Saturday 30 April 2016

Nation Revisited # 115, May 2016


Should We Stay Or Should We Go?

I wrote this article for the March/April 2016 issue of Heritage and Destinywww.heritageanddestiny.com

www.uktostay.eu

Dave Cameron has put himself in an impossible position by trying to placate his Euro-sceptics while convincing the public that he has renegotiated our terms of membership. The businessmen behind the Tory Party want to stay in the EU but the “bastard” faction are determined to break away. Kevan Stafford of the British Democratic Party has written an article entitled “Ten Reasons to Leave the EU” in which he trots out Ukip’s arguments; my replies are in italics.

1) Budget one trillion euros every year.

The EU budget is just 1.05% of EU GDP, whereas member states’ budgets average 44% of GDP.

2) Accounts rejected by auditors for more than a decade.

According to the Court of Auditors 95% of payments at EU level are correct. To view the EU accounts go to: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/biblio/documents/2013/2013_en.cfm#annual_accounts

3) Corruption in excess of six billion euros every year.

Out of the 5% error rate only 0.2% represents fraud. When EU funds are judged to be spent inappropriately, they are clawed back to the EU budget. The EU has never run a deficit.

4) Open borders and uncontrolled immigration to the UK.

Britain does not belong to the Schengen Agreement and the majority of our immigrants come from outside the EU.

5) Parliament has relinquished 80% of our sovereignty to Brussels.

According to the House of Commons Library 6.8% of primary legislation and 14% of secondary legislation emanates from Brussels.

6) The British way of life is undermined by Brussels

The Belgians are Christian Europeans the same as us. The main threat to our culture is from non-EU immigration.

7) MEPs have no power. The EU is governed by unelected officials.

The European Commission consists of 28 members appointed by the elected national governments.

8) European courts continually undermine British court judgements.

The European Court of Justice consists of 28 judges appointed by the elected national governments. The European Court of Human Rights is separate from the EU. It was founded in 1959 to represent the 47 member states of the European Council.

9) Euro currency policy a disaster. Greek and Irish bailouts are an example.

Germany, France and the Netherlands have got no problem with the euro. Greece and Ireland got into financial difficulties by borrowing too much money.

10) British trade will thrive with the rest of the world and Europe outside of the EU.

British trade will thrive when the American and Chinese economies take off. At present there is a downturn in world trade.

Most of these arguments are emotional because nobody knows what would happen if we left the EU. The “quitters” predict a golden future with Britain trading with the world but the “stayers” fear that we would lose access to the single market. In reality, we would probably go on trading with our neighbours just as we have since our ancestors traded with the Gauls two thousand years ago. All over the world countries trade with their neighbours and we are no different. That’s why Belgium and Ireland are much more important to us than China.

The economic argument is convincing but the real reason for staying in the EU is political. The original Coal and Steel Community was designed to make a European war impossible. Such a conflict is unthinkable today but in the immediate post-war period it was a dreadful possibility. National animosities caused two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century. By 1945 Europe was devastated from the Atlantic to the Urals and almost every family had lost someone. Houses, churches, schools, hospitals, factories, roads, railways and harbours were destroyed and millions of refugees tramped desperately across the continent. Germany took in thirteen million refugees and a million German prisoners of war perished in internment camps. Britain was bankrupt and facing starvation after six years of war and forced to accept an American loan that took sixty years to repay. This was the nightmare that inspired European unity and that is why it is so important.

We have had seventy years of peace in Europe - apart from the break-up of Yugoslavia in the nineties and the current dispute in Ukraine. Admittedly NATO played its part but it was essentially the stark contrast between Europe’s economic success and the stagnation of the Soviet Union that brought about the collapse of Communism. The Berlin Wall could not contain the East Germans and the Poles, the Hungarians, the Czechs, the Romanians and finally the Russians rebelled against a cruel and inefficient system.

In Albania the brutal communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha was ended by the humble coat hanger. Their television service only showed government propaganda but the Albanians discovered that they could pick up Italian television by making an antenna from a wire coat hanger. They were told that their country was a workers’ paradise and that people in the West were starving but when they saw pictures of Italians wearing Armani suits and driving Ferraris they realised that they were being lied to.

European prosperity undermined communism but it attracted Third World immigrants. They began flooding into Britain and France just after the war and then targeted the rest of the Continent. Today there is hardly a country in Europe that is not affected. And this is not confined to the European Union; Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and Russia all have large immigrant populations.

Ukip have conflated immigration with Europe but we were importing workers from the Caribbean and India long before we joined the old Common Market in 1973. We have taken in a million East Europeans in recent years but they share our race and culture and represent no threat to our homogeneity. It’s the seven million Africans and Asians from the Commonwealth that we should be worried about.

The other Ukip argument is that we are losing our sovereignty and identity in Europe but after 42 years of membership we are still as British as ever. If we had lost our sovereignty we would not be having a referendum. It’s not federalism that threatens our survival as a distinct nation but the endless flood of non-European immigrants.

The British people will probably vote to stay in the EU but whatever happens we should reject the insular nationalism of The Daily Mail. We are sprung from the race that has given the world most of its artistic and scientific achievements.  We must encourage a spirit of European solidarity to counter the suicidal policies followed by successive governments. At present the European Union is run by the same self-hating liberals that dominate Westminster but politicians and policies can be changed. Instead of sending a gang of undisciplined drunks and wreckers to the EU Parliament we should reform it from within by electing responsible MEPs. The tide is turning throughout Europe and the inverted racists will soon be swept from power. The future is in our hands.


EU In or Out – John Bean

Reprinted from the BDP website – britishdemocraticparty.org



I view Europe as an excellent location to live in and for my descendants to likewise grow old in. This place has been made so by its different sects of a common tribe. Its fascinating variety of languages from Icelandic to Basque have evolved over several millennia.  As is the nature of mankind throughout this globe the different sects have at times been inspired to settle differences with close neighbours by internecine war. The cause this has arisen from opposing political systems, starting with Athens and Sparta and hopefully ending in the 20th century with democracy versus fascism and the corporate  state, aided by the clash between British and German imperialism

Prior to the rise of modern weaponry, particularly aerial attacks, the bloodiest conflicts were those stemming from religious differences. One of the earliest was the invasion of Spain by Moors of Arabian origin who were inspired by the new religion of Islam to destroy Christian Europe. Fortunately for the still evolving European culture, and not just its Christian religion, we were saved by Charles Martel at the battle of Tours. Nine hundred years later another attempt to impose the non-European religion was made by the Turkish Ottomans. This time the threat was removed by joint forces of the Habsburgs of Austria and Hungary and a Polish army led by King John Sobieski of Poland, who destroyed much of the Ottoman army outside the walls of Vienna. It was significant that by this time Christianity had become established into two opposing sects of Protestant and Catholic (as Islam appears to be doing in the 21st century). So strong was the split that the Protestants refused to help the Catholics in defending the Ottoman Muslims assault on Europe.

This was partly a result of the Thirty Years War primarily between Protestantism and Catholicism which  had ended just 30 years prior to the Ottoman Turks attack. It reduced the population of the German states by forty percent and took a hundred years to recover from the devastation. On a considerably smaller scale the antagonism between Catholic and Protestant led to death and destruction in France (leading to Huguenot emigration to Britain) in England, Scotland, Wales and in Ireland in particular. The conflict between Britain and Ireland was, of course, also promoted by the desire for Irish independence from Britain with whom it had no common land borders.

In the latter half of the 18th century it was Britain who began the Industrial Revolution, which then spread throughout Europe and into North America. The downside of this achievement were the bad working and living  conditions it gave to many working people who had flocked into the rapidly expanding cities from the wage slavery of working on the land, and farmers whose small areas meant they also could no longer survive.

Driven mainly by the desire for more raw materials, Britain, France and Germany, a late starter, expanded their empires in Africa and Asia. The colonised people looked in wonder and admiration that began to turn to envy at these white people from Europe. The industrial society that founded the great social changes in Europe also gave rise to uncontrolled capitalism. This, allied with the imperialism of the three great nations above led to the disastrous slaughter of some of Europe's finest during the First World War. Then within twenty years came a replay of this slaughter, made even worse than the first for Eastern Europe. Without the advent of Hitler and his distorted attempt to combine nationalism with socialism, this war to end all wars – at least in Europe - would never have come about.

For at least two years after 1945 more than 31 million refugees were on the move trying to find their original or new homes in Europe. Today, this is sometimes held up as an example of why we should not object to around five million Afro-Asian immigrants arriving in Britain and the rest of Europe in the last decade. However, 12 million of these refugees were Germans who had been thrown out of the new geographical state of Poland, Silesia, Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and parts of Russia, in all cases where their ancestors had lived for several hundred years. This was why the European Convention on Human Rights was drafted in 1950 by the then new Council of Europe. Note that it is nothing to do with the EU.

Thereby the majority of the people on the continent, looking for a future of permanent peace, gave support to the formation of the first organisations looking for unity amongst Europeans. In our islands we British had less enthusiasm but nevertheless voted to join the European Community in January 1973. I was one of them; as someone who had been preaching for a European Confederation of independent states for nearly twenty years. Note that this is not part of British democratic Party policy but is a personal view of the writer.

Insular Britons, and English in particular, whose healthy patriotism has always meant that we should try to resurrect the close association of the old white dominions of Empire and Commonwealth, have long been in a minority. Some think this belief may be found in UKIP, but it is only amongst a minority.

A narrow majority – as I write – have realised that the common bond (common blood if you like) that now exists between all nations in Europe could mean we should stay in, just in case it gets worse outside. Among such people a growing number, and not just Confederates, think we can work within the European Community and change some of its 'nasty' ways.  But can they?

Take on board this comment of Christine Lagarde, the M.D of the International Monetary Fund, Daily Telegraph 1.3.16.  “It is not easy for any multilateral institution to adapt to major changes in the assumption that underlay its creation.” She shows that she is aware of the fact that bodies such as the EU have to act undemocratically at times when she went on to say:

“Misguided attempts to suppress national sovereignty in the management of an integrated world economy will threaten democracy and the legitimacy of the world order.”

For those  who would make an attempt to  make the EU change some of its undemocratic ways,  it should be noted that it has not achieved any active policy to moderate, let alone  halt, the  tide of third world economic immigrants  that have outnumbered the genuine Syrian refugees. After eight months the EU has still not formulated, let alone put into action, any solution to this major crisis affecting the whole of Europe. This has shown us that the EU is unreformable.  It is an outcome of the Lisbon Treaty whereby EU member states, which includes Britain, are bound to welcome so-called asylum seekers. Our courts find their power diminished in trying to deport those immigrants who have committed serious criminal actions.

The spokesmen and women leading the Brexit campaign believe that we can leave the EU without being excluded from the Single Market.  Most seem unaware that the only legal way we can leave the EU is by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Much is said about Britain developing its bilateral trade agreements with booming overseas markets, such as China, Brazil and India.  Negotiations for the EU to allow this would go on for years.

This leads on to the Euro monetary system, which it was thought would act as the final binding action for a United States of Europe. The one-size-fits-all straightjacket of the single currency has forced youth unemployment in Italy up to a record 40.4 per cent, In Spain to 56.5 per cent and in Greece up to 57.3 per cent.

In an article for the British Democrats website a year ago on a European Confederation  (as opposed to the present Federal EU) I suggested that with the abolition of the Euro zone it would allow each nation's currency to find its own exchange rate against each other, as opposed to being in reality what is best for Germany's exchange  rate. It would not come about overnight but with reduced exchange rates Greece, Spain and Italy, for example would find a rising demand for their goods and services.

I am aware that it is often said that statistics can be made to prove anything, but here are some relating to the cost of UK's membership of the EU.

In 2014 the UK exported £230bn of goods and services to other EU states, which was 44.8 % of total UK exports. Goods and services imports were £289bn, 52.8% of our total imports.

UK's net contribution to the EU budget in 2015 was estimated at £8.5bn. Both sets of figures given in a House of Commons Briefing Paper, 19 January 2016.

A 2015 study by Open Europe found that the cost to the UK of the 100 most burdensome EU regulations was £33.3bn a year.

In regard to European immigration, a report in 2014 by Professor Christian Dustmann showed that they made an overall contribution to the UK's economy of £4.4bn. Non-European immigration in the same period, largely from India, Pakistan and Africa, cost the UK taxpayers nearly £120 bn.

A report from Oxford University's Migration Observatory as far back as 2010 said that 141,000 people who came to the UK under EU regulations were born outside the continent. The largest number of these were Nigerians. More recent unsubstantiated reports quote even higher numbers.

As someone who loves Britain as well as Europe, if you haven't guessed it by now I will be voting for the UK to leave the EU. The evidence shows that it just cannot be reformed from the inside.


Censorship



Until the coming of the Internet the liberals had a stranglehold on publishing. Now we can order almost anything online and self publishing is available but in the bad old days publishers and booksellers decided what we could read.

David Irving’s impressive catalogue of historical works is available direct from the author or from Amazon. The following snippet is from his Action Report of July 1997. www.fpp.co.uk 

“I drive out to Brentwood; pick up a pallet of books from Australia, then on to Chelmsford and Colchester to visit bookstores. At Waterstones Colchester there transpires this scene:

I ask for the History Book Buyer, a young woman reading a paper at the back of the store and show her NUREMBERG THE LAST BATTLE. She says: “I don’t think he is any good. I don’t think very much of his writing.” “Have you read many of his books?” “No, I have not.” “Then on what basis do you formed that opinion?” “From what I have read.” I ask if that includes the favourable reviews by Hugh Trevor Roper and the American professor Gordon C Craig, adding that Craig says that historians cannot ignore Mr Irving’s researches on the Nazi era.

The Buyer pushes the book aside saying that she is not interested in them and that she makes the decisions which books her Waterstones branch will sell.

I ask her if she has in stock a book by Lippstadt. She pulls up the record on her computer: “Yes, Denying the Holocaust, we have several copies in stock.” I ask her if she’s aware that the book is the subject of libel litigation. “I’ve read it,” she says, “and I think that it is good and that’s the reason I stock it.”

I politely ask her name. It is Yolande. As my assistant and I walk out into the street the Buyer shouts: “And don’t bother coming here again either.” Then she runs screeching after us to the amazement of the customers. “Do you mind telling me who you are?”

I point to the author’s name on the book, and say with a smile, “You’ve been talking to him in person.” The buyer shouts, “Oh you bastard. You bastard!”

On to stores in Oxford and Cheltenham, then back to London.


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