Issue 64, February 2010

Nation Revisited
 

An occasional e-mail to friends. # 64, February 2010

 

Immigration

Cabinet papers made public after thirty years reveal that Margaret Thatcher was worried about immigration in 1979. She thought that white Rhodesians, Poles and Hungarians would be easier to assimilate than Asians and asked government departments to look into the matter. Her fears were well-founded but like Churchill before her she was overruled by Conservative Central Office. Jim Callaghan had called for an inquiry into immigration but he silenced by his own party bosses. The spin doctors were convinced that the British people would not stand for racial discrimination so they championed immigration controls that amounted to an open door policy.

The half of the electorate that bother to vote probably think that they are appointing politicians to make decisions. But real power is held by the power brokers who shape British politics. The British people were never asked if they wanted millions of black and brown immigrants. Our celebrated "democratic" system did not consult us on the matter and when we started to complain we were forced to shut our mouths. Even prime ministers were silenced when they questioned immigration. So much for the "sovereignty" of parliament.

The postwar colonial independence movement was supported by academics, churchmen, journalists, broadcasters and businessmen around the world. It led to the end of segregation in America, swept away immigration controls on both sides of the Atlantic and overturned white rule in Rhodesia and South Africa. It was enthusiastically supported by British teachers, students and politicians. The few voices that were raised in protest were drowned out by a torrent of liberal indignation. Reasoned argument was unfashionable in an age of blind optimism and wishful thinking.

As a result we are inundated with the surplus population of the Third World. The Euro-sceptics complain that Brussels has taken over our border controls. But we have never had proper border controls and nobody knows how many illegal immigrants are in the UK. Our customs and immigration officers waive through non-Europeans but stop Australians, Americans and Canadians of British descent. They seem to be working to a policy that welcomes blacks and Asians but excludes whites.

This inverted racism is a liberal reaction to imperialism. Instead of being proud to be Europeans who have contributed to every sphere of human endeavour we are expected to feel guilty for conquering the world. But the idea of collective historical guilt is nonsense. It is unjust to blame the innocent for the sins of their fathers and we should not apologise for advancing civilization.  Slavery in the Americas was abolished by economics not philanthropy. It was actually cheaper to hire poor whites immigrants from Europe than to feed and shelter black slaves. Exploitation will go the same way if we make full use of technology. The future will belong to those who can harness science to political organisation; not to those who breed the fastest.

Asking the people

Democracy - government by the people - seemed a good idea in the eighteenth century. But the trouble is that people don't always know what they want. They all demand lower taxes but they expect more money to be spent on health, education and social security. And they say that they want to stop immigration but nearly everyone has got a favourite immigrant who is, "one of us," because they are friends, workmates or partners of family members.

Parts of Spain are settled by Brits who read popular British newspapers that scream anti-EU propaganda with every headline. They have their pensions paid into Spanish banks and drink cheap Spanish booze, but they have no intention of going home to the UK to be frozen in the winter, mugged by Third World immigrants or ripped off by increasingly desperate publicans. They still consider themselves British and would not see the irony in voting to quit Europe.

If a referendum was held on capital punishment it would undoubtedly be brought back for murderers. But what about child abusers, drug dealers, pimps and other lowlifes? A regular punishment for prostitutes who try to escape from their pimps is to have acid thrown in their faces. Surely that's as bad as shooting juvenile dealers for hanging onto their drug money. In the depraved world of the inner cities human life is worthless. But so many of the white population take drugs or tolerate them that it would be difficult to tackle the culture of violence that embraces drugs and prostitution.

The worthless predators that prey on society could be wiped out if the police were allowed to shoot them on sight. But the great British public would never stand for that. Indignant citizens complain about rising crime but they consume smuggled alcohol and tobacco, falsify insurance claims and tax returns and turn a blind eye to prostitution. What they say and what they do are two different things.

The last UK national referendum was on our membership of the EEC in 1975. The result reflected the media opinion at that time. But since then the media has changed sides and the public would probably follow suit. If they were asked if they wanted to belong to the world's greatest trading bloc they would probably say yes. But if they were asked if they wanted to be ruled from Brussels they would say no. It all depends on how the question is asked.

The literate and multilingual Swiss have regular referendums and their constitution is a model of representative government. But some members of our uneducated underclass couldn't find the UK on a map of the world. They are clueless about our population, major industries and economic performance. They read The Sun and divide their time between the pub, the betting shop, reality television and the dole office. If democracy means asking their opinion we are better off as we are. Our politicians are greedy, lazy and corrupt but at least we get the chance to dump them every five years.

Boom, bust and survival

The prosperity of recent years was exceptional; for most of our history we have been battling against poverty. There was a boom during the First World War as the nation worked flat out for the war effort but it collapsed in the Great Depression resulting in a 25% devaluation in 1931. Things picked up during the Second World War only to slump again when the troops came home. We devalued the pound by 30% in 1949 and endured years of austerity and rationing. Things improved in the Sixties but by 1967 we were once more plunged into devaluation, this time by 14.3%. The boom of the Seventies ended with the Yom Kippur war and the oil crisis. The economy bounced back in the Eighties only to crash again in the savings and loan crisis of 1986. But it rallied again in the Nineties until we were thrown out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992. When Gordon Brown became Chancellor he promised to end boom and bust. Thirteen years later he has partially succeeded; at least he has got rid of the boom. Since the toxic mortgage crisis of 2007 the floating pound has effectively lost 20% of its value.

As long as we are part of the global system we are at the mercy of international events. Decisions made by Wall Street leave our bankers and politicians powerless. When recession strikes unemployment rises, productivity falls and the pound devalues. Between recessions unemployment falls, productivity rises and the pound appreciates. This cycle is as regular as the movement of the planets around the Sun. It's how global capitalism works. The only way out is to make a complete break with the global system but to do that we have to be self-sufficient.

We could not survive on our own but we could as part of a European federation. With half a billion people and nine of the world's leading economies Europe has got the economic and political muscle to break away from the global system. We can make cars and computers just as well as the Asians. If we need labour there's plenty available, and we do not need to worry about gas and oil with Russia on our doorstep.

Our history has been turbulent succession of wars, invasions and occupations.  We were part of a European Celtic confederation before the Romans came and part of the Roman Empire for almost 500 years. Since then we have been united with Denmark, ruled by the Normans, at war with Scotland, Ireland and Wales and at the centre of the world's greatest empire. Since the last war we have been a de facto province of the United States. Isolation is not a viable option for our overcrowded islands but we can keep our culture and identity within united Europe.

Despite "digging for victory" during the war we still had to rely on Atlantic convoys for our food. We have not fed ourselves for over two hundred years and now have a population swollen by immigration to over sixty millions.

The expanding population of the Third World will be driven by drought and hunger into Europe and North America. The spread of deserts and the shortage of water in Africa is not just a theory pushed by "the liberal elite," it's an established fact. If we stick to the "free trade" and "open borders" policy of the World Trade Organisation we will be overwhelmed by ecological refugees... Our only hope is Fortress Europe; a self-contained federation that can guard its borders and deal with the major powers as equals. That's certainly not the current policy of the European Union but it must become so if we are to survive.

Those "nationalists" that want to preserve Britain must understand what is really happening in the world. Policies from the mid twentieth century make no sense now. Britain will not survive until we accept that investment must come from savings not debt. The Dominions are not clamouring to be reunited with the motherland and we do not have a navy capable of ruling the waves. We are a country that is capable of great things but we have to realistic. Our best chance of survival is European solidarity.

Mosley on Europe

Thirty seven years after joining the original EEC, and thirty five years after we voted yes in a referendum, the British people are still being bombarded with anti-European propaganda. Commonsense prevails but the election of Ukip and BNP MEPs shows that the Euro-sceptics are alive and kicking. This represents a failure on the part of progressive politicians to win the hearts and minds of the electorate. Sir Oswald Mosley anticipated this in his speech to the Conservative Bow Group in Birmingham on 7th November 1969.

The main obstacle to Britain uniting with the rest of Europe was the widespread belief that the British people were not Europeans at all. It was felt that they were making belated application to join for purely material reasons, and that their preoccupation with their narrow and selfish interests would make them more nuisance than they were worth. It was necessary that this blunt truth should be stated by an Englishman who had lived in Europe long enough to know the facts.

This deep European suspicion of Britain's motives was reinforced by the present swing of British opinion against joining Europe. The change of feeling was due to the total failure of the parties to explain the facts and to arouse any enthusiasm among our people for a supreme opportunity to our country. They had failed either to argue the case with the force of necessity or to inspire it with the ideal.

Union with Europe should be treated as launching a crusade, not as opening a bazaar. It was idle to advance toward the greatest achievement of 3,000 years of European history with music which Bernard Shaw would have described as "the funeral march of a fried eel." To convince that we were Europeans we needed to feel and show some passion, some sense of the greatness of European destiny.

It was unworthy of the British people to be represented by their politicians as a row of small shopkeepers trying to turn a quick penny, or a man sidling into a prosperous community to pick a pocket. Certainly we should seek economic advantage, but we should achieve it in building the prosperity of all to which British science, technology and political genius could make an immense contribution.

It had long been evident that mass production for an assured market was the only basis for industrial survival in the modern world. It was also the only means to secure an overall system of low prices. Yet we were asked to reject this opportunity in case we suffered an increase in the price of butter. Would our people refuse to win a war when national survival was involved, for fear of an increase in the price of butter? The issues facing us were just as grave for our future.

It was also now evident that modern industry in the new scientific age could only be developed with the related resources of an entire continent. Those who talked of a small island going alone in a free world market took no account of modern machines. Their only mechanical requirement was a Time Machine to take them back to the 19th century. Subsequent development of science has reinforced this view of 20 years ago: "Science leaves us with only one choice - union with Europe."

The development of the large technical civilisations has also divided Britain from the Dominions which were now dependent both economically and militarily on America. Yet in co-operation a united Europe and the Dominions could develop policies of an altogether different scale both in industry and agriculture. Europeans at home and overseas could together solve their agricultural problem by deciding at last to feed the hungry of the world, and to carry the cost on a combined budget. The ideal and the practical could unite in an act both of charity and of real policy. The making of Europe was no small thing, and in the end it would be found that we could only do great things in a great way.

The case for European Union was now reinforced by the American retreat from its world role. Those who had lived happily but ignobly under American protection might soon have to look after themselves. Not only the whole basis of American political and military strategy but also the American dream had been shattered, when the war begun by President Kennedy at the age of 44 had been won by President Ho Chi Minh at the age of 79.

Disaster had hit America by ignoring the elementary facts of life, which British soldiers had known since their original Irish experience half a century ago. Political guerrillas supported by a courageous civilian population could always baffle a regular army, particularly when it was as alien as a Western army on the Asian mainland. That was why - "hold Europe: leave Asia" - had seemed to him the only realistic policy since 1950.

These same dangers could threaten their economic homeland in time of economic crisis. To believe that the Channel was any longer a protection from nuclear rockets or from revolutionary politics was just to put the head under the bedclothes. Britain could not escape its destiny in a world of dark danger but of glittering opportunity, and in a great age must resolve again to play a great part.

Which way for Britain?

As Gordon Brown's colleagues line up to stab him in the back the country slips deeper into the mire. The worst government in British history has ruined the economy, imported millions of immigrants and got us involved in pointless wars.  Gordon Brown and his predecessor Tony Blair will be remembered as the men who finished Britain as an industrial country. Their leadership will mark a turning point in our history. Before this government we were a medium sized country with a healthy economy. Now we are a failed state clinging desperately to the "special relationship," with no idea where we are going.

During the final months of the last Tory government there was little support for John Major but there was a genuine enthusiasm for Tony Blair. This time the labour Party is deeply unpopular but there is little support for the Dave Cameron. The Tories will probably win the next election because they are the least distrusted party. Not exactly a mandate for government.

The issues are clear enough. People are worried about their jobs and frightened that health and education will be threatened by the recession. They are opposed to immigration and the war in Afghanistan but very few of them believe that anyone is listening to them. According to Dr Claire Annesley, lecturer in European Politics at the University of Manchester, the main issues in the 2005 general election were; the Welfare State, Law and Order, Race and Ethnicity, and Northern Ireland.

Euro-sceptics insist that that the EU is the big issue but they have not made an impression in UK parliamentary elections. They did well in the Euro election but so did the pro-European Green Party. We shall have to wait and see how they do in the coming general election. Bookmakers William Hill is quoting 2/1 for Ukip to win a seat and 4/11 that they will not. The BNP are 3/1 to win a seat and 2/9 that they will not. The bookies have been more accurate than the pollsters over the years.

People get upset when the main parties ignore them but only a few are prepared to vote for radical parties. We can therefore expect another government committed to the same policies that have brought us to our present state. We will probably swop Gordon Brown for Dave Cameron but neither man is capable of thinking outside of the accepted internationalist box.

The system must change because it can't cope with the emergence of China, India, Russia and Brazil as major economic powers. Seven or eight giant economies can't all make a living selling the same goods and services. And the Nato alliance, founded on fear of attack by the Soviet Union, will not survive the demise of its enemy. America and Europe are already adapting to the new situation with schemes like car scrappage and the "buy American" campaign. The old order of unrestrained world trade is dying and the buy and sell economies that depend on it are doomed. Out of the chaos will emerge a new trading pattern based on self-sufficiency. The banks have already failed and nation states are in danger of collapse. The direction that we take will be dictated by events.

More EU madness - by Melanie Hitchens-Littlejohn

Economists estimate that directives from the unelected Marxist dictatorship could cost Britain 23 billion pounds a year as the power-crazed French and Germans take revenge on us for defeating Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler. Ordinary British housewives, struggling to make ends meet, could be forced to buy expensive imported sausages if the hated Euro dictators are successful.

As rabid dogs run unhindered through the Channel Tunnel the unelected commissars of the EU are plotting new humiliations for "perfidious Albion." From his ermine-clad throne in the Vatican Palace the hated German-born; former member of the Hitler Youth, Pope Benedict XVI is thought to be considering a decree excommunicating critics of Angela Merkel, the hated "hausfrau from Hell," who has secretly vowed to force us to eat sausages containing meat. This is the latest insult to our island heritage. For centuries we have eaten British sausages containing nothing but traditional sawdust and slaughterhouse sweepings. We conquered most of the world on British bangers and do not need the bitch from Berlin telling us what we can eat.

Tory Euro-sceptics are urging Dave Cameron to make a stand. The Bollocks to Europe campaign warned that the unelected Marxist dictatorship is costing Britain 46 billion pounds a year. There has been no statement from Conservative Central Office but a spokesperson for Gordon Brown has confirmed that the prime minister is committed to free trade and open borders. And the Liberal Democrats have called for a full and frank debate.

Lord Tomnoddy, the new leader of the UK Party, has promised to outlaw German sausages along with Belgian waffles, Spanish onions and French knickers when they come to power. Speaking from his modest holiday home in Monte Carlo his lordship said: "this is typical of the unelected Marxist dictatorship that is costing Britain 92 billion pounds a year.

Melvin Scroat the reformist leader of the British Is Best Party said, "this is to be expected from the unelected Marxist dictatorship that is costing Britain 184 billion pounds a year." Mr Scroat, who denies that he ever advocated ethnic cleansing, called for a referendum on the great sausage debate. Flanked by his black-suited honour guard, with a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill in the background, a cross in his lapel and clutching a model Spitfire, he appealed for generous donations to his "Save Our Sausage" campaign.

And anti-fascist veteran Jerry Meyer said that many victims of the Nazis had been sausage eaters and called for a government-funded campaign to educate people on the dangers of anti-Semitism.

But from their ostentatious skyscraper headquarters in Brussels an unelected spokesman for the hated EU Commission denied that there is any proposal to ban British sausages. Of course they would say that wouldn't they?

Views on the news

The government has banned Islam 4UK because of terrorist links and is now in a position to ban any movement that it doesn't like. With thousands of members the BNP will inevitably have one or two deranged supporters. One such member has recently been sent to prison for making bombs and collecting firearms. He never used them but possession of such devices is enough to incriminate the party. This would not be the first time that the state has used the threat of terrorism to close down movements. Defence Regulation 18B was originally aimed at the IRA but the wartime British government used it to detain Mosley and a thousand leading fascists. Under Nick Griffin the BNP have adopted a strong anti-Moslem policy. They were no doubt delighted when Alan Johnson banned the extremist Muslim group but they should watch their backs; they could be next.

Icelanders are reluctant to pay Britain and the Netherlands £3.1 billion to compensate for losses sustained in the Icesave bank crash. Iceland is a little country of 319,368 people with a seriously damaged economy. Our share of the settlement would make little difference to our staggering £829.7 billion national debt. It would be a drop in the ocean to us but it would cripple Iceland. During the Cod War of the Seventies Norway helped to negotiate a settlement and they will probably do the same in this dispute. With their small population and huge oil resources the Norwegians have got more money than they know what to do with. They should use it to help their Icelandic kinsmen.

The devastating earthquake that ravaged Haiti has all but destroyed a country impoverished by centuries of colonialism, gangsterism and perverted religion. Their cruel history has left them with little capacity for self government. But Haiti can be rebuilt if her citizens learn to fend for themselves instead taking the first flight to Europe or North America. There are many stable and reasonably propsperous states in the Caribbean. They should help Haiti to recover together with oil-rich African states like Nigeria. Senegal has already offered to take Haitian refugees and make land available to them. We are all human beings but ties of blood and culture make Iceland a European problem and Haiti an Afro-Caribbean problem.