The British Freedom Party

Paul Weston, a name that will be familiar to VFR readers, has recently become the head of a new political party in Britain, the British Freedom Party. Here is its website. Here is its impressive twenty point plan, the first five of which are:

• Introduce a U.S. style First Amendment guaranteeing Free Speech.
  
• Leave the profoundly undemocratic European Union.
  
• Abolish the Human Rights Act, which benefits only foreign criminals/terrorists.
  
• Halt any further immigration for a period of five years.
  
• Deport foreign criminals, seditious dual nationality Islamists and illegal immigrants.

Here is news about British Freedom, including the transcript of Canadian TV host Michael Coren’ interview with Weston last week. And here is the interview itself.

Paul Weston

Interestingly, Weston tells Coren that British Freedom is not a right-wing or even center-right party, but a “central” party, for all people who love Britain and want to keep it. And isn’t that the, ahem, central issue? Modern politics is dominated by left-liberals who hate our civilization, and by “conservatives” who regard our civilization as a set of abstractions. Together these two ideological factions have succeeded in making our civilization seem hateful. What defines the common core of traditionalism is an instinctive love for our civilization, a love for our respective nations and their peoples.

- end of initial entry -

John McNeil writes:

What do you think of their party manifesto?

LA replies:

I know you’re unhappy with it because it says, “Space, not race.” But it also says, “Shut the door and stop further immigration.” And to stop all immigration means to stop all nonwhite immigration. And that, combined with the strong demand (not wish) that immigrants integrate, if put in the form of policies and attitudes with teeth, will push many of the immigrants already in Britain to start leaving. As for Islam, a Britain that becomes hostile to Islam in its unassimilable forms, means a Britain that is hostile to Islam, period. Such a Britain would cease to be a desirable place for Muslims and many of them would start to leave.

As I’ve often said in the context of U.S. immigration in general and Muslim immigration in the U.S. in particular, the key thing is to reverse current trends. If all immigration is stopped, and if a significant number of the immigrants start to leave, the result would be that the number of immigrants would be getting smaller rather than larger. Britain instead of moving steadily closer to the abyss would be moving steadily away from it. It is not a total cure all at once; it is a reversal in direction, from things getting more and more hopeless to things getting more and more hopeful. That kind of turnaround by itself could restore life and the will to live in the Western countries.

Islam is not discussed in the Manifesto, but it’s discussed in two of the 20 points:

Deport foreign criminals, seditious dual nationality Islamists and illegal immigrants.

Halt and turn back all aspects of the Islamisation of Britain, including Sharia finance.

Now how they propose to halt and turn back all aspects of the Islamization of Britain is not clear. It seems to me that halting and turning back all aspects of the Islamization of Britain means removing all Muslims from Britain, and obviously the BFP doesn’t propose that. But, as I said above, policies that are plainly hostile to Islam will result in many Muslims leaving.

December 14

John McNeil replies:

I can see the wisdom in your strategy, and I think this would have been a decent approach 20 years ago, but at this stage in the game I’m uncertain that adopting anti-Islamic policies and mandating aggressive assimilation would make many immigrants leave. I suppose I can’t really knock aggressive assimilation since it has never been really tried in any white nation before. But I’m suspicious that things will backfire when an aging population starts making demands to a growing population. My fear is that rather than emigrate back to their countries of origin, Muslims (and other ethnic communities) will realize that the charade is over and that now is the time to strike. Muslims and other Third Worlders already dominate London, and no doubt can cease power in other important cities in Britain.

How would an aging white Britain really be able to force its will on young Muslim Britain in the next decade or so, without civil war following in its step?

John McNeil continues:

I also find unsettling this interview of Weston copied at Gates of Vienna. It’s one thing to de-emphasize race and ethnic identity for tactical reasons. It’s quite another to take an overtly hostile attitude towards ethnic nationalism and to also suggest that a monocultural and multiracial Britain is possible and desirable. It’s the same reason why I do not believe there is any good coming from the EDL, whose leader took a black man and proclaimed him to be as “English” as any at the gathering.

ES [European Son]:

I guess one complaint might be that there are just a lot of these parties out there. So, how is British Freedom different from say UKIP, the Conservatives, the BNP, etc.?

PW:

Well, let’s start with the BNP. The BNP are still ethno-nationalists. The world has moved on. I don’t think they’re going to get anywhere with that sort of attitude. England, Britain is as it is; you are never going to turn it back to 1950. You can of course say ‘alright, we are going to be a multiracial country but we don’t have to be a multi-cultural country.’ And, of course you can’t have both of those; that’s a recipe for a disaster. Multiracial and British culture; that can work. So that’s the difference between us and the BNP.

LA replies:

I wrote an article twenty years ago called “America: Multiethnic, not Multicultural,” which, when I posted it at VFR last summer, you did not like either. As I explained to you then, that was an approach I took in order to get an article published in a mainstream conservative magazine. Whatever Paul Weston’s private beliefs may be, he has, as he says in the excerpt from the interview that you quote, made the calculation that in order for his party to have a life in British mainstream politics, it cannot say that race matters.

Now, if I were to start a party or a political organization, it would say that race matters. It matters because not only the effect, but the intent, of current policies is to remove the white peoples from the pages of history and turn them into powerless and persecuted minority groups in the countries and the civilization they founded. Such a monstrous endeavor cannot be effectively opposed and turned back by ignoring its aims and effects. However, if I started such a party, I would know that it had no hope of being accepted or listened to in today’s mainstream society. Such a party would be speaking a dissenting voice from the sidelines, declaring to the society in the clearest terms that its current course is leading to ruin and calling for a different course. Then, as the ruin keeps increasing, more people would turn away from mainstream orthodoxy and be ready to listen to that different message. And then, ultimately, a new mainstream would come into existence.

But that is my approach—speaking the truth in the clearest way I can, which I know in advance excludes me from the mainstream of contemporary society. I cannot tell Paul Weston what his approach should be. He wants to have an effect on British policy now, and therefore, even if he privately believed that race matters (which I don’t know that he does), he has made the determination that the British Freedom Party cannot publicly argue for a racial concept of British identity.

John McNeil replies:

I remember reading your article, and yes I was shocked at some of the contents, but your explanation made sense to me, and I would be more sympathetic to Paul Weston if he were simply trying to be smart and play by the rules of mainstream politics. However, I would think that one can be more tactful about it without taking an aggressive anti-race tone. Your article didn’t have that. If I recall correctly, you briefly talked about the possibility of assimilation, and moved on. You didn’t go on and dismiss people liked Jared Taylor as “outdated”. You simply pressed the right respectable conservative buttons, and that was that. Perhaps Paul Weston believes that in order to be accepted he has to join in on the bashing of the BNP and ethnic nationalism. Again, I can understand that, but I really think there’s still a way to play by the rules of Orwellian Europe without lobbing missiles at your allies. The other nationalist parties in Europe that have some mainstream credibility do a better job at playing plausible deniability in regards to race without bashing it. All Paul Weston could have said is that the British Freedom Party believes that culture is what matters, and that their policies will be driven by a determination to see British culture survive. The comment on ethnic nationalism being outdated was completely unnecessary.

But I suppose Paul Weston may improve his rhetoric as he gains experience as a politician. I’ll be open-minded to that possibility.

For what it’s worth, I believe your vision of promoting the truth at the expense of popularity to be the right one, although I suppose I’d be guilty of playing chameleon politics as well were I in charge of a movement. For example, even though I’m well aware on the truth about certain racial differences and crime statistics, I would choose to de-emphasize those talking points, and choose instead to focus on positive European-American identity and culture. So in a sense, it’s not fair for me to criticize Paul Weston for concealing the truth, but I’d like to think I could do it in a way that was tactful, rather than say something like, “My nationalist group believes in celebrating white American identity and culture, unlike those racist crackpots over at VFR who are stuck in the 1950s.” ;)

John McNeil continues:

A little off-topic, another group worth considering is Britain First. Like the BFP, BF consists of ex-BNP members, but unlike British Freedom, “cultural” nationalism is the not motive for this group, rather it was an opposition to Nick Griffin’s corrupt leadership. They’re not exactly a political party, but instead they organize causes and engage in social activism, one of which was expressing support for Emma West whilst she was held in prison and her kids were taken away. To the best of my knowledge, no other organization has come out publicly in support for Emma West. That alone makes me consider this organization as a legitimate successor to the BNP.

Here is their website.

I also like this organization, it is a charity for native English children.

December 15

Rick Darby writes (December 13):

This is a heartening development, and there have been few enough of those lately.

The policies look to have been carefully crafted, not just in matter but in expression. I don’t agree that Britain’s immigration problems are about “space, not race”—they’re about both—but presenting the immigration question as an economic and cultural issue might keep Weston out of prison in the U.K.’s multi-cultural theocracy.

“Freedom” is a much better word to use in their name than National or Defence—no disrespect meant to the BNP or EDL, but shadings like that matter if they’re going to appeal to a middle class constituency. It’s too bad the O in “FREEDOM” looks like the Pepsi-Cola logo, but the Web site is otherwise well designed. They were smart not to have Union Jacks and dragons all over the place, images which many people associate with skinheads and hooligans.

Paul Weston comes across in the interview as reasonable, intellectual, maybe a little too formal. But when you consider the kinds of attacks he’ll be subjected to, that’s not a bad starting point. With experience he’ll probably loosen up and become more forceful.

December 16

LA writes:

See Paul Weston’s response to John McNeil and Rick Darby.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 13, 2011 10:30 AM | Send