With Europe in the public eye thanks to the European Parliamentary Elections, we are re-running some relevant and informative articles on Euro-nationalism, like this one from 18th July, 2013.
by Adrian Davies
“Respectability” is one of the most confusing and controversial words in our kind of politics, since it is used to convey two quite different, indeed, unrelated meanings.
On the one hand, it means doing just what Nigel Farage of UKIP does: staying within (even if at the limits of) permitted political discourse, running with the fox and hunting with the hounds, especially on the immigration issue, shamelessly protesting his supposed anti-racism but all the while courting the large anti-immigration vote.
Farage would never say that a nation is ultimately an extended kin group based in the last analysis upon ties of blood, not a mere social construct based upon shared language, religion, culture or “values” (which to the British political class in any event mean the false, worthless and inverted “values” of bourgeois liberalism).
We, however, know what ties really bind a nation. So, indeed, does Farage, but he will not say so, because if he does, he will be cast out of the establishment’s big tent into real opposition. He is too cowardly and unprincipled for that. He much prefers to be the system’s enfant terrible, but at the last, he will always be one of them, not one of us, unless, of course, we look like winning, when suddenly he will have been on our side all along!
Respectability can, on the other hand, have quite a different meaning, viz., a strict commitment to democratic legality, the use of lawful and constitutional means only in the struggle for power, and indeed behaving in a fashion that attracts, not repels, the better elements of society (regardless of social class: I would personally welcome dukes and dustmen into the BDP, but that is an article for another day).
Some parties strive for “respectability” in both senses of the word. UKIP is one, the English Democrats another, though their embrace of some genuine patriots has predictably to anyone except perhaps Messrs Tilbrook and Uncles made them more controversial than they might wish to be.
Some on the other hand care nothing for respectability in either sense, then wonder why no-one with any stake in society will join them. For far too long some on the extraparliamentary right pursued the failed tactics of confrontational street politics (even after it should have been obvious that they were taking them nowhere, fast).
The result was that anyone with the “courage” to turn up on potentially violent marches was welcome, even if such people put off 98% of society because they looked like Millwall fans on a rampage (which many of them of course were).
The Millwall anthem is "Nobody likes us and we don’t care," which more or less became the theme song of the National Front by the early 1980s, when its ghastly youth journal, Bulldog, was promoting something called the league of louts! What would its first chairman, A. K. Chesterton have said? Over time, of course, such bad activists inevitably (and quickly) drove out the good in an example of Gresham’s law transferred to political activism.
It is quite possible to be respectable in the first sense, but not the second. The EDL is desperately anxious not be seen as racist, homophobic etc., ostentatiously parading a Jewish Division, a Gay Division etc. Despite that, the EDL still puts off 98% of society, because of what it is (a football firm playing at politics), not what its leadership believes.
It is however quite possible to be respectable in the second sense, but not the first. Andrew Brons carries that off with aplomb. That is the goal which all Europe’s successful nationalist parties, most notably the Front National in France, have attained, and for which the BDP must in my humble opinion strive. Ideologically, we reject the worthless values of the liberal establishment, but organisationally we shall have no truck with yobs who put off the British people, or with the failed tactic of deliberately seeking confrontation with political opponents, in the mistaken belief that all publicity is good publicity. We need not follow either of those courses. There is, to coin a phrase, a “third way”!
Originally published on the website of the British Democratic Party.
On the one hand, it means doing just what Nigel Farage of UKIP does: staying within (even if at the limits of) permitted political discourse, running with the fox and hunting with the hounds, especially on the immigration issue, shamelessly protesting his supposed anti-racism but all the while courting the large anti-immigration vote.
Farage would never say that a nation is ultimately an extended kin group based in the last analysis upon ties of blood, not a mere social construct based upon shared language, religion, culture or “values” (which to the British political class in any event mean the false, worthless and inverted “values” of bourgeois liberalism).
We, however, know what ties really bind a nation. So, indeed, does Farage, but he will not say so, because if he does, he will be cast out of the establishment’s big tent into real opposition. He is too cowardly and unprincipled for that. He much prefers to be the system’s enfant terrible, but at the last, he will always be one of them, not one of us, unless, of course, we look like winning, when suddenly he will have been on our side all along!
Respectability can, on the other hand, have quite a different meaning, viz., a strict commitment to democratic legality, the use of lawful and constitutional means only in the struggle for power, and indeed behaving in a fashion that attracts, not repels, the better elements of society (regardless of social class: I would personally welcome dukes and dustmen into the BDP, but that is an article for another day).
Some parties strive for “respectability” in both senses of the word. UKIP is one, the English Democrats another, though their embrace of some genuine patriots has predictably to anyone except perhaps Messrs Tilbrook and Uncles made them more controversial than they might wish to be.
Some on the other hand care nothing for respectability in either sense, then wonder why no-one with any stake in society will join them. For far too long some on the extraparliamentary right pursued the failed tactics of confrontational street politics (even after it should have been obvious that they were taking them nowhere, fast).
The Millwall anthem is "Nobody likes us and we don’t care," which more or less became the theme song of the National Front by the early 1980s, when its ghastly youth journal, Bulldog, was promoting something called the league of louts! What would its first chairman, A. K. Chesterton have said? Over time, of course, such bad activists inevitably (and quickly) drove out the good in an example of Gresham’s law transferred to political activism.
It is quite possible to be respectable in the first sense, but not the second. The EDL is desperately anxious not be seen as racist, homophobic etc., ostentatiously parading a Jewish Division, a Gay Division etc. Despite that, the EDL still puts off 98% of society, because of what it is (a football firm playing at politics), not what its leadership believes.
It is however quite possible to be respectable in the second sense, but not the first. Andrew Brons carries that off with aplomb. That is the goal which all Europe’s successful nationalist parties, most notably the Front National in France, have attained, and for which the BDP must in my humble opinion strive. Ideologically, we reject the worthless values of the liberal establishment, but organisationally we shall have no truck with yobs who put off the British people, or with the failed tactic of deliberately seeking confrontation with political opponents, in the mistaken belief that all publicity is good publicity. We need not follow either of those courses. There is, to coin a phrase, a “third way”!
Originally published on the website of the British Democratic Party.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comment will appear after it has been checked for spam, trolling, and hate speech.