Well, here we are, at the beginning of winter and the preparations for the launch of a new and respectable, broad church ethno-nationalist party are almost complete, after much hard work.
The party has been registered with the Electoral Commission. Our bank account is being set up, as is the web site, as you read these words. The bespoke plastic membership cards are due to arrive at Party HQ tomorrow, by special delivery.
The party will be holding its inauguratory meeting at a prestigious location near the south coast, on the evening of Monday 10 December.
What are Patria's policies? Who is its leader? Why not come along to the meeting, at which these and many other questions will be answered by our joint leadership team?
You will be sure of a warm nationalist welcome (and a buffet) if you do. Further details may be obtained by sending an e-mail to draemerson@yahoo.co.uk, or, alternatively, phoning me on 01243 533932.
Thursday, 29 November 2012
Wednesday, 28 November 2012
Friday, 23 November 2012
Marriage fights back!
Panic in Downing Street over redefining marriage
Dear Marriage supporter
According to this morning’s newspapers, panicking Downing Street spin doctors have suggested David Cameron would rush through plans to redefine marriage, with talk of MPs getting their first opportunity to vote in the New Year. But since then, other Government spokespeople have hurriedly denied the legislation will be fast-tracked.
We will wait and see. We always knew such claims could be made, because we knew that our campaign was hitting home very effectively. We knew we were making headway and that the Government could panic like this.
According to senior Government sources quoted in the press today, there are indeed fears that we have been winning the argument and gaining too much ground. Our polling this week found that 62% of voters support traditional marriage. In terms of the party breakdown: 68% of Tory voters oppose redefining marriage, as do 58% of Labour voters and 52% of Liberal Democrat voters.
Our ComRes poll found that for every one disaffected Conservative voter gained back, the Party lost eight votes. In April the ratio was one to three. So the haemorrhage is deepening. The Tories have lost around 1.35 million votes. That will easily translate into the loss of over 30 seats. Downing Street’s panicked reaction shows that we, and you, have been doing precisely the right things in opposition to this unpopular and unnecessary plan.
It was always arrogant for the Government to think it could rewrite the meaning of marriage. It would be even worse for them to do it in a rush, knowing – as they surely must – that the plans bring monumental legal difficulties, not least for the civil liberties of those who disagree. In today’s Times, gay journalist Matthew Parris says that opponents of redefining marriage “have some dangerously cogent arguments at their disposal”. It would be completely reckless for the Government to plough on ahead and ignore the fact that people like Adrian Smith have been punished for their beliefs on traditional marriage. If that is the case now, how much more so if gay marriage is legalised?
So, with the Government panicking, now is the time to redouble our efforts and keep the pressure on. We are not going away.
When the time comes please respond to our action alerts to contact your MP. Even if you have done it many times before, please do so again. We know it is having a great impact at Westminster.
Please make a generous contribution to support the campaign. We have a fight on our hands, but if you give us the resources we believe we can win the argument.
Please give £50, £100, £200 or whatever you can afford.
DONATE safely, privately.
Yours sincerely
Colin Hart
Campaign Director
Coalition for Marriage
Dear Marriage supporter
According to this morning’s newspapers, panicking Downing Street spin doctors have suggested David Cameron would rush through plans to redefine marriage, with talk of MPs getting their first opportunity to vote in the New Year. But since then, other Government spokespeople have hurriedly denied the legislation will be fast-tracked.
We will wait and see. We always knew such claims could be made, because we knew that our campaign was hitting home very effectively. We knew we were making headway and that the Government could panic like this.
According to senior Government sources quoted in the press today, there are indeed fears that we have been winning the argument and gaining too much ground. Our polling this week found that 62% of voters support traditional marriage. In terms of the party breakdown: 68% of Tory voters oppose redefining marriage, as do 58% of Labour voters and 52% of Liberal Democrat voters.
Our ComRes poll found that for every one disaffected Conservative voter gained back, the Party lost eight votes. In April the ratio was one to three. So the haemorrhage is deepening. The Tories have lost around 1.35 million votes. That will easily translate into the loss of over 30 seats. Downing Street’s panicked reaction shows that we, and you, have been doing precisely the right things in opposition to this unpopular and unnecessary plan.
It was always arrogant for the Government to think it could rewrite the meaning of marriage. It would be even worse for them to do it in a rush, knowing – as they surely must – that the plans bring monumental legal difficulties, not least for the civil liberties of those who disagree. In today’s Times, gay journalist Matthew Parris says that opponents of redefining marriage “have some dangerously cogent arguments at their disposal”. It would be completely reckless for the Government to plough on ahead and ignore the fact that people like Adrian Smith have been punished for their beliefs on traditional marriage. If that is the case now, how much more so if gay marriage is legalised?
So, with the Government panicking, now is the time to redouble our efforts and keep the pressure on. We are not going away.
When the time comes please respond to our action alerts to contact your MP. Even if you have done it many times before, please do so again. We know it is having a great impact at Westminster.
Please make a generous contribution to support the campaign. We have a fight on our hands, but if you give us the resources we believe we can win the argument.
Please give £50, £100, £200 or whatever you can afford.
DONATE safely, privately.
Yours sincerely
Colin Hart
Campaign Director
Coalition for Marriage
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
Monday, 12 November 2012
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Ulysses
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd and wrought, and thought with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Lord Tennyson 1809-1892
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd and wrought, and thought with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Lord Tennyson 1809-1892
Saturday, 10 November 2012
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come
Papa Luigi's article is, contra the title of this thread, not a 'new' bag at all. At least not for him and not for those of us who have read his contributions to this forum over the last few months. He has been propagating his rather nebulous strategy of the eschewing of electoral politics, in favour of the development of a semi-clandestine network of nationalist donors, increasingly openly.
What should one make of such a proposed strategy? Well, the first thing to say is that it is fundamentally flawed. Fundraising is certainly an important element in politics, on that much most nationalists can agree. But fundraising as an activity is inseparably linked to the front end activities of any political group. When the fundraising activity of a group that has supposedly political aims becomes its top priority, becomes effectively an end in itself, displacing the formal goal of winning political power, as we saw in the case of the BNP from 2008 to 2010, then donors begin to ask themselves the question: where is all this money going and what good is it doing?
Now, for all I know there may be nationalists who are willing to re-live their experience of 2008-2010 with the BNP, minus the electioneering which was the ostensible justification for that party's fundraising efforts. If so, then one can only marvel at the triumph of hope over experience.
Where fundraising is concerned there must always be scrupulous candour and accountability, if the confidence of donors is to be won and maintained. A semi-clandestine group, with no formal constitution or membership, even if led by an honest man, by virtue of its very secrecy militates against such needed candour and accountability, just as the BNP militated against them, despite possessing a formal constitution and membership, because it was led by a dishonest man who employed other dishonest men.
Donors expect to receive something in return for their donations. In the case of a political party that return is activity in the shape of campaigning and contesting elections. If these activities produce observable progress and positive results then fundraising revenue tends to rise, whereas if the hoped for progress fails to materialize fundraising revenue tends to decline. But provided a party continues to fly the flag of nationalism in elections nationalist donors have some reason to contribute, on the grounds that even standing in an election is in itself a minor victory, in that nationalism's message of hope is still being propagated, however ineptly.
Of course, one 'advantage' of a semi-clandestine group is that when sceptics say "But what are you actually doing?" and "What are you using this money for?" it can reply "It's a secret. But become a donor and I'll tell you more". The Emperor's new clothes come to mind at this point.
The history of the BNP over the last ten years demonstrates that a nationalist party can win elections without spending vast sums of money. Most of the BNP's electoral victories, including its earliest, have been in council elections in which highly successful campaigns have been conducted on a shoe-string budget. With a more rigorous and impartial selection process for candidates and crucially, a proper scheme of ongoing training and support for both prospective candidates and elected councillors, there is every likelihood of a nationalist party succeeding in winning control of councils in the future. And the control of councils is the best springboard for the winning of seats in parliament.
Those who have focused upon the venal charade of the European 'parliament', as if play-acting in its masquerade were of any benefit to nationalism, have led nationalists up a blind alley, while those who counsel the abandonment of electoral politics entirely, in favour of some kind of cultic retreatism or anarcho-localism, are equally in error, be their motives what they may.
Am I advocating a renewed support of the BNP then, or calling for the support of any of the other extant nationalist parties? God forbid. Before Christmas a new nationalist party will be launched, one with which I am proud to be associated and which, I hope, many others will also be proud to join. A new party is needed because none of the other nationalist parties have the characteristics, or the leadership, necessary to inspire the thousands of disillusioned former members of the BNP, or even to win many decent new converts to nationalism.
My colleagues and I are under no illusion regarding the difficulty of the task we face. None of us expects overnight success. We are here for the long-haul because we love our country and our people and because no sacrifice seems too great in the sacred cause of the patriot.
Originally published on the British Democracy Forum
What should one make of such a proposed strategy? Well, the first thing to say is that it is fundamentally flawed. Fundraising is certainly an important element in politics, on that much most nationalists can agree. But fundraising as an activity is inseparably linked to the front end activities of any political group. When the fundraising activity of a group that has supposedly political aims becomes its top priority, becomes effectively an end in itself, displacing the formal goal of winning political power, as we saw in the case of the BNP from 2008 to 2010, then donors begin to ask themselves the question: where is all this money going and what good is it doing?
Now, for all I know there may be nationalists who are willing to re-live their experience of 2008-2010 with the BNP, minus the electioneering which was the ostensible justification for that party's fundraising efforts. If so, then one can only marvel at the triumph of hope over experience.
Where fundraising is concerned there must always be scrupulous candour and accountability, if the confidence of donors is to be won and maintained. A semi-clandestine group, with no formal constitution or membership, even if led by an honest man, by virtue of its very secrecy militates against such needed candour and accountability, just as the BNP militated against them, despite possessing a formal constitution and membership, because it was led by a dishonest man who employed other dishonest men.
Donors expect to receive something in return for their donations. In the case of a political party that return is activity in the shape of campaigning and contesting elections. If these activities produce observable progress and positive results then fundraising revenue tends to rise, whereas if the hoped for progress fails to materialize fundraising revenue tends to decline. But provided a party continues to fly the flag of nationalism in elections nationalist donors have some reason to contribute, on the grounds that even standing in an election is in itself a minor victory, in that nationalism's message of hope is still being propagated, however ineptly.
Of course, one 'advantage' of a semi-clandestine group is that when sceptics say "But what are you actually doing?" and "What are you using this money for?" it can reply "It's a secret. But become a donor and I'll tell you more". The Emperor's new clothes come to mind at this point.
The history of the BNP over the last ten years demonstrates that a nationalist party can win elections without spending vast sums of money. Most of the BNP's electoral victories, including its earliest, have been in council elections in which highly successful campaigns have been conducted on a shoe-string budget. With a more rigorous and impartial selection process for candidates and crucially, a proper scheme of ongoing training and support for both prospective candidates and elected councillors, there is every likelihood of a nationalist party succeeding in winning control of councils in the future. And the control of councils is the best springboard for the winning of seats in parliament.
Those who have focused upon the venal charade of the European 'parliament', as if play-acting in its masquerade were of any benefit to nationalism, have led nationalists up a blind alley, while those who counsel the abandonment of electoral politics entirely, in favour of some kind of cultic retreatism or anarcho-localism, are equally in error, be their motives what they may.
Am I advocating a renewed support of the BNP then, or calling for the support of any of the other extant nationalist parties? God forbid. Before Christmas a new nationalist party will be launched, one with which I am proud to be associated and which, I hope, many others will also be proud to join. A new party is needed because none of the other nationalist parties have the characteristics, or the leadership, necessary to inspire the thousands of disillusioned former members of the BNP, or even to win many decent new converts to nationalism.
My colleagues and I are under no illusion regarding the difficulty of the task we face. None of us expects overnight success. We are here for the long-haul because we love our country and our people and because no sacrifice seems too great in the sacred cause of the patriot.
Originally published on the British Democracy Forum
Wednesday, 7 November 2012
Saturday, 3 November 2012
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