Gospel of racial hatred

Press, 2 September 1977, Page 13

Gospel of racial hatred

The National Front’s governing body is an elected national directorate comprising a chairman (Mr Tyndall) and between seven and 20 members. The directorate is solely responsible for determining party political policy. Each year seven positions fall vacant in order of seniority.

The other organ is the executive council of the directorate, which comprises the chairman and deputy chairman, and four others elected by the directorate. There is also a disciplinary tribunal of the directorate. The main planks of the party as set out in its 1974 election manifesto were:

★ Self sufficiency. A progressively declining import quota to be placed on all foreign manufactured goods while home industries are built up. Farmers to receive more support.

★ Build-up of trade within a reformed British Commonwealth, Britain supplying processed goods and the former colonies providing raw materials. Withdrawal from the E.E.C. it- Money to be taken out of the hands of the banks and put in control of the State.

* The Stock Exchange to be reformed to stop speculation and a tax to prevent hoarding. Land speculation stopped by the placing of a price ceiling on land.

Creation of industry-

of “closed shops”. Secret ballot for al) strike decisions. Higher penalties against picketing.

★ Social services . . . “The British gained their former pre-eminence in '.he world by being a hardy, vigorous, self-reliant race of people, growing up in an environment that demanded effort and character in those who wished to survive . . . life should be lived in a bracing climate in which industry and resourcefulness are rewarded and laziness punished.” ★ No birth control. ■ir Vigorous slum clearance.

Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom, and the British Army to smash terrorism. A total ban placed on any further non-white immigration into Britain and a phased plan of repatriation of all coloured immigrants and their descendents. "White Commonwealth immigrants who have come to this country in recent years are a totally different case. They are not present in large enough numbers to create an overcrowding problem, and they are descended from stocks the same as ours and are therefore assimilable by our own.”

Support for educational streaming. “We recognise innate differences in intelligence and aptitude between children . . . All places of education should include in their curriculum the development of character, physical fitness, patriotism, and a degree of discipline ... We are determined to put an end to anarchy in the schools

and universities by restoring the authority of teachers and getting rid of those teachers unfit or unwilling to exercise authority."

Capital punishment restored. “Individual wrongdoers should be made to pay for their actions.” Defence a national priority, independent of organisations such as N.A.T.O. Withdrawal from the United Nations. Foreign aid to stop. “Governments have no right to concern themselves with poverty all round the world while there is still much poverty in Britain. The ‘underdeveloped nations’ are always shouting about their independence so we say let them show it by standing on their own feet.”

Rejection of detente with communism. “We can only live in the same world as the communists by being stronger than the communists.”

These objectives amount to what is clearly a Fascist policy as defined by Dr Paul Hayes in his book “Fascism,” published in 1973. Dr Hayes summarised the principle features of fascism as follows:

1. Racial superiority and anti-Semitism. 2. Idea ol the leader. 3. Totalitarianism: only one party, and the people controlled by the state. 4. Strong nationalism. 5. State ownership of the means of production, i.e. socialism.

6. The influence of militarism.

7. Economic selfsufficiency: protective tariffs and exploitation of colonies.

All of which brings us back to the Rule of Law. Sir Alfred North warned of the dangers of “turbulent protest demonstrations” in an address to the annual meeting of the New Zealand section of the International Commission of Jurists in 1972.

He pointed out that violence led to calls for greater restrictions, and that that was a “great pity” because it impinged on’cherished freedoms. He quoted an article in the Australian Law Journal which said that such actions helped to undermine democracy and thereby played into the hands of those who sought totalitarian rule. What was at stake, then, was democracy itself. So it is democracy

which is being tested by the outbreaks of violence. It was Oswald Spengler, the German pre-Nazi philosopher, who said:

“The democratic nations must disappear because they put their trust in illusions, more particularly the illusions of truth and justice. There is only one reality in the world — force. If you listen closely you can hear the tramp of the Caesars who are coming to take over the whole world.”

So far the authorities in Britain have resisted calls to restrict the traditional freedoms enjoyed by all. Those who have suffered most have been the police — the meat between the sandwich on every occasion. But the principle is one which requires

sacrifice. As “The Timos" writer Bernard Levin wrote soon after the Red Lion Square demonstration in London in 1974: "We will not allow the cause of free speech, which is to say the cause of all freedom, to be put up at auction and carried off by the mob with the biggest boots, the readiest fists.” But, as he lamented, the price is getting higher.