CHAIRMAN’S
SPEECH AT THE ENGLISH DEMOCRATS CONFERENCE 17TH SEPTEMBER
2016
Thank
you Ladies and Gentlemen for your welcome.
May
I say welcome to you to Leicester and the English Democrats 14th AGM?
Since
we last met, in our Spring Conference at Huntingdon, there has been a dramatic
change in English politics crystalized by the strong showing in the vote to
Leave the EU by, in particular, English voters.
In
the UK as a whole, the overall the result was a 51.9% majority on the 72.2%
turnout.
In
England however our people voted for Brexit by 53.4% or 15,188,406 Leave votes
as against 46.6% or 13,266,996 Remain voters.
Ladies
and gentlemen not only did we English Democrats campaign actively for Leave, and
were registered with the Electoral Commission to do so, but also we predicted
that England would vote to Leave. Indeed, at least one of our national council
members made a significant amount of money betting on it!
I
thought that it was obvious that England was going to vote to Leave; Also that
Scotland was going to vote to Remain and so was Northern Ireland. The only
surprise outcome in the referendum was Wales voting to Leave. In Wales opinion
polls had said it would vote to Remain and it is a big net beneficiary of the
EU.
Now
let’s turn to BREXIT – As a lawyer let me confirm the legal
procedures.
There
are two constitutional legal procedures required to put into effect the
democratically expressed Will of the People to Brexit.
One
is the external requirement, under EU constitutional law, of activating
Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Article 50 is simple to activate and it is
entirely in the hands of the UK as a Member State to do so in accordance with UK
constitutional arrangements. The “Royal Prerogative” gives that power to the
Prime Minister.
Once
Article 50 has been activated there is a compulsory 2 year period of negotiation
managed by the EU Commission but if no agreement is reached, then the UK’s
membership of the EU lapses automatically. (Bad luck Scotland, but nice try
Nicola Sturgeon!).
The
second constitutional procedure is internal. There must be a substantial
repeal by the UK’s Westminster Parliament of the European Communities Act 1972
(perhaps with some saving provisions).
If
Scotland held the threatened second Independence Referendum and voted to go, a
third possibility would arise because if the UK, which is the EU Member State,
was dissolved then all parts of the former UK State would be automatically
outside of the EU.
In
the meanwhile, legislation based upon the EU has lost the privileged status
which Lord Justice Laws gave it in his judgment against the Metric Martyrs in
2002. Laws LJ held that the Referendum in 1975 gave the People's democratic
consent to the European Communities Act 1972 and thus conferred special status
upon it as a constitutional statute. That consent has now been removed and with
it the special status of all that strand of law!
So
at the moment Ladies & Gentlemen we have one cheer for the vote to
Leave but are not yet in a position to cheer for the process of Brexit being
activated by notice being given under Article 50, nor, with the best will in the
world, will we actually Leave until sometime in 2019. Then we can have our full
three cheers!
In
the meanwhile as English nationalists we have seen an improvement of the
political environment.
Consider
Dr Russell Foster, who is now Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Kings College
London, researching about: “EU, symbols, borders and European identity
politics”. He was recently Marie-Curie Fellow at the University of Amsterdam.
No Steve! This Dr Foster did not go to Gloucester instead he wrote in his
article: “‘I want my country back’: Emotion and Englishness at the Brexit
ballotbox” that we have “a multi-party establishment which may soon discover
that, like in Scotland in 2014, once the genie of nationalism has been released
from its bottle, it turns on those who released it. And it cannot be easily put
back”.
What
do you say to that Ladies and Gentlemen? Are you the genie of English
nationalism?
Are
we going to be put back into the bottle?
Ladies
and Gentlemen let me also remind you of Kipling’s “The English
Way”:-
After
the fight at Otterburn,
Before
the ravens came,
The
Witch-wife rode across the fern
And
spoke Earl Percy's name.
'Stand
up-stand up, Northumberland!
I
charge you answer true,
If
ever you dealt in steel and brand,
How
went the fray with you?'
'Hither
and yon,' the Percy said;
'As
every fight must go;
For
some they fought and some they fled,
And
some struck ne'er a blow.
'But
I pray you by the breaking skies,
And
the first call from the nest,
That
you turn your eyes away from my eyes,
And
let me to my rest.'
'Stand
up-stand up, Northumberland!
I
will that you answer true,
If
you and your men were quick again,
How
would it be with you?'
'Oh,
we would speak of hawk and hound,
And
the red deer where they rove,
And
the merry foxes the country round,
And
the maidens that we love.
'We
would not speak of steel or steed,
Except
to grudge the cost;
And
he that had done the doughtiest deed
Would
mock himself the most.
'Sleep
you, or wake, Northumberland-
You
shall not speak again,
And
the word you have said 'twixt quick and dead
I
lay on Englishmen.
'So
long as Severn runs to West
Or
Humber to the East,
That
they who bore themselves the best
Shall
count themselves the least.
'While
there is fighting at the ford,
Or
flood along the Tweed,
That
they shall choose the lesser word
To
cloke the greater deed.
'After
the quarry and the kill-
The
fair fight and the fame-
With
an ill face and an ill grace
Shall
they rehearse the same.
'Greater
the deed, greater the need
Lightly
to laugh it away,
Shall
be the mark of the English breed
Until
the Judgment Day!'
Ladies
and Gentlemen what do you say? Is this still true of us English today in the
post Brexit world?
I
think it is. How many English have you seen boasting about what we have
done?
The
two questions for us that now arise are what happens for England and also what
the consequences are for that very much more expensive Union than the European
Union, namely the Union of the United Kingdom which costs English taxpayers over
£49 billion a year (whereas the EU, at most, costs English taxpayers £19 billion
a year). So which party will answer those questions?
What
about UKIP?
I
can’t start answering this question, which relates to the political future of
UKIP, without mentioning the legal Latin expression “Functus Officio”.
Functus
Officio means a duty completely finished, or to quote from Black’s Legal
Dictionary:- “Latin: Having fulfilled the function, discharged the office,
or accomplished the purpose, and therefore of no further force or authority.
Applied to an officer whose term has expired, and who has consequently no
further official authority; and also to an instrument, power, agency, etc. which
has fulfilled the purpose of its creation, and is therefore of no further virtue
or effect.”
The
words of the second verse of that great Victorian funeral hymn “Abide with Me”
also seems very suitable too. Here they are:-
“Swift
to its close, ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s
joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change
and decay in all around I see;
O
Thou who changest not, abide with me.”
It
is however fair that I also mention Nigel Farage’s and UKIP’s highly significant
role in getting David Cameron to make what for Dave was the greatest political
mistake of his life. That role was in bluffing him into calling a referendum on
our continued membership of the EU.
Andrew
Marr writing in the New Statesman on 1st July reported that:-
“According to one of those involved, this all started at a pizza restaurant at
Chicago O’Hare Airport at the time of a Nato conference in 2012, when David
Cameron and his closest political allies decided that the only way of scuppering
Ukip and the Euro-hostile Right of the Conservative Party was to give the
British people a referendum.”
We
English People, and our Nation, will always owe a debt of gratitude to UKIP and
its role in getting us the opportunity to democratically vote to Leave the
EU.
But
perhaps, rather like an effective catalyst in causing a chemical reaction, in
doing all this UKIP may have caused its own destruction.
While
UKIP has elected Diane James what will be left of their Party once they have
finished fighting over its constitutional structure and political
direction?
Nor
is the general political context completely clear, since we do not know for sure
what will happen to Labour. We can however hazard a few
guesses.
So
let’s turn to Labour.
It
seems highly probable that Jeremy Corbyn will be re-elected as Leader of Labour
next week and then he and his “Momentum” group will set about the same task as
Lenin applied himself to in reconfiguring the Russian Communists. Momentum want
to turn the Labour Party into a hard-Left party in which the Bolsheviks squeeze
out the Mensheviks. Whether the de-selected Menshevik Blairite MPs will
thereafter go on to form a new party or join the Liberal Democrats we cannot be
sure at present.
What
does however seems clear is that there really is no future in Labour for
anyone who takes a pride in England or in being English.
Since
those whom Labour has in recent times called the “white working class” are very
likely to also call themselves “English” that will amount, in historical terms,
to a decision by Labour to cease to be a serious contender for Government (at
least through democratic means!).
Instead
the “Momentum Labour” will no doubt seek to use their dominant position to
infiltrate all aspects of our society, seeking to be the catalyst for socialist
revolutionary change, however much such a change may be against the wishes of
the majority of our country.
For
my part I wish them nothing but ill in that endeavour, but by doing so Labour
will have given up any serious attempt to lead the English, just has Labour has
already lost any serious claim to lead the Scots!
UKIP
has also, without I think fully realising it, taken an historic decision not to
represent the English.
They
did so in the way that often happens in history where a key individual, for
personal reasons, takes a decision not to get involved.
In
UKIP’s case the decisive moment was when Paul Nuttall announced that he was
not going to stand for their leadership.
Paul
was the only potential UKIP Leader who either had any interest in the English
Cause or could credibly claim to be an English nationalist. This in a party
which all serious commentators have noted is predominantly made up of people who
are, to all intents and purposes, English Nationalists, albeit a Party which to
most commentators is quite strangely led by people who are actually British
Nationalists.
In
any case, UKIP, as Paul Nuttall has since made clear, has lost the only “glue”
that held them together. That was the glue of campaigning against the European
Union. That was the sole purpose that UKIP was founded for and the sole purpose
of being in politics for most of its leaders and officials.
Nigel
Farage is charismatic and he is a very able public speaker and debater and he is
also personally very good company. He has however been a very dominant figure
in their Party and has prevented any other potential leader emerging and,
indeed, he has worked very actively to prevent that
happening.
In
trying to understand what is happening to UKIP it is significant, to my way of
thinking, that when Nigel Farage resigned for the second time as Leader, on a
whimsy after the General Election, he had done nothing to plan how the
succession to the leadership of the Party would work. On the contrary Nigel
Farage announced, without it seems even clearing it with her first, that he was
appointing Suzanne Evans to be UKIP’s interim Leader, despite Paul Nuttall’s
long-standing position as their Deputy Leader and therefore despite Paul being
the obvious person to pull the Party together in the interregnum.
Nigel
Farage’s third resignation, again apparently without any planning about who
would the next Leader, has been followed by him making highly aggressive and
disparaging comments against members of UKIP’s NEC, who are after all volunteers
giving up their own time and effort to their Party’s Cause and also who have
been elected to their position by the membership of the Party in accordance with
UKIP’s constitutional structures.
These,
I would remind you Ladies and Gentlemen, are the same constitutional structures
which of course Nigel Farage had personally been involved in creating and
apparently had approved. Just, of course, as he had personally approved UKIP’s
previous manifesto which, when he was caught out in a radio interview, he
suddenly claimed was over 400 pages of “utter drivel”!
Here
is what he wrote in his article “UKIP Needs to Play The Long Game, And Bypass
The Total Amateurs On The National Executive Committee” which was published on
Brietbart on 1st August.
He
wrote and I quote:-
“But
the barrier to radical change and the modernisation of UKIP was implanted in the
mid-1990’s. It is called the National Executive Committee. Many of its current
crop are among the lowest grade of people I have ever met. To them, being a
member of the governing body of Britain’s third-largest political party is the
equivalent of scaling Everest.
People
with no qualification in business or politics make the ultimate decisions of
whom should be our candidate at a by-election. Or whether the former disgraced
Tory MP Neil Hamilton should be given a route back to public life via being
elected as an Assembly Member in Wales. It may sound odd to many but I have been
a moderniser in UKIP. I have been fought at every step of the way by total
amateurs who come to London once a month with sandwiches in their rucksacks, to
attend NEC meetings that normally last seven hours.” (By Nigel Farage
MEP)
In
short Nigel Farage’s behaviour since deciding to resign again, without making
proper provision for his succession, has been very strange and almost
inexplicable to anyone who thinks that human behaviour is either rational or
reasonable.
I
suspect the answer to this particular jigsaw puzzle is the piece that identifies
Nigel as an “Egotist”.
As
soon as egotism is factored in his behaviour becomes fully explicable. Only an
Egotist would relish the idea that the very Party which has actually been so
important to him achieving his political life’s work would collapse without
him.
Whatever
the reason however, UKIP is now in turmoil and would also seem to have
necessarily chosen a course in which it does not represent those that consider
themselves to be English and who are concerned about England’s future.
Let’s
turn now to the Conservative and Unionist Party.
They
have emerged from the EU Referendum on the surface undented but let’s just look
beneath the surface.
The
Conservatives have pretended for all my adult life (and I know that I am getting
on!) to be a mainly Eurosceptic led Party. That was exposed in the referendum,
by most of their Ministers and MPs, as a downright lie!
In
contrast apparently about 60% of their ordinary members and supporters voted to
“Leave”. Also the Conservative Party’s elite Establishment shenanigans have now
given their Party a replacement Remainer Leader and the UK a Remainist Prime
Minister.
Theresa
May, according to Jonathan Foreman, is apparently a vengeful and obsessive micro
manager.
Jonathan
Foreman is an editor and writer based in London. He is currently a Senior
Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute for the Study of Civil Society and a
frequent contributor to the Sunday Times and Saturday Telegraph.
“In
the run-up to the 2015 election one of the handicaps David Cameron had to
finesse was the fact that net migration to the UK was three times as high as he
had promised it would be. Remarkably, none of the opprobrium this failure
provoked brought forth the name of Theresa May, the cabinet minister actually
entrusted with bringing migration down. Then, as now, it was as if the icy Home
Secretary had a dark magic that warded off all critical
scrutiny.
The
fact that her lead role in this fiasco went unmentioned reflects Mrs May’s
clever, all-consuming efforts to burnish her image with a view to become prime
minister. After all, Mrs May’s tenure as Home Secretary has been notably
unsuccessful. Its abundant failures include a succession of derelictions that
have left Britain’s borders and coastline at least as insecure as they were in
2010, and which means that British governments still rely on guesswork to
estimate how many people enter and leave the country.
People
find this hard to credit because she exudes determination. Compared to many of
her cabinet colleagues she has real gravitas. And few who follow British
politics would deny that she is a deadly political infighter. Indeed Theresa May
is to Westminster what Cersei Lannister is to Westeros in “Game of Thrones”: no
one who challenges her survives unscarred; the welfare of her realm is a much
lower priority than her craving for power.”
Foreman
also wrote that:-
“The
reputation for effectiveness that Mrs May enjoys mostly derives from a single,
endlessly cited event: the occasion in 2014 when she delivered some harsh truths
to a conference of the Police Federation. Unfortunately this was an isolated
incident that, given the lack of any subsequent (or previous) effort at police
reform, seems to have been intended mainly for public
consumption.
In
general Mrs May has avoided taking on the most serious institutional problems
that afflict British policing. These include, among other things, a disturbing
willingness by some forces to let public relations concerns determine their
policing priorities, widespread overreliance on CCTV, a common propensity to
massage crime numbers, the extreme risk aversion manifested during the London
riots, and the preference for diverting police resources to patrol social media
rather than the country’s streets.
There
is also little evidence that Mrs May has paid much attention to the failure of
several forces to protect vulnerable girls from the ethnically-motivated sexual
predation seen in Rotherham and elsewhere. Nor, despite her proclaimed feminism,
has Mrs May done much to ensure that the authorities protect girls from certain
ethnic groups from forced marriage and genital mutilation. But again, Mrs May
has managed to evade criticism for this.”
Foreman
continues:-
“When
considering her suitability for party leadership, it’s also worth remembering
Mrs May’s notorious “lack of collegiality”. David Laws’ memoirs paint a vivid
picture of a secretive, rigid, controlling, even vengeful minister, so
unpleasant to colleagues that a dread of meetings with her was something that
cabinet members from both parties could bond over.
Unsurprisingly,
Mrs May’s overwhelming concern with taking credit and deflecting blame made for
a difficult working relationship with her department, just as her propensity for
briefing the press against cabinet colleagues made her its most disliked member
in two successive governments.
It
is possible (Foreman says), that Mrs May’s intimidating ruthlessness could make
her the right person to negotiate with EU leaders. However, there’s little in
her record to suggest she possesses either strong negotiation skills or the
ability to win allies among other leaders.”
So
if that article is right, Ladies and Gentlemen, Theresa May may well be the
Conservative’s version of Gordon Brown.
In
any case she and the Conservatives also are locked in, by the Fixed Term
Parliaments Act, into having the next election in May 2020 by which time both
they and she may be hugely unpopular! This will be especially true if
she doesn’t fully implement Brexit.
This
is also a risk for us all because she is a classic backroom EU operator. It was
Theresa May after all who was the main driver behind the gay marriage campaign
and she used the EU’s systems to force this through not only here but also in
other countries too.
It
does appear however that Theresa May may have more of a sense of humour than the
seemingly totally humourless Gordon.
After
all she and her team had made her leadership rival, Andrea Ledsom, turn on the
waterworks and surrender her leadership challenge in tears and blubbing, having
usefully knocked every other Leaver out of the running.
Ladies
and Gentlemen Theresa May has appointed Andrea Ledsom as the Minister in charge
of waterworks and floods at DEFRA!
I
ask you has Mrs May got a sense of humour or what?
There
is also the fact that the EU referendum showed that there are basically two main
types of people who are Conservative MPs (except for a small and usually totally
uninfluential number of mavericks).
These
two types are either Liberal Globalists or Liberal Europhiles. Neither of these
two types care a hoot for England! Both of them also actively hate the very
idea of English nationalism. This means that the Conservatives too have ruled
themselves out of being the party for England.
I
am sure that no-one here is unaware that I think there is a political answer
ready and waiting for all those who care about England’s future!
That
answer is the only campaigning English nationalist party:- The English
Democrats. Ladies and Gentlemen – Are we the Party for
England?
Ladies
and gentlemen there is no reason why the English Democrats might not prove to be
as successful in the long run here in England as the Scottish National Party are
now in Scotland except that we do need to remember that politics isn’t
just about having the best arguments - which I might add that I am fully
confident we do!
The
famous Prussian military theorist Carl Von Clausevitz writing in his justly
famous book Vom Kreige i.e. On War wrote that: “war is politics carried on by
other means”.
Consider
the analogy Ladies and Gentlemen - war is merely politics carried on by other
means.
How
is politics like war you might ask? I would draw your attention to a few key
similarities that are important to us.
One
is that wars are won and lost based at least in part on resources, but just like
a war, it is not necessarily the most well-resourced side which wins, although
it usually will be, particularly if it is a long war, as was demonstrated in
both the First and Second World Wars where the economically weaker Central and
Axis powers lost out in the end to the richer Allies.
War
also seems to be, at least in part, to be about ideas and arguments. Of course
it is important for a side to be able to put forward good arguments for their
side to encourage others to join them as allies and also to motivate their own
people with the justice of their cause.
War
also, just like party politics, may simply get people to rally around their side
even where it is obvious that their side hasn’t got the better case. It is not
at all unusual for the side with the less good argument to win in a war.
The
result of a war is also often vital for a nation’s future. Just like our
campaign.
Last,
but not least, the outcome of wars depends on the quality of each country’s
armed forces.
So
Ladies and Gentlemen so far as our “war” is concerned we need to get more
resources, both money and members, and to build up our party as an effective
fighting force and we need to boost morale by winning a few skirmishes.
I
offer you therefore the first skirmish that we need some help with. This is the
Batley & Spen by-election where we are the only Leave campaigners standing
in a local authority area where in a turnout of 70.8% in the EU referendum
118,755 that is 54% of the whole registered electorate voted to Leave.
That
not only gives us a chance to shine, but in fact may offer us a reasonable
chance to do better than that. I would very much like to introduce our
candidate, Therese Hirst who got over 20,0000 votes in West Yorkshire’s Police
Commissioner elections earlier this year. I hope that, even if she doesn’t turn
out to be our Margo MacDonald who delivered a surprise to the British Political
Establishment by winning the SNP’s first major by-election back in 1973 in
Glasgow Govan, but at least Therese makes more people sit up and think about our
Cause.
Remember
it was the victory at Glasgow Govan which put the SNP on the map and gave it
morale and credibility, but of course the SNP was still not in a position to win
overall either in the General Election which followed, although they won seven
seats, or even more significantly in the referendum which followed in the late
70’s.
We
however Ladies and Gentlemen, just like the SNP were, are in this for the long
haul! We are in this for England. We are in this for the future of the English
Nation! That is truly heroic when so much is up against
us!
In
another War long ago it is said that there was a famous heroic resistance about
which the poet MacCauley wrote:-
“Then
out spake brave Horatius
The
Captain of the Gate:
“To
every man upon this Earth
Death
cometh soon or late.
And
how can man die better
Than
facing fearful odds,
For
the ashes of his fathers
And
the temples of his gods.”
Ladies
and Gentlemen, and heroes, what are we in this war for? England! Louder
Ladies and Gentlemen! We are in this war for? England!
