Unity is Strength

Supporters of our party express a great deal of outrage when the party or its representatives are in some way viciously and unjustly treated, whether this be by the imprisonment of its leaders, the denial to it of its rights of assembly or some distorted reporting on it in the media.  Of course such outrage should be felt and expressed, and whatever protest is within our means should be mounted.  But I always counsel our people to recognise that this is going to be our fate just for as long as we are small and without power.  If 50 to 100 people hold a protest demonstration against a particular injustice, no notice is likely to be taken of it.  If 10,000 to 20,000 do so, it is a very different matter.  The injustice may be equal in each case; the merits of the protest may be the same.  But in the latter instance the protest is much more likely to hit home.  We British like to indulge in a little national narcissism concerning our supposed sense of 'fair play'.  My own observation, based on much experience, is that there is little real 'fair play' in this country, or anywhere else, for the opponent of the system who does not have the muscle to defend himself and hit back.  In this world, weak political movements, like weak nations, are liable to be kicked, and assuredly will be kicked.  Only the strong can ultimately assert their right to justice.

The supreme challenge to our movement is the test of our capability to stand firm and persevere through the process of maturing from a small nucleus into a viable and nationally recognisable political force in Britain, after which the momentum of our own gathering strength will be the fuel driving us forward.  In this maturing process the most vital need of all is that our movement becomes and remains united, and that we guard against the suicidal tendency to splintering that has wrecked past opportunities.  This is the reason for my policy of ruthlessly throwing out any elements that show signs of exercising a divisive role.

Running constantly throughout this book has been the theme of an 'enemy within', contriving the destruction of British nationhood; and the manner in which that enemy has been portrayed may well convey the impression of formidable power intruding into every corner of British life.  That power should certainly not be underestimated.  We would be in grave error, however, if we fell into the trap of regarding it as omnipotent.  Evident everywhere in 'the system' is the proof of its weakness: the meagre calibre of public men that it brings to the fore, its puerile level of public debate, its terror of allowing into that debate people and ideas to which it has no answer, its manifest failure in every branch of national affairs to which its resources have been applied.

I began this chapter by saying that this system is headed for inevitable collapse, and that is indeed my conviction.  Every development in public affairs points to it.

Concomitant to this, we should not underestimate the potentially titanic strength of the forces opposed to what is being done within the system, and which belong in fact on our side.  These include many tens of thousands of ordinary members of not only the Conservative Party but the Labour and other parties too, not to forget the many active and public-spirited people in the ranks of Ulster Unionism, in its various factions.  Finally, we should not exclude the thousands of those who have been active in the nationalist movement in the past but subsequently dropped out, not because they had changed their opinions or sentiments, but because of their frustration at our failure to break through into the 'big time' of politics as quickly as they had hoped.

All these elements amount to what is potentially a gigantic army of national resistance and resurgence.  It only needs to be mobilised into a single and co-ordinated force for political action.  Somewhere a catalyst must, and will, emerge that will bring about this mobilisation.  When it comes, the force it will represent will be irresistible. 

But before this can happen a number of prerequisites are needed.  One of them I have touched upon already earlier in this chapter, and that is that a great many people must overcome this hypnosis exercised by the words 'fascist' and 'extremist'.  Apart from the considerations I have mentioned, it must be understood that Britain today is in a situation of extreme crisis, in which forces of extreme evil threaten her on all sides. 'Extremism' in the way of opposition to these forces is in no way wrong.  The way to fight the extreme of evil is by means of the extreme of good.  People must cast away their fear of this 'extremist' label and concentrate their minds on what is wrong and what is right; they must look at the issues and judge those issues on the merits of the arguments raging over them, not be led astray by mere catchwords.

Another vital need is that people, in the tens of thousands, break out of the strait jacket of the old parties, and rid themselves of the idea that only within those parties can they accomplish anything politically useful.  The fact is that the precise opposite is true.  The old parties, and the not so old Liberal Democrats, simply tie down great numbers of people in a political dead end who could otherwise be organised to bring about great national change - for these parties are so constituted, controlled and led that they are certain to do nothing to halt the slide to disaster upon which Britain is presently set.

Tyndall, J  The Eleventh Hour, Third Edition, 1998, Welling: Albion Press, pp 528-30