Press conference for the BNP campaign in the London Elections - manifesto launch
As an operator of an opinion-polling direct democracy politics website, the looming London elections pose something of a dilemma for me.
On what criteria should I base my vote on and recommend my members to vote? As a Londoner? A British citizen? A political strategist? As someone hoping to attract attention to her politics website (whose purpose is to demonstrate the practicability of direct democracy and government by referenda, because we now have the technology, even if not the political will)?
Should I just vote for the party or candidate I know will probably win, like a punter betting on a horse?
BORIS OR KEN?
In that case it will be Ken for being a ruthless political operator well-armed with low cunning, and who seems to have a crystal ball that tells him which way the wind is blowing. After all, he knew not to invade Iraq, unlike Boris who voted for the war but now disingenuously claims he was misled and that a Conservative government would have dealt with everything a lot better. Ken was right about the IRA, wasn’t he? The fact that he got away with calling a Jewish reporter a Nazi in these rigorously PC times makes me warm to him. That he is a serial seducer with numberless illegitimate children does not put me off him either.)
VOTE FOR THE BEST MANIFESTO?
Or should I vote for the candidate or the party with the best manifesto? Of course, I have been around for long enough now to know that governments do not strictly adhere to what they promise to do in their manifestoes and have many reasons and excuses why they cannot or will not do as they have stated they would. The Lisbon Treaty, previously called the EU Constitution, comes to mind.
Even if it is all lies, it is still gratifying to be given promises we want to hear, however transient the pleasure and hollow the result.
A CARLSBERG MANIFESTO
By this criterion at any rate, the BNP manifesto refreshes the parts others cannot reach.
MOSQUES AND MUSLIMS
While it is true they have a problem with mosques and Muslims, and would prevent more mosques from being built, I imagine there are probably enough mosques around to serve Muslim Londoners. An indefinite (and by implication temporary) prohibition would not unduly inconvenience or aggrieve Muslims too much, I hope.
COLOUR BAR
While it is true that I have a problem with the BNP’s racist membership policy, I like to think of myself as open-minded and tolerant about others’ foibles. The BNP continue to deny that their colour bar is racist and claim that the existence of other organisations based on race, eg the Black Police Officers Association, justifies the position they have taken: they simply want to exclusively represent the interests of the indigenous and proletarian Briton, because the Labour Party no longer does.
It would probably be a good thing for them if they made up their mind what they want to be: a political party or an all-white club. The former could in theory wield power, the latter merely keep out unwanted members.
FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION
Not being allowed to join a party or a club is the converse of freedom of association and I gladly acknowledge that they have every right to exclude whoever they like, for real freedom of association can only logically mean the freedom to include oneself, provided that the group of people you want to join do not wish to exclude you.
Friendly persuasion is the only honourable course left for those who do not wish to remain excluded, not threats of lawsuits and coercion.
MUST BRITISH NATIONALS OR BRITISH NATIONALIST ALWAYS BE WHITE?
It is their implication that a non-Caucasian British citizen could never be a British national or a British nationalist that I find somewhat divisive and disturbing, but they should nevertheless be entitled to their opinion.
BOTH WHITES AND NON-WHITES DISCOURAGED FROM COMPLAINING ABOUT IMMIGRATION
Uncontrolled immigration concerns British citizens of all races, and there has long been a conspiracy of silence being operated by the media and the ruling classes. White Britons are immediately branded racist or fascist for daring to complain. Non-white Britons who complain would be invited to ask to go look at themselves in the mirror and ask how they can legitimately complain about the entry of others to this country looking like them, when they themselves are immigrants too. Would they like to join the BNP, who wouldn’t have them anyway? – is frequently added for good measure.
EASTERN EUROPEAN CATALYST
Eastern Europeans coming in to take the bread out of British mouths was the long-awaited catalyst in the immigration debate, for they are white but are just as resented or welcomed by indigenous and non-indigenous Britons depending on their economic status. If you are a hirer of labour you would be delighted by the increased supply of cheaper and more willing labour. If you are a member of the labour force and a competing claimant of the welfare state, then naturally you would not be quite so pleased at the new competition.
BROTHERS UNDER THE SKIN
We are all brothers under the skin, it has been said. But let us not forget that Cain murdered Abel when he perceived that his interests were being threatened. If we all had a doppel-ganger who would have access to all the love, sex, money, housing, welfare benefits that was previously exclusively ours, I have no doubt that we would take very firm steps to deal with this terrible twin.
The BNP gives voters the opportunity to give political expression to this understandable human reaction.
I fear however that I will get into terrible trouble for doing the equivalent of saying the emperor has no clothes, or that the earth is round and moves around the sun.
THE MOST POWERFUL PROTEST VOTE YOU HAVE
The incredulity and outrage of my detractors will soar to stratospheric heights when they discover that I, who am not and could not be a member of the BNP under its current membership rules, am recommending that Londoners and disgruntled voters of whatever colour, use the BNP mayoral candidate as a repository of their protest vote.
THE OLYMPICS IN ATHENS, FOREVER!
For their manifesto alone they deserve our vote, if we are voting according to whose promises we prefer to hear. It is stuffed full of ideas that will have Londoners nodding their head in agreement. Their proposal to invite Athens to host the 2012 Olympics instead of London, and thereafter to PERMANENTLY host them is delightful and delicious to the Londoner to who does not care who runs fastest or jumps highest and would rather not pay for the inconvenience of hosting it.
MOTORING
Their motoring policy is perfectly sensible, consisting of removing bus lanes, widening roads, eliminating bottlenecks, building the new Thames Gateway Bridge in East London, making the first hour of parking free and residents’ parking permits free. Their irresistibly populist proposal to remove unnecessary road humps and scrap the Congestion Charge must have most motorists cheering, surely?
PUBLIC TRANSPORT
For public transport, they would scrap the bendy bus and restore the Routemaster, reintroduce conductors on all double deckers, extend the tube’s operation until 2am, and introduce patrolling guards.
ESTUARY AIRPORT EAST OF LONDON
On air travel, building a new airport in the Thames Estuary seems a proposal of symmetrical commonsense, unlike the unbalanced scheme to build yet another runway at Heathrow.
BANNING THE VEIL
Banning the veil from public buildings and transport is another excellent idea, now that we are aware that male criminals use burqas as a disguise. It would even be good for Muslim women too, for they must know how differently they are treated when they wear the veil and when they do not, and how much fear and loathing is aroused by the sight of “black crows” walking amongst us. Perhaps some of them do so in order to annoy us, like those who like to go about with body piercings and tattoos that almost defiantly invite dislike. The right of people who feel they need to express their identity through going around looking odd or outlandish should be submerged in the pursuit of public safety and the prevention and discouragement of crime and terrorism.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS CORRECTED
In addition, a BNP mayor would get the police to “direct their energies at catching real criminals and would scrap all Ken Livingstone’s politically correct directives to the Met, and with them, the plethora of irritating ‘ethnic liaison officers’ and ‘gender outreach workers’ and the like. Police officers must be allowed to get on with their job unhindered, without fear or favour, and of operating colour-blind policing.”
APPRENTICESHIPS INSTEAD OF WORTHLESS QUALIFICATIONS
On the question of economic development and education, “London’s businesses need a well-educated labour force, particularly with high quality vocational skills rather than worthless (supposedly academic) qualifications. To this end, a BNP mayor would encourage apprenticeships as an alternative to university education" where appropriate.
There are no grounds on which any reasonable person could possibly object to these proposals. That they emanate from the BNP should give all thoughtful Londoners pause for thought and ask themselves how they are going to sensibly and effectively exercise their woefully limited political options on 1 May 2008.
ALARMING OUR RULING CLASSES
Londoners could vote for any other protest party (and dilute their protest in this way) but it would not quite have the same satisfying sensation of having alarmed our ruling classes, who seem to think they can treat us like fools and children forever.
UKIP AS AN ALTERNATIVE PROTEST VOTE FOR THE EUROSCEPTIC LONDONER?
An alternative receptacle of your protest vote is UKIP of course, if you fear and loathe the BNP and also happen to be a bit of Eurosceptic. Unfortunately, Gerard Batten’s manifesto is rather thin and unimaginative. The non-racist credentials of the UKIP may be found reassuring to some, but it has to be remembered that UKIP’s main paymasters are in fact the EU, for they have 9 MEPs. (Work out the total salary and allowances an MEP might receive, multiply by 9, ie €84,000 a year salary, €185,952 worth of parliamentary assistance allowance per MEP, plus travel and other allowances, and you will have a rough calculation of the extent to which UKIP is in the pocket of the EU.) UKIP now support the principle of subsidiarity – which means that a Member State agrees that the EU have a power to return to the Member State the control of what was formerly theirs to control. By acknowledging that the EU has this right, UKIP implicitly admit that they have given up this right.
UKIP might as well now be calling themselves “EUKIP”.
On what criteria should I base my vote on and recommend my members to vote? As a Londoner? A British citizen? A political strategist? As someone hoping to attract attention to her politics website (whose purpose is to demonstrate the practicability of direct democracy and government by referenda, because we now have the technology, even if not the political will)?
Should I just vote for the party or candidate I know will probably win, like a punter betting on a horse?
BORIS OR KEN?
In that case it will be Ken for being a ruthless political operator well-armed with low cunning, and who seems to have a crystal ball that tells him which way the wind is blowing. After all, he knew not to invade Iraq, unlike Boris who voted for the war but now disingenuously claims he was misled and that a Conservative government would have dealt with everything a lot better. Ken was right about the IRA, wasn’t he? The fact that he got away with calling a Jewish reporter a Nazi in these rigorously PC times makes me warm to him. That he is a serial seducer with numberless illegitimate children does not put me off him either.)
VOTE FOR THE BEST MANIFESTO?
Or should I vote for the candidate or the party with the best manifesto? Of course, I have been around for long enough now to know that governments do not strictly adhere to what they promise to do in their manifestoes and have many reasons and excuses why they cannot or will not do as they have stated they would. The Lisbon Treaty, previously called the EU Constitution, comes to mind.
Even if it is all lies, it is still gratifying to be given promises we want to hear, however transient the pleasure and hollow the result.
A CARLSBERG MANIFESTO
By this criterion at any rate, the BNP manifesto refreshes the parts others cannot reach.
MOSQUES AND MUSLIMS
While it is true they have a problem with mosques and Muslims, and would prevent more mosques from being built, I imagine there are probably enough mosques around to serve Muslim Londoners. An indefinite (and by implication temporary) prohibition would not unduly inconvenience or aggrieve Muslims too much, I hope.
COLOUR BAR
While it is true that I have a problem with the BNP’s racist membership policy, I like to think of myself as open-minded and tolerant about others’ foibles. The BNP continue to deny that their colour bar is racist and claim that the existence of other organisations based on race, eg the Black Police Officers Association, justifies the position they have taken: they simply want to exclusively represent the interests of the indigenous and proletarian Briton, because the Labour Party no longer does.
It would probably be a good thing for them if they made up their mind what they want to be: a political party or an all-white club. The former could in theory wield power, the latter merely keep out unwanted members.
FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION
Not being allowed to join a party or a club is the converse of freedom of association and I gladly acknowledge that they have every right to exclude whoever they like, for real freedom of association can only logically mean the freedom to include oneself, provided that the group of people you want to join do not wish to exclude you.
Friendly persuasion is the only honourable course left for those who do not wish to remain excluded, not threats of lawsuits and coercion.
MUST BRITISH NATIONALS OR BRITISH NATIONALIST ALWAYS BE WHITE?
It is their implication that a non-Caucasian British citizen could never be a British national or a British nationalist that I find somewhat divisive and disturbing, but they should nevertheless be entitled to their opinion.
BOTH WHITES AND NON-WHITES DISCOURAGED FROM COMPLAINING ABOUT IMMIGRATION
Uncontrolled immigration concerns British citizens of all races, and there has long been a conspiracy of silence being operated by the media and the ruling classes. White Britons are immediately branded racist or fascist for daring to complain. Non-white Britons who complain would be invited to ask to go look at themselves in the mirror and ask how they can legitimately complain about the entry of others to this country looking like them, when they themselves are immigrants too. Would they like to join the BNP, who wouldn’t have them anyway? – is frequently added for good measure.
EASTERN EUROPEAN CATALYST
Eastern Europeans coming in to take the bread out of British mouths was the long-awaited catalyst in the immigration debate, for they are white but are just as resented or welcomed by indigenous and non-indigenous Britons depending on their economic status. If you are a hirer of labour you would be delighted by the increased supply of cheaper and more willing labour. If you are a member of the labour force and a competing claimant of the welfare state, then naturally you would not be quite so pleased at the new competition.
BROTHERS UNDER THE SKIN
We are all brothers under the skin, it has been said. But let us not forget that Cain murdered Abel when he perceived that his interests were being threatened. If we all had a doppel-ganger who would have access to all the love, sex, money, housing, welfare benefits that was previously exclusively ours, I have no doubt that we would take very firm steps to deal with this terrible twin.
The BNP gives voters the opportunity to give political expression to this understandable human reaction.
I fear however that I will get into terrible trouble for doing the equivalent of saying the emperor has no clothes, or that the earth is round and moves around the sun.
THE MOST POWERFUL PROTEST VOTE YOU HAVE
The incredulity and outrage of my detractors will soar to stratospheric heights when they discover that I, who am not and could not be a member of the BNP under its current membership rules, am recommending that Londoners and disgruntled voters of whatever colour, use the BNP mayoral candidate as a repository of their protest vote.
THE OLYMPICS IN ATHENS, FOREVER!
For their manifesto alone they deserve our vote, if we are voting according to whose promises we prefer to hear. It is stuffed full of ideas that will have Londoners nodding their head in agreement. Their proposal to invite Athens to host the 2012 Olympics instead of London, and thereafter to PERMANENTLY host them is delightful and delicious to the Londoner to who does not care who runs fastest or jumps highest and would rather not pay for the inconvenience of hosting it.
MOTORING
Their motoring policy is perfectly sensible, consisting of removing bus lanes, widening roads, eliminating bottlenecks, building the new Thames Gateway Bridge in East London, making the first hour of parking free and residents’ parking permits free. Their irresistibly populist proposal to remove unnecessary road humps and scrap the Congestion Charge must have most motorists cheering, surely?
PUBLIC TRANSPORT
For public transport, they would scrap the bendy bus and restore the Routemaster, reintroduce conductors on all double deckers, extend the tube’s operation until 2am, and introduce patrolling guards.
ESTUARY AIRPORT EAST OF LONDON
On air travel, building a new airport in the Thames Estuary seems a proposal of symmetrical commonsense, unlike the unbalanced scheme to build yet another runway at Heathrow.
BANNING THE VEIL
Banning the veil from public buildings and transport is another excellent idea, now that we are aware that male criminals use burqas as a disguise. It would even be good for Muslim women too, for they must know how differently they are treated when they wear the veil and when they do not, and how much fear and loathing is aroused by the sight of “black crows” walking amongst us. Perhaps some of them do so in order to annoy us, like those who like to go about with body piercings and tattoos that almost defiantly invite dislike. The right of people who feel they need to express their identity through going around looking odd or outlandish should be submerged in the pursuit of public safety and the prevention and discouragement of crime and terrorism.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS CORRECTED
In addition, a BNP mayor would get the police to “direct their energies at catching real criminals and would scrap all Ken Livingstone’s politically correct directives to the Met, and with them, the plethora of irritating ‘ethnic liaison officers’ and ‘gender outreach workers’ and the like. Police officers must be allowed to get on with their job unhindered, without fear or favour, and of operating colour-blind policing.”
APPRENTICESHIPS INSTEAD OF WORTHLESS QUALIFICATIONS
On the question of economic development and education, “London’s businesses need a well-educated labour force, particularly with high quality vocational skills rather than worthless (supposedly academic) qualifications. To this end, a BNP mayor would encourage apprenticeships as an alternative to university education" where appropriate.
There are no grounds on which any reasonable person could possibly object to these proposals. That they emanate from the BNP should give all thoughtful Londoners pause for thought and ask themselves how they are going to sensibly and effectively exercise their woefully limited political options on 1 May 2008.
ALARMING OUR RULING CLASSES
Londoners could vote for any other protest party (and dilute their protest in this way) but it would not quite have the same satisfying sensation of having alarmed our ruling classes, who seem to think they can treat us like fools and children forever.
UKIP AS AN ALTERNATIVE PROTEST VOTE FOR THE EUROSCEPTIC LONDONER?
An alternative receptacle of your protest vote is UKIP of course, if you fear and loathe the BNP and also happen to be a bit of Eurosceptic. Unfortunately, Gerard Batten’s manifesto is rather thin and unimaginative. The non-racist credentials of the UKIP may be found reassuring to some, but it has to be remembered that UKIP’s main paymasters are in fact the EU, for they have 9 MEPs. (Work out the total salary and allowances an MEP might receive, multiply by 9, ie €84,000 a year salary, €185,952 worth of parliamentary assistance allowance per MEP, plus travel and other allowances, and you will have a rough calculation of the extent to which UKIP is in the pocket of the EU.) UKIP now support the principle of subsidiarity – which means that a Member State agrees that the EU have a power to return to the Member State the control of what was formerly theirs to control. By acknowledging that the EU has this right, UKIP implicitly admit that they have given up this right.
UKIP might as well now be calling themselves “EUKIP”.
It seems the BNP are thinking of going the same way in order to obtain funding and make contacts, but I warn against this, for they will dissipate their energies in just the same way as UKIP are doing, and should instead take a leaf out of the Sinn Fein handbook: of not conceding anything in principle that would detract from their ultimate goal - it is for this reason that they will not and cannot swear allegiance to the Queen.
Operating in this country, the analogy of fish in ponds comes to mind. Daunting but not utterly hopeless.
Operating within the EU as MEPs, the analogy of being a mere teeth on a cog in an EU factory comes to mind.
Britain needs to travel light in the short to medium term, to be able to easily change gear in different terrains as well as slow down and speed up whenever necessary. Being part of a European Superstate means the equivalent of being on a supertanker that takes too long to change course, in shallow water and stormy weather. Not only is it a waste of time and energy, it could well be deadly.
TURKEY VOTING FOR XMAS?
The final and most interesting question for me is this:
Being a member of an ethnic minority, am I a turkey voting for Christmas when I recommend all Londoners of all races to consider voting BNP, were they minded to vote for a protest party?
Perhaps, but since it is only a mayoral election, and it is not within the remit of a London mayor to repatriate anyone as they would like to. (The BNP propose to pay £50,000 per repatriatee to "go home", and this may well be tempting enough to make some dishonest whites black up in order to claim this sum, before emigrating to their place in the sun.)
On balance, it seems quite safe on this occasion to use the BNP as a means of showing our displeasure with our ruling classes and the liberal elite.
A VOTER EQUIVALENT OF SUICIDE BOMBING?
I suppose it is the voter equivalent of "suicide bombing" or cutting off our noses to spite our faces. Muslim readers should bear in mind that the BNP were present at the anti-war march in Hyde Park, 2003. Had there been a BNP government, it would not have invaded Iraq.
The BNP would presumably have no interest in propping up Israel or supporting the US policy of doing so or doing Uncle Sam's bidding at whatever cost, because its stance is isolationist and nationalist.
This being so, Al Qaeda would have particular reason to want to bomb the UK .
This being so, there would be no "War Against Terrorism".
That being so, there would be no excuse for the government to continue to take away our liberties using the "War" Against Terrorism as an excuse.
THE NON SEQUITUR THAT IS "THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM"
We should all know that war is only properly war when declared against another sovereign country with a borders and an army in a fixed location.
The war against terrorism is a metaphor, a demon conjured out of the shambles that is British foreign policy and what passes for British diplomacy these days. The idea of a shifting battleground that is both nowhere and everywhere will only encourage the paranoia that would make its fear self-fulfilling.
The weighing of relative evils is indeed a difficult process, but I believe I have done the groundwork on the balance of safety. I am undecided on whether to vote Ken as my first choice, and Richard Barnbrook as my second. Or vice versa, depending on how reckless I am feeling on 1 May.
The final and most interesting question for me is this:
Being a member of an ethnic minority, am I a turkey voting for Christmas when I recommend all Londoners of all races to consider voting BNP, were they minded to vote for a protest party?
Perhaps, but since it is only a mayoral election, and it is not within the remit of a London mayor to repatriate anyone as they would like to. (The BNP propose to pay £50,000 per repatriatee to "go home", and this may well be tempting enough to make some dishonest whites black up in order to claim this sum, before emigrating to their place in the sun.)
On balance, it seems quite safe on this occasion to use the BNP as a means of showing our displeasure with our ruling classes and the liberal elite.
A VOTER EQUIVALENT OF SUICIDE BOMBING?
I suppose it is the voter equivalent of "suicide bombing" or cutting off our noses to spite our faces. Muslim readers should bear in mind that the BNP were present at the anti-war march in Hyde Park, 2003. Had there been a BNP government, it would not have invaded Iraq.
The BNP would presumably have no interest in propping up Israel or supporting the US policy of doing so or doing Uncle Sam's bidding at whatever cost, because its stance is isolationist and nationalist.
This being so, Al Qaeda would have particular reason to want to bomb the UK .
This being so, there would be no "War Against Terrorism".
That being so, there would be no excuse for the government to continue to take away our liberties using the "War" Against Terrorism as an excuse.
THE NON SEQUITUR THAT IS "THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM"
We should all know that war is only properly war when declared against another sovereign country with a borders and an army in a fixed location.
The war against terrorism is a metaphor, a demon conjured out of the shambles that is British foreign policy and what passes for British diplomacy these days. The idea of a shifting battleground that is both nowhere and everywhere will only encourage the paranoia that would make its fear self-fulfilling.
The weighing of relative evils is indeed a difficult process, but I believe I have done the groundwork on the balance of safety. I am undecided on whether to vote Ken as my first choice, and Richard Barnbrook as my second. Or vice versa, depending on how reckless I am feeling on 1 May.
