Nation Revisited
Happy
New Year
We enter 2011 with a coalition government slashing public
spending in an effort to reduce our staggering national debt. Students are
rioting against tuition fees and militant trade unionists are trying to rally
support for strikes and demonstrations. But the rest of us accept that we
cannot go on borrowing to fund an inflated civil service and a welfare system
open to the entire world.
William Joyce and John Amery were hanged for treason to
Britain; Joyce for broadcasting German propaganda during the war and Amery for
trying to recruit British volunteers to fight on the Russian Front. They did no
tangible harm to Britain, unlike Tony Blair and Gordon Brown who wrecked the
economy, dumped millions of immigrants on a shrinking labour market and made
our cities targets for terrorists by backing the so-called war on terror.
Surely we hanged the wrong men?
Dave Cameron and Nick Clegg are marginally better than
the Labour Party but that’s not saying much; Genghis Khan would be better than
the Labour Party. We can only hope that the Liberal Democrats will counter the
Jurassic wing of the Tory Party who would drag us back to Thatcherism, and that
the pragmatic Tories will moderate the lunatic fringe of the Lib Dems. So far
the coalition is hanging together but the Tory ‘bastards’ are waiting their
chance.
Almost every industrial country is in deficit but our
newspapers are so steeped in schadenfreude that they haven’t noticed that we
owe £1 trillion to British and overseas bondholders. Honouring these bonds and
meeting interest payments costs us £43 billion a year. Some irresponsible
voices have called for Britain to default. But if we did our pension funds and
insurance companies would collapse and we would lose our international credit
rating. Bankruptcy is not an option for a country that needs to import food and
oil.
Great nations like Germany enjoy prosperity and security
without building aircraft carriers and buying prohibitivelly expensive American
missile systems. We should maintain sufficient forces to defend the homeland
and bring our troops home from Afghanistan. NATO is an instrument of American
foreign policy that has outlived its usefulness. The perceived threat of the
Cold War is long past and we cannot afford to fight wars that serve no British
interest. We are not a great empire with abundant manpower and resources. We
are a European state with too many people and diminishing reserves. It will
take a great national effort to return to solvency but if the present crisis
teaches us to accept reality it will not have been in vain.
Calling
time
In the old days pubs were plentiful and profitable. In
parts of London there were pubs on most street corners supplied by half a dozen
competing breweries. Today the licensed trade is declining and many traditional
pubs have been turned into flats. This transformation has been happening at a
steady rate for the past thirty years but it has recently accelerated.
The smoking ban has been blamed. Drinkers that smoke have
to choose between standing outside in the rain or staying at home and blowing
smoke over the wife and kids. But the smoking ban is a recent development and
doesn’t explain why so many pubs closed before it was enforced.
When a pub shuts down in a big city there is usually
another one within walking distance but in a village it’s a different story.
Most villages had two or three pubs but now they are lucky to have one. They
are shutting their doors for want of customers. When a village pub closes the
local residents are up in arms but if they had patronised it in sufficient
numbers it would still be open.
Pubs are dying in the same way that cinemas did before
them. If you want to go to the cinema you now face a journey to a city centre
that involves expensive public transport or parking fees. The cinemas that
sprouted like mushrooms in the 1930s have nearly all gone. It will be the same
with pubs in the future.
The success of a national chain of pub restaurants goes
against the trend. By buying beer in volume and keeping prices low they offer
their customers good value for money. Some of them charge half as much as
independent pubs and they cater to shoppers, travellers and theatre goers who
are looking for food as well as drink.
Service in pubs and restaurants is much better today.
There were always some good publicans but many of them thought that they were
doing you a favour by serving you. They kept prices high and threw you out as
soon as possible. But economic reality and flexible opening times have put many
of them out of business.
Drinkers can buy alcohol at the supermarket for a
fraction of the price charged by the publicans. They don’t have to tolerate the
rudeness and indifference of people who thought that running a pub was an easy
way to make a living. And they do not risk arrest for drinking and driving.
People today are more health conscious, ambitious and
house proud. They have comfortable homes and do not have to visit saloon bars
to enjoy a bit of comfort. In the old days working men did not expect to go on
holiday, own a car or live in well furnished homes. They lived in a culture of
low expectations that excused drunkenness and they organised their lives around
opening times. That way of life is fast disappearing and the local pub is going
the same way as the cinema, the corner shop, the bingo hall and the dog track.
This will leave some people crying in their beer but history is calling time on
the traditional pub.
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Read European Action
a bi-monthly publication in support of a National Party for Europe. Edited by
Robert Edwards. webmaster@europeanaction.com
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Tuition
Fees
If we want to have doctors, engineers and lawyers in the
future we have to educate our young people. Some of them spend their time at
university smoking dope and fornicating but plenty of them take their studies
seriously and get good degrees. There are many ways of funding education
without saddling students with debts that they cannot afford. The simplest way
would be for employers to pay back the money. Many graduates go to work for
established corporations that can afford to pay. And thousands more are employed
by the state.
The behaviour of students protesting at tuition fees was
unacceptable but understandable. Why should kids that have never earned any
money pay for the future infrastructure of the country? But they disgraced
themselves by disrespecting the Cenotaph. Few people will mind them urinating
on Sir Winston Churchill’s statue; he was just another contentious politician
but the Cenotaph commemorates over a million British soldiers slaughtered in
two fratricidal wars.
The police are placed in an impossible position. If they
are too aggressive they are liable to kill somebody and if they stand back the
mob takes control. The attack on Prince Charles and Camilla could have resulted
in the Royal Protection Squad opening fire in Regents Street during Christmas
shopping. We could have had a bloodbath in the heart of London because a mob of
protesters chanced upon the Royals on their way to the theatre.
This situation has been brewing since the Poll Tax riots
that helped to bring down Margaret Thatcher. The police were overwhelmed then
and they only just kept control in the recent riots. It cannot be left to
police officers, however high ranking, to make what are in effect political
decisions.
The government must make it clear that people who
threaten public order or poke harmless old women with sticks will be severely
dealt with. Instead of using contractors to clean up the mess and remove
graffiti from public buildings we should have made the protesters do the work.
A couple of days scrubbing walls and pavements would do them good and remind
them of the dignity of labour. Anyone
who refused to work on the clean up could do six months in prison.
Tuition fees are part of an austerity programme that
cannot be avoided. When Britain and the rest of the world are returned to
economic sanity we can take a good look at the way we run our affairs. But
until then we have little choice but to buckle down, work hard and pay off our
debts. And that includes students.
What
are we?
Those of us who grew up in the last days of the British
Empire are resolutely British. When asked to state our nationality we do not
hesitate to say British. But younger generations insist on being English,
Irish, Scottish or Welsh. TV pictures from Afghanistan show Scottish soldiers
flying St Andrew’s cross from their vehicles and English soldiers with St
George’s cross. The British Army has always recruited from the four countries
of the United Kingdom but they always fought under the Union Jack. This move
away from Britishness has been encouraged by football, devolution and
government propaganda celebrating racial diversity. Of course race, culture and
nationality are different things but they tend to be confused and we are left
wondering what we are supposed to be.
GK Chesterton said: “the world is what we chose to make
it, and we are what we chose to make ourselves.” Francis Parker Yockey and Ezra Pound were
Americans but they risked their lives and liberty for Europe. And our comrade
Otto Abaysakera was of German and Sri Lankan heritage but he fought for Britain
on the streets of London against a vicious gang of thugs that originated in
Eastern Europe and identified with Israel.
But even Israel has conflicts of identity. Black Jews
from Ethiopia have been recognised by the religious authorities but they are
still discriminated against by white Jews from Europe. But who are the real
Jews? St John wrote in Revelation 2:9, “I know the blasphemy of them which say
they are Jews and are not, but are the Synagogue of Satan.” Recent immigrants
from America are the most fanatical of the Israeli squatters on Palestinian
land. Native Israelis are mostly looking for a peaceful solution.
The Chinese have Uigers, Tibetans and Mongols in their
border regions but in China proper they are all the same people. Few nations
are as united as the Chinese; an ancient race with a culture of deep commitment
to their ancestors and a traditional suspicion of foreigners.
It would be a great pity if the United Kingdom split up
but nobody can rewrite our history or take away our achievements. It was the
British collectively that conquered half the world and installed English as a
global language. The United States and what we used to call the White Dominions
are heavily populated by British settlers. And our great industrial cities
absorbed millions of workers from all over the British Isles. How will the
nationalist nitpickers unscramble them?
The youngsters can be whatever they like but those of us
who proudly stood to attention in the playground on Empire Day will always be
British. We have never had to show passports within the UK and we do not feel
like foreigners when we visit Edinburgh, Belfast or Cardiff. There’s no doubt
that the nations of the British Isles have their own cultures and identities
but whatever happens in the future we will remain united by ties of blood and
history.
Adjusted
morality
Political correctness is the new religion and new dogmas
have replaced old ones. According to the new orthodoxy questioning the
Holocaust is the worst sin, closely followed by not celebrating racial
diversity with sufficient enthusiasm.
Adultery, drunkenness and drug taking are not taken very seriously
anymore; murder is now punished by a five year prison sentence, embezzlement is
treated as a misdemeanour and child molesters are usually given a good talking
to. But offenders against the liberal consensus are routinely hounded out of
their jobs and thrown into prison for as long as possible.
Sex offences would probably have been decriminalised
altogether but for the emergence of the puritanical Tea Party movement in the
United States. The super patriots led by Sarah Palin are against sexual
freedom; they even condemn masturbation as ‘un-American.’ They are not racists
but they are fanatically pro-Israel. In fact they are more Zionist than the
Jewish community. Plenty of American Jews condemn the occupation of Palestine
but the tea-baggers are all for it.
Before US President Barack Obama was elected it was hoped
that his family history would make him critical of Zionism. But he has
disappointed fair-minded Americans by following exactly the same foreign
policies as George W Bush. Unlike Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de
Kirchner who has joined Uruguay and Brazil in recognising Palestine within her
1967 borders, as specified in UN Resolution 242.
Europeans have never understood the American mindset. We
cannot understand how a civilized nation can support the brutal occupation of
Palestine. And we wonder at their breathtaking
hypocrisy when they lecture the Chinese on human rights. Edgar Steele is right
when he says that America is the second most hated country in the world.
WikiLeaks has revealed that defence secretary Liam Fox
promised to buy American military equipment when the Tories came to power. And
that foreign secretary William Hague told the American Ambassador: “we need a
pro-American regime – the world needs a pro-American regime.” He added that the
Conservative leadership was “staunchly Atlanticist” and that we are all
“children of Thatcher.” One is reminded of Stanley Kubrick who said: “The great
nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like
prostitutes.”
Support for NATO and American foreign policy is another
article in the catechism of political correctness. The anti-Europeans talk
about national sovereignty but they know that if we tried to go-it-alone we
would end up as another state of the USA. Union with America is a legitimate
point of view that has always appealed to the right wing of the Tory Party.
They are entitled to their opinions but they shouldn’t pretend to be defending
British interests when they accept American hegemony. Still we must forgive
their deception. It’s not as though they are questioning the Holocaust or
multi-racialism - that really would be unforgivable.
Putting the cart before the horse
The British press coverage of the Irish economic crisis
was patronising and negative. The Irish ran out of money, just as we did, but
our newspapers implied that this was the result of a ‘feckless’ Irish
lifestyle. Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan had similar ideas about the Great
Famine of the 1840s. He thought that it was divine punishment on them for being
Catholic, and he described the famine as a “mechanism for reducing surplus
population.”
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Daily Telegraph adopted the term ‘Club Med’ when Greece came under
pressure and gleefully predicted that Italy and Spain would be next. But Iceland,
Britain, Ireland and Belgium have all got sovereign debt problems and they are
far from the Mediterranean. He has been reporting for the last decade that
Germany will scrap the euro and go back to the mark. Most economists are
Monetarists or Keynesians but he seems to belong to the Herrenvolk school; a
radical faction that studies the cephalic index instead of the FTSE index. The
fact is that countries go bust if they borrow too much money - in any currency.
Ireland simply borrowed more that she could afford, just like Britain and the
USA.
A common market requires a strong central bank and a
single fiscal authority. Ireland and Greece have been bailed out on condition
that they accept European Central Bank supervision. Old-fashioned nationalist
parties like Sinn Fein are screaming about ‘sovereignty’ but there is no
alternative. Jeffrey Hamm saw the dangers of economic disunity thirty years
ago.
From
time to time we draw attention to the flaws in the EEC, in grave danger of
failure and collapse because it put the cart before the horse, seeking to
create a common market before a common government. A truly common market is of
vital importance , with the industries and agriculture of our continent
dedicated to maximum production, not for export but for consumption by our European
peoples. There is a vast market within Europe for all that Europe can produce,
and it should be insulated against the undercutting of Asia and the communist
bloc. But Europe needs more, much more, than an economic policy. It needs
faith, a profound belief in the cause of European unity. Europe needs a
European government for its defence and the leadership of its economy, with
national governments for all internal affairs, and regional administrations for
local matters and for the preservation of the ancient languages and cultures of
our continent. Within that concept there is no clash between a healthy
nationalism and patriotism on the one hand, and a devotion to the Europe of
which our respective nations are a part. (Action July 1981)
Rupert Murdoch and Richard Desmond will not prevent
European unity. Progress is slow but within living memory we were bombing Germany
to destruction and our continent was starving and devastated. Today we are at
peace and we lead the world in scientific and social achievement. Europe will
not be undone by the press barons of Canary Wharf who are driven by prejudice
and obsessed with world trade.
Francis Parker Yockey had the measure of these ‘sclerotic-brained
old men.’
But
the greatest opposition of all has not yet been named, the conflict which will
take up all the others into itself. This is the battle of the idea of the unity
of the West against the nationalism of the 19th century. Here stand
opposed the ideas of Empire and petty-statism, large-space thinking and political
provincialism. Here find themselves opposed the miserable collection of
yesterday-patriots and the custodians of the Future. The yesterday-nationalists
are nothing but the puppets of the extra-European forces that conquer Europe by
dividing it. To the enemies of Europe, there must be no rapprochement, no
understanding, no union of the old units of Europe into a new unit, capable of
carrying on 20th century politics.
The nations of the world will pay back what they owe and
learn to live within budgets. Western democratic governments survive by bribing
electorates with goods and services beyond their means; and capitalism always
looks for the lowest labour costs. But markets and governments are transient.
The rise of Brazil, Russia, India and China will force us to rethink the way
that we are governed and do business. Europe and America cannot go on exporting
jobs and importing cheap goods and cheap labour; their social structures will
break under the strain. Political and economic systems will be swept away by
forces beyond the control of the laissez faire capitalists. They will try to
prop up the old regime and use everything from the emotional blackmail of
patriotism to fabricated data. But eventually we will abandon free trade and
open borders and embrace fortress Europe – if we have enough Europeans to man
the fort.
The current European Union is far from perfect but it’s a
step in the right direction; a step towards self-sufficiency and away from
global capitalism. Britain is still clinging to the ‘Special Relationship’ but
America’s staggering national debt is unsustainable. With India, Brazil and
Russia fast catching up with China the days of the present system are numbered.
Mosley used to say: “in a street full of grocers shops they cannot all make a living.”
The same is true for nations. Japan has been overtaken by China and other
countries are competing in the same markets. Sooner or later global capitalism
will reach saturation point and the nations of the world will realign into
geopolitical entities.
Britain’s future will not be decided by reactionary
Tories or nostalgic nationalists. The newspapers are solidly anti-European but
only 17 Westminster MPs (2.6%) have signed up to the Better Off Out campaign.
Under the present system we are dependent on world trade, our armed forces and
our nuclear missiles are under NATO command and we are bound by the rules of
the American dominated World Trade Organisation. Instead of being half-hearted
Europeans we should take our place as equal partners in the world’s greatest
trading bloc. Britain led the Industrial Revolution and we are in the forefront
of the latest technologies that are changing the world. There is no shortage of
talent in Britain but we must ignore the negative propaganda of the mass media
and put our faith in the future.
WikiLeaks
This
is John Bean’s response to Neil Clark’s article on the First Post website
headed ‘Vichy Britain.’ This was a condemnation of the Tory grovelling to
America revealed by WikiLeaks.
Yes this needed saying and I agree with much of the tenor
of his exposure but not completely. This is obviously not the work of the US
converted Aussie Rupert Murdoch who runs half of Britain’s media. It is published by Felix Dennis the former editor
of the left wing magazine Oz. And it is written by Neil Clark best known for
his articles in the Guardian. It is anti-American throughout - despite the
author’s claim not to be – as opposed to rightfully criticising the US for
instigating its wars from Vietnam onwards. All this is to be praised and he
does a service by pointing out that our embarrassing sycophancy has emphasized
our ‘Vichy’ role in supporting not only their wars but by implication their
pro-Israel actions. But I would prosecute Julian Assange the left wing oddball
behind WikiLeaks.
I know that you would say that our only answer to this
extreme downgrading of Britain’s 21st century role is to become
integrated into the European State. People like EU Commission President Jose
Barroso (the Portuguese Maoist) and former commissars and Marxist sympathisers
now have the EU fully under control – and not forgetting the far-left Labour
female peer Catherine Ashton – who nobody ever voted for – who poses as its
‘foreign secretary.’
What do you say to their latest idea at a conference in
Libya last week that they want to set up a Europe-Africa organisation which by
2050 will bring in a common financial organisation with equal rights for
movement of all its joint citizens, according to a BNP website comment?
This is not Mosley’s “Europe-Africa concept” It will just
guarantee Europe’s elimination as a white homeland.
The MEPs have virtually no influence whatsoever, so I
cannot support your view of working within the present structure. Obviously as
Neil Clark makes quite clear we cannot continue as an isolated lickspittle of
the US and we cannot visualise being another ‘Norway’ for we have too many
people - even if 20% of them are non-European.
It is back to my Confederation of Europe concept again,
my friend.
Editor’s
Reply.
Jose Barroso’s closing speech to the Europe-Africa Conference makes no mention of free movement of labour or financial convergence.
Jose Barroso’s closing speech to the Europe-Africa Conference makes no mention of free movement of labour or financial convergence.
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