English Rights Campaign

to defend the rights and interests of the English nation

Friday, September 29, 2006

LONDONISTAN [2]

‘For Islamist terrorists and jihadi ideologues, London during the 1980s and 1990s was the place to be. Kicked out of or repressed within their own countries, they streamed in their thousands to the British capital because they found it to be more hospitable and tolerant than any other place on the globe.

A more brutal way of putting it, however, is that British entry procedures were the most lax and sloppy in the developed world - a system which asked no questions, required no identity papers, and instead showered newcomers with a galaxy of welfare benefits, free education and free health care regardless of their behaviour, beliefs or circumstances. To state it more brutally still, during the 1990s Britain simply lost control of its borders altogether because of the gross abuse and total breakdown of its asylum system. Of the thousands of asylum seekers who arrive every year, most have no legal entitlement to remain in Britain. Yet only a very small minority are sent home, and the remainder melt into British society. The reason so many are attracted is largely because illegal immigrants can simply disappear with no questions asked.

It was hardly surprising, therefore, that so many Islamist terrorists and extremists found Britain to be such a delightful and agreeable destination. As the counterterrorism analyst Robert Leiken has pointed out, al Qaeda and its affiliates depend on immigration to get into the West to carry out their terrorist plots, and to that end they use - or abuse - every immigration category to infiltrate Western countries. According to Imam Abu Baseer, one of the leading religious supporters of al Qaeda:

“One of the goals of immigration is the revival of the duty of jihad and enforcement of their power over the infidels. Immigration and jihad go together. One is the consequence of the other and dependent upon it. The continuance of the one is dependent upon the continuance of the other.”

The asylum shambles thus provided cover for the influx of large numbers of people into Britain who posed a direct threat to the state from without.’


And:

‘In 1989, the European Court of Human Rights extended the scope of the provision in the European Convention on Human Rights that prohibits torture or degrading treatment. This ruling made it impossible to deport illegal immigrants - including suspected terrorists - to any place where the judges thought such abuses might be practised. Although the ruling applied to all signatories to the Convention, the English courts applied it far more zealously than anyone else. At the same time, English judges began to interpret the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees much more broadly than other countries, so that the definition of a refugee was expanded from its original meaning of someone persecuted by the state to anyone threatened with harm by any group.

As a result, asylum policy descended into farce. Thanks to its courts, Britain was now obliged to grant asylum to potentially billions of people who could claim to be harmed by any group; and if such immigrants turned out to be themselves harmful to Britain, they could not be thrown out if they claimed that they faced further harm where they were being sent - which many promptly did. This impasse was then deepened by a series of judgements under human rights law - such as the ruling that halting welfare payments to asylum seekers denied them a right to family life - in which the judges thwarted all government attempts to end the abuse.

The consequence was that human rights doctrine was used to uphold patently false claims against the British state, with ruinous consequences. Those who were refused asylum simply disappeared into Britain; all they had to do to stop being deported was to claim that they would be ill-treated in their country of origin. As a result, they were not even sent back to the last country of transit, such as France, on the basis that the French might in turn deport them to a country that would ill-treat them ...

The absolute prohibition of torture is one thing. But to interpret this so that the country is forced to accept people who pose a potential danger to the state, on the grounds that sending them back to a country where torture is practised is tantamount to practising torture oneself, is demonstrably absurd. It has stood all notions of justice, logic and elementary prudence on their heads. Thus a Taliban soldier who fought the British and Americans in Afghanistan was granted asylum because he said he feared persecution - from the Western-backed government in Kabul. On the other hand, a group of Afghan hijackers, who diverted a flight to Stansted and then claimed asylum on the grounds that they were fleeing the Taliban, still remain in Britain despite the fact that they had committed a crime, despite the defeat of the Taliban, and despite the best efforts of the government to remove them.

The resulting chaos in immigration procedures produced a catastrophic breakdown in British security. According to Home Office figures slipped out quietly just as MPs were departing for their Christmas vacation in December 2005, almost a quarter of all terrorist suspects arrested in Britain since 9/11 had been asylum seekers. At least two of the men accused of involvement in the failed July 21 attacks on London are alleged to have obtained asylum using bogus passports, names and nationalities.

What’s more, the courts refused to extradite terrorist suspects if the countries requesting extradition were themselves suspected of ill-treatment. Case after case was mired for years in legal challenges and court rulings that overturned the government’s decision to extradite these extremists. The Algerian Rachid Ramda, for example, was accused by the French government of having financed an attack on Saint Michel station in Paris in 1995, in which eight people died and 150 were wounded. Britain had granted Ramda asylum in 1992. The French government requested his extradition in 1995, 1996 and 2001. Ten years after the first request, and after two home secretaries had ordered his extradition, he was finally sent back to France.

In 1995, the home secretary tried to extradite the Saudi extremist Mohammed al-Massari to Yemen after Saudi Arabia, with whom Britain has lucrative and extensive trade dealings, vehemently requested his extradition. When the courts blocked this, a deal was done with the Caribbean island of Dominica, which agreed to take him in exchange for help from Britain with its trade negotiations with the European Union over the export of bananas. The courts blocked this too. As a result, al-Massari has lived for years in north London, posting on his website videos of civilian contractors being beheaded in Iraq - an activity he briefly suspended after the 2005 bombings but then resumed, inciting Muslims to join the global jihad, advocating the beheading of homosexuals and describing 9/11 as the “blessed conquest of New York and Washington”.’


Melanie Phillips, writing in her book Londonistan.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

THE PAREKH REPORT [13]

‘5.4 ... Anti-black racism is different, in terms of its historical and economic origins, and in its contemporary manifestations, stereotypes and effects, from anti-Asian racism. Both are different from, to cite three further significant examples, anti-Irish, anti-Gypsy and anti-Jewish racism. European societies, it is sometimes said, are multi-racist societies ...

5.5 ... [“West-East racism”] draws attention to one of the most serious forms of cultural hostility in modern Europe - anti-Muslim racism. But of course so simple an idea can all too readily lead to unhelpful simplifications. One major objection to it, for example, is that it neglects forms of racism directed against people within Europe, for example anti-Irish racism and antisemitism.

5.6 ... Jews see themselves historically as an oppressed group. However, Jews in Britain today face comparatively little discrimination; the number of antisemitic incidents is small; the impact of antisemitic propaganda is marginal; and antisemitism has ceased to be socially acceptable. Moreover, countervailing forces have strengthened. These include the adoption of legislation making race hatred unlawful, growing awareness of the Holocaust, greater acceptance of pluralism and many decades of successful assimilation - the wisdom of which, however, many in the Jewish community now question. Yet not all Jews recognise the improvements. In 1995, 40 per cent of Jews believed that antisemitism was worse than it had been five years earlier, despite the fact that the evidence of declining antisemitism came from data collected by the body that formally monitors such issues on behalf of the community, the Community Security Trust. In view of antisemitism’s murderous consequences in the past, Jewish sensitivity is entirely understandable. Since the Jewish community is long-established, is often seen as part of the white establishment, suffers no colour racism and is often held up as a model of successful assimilation, relations between it and other groups targeted by racism are rather complex. Nevertheless, in policies designed to deal with racism, antisemitism must be included - it remains an integral part of the ideological armoury of racist individuals and groups and has been called “a light sleeper”. It would be perverse, however, not to acknowledge that, however deeply wounding and painful expressions of antisemitism are in Britain today, the racism experienced by Asian, black, Gypsy and Irish communities demands primary attention.

5.7 Anti-Irish racism has many of the features to be found in most racisms: a history of colonisation; the establishment of plantation agriculture to provide primary commodities for the metropolis; the use of indentured labour; migration to the metropolis to furnish manpower (which in the case of the Irish began more than 100 years before the migrations from outside Europe); negative stereotypes about difference and inferiority; discrimination in the criminal justice system and in the provision of jobs and accommodation; and widespread experience of social exclusion. However, anti-Irish racism has been twinned in British history, at least since the mid-16th century, with anti-Catholicism, and frequently for this reason has not been adequately recognised. Until recently, it has largely been ignored by organisations promoting race equality, for since the Irish are perceived as white it is not readily imagined that they might be victims of racism rather than perpetrators. Supported tacitly by academics and other specialists, policy-makers have espoused and propagated “the myth of homogeneity” - the false belief that the population of Britain consists essentially of one large majority or mainstream (“white people”) and an array of various minorities. “Non-white” and “ethnic” in the mental picture are synonymous.

5.8 Anti-Muslim racism has been a feature of European culture at least since the Crusades, but it has taken different forms at different times. In modern Britain its manifestations include discrimination in recruitment and employment practices; high levels of attacks on mosques and on people wearing Muslim religious dress; widespread negative stereotypes in all sections of the press, including the broadsheets as well as the tabloids; bureaucratic obstruction or inertia in response to Muslim requests for greater cultural sensitivity in education and healthcare; objections and delays in planning permissions to build mosques; and non-recognition of Muslims by the law of the land, since discrimination on grounds of religion or belief is not unlawful. Furthermore, many or most anti-racist organisations and campaigns appear indifferent to the distinctive features of anti-Muslim racism and to distinctive Muslim concerns about cultural sensitivity ...

5.9 The essential point to stress is that over the centuries all racisms have had - and continue to have - two separate but intertwining strands. One uses physical or biologically derived signs as a way of recognising difference - skin colour, hair, features, body type, and so on. The other uses cultural features, such as ways of life, customs, language, religion and dress. The two strands usually appear together, but they combine in distinct ways, with one or other prominent at different times and in different contexts. Jews were vilified in medieval times because they were believed to be the murderers of Christ, and because they practised a strict but alien code of dietary law and social behaviour. But they also came to be represented as physically different - with hooked nose, ringlets and a swarthy complexion. In the antisemitic iconography of Nazi Germany they were consistently portrayed as subhuman. Similarly, Gypsies have been discriminated against because of both their nomadic lifestyle and their “non-Caucasian” physical appearance. Most Muslims are recognised by physical features as well as by their culture and religion, and the biological and cultural strands in anti-Muslim racism are often impossible to disentangle. In the 19th century the Irish, who had always been regarded by the British as less civilised, were racialised - represented in the press and popular cartoons as ape-like, a race apart. This tradition continued in the mainstream press into the 20th century. As well as Jews, Gypsies and the Irish within Europe, the targets of racism over the centuries have included peoples and civilisations beyond Europe’s boundaries, including, of course, the colonised peoples.

5.10 Race, as is now widely acknowledged, is a social and political construct, not a biological or genetic fact. It cannot be used scientifically to account for the wide range of differences among peoples ... This does not mean that racism is a myth, for although it does not have a scientific basis it does create social and political realities - those things that men and women believe to be true, it is often said, are true in their consequences; that is, they have real effects. Groups are characterised exclusively in terms of what makes them different, and differences are reduced to a few simple either/or distinctions - a fixed set of oppositions between “us” and “them”, those who belong and those who do not. Difference and inferiority become all but synonymous. Individuals are then seen and judged in terms of the group differences, and “we” have the right to exclude “them” from access to scarce material and cultural resources. Racism, in short, involves (a) stereotypes about difference and inferiority and (b) the use of power to exclude, discriminate or subjugate. It has existed and continues to exist in all societies. Chinese and Indian attitudes to outsiders, and African attitudes to Asians, and so on, show its influence. Here, we concentrate on European racism.

5.13 The image of the African was influenced less by direct knowledge of Africa and more by the wider context of the slave trade. It was based on contact with the sellers of slaves and with the slaves themselves. Though varied in their detail, these views entailed “one universal assumption” - that African skin colour, hair texture and facial features were associated with both the African way of life and the status of slavery. Once this assumption was made, prejudices about class, race and culture blended with a long-standing iconography in European Christian thought, and imagery that counterpoised the goodness of white (the light) against the degradation and evil represented by black and darkness. In the face of the growing anti-slavery movement, racialised ideas of African slaves and slavery became more systematically codified. By the 18th century this general view of the physical differences and cultural inferiority of the African, and the negative social, cultural and cognitive meanings associated with black skin, represented the common-sense opinion of the great majority of the slave-owning planter class and their supporters, as also of scholars and thinkers ...

5.14 In the 18th century European trade enclaves began to develop on a more systematic colonising basis in the East ... At both scholarly and popular levels, a set of stereotyped views of how and why the peoples of the Orient were different and inferior developed. These were based on a set of unbridgeable oppositions between East and West - “and never the twain shall meet”, as Kipling infamously put it. As in relation to Africa and the New World, physical characteristics played an important part in alerting Westerners to oriental difference. But there was a much stronger emphasis on cultural difference within the various types of anti-Asian racism - the East/West divide was delineated primarily by divergences in social customs, sexual mores, social etiquette, family culture, religion, language, dress, cuisine and the rituals of the life cycle. Scholars contrasted the development of modern civilisation in the West with the backward and tradition-dominated East, an opposition that persists to this day. Where African men were stigmatised as violent and sexually aggressive, and the women as openly promiscuous, oriental men were seen as feminine, wily and devious, and the women seductive. But the two strands of racism - the biological and cultural - continued to interweave ...

5.15 The success of the anti-slavery movements in the 19th century represented something of a high point in efforts to contest extreme racist opinion. However, after the middle of the century a new and more virulent form of racism began to emerge in Europe ... It claimed scientific respectability for the idea that human beings belonged to distinct and separate species. Each race was seen as a self-reproducing group whose characteristics were fixed for ever with its own distinctive “blood” and “stock”. A scientific basis was similarly claimed for the principle of arranging races into a hierarchy, and physical and anatomical differences were measured so that groups could be mapped on a neo-Darwinian evolutionary tree, from primitive to civilised ...

5.16 These theories were closely aligned with increased European nationalism and with the rising competition between the European nation-states for a monopoly of markets, raw materials, colonial possessions and world supremacy. Scientific racism spanned the period of high imperialism and two world wars - racial sentiments were valuable supports for military mobilisation and essential ingredients of jingoism. This race-based nationalism interacted with a race-based imperialism. In Britain, for example, the Empire was frequently celebrated as the achievement of “an imperial race”. The revival of rabid antisemitism, leading to the pogroms against Jews in central and eastern Europe and Hitler’s Final Solution, was the product of this pan-European trend.

5.17 Racism exacerbates, and is exacerbated by, sexism - they reinforce each other in vicious circles and spirals, and intertwine to the extent that it is impossible to disentangle them. Racism involves believing “races” are essentially distinct from each other, as a matter of nature. Similarly, sexism involves seeing all differences between women and men as fixed in nature rather than primarily constructed by culture. In both racism and sexism the dominant group holds much the same self/other stereotypes. The self (the male, the white person) is seen as rational, reliable, consistent, mature, capable, strong. The other is perceived and treated as emotional, untrustworthy, feckless, childish, wayward - a threat if not kept under strict control.

5.18 Sexual rivalries in sexist and patriarchal contexts exacerbate fears and fantasies among white people about supposed sexuality, promiscuity and fecundity of people believed to be racially different. Racist stereotypes are then strengthened, particularly those that hold black and Asian people to be closer to nature, unreason and instinct, lacking in integrity and trustworthiness, and needing to be kept under control. White men perceive Asian men as effeminate. Stand-offs between white male police officers and black youths on the street, or between white male teachers and black pupils in secondary schools, are imbued with a combination of sexual rivalry and racism. In all communities such stereotypes and tensions increase the oppression of women and the policing of sexuality. In racist contexts, white people see black and Asian people not only as sexually threatening but also as exotic, mysterious and exciting. The exoticisation and sexualisation of “non-Western” people is a frequent theme in modern advertising. It has the appearance of being non-racist, perhaps, since at least a black or Asian person is visible in a high-profile way. In fact, however, such imagery may reflect and reinforce both racism and sexism.

5.32 ...discriminatory behaviour can create, and not just be the consequence of, prejudiced ideas and beliefs. Police officers, like everybody else, are socialised into particular ways of behaving; only subsequently do they imbibe from their professional culture the range of negative stereotypes and beliefs which they use to explain what they do. Similar dynamics occur in many other occupational and professional settings, as well - for example, in the education system.

5.33 Similarly, a set of power relationships ... can generate the very beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that then act to reinforce them. It cannot be stressed too strongly that all racisms have in common that they arose and developed, and are nowadays maintained, in the context of unequal power relations. “Slavery was not born of racism”, runs a well-known dictum. “Rather, racism was the consequence of slavery”. The unequal power relations between police officers and members of the public, teachers and pupils, health professionals and patients, employers and employees, and so on, are fertile ground for a wide range of prejudices and negative stereotypes, particularly at times of stress and conflict.

5.34 The term “institutional racism”, then, refers to a range of phenomena, not all of which may be present in any one situation, and not all of which are obvious. It focuses not only on the processes of an organisation but also on its output - the benefits or penalties which customers, clients, service users and members of the public get from it, and the extent to which, as a result, it causes more inequality or less in its surrounding environment.

5.35 Racism awareness training was developed in the United States in the 1970s and was fairly widespread in Britain in the 1980s. It was then largely dropped. The Stephen Lawrence report brought it back into prominence, with seven separate recommendations concerning its use. The term “awareness” is problematic, for the aims of training must embrace understanding, skills and practical action, not just awareness ... training should address the two main strands of racism - cultural and biological - and should take account of its roots in imperialism, anti-Muslim hostility and the slave trade, and in often strident opposition to immigration ... it should focus on the interacting components of institutional racism ... and should therefore address the practical actions that participants need to take in their own personal spheres of responsibility.

Box 5.2 Interacting components of institutional racism

Indirect discrimination
Members of black and Asian communities do not receive their fair share of the benefits and resources available from an organisation, and do not receive a professional, responsive and high-quality service. They do, however, receive more than their fair share of penalties and disadvantages.

Employment practices
Members of black, Asian and Irish communities are not recruited to the extent that could reasonably be expected, or, having been recruited, receive less than their fair share of promotion, training and career development opportunities.

Occupational culture
Racist arguments, stereotypes and assumptions go unchallenged in everyday conversation and affect how the organisation treats members of the public. There is cynicism about so-called political correctness, and little or no emphasis on reducing inequalities and valuing diversity. Muslim, black, Asian and Irish staff feel that they do not really belong in the culture of the workplace, for their world-views, cultures and experiences of racism are not acknowledged.

Staffing structure
Senior management positions are disproportionately held be white people.

Lack of positive action
Few or no efforts have been made to recruit Asian and black people to senior positions or to involve them in major decision -making.

Management and leadership
The task of addressing institutional racism is not regarded as a high priority for leaders and managers, either personally or professionally, and is seldom or never considered in mainstream decision-making.

Professional expertise
Few members of an organisation’s staff have skills in intercultural understanding and communication, and in handling and defusing situations of actual or potential conflict and tension.

Training
Few staff have received relevant high-quality training. They do not understand the concept of institutional racism, and do not know what they themselves can do to address it.

Consultation
Organisations do not listen to, let alone seek out, the views and perceptions of black and Asian people.

Lack of information
Organisations do not systematically examine the impact of their policies and practices in order to judge whether or not they have a negative impact on Asian and black communities.’



The fifth chapter of the Parekh Report is entitled ‘Dealing with Racisms’. Needless to say, with a title such as that, the Parekh commissioners really went to town.

With their condemnation of European societies as ‘multi-racist’ societies, and their obsession with supposed anti-Irish racism, the Parekh Report launches into a diatribe against the English.

The English Rights Campaign will deal immediately with the contents of paragraph 5.16. The paragraph refers to nationalism, imperialism and jingoism, and concludes in saying: ‘In Britain, for example, the Empire was frequently celebrated as the achievement of “an imperial race”. The revival of rabid antisemitism, leading to the pogroms against Jews in central and eastern Europe and Hitler’s Final Solution, was the product of this pan-European trend’.

That is a particularly vile lie. Hitler’s Final Solution was not a result of any ‘pan-European trend’. It was the result of Nazi ideology. That ideology had nothing to do with British imperial jingoism. Europe was consumed by World War II in resisting Hitler in which many millions of people died. World War II bankrupted Britain.

To try and attribute blame to the British for the Final Solution, when even Nazi Germany’s allies would never have initiated such a pogrom of their own volition, and when this country and its people made huge sacrifices to defeat Hitler, is contemptible.

Once again, such a lying allegation merely demonstrates that the politically correct are in the business of stirring up anti-British/English hatred and are even prepared to exploit The Holocaust to that end.

In this chapter, the Parekh commissioners reveal their Anglophobia almost to the point of being unhinged. The extent of the misrepresentations and venom is plain to see.

Those who thought racism was racism are in for a shock. Apparently there are all kinds of racisms. European countries ‘it is sometimes said’ [note the objectivity] are ‘multi-racist’.

Here and there such terms as ‘it is sometimes said’, or ‘it is often said’, or ‘as is now widely acknowledged’ etc creep in to assert allegations as fact. But who is supposedly saying such things? Such people are not identified.

The fact is that it is the Parekh commissioners themselves who are peddling such allegations.

The report concentrates on antisemitism and is comprehensively misleading [in addition to paragraph 5.16 dealt with above]. The report alleges that antisemitism has lessened due to the ‘growing awareness of the Holocaust’. It is simple commonsense that those who lived through World War II were rather more aware of the Holocaust than today’s younger generations - or the Parekh commissioners. The attempts by the politically correct to exploit The Holocaust have not played any part in any lessening of antisemitism.

The reference to the ‘antisemitic iconography of Nazi Germany’ as being an example of racism, is as offensive is it is misleading. Nazi ideology was uniquely vile and murderous, and is not in any way representative of British culture.

The report further attributes the lessening of antisemitism due to successful assimilation ‘the wisdom of which, however, many in the Jewish community now question’. Again, this allegation is not evidenced. It is just a bald assertion. Again, this demonstrates that the report [and those who wrote it] is opposed to assimilation in principle.

So desperate is the report to inflate the extent of antisemitism that it refers to one survey taken in 1995 in which 40% of Jews thought that antisemitism had increased. Yet the report does not address the fact that the growing Muslim community in Britain is bound to increase the level of antisemitism given that community’s inherent antisemitism.

It is wholly disingenuous to attribute the antisemitism of Muslims to the English.

Then there are the Irish.

The report is obsessed with the Irish and continually seeks to promote the idea that the Irish are another racial group who are victims of British racism. In paragraph 5.7 the report rattles on about plantation agriculture, discrimination etc. The report ignores the fact that Ireland was actually an integral part of the UK until Eire split away. The report also ignores the hatred against the British generally among the Northern Ireland Catholics and the IRA terrorist campaign.

Instead the report attacks ‘the myth of homogeneity’ - and it is this which betrays the motive. The report is using the old tactic of divide and rule. The report’s intention is to create division within the indigenous British in order to deny that the British - and in particular the English - ever were a homogenous nation at all.

The allegations of anti-Irish racism are rubbish. They should be dismissed out of hand as nothing more than the typical race war politics of the politically correct.

The report goes back as far as the Crusades in order to establish its allegation of anti-Muslim racism. It cites planning delays for mosques, a lack of ‘cultural sensitivity’ [ie giving Muslims special treatment], and ‘non-recognition of Muslims by the law of the land’ as being evidence of racism.

The assertion that race is ‘a social and political construct’ is pure Marxism. It is this logic which is the driving force of political correctness. It is a key part of Marxist ideology [it should not be forgotten that Marx described himself as a communist and co-wrote the Communist Manifesto, see the English Rights Campaign entry dated the 27 April 2005] that the proletariat suffer from a sense of ‘false consciousness’. That the capitalist system sustains itself by the ideology advanced by a society’s ‘superstructure’ [the government, the police, the media, the army, the judges etc]. And that therefore the culture of a society is determined by the capitalist system and the ruling class, which in turn are influenced by history.

Consequently, Marxists believe that the desire of, say, women to be housewives is not an inherent aspect of being female or a mother, but a product of the oppressive capitalist and patriarchal culture of society. That if the upbringing of females encouraged them to be engineers instead of mothers, then they would be the same as men.

Likewise, any desire to stop mass immigration is racism and the product of the culture of society.

This is why the politically correct wish to ban Thomas the Tank Engine and gollywogs etc. There is method in their madness!

And they mean it. They sincerely believe that if they can alter the culture of society, by controlling the media, the police, the army etc [ie the superstructure] then they will be able to alter the views of the ordinary people.

The assertion that ‘difference and inferiority’ as being ‘synonymous’ renders any distinction of nationality and immigration control as racist. Once again, the definition of racist is altered so as to include almost anything and almost anyone [provided they are white].

In order to promote the concept of white racism against Africans, the report dredges itself back to a Marxist version of 18th century history and the slave trade - a favourite topic for the politically correct. It omits to mention that the Africans and Asians were the biggest dealers in slavery and that it was the British who stamped it out.

The slave trade offers the politically correct the opportunity to condemn the whole of British, if not Western, society as racist, which is why they attach so much importance to it. If, as they assert, the views of ordinary people are determined by the culture of society, which in turn is determined by a country’s history - then the fact of the slave trade several centuries ago means that British society is racist.

That people might be able to make up their own minds, or that society might reflect the opinions of the people, or that the Marxist interpretation of 18th century history might not be reliable or relevant, are issues that the Parekh Commissioners ignore.

Quite how the white members of the Parekh Commission, unlike all other white people, apparently, remain unaffected by the slave trade is not explained. Nor are the prejudices of the non-white Parekh Commissioners examined given the backwardness of the Third World where even suttee and cannibalism were common into the 19th century, and cannibalism was not even unknown in Africa in the 20th century and practised by some African dictators in modern times. The stoning of those who have committed adultery in many Muslim states, and the Indian caste system are practices which remain to this day.

Out of cultural sensitivity, the English Rights Campaign will refrain from speculating on such issues.

The underlying ideology of the Parekh Commission is communism.

At paragraph 5.14, the report comments: ‘African men were stigmatised as violent and sexually aggressive, and the women as openly promiscuous, oriental men were seen as feminine, wily and devious, and the women seductive.’ These bald assertions are made by those who criticise others of stereotyping!

The comments about past attempts to understand and explain racial differences should be ignored. It is only understandable that those who encountered other races who were less developed should conduct such attempted explanations as to why that was so. It is juvenile for people today with the benefit of modern understanding and technology to condemn those of earlier centuries.

The report’s wild comments about sexism and racism [‘they reinforce each other in vicious circles and spirals, and intertwine to the extent that it is impossible to disentangle them’ etc] are hysterical and a good example of the demented mentality and communism of the Parekh Commission.

The assertions that the differences between men and women are ‘primarily constructed by culture’ again is communist, politically correct ideology. Girls are supposedly different to men because of the alleged sexism of Thomas the Tank Engine, for example, rather than anything more obvious.

The mind boggles.

Paragraph 5.18 is worth re-reading in order to marvel at its sheer lunacy. The lunacy of the paragraph is matched only by those who promoted it’s authors to such positions of influence [eg Trevor Phillips to the chairmanship of the so-called Commission for Racial Equality and now to the new Commission for Equalities and Human Rights superquango]. Paragraph 5.18 demonstrates the mentality of Labour and its cohorts.

It is no wonder that this country is now afflicted with ongoing Muslim terrorism.

The obsession with purported ‘unequal power relations’ is at the heart of communist ideology. In the past the communists would rant about the class system. Today, the neo-communists have fastened upon alleged racism, sexism etc, and minorities as the oppressed groups who they hope will rise up in revolution - rather than the proletariat. The allegations of the police being ‘socialised’ into alleged racist behaviour, or that ‘racism was the consequence of slavery’ is pure communist ideology. It is the attempt to convince the ethnic minorities that they are victims of a racist society and the victims of ‘institutional racism’.

Of course, to prevent such ‘socialisation’ and ‘institutional racism’ there is a need for political correctness to ensure that the values and opinions of ordinary people are vilified and condemned and that only the neo-communist view prevails.

It is telling that the report wallows in the concept of ‘institutional racism’. The term was the defining product of the MacPherson report into the death of Stephen Lawrence. That the police failure to secure a conviction of the alleged murderers was due to ‘institutional racism’. The allegation was a cop out and noted as being so at the time. Nevertheless, it has been treated with more reverence that the Holy Bible. It is a term bandied around by all those seeking to establish their politically correct credentials.

However, we now know that the real reason for the police failure to obtain a conviction was not simply incompetence, or any alleged ‘institutional racism’, but because one of the officers was corrupt [and this has been openly stated in a television documentary] and was allegedly taking bribes to obstruct the investigation.

The whole charge of ‘institutional racism’ is rubbish. Yet not one of those on the MacPherson enquiry, who wrote the MacPherson report, has seen fit to apologise for the untruthfulness of their report or the consequent race war politics it unleashed - and that they intended it should unleash.

Shame on them.

The Parekh Report goes so far as to declare that the output - regardless of how that output was produced - of an organisation is enough to condemn that organisation as institutionally racist unless it affects all ‘equally’. Again, this is pure communism.

To combat such supposed ‘institutional racism’ the report asserts that there should be ‘racism awareness training’ [although it objects to the term ‘awareness’ as not going far enough] and that such ‘training’ [ie communist indoctrination] ‘should address the two main strands of racism - cultural and biological - and should take account of its roots in imperialism, anti-Muslim hostility and the slave trade, and in often strident opposition to immigration ... it should focus on the interacting components of institutional racism’.

According to the Parekh Report, even opposition to immigration is tantamount to ‘institutional racism’. The definition of ‘institutional racism’ and its purported roots are simply Anglophobia - a racial hatred of the English - and nothing more. It is an attempt to vilify those who do not positively support the Labour pogrom of anti-English ethnic cleansing and of turning the English into a racial minority in their own country as racist.

The Parekh Report is so obsessed with purported ‘institutional racism’ that it even sets out a special Box to identify the supposed ‘interacting components’.

Given that we now know that it was corruption and not supposed ‘institutional racism’ that was the likely cause of the failure to secure convictions for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, one might be tempted to laugh at the Parekh Commissioners making fools of themselves. But this is no laughing matter. Britain has been plagued by allegations of supposed ‘institutional racism’. Those who have been peddling this untruth are unrepentant, remain in positions of authority, and intend to continue peddling their untruths and race war politics regardless.

The implied consequences of the report’s ‘analysis’ of the ‘interacting components of institutional racism’ are race quotas [even for the Irish], a condemnation of ‘cynicism about so-called political correctness’ as racist, multiculturalism and supposed ‘diversity’, mass immigration accompanied by anti-English ethnic cleansing and Anglophobia to ensure that the racial profile of any institution reflects the dilution of the English make up of England [eg that institutions may not have the same percentage of Polish people in senior management in proportion to the number of Polish immigrants who have recently entered the UK is therefore evidence of ‘institutional racism’], so-called positive discrimination [ie anti-English ethnic cleansing, as we are now witnessing in several police forces, for example], an obligation to accept that ‘institutional racism’ exists, training [ie neo-communist indoctrination] to ensure that staff ‘understand the concept of institutional racism’, and special treatment for ethnic minorities.

All of which is pure race war politics, and like all of communist ideology, is based on a pack of lies.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

ANGLOPHOBIA

Below is the full text of a speech recently given by Dave Cameron in Scotland [The English Rights Campaign’s own comments follow]:

Cameron: I will never take Scotland for granted
‘Last week Gordon Brown delivered a speech in Edinburgh about Britishness. Because of Labour's leadership crisis it didn't receive the attention it deserved.

The Chancellor made some valid points about the economic case for the Union. But the case for the Union isn't just economic.

I don't believe that, in the 21st century, Scotland will be cowed or intimidated into remaining part of the UK through fear of the economic consequences of going it alone.

Those of us who believe in the Union have got to do better than that.

We need to make a positive case for Britain that speaks to the heart as well as the head.

So, today, I want to take a fresh approach.


Acknowledging the problem

In some ways the links between Scotland and England have never been stronger.

More Scots live in England, and more English people live in Scotland, than ever before.

Almost half of all Scots have English relatives.

Travel back and forth across the border is at an all time high.

Nevertheless, all's not well with the Union.

A poll in last week's Sunday Times showed more Scots favouring independence than the status quo.

The last couple of years have seen renewed squabbling over the West Lothian Question and the Barnett Formula.

During the recent World Cup, tensions boiled over with Jack McConnell being criticised for adopting an 'anyone but England' attitude.

There were also isolated but ugly incidents of English supporters being assaulted on the streets of Scotland.

So how should those of us who support the Union respond to the current discontents?

We could bury our heads in the sand and make more speeches proclaiming the virtues of Britishness.

We could launch ferocious attacks on the SNP.

But I'd rather ask an honest question:

Why, in the post-devolution era, are so many Scots still dissatisfied with the relationship between Scotland and England and what, if anything, can be done to make things better?


The historical legacy
Next year is the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union.

It was a seminal moment in the history of these islands.

Many of us will celebrate it.

Some others may prefer to mourn.

One thing we can certainly all agree on is that it's an appropriate moment to take stock.

We need an undogmatic, balanced reassessment.

It should be neither North Brit nor Braveheart in character but sober and objective.

Personally, I'm convinced that the Union has served both countries well.

That's not just my view.

Unionism, in both an intellectual and emotional sense, is a mainstream position with a long and noble tradition.

The facts are compelling.

The 18th century saw the flowering of the Scottish Enlightenment

The principal cause of this was the unique genius of the Scottish people.

But the Union helped create the intellectual vibrancy and sense of possibility that inspired men like Hume and Smith.

The 19th century brought unprecedented prosperity and influence to Scotland, both as a centre of industrialisation and as a dynamic participant in Empire.

It was also as part of Britain that Scotland made an outstanding contribution to the greatest moral endeavour of the 20th century - the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Taken together this is a proud record but let's not pretend that it's all been good.

The last three centuries have also witnessed an erosion of Scottish identity.

In the aftermath of the '45 Rebellion, the Scottish Establishment, in its desire to remove the taint of treason, collaborated in a form of cultural cleansing that left an uneasy inheritance.

This injury to Scottish self-confidence found a practical parallel in the Highland Clearances.

Again, the truth about the Clearances is less simplistic than folk myth may allow but the reality of emigration and depopulation certainly affected Scotland for many decades after.

So the legacy of the last three hundred years of Scottish history is inevitably an ambivalent one.

I certainly don't go so far as Irvine Welsh who recently suggested that many of the main thoroughfares of Edinburgh, like Princes Street, should be renamed to remove the supposed taint of their Hanoverian associations.

Scotland has certainly not been an occupied or oppressed country these past three hundred years but I recognise that it has not all been a triumphal procession either.


The Conservative legacy
We all need to come to terms with the problematic nature of the relationship between Scotland and England.

But Conservatives have a particular hurdle to overcome.

Surveying the political landscape, we need to ask ourselves a simple and stark question:

How did it come to this?

We hold one Scottish seat out of 59 in the UK Parliament……

17 seats out of 129 at Holyrood…….

And we control one Scottish council out of 32.

That's pretty dismal.

Yet Scottish Conservatism is not some alien implant.

Fifty years ago we secured more than half of all votes cast in Scotland.

In the 1970s we were the senior partners in a coalition that ran Glasgow.

Until the 1980s Edinburgh had never had a Labour administration and most of the city's MPs were Tories.

What went wrong?

Part of the answer lies in the passing of an era.

People of the stature of Hector Monro, who died recently, loved Scotland and served her faithfully.

We'll miss him.

But the principal reason lies elsewhere.

It's painful to acknowledge - but acknowledge it we must.

A series of blunders were committed in the 1980s and 90s of which the imposition of the Poll Tax was the most egregious.

We all know why it happened - the rates revaluation and the rest of it.

But the decision to treat Scotland as a laboratory for experimentation in new methods of local government finance was clumsy and unjust.

On devolution too we fought on against the idea of a Scottish Parliament long after it became clear that it was the settled will of the people.

It's no compensation to see the Labour Party displaying the same insensitivity today.

It weakens the Union and reminds Scots of Tory mistakes.

For example, the destruction of much-loved and historic regiments like the Black Watch by this government reprises the unwanted regimental mergers initiated in the early 90s.

So much for the past - what of the present?


Addressing institutional difficulties
In dealing frankly with the current difficulties in the relationship between Scotland and England we need to address both sides of the equation.

The West Lothian question is a problem.

Most Scots acknowledge this.

Sending an MSP to Holyrood to vote against tuition fees for Scotland is fine.

Sending an MP to Westminster vote for tuition fees for England is fine too.

Doing both at the same time is problematic, to say the least.

I've asked the Conservative Party's commission on democracy, led by Ken Clarke, to look at possible solutions.

We should address the asymmetrical nature of the current arrangements in a calm and considered fashion.

We should not forget that Alex Salmond couldn't ask for more effective allies in his campaign to break up the Union than sour Little Englanders who cry 'good riddance' when independence for Scotland is suggested.

I'll fight them all the way.

No one is prouder of being English than I am.

But I'm also passionately attached to the idea of Britain.

Being British isn't about ethnicity or local identity.

It's one of the most successful examples in history of an inclusive civic nationalism.

Britain has given the world so much and I believe that we still have more to give.

Of course, there are some in England, including a few in my own party, who think my pro-Union position is crazy.

"Look," they point out. "At the last general election the Tories got more votes in England than Labour did. If Scotland split off, you'd find it much easier to become Prime Minister."

And so I would.

But I have a message for these siren voices.

Sorry - not interested.

I'm a Unionist and every corner of this United Kingdom is precious to me, including Scotland.


Addressing economic difficulties

There's another grievance held by those in England who seek to dismember Britain.

They want to end the Barnett Formula.

Politicians like Ken Livingstone regard the Scots as subsidy junkies who get far more of the national pot than they're entitled to.

Again, I'm sorry - it's more complicated than that.
Other areas within the UK are subsidised more heavily than Scotland is.

Nowhere outside London has as large and profitable a financial services sector as Edinburgh's.

Let's remember that before throwing accusations around.

We all know that families can fall out bitterly over money.

I'm determined that won't happen to the British family.

We're bigger and better than that.


Addressing cultural difficulties

There's one other aspect of Scottish-English relations that I want to address.

It may seem trivial to some but I happen to believe that it's almost more damaging to the Union than institutional or economic difficulties.

It's a question of attitudes.

And, in particular, the ignorance of English people about Scots and Scotland.

Why should this matter?

After all, we've all got broad shoulders.

Well, it matters because the Union is supposed to be a relationship of equals.

Not in terms of size, obviously.

But certainly in terms of that most precious of commodities, respect.

For most Scots - like people everywhere - their nationality is only one part of a broader identity.

They're fathers and mothers, doctors and teachers, bowlers and golfers, shoppers and students.

But, perfectly reasonably, they do expect their distinct Scottishness to be both recognised and respected.

Let's be honest.

In the British context, they don't always receive that respect.

All too often Scots switch on their televisions to be greeted with ignorant and inaccurate stereotypes.

Whether it's Russ Abbott-style lampooning or the inevitable aggressive Glaswegian drunk in TV programmes, the cumulative effect can be depressing.

Even as an Englishman, I find it a bit embarrassing.

Another aspect of English cultural insensitivity that rears its head in the media is the vexed question of sporting identity.

Why is that Scottish sportsmen and women who win are habitually claimed by English media commentators as 'British' only to be promptly redesignated as 'Scottish' the moment they lose?

One other aspect of the interface between the Scots and the English causes offence.
And here there's absolutely no excuse.

Scottish banknotes are every bit as good as those issued by the Bank of England.

That's something everyone working in shops or other parts of the service economy anywhere in the UK should know.

Yet Scots often have to endure the indignity of having their money examined by suspicious staff south of the border as if it's come straight out of a Monopoly box.

Sometimes Scottish fivers and tenners are simply refused.

Of course, it's not the end of the world but it's hard to think of a clearer demonstration of disrespect.

It seems to say to Scots - "Do things our way - or take a hike."

Instead of deriding Scots as chippy or difficult, isn't it time that English people of good will educated themselves?

Part of the problem is that some English commentators don't seem to know what to think of Scotland - when they can be bothered to think at all.

They appear seriously confused.

One moment they deride Scots as hopeless drunks and beggars.

The next they complain that England is run by something called the Scottish Raj, a race of superhumans led by John Reid and Kirsty Wark.

Conclusion

Less than twelve months ago, I stood for the leadership of the Conservative Party because I wanted to it to speak for all of all of modern Britain.

I have a vision of the 21st century Conservative Party as a vibrant, forward-looking force for good……

An organisation that understands the world as it is and can meet the challenges we face as a society.

For me, Scotland is a key part of this.

As we prepare for the elections to the Scottish Parliament next year I've got a message for the people of Scotland.

Yes, we opposed devolution - but the world is very different now and the Conservatives are determined to make a success of Holyrood.

Yes, we centralised too much in the past - but today we're serious about giving decision-making power to local people and local communities.

Yes, we made mistakes - but we've faced up to them.

I understand what needs to happen.

If I become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I'll never, ever take Scotland for granted.

Every part of Britian is entitled to full and equal respect.

Let's go forward together - and make the Union work for all of us.’
Rt Hon David Cameron MP
15/09/2006


The speech is awful in its Anglophobia and its distortion of reality. Its title implies that Scotland has, somehow, been taken for granted in the past. It has not. It has received very large subsidies beyond what it would normally deserve for more than a century as the Tories tried to buy off any movement towards home rule as had happened in Ireland.

Talk of Scotland being possibly ‘cowed or intimidated’ into remaining in the UK is plain daft. No one has ever suggested any such thing.

Dave breaks his speech into distinct topics:

1. ‘Acknowledging the problem’.
2. ‘The historical legacy’.
3. ‘The Conservative legacy’.
4. ‘Addressing institutional difficulties’.
5. ‘Addressing economic difficulties’.
6. ‘Addressing cultural difficulties’.
7. ‘Conclusion’.

It is the sixth topic that is most offensive.

1. ‘Acknowledging the problem’.

At this point, Dave misrepresents the problem of the West Lothian Question as being a problem between the Scots and English. It is not. It is between the British ruling class and the English. The Barnett Formula may be different, although since Alex Salmon of the SNP is keen to make out that Scotland is not subsidised at all, then this is less of a problem for those who believe in real devolution than it is for those who wish to maintain the status quo in the face of a gross injustice against the English, who are being forced to subsidise Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland beyond what is affordable.

The description of Jack McConnell’s Anglophobic insult about supporting any team other than England as a case of ‘tensions boil[ing] over’ is disingenuous. The attacks on English supporters and Jack McConnell’s comments were unacceptable. Dave does not see that.

But Dave concludes this part by asking why ‘are so many Scots still dissatisfied’. The main issue is why are the English being taken to the cleaners. Also such a question implies that it is all the ordinary Scots who are dissatisfied, when in fact it is more of Scottish politicians wallowing in their own Anglophobia.

2. ‘The historical legacy’.

Dave asks for an ‘undogmatic, balanced reassessment’ which is neither ‘North Brit nor Braveheart’. Quite what he means by this is unclear. Is he singling out northern England in some way?

Dave goes on to conclude, after citing matters many of which were internal to Scotland and had little to do with the English, that all has not been rosy for Scotland.

That is not England’s fault.

3. ‘The Conservative legacy’.

At this point Dave acknowledges that the Tories have an electoral problem. However, he himself points out that they received more than half the votes cast in Scotland 50 years ago. This fact tends to dismiss his analysis of the historical legacy as irrelevant. Whatever the cause of the Tories electoral annihilation was, it was not an historical legacy.

Dave does himself no favours by misrepresenting the introduction of the poll tax as ‘unjust’. The Tories were trying to help Scotland at that time. The mistake with the poll tax was that they removed the cap on local government expenditure at the same time as they introduced the new tax. Local councils simply spent much more, passed the bills on in the form of a massive poll tax, and then blamed it all on the central government.

4. ‘Addressing institutional difficulties’.

Dave acknowledges that there is a constitutional problem. But the thrust of his speech rejects the creation of an English parliament. He speaks of ‘inclusive civic nationalism’ as if the UK can be and is maintained by rigged voting procedures in the Westminster Parliament. It is not.

There is more to nationhood than geographical locations, voting procedures, the issuing of passports and government structures.

In effect, Dave ducks the issue.

5. ‘Addressing economic difficulties’.

Here Dave starts his little smear campaign against the English. It is not the case that criticism of the Barnett Formula is an attempt to ‘dismember Britain’. It is not even the case that those who criticise this gravy-train are all English nationalists.

He is correct in saying that other areas of the UK also receive substantial English subsidies. The English subsidies to Northern Ireland and Wales are substantial.

The resolution to this is to introduce fiscal devolution and to stop treating the English as second class citizens in their own country. The English should no longer be taxed into poverty.

6. ‘Addressing cultural difficulties’.

This is where Dave shows his true politically correct colours. He himself states that he regards this issue as more important than either the economic or institutional issues.

He blames the English at once: ‘It’s a question of attitudes. And, in particular, the ignorance of the English people about Scots and Scotland’. He even talks of the Union as ‘a relationship of equals’ - supposedly.

There is very little equality at present, and those who are losing out are the English!

Dave complains that the Scots do not receive sufficient respect and are ‘greeted with ignorant and inaccurate stereotypes’ when they switch on their televisions. He specifically cites poor Russ Abbott!

Russ Abbott has not been on television [at least terrestrial] for very many years. He has lampooned the odd Scots character along with many English characters too. What about his ‘Biggles’ persona, with a handlebar moustache and ridiculous scarf? What about ‘Brooke Bond’ and ‘Miss Funnyfanny’?

THIS IS HUMOUR FOR PITY’S SAKE!

The English Rights Campaign is proud to announce that it is and always has been a fan of Russ Abbott. Dave’s comment is:

‘Even as an Englishman, I find it a bit embarrassing.’

WHAT A WHINING WENDY!

But Dave is only just starting to warm to his theme. Scots athletes being described as Scots athletes, banknotes, and complaints about the Scottish Raj in England. All of which is a perfect excuse, according to Dave, for the Scottish Anglophobia.

Dave even has the gall to ask:

‘Isn’t it time that English people of good will educated themselves?’

A more pertinent question might be to ask is it not time for there to be a Conservative as leader of the Tory Party?

7. ‘Conclusion’.

Dave concludes by advocating more devolution and that every part of Britain is entitled to ‘full and equal respect’ - except for the English it would seem. As if the Scots are victims.

This is a particularly offensive and nasty speech. It is pure political correctness. Instead of condemning the neo-communist tactic of trying to orchestrate various minorities against the majority - the English - Dave has decided to join in. This is utterly contemptible. He has adopted political correctness wholeheartedly. He is a part of the problem and not the solution.

The English need their own parliament and their own First Minister and executive to represent their own interests. Dave’s speech amply demonstrates that fact.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

THE EU

Below is the copy of an article from the Daily Telegraph which is self-explanatory:

Britons could all too soon become slaves of Europe
By Simon Heffer
(Filed: 20/09/2006)

We have been lulled into a dangerous sense of complacency towards the evils capable of being inflicted upon us, our country and our way of life by the EU. Our proposed membership of the euro is, it seems, a dead letter. The French and the Dutch buried the EU constitution more than a year ago. However, something that could prove even more poisonous to our liberties than either of those anti-democratic impositions could be about to be foisted on us.

This Friday, in Tampere in Finland, there will be a meeting of EU interior and justice ministers. Up for debate is the matter of introducing qualified majority voting (QMV) on criminal justice matters: or, to put it more plainly, surrendering our veto on these. The potential for damage to our freedoms if this happens is awesome: the end of habeas corpus, a threat to trial by jury and the capability of the EU to interfere in hitherto sovereign matters such as sentencing policy are but three of the consequences should our veto go.

It is unlikely that a decision will be taken on Friday, and as such the Home Office is to be represented at the meeting not by John Reid, the Home Secretary, but by an obscure junior minister, Joan Ryan. However, the present Finnish presidency of the EU wants to have the veto removed, and by the end of its presidency in December. advertisement

It may be thought astonishing, given the imminence of this threat and its dangers, that there has been so little discussion of it by the media or by politicians. It may be abstruse and technical, but the loss of the veto in this crucial area is something to which we can all relate. Matters to do with the machinery of the EU are boring for politicians and unsexy for newspapers or television news, but that did not stop people becoming (quite rightly) excited about the threat of the single currency or the constitution.

We have all been obsessed for weeks with the date of Tony Blair's retirement and the possibility of his being replaced by anyone other than Gordon Brown, so there may not have been room on the political agenda for something that concerns our most fundamental liberties. Above all, the silence from Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition on this vital matter has, as is the case on so many vital matters, been ear-splittingly deafening.

On July 28 - more than seven weeks ago - the chairman of the Freedom Association, the former Tory MP Christopher Gill, wrote to Sir David Normington, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office. His letter was short and to the point. Mr Gill asked Sir David what the Government's likely response was going to be to an EU memorandum issued in June about "implementing the Hague programme - the way forward": in other words, the Government's view on whether it would submit to the introduction of QMV on justice and home affairs. As of yesterday, Mr Gill had had no reply.

So, for all we know, Miss Ryan will go to Tampere the day after tomorrow and raise no objection, on behalf of 60 million people in this country, to all future laws on criminal justice matters proceeding only in accordance with what has been agreed with a majority of other EU states.

That, as the Freedom Association points out, is not the end of it. The surrender of our veto would be a key stage in the incorporation of corpus juris into our law. This is the continental system of conducting criminal proceedings. Habeas corpus is unknown to it, which means that Britons could face detention not just without trial, but also without charge, for months or possibly years. One Briton, Chris Lees, recently spent 50 weeks in a Spanish jail without being charged with anything.

At present, criminal justice policy is included in what the Eurocrats call "Pillar 3": individual countries retain some of their sovereign rights. The Hague programme would move it to Pillar 1, where it could become a common policy. Asylum, migration and judicial co-operation policies have already moved to Pillar 1: the Finns feel it is logical for justice and home affairs to go with it.

The Commission now wants what it modestly calls a "bridging clause" to overcome difficulties in ensuring that the "community method" is used in matters concerning "freedom, justice and security": and Friday's meeting is about smoothing the way to such an arrangement, and soon.

The real beneficiary of such a change would be the European Court of Justice (ECJ). It already has the power to declare any national law invalid if it conflicts with EU law. If justice and home affairs were moved to within the first pillar, the competence of the ECJ would be widened to take in matters affecting the police and the judiciary, with far-reaching effects. If the ECJ legislates on anything to do with justice and home affairs, it then becomes a community competence.

Last September, the ECJ gave the EU powers to set criminal penalties. If we surrender our veto on these matters, EU-set penalties could be imposed on British subjects in Britain, and for breaches of laws that are not crimes or punishable in Britain. Equally, according to some legal opinion, matters that are criminal offences in Britain could be decriminalised by a decision of the EU without any recourse to the will of the British people.

The other horror is that, as EU competence increases, so the ability of member states to propose their own laws for their own people shrinks until it is extinguished. That is the ultimate goal of the ever-closer union: but it entails a stark and anti-democratic removal of sovereignty from this area which impacts directly on our most basic freedoms and liberties.

This power for the EU is even greater than was proposed by the defeated constitution. It means laws being made by QMV at meetings of the Council of Ministers, and forced on Parliament as directives.

Under our constitution, Parliament has always been there to hold the executive in check. Were our veto to be surrendered, it would not even be our executive that would be uncheckable short, effectively, of Parliament deciding we must leave the EU. It would be an executive made up of ministers from all over Europe, for almost none of whom we have, of course, ever voted. It would make a nonsense of the notion of our being a democratic state, and render participation in general elections no more significant than participation in a survey conducted by an opinion pollster.

With the loss of habeas corpus there would be more cases such as that of Mr Lees, with people floundering in jail without charge. There would be no guarantee of our historic right to trial by jury. The way would be open for a Europe-wide police force answerable to no nation and subject to no parliamentary scrutiny.

Indeed, this exists in embryo, since France, Portugal, Italy, Spain and Belgium already supply officers to something called the Euro Gendarmerie Force. This is a military police outfit and answers to the European Commission for its ultimate authority.

It is, in this respect, the way of the future - an entirely undemocratic and largely unaccountable future at that.

Briefings have it that this illiberal plan is essential for the fight against terrorism. Yet, as with identity cards, not a single terrorist is likely to be caught or convicted because of it. It is all about maximising the power of the EU, and hobbling the nations that comprise it. At least, on Friday, we shall finally get an honest answer to the question of whether this Government is happy to destroy our basic liberties in this repulsive cause.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

ST GEORGE’S DAY

It would seem that Labour are increasingly likely to announce a new public holiday on St Andrew’s Day in Scotland. This is meant to be a day of national celebration for the Scots.

But Labour remain unwilling to correspondingly give the English a public holiday to celebrate their patron saint - St George. There will be no national holiday for the English. This is yet another example of Anglophobia.

Nevertheless Labour’s hand may be forced. A new campaign has been started to celebrate a national holiday on St George’s Day nonetheless. A website has now been launched at www.stgeorgesholiday.com and a link to this has been added to this site.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

‘As TB enters his final phase he needs to be focusing way beyond the finishing line, not looking at it. He needs to go with the crowds wanting more. He should be the star who won’t even play that last encore. In moving towards the end he must focus on the future ...

Needs a daily grid, planned to the last detail. As much as possible a farewell tour, looking to the future, making sure the party is in the right place and the public remember him as he should be.

He needs to embrace open spaces, the arts and businesses, he needs to be seen to be travelling on different forms of transport. He needs to be seen with people who will raise eyebrows.

He needs to travel around the UK to be carefully positioned as someone who while not above politics, is certainly distancing himself from the political village. He should be dropping references in all that he does which reflect his energy and enthusiasm ...

As ever this is not rocket science, we know what works well: strong, policy-focused events which have substance, striking pictures, words from TB and real people involved. But it is essential that we do all we can in our message and planning to ensure that we do not get knocked off by events.’


Lord Gould [Labour nouveau toff and spin doctor] writing in a leaked memo setting out a retirement strategy for Tony Blair in order to promote the ‘triumph of Blairism’:

‘His genuine legacy is not the delivery, important though that is, but the dominance of New Labour ideas ... the triumph of Blairism.’


This strategy includes a ‘farewell tour’, including being pictured at ‘iconic locations’ around the UK and appearances on Blue Peter, Songs of Praise and the Chris Evans radio show.

The memo also states that: ‘Time is not an unlimited commodity’.

Famous last words.

The prospect of Tony Blair’s extended vainglorious departure, with prospects of him kissing babies on Blue Peter and descending from a pulpit on Songs of Praise to a background angelic chorus, was too much for many Labour MPs. They wrote and demanded his immediate departure.

So much for the Blairites’ desire that they not be ‘knocked off by events’.

But the determining factor in this is the worry for many Labour politicians about their prospects in the Scots and Welsh elections to their parliament/assembly next year. In other words, the governance of England is playing second fiddle to the interests of the Scots and Welsh.

To make matters worse, the public brawl which has since erupted is basically a punch up between the Scottish Tony Blair and the Scottish Gordon Brown, who is hell bent on taking over.

The memo includes the statement that:

‘Wales and Scotland - devolution despite the bumpy ride has been a success, TB should embrace this. His profile should be raised in the major urban areas in advance of the elections.’


Devolution might have been a success for Labour in that it has enabled them to rig elections and votes in the House of Commons, but it has been a disaster for England.

It is nauseating to watch this spectacle of these Scottish socialists arguing over who should run England.

Blair’s real legacy is very different to that imagined by his sycophants. Also announced this week was the appointment of ultra-PC Trevor Phillips to the chairmanship of the new so-called Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, which is due to be launched next year. Mr Phillips has already stated:

‘The job of the commission is not simply to be an advocate. There is a deeper point, there is huge demographic change going on in this country. Most of our media, our schools and our workplaces and so on are to some extent geared to the interests of single white men ... The whole point of this is that we need to become a society at ease with out diversity rather than one which asks everyone to behave in a particular way.’


Trevor Phillips, one of Tony’s cronies, was appointed the head the so-called Commission for Racial Equality some years ago on £90,000 a year for a 4 day week. He is now to receive £160,000 a year.

This is Blair’s true legacy: political correctness, race war politics, mass immigration, Muslim terrorism imported into England, rigged elections, a corrupted constitution and Anglophobia.

Future historians will be less fawning over his legacy, and that of Labour, than Blair’s/Labour’s apparatchiks today.

Friday, September 01, 2006

THE BRITISH INQUISITION

9 members of the 14 man Red Watch crew of Glasgow’s Cowcaddens fire station have been disciplined following their refusal to distribute leaflets at a gay pride march.

This is despite the fact that the 9 had subsequently conceded that they should have done as they were ordered, irrespective of their religious and other beliefs.

A statement on behalf of the fire service said:

‘Strathclyde Fire and Rescue gives particular priority to community fire safety because of the urgent need to drive down casualty and fatality rates amongst our communities which still rank as the highest in the UK ... Strathclyde Fire and Rescue has a responsibility to protect every one of the 2.3 million people it serves, irrespective of race, religion or sexuality.’


The firemen had refused to take part saying it was a ‘publicity stunt’ and some because it offended their religious beliefs. They had also feared ridicule and had pointed out that there was no need to attend because gay firefighters had attended an earlier march in June which had also included the transgendered, transexuals and bisexuals.

The Justice Minister, Cathy Jamieson, had also involved herself. A senior Strathclyde Fire Service source said:

‘Cathy Jamieson called senior managers to ask what the hell was going on. She was incandescent with rage.

This has has set back relations with gay and lesbian groups decades because it makes a modern, professional fire service look discriminatory and prejudiced. It's been a public relations disaster for the emergency services.’


However, the Archbishop of Glasgow has condemned the disciplinary action.

One of the firemen has been demoted, which has resulted in the loss of £5,000 in salary. Others have received official warnings. They have also been ordered to attend so-called diversity training.

Archbishop Conti said:

‘That the officers concerned are being forced to undergo diversity training is alarming. The duty to obey one’s conscience is a higher duty than that of obeying orders.’


That view is not tolerated by the neo-communists. To them adherence to the ideology of political correctness is paramount. Political incorrectness cannot be tolerated.