listen to the English service, which I did huddled in a corner with the only other Englishman in the pub. When it was all over at least three South Africans came and congratulated me as though I had some direct part in the victory.

I have written the foregoing to illustrate the almost complete lack of interest shown by the general public in the military take-over in Portugal. Over the next ten years in South Africa we are going to see many changes, and I cannot see Rhodesia surviving unless they come to some agreement with the Blacks.

It goes to prove that as soon as a colony becomes an economic liability and not an asset it is dumped and all the high flown phrases about the sanctity of the homeland are forgotten. One cannot blame troops from Portugal for not wanting to fight in a war in a land that must seem very remote from Portugal itself. Guinea-Bissau has been written-off as militarily indefensible and Mozambique will follow, which will give terrorists a direct jumping ground into the Transvaal. It is more difficult to predict events in Angola where there are a large proportion of whites in the population and where the terrorists have achieved little or no success in the last fourteen years.

Angola and the enclave of Cabinda are by far the richest and most stable of the Portuguese colonies in Africa and would seem the best bets for UDI. The difficulty here is that the Portuguese colonies have always been tightly centralised from Lisbon, unlike Rhodesia which has always had its own government, judiciary, civil service, army and police and where UDI was an act of defiance to the British government rather than any change in the nature of the governing body.

On the other hand I cannot see anything other than UDI retaining any measure of white control in the territories. The Portuguese obviously hope to placate the Blacks to such an extent that they will still be able to retain their economic domination in Africa. We’ll see what happens but whatever it is it won’t strengthen the position of white Southern Africa.

Nearer home, the Progressive Party (anti-Apartheid) has made another gain which brings their total parliamentary representation to seven, the magnificent seven as they call themselves. The victory was in the affluent suburb of Pinelands, where for the past two elections the United Party (main opposition) have been returned unopposed; they got in with a majority of 34 which represents a swing to the Progs of 1.4% (based on the provincial elections). All they are doing of course is taking away the UP vote in urban areas; they have no chance of capturing any Nationalist constituency.

In Parliament the Nats have 124 – UP 42 and Progs 7. There are actually two parties operating under the UP banner, but not for long, this is the one sure lesson of the Pinelands by-election. The expulsions have already started in the Cape, where three former MPs have been expelled and many office bearers. Whether the “verliges” (liberals) will go to the Progs and the “verkamptes” (hard-liners) to the Nats, as prominent politician Marias Steyn has already done, no one seems to know – least of all party leader Villiers Graaf.

Marius Steyn, when he left the UP said that Graaf always seemed more at home with his prize Frisian bulls than with the people, - fair comment!

For Whom the Bell Tolls
 

Opponents of the European Union have been undermining it for nearly forty years. They objected to every development from the Treaty of Rome to Maastricht and Lisbon. They cheered when the euro dropped in value and moaned when it rose again. The Greek tragedy has given them hope; 86 % of Daily Mail readers think that Greece should leave the euro and the undead creatures of the Tory Right have come out of their coffins to celebrate.

Their original fears that we would lose our identity were groundless. We have not lost our nationality and nor has anyone else. The French are still French, the Germans are still German and we are still British. We have not lost our monarchy, or our judicial system, or our pint glasses. We are still as British as roast beef.

Their economic arguments are even weaker. The chaotic finances of the BNP shows how little they know about economics. They see everything in terms of nationality and simply cannot understand the concept of “Europe a Nation.” They are worried about the Germans bailing out the Greeks but they don’t mind Englishmen bailing out the Scots, Irish and Welsh; Bavarians bailing out Pomeranians and Saxons, or New Yorkers bailing out Alabamans. It hasn’t occurred to them that the poorer regions of every economy from Russia to the USA are subsidized by the richer regions. Their selfish policies logical would result in a patchwork of aggressive states all armed to the teeth and protected by tariff barriers; the nightmare situation that twice destroyed Europe in the twentieth century.

Their antipathy to foreigners is no different to their objection to social security. Why, they ask, should affluent middle class southerners bail out northerners just because their pits and shipyards have been shut down? And why should fit and healthy people contribute to the upkeep of hospitals? Their attitude stems from a callous indifference to others; they can dress it up as patriotism but when you get down to it they are motivated by greed. The Tory right has resisted every social advance in history; it’s really no surprise that they are against European unity.

But just as we created a welfare state so we will create an equitable European Union. It’s wrong for people to suffer because they can’t afford hospital bills and it’s wrong to let   Europeans starve when we have the resources to feed everybody. The only objectors will be the billionaire press barons of Canary Wharf and mean-spirited petty nationalists. They should heed the words of John Donne:

No Man is an Island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as a manor of the friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Apart from the Tory rebels the mainstream parties are broadly pro-European. The UK Independence Party claims widespread support but their supporters outside Parliament on Monday 26^th October 2011 were mostly middle class pensioners. A referendum division was triggered by a 100,000 signature petition; it was defeated but it encouraged Dave Cameron to lecture Angela Merkel on how to run a successful economy. The UK National Debt is expected to reach £1.2 trillion by April 2012 and we have 2.6 million unemployed.

But he is right that the EU needs reforming. At the moment decisions are made by national leaders who have to report back to fragile parliamentary coalitions. European legislation can be held up by the Slovak Social Democrats or Sinn Fein. The fate of half a billion Europeans can be decided by minority parties in small countries. We recently had the Northern League delaying important Italian budget reforms because they were more concerned with banning kebab shops. As a result of the crisis Europe is finally moving towards fiscal union. The UK will watch from the sidelines but central government will inevitably spread to the periphery. 

Former Greek premier George Papandreou briefly proposed a referendum until Angela Merkel applied the electrodes to his scrotum.  But it was democracy that got them into trouble in the first place. They voted for parties that borrowed the money to provide lower taxes and early retirement – just as the British Labour Party did for 13 years. Now both nations are suffering the consequences.

The United States, Japan and the European Union (including the UK) ran up massive debts during the period of cheap loans. But they have learned their lesson and are taking steps to live within their means. It would do their creditors no good for them to go under. The Chinese, the Gulf States and other nations in surplus would rather accept rescheduled repayments than lose their money.

Unless the current crisis really is the end of the world markets will recover and common sense will prevail. We survived previous recessions because of the underlying strength of our economy. We are an important industrial nation specializing in high-tech products and financial services. The worldwide recession started across the Atlantic and it will end there; probably next year to coincide with the US general election. Professional doom-mongers and alarmists like to frighten people but Iceland and Ireland have shown that deficits can be contained.

Loud-mouthed traders and populist politicians are not to be taken seriously. The economic situation is dangerous but the biggest threat facing Europe and North America isn’t sovereign debt but Third World immigration. Debts can be paid or written off; they are only accounting procedures. But once nations are gone they are gone forever. Of course we must stop borrowing and control spending but the overriding imperative is to protect and defend the European ethos.

The Far-Right World of Fantasy
 

The websites of the far right are a world of fantasy in which their enemies control everything. According to them enemy forces control the BBC, the independent TV channels, the radio, the newspapers, the film industry and the music business. The fact that different channels of communication often have conflicting opinions is dismissed as a clever deception. But the victims of this monstrous conspiracy don’t actually read the newspapers or listen to the broadcast or they would realize that the mass media are spouting their own propaganda.  The BBC is a state-owned broadcaster that puts out government propaganda – exactly as one would expect. As a result it reflects Dave Cameron’s Tory hostility to Europe and constantly predicts the collapse of the EU. They also worry about immigration, particularly from Moslem countries or Eastern Europe. Sky TV and Channel 4 follow the same neoconservative agenda. 

When a member of a far-right movement is convicted of a crime their leaders always put in down to a conspiracy by the police and the courts; they never believe that some of their members are dangerous criminals who deserve to be locked up. In recent years members of the far-right have been convicted of murder, conspiracy, threatening behavior, theft, sexual assault and terrorism. But they have been defended by their political leaders. In their tortured minds these criminals are heroes and martyrs falsely accused by the establishment.

They see popular culture as corrupt and degenerate. A black face in a television advertisement or programme is regarded as a deliberate provocation. Modern music is part of a conspiracy and so is eroticism. Subscribers to this nonsense fight a constant battle against malign influences from morning to night. They exist in a permanent state of anxiety neurosis and often resort to violence, drink or drugs. Their world is a nightmare dominated by demons of their own creation. Some of them are so uptight that they risk death by apoplexy every time they watch the news.

The organizers of this conspiracy are usually described as Jews or Freemasons but all races and religions are involved as well as communists and capitalists; who are apparently the same people wearing different hats. They meet at various conferences to plot world domination; notably the annual Bilderberg event where plotters as diverse as Enoch Powell and Ken Clarke promote world domination. They also meet at the G20 gatherings of world leaders where they discuss the latest developments. They are a terrible and powerful enemy but we can fight them by sending as much money as possible to a PO Box in Welshpool.

The flying saucer craze of the Sixties relied on alleged sightings from all over the world. Every book and magazine article quoted another book or magazine in an ever expanding library of misinformation. Soon there was an “indisputable” mountain of evidence all based on the original flawed data. The far-right follows this pattern. The great Communist-Capitalist-Jewish-Freemasonic Conspiracy has been running for a hundred years. It controls all the nations of the world, all the money in the world, all the armed forces and means of communication. Only members of the far-right know what is going on because they read obscure magazines and websites. And they insist that the recent judgment against the BNP proves that they are right.

Rewriting History
 

Members of the BNP and its offshoots are always trying to make themselves respectable. But they can all be traced back to Rotha Lintorn-Orman’s British Fascists of 1923. Nick Griffin was a former chairman of the National Front who joined as a teenager. The NF was founded by AK Chesterton, a prewar official of the British Union of Fascists. When the BUF was founded by Oswald Mosley in 1932 many of its members came over from the British Fascists with Neil Francis Hawkins. Thus Nick Griffin is directly descended from Rotha’s patriotic volunteers. 

Andrew Brons, another former chairman of the NF and current leader of the BNP Ideas faction, was a teenage member of Colin Jordan’s National Socialist Movement. Jordan was inspired and financed by Arnold Leese the prewar leader of the Imperial Fascist League who split from the British Fascists in 1928. So Andrew Brons is also descended from the British Fascists.

Most of the senior people in the BNP were members of the NF and share a tradition of street corner oratory and an undeserved reputation for political violence stretching back 88 years. 

They claim to be democrats but their right arms still go into spasm on special occasions. They cannot rewrite history or get rid of the incriminating photos but they can revise their obsolete policies. The Empire has gone and so have the captive markets that it guaranteed. It’s time to face reality and do what Oswald Mosley did in 1948 when he embraced the concept of Europe a Nation.

More Government Lies on Immigration
 

The latest figures show that we took in a quarter of a million immigrants last year. This comes on the heels of the inquiry into the Border Agency letting in immigrants unchecked to ease congestion at the ports of entry. Next year we are hosting the Olympic Games and we will be inundated with illegal immigrants masquerading as sports fans and tourists. At a time when we have a stagnant economy and 2.6 million unemployed this is madness. Immigration did not cause unemployment or the housing shortage but it has contributed to both.

The government is more concerned about getting the fans to the Olympics at Stratford than controlling immigration. They do not want long queues at airport immigration controls; they want a constant flow of tourists bringing in lots of spending money. 

Since the first immigrants arrived from the West Indies in 1948 the government has been lying about immigration. This country has always been short of doctors, scientists and engineers because we do not train enough of them. But we have never been short of unskilled workers. Immigration is and always has been about cheap labour. All the propaganda about enriching our culture and needing workers to keep the social security system going is mendacious nonsense.

Every time that a popular movement attracted support for immigration control the government passed some ineffectual cosmetic legislation. They did so following Union Movement’s campaign in West London in 1959 and twenty years later to scupper the National Front when Margaret Thatcher said that she understood people’s fears of being “swamped.” More recently the Cameron-Clegg double act killed off the BNP in the 2010 general election with a few well-chosen words of reassurance. 

They have put Damian Green in charge of immigration. He is a good man but he can only work within the law. Ken Clarke is studying the Human Rights Act to stop it being abused by bogus asylum seekers. But what is really required is a determined government campaign to stop immigration and start repatriation. This is not likely to happen while our prime minister sees himself as the junior partner to an American president who is committed to “free trade and open borders.” We will have no independent policies until we break from America. The Europe-hating popular press never mentions our total subservience to America. But the real and present danger to our sovereignty comes from across the Atlantic; not the English Channel.