Two visions of the British political future

Posted by Guessedworker on Monday, 21 November 2005 23:55.

Two new, perfectly contradictory currents are just now beginning to course through the British body politic.  How they will fare - if they will, indeed, survive to develop at all – cannot be known with any degree of certainty.  Both hold the potential to change this island’s politics.  But only one can fundamentally change the future that is mapped out for us today.

Much the more advanced of the two is strictly elitist in conception, in a liberal-political sense.  It cares nothing for the opinions of the people, has no connection to them and is desired by none of them.  Yet it claims democracy as its ultimate value.  It aims, then, only to capture the imagination of men of power and influence, to seduce their minds with a grand, global objective requiring the commitment of our diplomatic resources, our treasure and, if necessary, our sons’ lives.  That objective, if you have not already guessed, is to carry liberal democracy beyond its present confines and into the world.

We are, therefore, talking here about naked, unabashed neoconservatism.  All references by its supporters to other, more native political traditions are simply an illusionist’s trick, a stratagem to get around the negative, particularist associations of neoconservatism and to appeal thereby to a confused, post-Blairite centre-left.

The rallying point for the supporters of this initiative – one might as well call them conspirators, so completely detached are they from the public mind – is the brand new Henry Jackson Society (yep, named after old “Scoop”).  It is being launched formally tomorrow in the Houses of Parliament.  It has, in case you were wondering, everything a well-funded, professional political schwerpunkt needs, including a 14-man organising committee, some ringingly clear principles and heavyweight patrons (guys like Robert Kagan, William Krystol, Richard Perle and various “former this and that” types such as ex-CIA chief James Woolsey and ex-Nato head General Jack Sheehan). 

The copious editorials and position papers on the HJS website are written by some familiar names sporting, if I may put it this way, a wide variety of intellectual sameness.  A bit like in a low-brow traditional British chippie, you get a serving of high-fat universal human rights with everything – except, of course, that for the native peoples of the West these reduce by some strange default ideology to universalism.

The “intellectuals” of the HJS include historians Marko Attila Hoare and Brendon Simms, middle-east specialist Tarek Heggy, China specialist Peter Nolan and lesser lights such as centre-left blogger/journalists and Israel-firsters Oliver Kamm and Stephen Pollard.  The website links to external articles by David Aaronovitch, David Cameron, Jonathan Freedland, Brian Brivati, Irwin Stelzer and Jack Straw. 

It’s very kosher.  It ain’t pretty.  But it is all very professional, respectable and serious.  To my English nationalist mind it is also entirely without utility.  I say that notwithstanding its sincere attempt to provoke a split in the Labour Party (so far only gutsy Labour MP Gisela Stuart has signed up).  With or without such a fissure, the “Invade the World, Invite the World” nature of neoconservatism is utterly inimical to our interests.  The concept of democracy is not just devalued by that, it is rendered worthless for us.  A neoconservatised Establishment which holds to a consensus on domestic cultural Marxist politics has nothing to teach us - or the Third World - about democracy.

No, the only product of neoconservative traction on the British liberal elite would be to take us on a ten or twenty-year tour of duty of their global agendas.  I am too vain a writer to sink to the use of common epithets about “need” and “a hole in the head”, but that’s about the size of it.

In the cold light of day when ephemeral political self-indulgence gives way to more fundamental considerations, one can plainly see that throwing native British life and limb at an attempt to seed the Third World with democracy could only serve our ethnic interests if it presages the removal of the Third World from Britain.  Perhaps it might help towards that in some marginal way.  Needless to say, that is not the argument being proposed by the HJS.  But ...

As shiny and professional as the HJS is, so the initiative on immigration being coordinated by Derek Turner and colleagues is homespun British political amateurism of the first order … low on funding and pizzaz, high on quiet determination and gentility.  When the time for position papers, websites and lunchtime launches arrives there will be no House of Commons reception for these guys, no polished addresses from big-name trans-nationals to a hand-picked, cosmopolitan audience small-talking over beluga and Dom Perignon.  Planning the salvation of Britain as the homeland of its three peoples seems to be a touchingly private and low-key affair.

My thanks, though, go to Anthony E for mailing me a very stimulating discussion paper he wrote and which has been circulated amongst those involved in Derek’s initiative (plus the Security Services, no doubt).  I won’t reproduce it in full here because Anthony did not ask me to do that.  But I will make a few observations which he and others can dispense with as they see fit.

Anthony identifies two broad strands, two oppositional foci in the anti-immigration cause.  These he dubs “space” and “race”.  Now, it’s important for readers to grasp that a concentration on the first does not imply opposition to or rejection of the second.  One can happily migrate from position A to position B.  The reverse, however, does not generally hold true.

Anthony writes:-

There is a trade-off between arguing against immigration on these two grounds.  A campaign that calls attention to the problems of space has the advantage of being less controversial, and therefore harder for the liberal intelligentsia to smear, with the potential to command a broad based support for its aims.  The disadvantage with such an approach is its silence on racial problems, which are more damaging to the country than the environmental pressures caused by immigration.  Conversely, while campaigning on the issue of race enables us to address the full range of problems caused by mass immigration, it intrudes upon many deeply entrenched taboos, and will be much easier for liberals to marginalise.

This is another fundamental question that the campaign has to address: where does it stand on the ‘space v race’ line?

This, actually, is an argument about realism, about how “pure” we can afford to be in our handling of problems and solutions.  In our hearts we are purists.  That doesn’t need to be proven or even discussed.  Those of us who have been thinking around demographic and political issues for a while soon understand that either one wants to end dispossession and deracination or not (position B).  There is no nice, cosy third way whereby some slow-moving d&d, too long-term to disturb our sleep, is OK.  It isn’t about speed but principle.  No d&d is OK.

Even so, one must be respectful of present political realities (position A).  Our benighted people do not think with clarity about notions of homeland and ethny.  How could they, after a lifetime of hearing only the often subtle, always toxic liberal-turned-cultural Marxist worldview?  The speed with which the majority can travel towards a clear understanding (position B) is the determinant of how clearly one may present the arguments.

We should be mindful that the pestilence of anti-racism, for example, did not strike the English dumb and extinguish their sense of ethny on 23rd June 1948, the day after the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury.  The rise of racial egalitarianism and the seeming extinction of English ethnic interests has been a process.  It has fed off and, in turn, excused further mass immigration.  Reversing the process will not take six decades, for it runs with the grain of human nature.  Indeed, the fact that it has taken so long to bring us to our present pass is a sign of hope.  It shows how fearsome a foe for racial egalitarians human nature is.  They can twist it into an unwilling silence only by bringing to bear a grotesque legal and faux-moral repression over a very long period.

The question, then, breaks into two (hopefully complementary) parts.  How much can we say without causing the horses to stampede?  How much – indeed, what - do we have to say to start them moving in the right direction?

If, of course, the answers to these two question do not complement one another … if the answer to question two exceeds in general roughness and volume the answer to question one we might as well give it up for Ken Livingstone right now.  “Where yat mah nigga, lez be tight ‘n cool wit each other, yeah?”  Or maybe just, “Alsalam’ Alayicom.”

I don’t really believe in that eventuality, of course.  I believe that ordinary English, Scots and Welsh men and women have a powerful thirst for the forbidden truths of the racial issue, as Jared Taylor often observes across the pond.  How many of our people, if asked their honest opinion of Enoch Powell, will spout forth the correct, anti-racist message?  None that I’ve ever met.  Enoch was right, mate - that’s what you hear.  Our ethnic interest may not be an open door at present.  But it can never be locked by a Marxist key.

(Keys and horses.  My apologies for the disparate imagery.  For the little that remains of this essay I shall try to avoid adding to it.)

On “what we have to say” Anthony has this to say:-

My own preference would be a compromise: to concentrate on environmental problems, while highlighting some of the harmful social and cultural impacts of mass immigration from a perspective that even liberals could agree with.  A good example of such an argument is David Goodhart’s view that immigration undermines the cohesiveness that makes it possible to sustain the welfare state.  Another example is the argument that mass immigration depresses wages at the lower end of the pay scale though increased competition for menial jobs, which encourages exploitation of the low-skilled by employers, as well as forcing the workers who lose out from such competition (invariably the native working class) onto benefits.

Hopefully, this approach would help to set a moderate, even compassionate tone, and thereby create the broad based support necessary for a successful campaign.

Well, this is not far distant from the BNP’s approach to its northern working class, Labour-voting constituency.  In practise, the societal and employment arguments necessarily appeal to forthright old Labour stalwarts before metropolitan liberals.  In any case, I can tell you, Anthony, that you are going to need more than one customer definition and more than one approach.  Some friendly folk will respond to the slightest confirmation of their private suspicions.  Some will be awaked only by clear costings, some by bald demographic prediction.  Some will need to be told how and why all peoples are not the same … that, essentially, they are lied to by the racial egalitarians.  Some will defy all logical argument but be swayed by having their moral certainties challenged.  Some – the most intelligent - will cling for a while to the “respectable” illusion that race is an insignificant marker, and ideas and even being “fully human” are what matter.  They have to know that respectability in this business is won through deeds and courage, not by wearing the badge of fine liberal sensibilities.

In the end, you will not be able to avoid “widening the conflict” because your enemies will, for example, counter economic arguments with moral ones, and say anything to keep you in the little box labelled “Racist – Do Not Touch”.  They will

have

to tar you and will only desist from doing so when there are, standing beside you, if not the bulk of the native British people of all political types and persuasions then not far off.

In other words, you may well need a fair bit more than one campaign running at any given time to get this vast job done.  But I think you understand that since you write:-

However, a campaign against mass immigration needs some steel; it should do more than attempt to triangulate with the liberal consensus.  In this vein, I would suggest two original research projects:-

A.  A study that calculates the cost of the race relations industry to the taxpayer.
B. An expose of the vested interests in the pro-immigration lobby – big business, trade unions, refugee groups, the Labour Party.  Why do these bodies support mass immigration?  What’s in it for them?  Here the campaign would go on the counter-attack, putting the pro lobby on the defensive, calling their motives into question – for example, pointing out that the unions welcome immigrants as potential new members, or that the Labour Party sees immigrants as a source of new votes.

Amen to that.  It would be interesting to know what the Tory Party would do if damaging information of that character was in the public domain.

And here’s one last thought.  Since the HJS is setting out to split away and neoconservatise half the Labour Party, how about you doing the same with the Tories?  They came fearful close to splitting over Europe during John Major’s time.  As a party political powder-keg, race and immigration in Britain is worth ten Europes.



Comments:


1

Posted by john fitzgerald on Tue, 22 Nov 2005 11:45 | #

Clicked on the neocon link, like a nightmare from a Tim Burton movie!  But who’s Beetlejuice?
Calculating the cost of immigration is a great idea, we could use some of the figures in our pamplets and when door knocking.


2

Posted by Martin Hutchinson on Tue, 22 Nov 2005 16:20 | #

With Cameron as leader, the Tory Party’s ripe for the splitting, and indeed splitting it is essential, since a Cameron-Tory government in 2009 will be like Major—change only in the wrong direction, and succeeded by a further period of Labour because of Tory incompetence. At the very best, one might get a real government by 2017, too long to wait.

While I think democracy in Iraq is an improvement over Saddam, 3 years and 150,000 troops, 30,000 lives (counting Iraqi) and $200 billion is a fearful price to pay, and I see no signs of net gain elsewhere in the Middle East. Iran, hopeful in 2001, has gone sharply the wrong way, and introducing democracy to Egypt or Saudi Arabia would clearly be an unmitigated disaster for the West.

Apart from the dubious moral value of sending troops in to enforce your idea of government, the Wilsonian neocon paradigm suffers from a gross central miscalculation: democracy doesn’t actually work at all well in producing a peaceful prosperous society. Look at Latin America, most of which countries have been democracies of a sort for 180 years, and yet only the occasional Pinochet or Diaz raises them above an eternal treadmill of stagnation and corruption.

There is a case for Imperialism, there is a case (though not a very good one) for democracy in advanced Western countries; there is no valid case for an Imperialism that seeks to spread democracy.



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