How was British nationhood vanquished?

(My comments about Powell’s speech are off-base, as I discuss here.)

We’ve all heard a million times how the fierce establishment reaction against Enoch Powell’s 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech permanently doomed any British defense against non-Western immigration and anti-discrimination legislation—the latter being the actual subject of his speech, not immigration. But why should this result have obtained? Powell, though excluded from Conservative Party leadership positions after the speech, became one of the most popular political figures in Britain, with polls indicating high levels of agreement with his views. How, then, did the open-borders and multicultural Britain so completely vanquish the national and traditional Britain?

Here’s a VFR speculation on the matter. Powell’s popular support, like the “Rivers of Blood” speech itself, was too much based in emotion rather than in principle and logic, and thus could not be translated into an effective challenge to Britain’s anti-racial orthodoxy. If the defenders of British nationhood were to prevail, they needed to explain, in logical and moral and social terms that everyone could understand and assent to, why Britain should remain a white country, and why the liberal attack on discrimination was wrong and suicidal, and they needed to keep making these arguments over and over against the liberal orthodoxy and not yield. Instead, like Powell, they ranted alarmingly about the River Tiber foaming with blood, or, like Eric Clapton on stage in 1976, they muttered drunkenly about Britain becoming a “black colony,” or, like Powell’s grassroots supporters, they chanted “Enoch was right.” These were not arguments, but ejaculations. They had no power to discredit Britain’s anti-racist orthodoxy; and they could easily be portrayed as spasms of mindless prejudice and be dismissed.

Conservatives must understand that liberalism has a powerful moral argument, sweeping all before it, that any discrimination on the basis of race or culture or religion is wrong and must be eliminated. In the absence of an opposing argument, namely that certain kinds of racial and cultural and religious discrimination are morally right and vitally necessary, liberalism can never be intellectually defeated. Traditionalism supplies such an argument. Modern “conservatism”—which shares liberalism’s central premises—does not. And that is why British nationhood was vanquished.

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Charlton G. writes:

You wrote: “Conservatives must understand that liberalism has a powerful moral argument, sweeping all before it, that any discrimination on the basis of race or culture or religion is wrong and must be eliminated. In the absence of an opposing argument, namely that certain kinds of racial and cultural and religious discrimination are morally right and vitally necessary, liberalism can never be intellectually defeated.”

Could you elaborate by giving me a reply as though I had just laid that guilt trip on you at a cocktail party? How do you respond to this and keep the tone positive? Perhaps you’ve already done this elsewhere. If so just direct me there. Thanks.

LA replies:

Leaving aside the fact that a cocktail party is not ideal for such a heavy controversial issue, you could start from almost any angle. One of my approaches is to make explicit the implied but never explicit direction of the liberal ideology. For example, I’d say that any institution, grouping, or culture requires discrimination between itself and others to exist, and therefore anti-discrimination if followed consistently must lead to the non-existence of all the existing cultures and nations and races on earth, along with all the accumulated goods and values that those distinct peoples and cultures have brought into the world.

Focus on the sheer destructiveness to it. Say: “You’re saying that the Irish with their unique qualities should not exist, they should intermarry with Chinese and blacks. You would undo all the special qualities of all the people on earth. Even Communism didn’t seek that. Your non-discrimination ideology is more radical and more destructive than Communism.”

The Irish are a good way to introduce the racial angle because they are small and distinct people (though of course with many admixtures), and everyone acknowledges their unusual qualities, including their physical attractiveness. Is the world enriched by this unique collective Irish personality? According to liberalism, it must go out of existence. First Ireland must imitate America’s immigration policy, then the Irish must intermarry with the non-Irish whom they have imported. If your liberal interlocutor says, “Oh, I don’t want to go that far,” answer, “So you want to make a special exception for something that YOU like! How about me making special exceptions for something that I like! If liberalism requires all these special exceptions, to avoid destroying things we don’t want to destroy, maybe liberailsm is not a good idea!”

Bring out the real meaning of their ideology, and put them on the defensive. They think they have unquestionable moral right on their side. Show that their ideology destroys the human good, e.g., a cultural setting where people feel at home and can order their lives in a way that makes sense to them, instead of having their lives ordered by diversity managers. Use the information from that Jared Taylor article detailing the endless array of government bodies in Canada dealing with racial problems, all made necessary by racial diversity caused by immigration. Show how wherever there is more diversity, there is more conflict, requiring that government run more and more things, because people no longer share the pre-political, unspoken shared feelings and assumptions that any society needs to function well and happily without interference from above.

Under liberalism, liberals have presumed right on their side, and we conservatives are cast as (and cast ourselves as) angry reactionaries trying guiltily and selfishly to hold on to what we have. Traditionalism means reversing this situation, by articulating the goods of traditional social order and showing how liberalism damages them and thus is contrary to the human good.

Just saying, “I want certain things, I want a world in which my blond haired son will not be the minority,” as Brimelow did in his book, is not a helpful way to go about it, because Brimelow was not arguing to any larger principle, but just to his own preferences and desires. Instead of positing a counter moral argument to liberalism, he was fulfilling the liberal image of the reactionary who just cares about his own. The power of liberalism comes from its presumed morality. Liberalism can be defeated intellectually by challenging its claim to morality, which we can do by showing the real human good(s) that liberalism harms.

Anthony D. writes:

I think your analysis of emotion derailing the resulting Götterdämmerung vis a vis England wrong. How many times in history has emotion actually inspired a nation to follow a leader, for empire or fall, survival or compassion (the modern, multicultural West, actually achieved that very goal?

It used to be called “nationalism. A colossal failure of the survival instinct, on a national level, is not an “ejaculation”, but a measure of the zeitgeist.

LA replies:

Yes, Anthony, you are right—but those were situations in which LIBERALISM was NOT in the saddle. Those were relatively normal, traditional societies.

For example, the First Crusade was a tremendous emotional welling up and coming together of the Christian peoples of Europe. They were already united by their common religious faith, they already had an existing society and people, and so a further addition of emotional fervor in support of their religion led them to the Crusade.

In utter contrast to medieval Christians, we live under the hostile power of a liberal ideology that doesn’t want us to exist as a particular people with a particular faith at all. Before we can function as a normal people, we must throw off the yoke of liberalism. The problem is that at present liberalism is the “only game in town,” the only existing intellectual understanding of the world, even in the heads of conservatives. So liberalism must be defeated intellectually, both within ourselves, and in confrontation with liberals. Striking out emotionally at liberalism only increases liberalism’s power over us, because it simply turns us into characters in the liberal script, by casting us as bigots in need of liberal reformation.

Karen W. writes from England:

The British defence against non Western immigration was brought its first blow long before Enoch Powell’s failed attempt. His actions were too little and too late. In his description of anti white discrimination and victimisation in Coventry by West Indian blacks, the damage had already occurred. He merely described it. Whites were actually being ethnically cleansed from their homes by blacks who had been brought in after the Second World War as cheap labour. And these blacks were already racially organised and knew how to use the term “racism”.

It was the British Nationality Act 1948 which put the first nail in the coffin. Previously British Nationality was by descent and naturalisation only by approval of the Secretary of State and very rare. This act allowed Nationality by birth which granted nationality to the children of thousands of Third World immigrants imported in the post war period. Later the laws for naturalisation were considerably eased and this permitted many more to become citizens.

This act had another wholly undesirable effect which is relevant to the Moslem terrorism of today. Partly the Act was passed to resolve the Irish problem after the Republic of Ireland “Eire” was formed. Thousands of Irish immigrants had arrived in UK after the Industrial Revolution and were the cause of many social problems. During the campaign for Irish independence, British soldiers were being killed by the Irish. It was thought by many in the UK, that the people of a country which has declared a war against Britain and kills it soldiers should not be granted citizenship. Opposition to Irish obtaining British citizenship was ignored and this act was passed.

The granting of Citizenship to Irish was significant in starting the civil war in N Ireland which later spilled over to mainland Britain. After the formation of Eire, Irish immigrants continued to flock into the UK and form ghettoes. Their presence and settlement here allowed them to form Irish centres which were used for the raising of cash for the IRA. The Government stressed that there were only about 500 IRA terrorists. But they refused to recognise or acknowledge that the majority of Irish immigrants were IRA supporters and harboured a resentment and often outright antagonism to the British state, Royal Family and Protestant religion. They lived off the wealth of the British state but hated it. The Irish ghettoes provided logistic support for the IRA in obtaining weapons, raising finance, safe houses, front companies etc. Those who did not support the IRA nevertheless supported their ideology and approved their tactical gains. Sound familiar???

If the Irish did not have British nationality and instead lived on visas and work permits in Ulster and Britain, it is unlikely that they would have been able to embark upon a campaign of terror and if they had, they could have been easily dealt with by deportation. The Irish Government was terrified of that as Ireland was desperately poor and needed the cash remittances from Britain and had mass unemployment.

Hence the act of granting citizenship is the start of the problem. Workers on visas can be removed. The Irish gaining British nationality allowed them to enter politics and they did in large numbers. It is estimated that 40-50 % of British politicians are Irish or of Irish origin. They are the driving force behind the Left. It is them who took over the unions, embraced Marxism and wished for the collapse of Britain. It is them who formed the red black alliance with the Moslems and any other Third World immigrant activists.

The Irish problem is still unresolved and the Government has made some potentially disastrous appeasement moves. Now the Moslems are following their example.

• obtain citizenship

• get as many Moslem immigrants in as possible legally or illegally

• high birth rates

• ghettoisation

• terrorism calculated to cause economic damage

• demands for “rights”

• and the latest—attempts to kidnap Moslem soldiers serving in the British Army. This is exactly what the IRA did. They kidnapped and killed Irish Catholics who worked with or co-operated with the British forces.

In a previous post, one of your correspondents, who described how his computer business in Luton was destroyed, claimed the IRA sold the Moslems guns and weapons. This is entirely to be expected and this will continue.

Hence it was that 1948 Act which opened the floodgates and allowed anyone from anywhere to get naturalised. The same year the Windrush arrived from Jamaica and the rest is history. Thanks to this Act, the whole of the UK will likely soon be like Ulster.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 05, 2007 01:16 AM | Send