Revolutionary praxis: the strategy of street protest

During recent days British and European nationalists have had to choose when and how to engage in street protests. H&D’s assistant editor Peter Rushton offers this introduction to the strategy of street protest in 2023 – Este artículo también está disponible en traducción al español.

Spain is rapidly becoming ungovernable as patriots (including our European correspondent Isabel Peralta) take to the streets in protest against the squalid and treacherous amnesty deal offered to Catalan subversives by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Meanwhile in London, the career criminal Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – better known as ‘Tommy Robinson’ – is attempting another political comeback as leader of counter-protests against supporters of Palestine. And in Paris, the main opposition leader Marine Le Pen, past and future presidential candidate for the nationalist party Rassemblement National (formerly the French National Front) has marched on a pro-Israel demonstration.

What factors should be borne in mind by racial nationalists when deciding whether to adopt a strategy of street protests?

First and foremost, we should focus our minds on the protest’s objective. This might seem obvious – but sadly in 2023 many nationalists are only too keen to put on their marching boots merely in order to “do something”, because they are frustrated by the evident crises of European society and the apparent inability of nationalist parties to mount a serious political challenge (following, for example, the collapse of the BNP into a mere fundraising channel for its corrupt and indolent leaders).

Taking the three examples above, the most obvious case is the Parisian demonstration which was solely and blatantly intended as a rally for Israel. Marine Le Pen’s stance was welcomed by none other than Serge Klarsfeld, the leading French “anti-nazi” now aged 88 who has longstanding ties to Israeli intelligence. Klarsfeld told the conservative newspaper Le Figaro: “when I see a big party of the far right abandon anti-semitism and negationism and move towards our Republican values, naturally I rejoice.”

H&D readers will understand that I’m not rejoicing. But neither am I surprised. This weekend is merely the culmination of a longstanding relationship between the Le Pen dynasty and Israeli intelligence services, who have at last succeeded in taking over both of the main political parties of the French “far right”.

Tommy Robinson’s call for British patriots to descend on London and oppose pro-Palestinian demonstrators was only slightly more complicated. Robinson came to prominence in 2009 as leader of the English Defence League (EDL) with an explicitly anti-Muslim agenda. Though it was avowedly “anti-racist” and had numerous non-White activists, the EDL grew just as the BNP was starting to implode, and it attracted many people who would once have been BNP supporters.

Though he has been discredited several times in the past decade, Robinson is heavily promoted by the media and is still viewed by some sincere nationalists as a leader of something that vaguely resembles our patriotic cause. He is especially popular with football gangs and others who are (often for honourable reasons) eager to confront the enemies of White Europe on the streets.

But the objective of last Saturday’s call to action in London was obviously fraudulent, as both H&D and Patriotic Alternative leader Mark Collett were quick to point out.

A wide range of reactionaries including Tory newspapers and then Home Secretary Suella Braverman (an Indian married to a Jew) amplified Robinson’s false claim that the Cenotaph was threatened by pro-Palestinian marchers (mainly of alien origin). The fact is that Saturday’s march for Gaza was never going to threaten the Cenotaph, or even pass down Whitehall.

In other words the central objective of Robinson’s rallying cry was fraudulent. Its objective was primarily to embed British nationalists (a tiny, fragmented and downmarket version of Marine Le Pen’s party) as explicit allies of Zionism. And secondly to divide, misdirect and discredit those patriots who might otherwise contribute to building a genuine racial nationalist challenge to our treacherous political elite.

Robinson’s motley crew managed to be both ‘bad optics’ for nationalism, and to represent a counter-productive, fundamentally flawed ideology. As was once said by a French analyst (and misattributed to the statesman Talleyrand): C’est pire qu’un crime, c’est une faute. It’s worse than a crime, it’s a mistake.

By contrast the central objective of the continuing demonstrations in Madrid is entirely valid: to oppose the break-up of Spain. This national betrayal is a cynical deal by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, leader of Spain’s fake ‘socialist’ party PSOE. As Isabel Peralta explained in issue 116 of H&D two months ago, Spain’s party political circus resulted in an inconclusive parliamentary election. To obtain a majority in Madrid’s parliament (the Cortes), Sánchez must cut deals not only with his main allies on the extreme left, but with an assortment of Basque and Catalan regionalist/separatist parties.

Among these is the hardline Catalan separatist party Junts, whose leaders have been fugitives from Spanish justice for several years. They were convicted of sedition and other crimes after they set up an illegal ‘referendum’ as part of an unconstitutional effort to secede from Spain. And despite being politically conservative in other respects, their anti-Spanish conspiracy won the support of the usual international gallery of anti-European subversives, including the ‘Scottish’ Pakistani lawyer Aamer Anwar, who began his political career as a Marxist vandal smashing the Rudolf Hess memorial stone near Glasgow.

Sánchez has offered an amnesty to Junts for its leaders’ crimes. The Prime Minister himself is deliberately subverting both the Spanish constitution and the rule of law, merely in order to obtain a parliamentary majority to sustain himself in office. The situation is in some ways similar to Britain in 1913-14, when the Conservative leader Bonar Law denounced a pact with Irish ‘Nationalists’ designed to keep Liberal Prime Minister Asquith in office:
“We do not recognise the Liberal cabinet as the constitutional government of a free people. We regard them as a revolutionary committee which has entered by fraud upon despotic power.”

In response to the outrageous amnesty deal, Spanish patriots have turned out for the past ten nights in central Madrid, confronting massed ranks of armed police outside the headquarters of the ruling PSOE. Elderly Madrid residents alongside football gangs; conservatives, civic nationalists, Falangists, and national socialists; all these and more have packed the streets of their capital city, and the authority of the Sánchez government is crumbling.

Therefore, in the case of the Madrid demonstrations – in stark contrast to Paris and London – the objective of the street protests is clearly valid and worth supporting. In fact it is the duty of racial nationalists to take a leading role in such protests, even if they are organised by conservative reactionaries with whom we have little else in common.

So the second question becomes, how does a particular street protest contribute to promoting our ideology and advancing our broader political project?

Turning again briefly to last Saturday’s shambles in London, we can easily see that (even setting aside the fundamentally fraudulent prospectus of ‘Tommy Robinson’ and his fellow Zionist propagandists) there was nothing to be gained for racial nationalists from participating in such an event.

There was no possibility of advancing racial nationalist ideas, and the entire charade was simply leading many otherwise sincere patriots down a political cul-de-sac.

In Madrid by contrast the situation calls for serious strategic planning as well as courage. It’s obvious that the leaders of the anti-Sánchez demonstrations are reactionaries – principally from the supposedly ‘right-wing’ Vox and the conservative Partido Popular. Therefore by participating, there is always a risk that racial nationalists are simply acting as footsoldiers for the benefit of our enemies.

For there can be no doubt that the reactionary ‘right-wing’ is our enemy. In some ways a more deadly enemy than the subversive ‘left’.

But it’s a risk well worth taking. Not only because it is our duty to be on the front line when our nation is under attack (whether as British and Ulster patriots confronting the IRA and its sympathisers, or as Spanish patriots confronting their Basque or Catalan equivalents), but because by demonstrating our commitment – our fanatical devotion to race and nation – we can begin to awaken even those of our compatriots who previously had a limited ideological perspective.

Moreover the self-evident bankruptcy of Spain’s 1978 ‘democratic’ constitution now means that events are moving rapidly, and the potential for radicalisation is greater than anywhere else in Western Europe.

It is, however, essential for racial nationalists to achieve the delicate balance of both participating in a broadly-based protest, but also maintaining our distinct message.

This can best be achieved by:
(a) continuing a barrage of online propaganda focused on our core ideology, and relating it to the rapidly developing confrontation on the streets:
and (b) ensuring that our militants are displaying placards and banners that reflect our message, not the reactionary message.

This means, for example, that whether in Madrid, Paris or London we should never carry placards or post online propaganda that puts our case in religious rather than racial terms.

Of course at various points in our struggle we shall have allies who think primarily in religious terms – which means that in Madrid our allies will often be devout Catholics, whereas in Belfast or Glasgow our allies will often be militant Protestants.

But our fight against the undermining of Western civilization and the betrayal of our nations and our race is not a fight against Islam, any more than it is a fight for or against the Pope. It makes absolutely no difference to us whether a non-European immigrant is Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian or Marxist/Atheist. We resist the non-European invasion in the name of racial preservation and true European renaissance – not in the name of any God or Gods.

To adopt an Islam-obsessed agenda is the worst kind of surrender to reactionary politics. Whether or not in particular cases it also serves the Zionist agenda, it simply has no part in an ideologically coherent racial nationalist struggle.

It is only by maintaining a coherent ideological line that we can obtain any political advantage from these street confrontations. We should never forget that ours is a war of ideas, not a mere street skirmish for adolescents. The battles on the streets are a means to an end, not an end in themselves.

Which brings us to a final topic for today’s analysis. Having addressed strategy, what about tactics? What methods are justifiable in pursuit of our objectives?

The simple answer to that is that any and every method is justifiable, provided it is necessary and properly focused.

In mainland Britain all talk of political violence is (in all conceivable present circumstances) utterly counter-productive and should be rejected by serious racial nationalists, irrespective of moral and legal considerations. Whereas in Northern Ireland there have been times in the very recent past where violence was not only necessary, but was the duty of every decent patriot in the struggle against a vile and murderous foe – the IRA and its proxies and splinters.

In Madrid the treacherous and subversive actions of the Prime Minister have crossed the line at which resistance – even violent resistance – becomes not only an option but a duty.

So the central question for nationalists is not whether violence is philosophically justified, but at what point it becomes both necessary and practically achievable. That’s a decision that can only be taken on a day-to-day basis by those involved. But again the imperative for our movement’s leaders is to maintain a sense of the broader objective. The adrenalin of battle needs to be tempered by strategic focus. We are in politics to achieve a national revolution, not to obtain the short term satisfaction that can be gained either by electing a councillor or vandalising our enemies’ premises.

And that national revolution will be achieved by consistent commitment and serious thinking, not by the mentality prevalent on the internet by which extravagant claims are made one day, only to be forgotten the next, in pursuit of the next ‘click-bait’, the next ‘likes’, the next ‘followers’.

The type of followers we need are people who will both read a book, and spend hours putting themselves on the line in a street confrontation. As my old comrade Jonathan Bowden put it, we need a return of Lord Byron’s ideal concept: the cultured thug.

Further articles on this site and in H&D will examine the ideology that will sustain and motivate these cultured thugs: the revolutionary praxis of the 2020s.