Political change in Britain: 40 years after Bermondsey
Political journalists have been looking back forty years on the anniversary of the Bermondsey by-election, a famous gain on 24th February 1983 for the Liberal / SDP ‘Alliance’, whose candidate Simon Hughes achieved what is still the largest swing in by-election history: 44.2%, turning a Labour majority of 11,756 into an Alliance majority of almost 10,000.
Most of the publicity (including several interviews with the defeated Labour candidate Peter Tatchell) has focused on the question of ‘gay rights’, an agenda that has moved on considerably in the intervening decades. Tatchell made no secret of his homosexuality, though at the time he was not so closely identified with the ‘gay rights’ cause as he later became.
Tatchell was vilified by the tabloid press, who gleefully picked up the ‘homophobic’ abuse that was thrown at him, mainly by his rivals on the decaying and often corrupt old ‘right-wing’ of the Labour Party. These included retiring MP Bob Mellish and his ally John O’Grady, long-serving leader (1968-82) of the local Southwark Council.
O’Grady had been ousted as Labour candidate for the Dockyard ward that he had represented since Southwark council’s creation in 1964, while Mellish decided to retire as an MP so as to take a well-paid position as vice-chairman of the London Dockyard Development Corporation. (He eventually became Lord Mellish of Bermondsey.)
Looking back on the by-election, Tatchell’s views don’t seem especially ‘far left’ even by the standards of the time, let alone by today’s standards. The real issues affecting Londoners (then as now) included housing. Tatchell and the Labour left had (justifiably) campaigned against the record of their own party, who took local voters for granted and did far too little for council tenants.
Totally ignored by all of the mainstream parties was the ethnic transformation of London which had already begun: parts of the Southwark and Bermondsey area now regularly see gun and knife crime that would once have been rare. And today’s viewers of the 1983 by-election coverage will be astonished to see that forty years ago White working-class voters were still a very large percentage of the electorate.
Sadly the racial nationalist challenge in these areas had already declined by 1983. There were at least four rival candidates from our broad movement. Jim Sneath from the National Front polled 426 votes (1.4%) and finished fifth of what was then a record sixteen candidates. Anti-immigration campaigner Lady Birdwood (standing as an ‘Independent Patriot’) polled 69 votes (0.2%), slightly ahead of Michael Keulemans from the New Britain Party with 62 votes (0.2%), while Ann King of the National Labour Party (a tiny splinter from the NF, formed in 1981) took just 25 votes (0.1%).
This was the sad outcome from several years of decline for the NF in this area. Less than six years earlier at the Greater London Council elections, Sneath had polled 1,515 votes (8.8%) in this constituency, despite the rival National Party even then splitting the nationalist vote and taking 239 votes (1.4%). In other words a combined nationalist vote of 10.2% in 1977 had fallen to 1.9% in 1983.
It’s understandable that voters were confused and disillusioned by the factionalism that had overtaken the NF during those six years.
Many White working-class voters in 1983 backed ousted council leader O’Grady, who stood as ‘Real Bermondsey Labour’ (even though in many ways he represented the worst of the ‘Old Labour’ establishment partly responsible for the area’s decline). He took third place in the by-election with 2,243 votes (7.6%). John O’Grady died in April 2009, having witnessed the total extinction (for better and worse) of the ‘Old Labour Party’ that he knew.
But the main beneficiary of local voters’ disgust with Labour (both left and right), was the Liberal-SDP Alliance candidate Simon Hughes. Despite his own (secret) bisexuality, Hughes also benefited from the ‘homophobic’ reaction against Tatchell.
(There is still controversy over the extent to which some Alliance activists, though not Hughes himself, deliberately encouraged this ‘homophobia’.)
It’s ironic that two of the three mainstream politicians on the panel in the ITV by-election programme (see video link above) had their own ‘scandals’ in their private lives. Liberal MP Sir Clement Freud was later accused of predatory abuse of underage girls, while Tory chairman Cecil Parkinson had to resign at the end of 1983 after fathering a child with his secretary. Robert Hughes (the Tory candidate at this by-election) also had to resign as a minister twelve years later after admitting an affair with a constituent.
On most issues today Tatchell would probably fit into the mainstream of Labour, while Mellish and O’Grady would be a London version of ‘Red Wall’ Tories. The Southwark and Bermondsey area is now unrecognisable, with most of the White working-class having left, and replaced by an assortment of ethnic minorities (including many Africans) and trendy young middle-class Whites.
Yet the local Labour party remains mired in controversy. Neil Coyle – the Labour MP who eventually ousted Hughes in 2015 – has been suspended from Labour for more than a year and was recently suspended by the parliamentary standards commissioner after an incident of alcohol-fuelled ‘racist’ abuse against a journalist.
Coyle seems likely to be replaced at the next election, but sadly the days when racial nationalists could expect strong votes in Bermondsey are long gone. There are many parts of the UK where a reunited and reinvigorated racial nationalist movement has great potential, but Bermondsey is not among them. The proud history of its White working-class has long since ebbed away with the tide of the River Thames, and is now history.
Another Reform UK lost deposit: when will the Farage-Tice party achieve anything?
Within the past hour the result of yesterday’s parliamentary by-election in West Lancashire was declared.
Predictably it was an easy victory for Labour, and the swing between the two main parties was broadly in line with trends in other recent by-elections and national opinion polls, confirming that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative Party are on a path to defeat at the next General Election, which must be held within the next two years.
But for H&D readers a lot of attention will have focused on Reform UK, the rebranded version of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, led by Farage’s close ally Richard Tice.
Reform UK’s candidate Jonathan Kay polled 994 votes (4.4%): the party’s seventh successive lost deposit in parliamentary by-elections, despite months of hype from their allies at GB News and from academics such as Dr Matthew Goodwin, who continue to insist that the party’s brand of post-Thatcherite populism will achieve significant support from British voters.
On this occasion (unlike many of those earlier by-elections) Reform UK had no competition from any other candidate to the ‘right’ of the Tories. There was no candidate from UKIP or any of its many splinters, other than Reform UK.
This West Lancashire constituency is very divided socially, including some very poor areas in Skelmersdale but also some affluent and traditionally Tory-voting villages. In 2015 UKIP candidate Jack Sen (who became a very controversial figure within nationalism and has since disappeared from politics) polled 12.2% here (6,058 votes), despite having been expelled and denounced by his own party before polling day for ‘anti-semitism’!
Yet this week UKIP’s successor party Reform UK polled only 994 votes (4.4%), despite the Tory vote having collapsed to a record low for this area. Most of the previous Tory voters (and pro-Brexit voters) stayed at home rather than backing Reform UK, even at a by-election. This suggests that the party needs a fundamental rethink if it is to pose any significant challenge at the next general election.
The truth is that Farage, Tice and Reform UK have little of any relevance or interest to offer to the voters of West Lancashire, or to other Britons (especially those in impoverished areas).
The Farage-Tice agenda of a US-style largely privatised economy, with ‘free markets’ (i.e. global capitalism) very much dominant, is a recipe for internationalism, mass immigration and continued impoverishment for the White British working class.
Farage and his fellow City spivs always intended Brexit to turn London into Singapore-on-Thames, with other British towns and cities as its satellites in a small-state, low tax, low spending, ultra-capitalist, Disunited Kingdom.
The only serious challenge to that vision will come when racial nationalists abandon their recent cranky obsessions and factionalism, and unite with a clear and credible vision for national and racial renaissance. There are some signs that such a renaissance will not be too long delayed, and H&D looks forward to reporting more positive news later this year.
Sunak’s Tories start 2023 in deep trouble – but Reform UK’s challenge is weaker than it looks
Five opinion polls have been taken since Christmas, and all show Rishi Sunak’s government in deep trouble with British voters. Traditionally the Tories might expect to benefit from industrial unrest: strikes famously helped Margaret Thatcher win her first general election in 1979 and weakened Labour in the run-up to her third victory in 1987. But Sunak seems to be failing in his main (political) task of restoring the Conservative Party’s reputation for economic competence.
From H&D readers’ point of view, the big question is whether a civic nationalist party is capable of making the sort of breakthrough that Nigel Farage’s parties achieved during the 2010s: first UKIP, and then the Brexit Party – making such an impact that the Tories were forced to allow British voters a referendum on EU membership in 2016, then forced to deliver Brexit against the wishes of most Tory grandees.
For reasons we have examined repeatedly in the magazine (and which we re-examine in the January-February 2023 edition that has just gone to press) Farage’s latest (and probably last) party, Reform UK, does not seem capable of achieving similar results.
Reform UK (presently led by Farage’s right-hand man Richard Tice) has failed badly at six successive parliamentary by-elections (most recently polling 2.7% in Chester and 3.5% in Stretford & Urmston). None of these lost deposits suggest that its nationwide opinion poll scores (much hyped by some academics and by the GB News channel where Farage has a regular show) are anywhere near accurate.
The most recent polls differ widely in this respect: for example the new company People Polling (commissioned by GB News) gave Reform UK 8%, and showed Sunak’s Tories falling to just 19%, 26 points behind the Labour Party; while a rival firm Redfield Wilton gave Reform UK 5%, but again showed the Tories losing heavily, this time 20 points behind Labour. Three other polls taken during the first week of 2023 show Labour leads of 21% or 22%, with Reform UK scoring anywhere between 4% and 8%.
Part of the explanation for this disparity might be straightforward, involving: (a) prompting of voters with the name of Reform UK included in the initial question, rather than held back for a supplementary question; and (b) a different method of adjusting the raw figures, taking less account of previous voting preference. Most pollsters use this method in an attempt to tease out ‘shy Tories’; if People Polling do not, or use it less radically, it could account for their lower Tory and higher Reform and Green vote shares.
Whatever the technical reason, H&D would be very surprised to see Reform UK poll higher than 2% of the nationwide vote at a general election. For ideological and other reasons, Faragism is finished as a serious political force. If Farage himself stands, then he along with Tice and a handful of others might manage 10% or more and (most crucially) help push the Tories to defeat in a small number of marginal seats, but in most of the country Reform UK will remain an irrelevance.
Which leaves the big question – if not Farage and Reform UK, then who and what will present the badly needed challenge to the UK’s failing political mainstream.
Recent polls suggest that 20% or more of those who voted Conservative at the last general election three years ago are now answering “Don’t Know”. Even the People Polling survey that seems to exaggerate Reform UK’s strength suggests that it is taking 12% of that previous Conservative vote, and little or nothing from the other parties; while 17% of those Tory voters have switched to Labour.
Sunak might yet win back some of those ‘Don’t Knows’, but many of them ought to be persuadable by a credible racial nationalist party (if and when such a party gets off the ground).
The British Democrats presently seem to be the best organised and most realistic option for those seeking a racial nationalist challenge at the ballot box, but even they are only just getting started in most of the country. 2023 will be an important transitional year for our movement, as Faragism is finally buried and the Brit Dems gradually build up a nationwide branch structure. Meanwhile Patriotic Alternative is building a broader political challenge away from the electoral arena (PA is not yet a registered political party and shows no sign of becoming one); the British Movement continues to maintain the core ideology that exposes the roots of British and European decline since 1945; and the National Front keeps the flame alive for the first UK party to present a serious electoral challenge to multiracialism during the 1970s.
Whatever nationalist party or group you belong to, or if for the time being you are working independently for our cause, H&D wishes you an active and successful New Year!
Stretford & Urmston by-election: another episode in the slow death of Faragism
The result of the Stretford & Urmston parliamentary by-election was declared a few minutes ago. Predictably it resulted in a massive majority for Labour, but for H&D readers the more interesting aspect was another shockingly poor result for Reform UK, the latest vehicle for the political ideas of Nigel Farage, who was once among Europe’s most successful populist leaders.
Farage was most famous for his decade as leader of UKIP. He had a year out of office from 2009-2010, but was otherwise leader from 2006 until the Brexit referendum victory of 2016. Having made a huge contribution to the UK voting to leave the EU, Farage returned to electoral politics from 2019-2021 as leader of the Brexit Party, so as to ensure that the political establishment was unable to frustrate the referendum result.
In 2021 the Brexit Party was rebranded as Reform UK and Farage retired in favour of his close political ally Richard Tice, but he has remained a powerful voice in support of the party and has hinted that he might return to the arena at the next general election.
The problem is that Reform UK (despite being hyped recently by academics and journalists) seems to have very little public support and little ideological coherence.
At yesterday’s by-election in Stretford & Urmston (a socially and racially divided constituency west of Manchester), Reform UK’s candidate Paul Swansborough polled only 3.5% (650 votes), an equivalent percentage but far lower numerical vote than the Brexit Party achieved in the same constituency in 2019: 3.5% (1,768 votes).
At its peak in 2015, UKIP polled 5,068 votes (10.9%) here.
This is the sixth successive parliamentary by-election at which Reform UK have lost their deposit, despite in this instance spending lavishly on their campaign and busing in activists from elsewhere in the region.
What makes it far worse is that the Tory vote predictably collapsed at this by-election, but disillusioned Tories stayed at home, unpersuaded by Reform UK even as a protest vote option.
One insuperable problem is that UKIP and the Brexit Party had a clear message that attracted large numbers of otherwise politically diverse voters: i.e. leaving the European Union.
That battle has been won – not even the most diehard pro-European nor the most paranoid Brexiteer believes that the UK will re-enter the EU in the foreseeable future. The issue is now settled, and the issues on which Reform UK is choosing to fight are mostly ones that cannot possibly enthuse the White working class who delivered the Brexit victory.
Reform UK are essentially a post-Thatcherite, right-wing version of the Tories – tax cuts, shrink the state, free market capitalism, ‘Singapore on Thames’.
They talk a good fight about immigration, but their devotion to international capitalism means that at root their ideological commitment is to the very force that drives migration and ‘One Worldism’.
In short, they have nothing to offer to White working-class voters, and unlike the Brexit Party are unable to disguise that fact. Moreover many voters are waking up to the reality that Brexit is failing to deliver the changes that were once expected, especially regarding immigration.
Civic nationalism, Brexitism, Faragism – all these populist forces are now dead or dying. It remains to be seen whether racial nationalism, which unlike Faragism is a coherent programme for national renewal, can revive and unite behind a serious political party. The British Democrats are on the way to achieving that, just as Patriotic Alternative are on the way to creating a broader challenge outside electoral politics, but there is a very long way to go before we can say that racial nationalism in the UK is back on its feet.
Civic nationalism fails again in Chester by-election
Last night’s by-election result in the City of Chester constituency gave further proof that the Farage era is over – a fact that will not surprise regular H&D readers but might be news to others.
During recent weeks there had yet again been media hype (encouraged by some academic observers) suggesting that civic nationalism of the Nigel Farage variety might again be on the rise in the UK.
Farage is no longer a party leader, but is closely associated with Reform UK, led by his close associate Richard Tice and backed by some of the same donors who financed Farage’s previous ventures, the Brexit Party and UKIP.
Pollsters and academics have recently argued that Reform UK might be the beneficiary of public disgust with the Conservative governments of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, and Farage has hinted he might make a comeback to assist Tice.
Yet as regular H&D readers will know from our detailed analyses of local elections across the UK, the truth is that Reform UK barely exists at grassroots level. It hardly ever contests local elections, and when it does the results have been dismal.
Parliamentary by-elections are a different matter, because Reform UK is lavishly funded by Eurosceptic tycoons, so its lack of activists can be masked by throwing money at glossy leaflet and poster campaigns.
Even so, the ballot box is pitiless in revealing the truth about a dying party. Reform UK’s candidate Jeanie Barton polled only 773 votes (2.7%), losing her deposit and finishing a distant fifth.
In Chester yesterday the circumstances should have been ideal for a ‘right-wing’ protest party. Everyone knew the Tories couldn’t win this by-election, so the ‘wasted vote’ argument that often damages smaller parties did not apply. Moreover, Sunak’s Conservative Party is unpopular in any case. We are facing an economic crisis with many households struggling to make ends meet. And in the very week of the by-election, UK census figures were released that should have alarmed every racially-conscious voter. Nigel Farage did his best to make immigration an election issue, but voters simply aren’t interested in Reform UK.
And there’s a good reason for that lack of interest. You can’t fool the voters for ever, and it’s now obvious to even the uneducated that Farageism is simply a form of ultra-Toryism. Reform UK is dedicated to the values of global capitalism: the very values that have driven mass immigration for decades. Its ‘free market’ ideology would (as Liz Truss showed when she attempted a milder version) be disastrous for most Britons.
Since last December when Tice himself spent a fortune in the Old Bexley & Sidcup by-election and polled 6.6%, his party has contested a further five parliamentary by-elections and lost its deposit each time, with its highest vote being 3.8% in North Shropshire almost a year ago.
Reform UK’s latest lost deposit reflected its utter irrelevance in the eyes of almost all Chester’s electorate, and similarly dire results can be expected at the next parliamentary by-elections, again in North-West constituencies, at Stretford & Urmston on December 15th, and West Lancashire on a date yet to be fixed in January or February.
The only good news for Tice and Farage is that their party finished well ahead of its two populist rivals (which is scarcely surprising since they are equally irrelevant to the concerns of most voters, and have far less money than Reform UK to spend on their campaigns).
UKIP – the party Farage led in its heyday – now barely exists. Its candidate Cain Griffiths finished seventh with 179 votes (0.6%).
And the anti-lockdown, anti-vaccination party Freedom Alliance finished bottom of the poll with only 91 votes (0.3%) for its candidate Chris Quartermaine. There are many H&D readers who sympathise with Mr Quartermaine’s interest in what might politely be termed fringe science and contrarian attitudes to the CoVID pandemic. These things are of course open to debate, but frankly only a fool would now believe there is any electoral potential in CoVID conspiracy theories.
It’s time for nationalists to cut the crankism and return to the basics of racial nationalist politics. While there is a long hard road ahead to achieve either an ideologically credible movement or an electorally credible party (or ideally both), the recent Census results have emphasised that only racial nationalists – not civic nationalists or conspiracist cranks – have answers to the UK’s long-term crisis.
By-election voters reject entire nationalist movement: time for a reboot
Two dramatic parliamentary by-election results tonight delivered a potentially fatal blow to the authority of Boris Johnson. But they also showed that voters even in strongly pro-Brexit constituencies have rejected the entire nationalist movement as presently constituted.
A wide range of different nationalist parties and independents were on the ballot papers in the West Yorkshire constituency of Wakefield, and the Devon constituency of Tiverton & Honiton, offering various combinations of UKIP-style politics; criticism of immigration; rejection of ‘woke’; traditional patriotism; opposition to Islam; racial or semi-racial nationalism; and/or conspiracy theories about the pandemic. Yet the voters were decidedly unimpressed.
On the issues listed above (with the likely exception of CoVID conspiracism which has niche appeal at best) there are undoubtedly many thousands of voters across the two constituencies (as elsewhere in the UK) who agree with civic or racial nationalist policies.
As recently as 2010, the BNP (which of course no longer even pretends to function as a proper political party) polled 2,581 votes in Wakefield (5.8%).
Yet this week all six of the nationalist or anti-lockdown parties in Wakefield added together polled only half this total: just 1,293 votes!!
In Wakefield the most active nationalist campaign was fought by Ashlea Simon of Britain First, who had achieved the country’s best nationalist result at last month’s local elections, polling 21.6% in Walkden North ward, Salford.
Wakefield is of course on the other side of the Pennines, but this West Yorkshire city has many of the same racial problems that led to strong BNP votes in the 2000s. And the fact that the by-election was caused by a homosexual Muslim Conservative MP being jailed for sexual abuse of a 15-year-old boy, ought to have been a gift for even a semi-racial nationalist party.
Ms Simon and her team (including Britain First leader Paul Golding) put in a serious effort, but polled only 311 votes (1.1%), finishing 8th of 15 candidates.
This wasn’t a great result, but the outcome for other nationalist contenders in Wakefield was truly dire. Jayda Fransen of the British Freedom Party was bottom of the poll with only 24 votes (less than 0.1%).
Ms Fransen had to stand as an independent because her party isn’t yet registered. She and the two men who pull the strings in her ‘party’ – Ulster ‘businessman’ Jim Dowson and former MEP Nick Griffin – talk a good fight online, but are effectively seeking to con potential donors that they are running a serious political force (rather than the farce that it truly is).
In a rational world, Fransen, Dowson and Griffin would never show their face again in any political forum, online or in person. But doubtless they are shameless enough to keep the con going.
The best of a feeble bunch of civic nationalist results in Wakefield was Reform UK – successor to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party – finishing sixth with 513 votes (1.9%). But given the comparatively vast resources expended by Richard Tice’s party, this is another shockingly meagre return. Tice’s donors must be running out of patience.
The rump of UKIP polled 124 votes (0.5%), beaten by the English Democrats with 135 votes (0.5%).
And while the anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination movement continues to make a lot of noise both online and in occasional demonstrations, their standard bearer in Wakefield – the Freedom Alliance – barely registered with 187 votes (0.7%).
Meanwhile in Tiverton & Honiton – a traditionally safe Conservative and strongly pro-Brexit seat in Devon – nationalist results were equally dismal.
Reform UK’s total here was even worse than in Wakefield: 481 votes (1.1%). UKIP again failed miserably with 241 votes (0.6%), just ahead of one of the splinter groups from UKIP, the Heritage Party (led by a half-Jamaican and focusing heavily on CoVID-scepticism) who took only 167 votes (0.4%).
The wooden spoon went to Frankie Rufolo of the anti-Islam party For Britain Movement, who polled 146 votes (0.3%). For Britain is led by a former UKIP leadership candidate Anne-Marie Waters, who is now allied to EDL founder ‘Tommy Robinson’ and claims that she is building towards winning a seat in Parliament at the next general election. On present trends she wouldn’t win a parliamentary seat if she lived for another millennium.
Ever since the collapse of the BNP a decade ago there has been nothing even resembling a large-scale, successful racial nationalist party. The BNP no longer even pretends to function as a proper political party. Patriotic Alternative (the fastest growing racial nationalist force in the UK) is not registered as a party and so is unable to contest elections. And various smaller parties ranging from the British Democratic Party to the National Front are not yet a substantial presence in parliamentary elections.
Both of the constituencies that had by-elections yesterday were strongly pro-Brexit, and were won by Boris Johnson’s pro-Brexit Conservative Party in 2019. Yet the by-elections were caused by personal scandals forcing the resignation of Conservative MPs. So there ought to have been potential for various types of nationalist to attract voters who had previously backed the Tories.
In this context the Wakefield and Tiverton & Honiton results were frankly an embarrassment not just for the parties concerned, but for everyone who calls himself a British nationalist.
Many of those who were active in these campaigns are decent patriots. Yet their political strategies and in most cases their entire party structures should be consigned to the scrapheap.
If we cannot now escape from crank ideas and personal bitterness; if we cannot now agree some form of realistic yet principled agenda and create a serious political movement (whether that movement is electorally focused, or at least for now concentrates on non-electoral politics) – then we deserve the contempt of our fellow Britons and we are unworthy of our ancestors.
Post-Brexit civic nationalists face High Noon in Yorkshire and Devon by-elections
Nominations closed this afternoon for two parliamentary by-elections to be held on 23rd June in the West Yorkshire constituency of Wakefield and the Devon constituency of Tiverton & Honiton.
Each of these by-elections follows scandals that disgraced the previous Conservative MP. In Wakefield a homosexual Muslim Conservative – overseas readers might think we are making this up but it’s absolutely true – resigned after being convicted for sexually assaulting a teenage boy. He has since been imprisoned.
In Tiverton & Honiton, the local Conservative MP resigned after he admitted viewing pornography on his phone while at work in the chamber of the House of Commons. Readers will appreciate that parliamentary proceedings can be boring, but this was probably not the best way to relieve the tedium.
Each by-election has attracted a range of civic nationalist, populist and/or anti-Islam candidates.
In Wakefield voters can choose between:
Ashlea Simon of Britain First, an anti-Islamist party backed by former BNP official Paul Golding – as reported in the current edition of H&D, Miss Simon achieved the best nationalist vote at the recent local council elections, polling 21.6% in Walkden North, Salford;
Jayda Fransen, Mr Golding’s former partner both in Britain First and in private life, who is now based in Northern Ireland where she works for Christian businessman Jim Dowson and his political frontman Nick Griffin – they call their outfit the British Freedom Party but it is not in fact a registered political party, so Ms Fransen is listed as Independent on the ballot paper;
Chris Walsh, a Wakefield gym owner and the most local of the civic nationalist candidates, representing the Reform UK party backed by former Brexit Party and UKIP leader Nigel Farage;
Therese Hirst, a frequent candidate in Yorkshire elections for the English Democrats, a party led by Essex solicitor Robin Tilbrook which campaigns for an English Parliament – Ms Hirst (a Theology graduate of Durham University) finished runner-up at the Batley & Spen parliamentary by-election in 2016, polling 4.8%;
Jordan Gaskell, who at the age of 19 received UKIP’s best vote at the recent local government elections: 10.4% in Hindley ward, Wigan – like Ashlea Simon he has what might prove a big disadvantage of coming from the wrong side of the Pennines, though unlike Jayda Fransen he is at least based in England.
Other anti-establishment parties contesting Wakefield include the CoVID-sceptic ‘Freedom Alliance’, the Christian Peoples Alliance, the Yorkshire Party, and the left-populist Northern Independence Party.
Wakefield’s Conservatives have (perhaps surprisingly) selected another Asian candidate. There is also an Asian independent standing, as well as the ‘Monster Raving Loony Party’, and the usual Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green parties.
The by-election is almost certain to be won either by Labour or the Conservatives, but an unusually poor or good result might either finish off one of the crowded field of nationalist or semi-nationalist parties, or give one of them the boost required to raise their profile.
At present none of these parties has anything like the profile achieved by the National Front in the 1970s, the BNP in the 1990s and 2000s, or UKIP and the Brexit Party in the 2010s.
Tiverton & Honiton in contrast to Wakefield is almost certain to be a battle between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.
Here there is a slightly different range of civic nationalist candidates:
Frankie Rufolo is Exeter organiser of the For Britain Movement, the anti-Islamist party founded by former UKIP leadership candidate Anne-Marie Waters. Mr Rufolo has stood several times in Exeter City Council elections, most recently polling 7.7%.
Andy Foan, a former Royal Navy and RAF pilot, is standing for Reform UK.
Ben Walker, also a Royal Navy veteran, is standing for UKIP, for whom he was once a councillor in South Gloucestershire. In 2019 he was fined more than £11,000 for breaking building regulations.
Jordan Donoghue-Morgan is standing for the Heritage Party, which has absolutely no connection to H&D and is a splinter from UKIP.
Since UKIP were runners-up with 16.5% in this constituency in 2015, there is a fairly substantial civic nationalist or populist right-wing vote to share between these candidates, especially given the Conservative Party’s recent problems.
As in Wakefield, an especially good or bad result for any of the above four candidates could propel their party either into significance or into extinction.
Other candidates in Tiverton & Honiton are the usual ‘big four’: Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Labour and Green.
Neither of the two fastest-growing nationalist organisations in Britain is contesting either of these by-elections. Patriotic Alternative is not yet a registered political party so cannot yet appear on ballot papers. The British Democratic Party has decided (probably wisely) not to enter a crowded field that is likely to turn into a media circus.
Civic nationalism wiped off the map
For at least twenty years we have grown used to being told that racial nationalism is ‘unrealistic’ and that the only ‘electable’ alternative to the political establishment is ‘civic nationalism’. We should forget about race, forget awkward aspects of British or European history, forget all essential principles, and focus on a vague form of protest vote combined with strictly non-racial ‘patriotism’: so the argument has traditionally gone.
The high tide of civic nationalism was the Brexit referendum victory in 2016. Before and after that result, parties led by Nigel Farage (first UKIP, then the Brexit Party) seriously challenged the party system, but once Brexit had been achieved, Farage’s politics (essentially an ultra-reactionary version of Thatcherism) lost all relevance.
Several different parties and independents have competed for the same political territory: waffling about immigration while determined not to be ‘racist’; still fighting the Brexit war long after it ended; and obsessed by some version or other of anti-vaccination conspiracy theory. What has been entirely lacking has been any serious political ideology or vision.
There are only two good reasons to be in politics: either to win, obtaining at least some portion of power over the fate of our nations and peoples; or to set out a clear and consistent ideology capable of rallying and inspiring our people if future political circumstances afford any chances to do so.
Civic nationalism does neither: it is the politics both of defeat and of ideological vacuity.
Just before 1.30 this morning, the credibility of civic nationalism ended for good, finally burying the era when Brexit dominated British politics.
At yesterday’s Southend West by-election, none of the major parties stood against the Conservatives, out of respect for the by-election having been caused by the murder of the late MP David Amess.
This meant that from the start of the campaign, there was an open goal for any ‘minor’ party or candidate who could demonstrate the slightest shred of credibility: none of them could do so.
By polling day the government had discredited itself to a barely imaginable extent, so there was obvious potential for a ‘protest vote’. Not one of the various civic nationalist candidates was able to mobilise such a protest.
The once mighty UKIP had furthest to fall, and duly did so, polling a mere 400 votes (2.7%) across the entire constituency and pushed into third place behind the unlikely runner-up on 3.4%, Jason Pilley of the Psychedelic Movement, whose main policy seems to be legalising cannabis but in other respects is yet another cut taxes, cut government spending, neo-Thatcherite libertarian.
The obvious political space in Britain today is for a credible form of radical racial nationalism, but no such party of any size has existed since Nick Griffin turned the BNP into his personal retirement fund.
Griffin’s latest scam – the British Freedom Party – was not able to put its name on the ballot paper due to not being officially registered, so its leader Jayda Fransen stood as an independent. She polled 299 votes (2.0%), finishing fifth of the nine candidates, and most of these votes were probably due to her being the only candidate described on the ballot paper as an independent. In reality her campaign was just another fundraising stunt by the men who really run her party – Nick Griffin and his ‘business adviser’ Jim Dowson.
Griffin and Dowson weren’t even prepared to spend money on a leaflet to take advantage of the free mailshot to voters that candidates are given in return for their £500 deposit. Any donors to ‘British Freedom’ who expected a serious campaign have (yet again) been conned.
By far the most creditable performance among the civic nationalist fringe candidates was by English Democrat candidate Catherine Blaiklock, who finished fourth with 320 votes (2.2%) despite competing for many of the same voters as UKIP (a far better known and publicised party). Many H&D readers will dislike Ms Blaiklock for having twice married non-Whites, but she has never pretended to be a racial nationalist and cannot be accused of hypocrisy. Moreover her party leader Robin Tilbrook is a thoroughly honest and able spokesman for his cause. Sadly that cause – primarily focused on an English Parliament though also commendably drawing attention to failures of immigration policy – is too limited to rally much support from racial nationalists.
The Heritage Party – a UKIP splinter led by a half-Jamaican and obsessed by anti-vaccination issues, polled only 1.6%, and other versions of the same message received even less support – just 1.1% for the ‘Freedom Alliance’ and 0.6% for the most conspiracist version of the anti-vaccination cause, offered by Graham Moore of the English Constitution Party.
With the exception of Mr Tilbrook who is a good spokesman for a limited cause, the rest of the civic nationalist candidates and leaders should take a long hard look at themselves after this latest debacle. Their only honest conclusion must be that they are simply not good enough: not of serious calibre as parliamentary candidates, not serious as parties, and offering no serious ideological challenge to the system they profess to oppose.
Our own movement also needs to take a good look at itself. First we need to sort out what are the essentials of our ideology and put in place a proper system of ideological and political training for our recruits. Second we need to sort out our attitude to the electoral process: when and where do we fight elections, and what will be our vehicle for doing so?
There’s no need for defeatism; there is need for realism – and the death of civic nationalism leaves us with no excuses for our own failures.
H&D will seek to play its part during 2022 in the long overdue relaunch of a serious racial nationalist challenge to Britain’s morally and ideologically bankrupt politics.
Shattering Conservative defeat opens up British politics for 2022
The Conservative Party suffered one of its worst ever defeats at yesterday’s North Shropshire by-election. Liberal Democrat candidate Helen Morgan easily won a seat that had only once before (in 1904!) returned a non-Tory MP.
For racial nationalists, the importance of this result is that it surely marks the end of the Boris Johnson era. Two years ago Johnson’s Tories won a landslide mandate to “get Brexit done”, and as recently as May this year they were still achieving extraordinary levels of support in White working-class areas, winning support from many voters who should be the natural targets for any credible racial nationalist party.
All that is now over. While the last three parliamentary by-elections have been in traditionally Tory rather than “red wall” constituencies, polling evidence is clear that the Boris magic has gone.
And this North Shropshire by-election confirmed our analysis in H&D that the old Farage movement – the old UKIP and Brexit Party vote – is also finished.
A fortnight ago in the South East London constituency of Old Bexley & Sidcup, Farage’s political heir Richard Tice – leader of the Reform Party (a rebranding of the Brexit Party) – spent a fortune but could still only poll 6.6%.
Against an even more weakened Conservative Party yesterday, Tice’s candidate Kirsty Walmsley lost her deposit, polling only 3.8% despite being a personally credible and energetic candidate with strong local roots.
The other candidates from the civic nationalist spectrum encompassing hard Brexit, anti-woke but ‘non-racist’ views, combined with anti-lockdown / anti-vaccination politics, predictably polled insignificant votes: 1% each for UKIP and for Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party (whose candidate was Fox’s deputy Martin Daubney); 0.2% for the Heritage Party (a UKIP splinter led by a half-Jamaican); and 0.1% for the Covid-sceptic, anti-vaccination ‘Freedom Alliance’.
This result’s message for racial nationalists is clear. The era of Brexit-dominated politics that benefited first Farage, then Johnson, is now over. Covid-sceptic campaigns are an electoral dead end. Britain is now open for a return to real politics in 2022, and racial nationalists will have no excuses if we fail to get our act together.
Further analysis of the British political scene from a racial nationalist perspective will appear in the January 2022 edition of Heritage and Destiny.
Civic nationalism’s last stand fails in Bexley by-election
The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) changed British politics under Nigel Farage’s leadership. Despite the British electoral system preventing Farage from ever winning a Westminster seat, electoral pressure from UKIP forced Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron to hold the 2016 Brexit referendum, and Farage’s campaign skills played a large part in the narrow victory for ‘Leave’ at that referendum.
Yet UKIP never built anything like a proper infrastructure of branches and activists. Its members (indeed almost all of its councillors) were a ragbag of contrarians and cranks, without a coherent ideology beyond Euroscepticism.
Eventually UKIP split in several directions: its most anti-immigration faction (containing a few good racial nationalists but unfortunately at leadership level obsessed by Islam) created the For Britain Movement, led by Anne-Marie Waters. Multiple other splinters ensued, and as in every party split the majority of members simply gave up.
The main successor party to UKIP was the Brexit Party, what remains of that becoming Reform UK, launched by Nigel Farage (who has since given up party politics in favour of broadcasting) and now led by Farage’s ally Richard Tice.
The leader himself was Reform UK’s candidate at a parliamentary by-election yesterday in Old Bexley & Sidcup, on the outer borders of South East London. Richard Tice and his party spent a fortune on their campaign, mobilising their entire London activist base.
Moreover they were up against a weak Tory candidate and a (temporarily at least) weakened Tory Prime Minister. The constituency was strongly pro-Brexit, and the election took place right at the moment when the government’s Covid strategy, until now seen by the vast majority of voters as broadly successful, seemed to be wobbling.
Yet Reform UK’s last stand fizzled out. At least they avoided the sort of joke vote that their handful of local candidates have polled. Tice saved his deposit and finished in third place: but it was a very distant third place indeed, 6.6% (1,432 votes). The seat stayed fairly safe for the Conservatives, though their majority over Labour was slashed from 18,952 to 4,478.
To put this in perspective, this constituency was never especially strong for the BNP even in that party’s glory days, but even the BNP – with a mere fraction of Tice’s financial resources – polled seven hundred votes more, though a lower percentage, 4.7% (2,132 votes) here at the 2010 general election.
Needless to say, Tice’s various rivals for the civic nationalist vote fared even worse yesterday: Elaine Cheeseman for the English Democrats polled 1.3% (271 votes); John Poynton for the rump UKIP 0.9% (184 votes); and the mixed-race. ex-UKIP, ex-GLA member David Kurten – leader of the Heritage Party – just 0.5% (116 votes).
Of the eleven by-election candidates, Kurten was the most outspokenly anti-vaccination, anti-lockdown, Covid-sceptic. His joke vote should be a sobering influence on those in the broader nationalist movement who believe that Covid conspiracy theories can be politically fruitful.
More seriously, Tice’s Reform UK campaign – despite spending a fortune for a pretty miserable return – just about avoided disaster and might keep his donors interested for a while longer. Racial nationalists have long known that the UKIP legacy would have to fade away before our own movement could have any realistic chance of renewing its electoral impact at the level of the 1990s and 2000s, let alone anything more ambitious than that.
Tice’s failure was a step in that direction, and we can safely predict an even worse result for the assorted candidates of civic nationalism in a fortnight’s time at the next parliamentary by-election in North Shropshire.
For us the message should be: get our own ideological and organisational house in order. We no longer have the excuse of an unbeatable civic nationalist obstacle on UK ballot papers – and there is no insuperable anti-White conspiracy. Both in electoral politics and in the broader cultural struggle, our future and the future of White Britons is in our own hands.
