Morley Patriot Blog

(Some) MEPs oppose the murder of South African farmers

2012-01-29T04:03:00.000-08:00

Thankfully not all MEPs are willing to turn a blind eye to murder just because the circumstances are irreconcilable with politically correct orthodoxy.

See also: A very important Written Declaration in the European Parliament

English Democrats campaign reported in the Financial Times

2012-01-28T04:15:00.000-08:00

I've just noticed an article on page 4 of Thursday's Financial Times regarding our (as we now know, successful) campaign for an elected mayor in Salford.

The article is entitled;

Salford emerges from the shadows as vote begins on having an elected mayor.

In the article it is stated that;

John Merry, the Labour council leader, does not welcome the referendum - triggered by a petition from the nationalist English Democrats party - but is happy with the attention.

Later it reads;

Raising expectations and failing to meet them is dangerous. Stephen Morris, of the English Democrats, which collected more than 10,000 signatures in support of a mayoral referendum - the requisite 5 per cent of voters - says 39 years of Labour rule has failed Salford. "We have one of the highest council taxes in the country and higher than average crime and poverty."

We seem to be witnessing a steady increase in our party's profile in the media as our party grows and increases in popularity. Party chairman Robin Tilbrook's appearance on BBC News 24 earlier this week is another example of this phenomenon.

It is a real privilege to be involved in such a vibrant and growing party. The English Democrats are indisputably on the rise, however one cares to measure such things. These are exciting times indeed for our party and the patriotic cause.

Be a part of it by joining the English Democrats here.

PRESS RELEASE: English Democrats' David, slays Salford Labour’s Goliath!

2012-01-27T09:50:00.000-08:00

PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

English Democrats' David, slays Salford Labour’s Goliath!

Today the English Democrats are delighted to announce that our nationwide campaign for directly elected Council Leaders (aka Mayors) for every local authority in England has borne its first fruit - despite an increasingly desperate and dishonest campaign by the Salford Council Labour Party.

Salford is the first local authority where we collected the required 5% of the electors’ signatures (c. over 8,500) to trigger a referendum to give the voters of Salford the chance to change their Council’s leadership, from the old back-scratching and buggins’ system, to one of democratic election by all the voters. The result was, out of 31,091 votes cast, 17,344 were in favour of an elected Mayor and 13,653 were against. Therefore in May there will be an election for Salford’s first directly elected Council Leader.

Stephen Morris, our North West Chairman and Salford Mayoral Campaign Organiser said:- “This result, where the turnout was quite similar to the usual turnout in Council elections, showed that even Salford Labour Party’s usual supporters have turned against it! I am now looking forward to bringing Mayoral Referendums to Bolton and Wigan as soon as possible.”

Robin Tilbrook, the Chairman of the English Democrats said:- “This is a fantastic day for local democracy in England and shows that the way is open to achieving a better and more transparent leadership in local authorities across England. We would like to get everyone more actively involved in local politics and we believe we will succeed in doing so, if they can see that the old one party local political machines are being replaced by Mayoral elections which give the electorate a real choice!”

Robin continued:- “Even David only needed a little stone to bring Goliath crashing down! Now our Party will redouble our efforts in collecting signatures to trigger further referenda the length and breadth of England”.

Contact:

Robin Tilbrook,
Chairman,
The English Democrats,
PO Box 1066, Norwich, NR14 6ZJ

Party Website: www.englishdemocrats.org

Personal Blog: RobinTilbrook.Blogspot.com

EU Threatens English Homeowners

2012-01-24T09:26:00.000-08:00

Here is my latest article from the English Democrats website...

It has been revealed that EU regulations currently being worked on in Brussels threaten to push up mortgage rates in the UK and cause large numbers of homeowners to default on their mortgage payments.

As part of the bank capital directive - a large reform package which is expected to come into force as early as 2013 - banks are expected to declare all EU loans to be in default when they are 90 days in arrears. Though such rules are commonplace in many other EU member states, this would have a significant impact in the UK, where mortgagors are given up to 180 days grace.

The imposition of these regulations will make the danger of default more likely for large numbers of English homeowners and this will have a significant knock-on effect, ensuring a smaller number of successful mortgage applications and higher rates for those who manage to get them.

The tighter timescale involved will also mean that banks will have less time in which they can work with customers to try and avoid default, a procedure known as forbearance.

The Bank of England's latest Financial Stability Report has revealed that on top of the 1.2 percent of mortgagers who are in appears, a further 0.5 percent are in forbearance, meaning that the proposed regulations will increase the rate of mortgagors in arrears by nearly half as much again.

We in the English Democrats firmly oppose the imposition of financial regulations from unrepresentative bureaucrats in Brussels which will hurt English homeowners during a depression which was largely caused by the irresponsible actions of the very banks whom this directive is geared towards supporting.

It is only by freeing ourselves from the unacceptable constraints imposed by our membership of the European Union that we will be in a position to firmly reject such harmful legislation. The English Democrats will continue to campaign on this issue and argue that for this reason, and so many others, our people would be well and truly better off out of the EU!

Leeds English Democrats push for YES vote in mayoral referendum

2012-01-20T03:42:00.000-08:00

Pictured: Leeds Civic Hall

On May 3rd voters in Leeds will have the chance to vote to fundamentally change the system by which decisions are made by Leeds City Council. The referendum on whether Leeds should have an elected mayor does not seem to have received too much publicity so far, which somewhat belies the significance of this referendum.

We in Leeds English Democrats are campaign for an emphatic YES vote in this referendum as the elected mayor system is far more democratic than the current system.

I was a councillor on Leeds City Council between 2006 and 2010 and I have witnessed at first hand the way in which the Lord Mayor of Leeds is currently elected.

It is done in a thoroughly devious way as a result of deals between the biggest groups in the council and is used to reward cronyism.

Yet this is just the tip of the iceberg as regards why a change in the system would be desirable.

Shifting to a directly elected mayor would not simply mean changing the way that the Lord Mayor of Leeds is elected. The Lord Mayor is primarily a ceremonial position, which bears little resemblance to elected mayors who have real political power.

An explanation of this system, which I have borrowed from Robin Tilbrook's blog, can be found below.

Please get in touch if you would like to support our campaign for a yes vote. You can start by liking our new Facebook page here.

INTRODUCTION TO THE DIRECTLY ELECTED COUNCIL LEADER (AKA MAYORAL) SYSTEM

Introduction

The possibility of having directly elected Executive Mayors (Council Leaders) was introduced in the Local Government Act 2000.
THE UK currently has 13 directly elected mayors.

Several Mayors are Independents and are not beholden to an Establishment Party. Ken Livingstone won in London as an Independent after the Labour Party refused to endorse him. Stuart Drummond, Hartlepool United’s club mascot H’Angus the Monkey, won in 2002 on the back of a jokey campaign. He has been re-elected twice since and is doing an excellent job for his town. Former senior policeman Ray Mallon won in Middlesbrough as an Independent in 2002 and won re-election in the recent election by a landslide. The first elected mayor of Mansfield in 2002 was the Independent candidate, Tony Eggerton, who has since been re-elected in 2007; his victory led to Independents eventually being the majority on the council. The first elected mayor of Bedford was also an Independent. Other mayors have been elected from political parties not forming the majority amongst councillors.

The Choices

The choices for models of political leadership within local governance are:-

1. Elected Mayor The Mayor is directly elected by all the local authority’s voters and serves for four years. He or she would choose up to 10 councillors as cabinet members. The mayor cannot be removed from office by councillors, which makes sense as he or she was not appointed by the councillors. Advisory overview and scrutiny committees hold the mayor and cabinet to account and assist in policy development. This is the most democratic option as it gives the people the choice.

2. Strong Leader By contrast to the directly elected Mayor, the Leader is secretly elected by the councillors of the local ruling party. The Leader appoints a cabinet and has all the same powers as the Elected Mayor. As a result of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act, by 31st December 2010 councils must adopt either an “Elected Mayor” or a “Strong Leader” system. The Strong Leader system means that the Leader is appointed by the council (in reality the ruling party) for four years. The Leader is therefore beholden for his position to the largest party on the Council and so answers to them and not to the wider electorate.
This choice is the one preferred by local political elites because it gives them power over the people with the least chance of effective opposition.

3. Councillor Committees This is the old Committee system and was widely criticised as being too slow and too lacking in transparency and has now been phased out as an option.

The Mayoral System

A directly elected Mayor can take decisions with a Cabinet (of councillors) appointed by the Mayor.

A directly elected Executive Mayor would be elected for a four year term by all residents eligible to vote in local elections.

The local authority’s “Executive” (or “Cabinet”) is made up of between three and ten councillors, including the elected Mayor. Elections for Councillors continue as normal.

Councillors have a role in the scrutiny of the Mayor’s decisions on major issues, including the council tax and major policy decisions. Committees of Councillors continue on planning, licensing and regulatory functions. In other matters the Mayor is free to decide how decisions are made, and the Mayor takes most decisions on a day to day basis instead of committees of councillors.

Councillors who are not members of the Cabinet would continue to have some important functions, including representing their local communities. They can monitor and comment on the performance of the Mayor and Cabinet – the scrutiny role referred to above.

• The Mayor provides highly visible local political leadership

• The Mayoral system provides a single, accountable leader directly responsible to the voters

• The mayoral system leads to faster decision making

• It gives the Mayor power to get policies into place quickly

• A fixed four year term ensures some continuity combined with direct accountability to voters

In Torbay the Elected Mayoral system has recently caused the Councillors to abolish the whip system as it is no longer necessary.

How to get a Mayor System for your Local Authority

The mechanism by which local authorities can move, from whichever governance system that they now operate, to the clarity of a directly elected executive mayor is by local referendum. The local referendum can be triggered:- First by the councillors voting for it (highly unlikely! – (turkeys/Christmas!); Second by the Secretary of State ordering it; Or, third, and most useful from our point of view, by a public petition. The petition threshold is surprisingly easy to cross, requiring the signatures of 5% of the registered electors. In most local authorities this is less than 5,000 signatures.

The consequences of obtaining a petition are governed by the Local Government Act 2000, which decrees that in the event that a petition validly signed by 5% of the electors calling for a referendum on a directly elected executive mayor being received by the council’s returning officer, there must, by law, be a local referendum.

If the majority of those that vote in the referendum are in favour, then there must be a directly elected mayor. The law therefore enables the vested interests of local ruling parties and councillors to be swept aside. Such petitions therefore have legal consequences which are unlike most petitions, which are merely an expression of protest by people and which are, unless they are in the interests of the ruling party, usually ignored.

Electoral Advantages

Mayoral elections are a much more of a level playing field between all candidates than the usual run of English elections where the three Establishment parties have tremendous advantages in terms of money and organization.

In Doncaster, for example, while the English Democrats had been campaigning over the previous four years we had few other advantages except a hard hitting entry in the mayoral booklet (which is sent by the local Returning Officer to every elector as part of the system of mayoral elections) Also there is the Supplementary Vote System which in Doncaster enabled us to win on second preferences. As the BBC news coverage of the election did not even mention us, or our candidate, once during the campaign it is clear that mayoral elections are winnable solely by effort on the ground (and an excellent candidate!).

In addition the result of winning a mayoral election is that, subject to the restraints of his office, the successful candidate is in power in that local authority. It follows that it is also much more practical for a small party or for an independent to gain control of a local authority through the directly elected mayoral system than any other electoral strategy. The effect of doing so is strategically important as it undermines the British Establishment parties.

Eurozone Bailout Article

2012-01-13T09:39:00.000-08:00

Here is my latest article from the English Democrats website...

It has emerged that English taxpayers could still be left footing the bill for the bailout of profligate eurozone economies after Prime Minister David Cameron enraged a number of his own MPs by refusing to rule out paying for a bailout via Britain's contributions to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Mr Cameron claimed; "We have set out our conditions for contributing more to the IMF. We support countries and not currencies or currency zones. The IMF shouldn't be doing what the eurozone itself should be doing."

Despite this, it is clear that there is a significant likelihood of English taxpayers contributing towards further bailouts via the IMF, once again making a mockery of the Tories' hot air on this issue.

Back in October, Chancellor George Osborne told MPs in Westminster; "Britain will not be putting money into the bail-out fund either directly or through the IMF."

He went on to claim that: "The IMF exists to support countries, it does not exist to support currencies...The IMF contributing money to the eurozone bail-out fund, no; Britain contributing money to the eurozone bail-out fund, no. That is Britain's clear position."

The Tories position on the EU is demonstrably anything but 'clear'!

The news comes in the wake of the publication of an expert report that revealed that families will be better off out of the EU.

The report, published by Professor Patrick Minford, an economist at Cardiff Business School, revealed that living standards would rise as Britain enjoyed freedom from the "haven of (EU) regulation and state intervention".

He added; "What the EU does is raise the prices of most things traded within Europe through protection given to its single market by trade arrangements.

"Cars, computers, clothes, machinery, food - all have their prices held up by the restrictions on imports from cheaper sources, often China, but also India, New Zealand and South Korea.

"Outside the EU the prices of what we buy would be the cheapest available in the world - our industries would sell their output on their capacity to meet world competition. We would all benefit from buying freely in the world market at world prices. Our living standards would rise."

With an ever growing body of academic opinion showing that we would be better off out of the EU, the English Democrats will continue to campaign strongly on this issue in order to give the English people a chance to speak out on this vitally important matter, something which David Cameron and his Liberal Democrat chums have steadfastly refused to do.

Supermarkets' Halal Scandal

2012-01-04T10:20:00.000-08:00

Here is my latest article from the English Democrats website...

The symptoms of the metastasis of political correctness in our society manifest themselves in various ways. An example is the way in which meat procured through the cruel practice of religious ritual slaughter is peddled to English consumers, often without them even knowing it.

It was revealed in a newspaper investigation that was published this week that a number of large UK supermarket chains are surreptitiously selling halal meat including lamb and chicken to unwitting customers. Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Somerfield and the Co-op have all been exposed for their thoroughly unethical behaviour. ASDA have refused to comment.

The cruel practice of halal slaughter involves subjecting the sorry animal in question to unthinkably agony. Rather than stunning the animal before it is killed, it is deemed necessary for the animal to be fully conscious and aware as its throat is cut while a Muslim prayer is recited. The animal then spends its last living moments painfully bleeding to death. The duplicity of the supermarkets in question has now been thoroughly exposed.

When contacted by the Mail on Sunday about this outrage, Tesco and Waitrose were initially reluctant to admit they sold any halal meat. Tesco said in a statement: 'It is not the case that all the meat we sell is halal or that our suppliers only offer halal meat.'

Yet when quizzed further, a spokesman said: 'All our New Zealand lamb is halal-slaughtered, as is 35 per cent of our UK lamb. Less than five per cent of our chicken is halal.'

A Waitrose spokeswoman claimed: 'I can confirm that Waitrose does not sell any halal meat.'

Yet only a day later, another spokeswoman said: 'You mentioned the [Islamic] prayer said at the point of slaughter. This applies to all our lamb but not to beef or poultry.'

M&S initially claimed: 'No meat sourced by M&S from the UK is halal.' But when asked about lamb, a spokeswoman said: 'Our New Zealand lamb is halal-slaughtered but pre-stunned.'

A spokesman for Sainsbury's said: 'The abattoirs that supply us with lamb are licensed by the Muslim authorities and a prayer is said when the animals are killed.'

Any talk of 'pre-stunned' halal meat should not be allowed to obscure the issue in question either. The RSPCA has exposed the way in which in the rare cases in which this happens, the current used is less than that deemed appropriate by Western standards, ensuring the animals in question are still subjected to an unacceptable level of completely unnecessary suffering.

The English Democrats will continue to speak out against the evils of political correctness in all its forms as we strive to rebuild our English nation on a foundation of decency, compassion and reason.

FPÖ New Year Meeting

2012-01-04T00:16:00.001-08:00

2012 - the year of nationalist renewal?

2012-01-03T08:01:00.000-08:00

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the readers of this blog a happy New Year.

Although some may find the making (and, often within a relatively short space of time, the breaking) of new year's resolutions to be somewhat clichéd, I view the beginning of a new year an a good opportunity to take stock of one's life and reflect on what one has achieved so far and what is to come.

Last year I joined the English Democrats and this was undoubtedly one of the biggest political decisions of my life. This caused quite a stir at the time, but now that the dust has settled and I have had some time over the Christmas break to reflect on things I can honestly say that it was also one of the best political decisions that I have ever taken. As we move into 2012 I have a feeling of optimism about the future which I have not had for some time.

It may sound as though I am simply rehashing what I said in my recent conference speech by stating this but I feel it is worth reiterating nevertheless.

I am very pleased that a number of other good nationalists have joined me in the English Democrats over the past few months. Eddy Butler is the most high-profile example, but there are other excellent political activists, including here in Yorkshire, who have done likewise.

That said, some other patriots have chosen not to join the English Democrats and to join other parties instead, and I wish them well. The same goes for those who are still undecided as to where to go or what to do next.

2012 is going to be a very important year for all patriots. I wrote about some of the different elections that are due to be held in this article, and it is in such elections as these that it will be demonstrated which patriotic political parties are serious players and worthy of support and which are not.

I have been a political activist my whole adult life and I have learned that there is nothing like an election to sort out the talkers from the doers. People may 'talk the talk' with regard to our struggle all year round but when these same people are then suddenly uncontactable around election time and far too busy to deign to engage in electioneering then their true colours are finally revealed.

I welcome yearly elections (which we have in West Yorkshire, with just a one- in-every-four-years gap) as this ensures that our nationalist activist base is constantly being tested; our organisational tools are constantly being sharpened on the whetstone of our political opposition.

What applies to individual activists applies to political parties too of course, and there has been much debate in nationalist circles as to what constitutes the correct political party, strategy, and even ideology. Happily, as the May elections approach, the time for philosophising is drawing to an end and the time to 'put up or shut up' is nigh.

It is certainly preferable for political parties from the non-politically correct patriotic section of the political spectrum to avoid standing against one another wherever possible. Although we may argue that our parties are nothing alike and share little common ground, the average voter rarely shares this assessment, and it is clear that the many nationalist-populist parties that will be aiming to fight the coming elections share the same voter base to some degree or another.

I am a committed English Democrats activist but I am not so arrogant that I see fit to attack those who do not wish to share my party allegiance. Patriots in all parties should focus all their energies on local campaigning in the coming months in order to ensure that we see the maximum possible number of rays of hope on the electoral landscape come May.

I began this article by saying how new year's resolutions are often broken. Let us all resolve right now to dedicate every bit of our energy in 2012 to positive work for our respective organisations and leave the bickering to our mutual opponents in the far left. And let us make sure this is one new year's resolution that we all stick to.

Looking forward to 2012

2011-12-29T12:07:00.000-08:00

The following article of mine appeared on the English Democrats website today...

As the New Year approaches it is worth looking back on what we managed to achieve during the past twelve months as well as looking forward to the many exciting opportunities which the coming year will present.

The most important milestone that was reached in 2011 was our council election victories in Boston, Lincolnshire, where our excellent candidates Elliott Fountain and Dave Owens were elected as English Democrats councillors for the town. These were not the first English Democrats councillors, but their victories were our first ever election wins at this level, and I am sure there will be many more such results in the coming years for our party.

We fielded a very respectable number of candidates across the country in the May elections, and some excellent results were obtained. 2011 was also the year in which our party's fantastic new website was launched (read the first article here) and an excellent party conference was held in Leicester. I was very proud to have been given the opportunity to speak at this fine gathering of patriots. A number of organisational and administrational improvements were also set in motion in 2011, and I am sure we will all benefit from those as we move into 2012.

The coming year is undoubtedly an exciting one for our party. 2012 will see mayoral referendums in several English cities, with some coming as a result of government legislation (e.g. Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford and Wakefield, to name just the Yorkshire ones), and others having been triggered due to the hard work of our activists, as is the case, for example, in Salford, where our North West dynamo Stephen Morris has ensured the success of the hugely popular campaign there.

In addition to this, there will be vitally important local elections in May, at which our party will strive to stand more candidates than ever before and ensure that some of those candidates emerge as victorious English Democrats councillors.

On the same day there will be elections in London to the Greater London Assembly and also for the position of Mayor of London. Our capital desperately needs a patriotic voice and it is important that we give our London campaign the very best shot possible.

In November the public will also elect Police and Crime Commissioners in every English police force area outside London. The English Democrats will field as many suitable candidates as possible in these elections, as some good old fashioned common sense is badly needed in our police forces, in which our police are weakened and undermined constantly by red tape and politically correctness. Elected English Democrats Police and Crime Commissioners will oppose the politicisation of our police forces and let our bobbies get on with doing what they do best - fighting crime!

So far I have only mentioned some of the main elections which are to be held in 2012. There will also be many other exciting projects and developments that our party will be busy with, which will be examined in future articles.

For now let me wish all our members and supports a very Happy New Year. I look forward to working with you all to make 2012 a great year for our party.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T04:24:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas to all the readers of this blog.

Thank you for your continued support.

Chris

English Democrats beat UKIP and the Greens in Walsall

2011-12-23T01:17:00.000-08:00

This was a very respectable vote I thought. We should always be aiming to beat UKIP and the Greens wherever we stand as a bare minimum. Well done to our candidate Chris Newey.

Birchills Leamore by-election, Walsall Council, 22nd December 2011

Tina Jukes (Labour) 835

Kamran Afrab (Conservative) 512

Chris Newey (English Democrats) 130 8.2%

Liz Hazell (UKIP) 59

Leandra Gebrakedan (Green Party) 46

Human Rights Gone Wrong Again

2011-12-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

Here is my latest article from the English Democrats website.

Yesterday the European Court of Human Rights quashed the convictions of two men, Ilyas Hanif and Bakish Allah Khan, who had been jailed for dealing drugs. It was claimed that the mens' human rights had not been respected during the trial due to the presence of a police officer on the jury.

The Strasbourg Court, the guardian of the European Convention on Human Rights to which our country is a signatory, also handed the pair almost £5500.00 of taxpayers' cash in compensation following in case which threatens to open the floodgates to criminals seeking to appeal their convictions on the basis that police officers served on the juries which convicted them.

This ruling has been met with dismal across the political spectrum.

Priti Patel, for example, Tory MP for Witham, said; "This is another appalling example of European judges meddling in laws made in this country. These individuals were convicted of a very serious crime. Involvement in drug dealing leads to lives being ruined.

"The public will be angered by Europe forcing taxpayers to hand over money to these men, and the Government must now reform human rights laws to stop this from happening again."

Her party colleague David Davis opined; "I thought it was only in America that convictions were overruled on ridiculous technicalities, but thanks to Europe we are now seeing this happen in the UK too. I would think that no policeman or woman could ever again sit on a UK jury again following this decision – the risks are simply too great. You also have to wonder where this will ever stop. This is not some minor decision that has been made, it is very important and greatly affects how we run our justice system."

(See here for an article on the Tories' mock indignation on the subject of European human rights laws.)

This ruling appears to be another case of human rights laws being used to disproportionately benefit criminals in a way which is likely to increase public anger towards the European Court and increase calls for the repeal of the Human Rights Act and the withdrawal of the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Section 3.15.11.4 of the English Democrats' manifesto pledges to do just that.

See also: The Perversion of Human Rights Laws and for more articles by Chris see www.chrisbeverley.com

A very important Written Declaration in the European Parliament

2011-12-15T02:50:00.000-08:00

Fantastic English Democrats result in Essex

2011-12-02T05:40:00.000-08:00

ROCHFORD DISTRCT COUNCIL - Rayleigh Central Ward By-Election
Thursday 1st December 2011

Cheryl Roe (Con) - 406 (54.8%)
John Hayter (English Democrats) - 218 (29.4%)
Elena Black (Liberal Democrat) - 117 (15.8%)

The English Democrats contested the ward for the first time in 2010 local elections that coincided with the General Election. Accordingly the turn out in 2010 was much higher. Here is the result from that contest

Conservative - 1242 (54.7%)Liberal Democrat - 702 (30.9%)
English Democrats - 328 (14.4%)

The English Democrats more than doubled its share of the vote. This is a remarkable achievement in a year and a half. The Lib Dems were also trounced.

Acknowledgements to Eddy Butler's blog for the above details.

English Democrats National Council approves Eddy Butler membership

2011-11-29T06:21:00.000-08:00

Robin Tilbrook has just posted a short report about Saturday's National Council meeting on his blog which can be viewed here.

Point 7 states: The membership application from Eddie Butler to join the English Democrats was accepted.

I blogged back in August about Eddy's decision to join the English Democrats and I am delighted that the National Council, after interviewed him at Saturday's meeting, have accepted his membership.

Over the past few months there have been frantic attempts by the enemies of nationalism (both in the guise of the extreme left and also in the equally loathsome form of Nick Griffin's BNP attack dogs) to undermine the internal mechanisms of our party and frustrate this process.

I believe the reason for their desperation in this matter was their very accurate realisation that the English Democrats have huge potential and in the course of the next few years could become the strongest patriotic political party in England with a support base comparable to patriotic parties on the continent in countries such as Austria and France.

In order for this potential to be realised, however, it is vital that we expand our organisation and achieve a critical mass that will allow us to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves to us.

The only way that we can hope to do this is if, as well as recruiting from the general public, we gain good quality recruits from other parties, who come with priceless political experience which is instantly at the disposal of our organisation. The loss of such people to the party they have left becomes our gain.

This is certainly the case with Eddy.

Happily common sense and democracy have prevailed within the English Democrats.

I never doubted that they would.

My article on state funding for political parties

2011-11-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

Pictured: Vlaams Belang poster. This party knows a thing of two about the consequences of having a system of state funding for political parties.

The following article appeared on the English Democrat's website today.

Leeds English Democrats Chairman Chris Beverley explains how the proposed radical reforms to the funding of political reforms which have made the headlines could have significant implications for our party.

In such tough economic times it is hard to imagine a proposal more likely to enflame public opinion that the suggestion that more taxpayer funding should be provided to political parties. Yet this is exactly what the Kelly Commission committee on standards in public life, chaired by Sir Christopher Kelly, has suggested, albeit with a proposed start date of 2015.

A cap of £10,000 on individual donations was also proposed, along with a call for members of trade unions to have to opt in to paying the political levy, which currently operates as a kind of stealth tax on union members who have not actively decided to support the Labour Party but have simply never bothered to opt out of the political levy, often because they have never even become aware of it or given the matter any thought.

Clearly these proposals would have a significant impact upon the Labour Party, which relies on this abhorrent exploitation of trade union members for the vast majority of its funding.

The Lib-Lab-Con cartel parties have rejected these proposals, focusing on their narrow party interests whilst trying to claim that their opposition is based on a moral objection to more taxpayers' money being used to bankroll political parties.

English Democrats Chairman Robin Tilbrook was invited by the Kelly Commission to give oral evidence on this subject as part of its inquiries.

In his evidence, Robin explained how the membership of the main political parties has plummeted during the past few decades and that this; "is partly a product of the fact that the main political parties have moved away from engagement with what the public actually wants."

Robin argued that the British political system actually encourages this remoteness, and that; "there is not much of a link between public support and financial health of the political party and obviously the more money the party receives from the state the worse that is going to be."

He declared that "I do not want to see a situation like we have in Belgium where the establishment parties use the funding system to make life as difficult as possible for the Flemish Nationalists."

Robin advanced on the example offered to us of what has happened in Flanders in his follow up submission, which can be viewed in full here.

This contains information provided by the Vlaams Belang, Flanders' patriotic secessionist party, and offers a cautionary tale of the way in which a politically correct establishment might choose to use its system of public funding of political parties as a tool with which to effectively outlaw an opposition party.

The full transcript of Robin's oral submission to the Kelly Commission can be read on Robin's blog here.

Inside the tiny mind of a BNP attack dog

2011-11-19T01:10:00.001-08:00

I wrote an article on this blog recently drawing attention to a comment left of Facebook by the girlfriend of the BNP's Steve Mendoza (aka Steve Squire/Squires).

Nick Griffin's internet attack dogs are notoriously indiscreet with regard to their online postings; postings which betray for all to see the mentality of these wretched individuals.

If only all the other enemies of nationalism were as mentally challenged as Nick Griffin's current crop of misfits and degenerates then this struggle of ours would be a veritable breeze.

Above is a screenshot from Facebook showing comments from Griffinite attack dog Darren Lumb.

In this rather shocking outburst he states:

“Oh c##t Im going to rip your f#####g head off when I see you.. The one thing I don't like is traitors and Jews. Get ready w####r Im going to rip your arms and legs off..”

(I have censored out the expletives in the above text. The uncensored version can be viewed above - click on the image for a larger picture.)

Will the police be interested in this I wonder?

Considering the BNP has become little more than a state-tolerated safety valve, whose continued existence benefits the Lib-Lab-Con cartel parties, I would not bank on it.

Home from Strasbourg

2011-11-18T05:53:00.000-08:00

I have just returned from Strasbourg, where I spent the week working in the European Parliament.

It is with good reason that some of my fellow parliamentary assistants call this place 'Stress-bourg', though I would not say that this last session was particularly stressful.

That's not to suggest that my trip equated to a holiday, however. Working 12 hours a day or more over there is still very much the norm.

As usual I took the opportunity to meet up with some of the other assistants from other parties with whom I have contact. I updated them on the political situation back home and on my own views regarding the way forward.

It was also good to catch up with news as to the goings on within the other parties whose representatives I met. I generally try and keep up to speed with what is going on across Europe when I am at home but there is nothing like meeting up with my equivalents from other countries to find out the news behind the news.

A few things of interest:

Former Vlaams Belang MEP Frank Vanhecke has now joined the EFD Group in the European Parliament, which is the group that UKIP are in. UKIP are coming under increased pressure due to their associations with nationalist parties, and it will be interesting to see how they deal with this.

The Front National have revamped their website which can be viewed here and our French friends are looking forward with optimism to the presidential elections in 2012.

I also got hold of a copy of Zur Zeit, which was the weekly newspaper of FPÖ MEP Andreas Mölzer and is now a very professional-looking magazine. The publication has its own dedicated website for those who might want to subscribe.

I mentioned the above two little pieces of news as the Front National and the Austrian Freedom Party are two of the most successful patriotic parties in Europe at the moment.

Nationalists in this country who want to see a patriotic party winning seats and sending shockwaves through the rotten politically correct establishment could do alot worse that look at the examples set by the hugely popular leaders of these two parties and learn the necessary lessons as to the approach that is required for a patriotic party to really take off.

Immigration Article

2011-11-12T02:46:00.000-08:00

Here is my latest article to be published on the English Democrats website:

Voters Make a Stand on Immigration

As it is revealed that the Border Agency has managed to 'lose' over 124,000 illegal immigrants and asylum seekers, the Migration Watch petition reaches 100,000 signatures in less than a week.

As we know all too well, the Tories are quite prepared to play the 'immigration card' when they are feeling vulnerable. This has been true of Tory leaders going back decades.

It is even true of David Cameron, that most politically correct of Tory Prime Ministers, who is on record as pledging to reduce net immigration into Britain to the 'tens of thousands' per year. He also felt obliged to make all manner of claims regarding this subject at his recent party conference.

Listening to the rhetoric, an uniformed observer could be forgiven for thinking that Britain has a government that is interested in keeping control of immigration.

Two scandals uncovered during the last week belie that somewhat.

First we learnt that the Border Agency had managed to 'lose' over 124,000 immigrants and asylum seekers. A report published on Friday by the Commons home affairs committee revealed a sevenfold increase of 'lost' immigrants, from 18,000 in November 2010 to 124,000 in September of this year.

It was also revealed that the rather Orwellian title of 'controlled archive' was given to the collection of data regarding these 'lost' immigrants. Perhaps it was hoped that by giving it such an innocuous sounding title, the contents of this 'archive' would never be scrutinised.

To add insult to injury, MPs also learned that six senior Border Agency officials received bonuses of £5000 to £10,000 during the period in which a number of immigrants equating to the population of Cambridge were 'lost'. In addition to this, the agency spent £7m writing off bad debt and spent £4m on overpayments to staff and asylum claimants during the last year.

Hot on the heels of these shocking revelations, we have learned from a leaked government document that Tory Home Secretary Theresa May extended a secret relaxation of the country's border controls recently.

Border Agency staff had been instructed not to carry out full checks on hundreds of thousands of people entering the UK for a six week period. Despite not having the necessary information to make an informed assessment of the consequences of this policy, Mrs May extended the scheme for another six weeks.

With such scandals being uncovered on a regular basis, there is little wonder that many of our people are increasingly saying 'enough is enough' and have signed the petition launched by Migration Watch that we featured here.

Migration Watch have announced that the petition has received 100,000 signatures in a single week, making it one of the most popular e-petitions since the initiative was launched. We in the English Democrats congratulate Migration Watch on the excellent work that they continue to do to highlight this important issue and we would like to thank everyone who signed this petition as a result of reading our article on this subject.

Read more here:

Migration Watch UK: Immigration Petition Reaches 100,000 Signatures in Just One Week

Robin Tilbrook's Blog: Foreign criminals let in by Tory cuts?

Nationalist Victory in the Court of Appeal

2011-11-08T06:57:00.000-08:00

My week got off to a great start yesterday when I received news of the outcome of a very important case that was heard in the Court of Appeal.

I will not go into the full details of this case here, but I can summarise its background as follows:

Back in late 2007 Nick Griffin declared war on a sizeable section of his party staff and activist base in a factional campaign that saw his thugs raiding (and attempting to raid) a number of family homes.

In addition to this, the internet was used to spread poison in an attempt to denigrate the character of his targets (some of this may sound familiar to those who have since found themselves on the receiving end of Nick Griffin's vindictiveness).

In the case of the attempted raid on the home of Kenny and Nicholla Smith (who was pregnant with the couple's first child at the time) in Scotland, not a single person could be found north of the border who was reprehensible and immoral enough to do Nick Griffin's bidding, and the odious Clive Jefferson had to be sent up with a gang from England to attempt to force their way into the Smiths' family home.

It is much to the credit of our Scottish comrades that not a single Scot could be found to carry out this treacherous act, as is the fact that that the Griffinite henchmen in question were forced to return home without having achieved their objectives.

In addition to the above, a vexatious legal action was launched against a number of then BNP employees and members, with the intention of delivering financial ruin to its victims.

Nick Griffin realised, of course, that quite irrespective of the chances of his court action being successful, as long as he was able to use BNP funds with impunity in the pursuit of his vexatious action whilst his victims were left in the unenviable position of having to find the money themselves to defend this action in court, he had a significant advantage.

Only someone of such low morals would exploit this unbridled access to BNP party funds in such a way, of course, which he duly did, dragging the case on for as long as possible with the intention of driving up costs on all sides in the vain hope that his victims would capitulate.

It is to the credit of Ian Dawson (pictured above with me in the European Parliament recently), Steve Blake, and Kenny and Nicholla Smith, that they did not back down to the bully-boy tactics employed by the BNP and persevered with their defence for what is now approaching a period of four years. I find it mind-boggling that such legal cases can drag on for so long.

It should be remembered that the costs that are yet to be awarded to the above patriots will only be to compensate them for the money they have been forced to pay to their legal team in order to defend themselves and their families in this vexatious case.

Ian, Steve, Kenny and Nicholla are true patriots who I am proud to also call friends, and I congratulate them on yesterday's important ruling.

Read more:

Eddy Butler's take on yesterday's decision, which contains some more details regarding costs and the judge's comments regarding this case, can be found here.

My Bridlington Speech

2011-10-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

Below is a slightly edited down version of the speech I delivered at the recent Bridlington meeting that I reported on here.

.....

It's a pleasure to be here tonight. It's always a pleasure to come over to the Yorkshire coast and Bridlington in particular and it's a privilege to be able to address the first meeting of the English Democrats in this area.

I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Michael Cassidy and the work he has done in this region - I'm going to embarrass him slightly now as he's just walked in. Most of you won't know him simply because this is the first meeting for a lot of you I know but even in my limited time in this party I've seen the hard work that Michael does, the way he's always travelling round the region spending who knows how much on petrol and time and all the rest of it and I've seen that just in the few months that I've been a member of this party but he's been doing it for many years before any of us came along so I think we should all just take this opportunity to show our appreciation of the work he's done and continues to do for our party.

(APPLAUSE)

Exciting Times

These are very exciting times to be in the English Democrats. Nobody would deny that we are still a small party. Nobody would deny that, but we are clearly going in the right direction. We won our first council seats earlier this year. We won 2 in Boston in Lincolnshire. We not have 5 councillors, in addition to that we have a county councillor, we have an elected executive in Doncaster of course, we have a number of parish councillors.

We continue to gain new members from other parties who have fallen out with their old parties and lost all faith in them and come to the English Democrats. We are a growing party.

We got a fantastic result in Barnsley the other night in a by-election there in which I helped out and Michael did and various other people. We were only 28 votes from coming second in that election and this is in a ward that we have never contested before where we were up against some real entrenched opposition that had year and years head start ahead of us and we almost came second just by putting in the effort that we did so we may be small but we are certainly going in the right direction.

Potential for our party

There is huge potential for us out there, there really is. When you look across Europe at the results that we have seen in various countries in General Elections in country after country we have seen parties that look and sound like ours doing well in general elections and really causing shockwaves in those countries and beyond. I think it's high time that we had that type of thing here in England.

We've been proven right, and continue to be proven right, on many of the issues that we stand for.

It was mentioned earlier by Michael, I believe, about the crisis in the Eurozone. This crisis could lead to a break-up of the Eurozone and the problems being experienced in Greece and in the Eurozone as a whole are extremely debilitating for all the old parties, all the main parties, because all of those parties are in favour of Europe. The Tories like to pretend that they are euro-sceptic but they're not. Nearly all the major treaties that have been signed over the years including the one that actually took us into the European Community was done under Tory governments. The Tories are just as much to blame for the mess that they have got us in and for the integration that we have seen within the European Union, as all the other parties.

The crisis in the Eurozone is extremely debilitating for them, it undermines them and it proves that what we've been saying has been right all along. I remember when I was in the sixth form I learnt in A-level economics that you cannot have one currency across lots of different economies that require different exchange and interest rates and so on, you just can't do it, this is a very fundamental thing.

We as a party object to the idea of entering the Euro and in actual fact we make it quite clear in our manifesto, and we have done for a number of years, that we would actually withdraw from the European Union. People are sick and tired of having to prop up our countries membership of the European Union. They are sick of having to prop up profligate inefficient Eurozone economies. We've been proven right on this issue and this is one of the things which points towards future success for our party.
As has also been touched upon, we have seen the state of our economy at the moment. Yesterday it was announced that there is record inflation at present. A huge amount of inflation and low economic growth so what that means for the people here and the other working men and women in this party is that your wages are not going up very much if at all, prices are going up, energy prices are going up, everybody, just about all normal read people let's say are much worse off and people are really starting to feel the pinch, and unemployment is rising.

All these things point towards disillusionment with the main parties and this opens doors for us and provides opportunities for us.

Fair enough, these are things which aren't necessarily going to benefit just us, they could benefit other small parties as well, but leaving aside such negative things, there are also a number of positive things out there which also point to potential for our party.

One example is the increase in a recognition of Englishness among our people a good indication of that is the degree to which people celebrate Saint George's Day. We all seem to take it for granted now that we have Saint George's Day events but cast your minds back a few years and there were very few of these things. I remember going out in the nineties with a friend of mine on Saint George's Day and it was almost regarded as a bit of a cranky thing to do - celebrate Saint George's Day- and I remember going out and someone asked what we were out to celebrate. When we said Saint George's Day they looked at us as if we were idiots or something. It would have been quite acceptable for them to go out and celebrate Saint Patrick's Day as if that's the big one and we were the idiots for celebrating Saint George's Day. Happily that's not the case anymore, over the years more and more people have started celebrating it. It has been officially recognised, there are celebrations everywhere including in my home town of Morley where they are getting bigger and bigger every year. This is one of the things with which our party is more closely associated that any other party. One of our key issues, one of our cornerstone issues in this regard, is that we want to make Saint George's Day a bank holiday - what a common sense policy that is, and why aren't any of the other parties pursuing it? We know why, it is because they don't want to pursue a patriotic agenda. They don't want people to start getting ideas about that type of thing, but that is one of our key issues. The English Democrats have a Facebook cause with over 700,000 people on it -that is a huge number of people to be signed up to this online campaign to make Saint George's Day a bank holiday so things like that really do point to potential for our party.

In addition to that, over the years since devolution and the creation of the Scottish parliament and the Welsh Assembly and to a lesser extent the Northern Irish Assembly, we have seen more and more people become aware of the disparity between circumstances in England and circumstances in Scotland and the other home nations with regard to things like tuition fees and proscription charges, as Gary mentioned earlier, and earlier this year, for instance, England became the last of the home nations in which people still had to pay prescription charges and in these tough economic times people notice things like that, they really do; this made headlines, people were talking about it, people are aware of this issue. And what party is doing anything about it? What party is campaigning on it? The answer is we are the main party that is doing anything about it we are the party that people associate with bringing an end to this situation.

There is huge potential for us out there at the moment and this is why it is a great time to be in the English Democrats.

The Evil of Political Correctness

But without wanting to be negative, at the moment that's just potential, that's all it is. Potential is not enough. We have to realise that we are really up against it. Political Correctness has infected this country for decades, and this has been quite deliberate. It has been quite deliberately forced upon us by our opponents in the far left and there is now no part of public life and increasingly less and less of our private lives where political correctness holds no sway. Political Correctness really is at the root of the problems that we have in this country. People, when asking how did things get so bad, why are things like this, may look to things like mass immigration or the rise of Islamism as manifested in our soldiers being abused in the street and poppies being burned and that type of thing . People may think that those are the causes but they are not the causes, they are simply the symptoms of political correctness and the decades and decades of political correctness that has been forced down our people's throats.

I am very glad that the English Democrats take a tough stand on political correctness and identify it for what it is and there is a section in our manifesto regarding this very subject, which I will read from very briefly.

It states:

The English Democrats unreservedly condemn this intolerant creed. We reject the self-righteousness of political correctness and condemn the ideology as an evil.

As an evil. And it is evil. 'Evil' is a very strong word and not one that should be over-used, particularly in the political sphere, but it is an evil, and the effect that it has had on people has been extremely negative and evil.

We have all seen the effects of political correctness and how it manifests itself but what is it exactly? How would we define it? It's not an easy thing to define. Again, the manifesto is very useful on this point and is a good starting point, it states that:

an institution or a government is politically correct when they cease to represent the interests of the majority, and become focused on the deliberate subversion of English national culture and interests, the denigration of English history and of the English themselves, and the promotion of the objectives of minority pressure groups.

Well that's a fairly good place to start I think and it is important to recognise just how damaging political correctness has been.

Political Correctness has various buzzwords of course and these buzzwords, when utilised, can render grown men, mute, they can turn supposedly so-called men into a quivering wreck. I am thinking of terms like 'racist' for instance. As soon as words like that are used, that's where people's reactions kick in and people don't want to be called racist.

There are towns in this country where grown men would quite literally rather see their daughters and granddaughters groomed and put on drugs and used as prostitutes and raped, they would quite literally rather see that and do nothing about it than speak out about it and identify the perpetrators and risk being called a racist. This is no exaggeration, this is not a rhetorical point I am making, I mean this quite literally, and this is sickening and it is heart-wrenching and this is an extreme example of political correctness, and you all know it's right.

Unfortunately it is just the tip of the ice-berg. I'm not saying this to try and depress anyone, but it is very important that we understand what we are up against, and that we are at a disadvantage. Our kind of people - right thinking, rational, decent patriotic people, have not been running this country for the past 50 years, far from it, the exact opposite has been running this country and this is what we are up against.

So I've spoken about the potential that there is for us out there and I've spoken about the evils of political correctness and its pervasive grasp that it has on our society. These may seem to be mutually exclusive ideas; how can there be that much potential for is if that's what we are up against.

The English Democrats Approach to Politics

This brings me to the point I would like to make about the approach we need to take in politics; the English Democrat approach. We don't have the luxury of being a philosophical debating society, we don't have the time to spend debating about the finer minutia of policy in order to great the ideologically perfect party, which we are all happy with and our little group is happy with, but the population at large is not interested in in the slightest. That's not what we are about, we are a political party and we need to gain power. What we must do is ensure that everything that we do and every time we put a message across to the public it is geared towards making the maximum number of our people feel receptive towards it and it must be aimed at winning the maximum amount of support. We need to bear in mind the degree to which political correctness influences our people.

This does not mean that we need to become politically correct ourselves, absolutely not, and it is not true to say that speaking in a moderate way and presenting your ideas in the most appropriate way in an example of political correctness. If you are terrified of ever being called a racist then the only way to make sure that you are never called a racist is to stop opposing mass immigration, and welcome it, and when others are saying that we should only let 5 million in a year you need to be arguing that it should be 10 or 20. There is no way that our enemies will stop calling us racists for opposing immigration. That's just what they do, it is too much of an easy trick for them to pull.

We shouldn't be scared of these attacks but equally we should do everything we can to make sure that for all rational and decent people out there it is quite clear that we are not racist in the way we think and the way we do things. When I use the terms 'racist' I use it in the way a rational person does, and that is that we don't think less of anyone because of their race and we don't want to treat anyone less favourably because of their race, that is what I mean by racism, but the way it's used by liberals of course is just to try and silence any debate on immigration and if you believe even in just controlling immigration, if you believe what Cameron says (although we don't expect it to happen) and you believe that immigration should go down to tens of thousands a year rather than hundreds then that's racist. And this, of course, is nonsense. And this is something that we should never be terrified of and we should tackle it head on when we are called it but in order to maximise the support that we get we need to think very carefully about the way that we present ourselves.

Just to use one example, we have mentioned the issue of proscription charges and the fact that in Scotland and the other countries we have mentioned they have been abolished. But in England they are. This argument could be phrased in a number of different ways. It could be phrased in a rather idiotic anti-Scottish jingoistic way: why should the Scots get this, we don't get it etc. now clearly framing arguments in that way allows opportunities for our opponents to use those against us, they can say we are being anti-Scottish and being derogatory towards other people and this is to be avoided in my opinion and the last thing I want to see is us being attacked and losing support because it sounds like we are being jingoistic and anti-Scottish. That argument wants to be framed simply by saying that we simply want to make sure that people in this country are not discriminated against, we simply want to make sure that they are not getting a worse deal that the people in the other home nations. People in Scotland, much to their credit, have voted themselves into a situation where they do not pay tuition fees, they don't pay proscription charges, good for them. We need English people to show that common sense as well.

The rise of the Scottish National Party in Scotland, quite irrespective of what we might think of them as a party, some people think they are great and that we should try and emulate their policies and everything they do, some would disagree on that, that is kind of irrelevant because most people in England won't know the intricacies of the Scottish National Party's policies but what they will see is that they are a successful party that is growing, they now control the Scottish Parliament, which is a huge victory for that party considering the stranglehold that Labour had up there until very recently. People in England look to that party and are asking the question well that is good for them, where's the English equivalent, how can we vote for the English version of them? And as should be clear, we are that party and we need to be aiming to get those people voting for the English Democrats.

I don't want anyone to think that I've gone PC myself and I hope that I've made it quite clear that I haven't but it's all about how we present ourselves. When I looked at the English Democrats as a party to join it was like a breath of fresh air for me, when I read the manifesto and saw the policies I thought yes this is the way forward because this is an ideologically sound party which is worth all good people joining and really dedicating our time to. And victories that we can bring to this party would be really beneficial to us. But this party has a good image and presents itself in a respectable way: people don't instantly turn their noses up, quite the opposite in fact, when you look at the way that our campaigns on issues such as Saint George's Day have been received amongst the population, including from many quite non-political people, they have been received really well.

I don't want to be politically correct, absolutely not.

Entho v Civic

One argument which is raging at the moment, or rather one sort of false debate which has been started if you like is, a number of people have tried to say that within nationalism you need to define yourself as what kind of nationalist you are, are you an ethno-nationalist as some people call themselves, or are you a civic nationalist, as other people call themselves. I have heard this on a number of occasions, people identifying with either side and I thought I would address it tonight.

I have seen certain people call themselves ethno-nationalists. Clearly what they are trying to do by saying that is that they believe that ethnicity is a key part of nationalism- they want to make it clear that a person's ethnicity as part of their nationality is relevant and it's important to them and I can understand that.

On the other hand, I have only ever heard the term civic nationalist being used to denigrate people and I haven't heard many people referring to themselves as that but of late I have heard one or two people mention it as a different stance to the ethno-nationalist stance and what people who describe themselves as civic nationalists are basically trying to say is that, going back to what I was just speaking about then, that they don't have ethnicity at the core of their beliefs and they don't want to be called racists and be portrayed as being racist and again I can understand that.

From my own part of view I don't rush to attach labels to myself, I think it's better to not to do that, it's best to be avoided if at all possible. I am happy to call myself a nationalist, I always have done. But I would not insist that people call themselves that. I have no problem with people who don't. If people broadly agree with our policies and are patriotic then that will do for me. And this argument, that you need to define yourself as an ethno-nationalist or a civic nationalist, or some people call themselves a cultural nationalist, I find it very divisive and not particularly useful because hoe many of us can say exactly which category we fit into.

I support the English Democrats open membership policy that says anyone can join us if they agree with our manifesto. I wouldn't like to see anyone mistreated because of their race or ethnic background. Does this make me a civic nationalist?

On the other hand, I believe that all peoples have the right to self-identify however they want in terms of culture, language, background, ethnicity and I wouldn't try and tell other nations that they cannot do so, whether we are talking about Apache Indians or Zulus.

Before I came here this evening I got an idea in my head, because I don't just turn up at these meetings and talk about the first thing that comes into my mind, I do actually think about what I'm going to talk about sometimes, it might surprise you to know. I printed off the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as this is something I have read up on in the past and I thought it would be relevant to this ethno-nationalist v civic nationalist debate. It is quite an interesting document which has clearly not been designed with the English in mind but there are few people who would disagree with the sentiments expressed in it . The third point down in this document (it's quite a long), I thought the third point was particularly good and it states that:

that all peoples contribute to the diversity and richness
of civilizations and cultures, which constitute the common heritage
of humankind...

the common heritage of humankind. Now I can support this entirely and I believe in this - I don't want to see smaller nations wiped off the map and undermined by occupying forces, by colonist etc. and I wouldn't expect anyone here to.

Up to this point probably PC liberal types would agree, they would be nodding along at this point thinking yes we support the rights of the eskimos and kurds and basques and all these peoples who have been oppressed over the years, they should have the right to their own culture and identity and the difference between me and those types is that I wouldn't stop there, I would extend this to the English as well. I believe that people who want to identify themselves as ethnically English should be allowed to do so and that it should be monitored on ethnic monitoring forms. The laws that are in place to look after all the other ethnic groups should also be used to look after the people who identify themselves as ethnically English as well. People who want to tick this box on the form should not be disadvantaged because they class themselves as ethnically English anymore than they should be disadvantaged if they tick the Bangladeshi box etc. so that is a little bit about what I believe about ethnicity and the role that it should play in our society.

Does that make me an ethno-nationalist? It's not a term that I would use or recognise. I don't find it particularly useful and I find it divisive and I am quite happy to identify myself as English and I am quite happy to identify myself as European for that matter. I am anti-EU but very pro European, I would class myself as European culturally, and I would class myself as a nationalist as well. What we need to do is get away from this divisive argument with regard to where we stand on these issues because it is very important that our party is a broad church of opinion. We can have people who care about such things and people who don't, it really doesn't matter. We can handle these things because we are a democratic party. If people disagree then we can talk about it. That's what distinguishes us from a religious or political cult. The fact that we are democratic means we can be a broad church of ideas, and that's what we need to be. So let's just leave those types of arguments for other people and not get bogged down in that sort of nonsense because we really do have a much bigger task ahead.

It's been a pleasure speaking to you tonight, I'm going to end now, I'm happy to take questions at the end. It is a very exciting time to be an English Democrat and it's good to see lots of familiar faces here tonight and a few unfamiliar ones. If you're not a member you can join tonight, we have membership forms here, we can take payments by cash, credit card, cheques. If you are a member can I ask you to redouble your efforts, let's make a success of this. This party has got huge potential but things are not going to fall into our laps. We are going to have to work hard. I've been in this party a few months and I've seen that we have got fantastic potential, fantastic foundations, and I look forward to working with you all to help make this party great.

Tory Hot Air on Human Rights?

2011-10-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

Here is my latest article from the English Democrats website:

Leeds English Democrats Chairman Chris Beverley discusses the Conservative Party's attitudes to Human Rights and their proposed reform of the European Court of Human Rights.

Tory Justice Secretary Ken Clarke (pictured) has exposed further inconsistencies ithin his party over the issue of human rights laws and the European Court of Human Rights in particular.

It was only very recently that Mr Clarke attempted to rubbish the sentiments expressed by his party colleague Theresa May, who called for an end to the abuse of the Human Rights act at the Tory party conference and drew attention to the now infamous case of a Bolivian immigrant who appears to have been spared deportation so as to avoid infringing upon his human rights by separating him from his pet cat (see our article on this here).

It would now appear that Mr Clarke has changed his tune.

Mr Clarke has declared that; 'The biggest priority for the British Government as a whole is to try and get some reform of the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg. There's a lot of support among other member states for reform and quite a lot of support in the court itself and in the Council of Europe.'

He wants the Court to; 'stop entertaining things which are trivial' and 'concentrate on the things that are properly the work of an international court'. This statement was given in advance of Britain's taking over next month of the rotating chairmanship of the Council of Europe, which is the organisation which controls the European Court of Human Rights.

The Council of Europe predates the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights is not an EU institution, as was explained here. The distinction is an important one as the desire to escape some of the crazy decisions of the European Court of Human Rights is often cited as a reason to leave the EU, despite this being a non-sequitur. It seems the Daily Mail doesn't know the difference either, as on their article on this subject which can be viewed here, it is stated:

"His latest remarks, however, echo those of Attorney General Dominic Grieve, who on Monday accused EU (sic) judges of being too keen to overturn UK court decisions. Mr Grieve insisted social policy issues such as prisoner voting were for Parliament to decide, and the ECHR was wrong to overturn its will."

Leaving aside the issue of the Tories' inconsistency and downright hypocrisy, the substantive issue is an important one for all of us. Could Britain's chairmanship of the Council of Europe really be used to trigger reform of the European Court of Human Rights?

If the Strasbourg court could be reformed in a way which rediscovers its original purpose, which was to enshrine in international law the fundamental and immutable human rights that were abused so egregiously during and in the aftermath of the Second World War and to act as a deterrent to regimes that seek to pursue genocide and ethnic cleansing etc., as opposed to the Court being used to pursue all manner of politically correct outrages and interfere with the sovereignty of individual member states, then this is surely to be welcomed.

It would hardly be prudent to take the Tories on their word, however, particularly over anything to do with 'Europe', so we will not be holding our breath!

Read more articles by Chris Beverley here: www.chrisbeverley.com

BNP Attack Dog in Attack on Jews

2011-10-26T14:16:00.000-07:00

Things don't seem to be looking too rosy for Nick Griffin's chief internet attack dog Claudia Dalgleish (aka Claudia Bryan).

With each passing day it becomes ever more obvious that the chances of her boyfriend Steve Mendoza (aka Steve Squires) getting elected to the London assembly in 2012 have gone from slim to non-existent.

The key part of this individual's modus operandi involves attacking the opponents of Nick Griffin on various online forums with all manner of smears and lies in the hope that something will stick. No lie is too brazen. She has even accused good nationalists of being paedophiles, though she does not seem to have had very much to say about the revelations about actual child pornsters in her own party.

Needless to say, Claudia has also been more than happy to wrongly smear good nationalists as 'nazis', another low trick to which genuine nationalists do not stoop.

But silly Claudia's attempts to boost up her anti-nazi credentials may have taken a hit following the circulation of the above exchange on Facebook.

Following the cryptic message: 1488! WPWW!, (This combination of numbers and letters form a code: 1488 stands for the '14 words' coined by American David Lane, who died in prison while serving a 190 year prison sentence for a number of offences including the murder of Jewish talk show host Alan Berg, combined with a doubling of the eigth letter of the alphabet (H) to signify the slogan 'Heil Hitler'. WPWW stands for 'White Pride World Wide', which is the motto of Stormfront, a website run by Don Black, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. I'm afraid I don't know enough about this organisation to tell you whether this particular one was one of the 'non-violent Klans' affectionately alluded to by Nick Griffin in his infamous Question Time appearance), Claudia states:

Agreed. It is indeed a dying race being sold out by other white Marxists. I have seen this before when the jews sold us out in SA.x

*SA stands for South Africa.

Oscillating between attempted Nazi-hunting and Jew baiting is hardly the act of a healthy mind, and it is delightful to see such individuals playing a prominent role in Nick Griffin's wretched regime, for they, more than anyone else, will ensure its continued collapse.

I almost feel sorry for Steve Mendoza, who seems to have felt the need to change his name to a more Anglo-Saxon sounding one due to fears of anti-semitism. I find it appalling that anyone would feel it necessary to do such a thing in modern England. I wonder what Mr Mendoza makes of his partner's anti-semitic outburst?

Bridlington Meeting Report

2011-10-21T01:54:00.000-07:00

The following report appeared on the English Democrats website yesterday:

An excellent meeting of the English Democrats was held in Bridlington on the Yorkshire coast last night. The following report was written by Chris Beverley, the party's Leeds Chairman, who spoke at the meeting.

The meeting was chaired by Gary Pudsey, who opened the meeting and told the audience of the ongoing work of local English Democrat activists in the town. This consists primarily of regular leafleting, with the aim of raising the profile of our party in the town in the run up to the next round of local elections in 2015.

The first speaker was Michael Cassidy, former area chairman for Yorkshire English Democrats, and current Hull committee member. Michael gave a fascinating speech that encompassed a wide variety of issues relating to our party. He explained how the party had grown from a handful of members in Yorkshire in the early 2000s to a vibrant area with 8 active branches today.

On policy, he offered a fascinating and thought-provoking insight into his views of the English Parliament issue, one of the English Democrats cornerstone policies, but one, he argued, that fails to enthuse a sufficiently large section of the electorate in the same way as issues such as immigration or the EU do. This is not a failing of the policy itself, which is undoubtedly important and a necessary prerequisite of the achievement of fairness and democratic accountability for the people of England. Rather, the policy needs presenting in a more emotive way and we as a party need to demonstrate that the creation of an English Parliament is imperative if the English people are to be given a voice.

Michael spoke about the importance of the nation state and impugned liberal claims that nation states are an increasing irrelevance in the modern world. On the contrary, he argued; nation states are a cornerstone of our civilisation.

Michael's speech was very well received by those present, many of whom were attending their first English Democrats meeting and were pleased to learn more about our party's history and ideology.

Following Michael's speech a collection was held in which £282.00 was raised. This paid for the buffet and a new order of leaflets that had been bought for distribution in Bridlington, as well as the excellent new banner which can be seen in the photographs accompanying this article, and a good sum was left to bank and put towards future campaigning.

Following a short break I delivered my speech.

I began by paying tribute to the hard work done by Michael Cassidy in the Yorkshire area over the past few years, and said what a pleasure it was for me to be speaking at the first meeting of the English Democrats in Bridlington.

I spoke of the potential for our party but reminded those present as to the debilitating effect that political correctness had had on our people and society. I spoke on the English Democrats approach to politics, and why I believe this is the correct and only way to pursue a patriotic political agenda, and I spoke on attempts by some to divide our patriotic cause into various factions, which I argued was unnecessary and contrary to the interests of our movement.

I will be posting the text of my speech online here www.chrisbeverley.com shortly.

All in all this was a fantastic meeting which has helped to put our party on the map in this town.