Making Plans Without Nigel
Nigel Farage’s rise to prominence came in the wake of the utter implosion and failure of the BNP. After what seemed to be promising growth for this nationalist vehicle it effectively self-sabotaged to the point of complete unviability. Years of activism and goodwill pissed away. This is a subject deserving of attention in and of itself but will wait for another time. Enter UKIP, a party that although libertarian had the glimmer of nationalism in its eye with it’s main goal being leaving the EU. They had been rolling along in the background of British politics but were never really given any mainstream attention. The BNP was a eurosceptic party so the voter base could transfer over nicely to UKIP, although UKIP itself barred BNP members from joining for pragmatic optic reasons. Nigel essentially served as the frontman of the “fruitcakes and loonies” and his gift for public speaking and particularly his keeping alive of the immigration question attracted disenfranchised nationalists.
After this point, politics in the UK was overtaken by the Scottish independence debate as well as the question of Brexit. The latter obviously being achieved but poorly implemented. Glossing over this part of recent history to the meat of it; Nigel essentially forced the Tories to do something they were otherwise unwilling to do, leave the EU. Whether it was arrogance or fear that drove them to it we will never really know. What has transpired since then is a complete revelation to a great mass of people of the complete duplicitous nature of the Tory party. Nigel moved from UKIP to a new vehicle, the Brexit Party, in order to pressure the Tories into delivering a no-deal Brexit over accepting some Europe favouring deal. Post-Brexit the party has become Reform.
It was immediately clear that the Tories never wanted Brexit, indeed many of the things they publicly say they want or will do never come to fruition. It’s a party of saying one thing and doing the opposite. Nigel’s presence in British politics has been key in revealing this. When the last general election came up Reform made the decision to stand down in order to not split the vote and lose to Labour (who would have most certainly delivered a worse Brexit deal) ensuring another period of Conservative government. This is where the most recent criticism of Nigel begins in earnest.
Nigel is (dis)credited with “saving” the Tories. This is frankly preposterous. What has transpired over these last few years is a complete exposure of the true nature of this “conservative” institution. Reluctant Brexit deal, shambolic lockdown and further inability to reduce immigration. As we come toward the end of this 13+ year period of Tory rule what have they actually achieved for their voters? Nothing. Well not nothing, they’ve actually massively increased immigration.
If Reform had taken the decision to split the vote then potentially a Labour government would have been in charge of the exit deal and over lockdown. This would have given yet another excuse for Tory diehards, and the party itself, to say they would have behaved differently. Thankfully we don’t live in that reality, they’ve shown their true colours once again. Nigel has played the long game and come out of top. Are you really going to vote for a Conservative party that continue the same people that have been in power for 13 years?
As we are approaching what looks like a massive Labour win we have to remember what got us into this mess. Nigel has given the Tories enough rope to hang themselves with, the stool just needs a kick. Under a potential future Labour government we need to remember that, we can’t let the Conservatives sneak back in under the false bravado and empty talk the likes of which Suella Braverman has been deploying in recent weeks.
Rumours of Nigel as the next Conservative leader, after his appearance at the Tory conference, have been quashed by the man himself. He can’t envisage leading a party that stands for nothing and ultimately does nothing. I can only see his leadership happening if the party is completely gutted and that seems extremely unlikely at this point in time.
Nigel is not leading Reform at the moment, that task unfortunately falls on Richard Tice. A particularly boring man, a charisma vacuum, a damp rag to borrow a phrase from Nigel. If that party is to go anywhere it needs its old helmsman. I can’t think of a better place and time for Mr Farage to step back into a leadership position.
Where does that leave nationalists? Well firstly after being very kindly carried on Nigel’s back for over a decade it’s time for us to forge our own path. There is currently not a suitable vehicle for nationalism in the UK so it seems to be falling to independent candidates. I am currently only aware of one candidate that is stepping forward in the next election, Steve Laws, and would encourage every British nationalist to get behind him in this brave endeavour. The next decade is going to be critical for nationalism we simply have to get a party together, or commandeer one, and start winning seats locally and nationally. UKIP made an attempt to transform into a more nationalistic party, albeit in the vein of Tommy Robinson’s anti-Islam/counter Jihad. Although given what has happened recently, a staunchly Zionist party being the only vehicle for nationalism could have been a disaster. As I’ve said previously, we should exhibit caution when taking sides in the Israel-Hamas War. A fresh start waits on the horizon.
Mr Farage is not a gatekeeper, recently he said he believes a party will come along that makes him look quite tame. That’s us, we’re waiting in the wings but held back by our nature of being disparate and largely anonymous. Funding is also another great issue but there are plenty of content creators that surely, if they cared, could set aside some of their patron money towards the founding or funding of something tangible. Can funding be courted by actually engaging in active British politics? Potentially. The BNP had substantial membership and funds so there is certainly money out there to be had if only we could present ourselves more concretely to the British public. The Right in recent years has concerned itself with debate club topics of history and religion. These are naturally important but we can’t lose track of the ballot box if you genuinely feel that it is possible to gain ground electorally, which I do.
Nigel has expressed for years his desire to retire out of the political limelight, he was never masquerading as a saviour for our demographic woes, he just wanted Britain to leave the EU. That has been achieved, albeit imperfectly, so the future of Reform is uncertain but if it can pressure the Conservative party into genuine change then he will have done us another great service. The priority is stopping the endless tide of immigration into this country, finally carrying out the will of the British people after all these years.
As stated, the next decade will be incredibly important for nationalism in the UK, any advocacy for lowering, if not outright stopping immigration, should be pursued as our top priority. Find a vehicle that suits you and begin supporting it, either from the sidelines or involving yourself if you feel able to. The difficulty with our brand of nationalism, one that advocates for the native White British population, is that it will make you a persona non grata in many walks of life. That will change, but for now it is understandably a risk many cannot take. These issues will be hashed out in the coming years, as more speak out and as the imported problems of immigration can no longer be hidden or obfuscated the less taboo the subject will become. Indeed, given the current events in the middle east are reverberating back to our shores many are seeing the current & future demographic problem writ large.
Fundamentally, we are walking on a similar but distinct path from Nigel, we can no longer expect him to be something he isn’t. That is delusional for us and unfair, ultimately, on him. By doing that, we risk fostering resentment and poisoning what have ultimately been positive developments for nationalism when we otherwise would have been scattered and homeless. I doubt we’ll immediately separate fully from his political influence but now is our time to step into the limelight.
Nigel Farage’s significance to British nationalism today will not be forgotten, like Enoch Powell before him, it is foundational for many. Here’s to ARE Nige! Always and forever!
Labour’s Plans for Constitutional Reform
First principles
We need to begin by understanding what a constitution is and what it ought to do. The history of the constitution as a political idea is one in which a single term came to be associated with the twin principles of the “spirit” of the people over whom politics is exercised, and the “health” of the body politic from whom the government is drawn.
It is no coincidence that the word “constitution” emerged in politics to refer to the central laws (written or otherwise) that govern a community, during a period of increased use in the medical community to mean “health”.
A simple Ngram chart shows that, whilst “medicine” and “constitution” have an established history of coterminous use, from the mid-1720s onwards – a time of increasing popularity of focusing on constitutions in the modern sense as a written set of basic rules upon which all laws should be based – the use of constitution skyrockets.
Carl Schmitt wrote in the 1920s that a constitution ought to be a reflection of the people, as they exist simultaneously above and below the political order that seeks to represent them in the world. Above, because like Hobbes’ Leviathan they tower over all political figures in judgement; below, because they are the very foundation upon which all political institutions can be built. If a people ceases to exist, then the institutions become hollow machines turning and maintaining themselves for nobody but themselves. And it must be remembered that institutions, as all things incorporated in some way, become entities in themselves.
A constitution is, therefore, simultaneously the spirit and mind of the people. The spirit, because it captures what Montesquieu attempted to identify in L’Esprit de Loi, the spirit of the laws; the truth that there is something intangible behind the tangible laws by which political institutions operate. In other words, rather than analysing the laws that existed, Montesquieu asked why those laws existed, rather than some other set of laws, in the political community in which they were practised. Why did the English have the common law, when the French had parlements? Etc.
The mind, because the constitution moves beyond unthinking instinct and into the strategic realm of forward thinking, extended temporal existence and predictable security. As Montesquieu feared of tyranny, and as Hegel recognised of Spirit in Man’s infancy, when the law becomes the domain of a single person, fear is the spirit of the legal order because there is no predictability, no consistency. Arbitrariness becomes the basis of decision making. It was not fear as fear of the government itself, but fear of the inability to know what the consequences from the government might be.
A constitution, then, speaks the unspoken sentiments of a people and does so in a consistent and unifying way.
The question that arose in the enlightenment over whether this speaking constitution should move to the page and transform from an unwritten to a written document was, of course, central to what Yuval Levin called the great debate between Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. Whilst Paine railed against what he saw as the “tyranny of the dead” when Burke defended tradition and custom, Burke gently replied that it is the very dialogue that thrives between the living and the dead that produces freedom; just as a traveller in a forest might wander from the beaten path and find a lush grove, so too might he get lost in a swamp. Innovation and the freedom that experience brings with it is possible only when there is a point from which you begin.
Instead, said Burke, it was that very tyranny – of a dead set of people from a particular moment in time – that would be cemented in a written constitution. Rather than allowing for the continual expression and interrogation of custom and tradition that comes with an unwritten constitution, a codified one would narrow the temporal horizon of a people into a strict moment in time in an attempt to speak forever. Some of the American Framers argued that a way around this would be to revise the constitution at the end of every generation – roughly 19 years or so. Sir Roger Scruton put the problem very (and typically) eloquently when he said that the Treaty of Rome was written in a year that’s gone for a circumstance that has passed by a group of people that are dead.
The two great constitutions that emerged in the late-1700s – in America and in France – had two very different goals that determined the direction in which they moved. America, said the political historian Hannah Arendt, framed a constitution on a set of institutions that already existed expressing a people that already had a heritage. For that reason, the American constitution can be said to have achieved those two goals around which this briefing note has thus far revolved: the expression of the spirit and mind of a people. France, on the other hand, attempted to create a people through the act of constitution: the Bretons, the Provencals, the Roussillions, the Orleanais, all were to be washed away and the remnants dissolved in the universal humanity of la France. The French constitution preceded a people; the American constitution expressed one.
Yet the constitution that has thrived where even the American one has failed has – or had – been the British one.
In their obsession with formalism and written rules, most psephologists have made the mistake of thinking that Britain’s constitution, uncodified though it is, can be found in the many documents that stretch from Magna Carta through the Bill of Rights to the Act of Union to the Great Reform Acts to the Parliament Acts to the Human Rights Act. No – to do so is to mistake a man’s words for the man himself. These are not Britain’s constitution, but the consequences (and in many places, the mutilation) of the constitution itself.
What is Britain’s constitution?
It is the Parliament itself.
Parliament, in the synecdochal slip of the tongue common in modern politics, is not the House of Commons, nor the House of Lords. Not even is it the building in which those assemblies meet. Parliament, as understood by Bagehot, Dicey, Maitland and all the eulogists of Britain, exists when the three traditional branches of British government are assembled in one place: the Monarch; the Lords; and the Commons. Hence, the momentous occasion when the Monarch delivers his speech to the Lords and Commons, Parliament is said to be together.
But why is Parliament Britain’s constitution? Because, properly understood, Parliament is the voice of people in all of its aspects. The Monarch is the people embodied, a singular head of state who gives to the constitution the only missing ingredient from spirit and mind – a body. He is the body of the politic. The Lords are the people as understood by Burke, as a transtemporal entity who speaks for the country as a physical entity – hence why it was tied to land – and a spiritual entity – hence the Lords Spiritual – and a legal entity – hence the Law Lords. The Commons, finally, are the people as understood by Paine, as the vocal element of the constitution, demanding changes in the moment and transient in its demands.
The British Parliament is, and always has been, the constitution. The doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty reflected this fact, that no power exists above Parliament – as the Monarch, Lords and Commons in one.
Labour’s constitutional reforms: past and present
This was undone entirely by New Labour. The greatest acts of constitutional vandalism – the creation of the Supreme Court, the Human Rights Act, the project of devolution, the reforms to the House of Lords – all committed by the forebears of the current administration upended this balance in a way none but constitutional historians loyal to the idea of Britain could have predicted.
Each of these deserves an invective all their own, but the simple fact is that each of these altered the operation of Britain’s constitution in different ways, but creating a legalistic straightjacket around Parliament: the Supreme Court subverted the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty; the Human Rights Act made that Supreme Court loyal to a power beyond the boundaries and popular
control of Britain; devolution created parallel laws applying to the same citizens at different times and in different places across the country; and the neutering of the hereditary aristocracy resulted in an upper chamber dedicated to ambition, avarice and cronyism.
Thus the supreme entity of this nation – Parliament – has ceased to act as a unitary government and now must act as one amongst many. And by extension – and by design – the constitution has died.
This is the scene into which the new administration enters, ready to finish the job through solutions to a problem of its own making. One of the greatest architects of this situation, Gordon Brown, penned a document aimed at creating a “Reformed United Kingdom” by empowering the different regions of the United Kingdom to be competitors to the central government in Westminster, whilst the absurd phrase of “devolution deserts” now seeks to spread the insanity of an unequal legal landscape across the whole map of the British Isles.
These plans will make a legal reality the idea that Westminster is the English parliament and merely one amongst many. When Brown began his document by stating that “the crisis we face in Britain is not just short-term – it is deep-seated”, he did so without a hint of irony.
Why?
The reader might be left thinking, why? Why did New Labour do all of this, and why does Labour now seek to carry us further down this road?
By design or not, the New Labour government destroyed the constitution of this country because it blew apart the unity needed to underpin the idea of a people. Alongside the administrative vandalism of devolution – which exacerbated the delusions that the Scots and the Welsh, whilst culturally different to the English, are not legally the same nor subjects of the same crown – the surrendering of the nations courts’ abilities to mediate between its citizens to a foreign power only made worse the emerging sense of dual loyalty that was gestating in an increasingly multicultural Britain. The amazement that integration has ceased in Britain whilst the legal tradition of this country has been hollowed out has never yet joined the dots to arrive at the simple conclusion that integration is impossible in the current administrative state masquerading as a constitution.
Yet this is not the only reason Labour now pursues these goals. Indeed, it does so because it must. We have moved from circumstances in which a constitution might have been written to express a people that already existed – indeed, the people, understood properly as a transtemporal entity, never old or dying nor young or being born, that has occupied these islands for centuries – to circumstances in which a constitution must be written to summon a people into being.
We are France at the height of the revolution. The idea of Britain is being re-written, and re-constituted, because Britain has died. The elegists – Scruton in his England, an Elegy; Hitchens, in his The Abolition of Britain; and Murray, in his Strange Death of Europe – mourned a people that has passed away. Labour must now begin the process of constructing a new one, based on “values” and “identity”. And it must do so because it began this process 25 years ago.
Photo Credit.