Britain: Things Fall Apart
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Much fuss and bother over here at the news that the Libyan Police are now being trained by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. But with Sinn Féin on the Policing Board, why complain about the PSNI training the Police in Libya? Similarly with some business about the Special Forces a few days ago. If the great enemy is now “al-Qaeda” or some such, then we and Gaddafi are now in the same boat, which is to say on the same side. Aren’t we?
Carved up as it is between a bizarre, Bob Jones-linked fundamentalist sect and a Marxist guerrilla organization, Northern Ireland is at the cutting edge of the “centrist” politics in which we are all supposed to believe. Calling something “the center ground”, so that anything else isn’t, is a way of calling it “the only acceptable opinion”. Who are New Labour to tell us what that is or is not? The Communist Party, in those days the paid agency of an enemy power. The International Marxist Group, which also included Geoff Gallop, Tony Blair’s mentor at Oxford. Trotskyists. The Milibands, one of them Foreign Secretary, are Marxist dynasts. Labour’s Soviet fellow-travelling faction that controlled the National Union of Students back in the day is also well-represented. And so on, and on, and on.
The “moderate”, “mainstream”, “Center Left” New Labour was and is riddled with this sort of thing, entirely unrecanted, and with only the tactics, if anything, changed. When they call themselves Social Democrats, they mean it within the understanding of the Russian Revolution, not within the understanding of almost all English-speaking people, at least in these islands and in the Old Commonwealth. They even sang not The Red Flag (the traditional Labour anthem often heard at funerals or other events graced by union banners depicting Biblical scenes and characters), but The Internationale, sometime National Anthem of the Soviet Union, at the funerals of two erstwhile Cabinet Ministers, again including a former Foreign Secretary. Despite also being funded by the CIA through NORAID, the Gaddafi and Soviet-funded IRA was an integral part of that little world. It still is.
Likewise, the “moderate”, “mainstream”, “Center Right” of David Cameron is riddled with old cheerleaders for, and fund-takers from, the Boer Republic set up as an explicit act of anti-British revenge in a former Dominion of the Crown, as well as for and from Pinochet’s Chile. Circles in which it was also de rigueur to demand the dismantlement of the public services, the forced abortion and sterilization of ethnic minorities and the working class, the legalization of all drugs, and the abolition of marriage, public holidays, any minimum age of consent, and much else besides. Once again, entirely unrecanted. And once again, with only the tactics, if anything, changed. Quite how the views preferred in such circles would have gone down in Pretoria or Santiago is a most amusing question. But then, at the same time, the IRA was murdering Northern Ireland’s own Communists and Trotskyists. That didn’t bother the ones over here. It still doesn’t.
Look at the things that they all support, and which are therefore “the center ground”. From the Iraq War, to the funny money selling off of our schools and hospitals, to practically unrestricted immigration, are these policies that most people would at least broadly support? And “the center ground” also includes support for the European Union, which subjects us, both in the European Parliament and in the coalitions filling the Council of Ministers, to the legislative will of assorted Stalinists, Trotskyists, neo-Fascists, neo-Nazis, East European kleptomaniacs and other neocon crazies, and people who regard the Provisional Army Council as the sovereign body throughout Ireland. Those ranks will soon be swelled by Turkish Islamists, Turkish ultra-nationalists, and Marxist Kurdish separatists.
New Labour has duly installed in the Speaker’s Chair the erstwhile Secretary of the Immigration and Repatriation Committee of the Monday Club, which is the old money wing of the British Far Right, and which has old, old ties to the non-IRA half of the people now running Northern Ireland. And the New Tories are heavily dependent on Demos, one of several continuity organizations created in the early Nineties out of the ruins of the Communist Party, and whose founding Director, ecumenically an unrepentant old Trotskyist called Geoff Mulgan, is on course for a seat in the House of Lords and for Ministerial office under Cameron.
I won’t be voting for any of them. I will be making alternative arrangements. So should all of my compatriots.
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You wrote “But then, at the same time, the IRA was murdering Northern Ireland’s own Communists and Trotskyists. That didn’t bother the ones over here. It still doesn’t.”
Could you expand a bit on that. I detest the IRA but was under the impression that they were Leninists. Who were these Communist/Trotskyites they were killing?
They were targetting their own erstwhile comrades in the Workers’ Party, which was why they were being funded by the CIA through NORAID. NORAID publications from the period are entirely matter-of-fact about this. It is also a matter of record that they were being funded by Moscow and Tripoli at the same time.
NORAID supporters are not held in very high regard in such circles, but a certain amusement value is derived from showing them round Sinn Fein areas, with their Palestinian flags and their extremely unflattering murals of George Bush.
T.O.Meehan,
The real name of the current main IRA is the Provisional branch of the (historical, long-established) Irish Republican Army. You may have heard of the slang term “Provos”. Well back in the 60s-70s, when the IRA broke into factions, the “Official” wing, which was Pro-Soviet and anti-terrorist resistance, was targeted by the Provos, leading to the separation of Sinn Fein and the Workers Party of Ireland, the latter having played a marginal role in Irish and Ulster politics of the 80s but seriously reduced to a small, ageing membership today.
David,
But what about the BNP? Even if its activist core may appear to be a bunch of unsavoury chavs, don’t they have better policies than the main parties + the seemingly libertarian, ultra-Thatcherite-leaning UKIP.
Or am I unfair about UKIP? It seems to me it attracts an ideologically disparate group of voters but its leadership seems intent on libertarian and Atlanticist rhetoric.
The BNP are a ghastly lot. Their Constitution uses words like “folkish” and is concerned with how “Norse” people are or aren’t. They are Holocaust-deniers and various other similarly charming things. Just look up Peter Hitchens on the subject.
I am not convinced that they are picking up disaffected Labour voters, as is usually claimed. It is just that so many people no longer vote. As a percentage of the elgible electorate, rather than of the votes cast, BNP support works out at about as many such people as there are in any comparable country.
But they used to vote either for the old National Front (whose then Chairman is now a BNP Member of the European Parliament), or for the Toryies (over forty per cent of the old industrial working class always voted Tory) either when there was no NF candidate or when, especially in parliamentary elections, they either saw no point in voting NF or had no such candidate to vote for. Which was most of the time.
So they were mostly subsumed in the Tory bloc. But now they aren’t. And the collapsed turnout of several other constituencies makes them large enough among remaining voters to maintain a relatively sizeable party of their own. The key to beating them is to re-enfranchize those other constituencies.
As for UKIP, half of its vote in European Elections must be Old Labour or (especially in the West Country) Old Liberal rather than Old Tory. Add together the Tory and UKIP votes in Wales, or any of the three Northern regions, or either of the Midland regions, or London, or the South West, and you get a ludicrously high figure for the number of natural Tories living there, not remotely translated into results for Westminster.
Part of the re-enfrancizement process must be that of those who were (possibly, for want of anything else, still are) Labour, or sometimes Liberal/Liberal Democrat, when that party had the same absolute commitment to the monarchy, the organic Constitution, national sovereignty, the Union, the Commonwealth, the countryside, grammar schools, traditional moral and social values, controlled immigration, and a realistic foreign policy, as to the Welfare State, workers’ rights, consumer protection, strong communities, conservation (not environmentalism), fair taxation, full employment, proper local government, a powerful Parliament, and a base of real property for every household to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State. It is no longer committed to any of those things. And nor are the Tories.
For why not, see my original post.
A few points if I may:
As has been pointed out above, there was a split in Militant Irish Republican-Nationalism in the ’60’s.
1. The “Official IRA” and the “Workers’ Party” that shared it’s political views, was the branch that adopted Ultra-Marxist, pro-Soviet ideology. It rapidly fell out of favour in the communities it operated (or rather didn’t) in the North of Ireland. It believed that the British State was more evolved in terms of capitalist development than the Irish Republic, and because of Hegelian/Marxist historical dialectic, that therefore the way to hurry the coming revolution along was to support the British State, and to denigrate everything to do with “backward” Irish Nationalism (they then were described as a “most valuable” asset by one British Minister – hardly a threat).
There was an “entryist” policy of Workers’ Party members infiltrating en masse into the Irish (Republic’s) Media, and Civil Service. In much the same way that the once-leftist Neocons in the US have adapted to their new political environments, so have WP/OIRA pod people.
For example, Eoghan Harris was once a WP stalwart, then was a script writer for a centre-right politcal party, later an adviser to Ahmed Chalabi, and now weekly poisons the well of Irish history and politics through the local globalist corporate media. And, while there has been much made of the PIRA’s arms, it is rarely brought up in polite company that the OIRA never actually officially disarmed or went through any peace process. Their WP allies later (after several branding changes) merged with the Irish Labour Party – the current pro-EU leader is one.
2. The “Provisional IRA” and politicaly sympathisers Sinn Féin, were considered too “nationalist” by the OIRA/WP – although yes, using the socialist vocab so popular amongst revolutionary groups at that time. As do the working-class British Loyalists. These are the fellows in power-sharing in the North.
My own understanding – limited though it may be – is that if there was any CIA funds going in that direction, it would more likely to be going to prop up the moderate nationalist SDLP (Social Democratic Labour Party) as a counterbalance to the militant Republicans.
The claim that NORAID was being funded by the CIA does seem rather… extraordinary. Forgive my imposition, but I would very much like to see what actual proof there is of that.
PS – it’s just a passing hunch, but UKIP seem on firmer ground when they are “in Europe” rather than talking about politics at home. And the BNP seems like a wet slap in the face to the cosy establishment by people fed up with the race to the centre, rather than being a ringing endorsement of all their ideas.
O. O’Connoll. Thanks for that information. I haven’t followed Irish internal politics and always assumed that Sinn Fein was simply the political arm of the Official IRA. A humorist here once claimed to have found the “I can’t believe it’s not the real IRA” wing of the IRA.
These bullies killing each other off causes me little grief. I just hope they never take control in the South.
“My own understanding – limited though it may be – is that if there was any CIA funds going in that direction, it would more likely to be going to prop up the moderate nationalist SDLP (Social Democratic Labour Party) as a counterbalance to the militant Republicans.
The claim that NORAID was being funded by the CIA does seem rather… extraordinary. Forgive my imposition, but I would very much like to see what actual proof there is of that.”
The SDLP wasn’t killing the Workers’ Party or anyone else, so it was of no interest to the CIA. NORAID publications from the time are, as I said, entirely matter-of-fact. And, as I said, NORAID supporters are notoriously naive about the nature of Irish Republicanism.
“I just hope they never take control in the South”
The British Army now marches there in full dress uniforms at funerals. God Save The Queen is sung at international sporting fixtures at Croke Park, on the very turf where executions where carried out during the War of Independence. But the South has a very elaborate system of Proportional Representation. And those who were already poor just got a whole lot poorer.
But you are right about the “dissidents”. If they were really any such thing, then they’d be dead. And Irish-Americans might consider that the Sinn Fein Education Minister in Northern Ireland has banished the Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist clergy from their historic role in schools, as the prelude to banishing the Catholic Church from the schools throughout Ireland, while, under the aegis of the Irish language (and at public expense), Sinn Fein is establishing its own network of schools in direct competition with the Catholic Church.
[...] Overseas politics looks weird to me. [...]
The BNP gained just under a million votes at the Euro-elections. Far from being Neo-Nazis, they were the only party to support Israel over its defensive camapign in Gaza. They are the only party which really cares about the future of Britain’s identity, traditions and values.
I don’t have any facts on the matter of whom the CIA was funding in Northern Ireland, however it would not be inconceivable that they would participate in the funneling of arms to the Provos while funding the SDLP political wing.
After all, they had at least something to do with propping up the right-wing of the Labour Party >>> SDP and pro-NATO social democrats all over Europe. Hell, the PDSI in Italy was virtually their creation.
As for Sinn Fein and the South of Ireland, they are the largest anti-EU political force. To a large degree, they play a positive role there.
But really, David, about the British political parties, what kind of “other arrangements” are you planning to make? What good does it do to say, “Labour is full of ex-Trots, the Tories are closet Objectivists, the Liberals are …. well, too liberal and cosmopolitan, and the BNP has a few ex-Nazis”? There is no traditional conservative party in Britain, and I unconvinced that the BNP is more evil than the other options that might end up on one’s ballot there.
I suppose locally there are a few small Christian parties and if I were a Scot, I might back Alex Salmond as the least of evils, but one should really make a positive, rather than fully negative, recommendation.
Abstaining won’t matter, just like America still has to be called the “Father of Democracy” even right after elections where most people don’t vote, and probably a third of people have no clue they are supposed to.
Thomas, Sinn Fein, which is pro-abortion, is nowhere near as large as the pro-life opposition to the Lisbon Treaty in the South. Among others.
The best thing to do is to stand as an Independent. That’s what I’m doing. Once we are in, then we or our successors, encountering each other, can coalesce into new parties, just as the old ones emerged.
Its wonderful to see satire alive and well in the august pages of the American Conservative (I’m referring particularly to the final paragraph, which a friend pointed out to me). But just in case anyone misreads this piece as fact, just for the record, I am: not old; have never been a Trotskyist (unrepentant or otherwise); and am not in line for either a peerage or ministerial office under a future Conservative government. Demos was not founded on the ruins of the Communist Party (with which I have never had any involvement): its second publication was by Margaret Thatchers chief economic adviser; its third by a man who is now the Liberal Democrat spokesman on the economy (and the most trusted politician in Britain). In other words, every single fact is wrong which is really quite an achievement!
David,
Fair enough about standing as an independent. I wish you luck.
Yes, Sinn Fein is only 5-10% of the South, not the majority of EU opposition. But the pro-life Lisbon Treaty opponents still mostly vote for Fianna Fail, of which I assume at least 80% of TDs back the Treaty, if not also for Fine Gael, which is even more federalist.
And Fianna Fail just joined the European Liberal group, so whatever pro-life leanings they might generally have don’t get them too far.
Of course, the best solution is to create a populist-conservative party, if only Irish conservatives weren’t so damn habitual and loyal.
“Yes, Sinn Fein is only 5-10% of the South, not the majority of EU opposition. But the pro-life Lisbon Treaty opponents still mostly vote for Fianna Fail, of which I assume at least 80% of TDs back the Treaty, if not also for Fine Gael, which is even more federalist”
It doesn’t matter. The Constitution can only be amended by referendum.
“Of course, the best solution is to create a populist-conservative party, if only Irish conservatives weren’t so damn habitual and loyal”
Not a peculiarly Irish problem.
Perhaps in Ireland there is the sentiment found occasionally among Catholic paleocons in Britain (such as Peregrine Worsthorne, the late Auberon Waugh and, on the only major point on which I disagree with him, TAC’s own Stuart Reid) that the EU might become a re-born Christendom; that, in Waugh’s view “at least its atheism is Catholic atheism”.
Funny how Geoff Mulgan (if it is he) has not put any of this on the British MSM website where I have also said all of the above. Never had him down as a TAC reader, I have to say.