London lost in an Alien Nation

Shock. This is the word that best sums up my reaction to today’s 2011 census results, and yet, what they revealed was not unexpected. Still, seeing the stark reality of the statistics underscoring the rapid demographic shift in our country is alarming. What is particularly symbolic is the fate of London, nominally still our capital, but in an affective and emotional sense, no longer so, for London is revealed not only to have ceased to be an English city, but a British one too. We native White British are now in a minority in our own capital city, comprising a mere 45% share compared to 55% alien; a staggering decline in a decade, from the figure of 58% in 2001. How could this have come to be? Moreover, in the time that has elapsed since the census was taken, our share will have fallen further still. London is a lost city; a space rather than a place in which globalism rules.

The Scots may have Edinburgh, the Welsh Cardiff and the Irish Dublin as their capitals, and they are still Scottish, Welsh and Irish cities, but what we do we English have? Where is our capital? No longer is London ours. Where then, should be our national spiritual home? London no longer fits the bill. Alfred’s old capital of Winchester perhaps? York? Worcester? Where? Where is England? Where is its heart? Where are we English now able to feel comfortably at home? What has become of our country? Are we permitted to possess a territory that we can call our own, or are we to become fully dispossessed of what should by natural right be ours? We will, doubtless, be compelled to 'celebrate' this alleged 'diversity'.

In England and Wales, the Muslim population increased dramatically from 3.0% in 2001 to 4.8% (some 2.7 million people) in 2011. The percentage of people in England and Wales describing themselves as 'White British' declined from 87.5% to 80%. Similar processes are at play in France, and as can be seen here, French social attitudes now display a deep sense of unease with respect to the changes wrought in that country through decades of mass immigration and the rapid growth of the Islamic population.

What is this for? Who does this purport to represent?

Scottish Independence: Desirable?

Gordon Brown has been so silent since the last General Election, at least in the domestic context, that you could almost be forgiven for forgetting that he had ever existed. Just what has he been up to these past two years? Still, given the damage that he managed to inflict upon the country when he was in a position to influence policy and public affairs, it is just as well that he has kept his head down since 2010. Yesterday however, the former Prime Minister broke his silence to voice his opinions on the subject of Scottish independence, which in a rare moment of concurrence proved in a number of respects not to be so far removed from my own. In short, Brown is against the dissolution of the Union.

Brown opined that an independent Scotland would be a poorer Scotland, that would lose not only the economic benefits of being part of the UK, but would also lose the geopolitical clout that being a member of the Union bestows. Scotland’s Daily Record quoted him as saying:

If you break up the fiscal union, the sharing and pooling of resources across the UK, then it’s clear that you will either have to cut public expenditure massively beyond what is being done at the moment or you will have to tax Scottish people more.

Quite clearly, the removal of the subsidy channelled through the Barnett Formula would subtract a significant amount of money from Scotland’s budget, although this claim is disputed by Alex Salmond’s SNP owing to the party’s stated intent of seizing the bulk of North Sea oil revenue for Scotland alone. However, Salmond’s insistence that Scotland would wish to retain Stirling as its currency indicates that the SNP truly does wish to have its cake and eat it.

The current devolved constitutional settlement created by the last Labour Government is neither just nor sustainable; it is in need of a considerable overhaul, but stopping short of the dissolution of the Union. Naturally, should the Scots, or the Welsh or Ulster come to that, wish to secede from the UK then it should be their sovereign right to do so. For the English however, they are in the unfortunate situation of having no say in the matter, for unlike Scotland, Wales or Ulster, they do not possess a parliament or assembly of their own, having to make do with Westminster which of course affords representation to all of the other constituent nations of the Union. The English, should they wish to do so, could neither therefore secede from the UK nor from the EU for they possess no representative body.

One party has as its primary concern the creation of a specifically English parliament – the English Democrats – and in the past year UKIP too has toyed with this idea. However, such an institution is not necessary to disentangle ourselves from the devolutionary mess in which we find ourselves. What we should aim for instead, is for Westminster to be both the English and UK Parliament, but for Scottish, Welsh and Ulster MPs to be debarred from voting on matters of policy that are devolved to their own institutions such as education and health, with English MPs alone voting upon, and devising policies for England, in these spheres. MPs from the devolved nations would still retain voting rights in matters relating to foreign policy and other aspects of non-devolved policy. Such a solution would be equitable, truly democratic and would also preserve the Union. However, as Scotland, Wales and Ulster possess the right to secede, this right ought also to be granted to England and the English Parliament at Westminster. It would also ensure – for better or for worse – that the UK could maintain its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, for membership would almost certainly not be inherited by a rump Union under England’s leadership in the event of Scotland’s secession. Although the Russian Federation inherited the USSR’s permanent seat following the dissolution of the latter state at the end of 1991, this pattern would not be replicated for a truncated UK.

Scottish independence could lead to a host of problems, not least, should a party ever come to power in England with the serious intent of tackling the question of mass immigration, by introducing the potential need for border controls between the two states. Given the SNP’s desire to increase Scotland’s population through mass immigration – a curiously anti-national position for any self-avowed nationalist party to take – such a system of border controls would regrettably have to be imposed.

The Union between England and Scotland came into formal existence in 1707, but with the exception of the Interregnum, the two countries have been united under the same crown since 1603. Both have gained much from the Union, and would also have much to lose were it to end. 

The Economist's humorous and controversial take on an independent Scotland: 'Skintland'

 

Census indicates surge in Muslim population

Today saw the release of the first data sets from the 2011 census by the Office for National Statistics, and whereas early indications were that the population of England and Wales would have surged by more than three million, the actual figure turned out to be higher than officially expected: an increase of 3.7 million. This was the fastest rate of population increase measured since the first census was taken in 1801, and takes the average population density for England to 407 people per square kilometre. If we exclude the essentially urban microstates of Monaco, the Vatican and Malta, England is now the most densely populated country in Europe, closely followed by the Netherlands at 404 per square kilometre. This increase is alarming, and all three of the parties of government that have presided over this increase must acknowledge responsibility for this unacceptable de facto open borders policy (see a statement by David Willetts in December last year advocating an influx of labour).

The data thus far released deal only with "age and sex, and occupied households estimates for England and for Wales". The more interesting data on ethnicity and religion it would seem will not be forthcoming for quite some time. What is clear though is that the vast proportion of the population increase will have been driven by immigration and higher fertility amongst sections of the immigrant-descended population. An alarming indication of what to expect is provided by the identities of the two local authorities with the fastest population growth rates in England: Tower Hamlets and Newham. In 2001, Newham had the second highest proportion of Muslims in the UK at 24.3% of the total, whereas Tower Hamlets, according to 2010 estimates, was 36.4% Muslim. Likewise, Bradford has displayed an increase significantly higher than the national norm. What clearer illustration of demographic Islamisation could be provided?

The census has demonstrated that England has suffered disproportionately from mass immigration, with the increase in its population accounting for 3.56 million of the 3.72 million total. This is not only undesirable, but completely unsustainable and reckless. The natural dynamics of our native population can be seen in the ONS graph below, for if we look at the figures for 1971 to 1981, we see a slight decline. This is the population trajectory towards which we should be aiming, considering the gross overpopulation of our country. Irrespective of the figures contained in the census, there is one overriding certainty: they represent a significant underestimate of the true figure. Many will not have bothered to complete the census return, including obviously those who have arrived here illegally. What their numbers are, we cannot hazard to say with any degree of accuracy, but at a minimum we should reckon upon a million illegal immigrants. According to one report that appeared in The Independent in 2007, senior and reliable sources claimed that the UK population was already between 77 and 80 million. The latter figure certainly tallied with the reckoning of one of the country's large supermarket chains.

Mass immigration has contributed towards an absurd situation in which we are told repeatedly that even at a time of extensive flooding we need to cut down on our domestic water consumption, and that compulsory metering is the answer. Then there is the pressure on our housing stock, for even in Wales for example, a story ran on the BBC website two days ago revealing that planners project that Cardiff's population will rise by a quarter by 2026 and have thus allocated land for the construction of 45,000 new homes. If that is to happen in Wales, what will happen in England? Our countryside, with its distinctive landscape, its farms and wildlife are under threat from our leaders' addiction to population growth. What of the permanent phenomenon of mass unemployment that bedevils our country, and of the underemployment of many graduates? Are these concerns to be ignored as irrelevant and "unscientific", swept aside by an oligrarchic elite that cares not about the welfare of the people it claims to represent? Probably.

England, of course, is not the only country to be buckling under the weight of immigration originating predominantly from outside of Europe, for the arrival of a vast number of illegal immigrants from countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia, is in Greece placing an intense strain upon a state and people already in grave crisis.

As to the reporting of these initial census results, the BBC, as is its wont, is not referring to "immigration", but to "migration"; this difference in linguistic usage being quite intentional, "migration" being employed with a view to making this unprecedented phenomenon appear to be in the natural order of things, and to be legitimate. It is in fact, neither. The most objective reporting of these results by a well-known body is likely to be forthcoming from Migration Watch.The Balkanisation of our country continues apace.

UPDATE: For the 2011 Census results relating to the Muslim population, click here.

England's high-density housing: we deserve better

Ed Miliband’s bloodless Conception of Englishness

This morning Ed Miliband delivered a speech at the Royal Festival Hall, ostensibly addressing the question of England and its relationship to the United Kingdom, even touching upon the nature of English identity whilst predictably recoiling from recognising the English as a distinct people. Naturally, the fate of the United Kingdom is of rather more than theoretical concern to the Labour Party, for if Scotland were to become independent, it would remove a large tranche of Labour MPs from Westminster, perhaps depriving the party of the chance to again form a government in a truncated union or England.

That Miliband has bothered to mention England and the English highlights growing Labour concern that the party has lost touch with the English working class, and must be seen as in all likelihood prompted by Jon Cruddas who is working on a policy review intended to renew Labour’s appeal to its traditional support base. Whereas Miliband’s speech was not billed as such, its content could thus be viewed as presaging the tentative introduction of the ‘Blue Labour’ concept (although 'Blue Labour' is said to have been "effectively disbanded" in July 2011, the party would be wise to heed its recommendations with respect to immigration and its critique of neoliberalism) of which Cruddas is said to be one of the leading exponents, occupying to a certain extent the territory claimed by the ‘Red Tory’ idea. Although both seek to capitalise upon a sense of English alienation from mainstream political parties generated by the latter’s promotion of globalisation and mass immigration, the ‘Blue Labour’ and ‘Red Tory’ approaches affect concern about these issues, whilst neither tackling them nor wishing to do so. Each is fashioned so as to present a reassuring message to the electorate, an anodyne for the dying English patient which is being ushered out of existence to make way for new blood from overseas.

Returning to the ‘substance’ of Ed Miliband’s speech, he emphasised how he believes that “multiple allegiances” are stronger than single ones and that the “debate about nationhood and identity can’t be left to one part of the United Kingdom.” As ever, although this speech was billed as being about England and Englishness, Miliband could not restrain his enthusiasm for globalist internationalism from breaking through, referring to the need “to embrace a positive outward looking version of English identity” and an outward looking patriotism. Heaven forbid that the English should for a moment reflect and perceive themselves to be a distinct nation and people bound by common ties of culture, history, language and descent!

Miliband, as in previous speeches, employed the parental refugee theme, outlining his parents’ flight from Nazism and subsequent settlement in England, which whilst offering them “a new home . . . allowed them to stay true to who they were.” In this way, he underscored his belief in multiculturalism: “Britain is a country where you can have more than one identity; more than one home.” Yes, that is the case, but it does not strike me as desirable for swathes of the population here not only to self-identify as Pakistanis, but to also possess Pakistani passports, Pakistani attitudes and a Pakistani animus towards the English. “Multiple allegiances” in this case are no “source of strength”, but rather one of discord and weakness.

One of the most striking aspects of Miliband’s speech was that he repeatedly referred to the Scots, the Welsh and the English and the “false choice” that was proffered between these various identities and Britishness. Of course, in this respect he is correct, for we are all native peoples of the island of Britain and thus by definition simultaneously a member of one of these three peoples and British, but it did seem to be telling that he did not acknowledge the real problems that can arise from cleft identities nurtured by multiculturalism such as ‘British’-Somali or ‘British’-Pakistani, etc.

In mentioning English culture, Miliband emphasised that musicians, artists and scientists were characterised by their “constantly moving across national boundaries”, and his speech was peppered with references to being “outward looking” and “internationalist”. In other words, whilst purporting to address and acknowledge the importance of England and Englishness, Miliband was simultaneously reducing England to a territorial expression and Englishness to a bloodless malleable cultural construct essentially devoid of substance, continuity and distinctiveness. By adopting such a vapid approach to the question of England and Englishness, Miliband was thereby able to talk about “English identity [which for the Labour Party] has tended to be a completely closed book that people have shied away from.” Although Miliband may today have opened a book whose cover displayed the Cross of St George, its contents consisted of the same old Labour globalist internationalism. Whilst those such as Miliband may think that Englishness consists of nothing more than a flag and a bit of bunting, the English themselves know this not to be the case.

Uncomfortable in their own Skin

Friday’s attempt to break the world record for mass participation dance should have been spectacle enough in itself, yet the sight that beheld Plymothians proved to be jaw-dropping for quite another reason. According to The Plymouth Herald, children from a number of local schools took part in The Big Dance overseen by Plymouth Dance, with more than 200 participating in the city’s Piazza, whilst a further thousand danced elsewhere across the city. This therefore was no ordinary Saturday, but what was it that proved to be so visually arresting and unusual about the group of dancers in the city centre?

For some bizarre reason, three of the boys leading the group had been made to don black masks. Why? It was not, to the best of my knowledge, some homage to The Black and White Minstrel Show, so just what was going on here? Why were these children compelled to black up? Who made them do this? What underpinning rationale was offered? Does anybody know? Do you know?

Unlike many of our cities, Plymouth possesses a generally relaxed atmosphere and remains essentially English. Like anywhere, it has its problems of course, and Union Street at night can get a little unruly, but the sense of edgy unease that is palpable in many of our ethnically fragmented urban areas is lacking here. It would seem perhaps that the decision to compel the boys to black up was taken precisely because Plymouth, and Devon more widely, are English. The English, like other closely-related northern European peoples, are of course white. Why this should be perceived to be in any way problematic or contentious is beyond me, but for some people of a globalist inclination it clearly is. Were the black masks supposed to embody the racially dubious assertion that blacks possess natural rhythm whereas whites do not? Were they supposed to make the crowd of dancers look, to borrow Greg Dyke’s dreadful phrase, less ‘hideously white’? Whatever the reason underpinning the use of these peculiar props, what impact must they have had upon the psychology of the boys wearing them, upon their fellow dancers and those who saw them? Were they not used to make them feel, quite literally, uncomfortable in their own skins? Was it any more legitimate than forcing young Nigerians in Lagos to dance ballet wearing white masks, or for Zulus studying science to white up? Such would seem to be the absurd message implicit in yesterday’s display.

Devon is a beautiful county which largely retains its distinctive character, yet it would seem that for some this distinctiveness and the rootedness of its population is in itself something to feel ashamed of, as exemplified in Emma Thompson’s ugly outburst at Exeter University in 2010, when she stated that the city and Devon were too white. How strange. How insulting. Has anyone ever heard this woman aver that Nigeria is too black; Japan too yellow, or Pakistan too brown? I have not heard her call for these countries to be made more white, or state that she finds it odd that their populations are drawn predominantly from their native ethnic and racial groups. The ethnic and racial masochism displayed by Thompson would appear to have been what bubbled to the surface and found expression once again on Friday in Plymouth. The propagation of this misplaced sense of white racial guilt and self-loathing must be stopped. My message to those children who took part would be this: ignore what your teachers tell you about race; there is no reason to feel guilty about being white. Feel comfortable in your own skin, and don’t feel that you have to wear a black one to be able to dance. 

Plymouth Boys forced to black up 

Skylarks or Somalis: The Real Housing Crisis

The song of the skylark shall be stilled, and the land once farmed will lie untilled; the pipistrelles no longer flit through the dusk, for Cameron has decreed it thus. A new city is to rise upon what was once countryside, between Coventry and Birmingham. Some 100,000 new homes will be built as part of a plan to resolve an avoidable crisis, brought about by this government and its predecessors: a crisis of overpopulation and consequent housing shortage.

This proposal however, relates to but a fraction of the building deemed necessary to address the needs of a population explosion engendered by what is effectively an open borders policy. If, it is claimed, these ‘needs’ are to be met, then two million homes will have to be built between now and 2020. Two million homes in a mere 8 years: 250,000 homes per year. Is this not insanity, when we have recourse to the straightforward and logical alternative of zero net migration?

The population of England in this short period is projected to rise by 4.4 million. Whence comes this unprecedented increase? According to The Daily Telegraph:

Most of the population growth will come through an excess of births over deaths — including a rise in longevity — rather than through direct immigration. Many of the fastest-growing areas are those that have seen an influx of migrants in recent years, and are now seeing higher birth rates.

This is disingenuous, for the rate of immigration remains at near record levels, and is changing the character of our country far more than superficially suggested by the raw net figures, for there are also hundreds of thousands of indigenous people who leave our country every year. Moreover, as the Telegraph notes, the birth rates are highest amongst immigrant groups. Amongst the English, the birth rate is at sub-replacement levels. Why then should we cover our precious countryside in concrete and tarmac for the sake of a governmental obsession with the global free movement of labour, and a denial of our indigenous birthright to determine our own fate, and who may and who may not reside in our own land? This crisis is not of our making, but has been brought about by the globalists of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democratic parties, and the advocates of globalism in both big business and the trade union movement.

We do not have a housing crisis - we have a population crisis; rather than requiring more homes, we require fewer people. Will the Conservative Party acknowledge let alone address this problem? No. Why not write to your MP and let them know that we have a population crisis and not a housing crisis. Does the destruction of our countryside for no real reason add to the quality of our lives, or detract from it? The answer seems clear enough to me. What is it to be: skylarks or Somalis?

A Nation in search of a State

This week witnessed the death of Ray Honeyford, the former Bradford Headmaster who had the integrity to speak the truth about the ruinous consequences of multiculturalism, and paid for this with his career. Honeyford, like Enoch Powell, was an outspoken and prescient man of principle who paid a heavy price for speaking the truth. Vilified, scapegoated and threatened with death, this good man was to be proven right, despite the professional naysayers within the race relations and ‘diversity’ industry. Alas, Honeyford has not been the only individual to have had their career destroyed for the sake of protecting the multiculturalist diversity dogma, although other cases have usually received less publicity or none at all. 

Ray Honeyford

 

The ritual purging of personnel in the name of "tolerance" is now endemic within the public sector, with employers enforcing a rigid code that frightens people into obedience, destroys rational decision-making and promotes ethnic mediocrities above capable, enthusiastic indigenous talent. Once ensconced within their managerial positions, the ethnic minority mediocrities play the race and religion cards to cover their deficiencies, and seek to engineer the ingress and promotion of others belonging to their group. Such widespread malpractice is not only ignored, but also actively encouraged. Without the underpinning state legislation, this would never have been able to happen.

In the same week that Honeyford died, we witnessed Neil O’Brien of Policy Exchange writing a piece in The Telegraph and appearing on Radio 4 talking about the “challenges” of “integration” now that English first language speakers are in a minority in London schools. This in itself is bad enough, but it is also something of a jolt to learn that 16.8% of all state primary schoolchildren in 2011 had “English as an additional language”. This prompted O’Brien to pose the following questions:

“But will children with English as a second language grow up to feel British, to get jobs and to feel included?

I think that is the bigger challenge, and the statistics above make me think it is a likely to be a rapidly growing one.”

Rapidly growing? Unfortunately, yes. O’Brien’s interview with Radio 4 was entitled ‘Is second language English an issue for children?’It strikes me as odd, although not surprising, that the BBC should choose to frame the question from the perspective of immigrant children, for is this matter not one of rather greater concern for the host society, and its increasingly ignored and marginalised custodians: the English? O’Brien’s concern with “inclusion” may to a certain extent be justified, but what we English in particular feel increasingly uneasy with and alarmed about is the mass scale of the immigrant influx and the demographic fecundity of the immigrant population. This theme has very much been in the air this week, with Alasdair Palmer of The Telegraph penning a piece entitled ‘Multiculturalism has left Britain with a toxic legacy’. This conclusion is one that is difficult to disagree with. However, when it comes to the question of “integration”, it strikes me that mainstream commentators are rather missing the point.

The size of the immigrant population is now such that it is not possible to integrate it effectively. Whereas immigration pre-1948 was on a relatively small scale and those who arrived largely assimilated and blended into the indigenous population, what has occurred since has not so much been mass immigration, but mass colonisation. London is now effectively a non-English city, and I no longer regard it as our capital in any meaningful sense, for it has become another land (this transformation was examined in the earlier article Celebrities note the Death of London). Given this fact, why should we wish to “integrate” with incomers who by dint of their numbers threaten not only to displace us, but also to replace us? The task is not so much “integration” as “preservation” of our native peoples and their rights.

First and foremost therefore, it is necessary that the English and other native peoples of Britain be recognised as indigenous and accorded the right to national self-determination. Those who have come amongst us, except for the small minority who came as genuine spouses of native Britons, should never have been granted citizenship. As a consequence of the mass settlement of other peoples in our country, our nation-state is becoming a hollowed-out shell, which although purporting to represent us, has largely ceased to do so, functioning instead as part of the anti-democratic apparatus of globalism. As such, our sense of allegiance to it is crumbling. Our society is Balkanising at a rapid rate and effectively dying, yet we possess no credible political party to tackle this phenomenon. The Conservatives are just as much the midwives of multicultural Britain as Labour and the Liberal Democrats, and having acted as such, they will in all likelihood be our undertakers too.

The social contract between the state and the nation has been broken. We native Britons – particularly the English - are now effectively a nation in search of a state. If we should not be able to take back the apparatus of the state in future, then may not consideration have to be given to how we can effectively replace it? May it in fact some day be necessary to declare secession from Westminster and set up our own state within a state? Without doing so, what future do we have as a people? None, it would seem. Sedition? No. The nation - the body of the native people - is sovereign, not the machinery of the state or the monarchy. Millions of incomers have been given citizenship and the vote by the state, and not unsurprisingly, they feel comfortable with more of their own coming here. It should not however be their right to determine either our future or the future of our country, for this would violate our inalienable right to national self-determination. How strange it would seem to our ancestors were they to see us now, having to contemplate such an admittedly outlandish idea as a struggle for national liberation? But, it is just such a struggle that now starkly presents itself to us. 

Before closing, I shall return to Ray Honeyford and an article penned by Leo Mckinstry for the Daily Mail. In this, it is clear that Mckinstry disapproves of today’s race legislation, and its attendant repressive professional apparatus that justifies its existence through creating an “atmosphere of synthetic outrage”. Mckinstry writes:

 “When Honeyford wrote his article, he was branded a heretic. His words had to be suppressed, his influence crushed. But that did not stop him being right.”

“In the name of promoting tolerance, race-fixated zealots exercise the most extreme intolerance, suppressing free debate and indulging in witch-hunts against anyone who dissents from their creed of multi-cultural diversity.”

I do not dissent from Mckinstry’s conclusions on this score. It is a pity that we do not, as yet, possess a credible nationalist party, to which figures such as Mckinstry could lend their support. This is the task that confronts us: to build such a political force. It needs to be done soon, but not in haste, for its goals, policies, strategy and tactics need to be thought through clearly and rationally. Many claim to have given up on such an approach to the solution of the problems that face our nation today, but I have not. 

Below is a new video produced by fellow blogger British Activism. In it, he highlights the issues dealt with in this article in a rather black-humoured fashion. Although the accompanying soundtrack is Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Smashie and Nicey don’t get to introduce it. His efforts deserve to be acknowledged, so if you would like to express your approval, please do visit his blog Independent British Nationalist.

Imagining England: Spielberg’s War Horse

The lives and works of actors, actresses and celebrity producers are followed closely enough (usually too closely for my taste) in the mainstream press and electronic media, and it is they who are generally regarded as the stars of the productions in which they are involved. Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s children’s novel War Horse however, whilst by definition being renowned for the leading role of its equine protagonist (in reality four horses), possessed another remarkable star: the English countryside.

The scenes of rural England are sure to have captivated foreign audiences, both those familiar with the country and those who have yet to visit. Given the commercial success of the film, it would seem certain of assuring a certain boost to the tourism industry at a number of its locations. Dartmoor, where the story begins and ends, displayed its unique charm, and many a location could be recognised by keen-eyed viewers familiar with the county. The hoteliers of Tavistock should take cheer from the publicity afforded to their unspoilt corner of England, but whether or not visitors will enjoy sunshine during their stay is an altogether different matter, for the verdant moss found in the woods and along the shady riverbanks is there for a reason: it rains a great deal.

  

Sheepstor over Burrator Reservoir

To any Englishman or woman familiar with the vernacular architectural styles of the country, some amusement was afforded by the disjuncture between the family farm high on Dartmoor, and what was supposed to be the local Devon town which was in reality the Cotswold village of Castle Combe in Wiltshire some 140 miles away (quite a distance to travel to your local horse market). Nonetheless, the beauty of Castle Combe itself gives explanation enough as to why it was chosen as a location that could be passed off convincingly as an English village on the eve of the Great War. Although many Devon villages have retained a certain degree of character from the time in which the film was set, subsequent development has rendered them less suitable for convincing location filming than many of the villages that can be found in the Cotswolds. Eagle-eyed viewers will, for example, have spotted a modern barn in one of the scenes shot on the edge of Dartmoor.

A scene much later in the film representing the Western Front, whilst also being located in England, reminded me of somewhere altogether different: second century Germania, for viewers of the film Gladiator may have noted that the opening battle scenes in that film were also shot at Bourne Wood in Surrey.

War Horse is shot through with Spielberg’s sentimental vision, but it is a visually arresting film in which Janusz Kamiński’s cinematography manages to evoke the timeless atmosphere of the English countryside, and sometimes makes us think as if the intervening horrors of two world wars and the subsequent demographic changes that have befallen our country had never taken place. It is an England populated by English people, albeit often with dodgy West Country accents that seem to veer into Irish. Albion as it was then was not perfect, but with respect to the problems that then existed, there was an optimism that they could be solved, as many of them were. Today, such optimism seems to have largely evaporated. Not only therefore does War Horse present us with a glimpse into the vanished England of our forebears, but also in doing so it begs us to contrast it with the state of our country and our people today. Whether we choose a tomorrow that is more in tune with the world of those who went before us, or with those who have of late come amongst us, is up to you. 

Castle Combe

“No, I want to go to Europe”

So responded a man to a Radio 4 interviewer who asked him whether he wished to remain in Libya or go to Europe. From the manner in which the question was framed and the response received, one could be forgiven for thinking that the interviewee was a native of the named continent, for why else would the interviewer pose the question in the form of a choice between Libya or ‘Europe’ (by which one assumes he meant the EU)? In fact, that proved not to be the case, for the man was a migrant worker from Nigeria. Knowing this to be so, why did not the interviewer instead enquire “Do you and other migrant workers intend to stay in Libya, or return home?”

That the interviewer should have posed the question in this way displays, yet again, the wearisome bias of BBC journalists, who appear intent upon reducing England to an ethnically and culturally balkanised ‘global village’ in miniature, populated predominantly by non-indigenes. Although such an eventuality may be viewed in indulgent soft-focus by BBC staff and the multiculturalists of our main political parties, this represents an emergent dystopian rather than utopian future, although of course, it would literally result in England becoming a ‘utopia’, that is, a ‘nowhere’.  The human lineaments of this ‘nowhere’ are already becoming clearly defined in what was once London. It is up to you, dear reader, to help ensure that in future we do not wistfully refer to what was once England.

The thousands of sub-Saharan migrants who worked in Libya under Gaddafi did so in a variety of capacities, many working for the regime during its dying days as mercenaries. Some of the latter have been implicated in atrocities; others of course, will have been entirely innocent of such wrongdoing. Irrespective of the roles that these migrants fulfilled, for ill or for good, they are no longer welcome in Libya. Where they will head has already been indicated, and as a good proportion of them hail from Anglophone states such as Nigeria, we must expect a surge in ‘asylum’ applications and illegal immigration from this source, which will be accompanied by hard lobbying from various advocacy groups in the UK.

One of the most vocal groups will consist of their ethnic kin who have already established settlements in England in areas such as Peckham, who not unnaturally seek to augment their number within our shores. These will find support from specialist ‘human rights’ and ‘refugee’ organisations as well as from the BBC, the three main political parties and significant sections of the press. David Cameron and William Hague, having abused their control of the RAF to repeatedly bomb Libya, will no doubt seek to allow the ingress of these ‘refugees’ (in reality economic migrants) as a means of expiating their war guilt, which will be projected outwards onto the British people as a whole. “We”, they shall say, “have a duty to these people”. No, we do not.

Those who wish to see the death of England, and of European nations and peoples more generally, will welcome the influx of these sub-Saharan economic migrants, many of whom, by dint of their role in Libya, will be innately violent. Most of us however, will not, for we do not share the ethnically submissive lachrymose sentiments of the interviewer on this morning’s Today Programme. For us, the Libyan tragedy is not yet over, for its long-term repercussions have yet to be fully felt at home; repercussions moreover, which could be avoided altogether if only we had a government which adhered to what governments are supposed to do: to place the interests of those whom it purports to represent foremost.  

England and Wales Police Crime Website Crashes

Have you managed to successfully visit http://www.police.uk/ today? I’ve not. Apparently, traffic has been so heavy that the servers have been unable to cope. According to a BBC report, it has been receiving up to five million hits per hour, which, it must be said is pretty high. It certainly bears testimony to the public’s interest in crime in their immediate neighbourhood. The crime-mapping website covers England and Wales but does not, so far as I am aware, include a facility to look into bank boardrooms.

Is it a good thing? I’m not so sure. For example, if you were a burglar might you not choose to use the site to identify streets which had not already been plundered? It could therefore make for an excellent burglar’s resource, which does seem to have been something of an oversight on the part of its designers.

Reflections on British Nationalism and the Foundation of the British Freedom Party: Part 2

Recognising the Boundaries of Belonging
Since the advent of the Blair era in particular, mainstream politicians and journalists have repeated the mantras that “Britain is a nation of immigrants” and that “the British cannot define themselves because we don’t know who we are”. The first of these mantras is of course an act of tendentious distortion, comparing distinctly unlike phenomena taking place over vastly differing timescales. The second is an out and out lie, unless the referents of this statement are taken to be those who happen to be recent immigrants (i.e. those who have arrived in the post-WWII era) or their descendants.

Although Daniel Defoe’s poem of 1701 – A True-Born Englishman – is often cited as a precursor to the contemporary multicultural dogma, in truth Defoe wrote this piece specifically with a view to ridiculing a wave of anti-Dutch xenophobia then abroad in England that extended to attacks on ordinary law-abiding residents of Dutch descent. It is worth quoting the most famous passage from the poem to set the context:

Thus from a mixture of all kinds began,
That het'rogeneous thing, an Englishman:
In eager rapes, and furious lust begot
Betwixt a painted Britain and a Scot.
Whose gend'ring off-spring quickly learn'd to bow,
And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough:
From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came,
With neither name, nor nation, speech nor fame.
In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran,
Infus'd betwixt a Saxon and a Dane
While their rank daughters, to their parents just,
Receiv'd all nations with promiscuous lust.
This nauseous brood directly did contain
The well-extracted blood of Englishmen.

Note that Defoe compresses the history of 1800 years into 14 lines, enumerating the various peoples who had had some input into the genetic and cultural inheritance of the English. Nowhere does he make reference to Saxon, Danish or Roman ‘communities’ as this would have been (and still is) errant nonsense. All of these strands, drawn from closely related European peoples, had become woven into a single people who saw themselves as a distinct nation: the English. The historical migrations of peoples to the British Isles took place over millennia, and although open to various interpretations, recent studies suggest that the genetic input from elsewhere after the Neolithic period was relatively modest. The closest genetic relatives of the English, particularly those resident in the West of the country, remain the Basques, even though there is nothing in recorded history about any Basque migration. Our ties reach back into deep prehistory (see ‘The Origins of the British’, Stephen Oppenheimer, 2006).

I raise the question of genetics not because I believe that the English are a ‘pure race’, for this is in the same realm of fantasy as the idea that we are ‘a nation of immigrants’, but because it highlights the reality of the current politically motivated desire to erase English identity and English conceptions of nationhood. There is a real continuity, genetic and cultural, between the people who inhabited what we now know as England in prehistory, and those who today know themselves to be the English. However, we English only exist for many in the media and political class when there is call for an imperialist bogey, for somebody to blame for the woes of the world and to pay for them. Then suddenly, we become all too readily identifiable, even though the architects of the imperial design were the ruling stratum who dispossessed our own humble forebears of their rights to common land and an independent existence.

In England, the English constitute a readily identifiable indigenous people, and as such we deserve the right to political self-determination and primacy within our own land. Is it so wrong for us to demand this right in line with indigenous peoples elsewhere? I think not.

Who then, I hear you ask, is English? The answer is straightforward: if you are a UK citizen who lives in England and you have to ask yourself the question “Am I English?” then patently you are not. If the question should pop into your head “Am I Pakistani, or am I English” or “Am I Nigerian, or am I English?” then you are not English, but a resident Pakistani or Nigerian UK passport holder. In such cases you hold the same civil rights as every other citizen, but you are in no respects English, and it is precisely because of this cleft identity, this split loyalty, that you should not have a determining voice in the future of England, for it is not your land to dispose of. Such people have an ethnic homeland as we do, and should not see it as a right to colonise and take ours.

For someone to simply turn up in the UK and to receive citizenship under our current immigration regime does not in any way magically impart to them the quality of being ‘British’, ‘English’, ‘Welsh’, ‘Scottish’ or ‘Irish’. Whereas in bygone centuries those who settled here gradually lost their ties with their lands of origin and were absorbed into the host population and dominant culture through intermarriage, those who have come in recent decades have not done so. Why is this so? The reasons are quite straightforward and are derived from the radically different set of historical conditions that have arisen since the Second World War. These have militated against the absorption of incomers and promoted a heightening of perceived difference as well as its perpetuation, and can be characterised as political, legal, technological, sociological and economic. Importantly, there is also the scale and pace of immigration to consider. This dwarfs anything previously described in the historical record and in itself has thus acted as a barrier to the absorption of incomers.

Political factors militating against absorption into the host society and identification with its culture include: the official promotion of multiculturalism through schooling, employment law, the mainstream media and the university system. These are underpinned by ‘hate’ laws. Ethnopluralism is vigorously promoted as are minority religious beliefs associated with non-indigenous peoples. Anyone opposing the official multiculturalist dogma is stigmatised and barred from taking positions of influence in the state sector.

The word ‘revolution’ is much overused, but its application to communications technology in the latter part of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is apposite. New modes of transport including intercontinental flights facilitate the mass transit of people from Asia and Africa to the UK, whereas distance and expense would previously have debarred such a movement of people, as would have the many states that lie between our islands and their lands. Telecommunications ensure that once immigrants arrive here they never have to feel that they our out of touch with their country of origin: the telephone and satellite television followed by the internet have allowed diasporas to keep in touch with the mother country without feeling any great psychological need to adapt to the culture of their new home which is itself denigrated and denied by the UK’s political and cultural oligarchy (the same situation can be found across most Western European countries).

Sociologically, immigrants increasingly cleave to their own identities and cultures because of the aforementioned factors. Some groups, such as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, constantly replenish and reinforce their ancestral cultures through the importation of ill-educated rural dwellers (usually close relatives) from their homelands via chain migration. Our law allows for so-called ‘family reunion’. I’ve nothing against family reunion, but shouldn’t it be in the family’s land of origin? Looking at the increasing social fragmentation and atomisation of the receiving society, these immigrants tend to feel more comfortable in their own ethno-communal networks and cultural contexts. Although some people from such backgrounds have come to identify with and adopt the host culture, most have not. This is particularly true of those with Muslim identities who tend to define themselves against indigenous British norms and values.

Economics plays a role in the promotion of ethnic fragmentation and mass immigration because immigrant labour can be used by those within our ruling oligarchy (I prefer to use this term rather than ‘elite’, because I do not think that the oligarchy necessarily contains our ‘best’, even if some of them may be amongst our ‘brightest') to make handsome profits by undermining domestic labour rates. In summary, multiculturalism and mass immigration are favoured by those who control the levers of the economy because these mechanisms can net them huge profits. Whereas ordinary indigenous Britons suffer, members of the ruling oligarchy can afford to insulate themselves from the deleterious impact of their policies by living in exclusive residential areas (often rural) and by sending their offspring to private schools where they do not have to mix with the polyglot multifaith multitude that are a significant burden on state schools.

Having outlined the reasons why there are now many UK citizens who have no sense of affiliation with the native peoples of the British Isles, I can however say that there are many people in England (Scotland and Wales too) who can recall that some of their ancestors entered the country from elsewhere such as Poland or Italy, but over the generations have been assimilated through intermarriage and adoption of the native culture. I regard these people as English, certainly more English than someone who can trace their ancestry here back ten generations who has converted to Islam. Those who convert to Islam consciously turn their backs not only upon their nation but also their ethnicity, their culture and Western Civilisation: there never has been and never will be such a creature as a Muslim Englishman or woman. The concepts are antithetical. A non-Muslim individual of Jamaican descent who loves England and English culture is more English than an ethnic English Muslim convert, for the former has chosen to embrace our heritage and identity, whilst the latter has spat upon it. Such an example I take to illustrate the concept of cultural nationalism.

Reflections on British Nationalism and the Foundation of the British Freedom Party: Part 1

Introduction
Following months of rancour within the BNP, a group of reformists has announced the creation of the British Freedom Party (BFP). Its founding has been precipitated by their failure to effectively challenge Nick Griffin’s hold on the leadership of the party and to introduce mechanisms for the democratic formulation of party policy and the appointment of key personnel. Furthermore, there were questions connected to a lack of transparency relating to party accounts and allegations of an absence of financial probity at the top of the party.

Thus, the imperative for the emergence of the new party was not ideological, but procedural. The BFP is therefore presumably what its founders would have liked the BNP to have become had the Nick Griffin/Jim Dowson clique either stepped down or been dislodged. That said, one of the leading voices amongst the BFP is Lee Barnes, the BNP’s former ‘legal eagle’, who fell out with Griffin then swiftly fell in with the reformist camp led by Eddy Butler who sought to challenge Griffin for the party leadership. Being a prolific blogger and commentator on nationalist forums, Barnes has to date been the main source of information about the BFP and its ideological stance. For Barnes, the BFP is not a party founded upon racial nationalism, ethno-nationalism or civic nationalism, but upon cultural nationalism. In effect, this is a beefed-up civic nationalism with a greater emphasis upon the cultural assimilation of the immigrant population.

The objectives of the BFP published on the Advanced Ape blog are certainly ones to which I subscribe:

The objects of the Party shall exist to defend and restore the freedoms, traditions, unity, identity, democracy and independence of the British people, to establish full sovereignty over all our national affairs by restoring the supremacy of the British Parliament, to withdraw from the European Union, to promote democratic British nationalist principles, to promote the social, economic, environmental and cultural interests of the British people and to preserve and promote the ancestral rights and liberties of the British people as enshrined in the British Constitution.

The BFP now enters a crowded field of parties touting for the nationalist vote, for besides the BNP there are also UKIP, the English Democrats, the National Front (NF) and the England First Party (EFP). There are probably other miniscule groupings that I have not mentioned, but if I’ve not heard of them, you can guarantee that they certainly will not make a breakthrough. Besides these, we have the anti-Islamisation street movement of the English Defence League (EDL). None, in my opinion, possess the right mix of policies, objectives and organisation to be able to make a mainstream breakthrough at the current time. All lack credibility. What is equally clear is that there has never been a greater need for a moderate nationalist party to break through into the mainstream. Before proceeding to outline why, it will first be necessary to clarify my terms.

Why Nationalism? What is Nationalism?
I recognise that my reasons for favouring nationalism will not be shared by many others who describe themselves as nationalists, and this of course grows out of the fact that what is meant by the term ‘nationalism’ is hotly disputed and possesses a wide variety of definitions. So, before venturing further I shall provide a definition of what I consider to be a ‘nation’ (as those of you familiar with theoretical writings on this subject will note, my position shares a great deal with that of A.D. Smith), but given the limited scope of this piece I shall at this stage neither go into great depth nor provide bibliographic citations in line with standard academic practice as used in the Harvard System.

An ethnie is a group defined by a combination of common biological descent, common culture and common history. These are the preconditions upon which a collective ethnic sentiment is forged and rests; without these, there can be no distinct ‘we’. A nation is a politically mobilised ethnie that is either in possession of a state, is actively seeking statehood, or has lost statehood and is seeking its restoration. Mobilisation thus proceeds upon the basis of securing the interests (however they may be defined) of the nation as a whole. Nationalism therefore represents the purest form of democratic politics, for the nation and the demos and their interests are identified as one. Without seeking to further the interests of the nation, politicians of whatever stated hue are acting against the well-being of the demos, and are thus by definition anti-democrats. Politicians and journalists who act against the interests of the nation use pejorative terms such as ‘populism’ and ‘demagoguery’ to stigmatise the genuine articulation of the people’s interests and opinions by anti-oligarchic rivals.

Nationalism therefore, is nothing more than the political pursuit of the well-being of the members of a given nation. It is the purest expression of democratic principles and thus stands opposed to oligarchy and globalism. Thus, unlike what its leftist detractors claim, nationalism is not an ideology of ‘hate’; nationalism is not ‘xenophobic’; nationalism is not synonymous with imperialism (in fact, genuine nationalists deplore imperialism for they recognise the rights of other nations to self-determination and free political expression) and nationalism is not ‘racist’. Nationalism defines itself in a positive fashion by pursuing what is best for the people collectively, not through seeking conflict with other nations.

Nationalism seeks to liberate the potential of all members of the nation, not of any one class or special interest group. This is why those on the Left detest nationalism, for they are wedded to the belief that international class identities trump all others, and that nations should be ‘smashed’ to usher in their Socialist or Communist Millennium. Nationalism stands for pluralism and true diversity, whereas the visions of leftists and capitalist globalists seek a totalitarian uniformity.

I therefore define myself as a nationalist because I wish to see the best for the members my nation collectively; the nation provides the best context in which individuals can flourish and reach their full potential. I wish to see other peoples also concern themselves with building better lives and futures for their own nations. Nationalism represents the best path for the whole of humanity, and does not in and of itself lead to conflict.

Nationalism is not imperialism. Nationalism is not fascism. Nationalism is not Nazism. Nationalism does not entail ethnic cleansing. Nationalism is democracy in action. Nationalism promotes the conservation of resources and the environment. Nationalism is diversity.

Globalism generates hate. Globalism generates conflict. Globalism facilitates economic imperialism. Globalism is oligarchy in action. Globalism promotes the degradation of resources and the environment. Globalism is uniformity.

Which Nation is Mine?
For all of the above reasons I am a nationalist, but of what type? I am English. In those three words there is much significance, for although I also see myself as British, as European and more widely (moving into the realm of ideological belonging) a Westerner and a rationalist, the ‘English’ element denotes what I consider to be my nationality. Strangely though, although the English are arguably one of the oldest nations, they do not currently possess a statehood of their own, being instead cemented into the UK and the EU. Within the UK the Scots, the Welsh and the Unionist and Republican populations of Ulster all possess their own distinct forms of in-group ethnic sentiment as well as political expression in their own assemblies and, in the Scottish case, Parliament. The English on the other hand, have to make do with Westminster which of course represents the whole of the UK. In this respect therefore, the English can technically be said to lack a political existence as a nation.

Devolution has created a situation in which distinct political dynamics have been established in Scotland and to a lesser extent Wales (the situation in Ulster has always been different), which mean that they increasingly see themselves as separate from England. They also have their own ostensible nationalist parties in the form of the SNP and Plaid Cymru, which are in reality defined exclusively through opposition to England and the English because otherwise they embrace multiculturalism and do not therefore behave in the manner of true nationalist parties. The launch of a British rather than an English Freedom Party thus seems to me to be a tactical mistake. England has borne the brunt of mass immigration, multiculturalism and Islamisation, and it is in England that there exists the greatest pent up demand for a true national democratic party. An English Freedom Party could still be a unionist party, but, any continuation of the United Kingdom needs to be one that is ratified by its composite nations and, irrespective of its outcome, England needs a parliament of its own.

Muslim Child Abuse: English Boy Converts on Camera for Islam Channel

Hat tip to Holger Danske for posting the following video which will turn your stomach. The man in the glasses should be thrown out of our country for good. Getting this English boy to recite the Shahada is a deliberately malicious act tantamount to child abuse. Does the boy know that he will now face the death penalty if he ever tries to renounce Islam?