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	<title>The British National Party News &#187; - Joe Priestley</title>
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	<description>The British National Party - Working to Secure a Future for British People.</description>
	<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:42:10 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title>More on Peter Oborne</title>
		<link>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2008/07/more-on-peter-oborne/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2008/07/more-on-peter-oborne/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:52:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>News Team</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[- Joe Priestley]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bnp.org.uk/?p=2897</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I know I’m a bit late with these comments about the Peter Oborne article, and I’m sure some of what I have to say has already been said – but for what it’s worth, here’s my take.
Like the majority of readers here I was outraged by Peter Oborne’s recent article on Islam in Britain. But [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong><img style="border: 0px;" src="http://www.bnp.org.uk/images/oborne.jpg" alt="" width="475" height="273" />I know I’m a bit late with these comments about the Peter Oborne article, and I’m sure some of what I have to say has already been said – but for what it’s worth, here’s my take.</strong></p>
<p>Like the majority of readers here I was outraged by Peter Oborne’s recent article on Islam in Britain. But it was no great surprise. He was saying more or less the same thing in the Daily Mail way back in October ’06. Then he linked his ‘defence’ of Muslims with his objection to the increasing vocalisation of opposition to immigration. “Those who spoke out publicly (Enoch Powell&#8217;s &#8216;rivers of blood&#8217; speech is the notorious example) were ostracised. Political parties which raised the issue were thrust beyond the outer margins of debate - the fate of the National Front and the BNP. This self-restraint has now vanished.”</p>
<p>Self restraint indeed! Ostracised and thrust beyond the outer margins of debate for speaking out isn’t practicing self restraint, it is being oppressed. But then Oborne’s thinking is skewed, as we shall see.</p>
<p>In the same 2006 article; “Practically every day for the past two weeks, another minister has insulted the customs, habits or religious beliefs of Britain&#8217;s Muslim minority.” Oborne was critical of Jack Straws musing at the appropriateness of Muslim women wearing a full veil during visits to his constituency surgery, “&#8230;Jack Straw&#8217;s comments have liberated the media to follow suit. It seems every day now brings forth news of an outrage allegedly perpetrated somewhere by a Muslim.”</p>
<p>‘Allegedly perpetrated,’ Mr Oborne?</p>
<p>Back then he wrote “&#8230;this litany of condemnation has turned into an anti-Islamic crusade.” In July this year the crusade has morphed into a phobia, Oborne is now arguing that “Islamophobia is Britain’s last remaining socially respectable form of bigotry and we should be ashamed of ourselves for it.”</p>
<p>Heavy!</p>
<p>I wonder if he was shaking with self righteous indignation as he tapped out the words on his keyboard. Methinks he doth protest too much. Who’s he trying to convince, his readers or himself?</p>
<p>It’s not easy to pigeonhole Oborne. He’s been called a neocon, but that’s not consistent with his attitude to America which he thinks ‘&#8230;is the greatest threat to world civilisation’ – whatever that is. Wikipedia has him down as a ‘paleoconservative’ but then its own definition of it rules him out; “&#8230;anti-authoritarian right wing movement that stresses tradition.” Oborne’s encouragement of Islam in Britain is anti-tradition. He says he’s “&#8230;a practicing member of the Church of England” (I find it curious that he doesn’t define himself as a practicing Christian) but I’d like to know what he thinks about the tradition of Britain as a Christian country. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover he’s involved in some sort of ‘Inter-Faiths’ group – and some of the things he writes are so bizarre that they put me in mind of Common Purpose. Or maybe he’s going to be the first high profile convert to Islam.</p>
<p>Oborne is an internationalist and so naturally he’s socially left wing and economically right wing.</p>
<p>His recent accusation that Britain is Islamophobic is a condensed version of ‘Muslims under Siege,’ a pamphlet he’s co-authored with TV journalist James Jones. And here’s the interesting bit, the pamphlet is published by Democratic Audit, “&#8230;an active research organisation which audits democracy and human rights in the UK and internationally.” Democratic Audit is an NGO Attached to the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex, the home of luminaries such as Prof Geoff Gilbert, Editor in Chief of the journal of refugee law. The usual suspects eh?</p>
<p>Oborne’s argument is that British society in general is Islamophobic. And he’s not just talking about ‘ignorant ethnic Britons’. He says the establishment is guilty of it too, even liberals, and to back his claim he quotes grand dame of liberalism Polly Toynbee, “I am an Islamophobe and proud of it.”</p>
<p>He says Islamophobia is “&#8230;the bigotry of the politically correct,” which is laugh out loud stuff. What on earth is he on about?</p>
<p>If Islamophobia is the bigotry of the politically correct does it not then follow that Islamophobia is politically correct? Or does he mean that Islamophobia is a product of politically incorrect politically correct thinking! He accuses the BNP of Islamophobia; does that mean the BNP is pc? Back to the drawing board Peter old lad&#8230;</p>
<p>What was his intention? Surely he can’t have thought that by labelling Islamophobia as ‘politically correct’ he’d have legions of the politically incorrect joining his defence of Islam – can he? Or was he hoping that the unpopularity of political correctness would rub off on what he terms Islamophobia but which the rest of us would term defence of our own way of life.</p>
<p>It’s hard to say what he hoped to gain by associating Islamophobia with political correctness; it’s even harder to imagine anyone being convinced by it. Political correctness is a tool used to facilitate the expansion of immigrant communities in Britain. Islamophobia is a term coined by the politically correct to discredit criticism of the impact of Islam on the British way of life.</p>
<p>In his article in 2006 Oborne accused the media of hyping up stories that reflect badly on Muslims, and he made the same point in this recent article. He was especially critical of a ‘conservative columnist’ for writing, “There are widespread fears that Muslim immigrants reinforced by political pressure and ultimately by terrorism will succeed where Islamic armies failed and change irrevocably the character of European civilisation.” Oborne thinks that in “&#8230;these disturbing times &#8230;Muslims are seen as fair game for any mischief or mendacity,” and he is concerned that there are some, “&#8230;who make the case that Muslims are invading, infecting, and destroying the British way of life.”</p>
<p>He argues that most of the rest of us are psychologically flawed, though clearly it’s him that’s off his rocker.</p>
<p>According to Oborne most of us are suffering with a phobia. He’s not interested in those who are scared of spiders in the bath, or in those who daren’t go out the door; he’s only bothered about those who are scared of Islam. The Islamophobes.</p>
<p>He’s not concerned about Islam but about the reaction to it. And he’s worried that what he calls “This dangerous demonising of the country’s Muslim inhabitants&#8230;<br />
will magnify the very threat it presumes to address.”</p>
<p>So now you know. It’s your fault, as if you haven’t already guessed. Your reaction to the growth of Islam in Britain (and Europe) is irrational, your fear is a phobia, and your concern is a self-fulfilling prophecy – according to ‘thinker’ Oborne. And it gets worse. As if it wasn’t bad enough carrying this phobia that Oborne hangs round our necks, he condemns sufferers as bigots who should be ashamed of themselves.</p>
<p>What bizarre and emotive logic Oborne employs. A phobia is an irrational response to a particular stimulus; it’s not something one does by choice otherwise it wouldn’t be a phobia. And by labelling concern about and opposition to the Islamisation of Britain as Islamophobia Oborne effectively absolves sufferers from responsibility for their condition. Yet still he concludes that the afflicted are bigots and should be ashamed of themselves. It doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>But then making sense isn’t the real aim. Oborne regrets the ‘loss of self restraint’ and his intention is to recreate it, or rather to again ‘ostracise’ and ‘thrust beyond the outer margins of debate’ those who dare to speak out about the impact of Islam on the British way of life. Oborne’s pamphlet is crude propaganda dressed up as an academic inquiry. You’re opposed to the Islamisation of Britain and the destruction of the British way of life? You’re a phobic. You’re not thinking rationally. You’re perception is all wrong. And you’re a bigot too, and you should be ashamed of yourself.</p>
<p>The term Islamophobia is a form of camouflage intended to prevent us seeing the true ideology of Islam. But not even an Islamophile like Peter Oborne can do that. He says that those critical of the Koran, “&#8230;ignore its overwhelming message of peace,” yet even he must conclude ominously, “&#8230;Islamophobia will backfire on us and magnify the very threat it presumes to address.” But what about Islam’s overwhelming message of peace Mr Oborne?</p>
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		<title>Answer time</title>
		<link>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2008/05/answer-time/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2008/05/answer-time/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 May 2008 14:42:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>News Team</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[- Joe Priestley]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bnp.org.uk/?p=2030</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I used to be a Question Time watcher. But I got fed up with the same tale week after week; the same evasions and double-talk. It’s theatre masquerading as politics. On paper the public questions informed opinion; in reality it’s a game.
Its purpose is more to reinforce the status quo than it is to address [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I used to be a Question Time watcher. But I got fed up with the same tale week after week; the same evasions and double-talk. It’s theatre masquerading as politics. On paper the public questions informed opinion; in reality it’s a game.</p>
<p>Its purpose is more to reinforce the status quo than it is to address the political issues of the day. The audience is carefully selected and the questions even more so. The so-called ‘political spectrum’ consists of a panel of establishment spokespeople who, from whichever faction, always focus on the trees so as not to notice the wood.</p>
<p>And one night after coming close to putting my foot through the screen I concluded I’d be better off watching children’s television – I know the message is the same but at least the characters are nicer. So I switched the damned thing off.</p>
<p>But having said that I feel obliged to confess that the other week my resolve weakened; I just couldn’t resist the lure of the ‘Mayor of London special’ featuring mayoral candidates Livingstone, Johnson, and Paddick, and chaired as usual by David Dimbleby. The temptation to turn to the telly was too great. In fact I couldn’t wait! Well, sort of. I was looking forward to it as a child might look forward to the clowns at the circus, with a sort of nervous anticipation; the slapstick’s fine but there’s something not quite right about those guys.</p>
<p>I’d intended to settle down with a glass or two of red and watch the three contestants prove why none of them was worthy of our vote. But something cropped up and I missed it and the election went by and I sort of forgot about Question Time. But then after watching Richard Barnbrook’s stirring post-election speech and seeing his despicable opponents scurry off stage in retreat my mind turned to the programme I’d missed and I decided to take a closer look at the ‘big three’.</p>
<p>Three hours later I was still watching the same programme. “Get a life!” advised my wife. Mmmm, I suppose she did have a point. But I often think when listening to liblabcons talking off the cuff, as opposed to them talking in well rehearsed sound bites, I’d like to hear that again. Watching television via the web you can rewind and go over things again or pause to gather your thoughts. I suppose you can do the same with digital television but this household hasn’t gone down that road yet.</p>
<p>Anyway, the programme had barely run beyond the intro and I was already rewinding. Had I heard that right? That the programme was coming from Westminster, London? Yes. Then why are there so few ethnic minorities in the studio audience?</p>
<p>I returned to the opening shot of the audience that had attracted my attention; it focused on somewhere between a third and a half of the audience and was generally representative of the whole. I counted 72 people and of those, on facial appearance alone, at most 6 were ethnic minorities. That works out at about 8% - and it doesn’t add up.</p>
<p>Depending on which figures you go by, London has an ethnic minority population of about 35%. Had the BBC reflected this fact in its selection of the audience there would have been about 25 ethnic minority faces amongst those 72 and not just 6. I’d love to know what the BBC’s explanation is for this curiosity.</p>
<p>There’s an article in that issue alone. But there’s not the space here to consider the machinations of Question Time producers, the BBC, and of the establishment media in general, interesting though it is. It’s just that the racial composition of the audience was the first thing that I noticed about the programme and the flexibility of on-line viewing gave me the opportunity to take a closer look at it. And I thought that what I found was worthy of mention.</p>
<p>That aside I want to focus my attention on the performance of the big three, Ken, Boris, and Brian in the context of the show rather than on the show itself, on the content rather than on the structure. As far as Question Time is concerned I work on the premise that it’s a fix and designed to reinforce the equality dogma that rules the BBC.</p>
<p>With that proviso it seems to me this was an important edition of Question Time and it illustrated more than any other I’ve seen just how desperate the political situation is in this country. It was verging on the symbolic! A televised hustings featuring Livingstone, Paddick, and Johnson, the Lib, the Lab, and the Con, and each one a caricature of the party he represents; Labour’s loony-lefty, the Tories’ braying toff, and the LibDems’ gay cop. What a cast. What a farce.</p>
<p>It was supposed to be a debate about their fitness for the office of Lord Mayor of London but it could just have easily been about the fitness of their respective parties to run the country. They were after all the Lib, Lab, and Con representatives. Presumably the intention was to illustrate how they differ from each other - the outcome was that they proved identical in all but packaging.</p>
<p>The programme consisted of eight pre-arranged questions with supplementary questions at the discretion of the chairman. Actually Dimbleby’s a lousy chairman. He talks too much and he encourages the panellists to follow tangents. Although only three parties were represented on the podium there’s no doubt that the spirit of a fourth was present in the studio. The BNP wasn’t allowed to take the stage but it still had more of an impact on proceeding than did any of the establishment groupies, and most of the first half of the programme was devoted to questions relating directly to the BNP or to issues with the BNP in the near background.</p>
<p>Question one was a bit of a throwaway to get proceedings going; a couple of points about the candidate’s relationship with his party and a laugh or two. Question two: “With the BNP fielding candidates in this year’s election how will you tackle racism in London?” A not so subtle attempt to link the BNP with one of the establishment’s taboo words, ‘racism’. Of course none of the candidates was either honest or sharp enough to raise the point.</p>
<p>Boris Johnson, “&#8230;whoever is elected I am sure will be pursuing policies in city hall that reflect the glorious diversity of Londoners and will want an administration that reflects that diversity.”</p>
<p>“&#8230;whoever is elected I am sure&#8230;” Johnson says it all; the candidates are expected to be as one on this issue. So much for difference. And note how he goes into establishment mode when things get awkward – ‘glorious diversity’ indeed. Johnson likes to be known for his irony but I trust there was no irony there.</p>
<p>Paddick frothed right on cue, “I spent thirty years in the police service in London and one of my top priorities was fighting racism.” Maybe that’s one of the reasons crime’s running out of control.</p>
<p>Curiously chairman Dimbleby didn’t pose the question to Livingstone. Why? I wanted to know what he had to say. Instead, after Paddick, Dimbleby accepted a supplementary from the audience, “Talking about the BNP; wouldn’t it have been fairer if they actually were represented on stage as well?”</p>
<p>Interesting. If the liblabcons are as confident of their position as they’d have us believe, why won’t they argue their case?</p>
<p>But interesting as this question is, Dimbleby posed it only to Livingstone. I wanted to hear Johnson and Paddick deny the BNP a platform – but Dimbleby didn’t allow it. Here’s how Livingstone explained it, “&#8230;there’s a difference between legitimate parties that aren’t associated with violence and when the BNP opened their HQ in Welling in the early 1990’s that’s when we had five racial murders in the area&#8230;”</p>
<p>And that’s his best shot! It had to have been. This was an opportunity to articulate his long-held refusal to debate with the BNP, and the best he could come up with was garbled nonsense.</p>
<p>What was he on about? It was as if no thought whatsoever had gone into his decision to ‘blank’ the BNP and that when asked for an explanation he couldn’t come up with anything that quite made sense. Either that or he was hiding the real reason - like for example he’s afraid he’d come second in the debate. There was no argument or reasoning from Livingstone; it was just dogma. Note the juxtaposition of buzz words in his response – his single intent was to transmit the chain of thought: ‘BNP - violence - no platform’ as a means of justifying the no-platform stance.</p>
<p>And as they raised no objections one must conclude Johnson and Paddick share Livingstone’s ‘thinking’ – or were they just happy to say nothing about the matter?</p>
<p>The next question, “Is it a good thing or bad thing that 32% of the London population was born outside the UK?”</p>
<p><strong>This was turning into the BNP show.</strong></p>
<p>Ken Livingstone; “Can I just say that this is the only city in Europe that matches American levels of productivity and competitiveness. I think it’s because we are open. A lot of other countries are talking about raising barriers against China and India, keeping people out; the people who have come to this city have come to make a life for themselves. If you take the richest 25 people in this city 15 were born abroad. They came here; they built modern industries and commercial enterprises, and ½ a million Londoners work for foreign firms. If we go down the route of raising walls we will suffer.”</p>
<p>More dogma from Livingstone, but is it a yes or a no? I suppose it’s a yes; he sort of justifies it without actually saying so. Why didn’t he say unequivocally “Yes I believe it is a good thing that 32% of the London population was born outside London”? Reptilian to the end. But what was holding him back – maybe it was the pressure of serving competing constituencies.</p>
<p>Johnson suffers from the same inability to be so precise that there is no doubt as to what he means – or is it not an inability but a skill? As an adjunct to the issue of London’s foreign born, Dimbleby says to him, “You’re in favour of an amnesty for people who have been here illegally for a long time&#8230;”</p>
<p>Johnson replies “Let me make this absolutely clear. I am not in favour of an amnesty because of the moral hazard that raises. What I have said, and anyone who has been an MP will know this, there are people who have been in this country for a long time who there is no reasonable hope of sending them back to their country of origin. I think it is sensible in such cases to regularise their position and allow then to enter the economy and pay tax like everybody else.”</p>
<p>That sounds very much like an amnesty to me. But Johnson’s convolution had a purpose. He was trying to speak to two different constituencies at the same time and to give each a different message. He wanted those who favour an amnesty to think that he favours one, and he wanted those who oppose an amnesty to think that he opposes one. Typical liblabcon doubletalk.</p>
<p>On the issue of the foreign born population Johnson digs himself a deeper hole, “I don’t mind immigration. I think immigration is a great thing, as I say; my family are beneficiaries of immigration. The issue is quite how many are coming in without being properly counted by the Government. There is uncontrolled immigration going on at the moment, it is greatly to the detriment of London councils who are asked to cope with the influx to fund the education of immigrant children, to look after their mental health care, social services and who don’t get adequate funding from central government. That’s the problem, that uncontrolled immigration has been caused by this Government.”</p>
<p><strong>Incisive analysis from the old Etonian.</strong></p>
<p>Again Johnson tries to say two different things to two sets of people at the same time – hence the nonsense.</p>
<p>Dimbleby searches for clarification. “Uncontrolled meaning that there is too much immigration?</p>
<p>Johnson, “I mean that they’ve lost control of it in the sense that they don’t know how many are coming in.”</p>
<p>Dimbleby, “Does that mean too many? Do you think that it is at too high a rate at the moment? That too many people are coming in?”</p>
<p>Johnson, “There are too many people that the government isn’t funding in London. That’s the point.”</p>
<p>Dimbleby, “But that’s a slightly different point.”</p>
<p>Johnson, “It’s the essential point.”</p>
<p>Dimbleby, “It’s not the numbers that are coming in, it’s the way they are handled that matters to you?”</p>
<p>Johnson, “In classical economic theory it doesn’t matter whether you have one more immigrant or one more eighteen year old entering the economic system. What does matter is whether the government has got a grip on the numbers coming in and whether or not they are funding it properly”.</p>
<p>Well at least he made one thing perfectly clear, he has a typically liblabcon view of people and sees them in purely in economic terms – man as nothing more than a unit of production. As for the rest, it was gobbledegook – Johnson was reduced to incoherence by his own dishonesty. Like Livingstone and the rest of the liblabcon establishment, Johnson touched on the race/culture issue and tied himself in knots of contradiction. It must be said though that the audience found him very funny, even when he was trying to be serious.</p>
<p>And Paddick made just as little sense. “Of course there are controls and the government is counting the people in, they’re not counting them out – but that’s another issue.”</p>
<p>But there was one message of which there was no doubt; the big three are all in favour of immigration and agree that the problems that accompany it are a function of the lack of government (that is taxpayers’) money rather than of immigration itself.</p>
<p>Dimbleby allowed one supplementary question from the audience, “I don’t think it’s just a question of immigration though. I mean, is there a point when people have to say this city has grown enough. And even in terms of productivity, where is everyone going to live, how are we all going to fit on the tubes, we’ve got the Olympics coming up, what’s going to happen then, with the numbers of people coming into the city, do we say enough is enough at some stage?”</p>
<p>Again Dimbleby let two of the three off the hook and put the question to just one panel member. I said at the beginning that there wasn’t the space in this article to go into the peculiarities of Question Time, but it’s impossible not to at least draw attention to this odd behaviour from chairman Dimbleby. Why doesn’t he get every panellist to answer each question? I thought that was supposed to be the point of the programme.</p>
<p>Anyway, as it was Livingstone got to speak for all of them, “Borough councils haven’t had enough funding and I’ve worked with the Tory council leaders to actually put a joint case to the government. But that’s why we’ve got the government giving us £39billion to expand the capacity of our transport system by 20 to 30%&#8230; and the government is giving the mayor who’s elected on May 1st £4billion to spend in 3 years to build 50,000 affordable homes and I will appoint myself to the chair of the committee to do that because that’s the biggest housing project we’ve had in this city since the 1970’s&#8230;”</p>
<p>Livingstone was on autopilot here. In a very polite, English, and roundabout sort of way the question had expressed concern at the growth in London’s population and wondered if perhaps it may have grown too large. Livingstone responded by listing what he’d done to help ameliorate the effects of over-population. Over-population is too close to immigration and the race/culture/religion issue for the establishment to discuss it in any meaningful way and so they always define it as an economic problem rather than a social one.</p>
<p>And of course Johnson and Paddick breathed a collective sigh of relief when Dimbleby relieved them of the task of answering. But they’d have said more or less what Livingstone said. They’d have employed the very same thinking – that the problem was an economic one and could be resolved with a cash injection. That’s their answer; race, culture, religion, and population problems are the function of a lack of money: it’s not less immigrants that we need but more money.</p>
<p>And that’s where the interesting stuff came to a close. There followed a bit of sniping about personal lives and of course Paddick had to bring his ‘sexuality’ into it patting himself on the back for ‘coming out and being honest’. But there was nothing noteworthy in the second half of the programme and it faded away gently to its inevitably ‘light-hearted’ final question. The significance of the programme was in those early questions, two of which referred directly to the BNP, and two of which referred to demographics, an issue close to the BNP’s heart.</p>
<p>I spoke earlier of the ‘symbolism’ of this edition of Question Time and I suppose I ran the risk of sounding pretentious. But if I do overstate the case it’s not by much. I was led by the facts.</p>
<p>Three caricature politicians representing the three main establishment political parties in the London mayoral elections were brought together on establishment television’s showcase political debate programme ostensibly to argue their case - which they didn’t do and which the chairman colluded in ensuring they didn’t do.<br />
Arguing one case relative to another necessarily involves points of difference, otherwise it’s not an argument it’s an agreement. Yet for the kernel of this edition of Question Time the Lib, Lab, and Con representatives did all they could to prove they were identical liblabcons.</p>
<p>The race/culture/religion issue transcends party politics. And so naturally the four questions that caused the most confusion and consternation amongst Ken, Boris, and Brian were all related in some way or another with that issue. The standard response was to turn it into a matter of economics – which explains why they never really made sense when they’re talking about it. It’s a battle of ideas that the liblabcons are reluctant to join.</p>
<p>And here’s where the BNP comes in useful. The establishment lumps together ideas that it has difficulty with under the initials BNP so that by demonising the BNP they can demonise the ideas associated with it without having the bother of debating them. And it’s worked to a point, but it had the unintended consequence of seeding in the public’s mind the idea that the BNP is the opposition to the liberal establishment.</p>
<p>This programme was symbolic in that it was the clearest statement yet by the liblabcons that they too are beginning to see the BNP as the opposition, albeit reluctantly. Of course there was no official BNP presence in the studio but the BNP still set the agenda. The party’s progress and the changing circumstances in society are compelling the liblabcons to at least give the impression of addressing the issues that the BNP has been raising for years.</p>
<p>This Question Time was supposed to be about the Lib, Lab, and Con candidates for the position of Mayor of London yet it set aside a significant amount of its time for the candidates to present a united front in opposition to the progress of the BNP and to the BNP’s challenge in the London elections.</p>
<p>But Ken, Boris, and Brian’s efforts to rebuff the BNP backfired. They couldn’t answer the questions. And their failure emphasised just how ill equipped they are to deal with the realities of 21st century Britain and it reinforced just how strong the BNP’s position has become. These ego maniacs love appearing on Question Time and pontificating about nothing, but when it gets down to the nitty gritty they’re bereft of answers. And it is answers that people want.</p>
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		<title>Being British</title>
		<link>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2008/04/being-british/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2008/04/being-british/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:31:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>News Team</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[- Joe Priestley]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bnp.org.uk/2008/04/14/being-british/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By Joe Priestly &#8212; It&#8217;s the question that&#8217;s on everyone&#8217;s lips, especially establishment lips. And the LibLabCons are getting their knickers in a terrible twist as they struggle to answer it: What does it mean to be British?
But since when did they give a damn about what it means to be British? The political elite [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.bnp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/red-arrows.jpg" title="red-arrows.jpg"><img src="http://www.bnp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/red-arrows.jpg" alt="red-arrows.jpg" /></a>By Joe Priestly &#8212; It&#8217;s the question that&#8217;s on everyone&#8217;s lips, especially establishment lips. And the LibLabCons are getting their knickers in a terrible twist as they struggle to answer it: What does it mean to be British?</p>
<p>But since when did they give a damn about what it means to be British? The political elite have been leading us away from Britishness since the end of the Second World War, and post war politicians have been consistent in favouring the international over the national.  It was the LibLabCons that gave away our independence by signing us up to the UN and to the EU, and they paved the way for this betrayal by attacking and ridiculing the idea of Britishness. Their insane fantasy was and still is to turn us British into ‘citizens of the world&#8217;.</p>
<p>Yet now they have the audacity to fly the flag and call for patriotism. Can you imagine anything more absurd - or ironic - than the liberal establishment flying the patriotic flag? When Samuel Johnson said that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel he was of course talking about the patriotism of convenience, the very sort practiced by LibLabCon traitors.</p>
<p>Mention of flag and nation now even has the likes of left wing warbler Billy Bragg wiping a tear from his eye. No, don&#8217;t laugh. It really was a tear, honest. Billy&#8217;s written a book about it, The Progressive Patriot - a search for belonging. And then there&#8217;s his eagerly awaited new album Red, White, Black ‘n Blue in which &#8220;&#8230;he movingly explores the dynamics of the new patriotism from the perspective of international socialism in the context of the multiracial multicultural society as viewed from an isolated mansion on the Devon coast.&#8221; Must get that one.</p>
<p>Although it wasn&#8217;t his intention, Bragg&#8217;s scribbling illustrates the establishment&#8217;s Alice in Wonderland thought processes with a remarkable precision; The Progressive Patriot is a sort of autobiographical musing during which Bragg searches for &#8220;&#8230;a sense of belonging that is accessible to all.&#8221;</p>
<p>Those are the words, aren&#8217;t they? They could just as easily have come from a Labour Government Minister, or a member of the Opposition front bench, or a back bencher from either side of the House. They could be the words of a leading Civil Servant, a newspaper editor, or of a local councillor (though not BNP). It&#8217;s the sort of thing you find printed at the bottom of headed paper from the council, or from any government department - it could even be the title of an essay that one of your children is asked to write at school.</p>
<p>The phrase encapsulates perfectly the witlessness of the liberal establishment&#8217;s grand design - all together now, in new-speak of course, &#8220;Working towards creating a sense of belonging that is accessible to all&#8221;.</p>
<p>A country is defined by its exclusivity; it is a product of the peculiarities of its people. Britain isn&#8217;t France because its people aren&#8217;t French. And to anyone with an ounce of common sense a country that&#8217;s ‘accessible to all&#8217; won&#8217;t be a country for very long; accessibility and social cohesion are mutually exclusive. But our establishment didn&#8217;t see it like that. Blinkered by equality dogma and seduced by dreams of utopia, it saw exclusivity as an obstacle to its long term goal, a stateless world governed according to the theory of universal equality. So naturally patriotism was a bit of a problem.</p>
<p>Love of country is love of its history, tradition, and way of life, and, dare I say it, love of its people. Patriotism is an expression of exclusivity, of belonging, of commitment, and its whole essence is ‘us&#8217; and ‘them&#8217;. But Britain&#8217;s ruling elite are cosmopolitan and global; they rejected the reality of nation in favour of an ideal, universal equality, and in so doing they set themselves in opposition to exclusivity, patriotism, and even their own people. And with increasing fervour over the years the establishment has employed every arm of state to pervert and demean the expression of patriotic feeling so that it was seen as legitimate only in respect of sporting events.</p>
<p>The intellectuals and their friends in the entertainment industry have alternated between ridiculing patriotism and associating it with mass murder. The education system has taught its pupils to be ashamed of being British. And the British political system and bureaucracy act as though the rest of the world has a higher priority than the British people do. Two or three national newspapers have with varying degrees of effort attempted to resist this trend, but in the main patriotism has been presented as at best ‘&#8230;something that polite people don&#8217;t do,&#8217; at worst ‘&#8230;something that Nazis do.&#8217;</p>
<p>And of course if the intention is to radically change the nature of a country, undermining the population&#8217;s support for it is a pretty good place to start. The cohesiveness of 1950&#8217;s Britain is what first hits whenever newsreels from the time appear on television. But that cohesiveness got in the way of the LibLabCon plan. So British people were made to feel bad if they felt good about their country and about who and what they were. Only if they felt bad about those things could they feel good about themselves - that&#8217;s how it works in Orwellian Britain. The intention was to make ethnic Britons psychologically incapable of resisting the changes the LibLabCons intended to force on them. It was the liberal elite&#8217;s precise intent to bring us to this sorry state where so many of us now no longer know who we are. </p>
<p>It was treason on a vast scale. The people whom we gave the responsibility to act in our best interests have reduced us to the status of rats at a research facility. Our own establishment has used us as the subjects in their experiment to create The New Britain according to their theory of equality. They wanted a Britain that was &#8220;&#8230;accessible to all&#8221; and that&#8217;s what we&#8217;ve got.</p>
<p>Yet now our leaders want us to fly the flag and love our country. Suddenly it&#8217;s OK to be patriotic. What&#8217;s changed?</p>
<p>Two factors combine to fuel this LibLabCon change of direction. The first is that we&#8217;ve arrived! New Britain is accessible to all by virtue of the governing elite&#8217;s commitment to immigration, to the UN, to the EU, and ultimately to World Government. They had us commit national suicide on the altar of equality and out of the cremated remains they constructed New Britain. So naturally they want us to support it.</p>
<p>The second factor is that the imposition of the multiracial multicultural society on ethnic Britons has raised the thorny issue of belonging. And in so doing it has highlighted the fault lines of ethnicity, culture, and religion that are running through new, accessible, New Britain. Even woolly-minded liberals are waking up to that one. Their solution though is the same sort of head-in-the-clouds wishful thinking that got us into this problem in the first place. They want to create a new sense of belonging for Britain&#8217;s patchwork of cultures; a special something that ‘unites us in diversity&#8217;. This is how these idiots&#8217; brains work.</p>
<p>But haven&#8217;t we already got that special something that ‘unites us in diversity&#8217; - it&#8217;s called chaos and it goes hand in hand with multiracial multicultural societies.</p>
<p>By a process of a thousand cuts the LibLabCons succeeded in suppressing the expression of and respect for British culture to facilitate their importation into our midst of millions of inassimilable and potentially hostile aliens. They wanted to construct heaven on earth in Britain; instead they created hell.</p>
<p>We have a situation now where an increasing number of ethnic Britons are unhappy with the changes imposed on our society by the establishment in its quest for paradise. And as a direct consequence of those changes Britain has a growing and aggressive Muslim population that demands to have its own say on what it means to be British. And the LibLabCons are playing an uncomfortable game of piggy in the middle.</p>
<p>So the search is on for a Britain that all groups will happily to subscribe to; the LibLabCons are (desperately) &#8220;Working towards creating a sense of belonging that is accessible to all.&#8221; They want a new meaning to being British.</p>
<p>Former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith is concerned that there is &#8220;less belonging&#8221; than there used to be. Now fancy that! I wonder if it&#8217;s got anything to do with the policies promoted by the likes of Goldsmith et al in their eagerness to use mass immigration as a means of changing Britain. The great Lord&#8217;s solution is an oath of allegiance to be introduced into Britain&#8217;s schools. This idea has as its long term goal the theft of our children&#8217;s birthright. It aims to catch ethnic British children young, to brainwash them into giving their allegiance to the multi-mishmash nightmare created by Goldsmith and his ilk, and to have them think of themselves as ‘one of a nation of immigrants&#8217;.</p>
<p>Not long ago Goldsmith was arguing for a change in the words of the National Anthem so that it was more, wait for it, inclusive. Minister of Culture (sic) Margaret Hodge is similarly angst-ridden about the lack of inclusiveness; witness her recent attack on the Proms for its failure to represent properly our modern, diverse, and vibrant society. Couldn&#8217;t space be found in the programme for gangsta rap?</p>
<p>And let&#8217;s not forget Gordon Brown&#8217;s proposal of a national holiday to celebrate ‘Britishness&#8217; - and that without first deciding what Britishness is.</p>
<p>These people have deliberately undermined the notion of Britain and now they&#8217;re struggling to put something in its place that both fits their world view and is sufficiently inclusive to attract mutually exclusives. More pie in the sky anyone?</p>
<p>Writing recently in the Sunday Times magazine, allegedly about the issue of ‘no-go Britain&#8217; but in reality putting the case for diversity, establishment historian John Cornwell unintentionally illustrated the LibLabCons&#8217; confusion; &#8220;In a class of third years (at a school in Essex)&#8230; with only one white pupil and four veiled Muslim girls&#8230; It struck me listening to these articulate pupils, British yet widely diverse in culture, ethnicity, and religion&#8230;&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;British yet widely diverse in culture, ethnicity, and religion&#8230;&#8221; So what exactly is it that makes them British? According to Cornwell&#8217;s thinking, and that of the rest of the establishment, being British is not about culture, ethnicity, or religion - it is about perceiving the world through the same eyes as the LibLabCons. </p>
<p>The vision of British citizenship for the 21st Century is, according to Prime Minister Brown, &#8220;&#8230;one founded on a unifying idea of rights matched with responsibilities.&#8221; In other words anyone can be British, irrespective of their culture, ethnicity, and religion, provided they concur with the establishment&#8217;s idea of rights and responsibilities. As usual Brown and the LibLabCons lack the wherewithal to follow their argument through to its logical conclusion: Compare a Somali immigrant to this country who accepts without reservation the establishment&#8217;s rights and responsibilities argument with an ethnic Briton who disputes it - according to the establishment the former is more British than the latter. That&#8217;s another fine mess you&#8217;ve got us into Mr Brown. Or is it a calculated effort to deprive us of our country?</p>
<p>Having created this multicultural mess the LibLabCons are now grappling with what they call ‘the progressive dilemma&#8217; - the conflict between solidarity and diversity. This problem is entirely of their making; they purposely introduced diversity in order to undermine our solidarity and our resistance to the changes they intended to impose. But societies without solidarity tend to exist in a permanent state of tension, as the LibLabCons are discovering - hence their efforts to create some sort of solidarity behind a new patriotism.</p>
<p>The establishment favours the kind of diversity brought about by mass third world immigration - otherwise they&#8217;d not have done what they&#8217;ve done and they&#8217;d stop doing it now. So having created accessible-to-all Britain they now want us to put our support behind it. They&#8217;re motivated also by the realisation that something is needed to fill the vacuum left behind by their eradication of the old patriotism. And their solution, Ladies and Gentlemen, is (drum roll) ‘progressive patriotism&#8217;.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a modern sort of patriotism designed for the 21st century globalised world. A non-patriotic patriotism where literally anyone can join; it&#8217;s the sort you know the LibLabCons will just love. Whereas ‘old fashioned&#8217; patriotism was founded on solidarity, exclusiveness, love of country, of its history, tradition, way of life, and people, progressive patriotism is founded on diversity, inclusiveness, contempt for country, history, tradition, way of life, and people. </p>
<p>Present day diverse Britain is a result of the practical application of the equality theory - and the LibLabCons are working to achieve a situation where literally anyone can be British; where the only condition on acceptance is support for diversity. They want us to rejoice in the fact that this country has been so ‘tolerant&#8217; these past sixty years that it has tolerated its own destruction.</p>
<p>‘New Britain is founded on equality, its greatest achievement is its tolerance, and its people are bound together in their acceptance of certain fundamental rights and responsibilities.&#8217; Well that&#8217;s the theory, that&#8217;s the ideal that the LibLabCons would have us believe - and they slant everything within their power to that effect. Having demolished Britain their aim is to rebuild it from top down.</p>
<p>They want to redefine what it means to be British so that it is consistent with the Britain they&#8217;ve created. But precisely what is it they have created - now there&#8217;s a question!</p>
<p>Their search for &#8220;&#8230;a sense of belonging that is accessible to all&#8221; is recognition of the problems associated with defining what it means to be British in multiracial multicultural Britain. On the face of it the LibLabCons are big on diversity but just beneath the surface they&#8217;re in a life and death struggle to resolve the problems that accompany it. Yet all the while they fluctuate between minimising those problems and denying their existence. Oh what a tangled web they weave&#8230;</p>
<p>They&#8217;ve bitten off more than they can chew.</p>
<p>What now passes for the British people is in fact a collection of unrelated, competing, and often antagonistic communities that just so happen to live on British soil. The only thing that binds them is their proximity. So how does one define them as a whole?</p>
<p>Over the years the LibLabCons have employed the tactic of minimising difference in order to facilitate its imposition. Their intention was to have us believe difference made no difference, though curiously they also want us to celebrate it. But now even they have woken up to the realisation that difference means a lot more than a preference for spicy food.</p>
<p>Conspiracy theorists go on about everything according to a plan, but surely not even the LibLabCons would have intentionally dug themselves into such a hole. They talk about ‘the banality of evil&#8217; but where this lot are concerned ‘the incompetence of evil&#8217; is more appropriate.</p>
<p>The LibLabCons have never really valued difference. To them it was merely a tool; a technique for undoing British society so that something else could be put in its place. And they worked on the assumption that after a limited period immigrants would drop their own cultural preferences for those on offer in an internationalised western liberal democracy; and if that&#8217;s not cultural chauvinism I don&#8217;t know what is. But much to the establishment&#8217;s horror Muslim immigrants in particular haven&#8217;t taken the bait. The political establishment encouraged the growth of Islamic culture as part of its effort to remake Britain. It didn&#8217;t anticipate that Islam would take on a life of its own to such an effect that it now presumes to challenge the LibLabCon hegemony.</p>
<p>And in a frantic effort to stop these centrifugal forces spinning out of control the LibLabCons are trying to cobble together a new definition of what it means to be British. It seems like only yesterday that they were saying there&#8217;s no such thing. What an incredible about turn.</p>
<p>Yet defining &#8220;&#8230;a sense of belonging that&#8217;s accessible to all&#8221; is no easy matter. Indeed, is it possible? Brown has talked about ‘rights and responsibilities&#8217; but he hasn&#8217;t gone so far as to say what rights and what responsibilities. He must know there&#8217;s a lot of trouble down that road; how much common ground is there between mutually exclusives? There&#8217;s talk of tolerance coming into it, oh yes, and equality too - naturally. But there&#8217;s no meat on those bones either. And it&#8217;s unlikely the LibLabCons will put any on them; the establishment have a problem with precision. It&#8217;s a philosophical thing. They believe in a world without boundaries, irrespective of whether they are boundaries between nations or between individuals, and they&#8217;ve modelled Britain according to that.</p>
<p>And as for the inconvenient truth that we define ourselves according to our differences - that&#8217;s under the carpet, where the LibLabCons have swept it.</p>
<p>Consider for a moment the concept of tolerance and the idea that it should be used as a means of uniting the nation. Apparently Britain&#8217;s tolerance is something that we all can be proud of and that we should all celebrate. But even if this were true, which it is not, tolerance could only help unite the nation if we all had the same appreciation of it. We don&#8217;t: The LibLabCons favour tolerance because they want us to tolerate the chaos they&#8217;ve inflicted on us; the liberal-minded favour tolerance because it makes them feel good about themselves; the immigrants favour tolerance because it makes them feel secure; and as for the rest of us, before we commit ourselves we want to know who&#8217;s asking us to tolerate what!</p>
<p>The establishment&#8217;s shaky reasoning is also evident in its ‘patriotic&#8217; appeal for us to celebrate diversity because diversity is our strength. Patriotism is the antithesis of diversity; the former is exclusive by way of its unity, the latter is inclusive by way of universality. What they really want is us to celebrate being made un-British; they want us to celebrate our demise.</p>
<p>They deliberately undid Britain&#8217;s cohesion by introducing radical difference and then blithely labelled the chaos they&#8217;d unleashed ‘the progressive dilemma&#8217;. With breathtaking effrontery they defined the problem they created ‘progressive&#8217; and called the resultant social strife a ‘dilemma&#8217;. And then, as if to rub the dirt in our faces, the LibLabCons put the cause of the growing discontent in society down to a lack of patriotism. These people really must be taken to task.</p>
<p>Being British cannot help but mean different things to different people in multiracial, multicultural, multifaith Britain - you&#8217;d have to have your head in the sand to deny it. From the point of view of free thinking Britons, Britain as it is today is an aberration; from the point of view of liberal minded Britons it is something to be celebrated; from the point of view of immigrant communities it is a free-for-all in which they seek to advance their specific interests relative to those of ethnic Britons. And from this the LibLabCons are going to forge a new nation? Of course they are.</p>
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		<title>The Littlejohn Syndrome</title>
		<link>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2008/02/the-littlejohn-syndrome/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2008/02/the-littlejohn-syndrome/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:38:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>News Team</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[- Joe Priestley]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bnp.org.uk/2008/02/08/the-littlejohn-syndrome/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[[display_podcast]
I don&#8217;t suppose Richard Littlejohn was the first to suffer but he was one of the first and he remains one of the most prominent. And as he&#8217;s been loudly exhibiting the symptoms for years, and making a damned good living out of it, it seems fitting that the syndrome should carry his name.Of course [...]]]></description>
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<p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.bnp.org.uk/audio/littlejohn.mp3"><img src="http://www.bnp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/littlejohn.jpg" alt="littlejohn.jpg" /></a>I don&#8217;t suppose Richard Littlejohn was the first to suffer but he was one of the first and he remains one of the most prominent. And as he&#8217;s been loudly exhibiting the symptoms for years, and making a damned good living out of it, it seems fitting that the syndrome should carry his name.Of course he&#8217;s not the only one. Peter Hitchens, Leo McKinstry, Melanie Phillips and Minette Marrin display similar symptoms, and there are others, and their number grows. And they&#8217;re not confined to the written mass media, although that&#8217;s where the symptoms first began to express themselves. Now we see evidence of them in politicians, and members of the public are showing signs too. Something&#8217;s catching.</p>
<p>Littlejohn made his mark as a critic come satirist of liberal-left thought processes. And he played an important part in making criticism of political correctness socially acceptable, and he continues to play it. The others I&#8217;ve referred to might not necessarily walk in step with him but they take the same route and they too undermine pc by questioning its logic.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not that opposition to pc is symptomatic of the Littlejohn Syndrome - although I&#8217;m sure there are plenty of liberals and lefties who&#8217;d argue that it&#8217;s a sign of ill health. But pc is the opposite of what&#8217;s natural so it&#8217;s healthy to oppose it. What one can&#8217;t do is oppose political correctness whilst supporting the logic that underpins it - that&#8217;s irrational. And as my granddad used to say, &#8220;Tha can be one thing or t&#8217;other; tha can&#8217;t be both.&#8221; The Littlejohn Syndrome is characterised by this behaviour; it is a function of the struggle to compromise the fact of political correctness and the theory of universal equality.</p>
<p>Pc is the result of a way of thinking; it is universal egalitarianism in action. And opposition to it leads logically to opposition to the world view that brought it into being. Yet for all their opposition to pc and the liberal mindset, perversely, Littlejohn et al are unwilling to make the connection between it and its purpose. They confine themselves to the safe side of the argument. They attack the symptoms, political correctness, yet accept the virus, egalitarian thinking; it&#8217;s textbook Littlejohn Syndrome.</p>
<p>Littlejohn is an ‘acceptable extremist&#8217;, and not far behind him are Peter Hitchens, Leo McKistry, and Melanie Phillips, and then Minette Marrin with her middle class common sense - no doubt you have others to add to the list. These people have made a success out of being politically incorrect. Isn&#8217;t Littlejohn one of the highest paid in journalism?</p>
<p>And that&#8217;s odd. You&#8217;d think the highest paid journalists would be those most in tune with convention. In the age of the internet newspapers are struggling to balance their two functions - earning a living and maintaining the status quo. Simply, the stuff they report on doesn&#8217;t gel with their explanation of it; the facts contradict their theory. One would have thought that the highest paid journalists would be those with the ability to most mirror reality in terms that are consistent with the liberal elite&#8217;s explanation of it.</p>
<p>But apparently not. The most handsomely rewarded amongst establishment journalists are those who, on the face of it, do most to undermine the establishment&#8217;s grip on society.</p>
<p>How can this be explained? Is it an example of freedom of the press? Is it about readership and money? Are Littlejohn and the others safety valves? Or is it a matter of credibility; newspapers can&#8217;t completely ignore reality even if they&#8217;d like to.</p>
<p>Each of these factors plays its part, but do they explain the paradox? Do they fully explain the venom and cutting accuracy in particular in Littlejohn&#8217;s and Hitchens&#8217; assaults on the status quo? These people get paid for saying what others could get fired for. Their assaults on political correctness call into question its foundations; if the action is nonsensical then so is the thinking that inspired it. And the thinking that inspires pc is the thinking that underpins society, a belief in universal equality that the newspapers themselves subscribe to and have a vested interest in maintaining.</p>
<p>Perhaps we&#8217;ve reached a position where newspapers can only maintain credibility by attacking their own world view - or at least the politically correct manifestations of it. Maybe this explains the contrast between their comment and news sections; whereas columnists must at least go some way towards reflecting reality, the news is what the establishment wants us to know, no more no less.</p>
<p>Nevertheless there&#8217;s been a shift in thinking and now hardly anyone wants to be seen as ‘politically correct&#8217;. Pc thinking is losing credibility. Even liberals distance themselves from certain aspect of political correctness, but of course they still talk equality talk.</p>
<p>And that&#8217;s their biggest problem - how to disassociate the equality cult from its manifestations.</p>
<p>But the self styled no nonsense brigade in the press that has built a career on telling it like it is has a funny way of telling it. Their skill is in convincing their readership that a conclusion has been reached when in fact they&#8217;re only half way down the road to it. It&#8217;s a skill the newspapers are prepared to pay for, but it must take a toll on its practitioners; it&#8217;s like they&#8217;re avoiding finding what they can&#8217;t stop looking for.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s bizarre. But then behaviour characterised by the Littlejohn Syndrome is bizarre.</p>
<p>Sufferers are in a state of denial. They can&#8217;t admit the illogic of their stance because then their position becomes untenable. So they deny the obvious. In severe cases such as that of Littlejohn himself the denial borders on hysteria.</p>
<p>The problem with assaults on political correctness (and allied disciplines) is that they attract the wrong kind of people, the ‘unmentionables&#8217;. Members of the BNP, its supporters and others tending towards its understanding of society are more likely to read the ‘acceptable extremists&#8217; than they are to read anyone else in the establishment media. Their writing comes closest to articulating a lot of what the BNP believes in.</p>
<p>And this is a pretty uncomfortable position for members of the establishment to be in. So every now and again the ‘acceptable extremists&#8217; make a token effort to distance themselves from the conclusion that their writing points to. In the case of Richard Littlejohn a good half a dozen times a year he launches into an absurd tirade against the ‘knuckle-dragging BNP&#8217;, presumably in the hope that somehow it will erase the fact that much of what he says is compatible with much of what the BNP says.</p>
<p>Littlejohn uses the party also as a means of drawing a line under the discussion. He develops his argument up to a point and then some sort of trip switch is activated and the next thing he&#8217;s screaming gibberish at the BNP. It&#8217;s his way of saying the argument stops here. The next day the process will start over again and he&#8217;ll be back to giving pc absurdities a good kicking. And you&#8217;ll be waiting for another Littlejohn anti-BNP outburst.</p>
<p>Similarly with Peter Hitchens. This periodic ‘cleansing&#8217; is pure charade. Littlejohn et al know perfectly well that their assaults on their audience have no effect and that the same people will continue to read what they write because it&#8217;s what they want to read. It&#8217;s odd. They&#8217;re denying the connection between what they write and who reads it; if they don&#8217;t like who their writing attracts maybe they should write something else.</p>
<p>So every now and again they put on a show of putting distance between themselves and that section of their readership they consider (publicly that is) undesirable, safe in the knowledge that just so long as they continue writing what they&#8217;re writing the same people will continue reading it and their all important readership numbers will be maintained.</p>
<p>The Littlejohn Syndrome isn&#8217;t confined to journalists of a certain outlook. It&#8217;s just that the symptoms are more pronounced there than anywhere else. Political correctness has arrived at its logical conclusion - a parody of itself that only the wilfully blind fail to see. It defies common sense. Few want to be associated with it yet all must offer public support for the thinking that brought it about or suffer the consequences.</p>
<p>But although it&#8217;s become acceptable to criticise political correctness the establishment is working flat out to ensure that criticism of the equality idea remains strictly taboo. 21st Century Britain is founded on universal equality and the establishment has no choice but to defend it to the death.</p>
<p>The absurdities of pc are impossible to ignore because they intrude on every aspect of our lives. Even the establishment must acknowledge their existence and criticises their excess. Yet criticism of pc cannot help but lead to criticism of the equality cult.</p>
<p>Much of the establishment and most of the people are struggling with this dilemma. Political correctness makes no sense; most everybody says so - even establishment people, and openly too. Yet the idea that spawned it, ethnic equivalence, is beyond question; everybody says so. The facts of the multiethnic multicultural society must never be brought to bear on the thinking behind it.</p>
<p>For instance, note how often politicians soften any criticism of political correctness with criticism of the BNP or what they term ‘the extreme right&#8217;. For credibility&#8217;s sake they must be critical of political correctness, but for their career&#8217;s sake they&#8217;ve got to be politically correct. A couple of days ago I listened to some bigwig from local government taking a swipe at political correctness - now that&#8217;s a laugh! Local government is the essence of pc, yet it too struggles with the contradiction between the realities of political correctness and the theory behind it. Politically correct isn&#8217;t logically correct.</p>
<p>Significantly television remains remarkably free from the Littlejohn Syndrome. There are no telly equivalents of the press&#8217;s ‘acceptable extremists.&#8217; Jeremy Paxman has a bit of a reputation for speaking his mind, but he&#8217;s politically incorrect in attitude only. Comedians sometimes poke fun at pc but there&#8217;s never any cutting satire from them - and it&#8217;s not as if there&#8217;s a shortage of material. Littlejohn is funnier, and closer to the mark. TV doesn&#8217;t have its own Hitchens. It doesn&#8217;t even have its own Minette Marrin - it doesn&#8217;t have anyone who come close to questioning liberal orthodoxy.</p>
<p>Television works to convince us that all is well in the world of pc -it&#8217;s clear that that&#8217;s its primary function. It acts as though there&#8217;s no conflict between the establishment&#8217;s theory of universal equality and its practical application. Television is primarily a conduit for promoting political correctness; whatever the subject matter the common denominator of all television programmes is support for the equality idea. The Littlejohn Syndrome is the result of unresolved conflict between fact and theory. But as television is concerned more with theory than with fact, the conflict remains outside its sphere of reference and so TV is immune to its effects.</p>
<p>Not so with the general population who are very much in touch with the realities of political correctness. Our lives are as they are because of it. It defines our relationships with state and employer and with each other and it has shaped society. That&#8217;s its purpose. And there is a growing dissatisfaction with the product of its endeavours.</p>
<p>Political correctness is coming under increasing attack, and more importantly people are beginning now to criticise its effects. They&#8217;ve gone from poking fun at pc stupidities like ‘ethnic minority, disabled, lesbian, outreach worker&#8217; to criticising the impact that mass third world immigration and the subsequent development of multiculturalism has had on British society. The one logically leads to the other and people are beginning to make the link. People&#8217;s experience of this brave new world that the liberal elite have created clashes with the liberal elite&#8217;s description of it.</p>
<p>The establishment is concerned that this line of reasoning leads ultimately to liberal society&#8217;s foundation stone, the idea of universal equality, and it is doing all it can to halt its progress. Television, radio, and the education system endlessly inculcate in the population a support for the idea of universal equality which they reinforce with a guilt-induced aversion to questioning it. The law has been shaped to protect the idea from criticism, and every arm of the state (and most of industry too) projects itself as if universal equality was a readily observable fact.</p>
<p>And it&#8217;s got to be said that thus far the establishment has been successful in its objective. People generally are afraid to follow their own reasoning to its logical conclusion. A psychological barrier has been constructed between the symptoms, which are pc and everything allied with it, and their cause, which is belief in universal equality, and most people are as yet unwilling to proceed beyond it.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s a snowball rolling here. The increase in pc creates resentment of pc which threatens the equality cult which increases the pc&#8230; Snowball!? Or melt-down?</p>
<p>The legal system and bureaucracy both play a part in defending universal egalitarianism, but self censorship is the major bulwark. Pc is concerned primarily with the consequences of mass immigration: The law makes criticism of immigration and its effects difficult, government agencies favour immigrants over the indigenous population, and a climate of guilt has been created to make people feel bad at questioning ‘diversity&#8217;.</p>
<p>Political correctness is an assault on the British way of life. It seeks to limit our expression of our culture in our country so as to create space for the expression of other cultures within our own, and it justifies this, in a round about way, by arguing that our country is not our own. So as you&#8217;d expect, pc is starting to get on people&#8217;s nerves. People are complaining about it.</p>
<p>But that&#8217;s all the vast majority of them are doing, complaining about political correctness in isolation. They&#8217;ve not gone that one step further to examine the thinking behind pc, why it&#8217;s being used against them, and what its ultimate purpose is. It would be a natural step to take - hence the establishment&#8217;s all-out effort to condition us not to take it.</p>
<p>They&#8217;re working hard to have us believe that it&#8217;s ‘racist&#8217; to take that step, that you&#8217;re a ‘hater&#8217; and a ‘fascist&#8217; if you allow the realities of 21st Century multicultural Britain to colour your appreciation of universal egalitarianism. And their efforts do have an impact. How many times have you heard an ethnic Brit open a sentence with &#8220;I&#8217;m not a racist but&#8230;&#8221;, and then refer to an example of the racism (in whatever form) that ethnic Brits are subject to in their own country? The establishment&#8217;s mind games have got some people thinking it&#8217;s racist to be white and to perceive it!</p>
<p>This is classic Littlejohn Syndrome, where people refuse to think clearly and logically about matters to do with culture and ethnicity. In the case of the ‘acceptable extremists&#8217; their reluctance to follow their own line of reasoning to its logical conclusion has a lot to do with self preservation. But in the case of most of the rest it&#8217;s because they&#8217;ve been ‘schooled&#8217; that way. It&#8217;s like Pavlov&#8217;s dog but in this case the stimulus is race and culture, the reflex action is an immediate halt to the discussion, and the anticipated reward is feeling good about oneself. We&#8217;ve been taught to feel good when bowing to liberal orthodoxy.</p>
<p>The question is how long this tension can be maintained before something gives. Orthodoxy exists only for as long as it can answer the questions asked of it. The orthodoxy of universal egalitarianism acts as if it&#8217;s beyond question, but that&#8217;s bravado - the reality is it&#8217;s hiding from questions. The liberal elite have a strict policy, no platform for anyone who questions them - which is a measure of the confidence they have in their own thinking. It makes you wonder how many of them are just going along for the ride.</p>
<p>Universal egalitarianism might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but universal egalitarianism in practice, that is the multiethnic multicultural society sustained by political correctness, tends to make one question the theory behind the practice. And in a desperate effort to keep those awkward questions at bay, the liberal elites were forced to erect a legal, bureaucratic, and psychological barrier behind which their seriously flawed idea could hide.</p>
<p>But the hiding place is temporary respite. All theories are undone eventually by questions that they themselves prompt; universal egalitarianism is no different. And whatever its effort the liberal elite will not be able to shield its world view from the harsh stare of reality.</p>
<p>We&#8217;re witnessing the collapse of a world-defining idea. Egalitarianism has given us political correctness and the multicultural multiethnic state, and in spite of the massive pretence, everyone can see it&#8217;s falling apart. The practical application of egalitarianism doesn&#8217;t work therefore egalitarianism is flawed. And the more the liberal elite argue otherwise the more idiotic they become. Egalitarianism has had its day; a paradigm shift is taking place and the rug is being whipped from under the establishment&#8217;s feet. This shift is causing confusion which manifests itself as the Littlejohn Syndrome.</p>
<p>We&#8217;re still at the stage where the majority are denying the relationship between the malign influence of political correctness and egalitarianism. It&#8217;s hard to leave the security of accepted belief; it requires a complete evaluation of who we are and what we understand to be true. And some have more difficulty with it than others do. Most people prefer the simple life and would rather not have to struggle with grand ideas. But grand ideas are being forced on them. The collapse of the multiethnic multicultural model and the tyranny of political correctness lead inescapably back to the idea of universal egalitarianism. It doesn&#8217;t require any analysis, it&#8217;s as clear as day, everyone can see it - it&#8217;s just a matter of admitting it to ourselves for it to become immediately obvious. And once that step&#8217;s been taken there&#8217;s no going back.</p>
<p>Egalitarianism is on the slide.</p>
<p>The Littlejohn Syndrome is part of the process of coming to terms with the demise of a grand idea. It&#8217;s a sort of half way house if you like. It&#8217;s an attempt to compromise the realities of life with a theory of life that they contradict. And it seems a perfectly natural thing to do. We tend to prefer that which we know. But there comes a time when the realities of life demand a reappraisal of accepted beliefs. And it&#8217;s this reappraisal that terrifies the life out of the establishment. That&#8217;s why they&#8217;re so keen to keep people stuck at the Littlejohn stage - not knowing which way to turn.</p>
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		<title>Cameron the Chameleon.</title>
		<link>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2007/11/cameron-the-chameleon/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2007/11/cameron-the-chameleon/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 22 Nov 2007 13:13:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>News Team</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[- Joe Priestley]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.southwestbnp.org/blog/?p=42</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One of nature&#8217;s optimists.
I was in one hell of a state the other night. Crying, throwing up, and most bizarrely of all, I was laughing at the same time and a great big belly laugh it was too. And before you ask, no, I&#8217;d not been on the scrumpy. Nor had I been smoking strange [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>One of nature&#8217;s optimists</strong>.</p>
<p>I was in one hell of a state the other night. Crying, throwing up, and most bizarrely of all, I was laughing at the same time and a great big belly laugh it was too. And before you ask, no, I&#8217;d not been on the scrumpy. Nor had I been smoking strange herbs or mistaking toadstools for mushrooms.</p>
<p>It was more mind-altering than that I&#8217;d been reading about the young pretender David Cameron and I found myself not knowing whether to laugh or cry, but I was certain of one thing - Cameron made me want to puke.</p>
<p>We were supposed to be impressed that he hadn&#8217;t used notes during his recent Tory conference speech &#8216;triumph&#8217;, the inference being that he was speaking deep felt beliefs and didn&#8217;t need reminders. He failed to impress, other than maybe in his ability to remember his lines, for he was clearly reciting a script. And it was a script that had been carefully written to say nothing; like its reader, the speech had the substance of a wet paper bag.</p>
<p>Cameron asked his audience, What do I believe? and answered, I am by nature an optimist. That&#8217;s politicians for you they won&#8217;t even answer their own questions. That aside one must assume his answer meant, I believe that everything will turn out well in good time.</p>
<p>Just what we need, another bloody optimist. British politics has been plagued by optimists and wishful thinkers since the end of WWII and look at the country today. It was optimists that said millions of third world aliens would make our lives better and Britain a better place; incredibly some are still saying it and David Cameron is one of them.</p>
<p>Like every other establishment politician Cameron&#8217;s primary concern is himself; his political career comes first. And whatever the minutiae that allegedly separates the Libs, Labs, and Cons, every one of them has exactly the same opinion on one particular feature of British society. David Cameron in his conference speech said it for them all, I think our diverse and multi-racial society is a huge benefit for Britain. Anything less and it&#8217;s more than his job&#8217;s worth and that&#8217;s all he&#8217;s really bothered about.</p>
<p>Cameron&#8217;s an optimist about the ultimate conclusion of British society (that is when it becomes sufficiently multiracial to satisfy the equality zealots) because it is a primary qualification for the job he&#8217;s after. Prime Ministers don&#8217;t question liberal ideology; they&#8217;re integral to it.</p>
<p>But you&#8217;d have thought that of all people senior politicians and Prime Ministers would be the first to realise how vulnerable you are to a kick up the backside when your head&#8217;s buried in the sand. Apparently not.</p>
<p>So Cameron is saying only what he thinks is necessary to get him elected rather than what&#8217;s necessary to turn the country round. Political correctness, ambition, and cowardice prevent him from addressing the real problem affecting our society, and there is only one problem from which all others stem, and instead he looks for an easy way out. He hopes to convince us that if we to join him in believing things will turn out well, hey presto they will turn out well.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s pitiful. Someone should let him in on the secret; things work out well only when done well.</p>
<p>Optimists can&#8217;t solve problems that optimists have created. They sort of thought the multiracial multicultural society would work out fine because they, er, sort of thought that it would. And even though their utopia is rapidly becoming a nightmare, the optimists are still optimistic that multiracialism will be marvellous.</p>
<p><strong>Buzz-words</strong></p>
<p>According to the Daily Telegraph, Cameron&#8217;s speech at this year&#8217;s Tory conference explained in detail his vision of how to change Britain. But it did nothing of the sort.</p>
<p>It was the same tripe that we always get from establishment politicians.</p>
<p>They go on about changing this and changing that, but they never get to the point. They&#8217;re going to change what into what, and why and how? They never let us in on the secret. Maybe there&#8217;s no secret and maybe it&#8217;s just more evidence that our alleged leaders haven&#8217;t got a clue and they&#8217;re fumbling in the dark&#8217; hoping something will turn up.</p>
<p>Change and establishment politicians are mutually exclusive. What they call change is more of the same in a different guise. And when they start talking about change what they really mean is that they&#8217;re about to engage in a repackaging exercise. They&#8217;ve set us on this course and they&#8217;re determined to see it through, and there will be no change until establishment liars, cowards, and parasites have been replaced by people for whom self interest is not the prime motivating factor.</p>
<p>Outlining his vision Cameron told the conference, We need change for the long term, hope for our country and optimism for the next generation it&#8217;s pathetic, isn&#8217;t it? No substance, just buzz-words, change long term hope our country optimism next generation, but where was the detailed&#8217; description of his vision for the future that the Telegraph praised? The only thing he told us with any certainty was that he supported mass immigration, I think this country has benefited immeasurably from immigration; a benefit so immense it&#8217;s beyond measurement.</p>
<p>Now that is some benefit!</p>
<p>So if immigration isn&#8217;t the problem, what is? Cameron explained, I want to tell you what&#8217;s wrong with our country and I want to explain what I am going to do to put it right. He continued, if we really want to tackle crime, if we really want to make our society stronger then you have got to make families stronger and society more responsible we must make our country safer and greener and give people more freedom and control of their lives</p>
<p>Cameron says that our major problems are crime and the strength (or rather lack of it) of society. And he says that if we make families stronger, society more responsible, and our country safer and greener, and if we give people more freedom and control over their lives, crime will fall and society will be stronger. families stronger responsible our country safer greener freedom yet more buzz-words strung together with little meaning and even less intelligence. The hypocrisy is so blatant it jumps out and slaps you across the face. The vast majority of the population does not see British society through the same eyes that Cameron does.</p>
<p>Very few indeed share his view that immigration has benefited Britain immeasurably&#8217; and most people were they sufficiently free&#8217; would say so. And had the same people sufficient control over their lives Britain would not have become the multiracial hell hole that Cameron loves so much.</p>
<p>What he really means is that he wants people to be free to say what he wants them to say, and to have control over their lives so that they can manage them in the way that he wants them to. His knee jerk response to Patrick Mercer and more lately to Nigel Hastilow talking out of line tells us all we need to know about Mr. Cameron&#8217;s attitude to people&#8217;s freedom.</p>
<p><strong>A new kind of Tory</strong></p>
<p>Cameron is too attached to the gravy train to ever be honest. In his 68 minute long conference speech allegedly about British society he didn&#8217;t once refer to this country&#8217;s Christian traditions or to the threat that Islam poses them. He didn&#8217;t want this most intractable issue of all to detract from the optimistic&#8217; picture he paints of future Britain. And we mustn&#8217;t forget the Tories&#8217; covetous eye on Labour&#8217;s Muslim vote without a large slice of which they won&#8217;t win an election this side of the dissolution of the Union.</p>
<p>Given the choice Cameron wouldn&#8217;t have mentioned immigration. He finds it a nasty subject, and the Tories don&#8217;t want to be seen as the nasty party, they&#8217;ve said so. But the immigration issue won&#8217;t go away and the politicians can&#8217;t ignore it. So Cameron did what they all do, he sidestepped. He interpreted the growing concern about immigration as a concern about the impact immigration has on services, education, health, housing, etc. And he ignored the much more important impact immigration is having on British society and culture and how it damages the quality of life of ethnic Britons.</p>
<p>Having fed the dwindling band of traditional Conservatives a couple of sops to keep them happy, he enthused about a matter much closer to his heart persuading ethnic minorities that they too can be Tories. He told the conference that they must, get out amongst Britain&#8217;s ethnic minority communities and find the brightest, the best and the most talented and get them in.</p>
<p>According to Cameron, one of &#8230;the brightest, the best and the most talented members of Britain&#8217;s ethnic minority communities is Dewsbury lass Sayeeda Warsi, or should I say Baroness Warsi, no less.</p>
<p>In fact he was so impressed by Mrs Warsi that he wanted her on board at any price. And when she failed to make it via the tradition route (she lost to Labour&#8217;s Shahid Malik in the 2005 general election in the Dewsbury Constituency) Cameron had her made a Baroness and thereby obtained for her a place in Parliament so the nation could benefit from her wisdom. She&#8217;s now minister responsible for cohesion&#8217;. We&#8217;re in safe hands. He told the conference, I am proud that I can stand here with the first Muslim woman of a Shadow Cabinet or Cabinet in Sayeeda Warsi who will be a great talent for our party and our country.</p>
<p>The Spectator&#8217;s James Forsyth writes, &#8220;Warsi&#8217;s rise makes Cameron&#8217;s ascent from freshman MP to leader in four years look almost sedate. In just two years she has gone from failed parliamentary candidate to being responsible for, perhaps, the most sensitive portfolio in opposition politics.</p>
<p>Baroness Warsi is a former immigration lawyer. She was involved with Operation Black Vote and the left wing pro-immigration Joseph Rowntree Trust. Last year she was co-author of a report that made the case for allowing refused asylum seekers to come out of the shadows and enter the official economy - and then vote for the Conservative party perhaps?</p>
<p><strong>Votes is what counts</strong></p>
<p>In May this year Cameron wrote in the Observer about two days he&#8217;d spent in Birmingham with a Muslim family to help him learn how to build a more cohesive Britain. He learnt that, we must be careful about the language we use. Many Muslims I&#8217;ve talked to are deeply offended by the use of the word &#8216;Islamic&#8217; or &#8216;Islamist&#8217; to describe the terrorist threat we face today.</p>
<p>Cameron explained, Indeed, by using the word &#8216;Islamist&#8217; to describe the threat, we actually help do the terrorist ideologues&#8217; work for them, confirming to many impressionable young Muslim men that to be a &#8216;good Muslim&#8217;, you have to support their evil campaign.</p>
<p>Cameron&#8217;s argument that otherwise peaceful Muslims can be persuaded to embrace terrorism by the mere association of the words Islamist&#8217; and threat&#8217; is either absurd or the ultimate in unintentional truths.</p>
<p>Careful to alienate as few potential Tories as possible, Cameron shifts the blame, Many British Asians see a society that hardly inspires them to integrate. Indeed, they see aspects of modern Britain which are a threat to the values they hold dear - values which we should all hold dear. It&#8217;s our fault, again. I should have guessed.</p>
<p>He goes further, Not for the first time, I found myself thinking that it is mainstream Britain which needs to integrate more with the British Asian way of life, not the other way around. And to help shift society in this direction Cameron set up the Conservative Muslim Forum, a sort of Tory equivalent of the National Black Police Association, which advises&#8217; the Conservative Party on how best to ingratiate itself with Britain&#8217;s Muslim population.</p>
<p>The CMF wants the compulsory history curriculum in schools changed to give full recognition to the massive contribution (sic) that Islam has made to the development of Western civilisation&#8221;. Presumably the Tories are about to instruct us on how grateful we must be there are votes in it! And just the other week Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari head of the Muslim Council of Britain was calling for Britain to adopt Islamic customs and labelling us a Nazis for daring the question the infinite benefits of Islam. Ah, good old Tory values. Conservative common sense a la Cameron concludes that British society is in a state of collapse because it&#8217;s not sufficiently Asian. Thus Cameron doesn&#8217;t expect the minorities to do all the work.</p>
<p>He thinks that it should be a two way thing and that we have just as much of a responsibility to change to accommodate immigrants/minorities as they have to fit in here. He&#8217;s made this perfectly clear which is why the likes of the Conservative Muslim Forum and the Muslim Council of Britain feel confident enough in demanding that Britain change to take account of their ways and to sing the praises of their achievements.</p>
<p>Cameron is chasing votes. Votes are all that matter to him and his kind. He doesn&#8217;t care who&#8217;s casting them or why they&#8217;re casting them, just as long as they are casting them in his favour. And if that means at the expense of increasing the influence Islam has on this country then so be it; ambition is all and principle is a fool&#8217;s concept.</p>
<p>Like his opposite number in the Labour Party, Cameron will do anything to secure the premiership and to hell with the long term consequences.</p>
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		<title>The king is in the altogether</title>
		<link>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2007/10/the-king-is-in-the-altogether/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2007/10/the-king-is-in-the-altogether/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:16:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>News Team</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[- Joe Priestley]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bnp.org.uk/2007/10/29/the-king-is-in-the-altogether/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Rector and son of the manse
The most remarkable thing about Gordon Brown is that he was ever taken seriously. Precisely what is it that he has that we supposedly need? But whatever his well hidden attribute might happen to be, there&#8217;s no doubt Brown was taken seriously, and some still are taking him seriously, in [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Rector and son of the manse</strong></p>
<p>The most remarkable thing about Gordon Brown is that he was ever taken seriously. Precisely what is it that he has that we supposedly need? But whatever his well hidden attribute might happen to be, there&#8217;s no doubt Brown was taken seriously, and some still are taking him seriously, in spite of the evidence.</p>
<p>Like most in the upper echelons of the Labour Party Gordon Brown has very little experience of work in the real world. The closest he came to it was the four years he spent teaching politics at Glasgow College of Technology after leaving the University of Edinburgh in 1975. His interest was politics; and at the 1979 general election he made his move and stood as Labour candidate in the Edinburgh South parliamentary constituency. He lost to the Tory Michael Ancram and spent the next four years kicking his heels as a journalist with Scottish Television waiting for the next general election to come around. When the time came he was eased into the safe Labour candidacy at Dunfermline East and in 1983 he was duly elected MP - and he&#8217;s been in parliament ever since, now as Prime Minister and MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.</p>
<p>We&#8217;re hearing less of it now, of course, but after his appointment as Chancellor following Labour&#8217;s 1997 general election victory all the commentators were praising Brown&#8217;s brain. They sold him as a &#8216;genius&#8217;, as a &#8216;towering intellect&#8217;, and most everyone swallowed it, hook line and sinker. Conservative newspapers hailed his &#8217;skilful management of the economy&#8217;, and the Tory opposition were overawed by this supposed &#8216;omniscient brooding presence&#8217; on the government front bench.</p>
<p>Born in Scotland in 1951 Gordon Brown was fast-tracked at a Scottish fee-paying school and at 16 years he took up a place at Edinburgh University to study history. He says the biggest influence on his politics is his father, a Church of Scotland minister; &#8220;He taught me to treat everyone equally, and that is something I have not forgotten&#8221;. It&#8217;s fair to say that Brown must have been brighter than the majority of his peers but the counter to this is that he was socially advantaged; it was exceptional to be offered a place at university at sixteen, but then again he was fast-tracked at a private school.</p>
<p>Student life suited Brown and he made himself comfortable at University and stayed there for nine years. It&#8217;s said he&#8217;d have been there forever had the authorities not been made wary by his political activism which came to the fore during his last three years at Edinburgh where he held the post of University Rector.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s interesting that Gordon Brown and his entourage have spun a sort of mystique about his role as Rector at Edinburgh so as to give him a grand, all knowing, and almost aristocratic aura. They did a similar thing with his status as &#8217;son of the manse&#8217; and used it to suggest that it somehow made him more morally fit to govern. And of course the mass media lapped it up. How they loved to tell us, with due reverence of course, about the extraordinarily cerebral Mr Brown, &#8217;son of the manse&#8217;, former University Rector. What they meant was that Brown was a glorified students&#8217; union president and that his dad was a Scottish vicar, but that version didn&#8217;t go with the spin. They calculated that Brown needed frills - what does that say about him? To put things in perspective, recent rectors at Scottish universities have included Lorraine Kelly at Dundee, Clarissa Dickson Wright at Aberdeen, and John Cleese at St Andrews - which sort of brings Brown&#8217;s tenure at Edinburgh down to earth.</p>
<p><strong>Political ambition</strong></p>
<p>They say he&#8217;s a &#8216;towering intellect&#8217; but he left very little behind at Edinburgh to prove it. The high point of his academic years was his editorship of the socialist &#8216;Red Paper on Scotland&#8217;; his university thesis, The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918 to 1929, which he wrote for his PhD (which incidentally he wasn&#8217;t awarded until 1982), is gathering dust on an out-of-reach shelf somewhere in the university library at Edinburgh.</p>
<p>In Brown&#8217;s early years in Parliament he shared an office in the House of Commons with another ambitious newcomer, Tony Blair. Oh to have been a fly on one of the walls in that office. Labour Leader Neil Kinnock saw Brown as an emerging talent and in 1985 he appointed him Shadow Spokesman for Trade and Industry. There Brown formed a friendship with another Scot John Smith, and when Smith took over the Labour leadership from Kinnock in 1992 he appointed Gordon Brown as his Shadow Chancellor.</p>
<p>During this period Brown was refining his political ambitions and tempering his socialism, and he began the lengthy process of spinning himself a persona fit for public consumption, which came together when he was crowned PM by TB. Prime Minister Gordon Brown: Prudence, tolerance, social duties, social responsibilities, new smile, new teeth, and new coiffure.</p>
<p>Brown had successfully distanced himself from the fiscal incompetence of previous Labour governments and nurtured an image that had him as a highly intelligent economist and a natural Chancellor. And by 1997 he and Blair were forming a government and everyone who was anyone was singing Gordon Brown&#8217;s praises, &#8220;He has the finest of minds.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Post neo-classical endogenous growth theory</strong></p>
<p>The defining moment of Brown&#8217;s political career came way back in 1994 in a speech he made when he was Shadow Chancellor during which he spoke in support of &#8220;post neo-classical endogenous growth theory.&#8221; Brown&#8217;s use of this jargon defines him perfectly. The highly intelligent Mr. Brown, he&#8217;s so clever he talks a language that hardly any of the rest of us can understand. That&#8217;s Brown&#8217;s spin: &#8216;Rector&#8217; at the University of Edinburgh, &#8217;son of the manse&#8217;, and dead brainy too. And the thing is most everyone believed him.</p>
<p>In opposition to &#8216;Post neo-classical endogenous growth theory&#8217; theorists, I have my own theory. And it&#8217;s that anything can be explained to anyone provided the explainer knows his subject sufficiently well. When politicians resort to jargon they do so for one of two reasons. Either they don&#8217;t know their subject well enough to explain it in readily understandable terms, or they&#8217;re trying to impress. Post neo-classical endogenous growth theory is a fancy way of saying that improvements in the infrastructure have a positive impact on economic growth - Brown was out to impress.</p>
<p>Actually the speech in question was written by Brown&#8217;s right hand man (or is that puppeteer?) Ed Balls, prompting Michael Heseltine&#8217;s excellent quip, &#8220;That&#8217;s not Brown&#8217;s, that&#8217;s Balls&#8217;.&#8221; But that&#8217;s just a point of information. The real point is that Brown uttered the phrase not as a means of communication but as a means of creating an image, an image which the mass media has been only too happy to accept; Brown as genius.</p>
<p>Brown has sold himself as some sort of intellectual who&#8217;s an expert at managing &#8216;the economy&#8217;. The endogenous growth &#8216;thing&#8217; was pure spin, and when he became Chancellor he continued to spin this intellect spin at every opportunity, the Treasury being the ideal vehicle for it. He&#8217;d stand at the despatch box spouting endless statistics entwined in convoluted language, the opposition would look nonplussed, the government would cheer wildly, and nobody had the faintest idea what he was talking about, Brown included. It was the perfect cover. He worked on the principle that if people could be persuaded of his genius they&#8217;d be more likely to interpret his inability to communicate with them as their inability to understand him.</p>
<p>Brown has advanced on the reputation of his superior mind. That he&#8217;s been so successful in this ploy tells us where his skill really lies - in convincing others that he is what he&#8217;s not. Brown&#8217;s good at pulling wool over eyes; it&#8217;s surely significant that his wife and his two brothers all work in public relations.</p>
<p><strong>A formidable intellect</strong></p>
<p>The inside-cover blurb of a recently published anthology of Gordon Brown&#8217;s speeches proclaims Brown a &#8220;.formidable intellect.&#8221; But then I suppose it would wouldn&#8217;t it? And while we&#8217;re on the subject of Balls, in 2002 the Guardian referred to Ed Balls as &#8220;.the intellectual in service to the most intellectual minister of all.&#8221; That&#8217;s Brown that is. But where is the evidence of Brown&#8217;s famed intellect, other than in people&#8217;s say so? Let his record speak for itself.</p>
<p>It doesn&#8217;t help Brown&#8217;s case that his most successful act as Chancellor was to free the Bank of England from his own interference thus saving us from the consequences of his meddling with interest rates. Somewhat less successfully he flogged most of our gold reserves when gold was selling at $280 an ounce - today it sells at $770 an ounce and its value looks set to grow. Smart move Mr Brown.</p>
<p>He ruined one of the best pension industries in the world, caused the wholesale closure of final salary pension schemes, and shattered the pension prospects of tens of thousands of people. He encouraged mass immigration to keep wages down.</p>
<p>He instituted a tax credit system that turned into a fiasco. He&#8217;s fiddled every statistic there is to fiddle, he saddled future generations with debt care of the Private Finance Initiative, he wasted billions on unworkable computerisation schemes. He presided over chaos in the NHS and transport system.</p>
<p>He sent our troops to die in Iraq and Afghanistan and then refused to sanction spending the funds to ensure they went properly equipped.</p>
<p>And Gordon Brown has the damned cheek to call himself a patriot. And just to prove it the &#8216;formidable intellect&#8217; has recently called for &#8220;British jobs for British workers&#8221;! That&#8217;s the very same &#8216;formidable intellect&#8217; that helped formulate the laws that made the expression of sentiments such as &#8216;British jobs for British workers&#8217; illegal.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for Brown his ambition far outweighs his ability. When he was Chancellor he wasn&#8217;t so much hiding his talents under a bushel as hiding his shortcomings behind the statistics. It was easy for him to pretend to be someone else when all he had to do was talk equations, calculations, and forecasts. But there&#8217;s no hiding place for him now. And he&#8217;s crumbling before our very eyes. Have you noticed how the BBC has taken to telling us what he&#8217;s said rather than showing him telling us? Brown can&#8217;t string two words together - how the hell did he get to be Prime Minister?</p>
<p>But he&#8217;s not going to last. He can&#8217;t do the job; Prime Minister&#8217;s question time must be torture for him. It turns him into a quivering jelly. He is pitiful and embarrassing. Slow witted and inarticulate. It&#8217;s hard to imagine what degree of self deception it must have taken for Brown to convince himself he could do the job.</p>
<p>And Labour MP&#8217;s are guilty of the same self deception. The majority of them must have been aware of Brown&#8217;s shortcomings. Yet they went along with the notion of him as Prime Minister as if it was a self evident truth. If Brown really is the best man for the job it&#8217;s a terrible indictment of the rest of Labour&#8217;s MPs, and of course of those that voted for them.</p>
<p><strong>Great clunking fist</strong></p>
<p>Tony Blair labelled Brown &#8216;the great clunking fist&#8217; and it&#8217;s a label that&#8217;s stuck. Brown likes it because it suggests the toughness that he so clearly doesn&#8217;t possess, and the press latched on to it because they like to associate politicians with toughness - it must sell newspapers. But Brown as &#8216;great clunking fist&#8217; is just another absurdity in the list, following on from &#8216;hard man&#8217; John Reid, &#8216;bruiser&#8217; Charles Clarke, and &#8217;straight talking&#8217; David Blunkett. The mass media have attempted to portray Brown as a tough guy intellectual; it&#8217;s hard not to laugh. Great clunking fist indeed - is that the one with the fingernails bitten down to the quick?</p>
<p>And the media followed this tough-guy line in describing his performances as Chancellor in the House of Commons, sprinkling references to him with adjectives like &#8216;brooding,&#8217; &#8216;fuming,&#8217; &#8216;angry,&#8217; and &#8216;intimidating&#8217;. Phew, you&#8217;d better not get on the wrong side of that Brown fellow - he might chew his nails at you!</p>
<p>How things change, &#8216;brooding Brown&#8217; as Chancellor has been replaced by &#8216;bottler Brown&#8217; as PM. He was rightly slated for lacking the guts to call an election when he had the opportunity earlier this month (Oct &#8216;07) when everything was in his favour. But he&#8217;s a frightened man. So frightened that now he has his hands on his &#8216;precious&#8217; premiership he can&#8217;t bear the risk of letting go, even when, as the polls suggested, the risk was as small as it was likely to get. He&#8217;s going to hang on to the bitter end of this term; either that or he&#8217;ll be forced out by his own MPs as his credibility plummets.</p>
<p>But who was surprised by this? Brown has a record of bottling it. On a number of occasions he had both the opportunity and inclination to challenge Blair when all the signs were saying his challenge would succeed - but he bottled those as well. With Brown it&#8217;s not caution, like a rabbit caught in the glare, his indecision is brought about by fear.</p>
<p>The Prime Minister explained his decision against an election thus: &#8220;The decision I have made is because I want to get on with the job of change in this country and I believe I have got to show people that we are implementing the changes in practice and I believe that what we are really talking about now in Britain is the rising aspirations of British people.&#8221; You may think he&#8217;s talking nonsense, but that&#8217;s because he&#8217;s a &#8216;towering intellect&#8217; and you&#8217;re not clever enough to understand him.</p>
<p>Brown is a fraud. His great clunking fist is a podgy mitt that&#8217;s never done a day&#8217;s work in its life and his intellect is a front behind which cowers a devious cunning. Now that he&#8217;s achieved his goal he&#8217;s not quite sure what he should do next - he hasn&#8217;t got a vision for this country because his vision extends no further than himself. It&#8217;s hardly the sort of leadership qualities that Britain needs, but perhaps it&#8217;s an indication of why we&#8217;re in the mess that we&#8217;re in.</p>
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		<title>The Broken Society</title>
		<link>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2007/10/the-broken-society/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2007/10/the-broken-society/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Oct 2007 20:14:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>News Team</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[- Joe Priestley]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bnp.org.uk/2007/10/09/the-broken-society/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The levels of crime and disorder and the general malaise in this country have forced the establishment to focus its attention less on economic issues and more on the &#8217;state of society&#8217;.
 Its favoured position is that if the economy is &#8216;healthy&#8217; then it will naturally follow that society will be &#8216;healthy&#8217; too. Clinton&#8217;s &#8220;.it&#8217;s the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>The levels of crime and disorder and the general malaise in this country have forced the establishment to focus its attention less on economic issues and more on the &#8217;state of society&#8217;.</strong></p>
<p> Its favoured position is that if the economy is &#8216;healthy&#8217; then it will naturally follow that society will be &#8216;healthy&#8217; too. Clinton&#8217;s &#8220;.it&#8217;s the economy, stupid&#8221; and Thatcher&#8217;s &#8220;.there&#8217;s no such thing as society&#8221; express more or less the same sentiment and Blair and Brown had no difficulty in adopting both. And they carried a good proportion of the British public with them too; many were convinced to follow the government&#8217;s lead and put their own short term economic interest before everything else.</p>
<p>For the past sixty years or so British governments have been managing the country according to the belief that society is a function of the economy, in finest Marxist tradition. Thus they set about creating what they termed &#8216;a healthy economy&#8217; which they argued would automatically result in &#8216;a healthy society&#8217;.</p>
<p>But their calculations were in a knot. Far from solving society&#8217;s ills their management has exacerbated them.</p>
<p>The writing was on the wall ten years ago, but Blair and Brown tried to hold back the tide of chaos by encouraging an orgy of consumer and public spending. They figured that foreign holidays, consumer goods, and &#8216;investment in vibrant communities&#8217; would take people&#8217;s minds off the deterioration of British society and make them live happily ever after. And they did, but not for very long! Meanwhile the massive changes being imposed on the British people in furtherance of this alleged economic ideal were ignored as if they were somebody else&#8217;s problem.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Brown hasn&#8217;t realised it yet, but Tony Blair handed him the reins just as the wheels are about to come off the cart. The issue of the effect of mass immigration on British society is in the process of overtaking the issue of the economy as the main focus of attention of both politicians and public. Blair must be laughing up his sleeve - he got out just in time.</p>
<p>Gordon Brown was at his most comfortable hiding behind the Treasury&#8217;s ledgers, and were it possible he and the rest of the parliamentarians would prefer to spend the rest of their political careers in the comfort of the economy issue where they can bluster to their heart&#8217;s content to no effect. The issue of &#8217;society&#8217; is dangerous for politicians on the gravy train; they don&#8217;t like it when they have to choose their words so carefully. But events are forcing their hands. Such is the impact that mass immigration is having on the country that it can&#8217;t be ignored - much as the politicians would prefer.</p>
<p><strong>Problems don&#8217;t go away</strong></p>
<p>Up until recently the LibLabCons have ignored the problems associated with mass immigration, and they did it on the grounds that they didn&#8217;t exist, or that they were the &#8216;figment of racist imaginations&#8217;. But problems don&#8217;t go away just because they&#8217;re swept under the carpet; they tend to accumulate until you start tripping up over them. That&#8217;s where we are now - the immigration-fuelled problems affecting our society have become so serious that not even the LibLabCons can ignore them. But talking about an issue and doing something about it are two different things. And the LibLabCons are stuck because the solution to the problems that their policies have caused requires them to accept a set of facts that contradicts their world view. In other words the solution requires honesty; a willingness to admit that not only their previous policies were wrong, but that the philosophy that guided them was wrong also. It requires the rejection of the establishment&#8217;s wishful thinking approach to the way of the world and instead demands the acceptance of nature as it is and not as they would wish it to be.</p>
<p>But of course the LibLabCons are morally and intellectually incapable of doing that. So instead of applying facts to the situation and acting accordingly, they resort to breast-beating in an effort to show us how much they care.</p>
<p>Dave hug-a-hoody Cameron is typical of the breed. &#8220;How many more parents have to bury their children before we decide to choose a different society?&#8221; he sobbed, crocodile tears welling in his eyes. You may think that I am being unkind to Mr Cameron by casting doubt on the sincerity of his concern. He was talking in the aftermath of the murder of 11 year old Liverpool schoolboy Rhys Jones and in the context of what he calls &#8220;Britain&#8217;s broken society&#8221;. But I think that if Mr Cameron was as concerned about the state of British society as he&#8217;d have us believe, he&#8217;d put his concern for British society before his concern for his political career. And he&#8217;s not doing that, is he? But then which LibLabCon politician is?</p>
<p>Gordon Brown&#8217;s response to this shift in focus says a lot. He&#8217;s trying to take the politics out of politics. He knows that honest argument about the nature of British society will only bring these problems to the fore of the public&#8217;s consciousness. And like the rest of the political establishment Brown is wary of being seen to be responsible for the mess that society is in, so naturally he wants to distance himself from the problem. That&#8217;s why he&#8217;s in favour of a &#8220;consensual approach&#8221; incorporating politicians of &#8220;all persuasions&#8221; as a means of addressing the problems we face. The intention quite clearly is to create in the public&#8217;s mind the image of establishment politicians standing together in opposition to something that falls under the label &#8220;broken society&#8221;. Significantly they have yet to establish precisely what is broken, who broke it, how they broke it, and why they broke it. Now why would that be I wonder?</p>
<p>One of the Prime Minister&#8217;s bright ideas, he&#8217;s an &#8216;intellectual heavyweight&#8217; you know, is the creation of &#8216;People&#8217;s Courts&#8217; where &#8216;ordinary people from all walks of life&#8217; get together and come up with ways to tackle society&#8217;s problems. Remind me again, what do we pay politicians for?</p>
<p><strong>Conservatives to blame as well</strong></p>
<p>The Tories are just as much to blame. They encouraged mass immigration when they were in government, and like Labour they did it without any mandate from the British people. And like Labour they too sought to silence objection to it. The Tories currently twitter on about lax borders and illegal immigrants, but this is mere posturing. They&#8217;re still in favour of mass immigration; it&#8217;s just that they&#8217;d prefer a better class of immigrant, one who is more inclined to vote Conservative. And of course the LibDems are more or less the same.</p>
<p>As you&#8217;d expect Tory leader Cameron differs not a jot from Brown - he too wants to take the politics out of the debate on society. &#8220;This is not about politics, it&#8217;s not about elections,&#8221; he said, as if the problems we face have nothing to do with politics and politicians.</p>
<p>Cameron wonders what it will take &#8220;.before we decide to choose a different path&#8221;. He says, &#8220;It&#8217;s up to us to decide what kind of society we want&#8221;. He adds, &#8220;We should recognise our obligations&#8221;, and that &#8220;We should ask ourselves what is going wrong.&#8221;</p>
<p>Is Cameron for real? Can he really be that out of touch? Does he not know that &#8216;we&#8217; can have the society &#8216;we&#8217; want only if it coincides with the society &#8216;he&#8217; wants, in other words with the kind of society Cameron and the rest of the political establishment want. And that is precisely the problem!</p>
<p>Cameron and Brown&#8217;s transparency is an insult to our intelligence.</p>
<p>The state of the nation is a function of the politics of the political elite. How can any politician argue otherwise, especially in this country where the political establishment seeks to govern every aspect of our lives? And whether they like it or not, the nature of society today is their responsibility, created by their policies.</p>
<p>Since the end of WWII Britain&#8217;s political establishment has consistently failed in its duties to the British people. Instead of governing according to the harsh realities of life it has governed according to wishful thinking; theory has replaced fact. Guided by the idea of the equality of man, successive British governments paved the way for mass immigration by arguing that it would have no significant impact on British society - as indeed it wouldn&#8217;t have if all men were equal.</p>
<p>Of course the reality is the exact opposite of what the politicians have been telling us; far from having no impact, mass immigration has changed British society out of all recognition. So much so that it is fast becoming the issue of our time.</p>
<p>In their panic politicians are now arguing the impossible; both that mass immigration has had no effect on society and that it has changed it for the better - and all the while contriving new laws to compensate for its adverse effects. Make no mistake; the collapse of society is due to mass immigration and to the changes that the establishment has had to make to our way of life in order to accommodate alien ways of life. The combined forces of the Libs, Labs, and Cons facilitated mass immigration, silenced objection, and browbeat the British people into accepting their argument that mass immigration has greatly improved our economy, society, and way of life.</p>
<p>And look at them now, these great leaders, these innovators, these visionaries, blinking in the harsh light of day, nonplussed that their grand scheme hasn&#8217;t worked out as they had predicted it would. Alas vision is not the same as seeing.</p>
<p>But the political establishment can&#8217;t say they weren&#8217;t warned about the dangers of mass immigration. Lots of people warned them, and many others are still warning them. And those whose warnings they can&#8217;t ignore they intimidate into silence or throw in jail.</p>
<p>But the evidence is clear. The LibLabCons are responsible for the mess that has been caused by mass immigration. They opened Britain&#8217;s borders and they used every arm of state to encourage the flow of aliens into our midst and to silence any objection to it. These are not the actions of democrats; they are the actions of totalitarians. Yet now, when it&#8217;s obvious to even the most head-in-the-clouds libdim that the multiracial utopia hasn&#8217;t happened, they&#8217;re acting all innocent. As if the approaching chaos has nothing to do with them, like it suddenly appeared on the horizon, out of the blue, without any warning.</p>
<p><strong>Too late</strong></p>
<p>The genie&#8217;s out of the bottle. The powers that be have tried every trick to deflect attention away from the impact that mass immigration has had on British society. Nothing is too cynical for them. Nothing is too evil. What kind of &#8216;leaders&#8217; are these LibLabCons? Rather than face up to the problems that they&#8217;ve caused, they&#8217;ve blamed us for them! Those who oppose mass immigration are blamed for the problems caused by mass immigration. Immigrant ghettos are blamed on inhospitable Britons. High levels of immigrant crime are blamed on &#8216;institutionally racist&#8217; police. Immigrant failure in the education system, you guessed right, it&#8217;s the fault of the racist education system. etc, etc, etc ad infinitum. That&#8217;s our leaders for you. They are cowards who want the rewards of power without the responsibilities that go along with it. And so every problem thrown up by their betrayal of the British people they blame on the British people - we&#8217;re not doing whatever it is that we&#8217;re supposed to do to create the multiracial multicultural multilingual heaven on earth that they had planned for us. Maybe that&#8217;s why they hate us so much.</p>
<p>It was David Cameron who asked when we&#8217;ll choose a different path, but the question could just as easily have been asked by Gordon Brown or by Ming Campbell - or for that matter by any of the parasites that inhabit the Houses of Parliament. But our question back to them surely is to ask why are they asking us? They&#8217;re the ones that decide which path we&#8217;ll take, and without any consultation too. And they&#8217;re the ones that set us on the path to destruction - because they knew best.</p>
<p>Yet now they&#8217;re beating their breasts and wailing &#8220;Where did we go wrong?&#8221; But they&#8217;re not talking the royal &#8216;we&#8217; here. Oh no, in fact they&#8217;re talking the exact opposite, let&#8217;s call it the common &#8216;we&#8217;. Because when they ask &#8216;Where did we go wrong?&#8221; they&#8217;re not asking where they went wrong, they&#8217;re asking where we went wrong - as in us, the British people. It&#8217;s our fault you see, or at least that&#8217;s how they want to play it. They can&#8217;t blame the immigrants and they won&#8217;t blame themselves so they blame us.</p>
<p>What broke our society was doing it the Brown, Cameron, Campbell way. Whether it can be fixed or not remains to be seen, but what is certain is that the LibLabCons can&#8217;t fix it. They broke society because they applied the equality of man idea in managing it - and no matter how bad things get they&#8217;re not going to abandon what is after all the corner stone of their way of viewing the world. So all they&#8217;ve got to offer is more of the same; more deviousness, more ducking of responsibility, more shifting of blame, and more treachery.</p>
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		<title>The law, the multicultural society, and Muslims</title>
		<link>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2006/12/the-law-the-multicultural-society-and-muslims/</link>
		<comments>http://www.bnp.org.uk/2006/12/the-law-the-multicultural-society-and-muslims/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Dec 2006 20:12:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>News Team</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[- Joe Priestley]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.bnp.org.uk/2006/12/13/the-law-the-multicultural-society-and-muslims/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One law for them.
On Sunday 17th of September this year a group of Muslims held a demonstration outside the Roman Catholic Westminster
Cathedral in London in response to the Pope quoting 14th century Manuel II of the Byzantine Empire saying that the Muslim prophet Mohammed introduced &#8216;things only evil and inhuman&#8217;. As the Christian congregation left [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>One law for them.</strong></p>
<p>On Sunday 17th of September this year a group of Muslims held a demonstration outside the Roman Catholic Westminster<br />
Cathedral in London in response to the Pope quoting 14th century Manuel II of the Byzantine Empire saying that the Muslim prophet Mohammed introduced &#8216;things only evil and inhuman&#8217;. As the Christian congregation left the Cathedral it was met by chanting Muslim protesters some of whom carried placards saying, &#8220;Pope go to Hell&#8221;, and &#8220;Jesus is the slave of Allah&#8221;.</p>
<p>Afterwards complaints were made to the police about protest organiser Anjem Choudary who had threatened anyone who insulted Mohammed with &#8220;capital punishment&#8221;.</p>
<p>Choudary explained; &#8220;Muslims take their religion very seriously and non-Muslims must appreciate that and must also understand that there may be serious consequences if you insult Islam and the prophet.I think that warning needs to be understood by all people who want to insult Islam and want to insult the prophet of Islam.&#8221;</p>
<p>Needless to say the police took no action against either Chowdary&#8217;s threats or his demonstration.</p>
<p>Now imagine this situation as the reverse of what it was, although I accept it takes a lot of imagining. Suppose a group of Christians had decided to stage a protest in response to recent outrages perpetrated by Muslims on Christians in the Muslim world. And suppose they planned to hold their demonstration outside an important mosque after Friday prayers in one of Britain&#8217;s major cities. And here&#8217;s where I ask you to stretch your imagination to breaking point, suppose also that the local Chief Constable had given his blessing to this Christian demo, &#8220;.in the interest of free speech.&#8221;</p>
<p>Finally, suppose that on the day of this hypothetical demonstration some of the Christians carried placards that were as offensive to Muslims as the Muslim-designed placards &#8220;Pope go to Hell&#8221; and &#8220;Jesus is the slave of Allah&#8221; were to Christians.</p>
<p>How do you think the Chief Constable would have viewed those placards? Would he have taken the decision to let them have their say &#8216;in the interest of free speech&#8217; as was done with the placards carried by the Muslims at their demonstration outside Westminster Cathedral? Or would he have argued that the Christians&#8217; placards were irresponsible and gratuitously offensive, and would he have threatened arrests in order to prevent actions likely to cause a breach of the peace?</p>
<p><strong>The rule of law and the multicultural society</strong></p>
<p>One of the pillars of British democracy is the rule of law, a guiding principle of which is equality before the law, where everyone, no matter whom, is equally subject to the ordinary law of the land administered by the ordinary courts.</p>
<p>The rule of law means there are no distinctions. And you&#8217;d think that given the establishment&#8217;s avowed commitment to equality its adherence to the rule of law would be absolute - because the rule of law, if it is anything, is equality in action.</p>
<p>Yet ironically, in a society whose watchword is equality, the rule of law in Britain has been undermined by none other than the egalitarians themselves. There are two motivating factors behind this; firstly, many members of the liberal establishment would find themselves behind bars were the rule of law to be applied strictly; and secondly, the multicultural society and the rule of law have been found to be mutually exclusive necessitating much liberal tinkering. It is this latter factor that I want to focus on here.</p>
<p>A people&#8217;s culture is the amalgam of its religious belief, its music, art, and literature, its philosophy and politics, its architecture and codes of dress, its science and technology, and its social relationships and law. It is a product of a people&#8217;s interaction with nature.</p>
<p>And because different peoples interpret nature differently cultures differ. It&#8217;s as simple as that.</p>
<p>Ideally a people will have its own living space in which to express itself according to its own way of seeing the world - the form of that expression is its culture. But in multicultural Britain, British culture is compromised by the need to consider the world views of the other peoples that reside here. And the further apart the various peoples are in terms of their world views the more difficult it is to compromise their belief systems.</p>
<p>Mass third world immigration and the multicultural society are consequences of the establishment&#8217;s &#8216;commitment to equality&#8217;, yet, paradoxically, the multicultural society and the principle of equality before the law are incompatible.</p>
<p>In multicultural Britain different laws are applied to different peoples and the same law is applied differently to different peoples. The principle of the rule of law has been weakened in the process of maintaining the multicultural society to such an extent that we now have a system of legal pluralism; there&#8217;s now no such thing as the ordinary law of the land.</p>
<p><strong>Legal pluralism in act and action</strong></p>
<p>British law should be an expression of the British people, like the other facets of our culture it should be a reflection of how we are. But it&#8217;s not like that.</p>
<p>For example, the British people recognise a responsibility to animals and so naturally we&#8217;ve enshrined in our law the right of animals to live free from cruelty. Man&#8217;s duty to exercise this right on behalf of animals is defined in law, our method of slaughter is designed to comply with this law, and we have forces of law whose function is to ensure that compliance.</p>
<p>But cultures differ in their world views and thus they differ in their relationship with nature, and as we are discovering, occasions arise in multicultural societies when those differences become mutually exclusive. The liberal establishment has dealt with this predicament by in effect creating parallel codes of law where certain laws are applied according to the culture of the subject.</p>
<p>This is most obvious in the case of ritual slaughter, where it is perfectly legal for instance for Muslims to slaughter animals by bleeding them to death whereas for ethnic Britons it would be a crime punishable by imprisonment. Muslims have their own understanding of animal welfare; they see things in their own way not in ours. Ritual slaughter is a non-negotiable mutually exclusive - that is it is fundamental to the Islamic belief system and diametrically opposed to our own. The choice for the liberal establishment was stark: Respect for Muslim beliefs or respect for British tradition and the rule of law. The liberals came down on the side of Islam and gave Muslims the right to ignore aspects of the law that the rest of us are bound to obey.</p>
<p>And this is how the agents of the law behave also. They too tend to interpret their responsibilities according to the culture of the subject. I began this article by referring to the Muslim demonstration outside Westminster Cathedral on a Sunday after Mass and wondered how the police would react to its Christian equivalent. All the evidence suggests that the police force, rather like the law itself, would be harsher on the Christians than on their Muslim counterparts. The establishment prefers to accommodate Islam rather than enforce the rule of law.</p>
<p>Consider for instance the lack of police response* to the placards carried by Muslims at the anti-cartoon protests in London earlier this year: &#8220;Freedom go to hell&#8221;; &#8220;Europe you will pay - 9/11 is on its way&#8221;; &#8220;Behead those who insult Islam&#8221;; &#8220;Butcher those who insult Islam&#8221;. And compare it with the arrest of peaceful Christian campaigner Stephen Green, who was charged with &#8220;offensive and insulting behaviour&#8221; for including a quote from the Bible, &#8220;Turn from your sins and you will be saved&#8221; in a leaflet he was handing out at Cardiff&#8217;s Mardi Gras gay and lesbian festival.</p>
<p>Consider also the response of the police to the aggressive nature of those Muslim anti-cartoon demonstrators and compare it to its response to the equally aggressive pro-hunt demonstrators in London in 2004. Whereas the police smiled benignly as Muslims incited violence against all who offended their way of life, they cracked the skulls of ethnic Britons for defending their traditions.</p>
<p>The examples of this are legion, where parliament and the forces of law and order are more severe in their attitude towards ethnic Britons than they are in their attitude to minorities, parti