MY SPEECH AT THE 19TH SEPTEMBER 2015 ENGLISH DEMOCRATS’ CONFERENCE

Ladies and Gentlemen I am delighted to welcome you to our Annual General Meeting and Autumn Conference here in Leicester.

There has been a little dispute between me and Steve Uncles as to the numbering of this conference. We launched at a General Meeting of Members at Imperial College in August 2002, which I am counting as our first General Meeting. Whereas Steve wants to start our count with the next Annual General Meeting on September 2003. But whether you count this as our thirteenth or fourteenth Annual General Meeting and, of course, we have also had Spring meetings for almost all of those years, we are nevertheless a party which has been established long enough for even our slapdash and complacent British Establishment to have fully recognised our existence. For example when the issue of English Votes for English Laws was being debated in the House of Commons, before the Summer recess, we were mentioned as the principal campaigners for an English Parliament.

Not only have we established ourselves over these years and made an enormous contribution to keeping the English flag flying politically, having distributed well over 30 million leaflets and appeared on television, radio and in newspapers on innumerable occasions, with several Party Election Broadcasts, but also there are a number of us who were present at that first meeting who are still active in the Party.

Ladies and gentlemen over the course of the last year the scene for English nationalism has been in some ways improving. I think this is particularly so since we last met at the Spring conference in York, as since then we have seen the continuing surge of support for the Scottish National Party in Scotland which has been transformed politically with Scottish National Party MPs winning 56 out of 59 Scottish parliamentary seats with an unprecedented almost clean sweep, leaving the British Establishment and Unionist parties only clinging on with one seat each. It looks quite likely that a similar clear out may occur in the Scottish Parliament elections next May! This surge bodes well for a similar nationalist surge here in England.

Breaking off there, did you see the clash between UKIP’s Suzanne Evans and Alex Salmond on Newsnight a few weeks ago? Suzanne Evans used the expression ‘Regional Assembly Elections’ to describe the Scottish Parliament elections. This was a remark which had Alex Salmond literally gibbering and spluttering furiously that Scotland wasn’t a Region but a “Nation”. It was hilarious!

But Ladies and Gentlemen seriously let’s make sure that we are here to tell idiotic Unionists like Suzanne Evans that England isn’t a series of Regions – England is a Nation! What do you say Ladies and Gentlemen? Is England a series of Regions? Is England a Nation like Scotland? 

Ladies and Gentlemen you may be interested to know that a while before the Scottish referendum, at the time when Douglas Carswell was about to stand in Clacton, having left the Conservative Party to join UKIP, I had a meeting with the Conservative’s election guru, the so called Wizard of Oz, Lynton Crosby, and I briefed him about the English question.

Ladies and Gentlemen I make no apology for doing so as I think it is important for the English Democrats and for The English nationalist campaign to work with anyone who may help to further our Cause. I think that is a lesson that could usefully and forcibly be pointed to the Scottish National Party and to Plaid Cymru, neither of whom are willing to work with any English organisation, not just the English Democrats, but also, for example, the Campaign for an English Parliament because they are simply blinded by their hatred of the English. Despite this neither of them could hope to achieve what they say they want to achieve without support in England for independence.

Anyway Lynton Crosby, being Australian, wasn’t aware particularly of the distinction between English and British, nor was he aware of the rising support for English National Identity, as shown in the 2011 Census, in which, I am sure you need no reminding, over 32 million people, that is 60.4% of the entire population of England stated that they were English-only and not British. A fact which British Establishment spokesmen and politicians are very keen to play down, so much so there is even talk of pulling the rug from under the Office of National Statistics because they even dared to ask that question!

Anyway after our meeting, Lynton Crosby went away and did some opinion poll and focus group research which showed, he reported to me, that we would get great support if we could once marshall the resources to campaign on a more or less level playing field with the richer parties. He also confirmed rising support for English issues and of a rising English political demand for recognition, also a rising concern amongst English people that the Scottish National Party might go into coalition with Labour and so be able extract even more unfair advantages for Scotland from a Labour led coalition government to be paid for by us English.

I think my conversation with Lynton Crosby and his subsequent research was very important. He has recently confirmed this in a televised interview in Australia, in which he confirmed that their polling and focus group research was what I was expecting and that it therefore showed figures that Englishness was potentially an important factor.

It was for this reason that David Cameron, a man whom I would remind everyone, had never previously shown any interest in the English question and, indeed was on record as saying that he was going to ‘fight little Englanders wherever he found them’, suddenly came out on the morning after the Scottish Referendum with his suggestion of English Votes for English Laws!

EVEL was then put into the Conservative Election Manifesto and there was much public talk about what the English nation wanted in the way of a new constitutional settlement – much to the horror of Labour and Liberal Democrats and almost all the British nationalist media!

During the General Election campaign the English Question was often discussed and the Conservatives made big headway with the threat that the Scottish National Party might get undue influence in a coalition Labour Government.

Every time that was mentioned, not only was Labour’s vote undermined in Scotland with more people deciding to vote SNP in order to get such a result, but in England people were increasingly hesitant about voting for Labour with that as a possible outcome.

Indeed where I live, in a rock solid Conservative constituency, whose MP is Eric Pickles, Eric actually got a higher vote in terms of the numbers of people who voted for him than he had previously obtained because people, like my local sub-postmaster, Mick, voted for him. Mick told me that he had been getting increasingly worried about the SNP threat and when he actually got into the voting booth, despite the fact that he and his family had always been Labour and he had been a Trade Unionist, he just couldn’t bring himself to vote Labour and so he voted Conservative!

Ladies and gentlemen the significance is that for the first time in his life that man voted not according to his family tribal political tradition and custom, but he voted as an English patriot and in what he saw as the interests of England.

Of course those like Mick that voted Conservative in such a way are going to find that the Conservatives let them down and that English Votes for English Laws is a completely inadequate and frankly bogus proposal which does very little to settle the English Question. Also of course, it doesn’t even touch the Executive side of the English Question and is only a bit of tinkering with the Representational side.

In discussing matters with Lynton Crosby I also pointed out to him that UKIP had a weakness on the English Question. Although UKIP depends for much of its support upon people who are basically English nationalists, according to the research that has been done by the Institute for Public Policy and Research. The IPPR, in their papers on the rising sense of English political identity, had clearly identified that many of UKIPs supporters were English nationalists.

Nevertheless UKIP’s leaders, especially Nigel Farage, are old style British nationalists (with many of their funders being City Brit/Scots) and consequently were almost certain not to satisfy the English nationalist calls for an English Parliament and for proper representation for England and were not even likely to have a separate manifesto for England! Lynton Crosby was very surprised about this and went and did his research which confirmed it.

In the event, as many of you will know, UKIP lived up to my prediction exactly. They produced a British manifesto which barely mentioned England or the English. They then went on to produce specific Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish manifestos, but nothing specifically for England.

This was despite the Campaign for an English Parliament specifically lobbying them and directly lobbying Suzanne Evans. She point blank refused to have any English manifesto.

Having been forewarned, the Conservatives were then ready to triangulate UKIP by launching a specifically English manifesto, which although it was a thin document, confirmed peoples’ views that the Conservatives were the big party that was most interested in English nationalist questions in the General Election.

In the event, as Lynton Crosby indicated in his televised interview, the English Question may well have been the issue which tipped the Conservatives into an outright majority in the House of Commons (albeit on the back of course of only 26% of the electorates’ votes!). It may also have been the issue which halved UKIP’s representation in Parliament. If they had gone full throttle for English nationalism I think they would have won quite a few of those seats where they came second.

Instead UKIP were over confident that they were going to win many seats, so much so that Nigel Farage had not even prepared a speech to give at his count in Thanet in the event that he failed to win the seat.

It is also why, with his usual weakness for ill-thought-out grandstanding, that he announced that he was standing down with immediate effect as Leader of UKIP and appointing Suzanne Evans, as the temporary Leader, who wasn’t, he misguidedly thought, as dangerous to his position as Paul Nuttall would have been, who as their Deputy Leader ought to have been the person to lead in the interim.

It was only when Nigel Farage spoke to Suzanne Evans and she refused to confirm that she would stand down, so that he could be re-elected at their conference next weekend, that he started the whole ridiculous scenario of trying to un-resign.

I don’t think of Belgium politicians as being usually particularly funny but the Belgium ex-Prime Minister and MEP, Guy Verhofstadt, got it absolutely right when he said:- “He is a man of his word. Nigel Farage has sent a letter to Nigel Farage saying “I resign”, and Nigel Farage has responded to Nigel Farage saying “I refuse” … That’s the way it works there”. Ladies and Gentlemen what about that?

In fact I gather that at UKIP’s next NEC meeting, Nigel Farage told them that they must refuse to accept his resignation and he then refused to leave the room whilst they discussed it.

I am afraid that UKIP’s leadership has been left with its credibility badly damaged. With the Conservatives becoming ever more clearly committed to an In/Out Leave or Remain referendum on EU membership by the end of 2017 UKIP’s purpose is coming to an end. Ladies and Gentlemen I predict that, when we have had that EU referendum, whether we are in or we are out, UKIP will be finished as its one and only purpose will have ended.

We on the other hand, whilst we are of course strongly interested in England coming out of the EU, nevertheless we have an overriding objective and indeed mind-set of being English Nationalists seeking what is in the best interests of the English Nation in respect of any given problem.

It is for this reason that we are today launching our own English nationalist referendum group to leave both of the Unions. We offer two bites of the cherry, not only the referendum on the EU, but also dissolution of the UK which automatically puts us outside the EU.

There is also what has happened to Labour. For those of what they refer to as the “white working class”, but who mostly think of themselves as “English”, who were already concerned that Labour cares about everybody more than they have found it by electing the anti-English Jeremy Corbyn. We have also seen the whole strength of the Far-Left throughout the UK turn out and vote for him. The number is 251,417. That isn’t such a big number, less than the number who voted for us in the 2009 EU election when we got 279,801!

Ladies and Gentlemen whilst there are therefore various reasons for English nationalists to feel optimistic about the future, there are of course various reasons to be concerned and issues to campaign against. One of which is the flood of immigration that we are being subjected to in England.

An extraordinary amount of sentimental nonsense is written and spoken about what “Britain” should do about these problems. Whilst it is true that David Cameron and William Hague have made the situation worse by causing the collapse of the Libyan State. The dramatic scenes that we have seen of migrants in unseaworthy vessels on the Mediterranean have often set out from the anarchic civil war zone that was Libya. In the main however the crisis has little or nothing to do with the United Kingdom.

As a small country on the periphery of the European continent with a living standard which is already quite low down the pecking order of “the developed world” (and sliding!) there isn’t realistically anything that this country could do to completely sort out what is likely to be an ever growing problem; as the population of the world spirals well out of the ability of the earth’s natural resources to provide adequate lifestyles, let alone comfortable lifestyles for its ever vaster human population.

Within the UK the vast majority of migrants (and a disproportionate proportion) prefer to stay in England and are both not willing to be dispersed into Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but also are made very unwelcome by local people. It is the English who have been peculiarly tolerant towards immigrants over the last 50 years in which more migrants (and a larger proportion of population) have come here than in the entire previous history of England.

Last year alone the official statistics said that we took in 330,000 migrants. Given the inadequate collection of statistics of those coming in and going out of the country these figures should be viewed with extreme scepticism. The true figure may well be more than double the official one!

It is in the interests of the Government and the State generally to down play the size of immigration as the people of England become ever more concerned that this whole issue is being grossly mishandled by our so-called leaders.

Discussion of the number of Eastern Europeans that have come has been framed by a figure of 600,000 Poles being regularly touted. In fact this figure only represents those Poles that have signed up for employed status with an employee national insurance number. The Polish Government does keep statistics of whose going in and going out of their country and where they are going to and they think that we have over 1.5 million Poles here.

It is worth bearing in mind that the Government of the day claimed, when they opened our borders to Eastern European immigration, that only 13,000 Eastern Europeans would come. Now officials talk disingenuously as if the claimed 600,000 Poles was the equivalent to the 13,000. Actually if the official figures are out to the extent which seems to be the case with Poles, then you can probably add another one million other Eastern Europeans here!

Some years ago one of the main supermarket chains published their estimate of the total population on the basis of the amount of food eaten. They estimated that there was at least another 10 million people in the United Kingdom over and above those officially thought to be here. A similar discrepancy emerges if the amount of effluent produced by the population is considered.

If all the calls for “Britain” to do something were answered, then the county’s infrastructure would simply be unable to cope. I think it is no exaggeration to say that it is already creaking at the seams. There is also the question of our peoples’ living standards, their access to jobs and their facilities and our culture and our countryside.

Just as a reality check, 330,000 people coming in in a year requires a building programme equivalent to building nearly two Colchesters just to house one year’s migration. It is also more than a new Doncaster or a new Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Then there is the 8 million migrants that the Government has now admitted are here. This means that a new Greater London must be built and, given the migrants’ preference for England, that is going to be built in England. Such levels of migration are totally “unsustainable”.

So when British politicians say that we should take more migrants, whether they be refugees or economic migrants or EU citizens, bear in mind that they are asking us all to treat the UK State as if it were in fact a private charity rather than an organisation the purpose of which is to look after the interests of our Nation and our People.

My answer to those who would like to see something done for migrants, is that those people should do it themselves out of their own money and using their own time and effort.

The English are already by far the most charitable people on Earth so go and do it yourselves but don’t expect to use the State, the taxpayer and our fellow citizens’ futures to subsidise your consciences!

Ladies and Gentlemen also there is the question of Regionalisation which has again reared its ugly head with George Osborne’s proposals to try to produce different levels of Regionalisation in different parts of England. Although this is clearly a threat, as it is part of the British Establishment’s agenda to try and break up England, which is, of course, the very threat that is one of the reasons why English Democrats think that the only way in which England can be properly looked after in the future, and protected, is by Independence. Nevertheless this has been done very much on a very top-down basis, rather than as a result of a democratic mandate.

This can be seen most clearly in Manchester, which only recently voted in a referendum not to have a Metro Mayor, but it is now in the process of having to create one in readiness for elections in perhaps two year’s time.

It is for that reason, the lack of democratic mandate for the break-up of England, that I am not as worried about this wave of attempted Regionalisation, as I must say I was ten years ago now with Labour’s proposals for referenda and regional assemblies. That would have been much more difficult to reverse once people had voted in a referendum for Regionalisation.

Interestingly the IPPR research shows that there is virtually no support for any form of Regionalisation in England outside, of course, the British political class. Regionalisation is however a threat that we need to constantly bear in mind and fight against. The main point to make however is that any local government reorganisation is not “Devolution” like what has happened in Scotland and Wales, instead it is merely “Decentralisation”.

Ladies and Gentlemen I am pleased therefore not only to welcome you to this 13th or 14th Conference or Annual General Meeting, but also to say that I think our Cause is making good progress. Over the coming year we have some interesting challenges, not only, of course, probably the EU referendum, but also some significant elections. In particular the Police Commissioner elections on the 5th May 2016.

I would remind everyone that these are elections that we have previously done quite well in, having spent next to nothing on it. Our total spend across all five county forces that we previously stood in was less than £1,000 on campaigning, but we still saved every deposit, getting over 5% of the vote and we also came second in South Yorkshire. Ladies and Gentlemen make no mistake these are important elections that give a position of actual power and decision making to the Police Commissioner. I think it is an opportunity for us to focus on something where we could make a real difference if we got our people elected and could change the way that the Police in England behave.

This is perhaps particularly important when the Government is starting to turn its anti-terrorism strategy, known as CONTEST, against those of us that they consider to be “extremists” because the word “extremist” is now to be used against anyone who opposes the status quo. Those of you who are nurses, doctors, teachers, social workers and police will know that this is a new target for the Government.

To show how far they are prepared to go, consider the fact that recently a “Conservative” MP, the unmarried Mark Spencer. The MP for Sherwood surprised many of those who had not been paying attention to direction of travel of British politics by enthusiastically endorsing the idea that “Extremist Disruption Orders” should be used against any teacher (and shortly, no doubt, any public speaker) that dares to teach traditional Christian morality by indicating disapproval of “gay marriage”. In my view such a comment could never have been made by anybody who had any belief in civil liberty, whatever their views on gay marriage.

So Ladies and Gentlemen I hope that we English Democrats will all leave here re-enforced and with a new determination and resolve to fight for England and the English Nation and against our enemies, whether they be Islamist, EU’ish, Regionalist, Scottish or British!

As part of that process we have got important resolutions for you to decide today whether to adopt for our Party and also some interesting speakers and presentations for you this afternoon.

Thank you very much Ladies and Gentlemen.