Issue 81, July 2011

Nation Revisited

# 81, July 2011,  

Political Evolution
 

John Bean has posted an article on Andrew Brons’ alternative BNP website calling for European Confederation. www.bnpideas.com  This is his original policy that was dumped by the Empire Loyalists when the National Front was founded in 1967. Since then nationalist antipathy to European unity has been set in stone.

His initiative will be denounced by Euro-sceptics and dismissed by “Europe a Nation” purists but history shows that tribes become nations and nations become mighty empires through a process of political evolution; the road to unity does not matter as much as the objective.

Jeffrey Hamm explained it in Action July 1981:

“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.”

Unfortunately John Bean’s article appears during a bitterly fought leadership contest between the BNP’s two MEPs Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons. If they could stop fighting amongst themselves and adopt realistic policies they might appeal beyond narrow nationalism to a white working class that’s been effectively disenfranchised by the Westminster liberal consensus. 

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
 

Pessimists are saying that the white race is doomed and that it’s too late to do anything about it. But all is not lost. We survived the Ice Age, the Plague, the Moorish invasion, the Mongol invasion, the Turkish invasion, the Reformation, two world wars, several recessions and centuries of plutocracy. We overcame adversity by using our brains and we will tackle the demographic crisis the same way. Things don’t look good right now but then they never have.

If we keep telling people that there’s no hope they will give up the struggle. We should remember that a few thousand Spaniards under Hernando Cortez conquered Mexico and that Britain ruled her mighty empire with a few thousand European soldiers and administrators.  At the battle of Omdurman in 1898 General Sir Horatio Kitchener’s British-Egyptian army lost 47 men and had 340 injured. On the other side Khalifa Abdullah’s army sustained 9,700 killed, 13,000 injured and 5,000 captured. They were just as brave and determined as our men but “we had the Maxim gun and they had not.” Technology will always triumph over manpower.

In 1945 the Japanese Empire was defended by 5.4 million soldiers and 1.8 million sailors. They were fiercely patriotic, disciplined and brave but atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced them to surrender. This unprecedented atrocity killed 246,000 people, mostly civilians, but America expected to lose 1 million men in an invasion of Japan and they expected the Japanese to lose 2 million.

In a world of increasing technology only self-confident and scientifically advanced nations will prosper. By all means be aware of the Third World population explosion but look on the bright side. Only Europe, North America, Australia and East Asia produce significant food surpluses. We have the technology and the experience to organise the world for the benefit of everyone. So don’t give up the struggle and don’t listen to defeatist propaganda. We are not finished yet.

 

Correction
 

In NR # 80 I stated that only the communist newspaper The Morning Star wanted Britain to quit the Common Market in the 1975 referendum. Michael Woodbridge has pointed out that the Daily Express was also in favour of withdrawal. I stand corrected on that but most newspapers at the time campaigned for Britain to stay in the EEC.  The public were influenced by the media and they continue to be. Referendums are not a true exercise in democracy if 90% of the newspaper, radio and TV coverage is one-sided. That is why the media is so dangerous and in urgent need of reform. There is far too much power in the hands of global capitalists like Rupert Murdoch and the general standard of our newspapers is deplorable. The Speaker of the Commons John Bercow was right when he described The Daily Mail as: “a sexist, racist, bigoted comic cartoon strip.”

FJP Veale on Nuremberg (Reprinted from Doenitz at Nuremberg: A Reappraisal by HK Thompson and H Strutz. Published by Amber Publishing Corp, New York 1976)
 

The conviction of Admiral Raeder and the conviction of Admiral Doenitz by the so-called International Military Tribunal must be distinguished from all other convictions recorded at Nuremberg, in which the Tribunal did no more than condemn the accused for newly created offences which retrospectively they were held to have committed. In convicting these two defendants, the Tribunal acted not only in defiance of elementary principles of justice but also in defiance of the novel principles which the Tribunal itself had laid down for its own guidance. 

The Tribunal claimed in theory the right – it certainly had the power – to declare any act a war-crime. But it interpreted Article 6 of the Charter creating it, as excluding from its considerations any act committed by the victorious Powers. As a consequence any act proved to have been committed by the victorious Powers could not be declared by the tribunal a war-crime. For this reason the indiscriminate bombing of civilians which had indisputably been initiated by Great Britain was excluded from consideration as a war-crime by the tribunal.

Both Admiral Raeder and Admiral Doenitz were charged with planning and waging an aggressive war in that they had planned and directed the invasion of Norway. It was at the time common knowledge and it has since been officially admitted that Great Britain, concurrently with Germany, planned an attack on Norway and actually put these plans into effect a few hours before the German attack began. Full details of the British invasion plans and the first steps taken to carry them out have since been published in The Campaign in Norway, being Volume 1 of the official British history of the Second World War. In its review of this book dated the 10^th December 1952, The Times cynically wrote:

“Britain was dickering with a modified version of the original scheme for securing Narvik and some troops had been actually embarked in warships, when in the early hours of April 9^th, Hitler struck. With the exception of Oslo, which had never figured in our plans, the immediate German objectives in Norway were precisely (and inevitably) the same ports whose seizure the Allies had been assiduously plotting for several months.”

According to the principles solemnly laid down by the Tribunal itself, an act committed by one of the victorious Powers could not be pronounced a war-crime. The Tribunal however insisted on shrouding itself in a shroud of judicial ignorance. It absolutely refused to hear evidence concerning the British plans for the invasion of Norway and the first overt acts taken to initiate this invasion. It was therefore in defiance of its own principles that the Tribunal held that the planning and waging of an aggressive war was a war-crime. The invasion of Norway by Germany in April 1940 was an aggressive war. Both Admiral Raeder and Admiral Doenitz had taken leading parts in this invasion. Therefore both were convicted of this newly created crime, the former being sentenced to life imprisonment and the latter to imprisonment for ten years.

It is perhaps unnecessary to add that both Admiral Raeder and Admiral Doenitz carried out the orders of their executive government as in duty bound, in exactly the same spirit as the distinguished British and French generals and admirals carried out the orders of their executive governments in the autumn of 1956 when they planned and directed the invasion of Egypt.

FJP Veale was a British soldier, lawyer and author who died in 1976. He was a prominent member of British Union and a lifelong fighter for justice. In 1961 he volunteered his services when BNP candidates Alan Charman, John Stanton and Rupert Simpson were sued for libel by Sir Leslie Plummer the Labour Party MP for Deptford. Plummer was the minister in charge of the disastrous Tanganyika groundnut scheme of 1951. Fortunately the libel case expired along with Sir Leslie in 1963. FJP Veale wrote; Lives of Lenin 1932, Frederick the Great 1935, Crimes Discretely Veiled 1956, and Advance to Barbarism 1963.

Notes on Nationalism
 

Opponents of the European Union often describe it as “Orwellian”. But the bustling supermarkets of Europe’s thriving cities are nothing like the impoverished state described by George Orwell in his classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. And the lively political demonstrations outside the Espace Leopold would never be allowed by Big Brother. It’s ironic that the Euro-sceptics invoke Orwell because he was an early pioneer of European unity. Readers are urged to look him up on the Internet. His writings are all there. In 1945 he wrote Notes on Nationalism: 

By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

In 1947 he wrote Towards European Unity:

Socialism does not exist anywhere, but even as an idea it is at present valid only in Europe. Of course, Socialism cannot properly be said to be established until it is world-wide, but the process must begin somewhere, and I cannot imagine it beginning except through the federation of the Western European states, transformed into socialist republics without colonial dependencies. Therefore a Socialist United States of Europe seems to me the only worth-while political objective today.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four Orwell imagined Britain reduced to the status of Airstrip 1 by a global power engaged in perpetual warfare. He was thinking of the Soviet Union but his nightmare vision is closer to America. If we quit the European Union tomorrow we would still be under NATO command, our trade would still be regulated by the World Trade Organisation, and our credit rating would still be set by the International Monetary Fund; all of them controlled by America.

The EU is not much more than a trading bloc but America is a superpower. The Euro-sceptics are tilting at windmills when the real giant is straddling the globe. The concept of national sovereignty is meaningless while our armed forces are under NATO command and we depend on the American Trident missile system for our so-called ‘independent’ nuclear deterrent.

A go-it-alone Britain would soon be swallowed up by America. British and French independence effectively ended in 1956 when we were forced to withdraw our forces from Egypt or face bankruptcy. The Suez invasion was an ill-conceived Zionist adventure that should never have happened. It marked the end of European imperialism and the consolidation of American power.

The Euro-sceptics must know these things. If they really want us to be the 51^st state of the Union they should say so instead of pretending to want splendid isolation. We will always be linked to America by ties of blood and culture. But their government is dominated by big business and committed to globalism on a much greater scale than the EU. George Orwell was right back in 1947 when he concluded that a United States of Europe is the only worthwhile political objective.

Croaking Frogs
 

Anthropologists are studying a native tribe in Brazil that have had little contact with the outside world. They have no sense of time and they believe that rain is caused by the croaking of frogs. The frogs always start croaking before it rains so they have come to the conclusion that it’s the croaking that causes the rain. 

This is the kind of logic that accuses Europeans of being racist for objecting to mass migration from the Third World. But it was the invasion that caused the racism; we were not racists before we were swamped with immigrants.

The same confusion applies to inflation, it’s the result of rising prices not the cause; governments should control prices not wages.

Economics is a simple subject complicated by politicians with a vested interest in confusion. Everybody knows that the country can’t spend more than it earns, and that borrowed money has to be paid back with interest. We do not believe them when they say that everything is under control and we are not fooled by clever phrases like “quantitative easing”.

They said that we needed Third World immigrants because we had a labour shortage. But now we have a static economy and 2.4 million unemployed they are still letting them in. We didn’t ask for this invasion and it is not our fault if the invaders find us less than welcoming.

They have increased taxation to keep the unemployed on the dole but unless wages and pensions are raised we will not be able to pay our taxes. They are keeping the show on the road by selling bonds to a gullible public that have forgotten that the British government defaulted in 1931 when America cancelled our First World War debt; in 1945 when we took out another massive loan, and again in 1967 when we were bailed out by the IMF.

We are croaking just like the frogs in the rainforest at the prospect of economic ruin.  A lost generation cannot find work despite being educated and willing. This is the direct result of exporting our manufacturing industry to Asia and allowing millions of immigrants into our labour market. The good jobs are going abroad and the minimum wage jobs are being snapped up by desperate immigrants. This is the real price of “cheap” imports from Asia.

Ever since the diabolical double act of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher governments have kept out of the marketplace. They were forced to bail out the banks because liberal democracy would not have survived an economic collapse. But they generally thought that the free market was best left alone. This abdication of responsibility resulted in the current global economic crisis. We now know that we need positive leadership to oversee a fair and efficient system of production and distribution, and a wage-price mechanism tied to a sustainable economy. Ordinary people have always known these things. It was only our blinkered politicians that were incapable of understanding the basic principles of good housekeeping and self-sufficiency.

 Low Wages

“The alien menace, permitted and encouraged by the National Government, is one of the main factors in keeping wages low. It is a short-sighted policy, for in the end low wages and low purchasing-power mean industrial stagnation, because they destroy the home market. But our rulers, who are out for quick profits, do not look beyond the immediate objective of low wages, in the creation of which they find the alien very useful. In such conditions, it is not only natural, but right that the British worker should feel an intense resentment against the alien menace which is fostered alike by the National Government, which desires low wages, and by Socialist Governments, whose flabby internationalism always backs the foreigner against the Britisher.” (The Blackshirt, October 1933)

78 years later another short-sighted coalition government is using imported cheap labour to hold down wages. Dave Cameron promised to cut immigration but they are still coming in. The old gang are still talking hypocritical nonsense about the brotherhood of man as they give our jobs away. Our economy was ruined by the Second World War, propped up by American loans, bailed out by the IMF, rescued by North Sea oil, inflated by property prices and stopped dead by the credit crunch. But instead of planning ahead our politicians are still studying maps of the world looking for new sources of cheap labour.

We used to laugh at the Soviets with their five year plans. But at least they were thinking ahead. In Britain attempts at industrial planning were sabotaged by the musical chairs system of parliamentary democracy. Every time that a plan got going there was an election and the incoming government scrapped it.

Our power plants are nearly worn out and need replacement. Our roads and railways   need constant investment. We need millions of new houses but nobody will build them because the banks are frightened to grant mortgages. All of this could have been prevented if successive governments had planned for the future instead of muddling through one day at a time and relying on cheap labour. The British economy is a sad indictment of lazier faire policies.

When we gave the bankers and the financiers carte blanche they overtraded until they ran out of money and had to be rescued by the state. Bankers cannot be trusted to police themselves any more than the rest of the population; as Al Capone said: “there’s a little larceny in all of us.”The logical conclusion of Thatcherism would be to scrap the police and the courts and let people sort themselves out. The country would soon be ruled by thugs and gunmen.

It’s the duty of government to think ahead and make plans for the future. But every government since the 1930s has gone for cheap labour and cheap imports instead of investing in training and technology. It’s not surprising that our manufacturing industry has declined. Fifty years ago 50% of our labour force was employed in manufacturing, now it’s down to 15%. Containerisation and changing patterns of world trade have played their part but the real damage was done by a short-sighted policy of low wages.

The 43 Group
 

Accounts of political violence in the immediate post-war period by members of Union Movement agree with those of objective writers like Colin Cross, Robert Skidelsky, Steven Dorril and Martin Pugh but they are completely at variance with Morris Beckman’s one-sided book The 43 Group.

His vainglorious memoire romanticises the anti-fascists who “fought fire with fire” just after the war. He boasts that his “commandos” criminally assaulted speakers and smashed up meetings to prevent free speech. He describes how the various book clubs and nationalist groups came together in 1948 under Oswald Mosley to form Union Movement. He alleges that their propaganda was aimed at the middle and upper classes but he doesn’t explain why they campaigned almost exclusively in working class areas like Ridley Road.

Of course Beckman is entitled to his opinions but facts are facts. He writes that pre-war fascist speakers re-appeared in 1946 including Arnold Leese, Martin Webster, John Tyndall, John Preen, Victor Burgess, Jeffrey Hamm and Michael Maclean. In fact Martin Webster would only have been 3 years old in 1946 and John Tyndall would have been 12. This is only one of the mistakes that cast doubt on the credibility of this book.

Union Movement organiser Alf Flockhart is consistently called Alf Lockhart. And William Joyce’s National Socialist League Monthly News is said to have been issued from November 1958 to August 1939. Since William Joyce was hanged by a vengeful state in 1946 he could have issued his bulletin 12 years later.

Beckman repeats the story that Mosley’s first wife Cynthia was Jewish. This was dealt with by Colin Cross in his 1961 book The Fascists in Britain. “Mosley had shown no tendency towards anti-Semitism in his pre-Fascist days. He mixed as freely with Jews as he did with anybody else and, while in the Labour Party, had a great respect for Harold Laski. He did take some pains to establish the ancestry of his wife’s grandfather, Levi Leiter of Chicago, and established that he was of Dutch-Calvinist and not Jewish extraction.” Robert Skidelsky in his biography of Mosley wrote: “In the 1930s it was often suggested that Cimmie was half Jewish but there is no evidence of this.”

Throughout the book mistakes compete with exaggerations. Beckman complains that a Union Movement meeting in Romford Market was defended by “dark skinned men dressed in two piece lounge suits”. These were allegedly Maltese gangsters, adept at throwing potatoes embedded with razor blades, who had been “handsomely paid” to protect the meeting.

It’s also extremely unlikely that Union Movement had 8,000 members on their May Day march through North London in 1948, or that they had armour-plated loudspeaker vans fitted with bulletproof tyres. 

The 43 Group was published by Centerprise in 1992. Foreword by Vidal Sassoon edited by Bernadette Halpin and supported by the London Arts Board.

Conspiracy Theories
 

Most people accept recorded history but a significant minority always look for alternative explanations. The assassination of John F Kennedy has been blamed on the Mafia, the CIA, the Israelis, the Cubans, the Russians and the Ulster Loyalists; anyone except Lee Harvey Oswald who was found guilty by four separate government investigations.

The Moon landing was another disputed event. The conspiracy theorists maintain that it was staged in the Nevada desert to hoodwink the Russians. To this day there are websites dedicated to this nonsense.

Hugh Cudlipp the former editor of the Daily Mirror stated that a coup was planned against Prime Minister Harold Wilson during the economic crisis of 1974. Wilson believed that MI5 were plotting against him because they suspected him of being a Soviet agent. Stephen Dorril the respected author and researcher has dismissed this idea but it’s still widely believed.

The Miners’ Strike of 1984-5 was caused by a falling demand for coal at a time of cheap and plentiful gas. The government decided to shut uneconomic pits but the union wanted to keep them open. The fact that Margaret Thatcher was a Tory and the miners’ leader Arthur Scargill was a socialist had nothing to do with it. Nevertheless some people thought that Arthur was a Soviet agent trying to destroy the British economy, and some thought that he and Maggie were in it together. 

The 9/11 atrocity of 2001 was masterminded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and led by Mohammed Atta. Dedicated terrorists flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in revenge for America’s military presence in Saudi Arabia and their support of Israel. At least that’s what most of us believe. The conspiracy theorists think that the Americans killed thousands of their own people in order to justify their subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Nothing is too fantastic for the conspiracy theorists. A recent e-mail doing the rounds suggested that the Japanese earthquakes were caused by electrical pulses generated in Alaska. When I quoted this to a well-known right-winger he said that he hadn’t heard of the idea but he was willing to consider it!

There are undoubtedly powerful political and commercial forces that are not always transparent. But it’s foolish to believe that the world is run by secret forces and that nothing is what it seems. The great corporations are registered and their accounts are published. The Jews are commercially powerful in Britain and America but they have virtually no influence in China, India or Japan. The Freemasons are supposed to be a secret society but most of them are amiable drunks who enjoy dressing up. Even the annual meeting of the Bilderbergers has become a media event.

The easiest answers are usually the right ones. The world is run by men and women with all the usual human frailties; they are vain, stupid, greedy, impatient, mendacious, often insecure and frequently mad. That’s why we are in a mess, not because of the “hidden hand.”