SNP: ‘The more seats we have here, the more powers we’ll have in Scotland.’

Thus runs the slogan on the first welcome image (reproduced below) displayed on the SNP’s website landing page. However, for the English this statement, given projections regarding the possible composition of the next House of Commons, would be better displayed next to the SNP’s peculiar logo, which looks for all the world like a noose.   

Opinion polls indicate that we are heading towards a second Parliament with no party possessing an overall majority. For a number of months, the national polls – at the headline level – have remained relatively static, but what has changed, as widely noted by commentators, is the situation in Scotland. As matters stand, the SNP is on track to oust Labour as the leading parliamentary party in the country, routing the latter in a number of its historic strongholds. Rather than laying to rest the question of Scotland’s constitutional status within the United Kingdom, last September’s Independence Referendum has bequeathed a situation in which the Scots have come to perceive themselves as very much separate to the rest of the UK, albeit whilst remaining part of it.

Much of this change in national self-perception can, perhaps, be attributed to the Westminster panic over the possibility of a ‘Yes’ vote, and the associated granting of additional concessions to the Scottish Parliament which amounted to the ‘Devo Max’ that had previously been denied as an option to Scots. Having woken up to the efficacy of voting SNP in leveraging additional powers and privileges from Westminster, Scottish voters seem intent to play the nationalist card in pursuit of further concessions from the rest of the UK, to pay for policies that are deemed unaffordable in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Doubtless, Ed Miliband’s lacklustre leadership of the Labour Party and absence of a coherent political vision also plays poorly with Scottish voters when contrasted with an SNP, which is making a direct play for the traditional Labour vote north of the border. 

Amongst the SNP’s pledges is to continue to ensure that ‘There will be no tuition fees for Scottish students’. This situation understandably makes many English students envious and resentful, particularly so when considering that whereas English and Welsh students studying in Scottish universities have to pay fees equivalent to the maximum chargeable to domestic students in England and Wales - £9,000 per annum – if you happen to come from anywhere between Lisbon and Tallinn that happens to be part of the EU, you pay nothing. Not only that, but even ‘if you’re the child of a Turkish worker in the UK’ you can apply to have your tuition fees paid in full. You could not devise a more unjust anti-English system if you tried. Alongside this remarkable pledge, is a statement that the party wishes to see ‘a minimum income of at least £7,000 for the lowest income students’ (although presumably not for sub-Turkish English students).

This SNP approach to policy, with its pronounced anti-English tenor, spells trouble ahead. According to today’s UK Polling Report rolling average of polls, Labour stand on 33%, Conservatives on 31%, UKIP on 15%, the Liberal Democrats on 8% and the Greens on 6%. The others, amongst whom are included the SNP, account for the remaining 7%. However, whereas UKIP are highly likely to end up with far fewer seats than the Liberal Democrats, possibly winning a handful in total, the SNP, because of their natural concentration in Scotland, look set to play the role of power brokers, just as the Liberal Democrats have done since 2010. Such an electoral outcome will doubtless fuel pressure for both constitutional and electoral reform, given the far higher number of votes that will accrue to UKIP, but failing to yield electoral MPs. 

On 3 February, UK Polling Report reported that the four opinion polls carried out thus far this year in Scotland revealed the following stated voting intentions: Labour 27%, Liberal Democrats 5% and the SNP 47%. This represented swings of 21% from Labour and 20.5% from the Liberal Democrats to the SNP. However, swings are never uniform, so although the polls suggest a near if not complete wipe-out for Labour in Scotland this May, most pollsters believe that Labour will retain some seats. Nonetheless, it is generally anticipated that the SNP will take upwards of 40 Westminster seats if current voting intentions hold firm. This raises the spectre of a Miliband minority administration propped up by the SNP, possibly, depending upon the precise distribution of seats, also being reliant upon a cobbled together coalition including one or two Greens and the Liberal Democrats. This would probably be the worst possible outcome for the UK, running the risk of fracturing it irrevocably, whilst ceding further sovereignty to the EU and sinking ever further beneath the weight of near-untrammelled mass immigration. Who would pay for Scotland's spending spree, particularly during a time of likely declining North Sea oil income? 

A Labour minority Government with SNP support could sound the death knell for the United Kingdom. Wouldn’t Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon et al be delighted with the anti-democratic havoc that they could play with the Sassenachs! 

Hark, hark the dogs do bark

The beggars are coming to town. This is the warning being made by the German Association of Cities in a report examining the negative impact of immigration from Romania and Bulgaria since 2006. During the intervening years, it is estimated that some 159,000 Romanian and 90,000 Bulgarian citizens have arrived in Germany, accompanied by what the Daily Telegraph describes as ‘a rise in organised crime’. What these figures fail to tease out of course is the percentage of these immigrants that happens to be Roma. Whereas many other Romanian and Bulgarian citizens will have upped sticks in search of legitimate employment, it would seem that this is not the preferred option for a very significant, if not a preponderant, element within the Roma.

Four German cities have been singled out as ‘struggling to cope’ with the influx: Berlin, Dortmund, Hamburg and Hanover. The immigrants generally do not speak German, are low skilled and place significant economic and social strains upon the receiving cities, leading to a situation in which  “The social balance and social peace is extremely endangered.” Depressing, yet refreshingly frank words and analysis. Why should Germany have to put up with this and bear these costs? Why should the UK have to allow a similar human ingress, following the removal of restrictions on immigration from Romania and Bulgaria on 1 January this year? Not one more unskilled labourer of any type is required, and we certainly need no more beggars. We are in the depths of a protracted recession, or more accurately, depression, and the arrival of such people can only serve to exacerbate existing problems and bring new ones. Migration Watch was right to caution that up to 70,000 per annum could arrive from these countries, and yet the Prime Minister ‘promises’ us an EU referendum in 2017 or 2018, thereby ensuring open borders until at least that date. What good is that?

Last year it was revealed that The Big Issue had been colluding in a scam allowing Roma immigration from Bulgaria and Romania by classing Roma Big Issue vendors as ‘self-employed’, leading in some parts of the country to them constituting 80% of all those selling the magazine. Alas, the courts adjudged this scam to be legitimate, and to be in full accord with the law. For most of us, this appears to be the straightforward abuse of a magazine that was purportedly established to help the homeless get back on their feet, and save enough money to gain accommodation of some sort.

For politicians however, the Roma issue is not big at all, but rather invisible. Criticise Roma criminality (‘culture’) and dark allusions will be made to a certain policy carried out on the continent some 70 years or so ago, yet look at the statistics and it is plain to see why so many Roma condemn themselves, or elect to follow, a life on the margins of society if not outright criminality. In Bulgaria for example, statistics from 2007 show that only between 60-77% of Roma children were enrolled in school education (ages 6-15) compared to 90-94% of ethnic Bulgarians, with only 6-12% of Roma enrolling in further education (16-19). If basic education is deliberately neglected to such an extent, how can the Bulgarian Roma hope for their children to find any form of legitimate employment when they become adults?

Official census data states that in 2001 Bulgaria was home to 370,908 Roma and Romania to 535,140 in 2002, so there would seem to be a large pool of prospective migrants. It will therefore be understandable that owing to the politically correct strictures of reporting in this country that ethnic Bulgarians and Romanians will be tearing their hair out in years to come, reading and viewing report after report, in which their good name is blackened thanks to a significant element within their Roma export. 

David Cameron: a globalist advocate of open borders

Cameron pledges the UK to a war without end and without meaning

A comment made by the Prime Minister recently left me feeling poleaxed, and upon reading it I felt like rubbing my eyes and dousing myself in cold water to ensure that I was awake. Surely he could not have uttered the following sentence and believed in the substance of the words that he was enunciating with respect to the recent hostage crisis in Algeria:

What we face is an extremist, Islamist, al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group. Just as we had to deal with that in Pakistan and in Afghanistan so the world needs to come together to deal with this threat in north Africa.

What does he mean by stating “had to deal with”? By using these words he seems to imply that the problem there has been solved. Has it? What has been achieved in Afghanistan? How has the problem been dealt with in Pakistan? Has the Islamist problem been solved in either country, or even here in the UK? Quite clearly, the answer must be no. Our intervention in Afghanistan may have eliminated al-Qaeda training camps, but what in reality has it achieved? When our forces leave that country after well over a decade of death, mutilation, psychological trauma and the expenditure of billions of pounds, what will we see? A prosperous Afghanistan friendly to the UK advocating freedom of opinion and expression for its citizens, together with respect and equal rights for its women, or a jubilant Taliban-dominated theocracy celebrating victory over the infidel, just as antipathetical to the UK and the West in general as it was in 2001 and imbued with a spirit of vengeance? It would seem that the second scenario would be far closer to what emerges than the former one.

A decade on from invasion and its subsequent occupation Iraq remains a religiously and ethnically cleft violent wreck. The Arab Spring, encouraged by the UK Government, has led to increased instability across North Africa and the Middle East, with Islamists playing a major role in the popular uprisings and in the new administrations that have emerged following the toppling of the old regimes. Cameron and Hague were keen to intervene in Libya, and have been chomping at the bit to do the same in Syria, irrespective of the chaos and geopolitical blowback that such meddling can produce. It has been widely claimed that the post-Qaddhafi instability in Libya has helped to flood parts of North Africa with weaponry, assisting an upsurge in violent Islamist militancy that has manifested itself both in the ongoing attempt to overthrow the Malian government as well as in the recent Algerian hostage crisis.

The Prime Minister’s call for a “global response” to what he dubs the “al-Qaeda” threat is thoroughly wrongheaded. Islamism existed before Bin Laden and it will exist long after his passing. Islamism, in one form or another, is as old as Islam itself, and until that ideology dies we will always have a problem with its violent fanatics wishing to impose their crude, vicious and misanthropic ideology upon everyone else: non-literalist Muslims and non-Muslims alike. What, after all, does Cameron mean when he states that:

It requires a response that is patient and painstaking, that is tough but also intelligent, but above all has an absolutely iron resolve and that is what we will deliver over these coming years.

Perhaps the Prime Minister should steer clear of reference to “iron” to denote resolve, for we all now how brittle his “cast iron” guarantee proved to be with respect to an EU membership referendum. Is he committing us to an endless series of wars in which we fight with our hands tied behind our backs, bereft of either a clear goal or modus operandi? If so, who will die and who will pay for this policy? What benefit will it bring and to whom?

It would appear that the immense corrupting wealth of the Saudis and the other Arab petrodollar states of the Gulf has effectively muzzled politicians such as Cameron. The fountainhead of Islamism today, in both its violent and political variants, is Saudi Arabia. Find an effective alternative to oil, and the Saudis’ malign and growing influence would collapse. Thus, to find such an alternative should be one of our key political and economic tasks. The Saudis produce nothing of value other than what they pump out of the ground, with the rest of their wealth being derived from parasitic investment around the globe. If Cameron truly wished to wage war to destroy Islamism he would call for the subjugation and occupation of the Arabian Peninsula, but to be ‘successful’, that sort of war would call forth the logic of total war witnessed in the horrific brutality displayed by both sides on the Eastern Front with its associated exterminist logic. Who wants such a war? Not me. I would prefer the option of the peaceful development of viable alternative energy sources and the concomitant undermining and collapse of the economic, political and cultural influence of the Arab petrodollar states. Only then will we stand a chance of defeating Islamism.

Cameron and Hague are intellectual lightweights, and if they truly wished to root out Islamism they could make no better start than by rooting it out at home, for after all, they and their political predecessors in the Labour Party have allowed it to flourish in Britain. They may as well launch drone strikes on Tower Hamlets and Bradford as upon Pakistan, for there is not a great deal to differentiate the two environments other than an increasingly nominal sovereignty. As it is, the two men seem intent upon poking their noses into as many Islamist hornets’ nests as possible, with Syria and Mali looking like our most probable forthcoming entanglements.

Such interventions will be pointless, bloody, expensive and ineffectual. Moreover, they will generate ever-greater resentment against us, no matter how ill founded, by Muslims around the globe. At the same time, Cameron, Hague and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will continue to push for the economic and eventual political integration of the countries of the Middle East and North Africa into an expanded EU, arguing that this is ‘necessary’ to disseminate economic prosperity throughout the Arab world and thereby undermine support for Islamism. This is the eventual goal of Euromed, but in reality what it would achieve, if its logic were to be fully enacted, would be for every state in the EU to be flooded by a massive demographic wave from the Muslim states of the eastern and southern Mediterranean littoral, bringing economic and cultural decline to Europe, as well as the demographic eclipse and eventual disappearance of the European peoples. Alas, a twin combination of cack-handed interventionism and half-baked policies on economic integration are likely to be the favoured response of the current Government. It is a grim prospect, but we can expect only support for such a policy from an intellectually bankrupt Labour Party. Where is the effective opposition? Who will articulate the much-needed alternative?

David Cameron’s forthcoming EU Speech: Great Expectations?

The Conservative Party currently appears to be in overdrive in its effort to undermine the threat from UKIP, with many leading members taking care to use language that could be mistaken for Euroscepticism by the electorate, whilst in the main remaining resolutely pro-EU. Even the Prime Minister himself, an undoubted Euro-enthusiast, has now been compelled by a solidifying Euroscepticism amongst a section of the British electorate to hint at concessions to public opinion on this score, coyly intimating that a referendum could eventually be in the offing. However, nothing could be further from his intentions than allowing the UK to leave the EU, and any referendum that may eventually be set before us (which in itself is doubtful) would be likely to be rigged in its wording. Nonetheless, anything less than full-blooded Euro-enthusiasm causes the BBC to balk, and thus it is that Cameron’s comment that he wishes to seek a “fresh settlement” between our country and the EU is sufficient for the BBC to take this as being tantamount to the ravings of a xenophobic Little Englander.

In his interview on this morning’s Today Programme, Cameron refused to divulge what he would say in his speech to be delivered in the Netherlands next week, although he stressed his globalist economic credentials by making reference to the UK’s “strong tradition of global trade”. Throughout the interview, the emphasis was very much upon rationalising EU via reference to economic imperatives, whilst ignoring the option of leaving the EU and negotiating mutually beneficial trading arrangements with members of the bloc. Neither the Prime Minister nor his interviewer touched upon the aspects of EU membership to which electors undoubtedly have not given their consent, such as ever-increasing and deeper political union and the intent to eventually form an economic union with the Muslim states of North Africa and the Middle East founded upon the principles of Euromed. There are many non-economic costs to EU membership, and the free movement of labour between member states has in recent years caused many problems in the UK by placing increased pressure upon housing, education and health, whilst undermining domestic wages and helping to entrench long-term structural unemployment. This is not something that either the BBC or Cameron are keen to publicise.

This month witnesses the end of transitional controls on the right of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens to come and work and settle in the UK. Although Cameron was pressed on this matter in this morning’s interview, he refused to provide an estimate of how many people are expected to arrive from these two EU member states. However, with a combined population of roughly 26.3 million and far lower average wages than the UK, it would not be unreasonable, taking into account previous experience with immigration from Poland, Slovakia and other EU accession states, for a wave of several hundred thousand immigrants to arrive. Where, when we have a housing crisis, will they live, and what will they do for a living as we struggle with mass unemployment in the depths of a protracted recession arising from our structurally unbalanced and globalised economy? These are questions that neither the Prime Minister nor the BBC are willing to answer, for they reveal one of the many economically and, importantly, socially costly negative consequences of remaining a member of the EU. Withdrawal from the EU would help us to manage our immigration problem, but that alone would not enable us to solve it completely.

When Cameron delivers his speech on the EU next week it will, like the many speeches delivered by leading politicians on this issue, be more or less interchangeable with those of the leaders of the other two major Westminster parties, whose motto may as well be “In the EU and globalism we trust”. Of one thing we can be sure: Cameron’s speech will be an anticlimax, and any great expectations that some voters may possess regarding the Conservative Party’s intent to allow a meaningful referendum upon EU membership will be dashed; these expectations will remain, like the book of that title, fiction.

Your new neighbours? Romania's Roma

Would Honda axe more jobs if the UK left the EU?

The news of Honda’s decision to axe 800 jobs at its Swindon plant is one of the gloomiest pieces of recent news for the UK economy. However, as it employs a total of 3,500 staff, many will thankfully still have employment after these cuts are made. The employer is hoping to make these staff reductions without compulsory redundancies, with layoffs taking place after a 90-day consultation period. Although the carmaker is acting in response to a drop in demand over the past year, Honda’s market in the UK itself has remained surprisingly buoyant, with the BBC reporting that the 54,208 Hondas registered in the country in 2012 represented a 7.2% increase upon the preceding year. The cuts in staff have rather been in response to a weakening of demand for its products elsewhere in the EU. Demand, unsurprisingly, has fallen off dramatically in those southern European states badly hit by the economic crisis: Greece, Italy and Portugal. It would therefore seem that the UK is more valuable to Honda as a manufacturing base and a market than certain other countries within the EU.

The loss of such a large number of jobs is bound to have an impact upon the local economy, but Honda’s commitment to maintain its manufacturing operations that began in the town back in 1992 is beyond doubt. As well as the 2,700 people who will remain employed at Honda, the automotive industry in the town is healthy, for BMW also employs 800 at its Swindon pressing plant which produces 90% of the parts required for the production of the Mini, and BMW’s sales position remains robust despite the subdued economic environment.

Whereas there has been much political and media chatter this week about the potentially ‘disastrous’ effects of the UK leaving the EU, Honda’s positive performance within the UK market compared to elsewhere in the EU demonstrates that transnational corporations (TNCs) that make productive rather than predatory capital investments in the UK (i.e. those that create jobs and real wealth in manufacturing) would not in reality wish to pull their investment out of the country were we to reassert our independence from Brussels, for it would be economically damaging for them to do so. Nor, in reality, would other nations in Europe wish to sever mutually beneficial trade: leaving the EU would not mean an end to our economic relations with the constituent nations of the bloc, but it would mean that we regained the right to formulate and implement our own laws and border controls without interference from overseas.

A desire to leave the EU is not some expression of ‘Europhobia’, but rather of the wish to revitalise democracy through recognising that sovereignty inheres within the people. However, this is not the narrative that is spun by certain sections of our press and by all but a tiny minority of individuals within our mainstream political parties; neither is it a position acknowledged as legitimate by political and corporate figures overseas who see the EU project as useful to their own ends, and the concept of popular sovereignty as an unwelcome inconvenience. It is influential individuals adhering to the latter perspective both in the US and Germany who have been particularly vocal this week, inveighing against the alleged ‘disastrous’ consequences for the UK should it leave the EU. Opponents of the UK’s independence tirelessly hammer away at the concept of popular sovereignty by knowingly employing the slurs that it is ‘xenophobic’, ‘exclusionary’ and ‘outdated’, but it seems that at least a section of the British public is waking up to the fact that these slurs are baseless.

Many have taken recent comments by David Cameron and George Osborne to indicate that a more Eurosceptic mood is now abroad in the Conservative Party, particularly with reference to Osborne’s latest comment that the UK could leave the EU if the latter does not negotiate a fresh settlement amongst its members. However, whereas our mainstream media together with diplomats in the US and EU foreign policy establishments may either perceive or seek to portray such pronouncements as possessing substance, those of us who are wearily seasoned observers of the British political scene will recognise this latest bout of high-profile Tory Euroscepticism as being a sop to a public that has grown increasingly hostile towards the EU and its ever-increasing integration. What truly lies at the root of this recent change in Tory mood music it would seem is electoral fear generated by the rise of UKIP. As previously commented on this blog, outside of EU elections UKIP does not and will not constitute a credible electoral force, for amongst other things it will find it nigh on impossible to win seats under the first-past-the-post system, but it is now strong enough to deprive many Conservative MPs of their majorities by taking the votes from Eurosceptic members of the public and thereby allowing Labour in by the backdoor.

When we reach the 2015 General Election, it is therefore likely that the Conservative Party will employ Eurosceptic rhetoric in its campaign, keen to neutralise the threat of UKIP and to distance itself from the Liberal Democrats, but in reality, the party line will be about as ‘Eurosceptic’ as Ken Clarke. Some of us may not be fooled again by such posturing, but will many of our fellow voters fall for this line? Alas, I feel inclined to predict that many will.

Swindon's Honda Plant

Whither the Liberal Democrats?

With the results in from the three parliamentary by-elections held in Corby, Manchester Central and Cardiff South and Penarth, and the outcome of the first elections for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) filtering in from across England and Wales, a number of clear messages are becoming apparent. The first of these relates to widespread voter apathy, with turnout – particularly for the PCC elections – being remarkably low. So unmotivated to visit the polls were electors, that the Corby by-election turnout of 44.79%, which in itself would normally be seen as low, looked very high compared to what was achieved elsewhere. In Cardiff South and Penarth, turnout was a meagre 25.35%, whilst in Manchester Central, the corresponding figure stood at 18.2%. The last of these figures was noteworthy for being the lowest turnout in a parliamentary contest since the Second World War, but even so, it seemed high when compared to the percentage turnout in the PCC elections, which in many areas was below 15%.

Whereas these figures in themselves constitute an indictment of the current state of our democracy and of the wasted £100 million allegedly spent in introducing elected PCCs, they also contain some interesting messages for our existing political parties. Although Ed Miliband’s Labour Party may be trumpeting its relative success today, the clearest message for any party has been delivered to the Liberal Democrats, and its content cannot be seen as anything other than highly disagreeable for its membership; overall, the party has been resoundingly crushed. In Corby, its share of the vote plunged from 14.5% in 2010 to just 4.96%, with its candidate Jill Hope losing her deposit. The party was squarely beaten into fourth place by a robust performance from the UKIP candidate Margot Parker who took 14.3% of the vote. As UKIP did not stand a candidate in Corby in 2010 and the Conservative share of the vote went down by 15.6% on this occasion, it seems clear that many traditional Tories disaffected with the Cameroonian coalition switched their support to UKIP. Other candidates fared so poorly as not to be worth a mention.

Although the Liberal Democrats managed to hang on to second place in the Manchester Central constituency, their share of the vote collapsed from 26.6% to 9.4%, whilst in Cardiff South and Penarth they narrowly held onto third, place despite their corresponding share falling from 22.3% to 10.8%. Whereas UKIP may have been ebullient about Corby, their shares in these two by-elections were rather more modest, although they were both up from the last General Election: 4.5% and 6.1% respectively. UKIP are therefore enjoying something of a fillip in their fortunes, but the percentages that they are polling fall way short of offering them the prospect of winning any Westminster seats. However, from the perspective of the Conservative Party, a resurgent UKIP that could potentially ‘rob’ them of anywhere between 10 and 15% of the vote in any given constituency, might cause them to lose many more marginal seats to Labour. Farage’s party could therefore be strong enough to damage the Conservatives, but not robust enough to take any power for itself. This in itself is indicative of two of UKIP’s primary weaknesses: its embrace of Thatcherite globalism, which is justifiably unpopular with all but a minority of the electorate, and the manner in which the party is run.

The experience of coalition government has clearly done the Liberal Democrats massive damage. Their unpopularity should not be seen as the straightforward consequence of Nick Clegg reneging over his promise regarding university tuition fees, but as indicative of a wider discontent with Liberal Democrat policies. Whilst I am no fan of our mainstream political parties, when the Coalition Government formed I had a glimmer of hope – admittedly illusory – that the fusion of the separate policy agendas of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats could result in something more positive than either alone would impose. Like many people, from the Conservatives I hoped for a robust approach to the EU which would have presented us with the option of withdrawal, as well as an end to mass immigration and to the legislation that muzzles free speech in the name of political correctness, whereas I wished for the Liberal Democrats' approach to economics to temper the asset-stripping globalist monetarism of the Conservatives.

This best of both worlds outcome however, was not to be, for we ended up with an inversion of this scenario: the rigorous promotion of Liberal Democrat policies in favour of the EU, mass immigration and political correctness, combined with the ongoing ruinous globalist economics promoted by Osborne. Who therefore, other than the stereotypical sandal-wearing bearded liberals of yore, would have any positive regard for the Liberal Democrats today? Personally, I know people who have supported the Liberal Democrats and their predecessor parties for decades (none of whom wear sandals or sport beards of any description), and yet they are disgusted with the party’s attitude towards the EU, mass immigration and political correctness, as well as of course, tuition fees. They would willingly support a party that put an end to this ongoing undermining of our national sovereignty and social fabric, providing of course that it was reasonable, in favour of genuine freedom of speech, assembly and expression, and not some monstrous authoritarian entity harbouring tacit agendas imbued with sinister motives. In this respect, they are like many people today, who feel that they possess no real political choice and no viable political party to vote for. A new mainstream anti-globalist party with a libertarian streak is required, and the various alternatives currently being hawked in the political market place do not fit the bill.

Returning to the question of the future electoral prospects of the Liberal Democrats, what lies in store? One development that could have a major bearing upon their prospects relates not to their current unpopularity in England and Wales, but to the future status of Scotland, for it could, after all, theoretically have left the Union by 2015. Scotland is home to 11 Liberal Democrat MPs. Another major bailiwick for the party is the West Country, where it has for many years provided the effective opposition to the Conservative Party and has won an impressive number of seats. Quite how many of these it might lose in 2015 however is moot, for the West Country is also one of the strongest areas for UKIP, which given its current stronger showing could take considerable numbers of votes from Conservative candidates in many seats where they are challenging the Lib Dems, potentially allowing the latter to retain their seats. It is a complicated picture, and we have another two and a half years before the next General Election, so much could change in that time. Nonetheless, whatever should happen, the future does not look bright for the Liberal Democrats who could be replaced by UKIP as the nation’s third party. Then again, what impact might a new political entity with the correct policy formulation make? Time will tell. 

Liberal Democrats: not flying high

The Odd Couple: Stephen Yaxley-Lennon and Nikki Sinclaire

Yesterday’s announcement that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, alternatively known as Tommy Robinson, was leaving his position as joint Vice-Chairman of the BFP to focus on his leadership of the EDL came as a surprise to many. Quite what precipitated his decision is unclear, but this announcement comes only a fortnight after an unsubstantiated rumour circulated that Paul Weston had resigned from his position as BFP Chairman, a rumour that was swiftly rebutted. It begs the question as to who started this rumour and why?

In his interview with The Independent yesterday, Lennon (for the sake of brevity I shall avoid the double-barrelled formulation) stated:

"I am looking at how to change the EDL into a genuine political party but we can't put a time on it at the moment. We are looking at the 2014 elections in Europe.

"It [the BFP] just isn't for me, I want to stick to the EDL. I wanted to make this decision before I committed myself to campaigning for the BFP. I have not been involved in an election campaign for them yet, so it is the right time."

What was it about the BFP’s policy platform that caused Lennon to take this decision, if indeed it was a matter of policy that caused his departure? Whatever the underpinning cause happened to be, attempting to turn the EDL into a political party is an utterly pointless venture, being as it is a single-issue protest group. Lennon would be better off re-evaluating his movement’s aims, objectives and tactics, transforming it into a more tightly focused and effective campaigning vehicle independent of any particular political party. Although it has managed to establish itself in the public consciousness, the EDL has not, generally speaking, projected an image that would exert electoral appeal to anything other than a small hardcore of supporters. Irrespective of the fact that there are certain widely-recognised negative behaviours exhibited by Islamists in this country which the majority of the general public find abhorrent, voters are not going to cast their ballots for a party that makes tackling Islamism its number one issue, although they would of course be happy to vote for a party with a comprehensive policy platform that dealt appropriately with the Islamist problem as part of its wider policy mix. Voters are primarily concerned about the economy, public services, education, housing and immigration, not Islamism, no matter how much distaste they may possess for it.  

Does Lennon intend to transform the EDL into a political party with such a broad policy mix? This seems doubtful. For all of its flaws and fixation upon the Islamic issue, the BFP does at least profess to possess objectives other than tackling Islamism and Islamisation; the EDL does not. In this respect, Lennon’s move brings to mind the recent announcement by former UKIP MEP Nikki Sinclaire in connection with the creation of a new political party named ‘We Demand a Referendum’ (WDAR), which possesses no policy other than to secure a referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the EU. For some reason, The Sun threw its backing behind this venture last month, presumably because Murdoch no longer finds Cameron’s Conservative Party to his liking.

How peculiar it is, that both Lennon and Sinclaire have decided to leave single-issue fixated parties and establish new splinter parties focused purely upon Islam and the EU respectively. This is not the stuff of electoral politics, but of pressure group agitation, and given the obsession of both figures with these single issues, they would be best advised to keep out of electoral politics and instead concentrate upon building up convincing arguments and campaigns in support of their respective positions. A vote for either will be a wasted one; both parties will fail, and badly at that. Voters need to be presented with a credible alternative to which they can lend their support; a party that genuinely tackles both of these concerns alongside the pressing need to address those issues that are central to the winning of any campaign. The EDL will not be such a party, and neither will the WDAR.

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon: Leader of the EDL

  Nikki Sinclaire: Leader of 'We Demand a Referendum'

EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmström: open the EU to North African immigration

A few weeks ago, Peter Sutherland made it clear to the House of Lords that he believed European countries must be forced to become multicultural through further opening their borders to mass immigration from Africa and Asia. Earlier this week, we had the first release of data from the 2011 census that revealed that the officially recorded population of England and Wales had grown at the fastest rate over any 10-year period since the census began in 1801, with this rise being fuelled predominantly by an historically unprecedented wave of immigration and higher birth rates amongst the immigrant-descended population. Yet, despite economic crisis, permanent mass unemployment, a housing shortage and increasing social Balkanisation, Cecilia Malmström, EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs, has reiterated her belief in an interview with Le Monde that “Immigration will be necessary for Europe”. 

In the interview, conducted in Brussels and published on 10 July, Malmström elaborated upon her earlier comments that immigration to the EU constituted “not a threat, but an opportunity” and should be considered as “a factor of growth”. Moreover, she has described the Arab Spring as an “historical opportunity”, but was critical of the manner in which the EU had reacted, believing that popular hostility to being flooded by a human exodus from North Africa had “led to a deterioration of our relations with these countries”. In her evaluation of the outcome of the Arab Spring she naively interprets it as expressive of “reclaiming liberty and the rights of man”. Quite how that squares with the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power in Egypt, Islamists winning elections in Tunisia and dominating post-Qaddhafi Libya, it is difficult to say, for by any rational and objective set of criteria Islamism sets itself in direct opposition to the notion of such rights, for Islam recognises the supremacy of its ‘divine’ Sharia over all manmade law.

Although it may be wise to follow Zhou Enlai’s cryptic comment about the impact of the French Revolution (was he referring to 1789 or to 1968?) by stating that “it is too soon to say” what the eventual outcome of the Arab Spring may be, what seems to have happened thus far is that one form of authoritarianism has been substituted for another. Particularistic national authoritarianisms have been traded for a religious variant, with a limited national colouration and universalist aspirations. Malmström appears incapable of grasping this primary fact, this incomprehension seemingly rooted in her inability to see beyond an economistic reductionism which fails to take into account the centrality of people’s cultural identities, as well as their economic situation. Her thinking, if perhaps not strictly speaking Marxist, is certainly in this respect Marxisant.

This blindness to the salience of culture, and to its deep civilisational underpinnings which find expression in structuring distinctive worldviews and psychologies, thus leads individuals such as Malmström to view human beings as interchangeable economic units, not as distinctive beings imbued with integral identities without which there can be no meaningful sense of self. Although the Mediterranean world may have been unified politically and to a considerable extent culturally during late Antiquity, it no longer is so, and has not been since the arrival of Islam in the Seventh Century. To ignore the fundamental differences that have grown since this time is myopic in the extreme, and whereas recognition of this difference is well understood in the Muslim world, it is systematically denied by those of a PC multiculturalist bent in Europe.With Malmström, the spirit of Euromed is very much alive and kicking. 

Ignorance of the centrality of culture is leading to the adoption of disastrous demographic and economic policies for native Europeans. Le Monde, unsurprisingly gave Malmström a sympathetic platform, formulaically referring in pejorative fashion to “the rise of populist and xenophobic forces” in northern Europe, with the interviewee singling out Geert Wilders for special opprobrium. Malmström peddles the official EU line that is familiar to all in Britain today that mass immigration is “necessary” because of our ageing societies. This assertion is false. We have permanent mass unemployment and it should be our aim to match the unemployed with the vacancies in our economy. Where they lack the requisite skills, they should be trained. Moreover, as Greece knows much to its cost, many immigrants possess no skills, and come in search of only what they can take by way of benefits, wishing to assert their “human rights” without taking on any national responsibilities.

Malmström’s opinions are therefore far from unusual amongst members of the EU’s governing oligarchy, but we should take note of what she says because of her influential position and consequent ability to shape policy. I close therefore with her words on the need for the “new immigration”, the implications of which I ask you to reflect upon:  

Yes, but the reality is there. The role of the Brussels Commission is also to encourage politicians to take this into account. To envisage the problems in the long term, and to rise above national contingencies. Besides, the academic world considers what I say to be perfectly commonplace …

 

Crossing Continents: Greece’s borderline insanity

Today’s episode of Radio 4’s Crossing Continents turned its attention to Greece’s problem with illegal immigration, or rather, in its terms, to the problems faced by illegal immigrants in making their way to Greece, and thence ‘hopefully’ onwards to other states within the EU. The Radio 4 website prefaced the programme with the following:

Writer and broadcaster Maria Margaronis follows the route taken by migrants fleeing war or poverty who are risking their lives to reach the Europe Union. It is estimated that around 75 thousand people are attempting to make the perilous journey each year in the hands of unscrupulous traffickers. They are fleeing from war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Somalia or simply in search of a better life where their economic prospects aren't so bleak. Some of them never make it, suffocating in the back of a crowded lorry or drowning in the fast flowing river that marks the border between Turkey and Greece.

It is of course tragic that anyone should suffer in such a fashion, but where the real cruelty lies is in the fact of pretending that these people can be accommodated in Greece or anywhere else in Europe, thereby giving them the false hope that they will be welcomed and that the Greeks, or indeed any other European people, can provide them with what they are looking for: a place to live and wealth. In fact, one such illegal immigrant in a recent article by Der Spiegel also let on to another motivational factor amongst the predominantly male influx from Africa and Asia that the mass media never dares to publicise: European women. The illegal immigrant to Greece in question was a Bangladeshi named Oyud: 

To him, Europe sounded like clean cities, beautiful women and cool cars.

In other words, the illegal immigrant influx comes in search of three primary objects: wealth, territory and women. To the uncouth ragbag of Afghans, Pakistanis, Somalis and North Africans, the ‘soft’ European nations appear an easy and tempting target. These incomers know how to play to the human rights gallery, tugging at the heartstrings of the gullible, whilst themselves possessing no respect for the concept of these rights whatsoever, but all-too eager to utilise them as an expedient means of securing their permanent settlement in Europe. 

Although the phrase ‘fortress Europe’ is often bandied about, what kind of a ‘fortress’ is it that seeks to secure the ingress of millions for the settlement of its lands, and the displacement and replacement of the native European peoples that its critics claim it seeks to protect? Its borders are weak, and their defence is nothing other than nominal. When, for example, the travesty of a border defence force named Frontex intercepts illegal immigrants in Greece, it arrests and then releases them, demanding that they leave the country within thirty days. Where do these people go? Not home, that is for certain. They remain in Greece, or manage to take the next leg of their journey overseas to elsewhere within the EU. This is a farce, albeit one that can only be appreciated by those possessed of the most sardonic humour.

Why is it that these alleged ‘asylum seekers’ do not stop in Turkey? The answer is quite straightforward: Turkey does not recognise the right of asylum, unless it should be for Europeans fleeing neighbouring European states. How very convenient. Crossing Continents made it clear that the Turkish police turn a blind eye to people trafficking, which affords a living to many on the border between Greece and eastern Thrace. It seems, as confirmed by one of the interviews carried out by Margaronis, that the Roma, as illiterate and demi-criminal in Turkey as they are elsewhere, plead necessity in justification of ferrying the illegals across the Evros River, as do many local Turks. Although it was not stated in the programme, it would come as no surprise if many Turks were to savour the pain inflicted by this human flood upon their longstanding Greek foe to the West.

Greece is not a large country, and its native population is modest. Even before its current economic crisis, the volume of immigration that it was subjected to was beyond that which could be comfortably borne, but now in a time of crisis, when such a high proportion of Greeks find themselves unemployed, the value of wages is falling, and the provision of basic medical services collapsing, what had been an increasing irritant and discomfort, has now become intolerable. Critics claim that it is not the fault of the immigrants that Greece finds itself in its current economic crisis. Whilst it is true of course that they did not precipitate the transnational crisis of high finance, their presence offers nothing by way of help in solving Greece’s economic crisis, did nothing to stave it off, and functions as a massive drain on the economy. The illegal immigrant presence is a dead weight upon the Greek people that threatens to drag them and their country down still further. If the influx is not stemmed and reversed, what will become of Greece and the Greeks? Could it become the first European state to collapse and be overrun by non-Europeans? It is such rational concerns, practically ignored and unacknowledged by mainstream Greek politicians, that have found direct electoral expression in the rise of the Golden Dawn.

The rapid increase in the immigrant population of Greece has been startling: in 1991, only 167,000 out of a population of 10,259,900 were classed as 'foreigners'. By 2001, the immigrant figure had risen to 762,000, whereas today, the Research Institute for European and American Studies claims that there are approximately 2.5 million illegal immigrants in Greece, the greater part of them originating in Asia and Africa. Other estimates suggest up to 3 million. Given the size of these estimates relative to Greece's population, can they really be credible?

The raw figures themselves are alarming, but the problem of numbers alone – great as they may be – is compounded both by the cultural incompatibility of the majority of illegal arrivals – who happen to be Muslim – and by the fact that they are overwhelmingly male. This plus economic crisis makes for an explosive situation. Greece can take no more immigrants, just as other member states of the EU can take no more, and a clear message needs to be sent to would-be immigrants in Africa and Asia, that they are neither needed nor welcome in our countries. The globalists of course, and their confederates the EU high commissioners have other ideas, and wish us to take in ever more. If this happens, we run the real risk of eventual societal and economic collapse, and all of the attendant potentially bloody chaos that that would engender. 

I have no liking for the type of politician who is willing to physically strike a political opponent, on television at that, but when the media – whether it be the BBC or the New York Times – make anxious sounds about the rise of the Golden Dawn, they should perhaps look inwards and examine the positions and policies that they happily advocate – those of mass immigration and multiculturalism – and ask themselves whether these make for stable and content societies, or unstable and fractious ones. That narrow transnational stratum that gains immense wealth from the promotion of globalisation, and provides the impetus for the attendant ideology of globalism, cares not about the fates of individuals or nations, and cloaks its selfish intent in the language of a humane universalism, tarnishing all who would stand up for the right of nations to political self-determination as ‘fascists’. Greece, the fountainhead of so much that makes the West distinct, runs not the risk of entering a golden dawn, but of a cold dead night. Will it manage to withstand the trials with which it is now beset, and what example, if any, does it set the rest of Europe today? 

Cameron’s weasel words over EU referendum

A piece been penned by David Cameron in today’s Sunday Telegraph reveals his concern over the increasing disaffection of a section of his party and of the electorate with the Condem coalition’s position on the EU. In recent months, UKIP have been enjoying the highest level of support in opinion polls since the height of the parliamentary expenses scandal, on a number of occasions attracting a higher level of declared support than the Liberal Democrats, taking a 9% share amongst prospective voters. Although such a figure does not put UKIP in a position to win Westminster seats, what it does do is imperil the parliamentary majorities of a number of Conservative MPs. If such figures did translate into real votes at a General Election, this could cause enough damage to the Conservative Party to deny it a parliamentary majority. It is this fear, combined with the perceived need to address a heightened level of public apprehension over the crisis in the eurozone, that has prompted the Prime Minister to write.

Although it is to be expected that the BBC would portray his piece in a manner which would suggest euroscepticism, it is surprising that the Sunday Telegraph, or at least its political editor Patrick Hennesy, should also fall for Cameron’s ruse. The BBC introduces its report on Cameron’s article with the heading David Cameron ‘prepared to consider EU referendum’ which would seem to imply to the casual reader who does not bother to read further that Cameron is willing to contemplate a referendum on EU membership, when in fact what is being suggested by the Prime Minister is nothing of the sort. Hennesy’s piece is entitled ‘EU: New Tory battle lines drawn’, which once again suggests that a very robust and significant change in attitude towards the European Union is being signalled, with Hennesy describing Cameron’s article as constituting a ‘landmark move’. However, we have witnessed such distorted hyperbole in the media before, one striking example relating Cameron’s speech on multiculturalism delivered in Munich, which was said to signal a radical shift in policy resulting in the ditching of the concept, whilst since that date we have in reality seen an ongoing commitment to multiculturalism and, in some instances, increased state funding for it (e.g. state-funded Muslim schools).

Turning to Cameron’s article itself, rather than to mainstream media commentary upon it, certain key passages and phrases reveal the Prime Minister’s true position and intent. Firstly, he deliberately chooses to open his piece by referring not to our relationship with the EU – a political construct – but to our ‘relationship with Europe.’ This, of course, is a common tactic adopted by those in favour of EU membership, for this device is used by them to equate being anti-EU (a rational and democratic political position) with being anti-European (an irrational and xenophobic position). However, most of us who are anti-EU are thankfully pro-European, whereas many of those who are pro-EU are conversely anti-European.

In essence, Cameron wishes the UK not only to remain a member of the EU’s single market, but also to be a political member of the club because of his globalist political stance, which he rationalises through employing the pretext of co-operating ‘with our neighbours to maximise our influence in the world and project our values of freedom and democracy.’ We have in recent years done far too much of this ‘projection’, in terms of becoming militarily involved in complex conflicts overseas in which we have no interest, accompanied by, so it would seem, little genuine understanding on the part of our policy elites of the countries that they insist on meddling with. Thus it is that there has been an ecstatic embrace of the ‘Arab Spring’, although wherever it has been successful it has brought the Islamists to power, and in Libya, where we had direct military involvement, the country now lies shattered and divided between the claims of competing warlords. The drumbeat of war now sounds for Syria, with William Hague and the FCO being at the vanguard of the party of international hawks. No, let us have no more of this. If we are to ‘project our values of freedom and democracy’ to other peoples, then we should do so through the strength of our example, by being genuinely free, democratic and worthy of emulation. We are currently neither free nor democratic enough.

Although Cameron’s article is presented as offering the public a the prospect of a choice over EU membership, this is not the case, and Cameron makes it absolutely explicit that he is not only in favour of EU membership, but that he will ensure that if any referendum is held over any aspect of this country’s relationship with the EU, then it will be at a time that is conducive to securing the result that he desires, thus:

I don’t agree with those who say we should leave and therefore want the earliest possible in/out referendum. Leaving would not be in our country’s best interests.

. . .  I will continue to work for a different, more flexible and less onerous position for Britain within the EU.

How do we take the British people with us on this difficult and complicated journey? How do we avoid the wrong paths of either accepting the status quo meekly or giving up altogether and preparing to leave? It will undoubtedly be hard, but taking the right path in politics often is.

As we get closer to the end point, we will need to consider how best to get the full-hearted support of the British people whether it is in a general election or in a referendum.

As I have said, for me the two words “Europe” and “referendum” can go together, particularly if we really are proposing a change in how our country is governed, but let us get the people a real choice first.

This article is very much of a piece with Ed Miliband’s recent speeches on England and Englishness and mass immigration. Miliband realised that the Labour Party’s approach to both of these issues has alienated a significant stratum of former Labour voters and supporters, thus he attempted to give the impression that he shared their concerns and views on these matters, whilst actually using both speeches to reaffirm his commitment to multiculturalism, mass immigration and globalisation. Miliband attempted to bedeck himself in national bunting to sell a globalist multicultural political product, and Cameron too has chosen to take out the national bunting today, using it to mask his pro-EU stance. Neither Cameron nor Miliband has the national interest at heart, and neither man believes in a democracy that gives voice to the genuine public will.

Many will see through Cameron’s cynical attempt to appeal to those of us who wish to leave the EU, but many will not have the time or the inclination to read beyond the headlines, and thus gain the impression that the Prime Minister intends to offer us a genuine referendum over EU membership. This is the real intent of his piece: to manage public opinion to his political advantage whilst offering nothing of substance. As it is with multiculturalism, so shall it be with the EU: Cameron makes public announcements critical of each of them, whilst enthusiastically promoting both. 

Ed Miliband and Peter Sutherland: united in anti-European Bigotry

In political, economic and demographic terms, we are living through remarkable times. The news, whether it be domestic or international, is almost uniformly bad. And yet amidst this maelstrom, the helmsmen of the emergent global economic and political order continue to chart a course that they set long ago, cognisant of the storms that their policies must surely engender, yet happy for us to suffer the ill-effects of their globalist tempest, utilising the naïveté of those who believe in the ideal of a global village, to aid in their construction of a global prison, from which none, they hope, will be permitted to escape.

Bound by fetters of debt, intellectually and emotionally crippled by decades of propaganda instilling self-doubt, guilt and self-loathing, the peoples of Europe – in particular those of the West, for those of the East have not yet fallen prey to this singular psychopathology – edge towards embracing oblivion in the name of ‘diversity’ and ‘tolerance’. Globalisation, they are told ad nauseum, is not only inevitable, but also beneficial. We are told so by our politicians and our bankers; by our broadcasters and big business; by our press, trades unions and ‘anti-racism’ campaigners. From the dope-addled hippy, to the calculating corporate fascist; from the Trotskyist subversive to the Islamist longing for the introduction of a universal caliphate, all yearn for the destruction of nations and peoples, specifically, of European nations and peoples. As such, they are united in a desire to snuff out freedom and political will. They are the totalitarian advocates of a post-political future, in which choice is removed, and individuals become the objects of administration, rather than the subjects of politics. The detail of each of their globalist visions may be divergent, but their consequence is the same: the purging of human agency from history, and the end of freedom for all but a narrow stratum of a governing global oligarchy.

Strange, is it not, that those of us who oppose this process, are the ones stigmatised with the label of ‘fascist’? Only the genuine political self-determination of peoples across the globe, can serve as both the guarantor of human freedom, and the preservation of true cultural diversity. Agencies of supranational governance, the free movement of global capital and transnational corporations guarantee something quite different: perpetual insecurity and the end of freedom.

 

It is against such a backdrop, that speeches given earlier this week by Ed Miliband and Peter Sutherland should be viewed. Miliband, naturally, requires no introduction, but the figure of Peter Sutherland is altogether more shadowy, although out of the two, it is Sutherland who wields the more genuine power. What is the influence of an MP or an aspirant Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, compared to that of such a man as Sutherland? Non-executive Chairman of Goldman Sachs International; Bilderberg Group Steering Committee member; UN Special Representative on Migration, Head of the Global Forum on Migration and Development? Still, it matters not that Miliband’s existing and potential power should be the lesser of the two, for both men share a mental outlook and policy platform, neither possessing any notion of responsibility to, or affection for, the peoples and nations of Europe.

Miliband’s speech, like his recent speech on Englishness, was essentially devoid of content. Its intent however, was just the same as its forerunner: to generate headlines conveying the impression that he cares about the ostensible topic under discussion. Whilst sections of the media and some trades union spokesmen have dutifully complied with this charade, feigning outrage over his touching upon such topics as national identity and immigration, both speeches delivered the same message as found expression in the policy of the last Labour Government: immigration and globalisation are positive, and should be promoted as such. This can be demonstrated through reference to key elements of Miliband’s speech reproduced below (I have added emphasis in bold).

Excerpt 1: “Britain must control its borders but it must always face outwards to the world.

The Britain I believe in is a confident and optimistic country, not one which is insecure and inward looking.

If people are looking for a politician who says immigration is just bad for Britain, that's not me.

I believe immigration has benefits, economically, culturally and socially.”

Excerpt 2: “I am the son of immigrants and I am hugely proud of it.

I will always talk about immigration in a way that is true to who I am, to my heritage, to my mum and dad.”

Excerpt 3: “Providing a refuge for those fleeing persecution.

And a new approach to immigration based on building a different kind of economy.

An economy that doesn't leave anyone behind.

That continues to attract people from abroad who contribute their talents to our economy and society.

That offers proper wages and good conditions.

That's the kind of economy that will enable Britain to compete with the world.”

In summary the core message of Miliband’s speech was this: Labour made a gaffe in selling mass immigration from the EU accession states to the public and this backfired electorally, not because the party believes this to have been wrong, but because it handled its propaganda maladroitly. The Labour Party needs to repair its image with its traditional indigenous (although Labour’s upper echelons would never use such a term) working-class supporters, who have to a considerable degree deserted Labour; it would still like their votes. By talking about “immigration” in a manner which suggests to the public that Miliband is recognising Labour’s mistakes and addressing their concerns, whilst in reality simply acknowledging that there had been public disquiet and then reiterating the message that Labour still advocates mass immigration and thinks that it is beneficial, Labour hopes that it can pull the wool over the public’s eyes and win back the support of ex-Labour voters without changing policy. Miliband wishes to change the presentation of policy, whilst retaining its essence: open borders and the deculturisation of the United Kingdom, especially England.

Another highly noteworthy aspect of Miliband’s speech was the target that he selected in his discussion of mass immigration: white Central and Eastern Europeans from the EU member states of the former Soviet bloc. Nowhere did he have a critical word to say with respect to the far larger, as well as more culturally and economically problematic, influx of immigrants from Asia (predominantly Pakistan and Bangladesh) and Africa (e.g. Somalia and Nigeria). It seems that he is perfectly at ease with this mass settlement. Why? Although it is true that mass immigration from the EU accession states of the former Soviet bloc has lowered wages, increased unemployment and placed an increased strain on housing, education, health and utilities, there is not so great a cultural gulf between these immigrants and the host population as that between us and the incomers from Asia and Africa. Although the press are keen to run stories about ‘East European’ or ‘Romanian’ criminal gangs, these are predominantly Roma, and thus should not be conflated with ethnic Romanians or other immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe.

So, why is it, taking into consideration the additional problems associated with significant elements of the immigrant populations from Africa and Asia, that Miliband chose not to focus upon them? Given Miliband’s glaring omission, it could give the impression that he has some issue with white European peoples that he does not have with non-Europeans. In this respect, his sentiments are very much at one with those of Peter Sutherland, who according to the BBC told the House of Lords this week that:‘The EU should "do its best to undermine" the"homogeneity" of its member states.’ His recommendations, that fly in the face of the bloody experience of history and of many ethnically cleft states around the world today, were not backed up by evidence, but rather by mere assertion, resting upon some spurious sense of deferential morality that places the interests of peoples outside Europe, above those of Europeans. Thus it was that he insisted that: 'the future prosperity of many EU states depended on them becoming multicultural. He also suggested the UK government's immigration policy had no basis in international law.’ 

Sutherland’s stance is utterly brazen. Those who have accused the Bilderberg group of attempting to swamp European states with non-European immigrants have been accused of being ‘conspiracy theorists’, but in Sutherland’s statement and in the policies of the UN, the EU and the UK Government, we see the same open-borders globalist logic at play, and it betokens a dark future for all Europeans. He continued:

It's impossible to consider that the degree of homogeneity which is implied by the other argument can survive because states have to become more open states, in terms of the people who inhabit them. Just as the United Kingdom has demonstrated.

He also ‘urged EU member states to work together more closely on migration policy and advocated a global approach to the issue - criticising the UK government's attempt to cut net migration from its current level to "tens of thousands" a year through visa restrictions.’

How, in substance, does Sutherland’s position differ from that of Ed Miliband’s? I see little if anything to distinguish these two advocates of an open-borders Europe, the future of which they would seem to believe ought to belong to the peoples of Africa and Asia. What is it that imbues these men with such an animus towards Europeans and their democratic right to national self-determination? Their views alas, represent the dominant perspective in elite – or more accurately, oligarchical – decision-making circles. It is thus up to true democrats in each European nation to make their opposition to this intent and associated policies known, so as to preserve a future for our peoples, our liberties, distinctive cultures and overarching civilisation. Without our active opposition to globalism, our progress, indeed our existence, is finished. A new political party, founded upon such democratic anti-globalist principles, is coalescing in Britain right now, and will be ready to contest the EU elections in 2014.

Ed Miliband: Globalism Repackaged

Of Meteorology and Migration: Flooding Expected

Well yes, it does look as if the rather dismal beginning to summer is set to bring more flooding, certainly if the forecast for the coming weekend highlighted by Paul Hudson on his blog proves to be correct. However, it is not only flooding of a literal nature that may be afflicting England in future, but a human deluge too, precipitated by storms of a rather different type: the economic ones battering the member states of the Eurozone.

The European Union, and the Eurozone in particular, appears to have entered an age of constant crisis. In the case of Greece, bailout package has succeeded bailout package, each one being heralded as the ‘solution’ and an end to the crisis, only to give way to another wave of panic as the country’s economy shrinks and the consequent need for capital necessitates another massive injection of cash. Fears of contagion grow, with Spain and Italy seen as being the next in line to default followed by Portugal and Ireland. The Spanish economy totters and its banking system begins to quake, leading to another bailout package that looks to be nothing more than a stopgap. Worried eyes now alight upon Italy, but Mario Monti denies that his country is in need of a bailout.

With unemployment rising as rapidly in Greece and Spain as their incomes are falling, freedom of mobility within the EU means that increasing numbers of economic migrants are likely to flock to England owing to the perception that it offers better prospects than their own countries, despite our own dismal economic plight. However, with the Spanish and Greek unemployment rates already standing at circa 24% and 22% respectively, a migratory flow born of desperation is comprehensible, although not from our perspective desirable. If the bailout packages for the two countries fail, what impact will this failure have upon their respective ailing economies? A mass migratory pulse seems likely, and the Home Office acknowledged at the end of May that it was already planning for such an eventuality following a possible fragmentation of the Eurozone associated with a Greek exit from the currency. I may be proved wrong, but I suspect that such ‘plans’ are little more than a few soundbites being readied for deployment when the human wave breaks, explaining that “Our hands are tied. We can do nothing to prevent this.”

More clearly than ever, the folly of EU membership and its no borders policy is hitting home. I bear no animus towards the Greeks, Spanish, Italians or any other people in Europe either collectively or as individuals, but one single incontrovertible fact that we need to face up to is this: we have room for no more people in our country. We already face a demographic crisis, born largely of the dismantling of our border controls and immigration from the former colonies and other non-European states. For all of the media focus upon European immigration, it is immigration from Asia and Africa, particularly Muslim immigration, that has added substantially not only to our numbers in recent decades (particularly since the advent of the Blair Government) but also to our social tensions. A mass influx of Greeks, Spaniards and Italians would place great pressure upon our housing stock, labour market, transport infrastructure, health and other services, but it would not challenge the code of values upon which our society is based, unlike the immigration that has emanated from Africa and Asia.

The EU represents a failed experiment and as such should be dismantled, allowing each member nation to regain its sovereign right to political and economic self-determination. Greece may find an exit from the Eurozone painful in the short-term, but might this not ultimately be its best option?

Although Edward Gibbon wrote his magnum opus the ‘History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ over two centuries ago, his observations as to the benefits of the political fragmentation of Europe in his own day as compared to its unity under Roman imperial authority seem apposite when discussing the EU today:

The division of Europe into a number of independent states, connected, however, with each other, by the general resemblance of religion, language, and manners, is productive of the most beneficial consequences to the liberty of mankind. A modern tyrant, who should find no resistance either in his own breast, or in his people, would soon experience a gentle restraint from the example of his allies, and the apprehension of his enemies. The object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow limits of his dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a secure refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But the empire of the Romans filled the world, and when that empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. (Vol. 1, p. 94).

The governing orthodoxy of the ruling elite is that were Europe to return to such a state of political fragmentation, then tensions would likely result in World War III. This threat has been repeatedly wheeled out by advocates of the European superstate, and constitutes a blatantly cynical attempt to impose a form of soft authoritarianism through proposing a false either/or juxtaposition between ever closer and tighter economic and political union and resurgent European fascisms. Millions of us across Europe desire neither, and instead favour a return to Gibbon’s patchwork of independent states, where liberty will always find a place to flourish.

A new Europe after the fall of the Treaty of Rome?

Greece’s not so Golden Dawn

The behaviour displayed in this video from Greece today is disgusting. A member of Greece’s Golden Dawn party is depicted assaulting a rival politician in a television debate. This is not the sort of action befitting someone who claims to love their country and their people, and from what I have seen of the Golden Dawn so far, it looks to be a very unpleasant outfit indeed. It would seem that violent sentiments are bubbling to the surface from a variety of political sources in Greece, which can only serve to make the country’s miserable situation still worse.