Friday, May 15, 2009

Core beliefs

First of all, let's start with the best joke of the day from Tim Montgomerie talking about the possibility that the BNP may win a seat in the EU Parliament.

Britain will no longer be able to proudly say it has kept fascists out of high office.

That's funny for a couple of reasons. First of all, the BNP don't claim to be fascist - that assertion is put forward by people like Montgomerie - they claim to be just another democratic political party, but one with a different world view to that of the three main parties. Just because someone says different doesn't make it so - it's what they do that matters.

Which is why it is funny on the second level - because if you want evidence of fascism you only have to look at our current government for that. Fascism is characterised by authoritarianism, corporatism and the suppression of free speech - three major features of this Labour administration. Fascists in high office? We already have them, Tim old boy.

The main thrust of Montgomerie's article though is to claim that the BNP present a veneer of respectability to hide their core beliefs and have successfully used the internet to promote this. Montgomerie uses an anecdote about a conversation with two people who were suggesting they would vote BNP.

I asked if they knew about the Nazi ideology that many BNP activists followed. I asked if they knew about the party's preference for an all-white Britain. They didn't. They were horrified and promised to find a different vehicle for their protest vote.

Now this may be true about some BNP members, but the point is that it is not necessarily the position of all of them or even the majority of them. I'm pretty sure you'll find plenty of Tory, Labour and Lib Dem members who actively support elements of Nazi ideology - such as anti-smoking, animal "rights", environmental obsession and suppression of free speech and thought.

More to the point, you will find amongst the ranks of the senior Labour party many MPs and even current and former Cabinet members who were supporters and followers of the communist ideology. Let's be honest about this, Hitler was a madman and responsible for the death of some 15 million people, but he pales in comparison with the heroes of the left.

The ideology that so many Labour members, MPs and leaders followed caused the death of hundreds of millions of people. It's repellent enough that the Nazis murdered some 6 million people in their concentration camps - why is it less repellent that the communists so beloved of Labour murdered tens of millions more in their gulags?

Why do we forget this? Why do we forgive it?

I know it's hard, but if you remove Hitler's anti-semitism and the fact he led Europe into a major conflagration there is no doubt that he transformed Germany from a broken and pathetic nation into a major industrial and economic power. People forget just how low Germany had sunk in 1933. Hitler's Germany gave us BMW and Volkswagen. Communism gave us the Moskvitch and Lada.

So if you're talking about core beliefs - are BNP any worse than Labour?

I don't think so.

2 comments:

Letters From A Tory said...

I agree that Labour have become more fascist over time, but no-one has the guts to call them on it. Their authoritarianism is almost legendary.

Francis said...

Labour recently voted Castro a hero of the left recently I think.

I never understand why persecuting class enemies is good but persecuting racial enemies is bad.

I would take these denunciations of the BNP a lot more seriously if those doing so were equally fastidious about Marxism and recognised that indiginous British people do have legitimate rights and grievances. Just doing the Marxists' dirty work as far as I can tell and accepting their analysis of good marxists against bad fascist which seems to be wrong on both accounts.

Nazism was genocidal but not every form of fascism has been and even the Nazis didnt kill as many as Communists killed of their people. Wasn't "better black than red" an expression?