Category Archives: invasion

The Archers: an everyday story of simple feminists saying “Men!” folk

Robert Henderson

The white male characters in the Archers are invariably  either louts or cringing wimps who are treated as children by the female characters.  (Ethnic minority male characters are of course exempted from this rule, being invariably middleclass and if not always models of moral decorum never pathetic).

In recent weeks the dissatisfaction   with men of the crazed feminists who control the programme has reached new levels of intensity and scope.  Everywhere in the fictional village female characters are treating their menfolk with a disdain and lack of consideration unusual by the very high standards of contempt and condescension they normally display towards them. This feminine misbehaviour is of course not misbehaviour at all in feminist eyes but female “empowerment”.

Brenda Tucker has given her long-time live in boyfriend Tom Archer the old heave-ho for  the high-octane feminist reasons that (1) she wants to follow her own career and (2) is determined not to have children.   The announcement of this opened the way for the script writers to have Tom trying to blub his way to getting her back and sundry female characters saying how understandable it was that Brenda had decided to put her own feelings and career first.

Chris Carter, who was recently in intensive care after having an accident  after  being distracted at his work by his wife  Alice being selected  for a job in Canada and expecting  him to drop his own business as a farrier to join him there on spec.  Nothing daunted in the feminist selfishness stakes,  Alice  spent weeks during his recovery still thinking about going to Canada before eventually deciding against emigrating  – for the moment.

Lillian Bellamy’s excruciating geriatric affair with the overtly ineffably wet Paul has hit a rocky patch with Paul revealing more and more of his distinctly sinister side with  possessiveness  and pettishness alternating, while Lillian continues to show no remorse about betraying her live-in partner Matt Crawford.

Darrell Makepeace and his Albanian wife are at odds over Darrell’s inability to get regular work and is even more concerned over what he is doing to bring in the money he does bring in. Darrell being white, English and working-class  is fair game for misbehaviour to be allotted to him. He arrived in the series with a prison sentence behind him and has now been plonked into a storyline which has him caught up in a dog-fighting ring which is where he is getting his money from.

Pip Archer, arguably the most irritating female character ever to hit the airwaves, is permanently in a rage with her father David for daring to expect her to help about the family farm whilst she is living there rent and board free during her time at university.

But it has not quite been all feminist abuse of men. Helen Archer,  well into her thirties and replete with child obtained through artificial insemination from an unknown donor, is dating again in the manner of a 15 year-old. Nothing disastrous has happened yet but this being Helen it will. And needless to say, she and  the other main female characters will be saying “Men!”

On the everyday story of disabled folk front, the Downs child Bethany born to Mike and Vicky Tucker when Mike is in his sixties and she in her forties, is now greeted with cries of joy by every Archers’ character. This week the “normalisation of disability” in Ambridge took another step forward with the local WI putting on a talk given by a mother and her adult age Downs son. The event  was of course  greeted with universal praise.

Finally, the introduction of the Muslim character Iftikar Khan into the Archers core family  has been at least temporarily delayed. An attempted kiss and embrace between the chatelaine of lower Loxley Elizabeth  Pargetter and Khan resulted in a rebuff, gentle of course, from Elizabeth,  on the grounds that  she was “Not quite ready for a relationship”. But diversity lovers should not fear. It is only a matter of time before they are an item.  Indeed, the white, English  characters  are already preparing the ground . When gossip about a romance was developing between Khan and Elizabeth, a number of them talked about it without batting an eyelid at the prospect of a Muslim ending up as the squire of an English country estate with doubtless the patter of tiny feet of  a Mohammed or Fatima or both echoing in the ancient Lower Loxley halls.  Will Elizabeth have to convert to Islam is the big question.

Truly amazing what the BBC thinks goes on in an English farming village.

Emma West’s trial scheduled for the sixth time

Robert Henderson

Emma West was due to stand trial at Croydon Crown Court for  two racially aggravated public order offences  arising from her complaint about  mass immigration and its effects made on a Croydon tram  in November 2011 . The trial has been delayed yet again and she will now (allegedly) stand trial on 10 May.[1]

The authorities are extracting the bodily fluids if they expect the general public to believe there is a legitimate reason for the delay.  The 10 May will be the sixth (yes, that is the sixth) trial date Ms West has been given since she was arrested .  By 10 May she will have been waiting to be tried for just short of eighteen months. The delay  is patently unreasonable.

The latest  excuse  given for the inordinate delay are “legal reasons”.   The only likely reasons are political ones, namely, her trial will challenge to politically correct status quo. This is because unlike virtually everyone else who has been charged with these type of offences she has made it clear she will be pleading NOT GUILTY.   The authorities simply  do not know what to do with her.

There is an added complication. When the previous re-scheduling happened the charges of assault against two police offices during the investigation of her case were also delayed  -they were originally due to be held on 3 March and were re-scheduled for 15 April.[2]

It will be interesting to see if these cases (to be heard in a magistrates’ court) go ahead on the 15 April or are put back yet again.   The authorities may have decided they want these cases to be heard before the racially aggravated public order offences. That could be to her disadvantage not just because it would taint her with  a criminal conviction before her Crown Court trial, but even more  dangerously because a criminal conviction for violence could provide the local social services with grounds for removing or threatening to remove her young son.  That might well be used as a lever to persuade her to plead guilty.  It is all too easy to imagine the cant the social services could come out with: “If you show remorse, Emma,  it may be possible to let you keep your child because it shows willingness to change. But if you stubbornly stick to your  not guilty plea we may have to take your son away from you because you are an unfit mother.”

The other possibility is that if the assault charges  are heard on  15 April and she is found guilty, she might be sent to prison. This would be very unusual for common assault cases, but the fact that the alleged victims are police officers might give the magistrates grounds for doing so. If that happened her son would probably be taken into care.  Whether she would ever get him back is a moot point. This scenario could of course also be used to frighten her in pleading guilty.

Margaret Thatcher: the most useful of idiots is dead

Note: Undoubtedly a gigantic political personality, but that is disastrous if the politics and understanding of what she was doing are missing. One of her favourite claims was that she had been “badly advised”.  Just what you don’t want as PM.  What is needed is someone who understands the consequences of what they are doing. RH 

Margaret Thatcher: the most useful of idiots

Robert Henderson
With his mixture of vaulting intellectual ambition and howling mediocrity of mind, Lenin is the MaGonagal of philosophers. (Connoisseurs of intellectual incompetence and pretension should browse through Lenin’s ‘Materialism and Empririo-Criticism’ for an especial treat). Nonetheless, like Hitler, the man possessed a certain low animal cunning and a complete absence of moral restraint, which qualities permitted him to make a few acute psychological and sociological observations. Amongst these is the concept of the useful idiot.
For Lenin this was the role to be played primarily by simpleminded bourgeois dupes who unwittingly aided the movement towards the proletarian revolution, a revolution utterly antipathetic to the ideals and aspiration of the simpleminded bourgeois dupes. But the concept is of general political utility. The useful idiot is any person who acts in a way which unwittingly promotes political interests which are opposed to his own political ideals.
The best of all useful idiots are those in positions of the greatest political advantage, both because they have power and their propensity to be deluded by their egos into believing that they are utterly beyond manipulation or mistaken in their policies. They also display a serious want of understanding of the probable consequences of their actions.
It was this combination of circumstances and mentality which made Margaret Thatcher so potent a useful idiot in the liberal internationalist cause. As I wrote that last sentence, I saw rising up before me the opposing hordes of her admirers and haters, singularly united in a ghastly embrace of disbelief. Was she not the Iron Lady, the Hammer of the Left, the destroyer of union power, the slayer of the socialist dragon? Did she not speak of turning back the tide of immigrants? Was she not the rock from which the European Leviathan rebounded? Did she not ensure that Britain was respected in the world as she had not been since Suez? Was she not a mover and shaker in the nationalist cause?
In her own rhetorical world Mrs T was all of these things, a veritable Gloriana who enchanted some and banally persuaded many more, but in practical achievement she was none of them. This discrepancy between fact and fancy made her an extraordinarily potent tool for the soldiers of the ascendant ideology of the post-war period, the sordid bigotry that is liberal internationalism.
The hard truth is that she allowed the primary British political corruptions of the post war period – immigration, multiculturalism, “progressive” education, the social work circus, internationalism, the attachment to Europe – to not merely continue but grow vastly in scope during her period in power.
A harsh judgement? Well, at the end of her premiership what did Britain have to show for her vaunted patriotism, her wish to maintain Britain’s independence, her desire to drive back the state, her promise to end mass immigration? Precious little is the answer.
Her enthusiastic promotion of the Single European Act, which she ruthlessly drove through Parliament, allowed the Eurofederalists to greatly advance their cause under the guise of acting to produce a single market; her “triumph” in reducing our subsidy to Europe left us paying several billion a year to our European competitors whilst France paid next to nothing; our fishermen were sold down the river; farmers placed in the absurd position of not being allowed to produce even enough milk for British requirements; actual (as opposed to official) immigration increased; that monument to liberal bigotry, the Race Relations Act was untouched, the educational vandals were not only allowed to sabotage every serious attempt to overturn the progressive disaster, but were granted a great triumph in the ending of ‘O’ levels, a liberal bigot success amplified by the contemptible bleating of successive education secretaries that “rising examination success means rising standards”; foreign aid continued to be paid as an unforced Dangeld extracted from an unwilling electorate; major and strategically important industries either ceased to be serious competitors or ended in foreign hands; the armed forces were cut suicidally; the cost of the Welfare State and local government rose massively whilst the service provided both declined and Ulster was sold down the river with the Anglo Irish Agreement. Most generally damaging, she promoted internationalism through her fanatic pursuit of free trade.
At all points Britain was weakened as a nation. Such were the fruits of more than a decade of Thatcherism. Even those things which are most emblematic of her – privatisation, the sale of council houses and the subjection of the unions – have had effects which are contrary to those intended. Privatisation merely accelerated the loss of control which free trade engendered. We may as customers celebrate the liberation of British Telecom and BA, but is it such a wonderful thing to have no major car producer or shipbuilder? The trouble with the privatisation of major industries, which may be greatly reduced, go out of business or be taken over by foreign buyers, is that it ignores strategic and social welfare questions. Ditto free trade generally. Both assume that the world, or at least the parts which contain our major trading partners , will remain peaceful, stable and well disposed towards Britain for ever, an absurd assumption.
Margaret Thatcher also engaged in behaviour which led to a corruption of public life which undermined and continues to undermine her intended ends. Politicians should always think of what precedent they are setting when they act for bad precedents will be invariably seized upon by later governments. She consistently failed to address this concern. Take her attitude to privatisation and the unions. In the former case she displayed a contempt for ownership: in the latter she engaged in authoritarian actions which were simply inappropriate to a democracy. Such legally and politically cavalier behaviour has undoubtedly influenced Blair and New Labour, vide the contempt with which parliament is now treated, constitutional change wrought and incessant restrictions on liberty enacted.
There is a profound ethical question connected to privatisation which was never properly answered by Tories: what right does the state have to dispose by sale of assets which are held in trust on behalf of the general public and whose existence has been in large part guaranteed by taxpayer’s money? This is a question which should be as readily asked by a conservative as by a socialist for it touches upon a central point of democratic political morality, the custodianship of public property. The same ends – the diminution of the state and the freeing of the public from seemingly perpetual losses – could have been achieved by an equitable distribution of shares free of charge to the general public. This would have had, from a Thatcherite standpoint, the additional benefit of greatly increasing share ownership. By selling that which the government did not meaningfully own, she engaged in behaviour which if it had been engaged in by any private individual or company would have been described as fraud or theft.
The breaking of union power was overdone. As someone who is old enough to remember the Wilson, Heath and Callaghan years, I have no illusion of exactly how awful the unions were when they had real power. But her means of breaking their abusive ways, particularly during the miners’ strike, were simply inappropriate in a supposed democracy. Passing laws restricting picketing and making unions liable for material losses suffered when they broke the rules were one thing: the using of the police in an unambiguously authoritarian manner in circumstances of dubious legality such as the blanket prevention of free movement of miners, quite another.
The Falklands War displays another side of her weakness in matching actions to rhetoric. Admirable as the military action was, the terrible truth is that the war need never have been fought if the government had taken their intelligence reports seriously and retained a naval presence in the area. The lesson went unlearnt, for within a few years of the recovery of the Falklands, her government massively reduced defence expenditure.
But what of her clients, the Liberal Ascendency? Would they not be dismayed by much of what she did? Well, by the time Margaret Thatcher came to power liberals had really lost whatever interest they had ever had in state ownership or the genuine improvement of the worker’s lot. What they really cared about was promoting their internationalist vision and doctrine of spurious natural rights. They had new clients; the vast numbers of coloured immigrants and their children, women, homosexuals, the disabled. In short, all those who were dysfunctional, or could be made to feel dysfunctional, in terms of British society. They had new areas of power and distinction, social work, education, the civil service ,the mass media to which they added, after securing the ideological high ground, the ancient delights of politics.
Although the liberal left distrusted and hated Margaret Thatcher (and did not understand at the time how effective her commitment to free trade was in promoting internationalism), they nonetheless had the belief throughout her time in office that Britain’s involvement in the EU and the Liberal Ascendency’s control of education, the media, the civil service and bodies such as the Commission for Racial Equality would thwart those of her plans which were most dangerous and obnoxious to the liberal.
Margaret Thatcher greatly added to this wall of opposition by her choice of ministers. Think of her major cabinet appointments. She ensured that the Foreign Office remained in the hands of men (Howe and Hurd) who were both ardent Europhiles and willing tools of the FO Quisling culture, the Chancellorship was entrusted to first Howe and then Lawson who was also firmly committed to Europe. The Home Office sat in the laps of the social liberals Whitelaw, Hurd and Baker, Education was given to Baker and Clarke. Those appointments alone ensured that little would be done to attack the things which liberals held sacred, for they were men who broadly shared the liberal values and who were opposed to Thatcherite policies other than those on the economy, which of course was the one Thatcherite policy guaranteed to assist liberal internationalism. By the end, she was so weak that she was unable to prevent the effective sacking of a favourite cabinet minister, Nicholas Ridley, by the German Chancellor.
The constant cry of Margaret Thatcher after she left office is that she did not understand the consequences of her acts. Of course she does not put it in that way, but that is what it amounts to. She blames Brussels and the Foreign Office for the unwelcome consequences of the Single European Act. She readily admits that this minister or that in her government proved unreliable or treacherous, but does not conclude that her judgement in choosing them was at fault. She blames the Foreign Office for the Falklands War. But nowhere does she acknowledge her fault.
In her heart of hearts, has the second longest serving and most ideological prime minister in modern British history ever comprehended, however imperfectly, that she was a prime mover in the Liberal Internationalist cause? I doubt it, because self deception is at the heart of what makes a useful idiot.

The EU IN/OUT referendum: strategy and tactics for those who want to leave the EU

Robert Henderson

The general strategy

A) How to leave

Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty states

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.

A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49. (http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-european-union-and-comments/title-6-final-provisions/137-article-50.html).

The OUT camp must make it clear that  it would be both damaging and unnecessary for the UK to abide by this Treaty requirement. It  would allow the EU to inflict considerable damage on the UK both during the period prior to formally  leaving and afterwards if  the price of leaving with the EU’s agreement was  for  UK to sign up to various obligations, for example, to continue paying a large annual sum to the EU for ten years . It would also give  the Europhile UK political elite  ample opportunity to keep the UK attached to the EU in the manner that Norway and Switzerland are attached. More of them later.

There is also the danger that the stay-in camp could use Article 50 to argue that whether the British people want to be in or out, the cost of leaving would be too heavy because of this treaty requirement.

The Gordian knot of Article 50 can be cut  simply by passing an Act of Parliament repealing all the treaties that refer to the EU from the Treaty of Rome onwards. No major UK party could  object to this because all three have, at one time or another,  declared that Parliament remains supreme and can repudiate anything the EU does if it so chooses.

If the stay-in camp argue that would be illegal because of the  treaty obligation, the OUT camp should simply emphasise  (1) that international law is no law because there is never any means of enforcing it within its jurisdiction is a state rejects it and (2) that treaties which do not allow for contracting parties to simply withdraw are profoundly undemocratic because they bind future governments.

The OUT camp should press the major political parties to commit themselves to ignoring Article 50. If a party refuses that can be used against them because it will make them look suspicious. Before the vote

B) The parties’ plans of action if there is a vote to leave

It is important that all the parties likely to have seats in the Commons after the next election are publicly and relentlessly pressed to give at least a broad outline of what action they would adopt in the event of a vote to leave.  Left with a free hand there is a serious danger that whatever British  government is  in charge after a vote to leave would attempt to bind the UK back into the EU by stealth by signing the UK up to agreements such as those the EU has with Norway and Switzerland which mean that they have to (1) pay a fee to the EU annually, (2) adopt the social legislation which comes from the EU and (3) most importantly agree to the four “freedoms” of the EU – the free movement of goods, services, capital and  labour throughout not merely the EU  but the wider European Economic Area (EEA).

It is probable that the Westminster parties will all resist this, but that would present them with two problems. First, a refusal to do so would make them seem untrustworthy; second, if one party laid out their position but the others did not, that would potentially give the party which did say what it would do a considerable advantage over the others which did not.  If no party puts its plans before the public before the referendum, there should be demands  from those who want the UK to leave the EU that  any new treaties with the EU must be put to a referendum and, if they are rejected, the UK will simply trade with the EU under the WTO rules.

C) Repudiate re-negotiation before the referendum

Supporting the negotiation of a new relationship between the UK and the EU before a referendum is mistaken because it would seem to many to be giving tacit approval for renegotiation and legitimise the possibility of the UK remaining within the EU.  It is also rash  because  the likelihood  of the EU giving nothing is probably very small.  Indeed, they might well  give something which is substantial,  because the UK leaving the EU would be a very great blow to the organisation. The UK is the country with the second largest population within the EU with , depending on how it is measured,  the second or third largest   economy  and the country which pays the second largest contribution to the EU budget.   For the EU to lose the UK would not only be a blow in itself, it would also create a very strong precedent for every other EU state, especially the largest ones.  If  the UK left and prospered the temptation would be for other EU states to leave.

But even if negotiation  produced  nothing of substance as Harold Wilson’s “renegotiation” did in 1975, it would be a mistake to imagine that it would not influence the referendum result. The electorate is divided between the resolute come outs, the resolute stay-ins and the wavering middle.  A claim by the stay-in campaigners that something had been conceded by the EU, however  insignificant,  would provide the waverers with an excuse to vote to stay in because they could convince themselves they were voting for change.

It would be also be a mistake to see the EU offering  nothing  at all as a gift for the OUT camp. This is  because the waverers might simply see that as evidence that the EU was too powerful to oppose and shift their votes to staying in.

Those who want the UK to leave should unambiguously put the case for no renegotiation.  Dismiss anything Cameron (or any other PM) brings back from the EU by way of altered terms as being irrelevant because the EU has a long record of  agreeing things with  the UK and then finding ways of sabotaging what was agreed. In addition, a future British government  may agree to alter any terms offered at the time of the referendum.  The classic example of this changing of agreed terms happening in the past is Tony Blair’s  giving up of a substantial amount of the Thatcher rebate in return for a promised reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), a promise which was never met.  That episode produced my all-time favourite amongst Blair’s penchant for lying. Two days before he went to the EU meeting at which he  gave away a  substantial part of the rebate he declared during Prime Minister’s Questions  that  the rebate  was “non-negotiable – period”

It is difficult to envisage any British prime minister not trying to  negotiate with the EU before a referendum, but it might just  happen if whoever is in power when the referendum is announced were to be told privately by the  major EU players that nothing will be given and the prime minister of the day concludes it would be best to pretend that a decision had been made not to negotiate rather than risk the humiliation of getting nothing, perhaps not even a pretence of negotiation before nothing is given.  Why would the EU do this? They might calculate that it would be a gamble worth taking to send a British PM away  with nothing  whilst hoping the referendum vote would be to stay in because then the power of the UK to resist further integration would be shot.

If the EU offer nothing, the OUT camp should welcome the fact and stress to the public that if the referendum is to stay-in the EU could force any federalist measure through because not only would any British government be much weakened in its opposition to more federalism, the UK political class as a whole would more than willing to go along with it because of their ideological commitment to the EU.

D) After the vote

Ideally the government which deals with the EU after a vote to leave will have committed themselves to a plan of action before the referendum vote.  However, as described above,  it is quite possible that this will not happen because  the UK’s overwhelmingly Europhile political class will try to re-entangle the UK with the EU. To prevent them doing so there should be a concerted campaign after the vote to ensure that the  British public understands what is being done on their behalf with a demand for a further referendum to agree any  new treaty.

The terms of the debate

It is essential that the Europhiles are not allowed to make the debate revolve around economics.   If they do it will effectively stifle meaningful debate. As anyone who has ever tried to present economic ideas to an audience of the general public will know it is a soul-destroying experience.  Take the question of how much of UK trade is with the EU. The debate will begin with the stay-in camp saying something like 45% of UK trade is with the EU. Those wanting to leave the EU will respond by saying it is probably less than 40% because of the Rotterdam/Antwerp effect . They will then be forced to explain what the Rotterdam/Amsterdam, effect is. That is the point where the general public’s concentration is lost and the debate ends up proving nothing to most of the audience.

But  although nothing is proved to the general audience by detailed economic argument ,  the audience will remember  certain phrases which have considerable  traction.  In amongst the serious debating on the issue of trade there will be phrases such as three million jobs in Britain rely on the EU and dire threats about how the EU will simply not buy British goods and services any more.  This is nonsense but fear is not a rational thing and many of those who vote will enter the voting chamber with fear of losing their jobs  in their heads regardless of what the OUT camp says if the debate is predominantly about economics.  Shift the debate away from economics and the fear inducing phrases will be heard less often.  If the BIG LIE is not repeated often enough its potency fades.

National Sovereignty

How should those wanting to leave the EU shift the focus of debate? They should put the matter which is really at the core of the UK’s  relationship with the EU  – national sovereignty – at the front of the  OUT camp’s referendum campaign.   Campaign under a slogan such as Are we to be masters in our own house?

Making national sovereignty the primary campaigning issue has the great advantage of  it being something that anyone can understand because it is both a simple concept and speaks directly to the natural tribal instincts of  human beings.   Being a simple concept readily  and naturally understood,   it is a far more potent debating tool than arguments attempting to refute the economic  arguments  beloved of the stay-in camp.  The fact that the natural tribal instincts have been suppressed for so long in the UK will increase its potency because most people will feel a sense of release when it begins to be catered for in public debate.

The appeal to national sovereignty has a further advantage. Those who support the EU are unused to debating on that ground.  That is because uncritical support for the EU has long been the position of both the British mainstream political class as a class and of the mass media.  That has meant that the contrary voice – that which wishes Britain to be independent – has been largely unheard in public debate for thirty years or more. Where it has been heard the response of the pro-EU majority has not been rational argument but abuse ranging from patronising dismissal of a wish for sovereignty as an outmoded nationalism to accusations that national sovereignty amounts to xenophobia or even racism.   These tactics – of excluding those who want to leave the EU from public debate and abuse substituted for argument – will no longer be available to the  pro EU lobby.

Immigration

The most threatening and energising subject relating to the EU for the general public is immigration. The public are right to identify this as the most important aspect of our membership of the EU because immigration touches every important part of British life: jobs, housing, education, welfare, healthcare, transport, free expression  and crime besides radically changing the  nature of parts of  the UK which now have large populations of immigrants and their descendants.

The public rhetoric of mainstream politicians and the media is changing fast as they begin to realise both what an electoral liability a de facto open door immigration policy is  as the effects of mass immigration become ever more glaring.  The argument is shifting from the economic to the cultural.  For example, here is the Daily Telegraph in a leader of  25 March:

“The fact is that, for many in Britain (especially those outside the middle classes), it is not just a matter of jobs being taken or public services being stretched, but of changes in the very character of communities. Those changes may not necessarily be for the worse: as the Prime Minister says, Britain’s culture has long been enriched by the contributions of new arrivals. But as long as ministers treat immigration as a matter of profit and loss, rather than the cause of often wrenching social change, they will never be able fully to address the grievances it causes.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/9952717/Immigration-and-the-limits-of-the-possible.html)

This new frankness in public debate means that the OUT camp can use the immigration argument freely provided they keep the language within the confines of formal politeness. The subject will naturally dovetail with the emphasis on national sovereignty because the most important aspect of sovereignty is the ability to control the borders of the territory of a state.  Judged by their increasing willingness to talk publicly about immigration, it is probable that the mainstream UK parties will be content to go along with  ever more frank discussion about  immigration.

The economic argument must be kept simple

It will not be possible to avoid  economic arguments entirely. The OUT camp should concentrate on repeating these two facts:

–          The disadvantageous balance of payments deficit the UK has with the EU

–          The amount the UK pays to the EU

Those are the most solid  economic figures relating to the EU.   There is some fuzziness around the edges of the balance of payments deficit because of the question of where all the imports end up (whether in the EU or outside the EU through re-exporting) ,  while the  amount the EU  receives  is solid but it has to be broken down into the money which returns to the UK and the amount retained by Brussels.  Nonetheless these are the most certain  figures and the least susceptible to obfuscation by the stay-in side.

The best way of presenting the money paid to the EU is simply to say that outside the EU we can decide  how all of it is spent in this country and to illustrate what the money saved by not paying it to the EU would pay for.

It will also be necessary to address the question of protectionist measures the EU might take against the UK if the  vote was to leave.  It is improbable that the EU would place heavy protectionist barriers on UK exports because:

1.   The massive balance of payment deficit between the UK and the rest of the EU which is massively in the EU’s favour.

2.  Although the rest of the EU dwarfs the UK economy, much UK trade with the EU is heavily concentrated in certain regions of the EU.  The effect of protectionist barriers would  bear very heavily on these places.

3. There are strategically and economically important joint projects of which the UK is a major part,  for example, Airbus, the Joint-Strike Fighter.

4. the Republic of Ireland would be a massive bargaining chip for  the UK to play.  If the UK left and the EU rump attempted to impose sanctions against Britain this would cripple the RoI because so much of their trade is with the UK  The EU would be forced to massively subsidise the RoI  if protectionist barriers against the UK were imposed.  The EU could not exempt the RoI from the sanctions because that  would leave the EU open to British exports being funnelled through the RoI.

5. The EU would be bound by the World Trade Organisation’s restrictions on protectionist measures.

The economic  issues which are not worth pursuing in detail because they are too diffuse  and uncertain , are those relating to how much the EU costs Britain in terms of  EU-inspired legislation. It may well be that these load billions a year of extra costs  onto the UK  but they are not certain  or easily evaluated costs, not least because we cannot in the nature of things know what burdens an independent UK would impose off its own bat.   Getting into detailed  discussions about such things will simply play into the hands of  the stay-in camp because it will eat up the time and space available to those promoting the OUT cause.

Other Issues

Apart from the economic issues the stay-in camp will use these reasons for staying in:

–          That the EU  has prevented war in Western Europe since 1945.  This can be simply refuted by pointing out that the EU was not formed until  twelve years after WW2; that until 1973 the EU consisted of only six countries, three of them small,  and  of only nine countries until the 1980s. Consequently it would be reasonable to look for other reasons for  the lack of war. The two causes of   the peace in Western Europe have been the NATO alliance and the invention of nuclear weapons which make the price of war extraordinarily high.

–          That nation states such as the UK are too small to carry any real diplomatic weight in modern world.   That begs the question of whether it is an advantageous thing to carry such weight – it can get a country into disastrous foreign entanglements such as Iraq and Afghanistan – but even assuming it is advantageous , many much smaller countries than the UK survive very nicely, making their own bilateral agreements with other states large and small.   It is also worth remembering that the UK has such levers as a permanent seat on the UN Security  Council (which allows the UK to veto any proposed  move by the UN) and considerable influence in institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.

Robert Henderson

1 April 2013

Emma West trial scheduled for the fifth time

Robert Henderson

A fifth, yes that’s fifth,  date for the start of Emma West’s trial on criminal charges arising from her complaint about  mass immigration and its effects made on a Croydon tram  in November 2011 has been set  for  9th April (http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/New-date-trial-alleged-Croydon-tram-racist-Emma/story-18324751-detail/story.html#ixzz2NP2WTqtB). Assuming it actually takes place it will have taken over sixteen  months  since being charged with racially aggravated public order offences. (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/emma-west-immigration-and-the-liberal-totalitarian-state/).

Justice delayed is justice denied. The delay here is unconscionable because her comments on the tram were recorded by a fellow passenger and the only points at issue are (1) whether the recording has been doctored; (2) whether what was said or happened before the recording began have relevance to the context of the remarks, for example, was there any provocation offered to Miss West; (3) whether the remarks were racist or fair comment and (4) the condition of Miss West at the time.  None of this should take such an age to determine.

The  delay is plausibly not down to any practical or legal reason,  but the fact that Miss West has done something very unusual by maintaining a plea of Not Guilty throughout her ordeal, despite being imprisoned for two weeks in the nearest there is to a Category A prison in England for women HMP Bronzefield after being refused bail on the bogus grounds that it was “for her own safety” and having the threat of her child being taken away hanging over her.

The powers-that-be cannot be doing with  people designated as having committed politically correct crimes not coming quietly by pleading guilty and making a Maoist-style public confession of fault . That is especially the case where the accusation is one of racism.  Emma West represents real danger to the authorities because a not guilty plea raises the possibility of that being discussed  in public which the politically correct most dread: the policy of mass immigration of the UK, overtly and covertly practised by ever government since the war, and its effects.  The ridiculous delay has been in all probability simply a cynical ploy to wear Miss West down and get her to plead guilty.

During the time since the original charges, Miss West has been further charged with assaulting two police officers at her home. These charges were due to be heard in a magistrates court  on 3rd March but have been delayed until after her trial on the  racial harassment charges.  Presuming she did not attack them with a deadly weapon or seriously harm them – something suggested by the cases being dealt with in a magistrates court – is it really in the public interest to prosecute her considering the stress she has been placed under by the oppressive action of the state in charging her for what is an illegitimate crime in a free society, her imprisonment, the threat of taking her child away and great the delay?  If this alleged assault merely consisted of, say, Miss West pushing the officers, or resisting when she was  physically held by the officers, a prosecution would be wholly unreasonable in the circumstances.

The authorities may simply have decided they can no longer string things out and have to bring the case to trial or drop the charges.  However things could be rather more sinister.  The delaying of the assault charges could be used as a carrot to get her to plead guilty (you plead guilty and we will drop the charges) or,  if she is found not guilty of the racial harassment charges, a means of punishing her by convicting her of assault which could be a lever for the social services to take her son into care.

If the case is delayed again it will be impossible to offer any plausible  explanation but deliberate interference with justice by those with power and influence.

The Archers: an everyday story of feminist career women folk

Robert Henderson

In their delightfully naïve and blundering  way the crazed feminists who control the Archers made Alice Carter, the daughter of Brian Aldridge (who is  the richest man in Ambridge), an engineer. Feminist message: women can be engineers just like men.  Wildly improbable as that was, they then had her scratching around for an engineering job for ages before she found one close to home.  This job was portrayed as boring, frustrating and completely unworthy of Alice’s engineering talents from the word go.

Despite this undistinguished and very meagre work background,  Alice is  suddenly “head-hunted” by a company from abroad. She decides to go to an interview in Canada with a view to moving to that country. The fact that she is newly married to Chris Carter who has recently acquired his own farrier’s business with the aid of a huge bank loan is presented as inconsequential. What matters to the Archers’  creators  is that she is a career woman who needs to pursue her career and to hell with any other consideration, such as what is her husband going to do?

Alice arranges the interview in Canada whilst swearing blind to her husband that she is not looking for a job abroad.  When  Chris learns she is going  and is allowed to make some complaint about her selfishness (the only Archers character allowed to do so unambiguously) , Alice sweeps aside his objections by  saying he can come to Canada as well.  Outrageously (in  feminist eyes) Chris points out that he wants to live in Ambridge and,  even if he didn’t, it would be next to impossible to sell the farrier’s business at a price to clear his loan. All to  no avail as Alice heads to the land of the Maple Leaf. Feminist message: a woman’s career is more important than anything.

Being a regular male character is a risky business in the Archers. If they are not going gaga like Jack Woolley, they are plummeting to their death from a roof (Nigel Pargetter) or topping themselves with a shotgun like the gamekeeper Greg Turner.  No sooner is Alice on her way  to Canada  than Chris is felled by a horse kicking him and  he presently lies unconscious on a ventilator in hospital.  Will he be Ambridge’s first quadriplegic requiring Alice to be his life-long nurse, will he remain in a permanent vegetative state visited for years by Alice who cannot leave Ambridge to get the job she wants   or will he have the decency to die thus allowing Alice to head for Mountie country unencumbered by a man to pursue her career?

But it has not all been extreme feminist fantasy in recent months. There are  signs that the ultimate politically correct wet dream  which could be conceived for Ambridge is about to made soap opera flesh. The latest ethnic minority addition to Ambridge is Iftikar Shah. He has become the maths tutor for Freddie Pargetter and has rapidly advanced  to a sort of step father in waiting figure.  Iftikar has long intimate talks with him and with his mother, Elizabeth Pargetter, the widow of the unfortunate Nigel,  who was suddenly deemed too posh for the Archers and was  so ruthlessly dispatched.    Iftikar is appearing in this role ever more frequently and  has accompanied Elizabeth and the Pargetter children (Freddie and Lily) on their first group outing.  It is a sound bet that the we are heading for another multiracial coupling in the Archer family  with Elizabeth and Iftikar getting spliced before the year is out to the sound of church bells …er…the cry of the Muezzin. Iftikar being a Muslim would of course require Elizabeth to convert to Islam.  Elizabeth is still just of childbearing age so we could of course expect the odd Mohammed and Fatima to come along in due course.  The marriage would give not merely another multiracial tinge to the Archers but would mean that the de facto lord of the manor would be a Muslim.

But it has not all been about romance amongst the young and middle aged. Lillian Bellamy (who is  nearing 70 in the context of the series) and the ineffably wet Paul have been keeping the flag flying for geriatric sex . This they have done by behaving like teenagers in their first passion, with acting of an ineptitude startling even for the Archers.  The only glimmer of hope is that Paul may turn out to be a nutter and suddenly go on a murderous rampage.  There are signs  that this may be the case  as he  has a suppressed childlike impatience under the Uriah Heap façade. The pc message is of course the anti-age discrimination one of sex is for the old as well as the young.

The BBC wound up the Archer’s message board on 28th February. Could it be that they realised that the ever increasing amount of  pc tosh they are  offering would  result in an unceasing and ever growing avalanche of ridicule and complaint?

BBC Anglophobe anti-white propaganda: The liberty of Norton Folgate

Robert Henderson

The Saturday play on Radio 4 The liberty of Norton Folgate  (9 February)  was an unashamed piece of racism, the racism being directed at the native English. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qgr4f).

The play was set in the East End of London. Norton Folgate is a street connecting Bishopsgate with Shoreditch High Street.  The  playwright Mark Davies Markham hung the play on the skeleton of the British pop group Madness’  album of the same name.

Madness wrote their album after a building which the locals prized was in danger of being demolished.  This was eventually prevented after it was discovered that Norton Folgate was a liberty, an archaic free status which put it outside the jurisdiction of the local authority.   Hence the title The liberty of Norton Folgate.

The Madness album concentrated on the racial and ethnic diversity of the area both past and present. Davies Markham took this general theme and made it his with knobs on.  In the play the building threatened with demolition becomes the Union café, its proprietors Asian and the wicked developer who wants to demolish the building is (natch) white and English.  Davies Markham’s  intention are clear from a blog he wrote for the BBC:

“The Union café is threatened to be demolished. The livelihood of Bangladeshi owners, Gazi and Sitara, is under threat. They fear for the identity of the community. This family make a stand for preserving British culture. The right for all their customers to a full English breakfast.  “ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcmusic/posts/The-Liberty-of-Norton-Folgate-A-drama)

You get the idea: the Asians are the true Britons: the English are not.

The Asian characters are constantly promoted positively (with the subtext that they are the real British patriots now) while the white  English characters (interestingly there was no non-white character represented as English) with the exception of Jess,  the white daughter of Ralph Burke, the evil property developer and leader of the New England Party,  were caricatures of what the liberal left fondly but mistakenly imagine are the only English people who resist immigration and its effects, namely, Neo-Nazis.  Jess is in a relationship with an Asian (natch) and just to put a cherry on the cake of Asian good, English bad scenario,  the wife of Ralph ran away with an Asian.

This was a deliberate denigration of theEnglish. It  was also unabashed politically correct, pro-immigrant propaganda. How does  all this  fit with the BBC legal requirement to attempt balance and remain within the law of  incitement to racial hatred?  You tell me.

When shall we see  BBC productions which honestly address the plight of the native English population,   especially that of the working class, a plight which engineered by the white liberal elites through their encouragement  and permitting of mass immigration? How about a topical drama which takes as its subject the Muslim gangs roaming places such as the area in which Norton Folgate was set with the intent to intimidate and assault non-Muslims? Now that would be realistic.

How the English saw themselves at the height of Empire – Cecil Rhodes’ will

Today the English are frequently represented by the politically correct left liberals  as being a people without any sense of identity, indeed, not really a Nation  at all.  The politically correct are able to freely peddle this fantasy because at present they have a vice-like grip on power which allows them to pass laws which make it dangerous to express  ideas such as thegreat  historical achievement of the English as a people; English anger at the mass immigration into England  and, indeed, any expression of pride in being English. They also  use their control of the media to  censor such ideas and promote  multiculturalist pro-immigrant propaganda. This propaganda  has also been institutionalised in England’s schools and universities.

Things were very different in the past. At the height of British imperial power the English (and both the English themselves and foreigners spoke of England not Britain at that time) commonly believed that England was the most civilised country in the word with the most exceptional people, a people so blessed that it was for the good of the human race that they should administer much of the world.

The final version of  the will of Cecil Rhodes which I reproduce below will seem extreme to modern eyes, especially to those conditioned by ceaseless pc  propaganda decrying both England’s past and the reality of the English as a people.  But Rhodes  did not seem extreme in his own time. There were of course English people then who opposed his imperial plans on moral grounds  but they were very much  in the minority.  Rhodes was within the mainstream of Victorian British imperial thinking, Most importantly,  Rhodes was accepted by the British political elite  as someone who should be listened to, not written off as a dangerous extremist.

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The final will of Cecil Rhodes

It often strikes a man to enquire what is the chief goal in life; to one the thought comes that it is a happy marriage, to another great wealth, and as each seizes on his idea, for that he more or less works for the rest of his existence. To myself thinking over the same question the wish came to render myself useful to my country. I then asked myself how could I and after reviewing the various methods I have felt that at the present day we are actually limiting our children and perhaps bringing into the world half the human beings we might owing to the lack of country for them to inhabit {a lebensraum argument} that if we had retained America there would at this moment be millions more of English living. I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race . Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence, look again at the extra employment a new country added to our dominions gives. I contend that every acre added to our territory means in the future birth to some more of the English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence . Added to this the absorption of the greater portion of the world under our rule simply means the end of all wars, at this moment had we not lost America I believe we could have stopped the Russian-Turkish war by merely refusing money and supplies. Having these ideas what scheme could we think of to forward this object. I look into history and I read the story of the Jesuits I see what they were able to do in a bad cause and I might say under bad leaders.

In the present day I became a member of the Masonic order I see the wealth and power they possess the influence they hold and I think over their ceremonies and I wonder that a large body of men can devote themselves to what at times appear the most ridiculous and absurd rites without an object and without an end.

The idea gleaming and dancing before one’s eyes like a will-of-the wisp at last frames itself into a plan. Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule for the recovery of the United States for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire. What a dream, but yet it is probable, it is possible. I once heard it argued by a fellow in my own college, I am sorry to own it by an Englishman, that it was a good thing for us that we have lost the United States. There are some subjects on which there can be no arguments, and to an Englishman this is one of them, but even from an American’s point of view just picture what they have lost, look at their government, are not the frauds that yearly come before the public view a disgrace to any country and especially their’s which is the finest in the world. Would they have occurred had they remained under English rule great as they have become how infinitely greater they would have been with the softening and elevating influences of English rule, think of those countless 000′s of Englishmen that during the last 100 years would have crossed the Atlantic and settled and populated the United States. Would they have not made without any prejudice a finer country of it than the low class Irish and German emigrants? All this we have lost and that country loses owing to whom? Owing to two or three ignorant pig-headed statesmen of the last century, at their door lies the blame. Do you ever feel mad? do you ever feel murderous. I think I do with those men. I bring facts to prove my assertions. Does an English father when his sons wish to emigrate ever think of suggesting emigration under another flag, never – it would seem a disgrace to suggest such a thing I think that we all think that poverty is better under our own flag rather than wealth under a foreign one.

Put your mind into another train of thought. Fancy Australia discovered and colonised under the French flag, what would it mean merely several millions of English unborn that at present exist we learn from the past and to form our future. We learn through having lost to cling to wehat we possess. We know the size of the world we know the total extent. Africa is still lying ready for us it is our duty to take it. It is our duty to seize every oportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes that more territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race more of the best the most human, most honourable race the world possesses.

To forward such a scheme what a splendid help a secret society would be a society not openly acknowledged but who would work in secret for such an object.

I contend that there are at the present moment numbers of the ablest men in the world who would devote their whole lives to it. I often think what a loss to the English nation in some respects the abolition of the Rotten Borough System has been. What thought strikes a man entering the house of commons, the assembly that rules the whole world? I think it is the mediocrity of the men but what is the cause. It is simply – an assembly of wealth of men whose lives have been spent in the accumulation of money and whose time has been too much engaged to be able to spare any for the study of past history. And yet in the hands of such men rest our destinies. Do men like the great Pitt, and Bourke and Sheridan not now exist. I contend they do. There are men now living with I know no other term the  mega chschegis  of Aristotle but there are not ways for enabling them to serve their Country. They live and die unused unemployed. What has been the main cause of the success of the Romish Church? The fact that every enthusiast, call it if you like every madman finds employment in it. Let us form the same kind of society a Church for the extension of the British Empire. A society which should have its members in every part of the British Empire working with one object and one idea we should have its members placed at our universities and our schools and should watch the English youth passing through their hands just one perhaps in every thousand would have the mind and feelings for such an object, he should be tried in every way, he should be tested whether he is endurant, possessed of eloquence, disregardful of the petty details of life, and if found to be such, then elected and bound by oath to serve for the rest of his life in his Country. He should then be supported if without means by the Society and sent to that part of the Empire where it was felt he was needed.

Take another case, let us fancy a man who finds himself his own master with ample means on attaining his majority whether he puts the question directly to himself or not, still like the old story of virtue and vice in the Memorabilia a fight goes on in him as to what he should do. Take it he plunges into dissipation there is nothing too reckless he does not attempt but after a time his life pulls on him, he mentally says this is not good enough, he changes his life, he reforms, he travels, he thinks now I have found the chief good in life, the novelty wears off, and he tires, to change again, he goes into the far interior after the wild game he thinks at last I’ve found that in life of which I cannot tire, again he is disappointed. He returns he thinks is there nothing I can do in life? Here I am with means, with a good house, with everything that is to envied and yet I am not happy I am tired of life he possesses within him a portion of the  mega chschegis of Aristotle but he knows it not, to such a man the Society should go, should test, and should finally show him the greatness of the scheme and list him as a member.

Take one more case of the younger son with high thoughts, high aspirations, endowed by nature with all the faculties to make a great man, and with the sole wish in his life to serve his Country but he lacks two things the means and the opportunity, ever troubled by a sort of inward deity urging him on to high and noble deeds, he is compelled to pass his time in some occupation which furnishes him with mere existence, he lives unhappily and dies miserably. Such men as these the Society should search out and use for the furtherance of their object.

(In every Colonial legislature the Society should attempt to have its members prepared at all times to vote or speak and advocate the closer union of England and the colonies, to crush all disloyalty and every movement for the severance of our Empire. The Society should inspire and even own portions of the press for the press rules the mind of the people. The Society should always be searching for members who might by their position in the world by their energies or character forward the object but the ballot and test for admittance should be severe). Once make it common and it fails. Take a man of great wealth who is bereft of his children perhaps having his mind soured by some bitter disappointment who shuts himself up separate from his neighbours and makes up his mind to a miserable existence. To such men as these the society should go gradually disclose the greatness of their scheme and entreat him to throw in his life and property with them for this object. I think that there are thousands now existing who would eagerly grasp at the opportunity. Such are the heads of my scheme.

For fear that death might cut me off before the time for attempting its development I leave all my worldly goods in trust to S. G. Shippard and the Secretary for the Colonies at the time of my death to try to form such a Society with such an object.

The significance of borders –why Representative Government and the Rule of Law Require Nation States

Author: Thierry Baudet

Publisher: Brill

ISBN 978 90 04 22813 9

Robert Henderson

This a frustrating book.  Its subject is of the greatest interest, namely, how human beings may best organise themselves  to provide security and freedom.   It contains  a great deal of good sense because   the author understands that humans cannot exist amicably unless they have a sense of shared identity and a territory which they control.   (Anyone who doubts the importance of having such a territory should reflect on the dismal history of the Jews.) Baudet  vividly describes  the undermining of the  nation state  by the rise of  supranational bodies: the loss of democratic control, the impossibility of taking very diverse national entities such as those forming  the EU and making them into a coherent single society;  the self-created social divisions caused by mass immigration  and the rendering of the idea of citizenship based on nationality effectively null by either granting it to virtually anyone regardless of their origins or by denying the need for any concept of nationality in the modern globalised world.  He also deals lucidly with the movement from the mediaeval  feudal relationships of fealty to a lord to the nation state;   correctly recognises representative government as uniquely European;  examines the  concept of sovereignty intelligently and is especially good on how supranationalism expands surreptitiously, for example,  the International Criminal Court is widely thought to only apply to the states which have signed the treaty creating it. Not so. The nationals of countries which have not signed who commit crimes on the territories of states which have signed can be brought for trial before the ICT.

That is all very encouraging stuff for those who believe in the value  of the sovereign nation state. The problem is Baudet  wants to have his nationalism whilst keeping a substantial slice of the politically correct cake. Here he is laying out his definitional wares:  “I call the open nationalism that I defend multicultural nationalism – as opposed to multiculturalism on the one hand, and an intolerant, closed nationalism on the other. The international cooperation on the basis of accountable nation states that I propose, I call sovereign cosmopolitanism – as opposed to supranationalism on the one hand, and a close. Isolated nationalism on the other. Both the multicultural nationalism and sovereign cosmopolitianism place the the nation state at the heart of political order, whole recognising the demands of the modern, internationalised world. “(p xvi).

Baudet’s  “multicultural nationalism” is  the idea that culturally different  groups ( he eschews racial difference as important) can exist within a  territory and still constitute a nation which he  defines  as “a political loyalty stemming from an experienced collective identity…rather than a legal, credal or ethnic nature ” (p62) . How does Baudet think this can be arrived at? He believes  it is possible to produce the  “pluralist society, held to together nevertheless  by a monocultural core”. (p158).    Therein lies the problem with the book: Baudet is trying surreptitiously to square multiculturalism with the nation state.

The concept of a monocultural core is akin to  what multiculturalists are trying belatedly to introduce into their politics with their claim that a society in which each ethnic  group follows its own ancestral ways can nonetheless  be bound together with a shared belief in institutions  and concepts such as the rule of law and representative government.  This is a non-starter  because a sense of group identity is not built on self-consciously created  civic values and institutions –witness the dismal failure of post-colonial states in the 20th century –  but on a shared system of  cultural beliefs and behaviours  which are imbibed unwittingly through growing up in a society.  Because of the multiplicity of ethnic groups from  different cultures in  modern  Western societies,  there is no  overarching single identity within any of them  potent enough to produce Baudet’s   unifying “monocultural core”. Moreover, the continued mass immigration to those societies makes the movement from a “monocultural core” ever greater.  In practice his “Multicultural nationalism” offers  exactly the same intractable problems as official multiculturalism.

Baudet’s idea of a “monocultural core”  would be an unrealistic proposition if cultural differences were all that had to be accommodated in this “pluralist society”, but he  greatly magnifies his conceptual difficulties by refusing to honestly  address the question of racial difference.  However incendiary the subject  is these  differences cannot be ignored.   If human beings did not think racial difference important there would  there be no animosity based  purely on physical racial difference, for example, an hostility to blacks from wherever  they come.  It is their race not their ethnicity which causes the hostile reaction.

The idea that assimilation can occur if it is actively pursued by governments is disproved by history. France, at the official level,  has always insisted upon immigrants becoming fully assimilated: British governments since the late 1970s have embraced multiculturalism as the correct treatment of  immigrants. The result has been the same in both countries; immigrant groups which are racially or radically culturally different from the population which they enter do not assimilate naturally.  The larger the immigrant group the easier it is for this lack of assimilation to be permanent, both because a large population can colonise areas and provide a means by which its members can live their own separate cultural lives and because a large group presents a government with the potential for serious violent civil unrest if attempts are made to  force it to assimilate.

The USA is the best testing ground for Baudet’s idea that there could be a common unifying  core of culture within a country of immense cultural diversity.   Over the past two centuries it has accepted a vast kaleidoscope of peoples and cultures, but  its origins were much more uniform. At  independence the country had, as a consequence of the English founding and  moulding of the colonies which formed the USA , a dominant language (English) , her legal system was based on English common law, her political structures were adapted from  the English,  the dominant general culture was that of England and the free population of the territory was racially similar.  Even those who  did not have English ancestry almost invariably prided themselves on being English, for example,  John Jay, one of the founding Fathers of the USA who was  of Huguenot and Dutch descent, passionately wrote:  “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.” (John Jay in Federalist No. 2).There was the presence of a mainly enslaved black population and the native Amerindians, but the newly formed United States at least at the level of the white population had a degree of uniformity which made the idea of a core monoculture plausible.

From the mid-sixties after US immigration law was slackened migrants arrived in ever increasing numbers and with much more racial and ethnic variety. The result has been a balkanisation of American society with a legion of minority groups all shouting for their own advantage with the  original “monocultural core” diluted to the point of disappearance.

There are other weaknesses in Baudet’s  thinking.  He is  much too keen to draw clear lines between forms of social and political organisation. For example,  he considers  the nation state to be an imagined community  (a nation being  too large for everyone to know everyone else)  with a  territory  it controls  as opposed to tribal or universal loyalty (the idea that there is simply mankind not different peoples who share moral values and status). The problem with that, as he admits, are the many tribes which are too large to allow each individual to know each other (footnote 23 p63).  He tries to fudge the issue by developing a difference between ethnic loyalty and national loyalty, when of course there is no conflict between the two. Nations can be based solely on ethnicity.

Another example of conceptual rigidity is Baudet’s  distinction between  internationalism and supranationalism.  He defines  the former as the traditional form of international cooperation whereby nation states make agreements between themselves but retain the ultimate right to decide what policy will be implemented (thus preserving their sovereignty) while the latter, for example the EU, is an agreement between states which removes,  in many areas of policy , the right  of the individual contracting states to choose  whether  a policy  will be accepted or rejected.   Although that is a  distinction which will appeal to academics,  in practice it rarely obtains because treaties made between theoretically sovereign states often results  in  the weaker ones having no meaningful choice of action.

Despite the conceptual weaknesses ,  the strengths of the book are  considerable if  it is used as a primer on the subject of national sovereignty.  Read it but  remember from where Baudet is ultimately coming.

Youth unemployment: how to cure it

The essay below is my  entry to the HJI-Reed Youth Unemployment Prize – see http://www.henryjacksoninitiative.org/

Robert Henderson

When things change the surest way to identify a cause is to identify all the conditions which obtained before the change and then look for new conditions which have emerged since the beginning of the change.   By this method the rise in youth unemployment on the UK  is  simply explained: it is the result of the great increase in immigration to the UK. [1]

The rise in youth employment started in 2004  long before the current economic woes  began in 2007.  This coincided with the  removal of restrictions on the movement of workers from the new EU states  (Czech Republic Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Slovakia and Slovenian  Malta and Cyprus).   Hence, the rise cannot be blamed on the poor state of the economy.

None of the other explanations offered for the rise in youth unemployment are plausible.  The British education system has not changed since 2004; the attitude of young people as a group towards work cannot suddenly have altered;  contrary to popular myth,  most jobs are low-skilled or unskilled so a skill shortage does not come into it for the vast majority of jobs taken by immigrants; where skills are  needed it is wildly improbable that the skills available dropped off a cliff at just the time immigration rose massively.

If employers could no longer import cheap labour they would be forced to employ Britons (including young Britons) , offshore their business or  cease to trade.  As most British economic activity has of necessity  to take place in Britain, either  because the goods can only be made in Britain (for example, Scotch Whiskey) or the service has to be provided in Britain because it is of a nature  which makes this necessary (for example, virtually all public services and retail, transport and energy businesses) , offshoring is not an option  for the vast majority of British employers.

As for ceasing to trade,  it is unlikely that there would be a large amount of that occurring because the wages paid to adult immigrant workers would be at least sufficient to cover the wages of young  British workers.  As for the idea that young Britons cannot do most of the jobs that immigrants are doing this can be easily seen to be a nonsense. In areas of Britain where there are not large numbers of immigrants the jobs which are supposedly beneath Britons are done by Britons. Moreover, we know that before 2004 British youngsters were being employed in the jobs now being done by immigrants.

For skilled jobs,  there are huge numbers of unemployed British graduates who either cannot get  jobs at all or who are forced to do jobs for want of anything better which do not require a degree.  [2]

The claims by  British employers  that they are  employing foreign workers because they cannot find suitable people is hard to credit.  Even if there was a problem with the attitude of young Britons, for which I see no evidence  as a general problem, it would not explain why older workers with a good work history are being overlooked.   In particular,  it is implausible that foreign workers are better equipped for jobs dealing with the public because  many  foreigners  employed in such jobs have inadequate English and a lack of knowledge about British culture.

It is important to understand that many jobs in Britain are effectively placed  out of reach to Britons of any age.  Foreign gangmasters  are widely used  and frequently only recruit people of their own nationality. British Employers find foreign workers are cheaper to employ,  easier to control and  less difficult to lay off. A  substantial proportion of the jobs, especially the low and unskilled,  are going to illegal immigrants who are even more  vulnerable to demands from employers .   Foreign companies  in Britain bring  in their own people[3] .

When foreign workers gain a foothold in an area of  business they recommend  people they know for jobs .   Being foreign,  the people they recommend will normally be other foreigners, especially those of their own nationality.  It does not take long for a place of work to become largely or wholly foreign staffed with this type of recruitment .  There are also agencies which only  supply foreign workers.   Public service organisations and large companies  are often use such agencies[4].

Sometimes the employer has employment practices which effectively  exclude Britons, for example, Pret a Manger, use as part of their selection process a vote  by the staff of a shop where a potential trainee has had a trial as to whether the trialist  should be taken on.  It does not take too much imagination to suspect that foreign workers will vote  for other foreign workers, especially from their own country,  if there is a choice between them and a Briton[5].

The only way the young in Britain will be able to get jobs is by regaining control over  Britain’s borders so that mass immigration can be stopped.   To do that Britain would have to leave the EU or come to an arrangement with the EU which prevented free movement of labour from the European Economic Area  (EEA) to Britain.   It would also need a government  willing to cancel all other forms of mass immigration from outside the EEA such as family reunification and reinstate the primary purpose rule governing those coming to Britain to marry.

The brutal truth is that if  mass immigration is not ended the situation will continue as it is and quite probably get worse as the Euro crisis worsens.  It is self-evident that if millions of experienced workers willing to work for low wages are imported into a country the size of Britain they will displace the native workers generally and the young and inexperienced native person in particular.