Atticus Fox

Men (Not) At Work

Leftists are very excited by the idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI).

Wikipedia defines UBI as follows:

Basic income, also called universal basic income, citizen’s income, citizen’s basic income in the United Kingdom, basic income guarantee in the United States and Canada, basic living stipend or universal demogrant, is a periodic cash payment delivered to all on an individual basis without means test or work requirement. The incomes would be:

Unconditional: A basic income would vary with age, but with no other conditions, so everyone of the same age would receive the same basic income, whatever their gender, employment status, family structure, contribution to society, housing costs, or anything else.
Automatic: Someone’s basic income would be automatically paid weekly or monthly into a bank account or similar.
Non-withdrawable: Basic incomes would not be means-tested. Whether someone’s earnings increase, decrease, or stay the same, their basic income will not change.
Individual: Basic incomes would be paid on an individual basis and not on the basis of a couple or household.
As a right: Everybody legally resident would receive a basic income, subject to a minimum period of legal residency and continuing residency for most of the year.

The idea is that UBI replaces welfare. But the crucial difference from welfare is that even those with jobs would receive it. The idea is that as we enter the age of automation, there will not be the need for as many manual workers. So, the AI machines at the factories will perform all the work and then the profits generated by the AI machines can be split, equitably of course, across everyone in the country. Those people that have the skills or the need to work can choose to do so, but there would be no obligation to work. We will just need people for the jobs that can’t be automated while everyone else lounges around sucking grapes like the last days of the Roman Empire. Leftists predict that we will experience a cultural renaissance because people will be able to turn their minds to more lofty pursuits once they no longer have to worry about how to pay the mortgage.

Yet people of a perceptive nature can immediately see what this is: it’s another method championed by Leftists for breaking the link between work and money. The Left don’t really like working. They feel there is enough money around that if it was shared around equally they wouldn’t have to work. That is the goal.

Plus, there is clearly a mismatch between the means of production and the source of UBI: UBI is a payment from the governnent. Yet the automation at businesses is in private hands. So, how is the money going to be transferred from businesses to government? Well, either corporation tax will have to shoot up or, better yet, the businesses will be taken into state ownership. It all starts becoming clear: UBI is the latest re-purposing of socialism.

Welfare was the original method that loosened the links between work and survival but welfare has a PR issue: welfare is seen as something for common people. UBI, on the other hand, is a much higher status endeavour. This is a project that lower middle class Leftists are happy to rally around because whilst Leftists love suckling at the teat of public money, they don’t like the thought of being on welfare. UBI is another way of making us all reliant on the state in a socially acceptable way. Leftists sure do love to be dependent on the state.

Anyone can see that this experiment goes against human nature. Humans have had to spend the whole of human existence trying to survive. At the very moment when existence seems assured, Leftists want to down tools and say “Right, we can take it easy now”. No, we can’t. Humans need work. Humans need competition to bring out the best in us. Humans need to strive, to innovate and to invent in order to keep moving forward. No progress will be made in a society where life has no purpose.

If the population doesn’t have to work, there will be all sorts of unintended consequences. We will have too much free time. We will become bored. We will feel irrelevant and unnecessary. Mental health issues will become an epidemic in a world where nobody feels they make a difference. I can’t imagine that peoples’ physical health will be good either: in a world where you don’t have to do anything, what’s the point in doing anything? Welfare has been around for multiple generations now. We don’t tend to view families in which 3 generations haven’t worked as being the best that we have to offer: these people have not spent the time available to them becoming really good at pottery. Nor are they seen as examples of physical perfection. Let’s not pretend that people with lots of time on their hands will use that time wisely.

Listlessness and ennui will be widespread. People will not be working out. Instead, opioids will be the order of the day. Something to take your mind off the insignificance of your life. Something to soothe that anxiety you feel that there must be more to life.

The current elevated status of Western Civilisation is not guaranteed. It would be a mistake to think we can sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labours. When the Roman Empire collapsed, the West lost the knowledge as to how to make concrete for 1000 years. As concepts go, UBI is worse than socialism: socialism also ignores human nature for progression and to be rewarded for hard work but at least people have to work under socialism.

Let humans be humans, not lab rats.

UPDATE: Caitlin Johnstone, writing in Takimag, has a much better handle on UBI than I have. I see UBI as a method for governments to take over. Caitlin sees it as a way for the oligarchs to take over. She makes a good case. Either way, we’re fucked.

Here’s a snippet from Caitlin’s article:

Think about what would happen in that situation if people decided they weren’t being treated fairly by the existing system. What recourse would they have? They can’t organize labor strikes if they have no labor. They can’t boycott if everything is made by the same corrupt system. Mass demonstrations and civil disobedience would go unnoticed by a power structure that needs nothing from its populace. Violent revolution would be an unwinnable game as security systems protecting the infrastructure of the powerful would also become automated. People would cease to be active participants in their society, and would instead be merely along for the ride at the whims of the oligarchs, for as long as the oligarchs deemed them not too inconvenient to keep around.

Caroline Lucas Reveals The Truth About Diversity

Caroline Lucas has been ridiculed this week for calling for a government of national unity that would be led by an all-female cabinet. Anyone can see that this idea is horribly misandrist.

If I were to indulge in a moment of ‘whataboutery’, I would ask you to consider the reaction if a male politician suggested an all-male cabinet to tackle Brexit. However, I won’t because this piece is not about the special privileges to be sexist that women have over men.

This crazy idea started with an opinion piece for The Guardian that Caroline sent to 10 prominant female British politicians.

The names Caroline had in mind for this cabinet of ‘Galacticos’ are:

Caroline Lucas MP (natch)
Heidi Allen MP

Kirsty Blackman MP

Yvette Cooper MP

Justine Greening MP

Sylvia Hermon MP

Liz Saville Roberts MP

Anna Soubry MP

Nicola Sturgeon MSP

Jo Swinson MP

and Emily Thornberry MP

Approximately one nanosecond after publication of Caroline’s sexist call to arms, people realised that her ‘All-Star’ cabinet didn’t include any BAME representation. All her nominees were white, female, middle class liberal Remainers. In fact, they were all very similar to Caroline. Not very diverse, in other words.

And this is where we get to the point behind the title of this piece: Caroline has accidentally revealed a great deal about diversity. Despite liberals like Caroline calling for ever more immigration to help Britain’s diversity because – chant in monotone unison after me – ‘Diversity is our strength’, Caroline doesn’t think in terms of diversity at all. Caroline has shown that, left to her own devices, she thinks in terms of her own identity group.

I don’t have any problem with Caroline thinking and acting in the interests of her own identity group: we all do it. And that is why diversity cannot work: diverse societies will not coalesce into one ‘brotherhood of man’ as Leftists like to believe. Diverse societies will splinter into identity groups and each group will then agitate for more rights and privileges for that group over rival groups. Social cohesion breaks down under diversity. We see the evidence for this all around us. Diversity equals division.

So, I realise that Caroline’s instincts were natural ones. It doesn’t mean she is racist. But it does mean she is hypocritical. She pretends that diversity will lead to a better society but her actions don’t support this attitude.

By the time Caroline made her apology for her awful idea, she had reverted to learned behaviour: diversity is our strength.

She talks the talk but she doesn’t walk the walk.

As an extra treat, here is a great article by Joanna Williams on the Lucas tragedy.

Addendum (Feb 2021):

I recently read this article that reminded me of Caroline’s proposal for an all-white-woman Govt of ‘national unity’. The author, Joel Kotkin, argues that an intellectual overclass is forming in the West, progressive in nature, that sees themselves, as a result of their superior educations, as better placed to guide the thinking of the other 98% of us. This elite ‘clerisy’ are not elected but are in positions to influence those that are. The clerisy are not particularly interested in democracy as elections are too short term and often result in the wrong result. Rather, they are a set of experts that believe they should guide the long term strategic objectives for their countries. The overclass are comprised of the media, academics, artists, writers, scientists, intellectuals and the entertainment leaders.

Those who harbour a sense of natural superiority tend to support strong governmental action in line with their personal values and an overconfidence in their own competence, according to research by Slavisa Tasic of the University of Kiev on decision making in government

I believe Caroline Lucas was invoking the same spirit of a class of ‘superior thinkers’, working outside of democratic boundaries, to better guide the country to the best progressive end-point when she proposed her government of ‘white women unity’:

https://thecritic.co.uk/neofeudalism-and-its-new-legitimisers/

White Flagellation

There are increasing numbers of white people in the West who feel the need to martyr themselves at the altar of multiculturalism. This martyrdom goes beyond simply being an advocate of multiculturalism. I am not referring to a fondness for international cuisine. No, I am referring to people who wish to dismantle white culture. And the most bizarre aspect of this syndrome is that most of these anti-white racists are…white!

There are white British people that are quite happy for there to be unlimited immigration into the UK.
There are white British people that believe that immigrants do not need to assimilate into UK culture.
There are white British people that support the protection of foreign cultures at the expense of British / Western culture.
There are white British people that want BAME representation in jobs to be based on demographics rather than merit.
There are white British people that genuinely feel that only white people can be racist (and they have no idea how racist that belief is).
There are white British people that are convinced that wealth inequality between British white people and BAME people is due to structural racism.
There are white British people that believe that any indicators that Britain is a white Christian country need to be suppressed so as to not offend immigrants.
There are white British people that are convinced that white people owe a debt to former colonies. A debt that never be re-paid but, maybe, can be slightly mitigated with liberal amounts of ‘white hate’.

Etc etc etc.

We have entered the realms where such British whites want their own race and culture destroyed so that other races and cultures do not feel oppressed by white culture.

In an article in The American Interest, linguist and social critic John McWhorter argued that white liberal discourse on race has become quasireligious, with “uncannily rich” parallels to Christianity: white liberals embrace accusations of racism and confess their white privilege (original sin); and they seek a forgiveness from black people that can never be fully earned (grace). There’s also a substantial element of self-debasement and self-flagellation, McWhorter noted.

Western civilisation is possibly the most successful civilisation that has ever existed. However, its success is leading to its downfall. In short, the middle classes have become too numerous and too comfortable for too long. For it is they that are the chief proponants of the ‘white culture must be smashed’ narrative. Only a successful culture has the time on its hands to see inequality of cultures and blame themselves.

Such people feel so much guilt over the success of Western culture that they seek to undermine Western culture from within in order to level the playing field for other cultures. These (white) people know that the best way to show the world how not-racist they are is to attack white people. This lets brown people know that the white-attacking white person is on their side.

The self flagellating white middle classes are consumed with guilt: white guilt; colonial guilt; liberal guilt; class guilt; wealth guilt. Self flagellation is the best way they have found to assuage that guilt.

It’s a trait that perfectly reflects the age: an age in which feelings and fairness trump context and facts. They believe that there should not be inequality between the civilisations. Therefore, all civilisations should be equal. That can be achieved by hampering Western civilisation.

I am referring to a very precise demographic here: young, university-educated white liberals. This group are so sensitive and so consumed with feelings of how unfair the world is that they feel it is a reasonable objective that the white race is replaced in order to make the world better for everyone else.

Here is an example, from an American, of anti-white flagellation:

No civilisation can exist with such a large proportion of its civilians are agitating for its failure.

UPDATE:

I recently came across this article in The Atlantic by Reihan Salam that describes the white-bashing phenomenon from the perspective of a non-white. Some pertinent quotes are as follows:

The people I’ve heard archly denounce whites have for the most part been upwardly-mobile people who’ve proven pretty adept at navigating elite, predominantly white spaces. A lot of them have been whites who pride themselves on their diverse social circles and their enlightened views, and who indulge in their own half-ironic white-bashing to underscore that it is their achieved identity as intelligent, worldly people that counts most, not their ascribed identity as being of recognizably European descent.

And…

It is almost as though we’re living through a strange sort of ethnogenesis, in which those who see themselves as (for lack of a better term) upper-whites are doing everything they can to disaffiliate themselves from those they’ve deemed lower-whites. Note that to be “upper” or “lower” isn’t just about class status, though of course that’s always hovering in the background. Rather, it is about the supposed nobility that flows from racial self-flagellation.

So, you see it comes down to class again. Upper whites want to disassociate themselves from lower whites in order to impress lower browns. Yet upper whites don’t see the hypocrisy in their position. how hypocritical. Nor do they realise their attitude is patronising to brown people. It’s the white saviour complex.

UPDATE #2:

https://unherd.com/2019/10/who-elects-self-hating-white-liberals/

UPDATE #3:

https://unherd.com/2019/10/how-not-to-be-a-white-anti-racist/

UPDATE #4:

https://unherd.com/2020/01/modern-politics-is-christianity-without-redemption/

UPDATE #5:

The Brexit Party

Early in 2019 I applied to be a parliamentary candidate for the Brexit Party. I was selected to attend an interview. As part of the interview process I had to prepare a 2 minute speech that would be delivered at the outset of the interview. This is the speech I delivered:

The speech:

‘I am going to explain why Britain needs the Brexit Party.
The first reason is that the other parties have been trying to subvert Brexit because none of them ever wanted it. And it was beginning to look like they were going to succeed.
But, just when our prospects for leaving the E.U. were bleakest, up pops the Brexit Party and suddenly we have new hope.
Within a few short weeks, the Brexit Party have won a national election, our Remainer-in-Chief has resigned and the Tories have been forced to seriously consider a proper Brexit after all.
Would any of this have happened without the presence of the Brexit Party? Of course not! And that is why Britain needs the Brexit Party!
We also need the Brexit Party because the referendum exposed a new division in British politics. The referendum cut across the traditional party lines. Millions of voters from both the left and the right voted to leave the EU.
The new political division in Britain is now not so much between the left and right but between the cities and the countryside. And between the graduates and the non graduates. And between the globalists and the nationalists. And between the pessimists and the optimists.
All other political parties are catering for the metropolitan, globalist graduates with degrees in pessimism. No one represents the rest of us. That is why we need the Brexit Party.
The Brexit Party has the potential to be the antidote to all other British parties. The Brexit Party can leverage not only the anti-EU mindset but anyone who is not represented by homogeneity of the other parties.
There are many other battles that need to be fought in Britain than just Brexit. Soon, there is likely to be a General Election. Voters will finally have a chance to turf out the political insiders who think they know best. To eject the elites that think that London is the centre of the universe. And to boot out those hordes of politicians who have proven they cannot be trusted to honour their promises. The political insiders need to be replaced by the political outsiders.
And that is why Britain needs the Brexit Party.’

I was chosen to be PPC for the Brexit Party. I accepted and then, a few days later, I changed my mind.

I declined for a number of reasons. In short, I did not have the courage.

The political atmosphere around Brexit was so febrile that I suspected that I could be in danger as a PPC for the Brexit Party. I was shocked at just how angry Remainers were with the result. Their anger was bizarre since none of them had ever been able to put up much of a reason for why staying in the EU was such a good thing. (I have covered Remainer arguments for the EU in a separate blog). However, Remainers were very angry and many Remainers were potentually very dangerous in that way that Leftists are dangerous when they fervently believe their opponents are Nazis. Young ideologues who believe their political enemies are Nazis feel that they have a moral obligation to hurt those enemies. (At the time ‘Punch a Nazi’ was a heavily used phrase used in connection with Brexit and the Trump victory).

So, I didn’t want to be punched. I didn’t want my family to be attacked. I didn’t want to be doxed. I didn’t want the media digging into my background and either finding something embarrassing or, inventing something embarrassing in order to destroy me.

As things played out, the Brexit Party PPCs were irrelevant anyway as Farage did a deal with Boris Johnson to stand down all Brexit Party candidates standing in constituencies that had, at that time, a Tory MP.

Brexit was a crazy time.

The State of The Left

Labour has become the party of the intolerant bourgeoisie. The people who genuinely and sincerely believe themselves superior to everyone else. The people who despise everyone beneath them and resent everyone above them.

Here is a list of all of 22 characteristics of The Left that are having such a detrimental impact on our society these days:

1) Identity politics / Intersectionality:

Refer to my separate blog on ‘Intersectionality’. This stuff causes friction and reduces social cohesion. It also inflames a sense of unsatisfiable victimhood in many sections of society.

2) Transactivism:

For example, allowing men to identify as women and use Women’s toilets / changing facilities / women’s jails etc.

3) Ideology Trumps Science:

In short, the Left prefer feelings over facts. This is why Lefties prefer social science subjects over proper science. As such, The Left are then free to play around with the idea that certain objective knowledge, acquired by mankind over hundreds, if not thousands of years, is just a bit old-fashioned and needs updating for the 21st century, so, for example, they come with gems of pure ignorance such as ‘gender is just a social construct’. Or they will deny that intelligence is in any way heriditary which then gives them the wriggle room to declare that it is only due to oppression that not everyone reaches the same heights in their careers.

4) Refusal to discuss impact of Islam on UK

FGM; Niqab; Burqa; Lack of integration; No Go areas; Shows of power; Apologism for terrorism; Rape Gangs; Sharia Law. One day, The Left will realise their ideology is incompatible with Islam. However, by then it will be too late.

5) Immigration:

Clearly the UK cannot allow entry to everyone in the world who would like to live here. The usual counter-argument is that immigrants are needed to do the jobs that Britons are not prepared to do. To which the counter-counter-arguement is that in the absence of mass immigration, firms would have to raise salaries to the point where people ARE prepared to do the work. Also, AI is likely to have a significant impact on low-skilled jobs over the next few years, which could make recent waves of low-skilled workers redundant. We need to debate these points. However, we can’t because within 10 seconds a Lefty will shriek ‘Racist!’ and the debate will be over.

6) Affirmative action for women:

This takes the form of either directly or indirectly lowering the standards for women to allow women to take part in activities in which they formerly couldn’t compete with men on a level footing. An example of direct lowering of standards can be seen where fitness standards have been lowered for certain military groups to enable women to qualify for those groups. An example of indirect lowering of standards is to be found in the setting of quotas to enable certain numbers of women to reach senior corporate positions. Women only shortlists for MPs is another obvious example which is a policy that, I believe, only Labour have adopted. We no longer live in a meritocracy.

7) Perpetuating women pay gap myths:

The gender pay gap isn’t real. If you think it is, you are reading the wrong blog.

8) Promoting Diversity:

Refusal to engage in any debate on benefits of diversity. Diversity quotas are now replacing meritocracy as the basis for awarding jobs.

9) Promoting multi-culturalism:

Refusal to engage in any debate on benefits of multiculturism. There has been emergence of asymmetrical multiculturalism in which liberal whites denigrate their own group and embrace a romantic celebration of minorities.

10) Globalisation:

The argument against globalisation touches on many of the other points on this list. However, it also refers to the EU which, for some reason, is every little Lefty’s wet dream. Refer to my other blogs for more in depth commentary on the EU.

11) 2-tier Policing / 2 tier Justice:

There’s a strong and growing feeling in the country that certain ‘victim’ groups in our society are treated differently because of their victim status. The Muslim Rape Gangs are a classic example of this. They were allowed to carry on because it was felt that it to stop them would be culturally insensitive. There have also been stories about transgender peados that have received lenient treatment by judges because of their situation. I believe in 1 law for all.

12) Rise of anti-semitism:

I know that advocates of anti-semitism try to cover their tracks by attempting to stick their anti-Semitic comments on ‘Israel’ or ‘Zionism’ rather than Jews themselves. But we all know that is a paper-thin artifice. Basically, in these Identity Politics days, Jews are just counted as another bunch of rich, white people for Lefties to attack. And, anyway, the Holocaust was, like, so long ago.

13) Intolerance / Bullying:

The modern Left have taken hypocrisy to new levels. This hypocrisy is a thing of wonder: the Left will preach tolerance and diversity at the very same time that they are viciously attacking someone for having different views. ‘Antifa’ is a prime example of the bullying, fascist tendencies of The Left. I will write more on Left hypocrisy another time.

14) Social Media Platforns:

These platforms are removing people with right wing views from their platforms. Tech firms are now another method for The Left to tighten their grip on The Narrative. Amazon is banning books. Patron is removing conservatives from its platform. Mastercard, Facebook, Twitter: they’re all at it.

15) Militant Academia:

Academia has a higher militancy profile in the US than the UK (try reading the ‘Campus Reform’ website for hundreds of examples of the application of Lefty Logic. However, I don’t doubt that professors in the UK are also poisoning the minds of students.

16) Antifa:

The Left’s paramilitary wing. Like the IRA, only shit.

17) Suppression of free speech:

More and more Lefties are calling for hate laws in a bid to suppress ever having to hear an opinion they disagree with again.

18) Offence culture:

Lefty offence culture has destroyed comedy. Furthermore, it is making interaction with other people fraught with risk. Microaggressions and unconscious bias means that everyone who isn’t a Lefty must be a cunt.

19) Militant Feminism:

The latest strain of Feminism would not be recognisable to the suffragettes. The New Feminists rarely even pretend they want equality with men: most of the time they are quite prepared to say they want to take over from men. The hatred they exhibit towards men makes me realise that they fully intend to abuse their power given half a chance. Modern feminism is simply the women’s chapter of socialism

20) Cultural Appropriation

Cultural appropriation is used to describe a relationship of dominance and exploitation between a global ruling class and a globally subjugated one whereby the dominant culture can steal what they like from the weaker culture, thus destroying the weaker culture.

As a result, the Left stipulate that no white person can use or profit from styles of clothing or music or art or food etc that originated in another culture. Because this is exactly the same as colonialism. White colonialists entered brown cultures and took what they wanted, built infrastructure and educational systems and then left. So, by way of recompense, we must now abide by a set of inconsistent and poorly understood guidelines whereby ethnics can leverage any aspect of white culture they want but whites cannot do the same. This is where multiculturalism has taken us.

21) Hatred of White Working Class

Brexit has revealed that the progressive left loathe the working class, particularly the white working class (WWC). The WWC voted for Brexit and the Tories. As a result, the class hatred felt by the metropolitan leftists towards the WWC has exploded. We keep seeing the tropes that the WWC don’t know what they were voting for, they’re low information, they’re easily influenced by demagogues. This is the same class hatred that was displayed to the working class a century ago. Then, it would have been the thoughts of right wing capitalists. Today, these are the thoughts of the progressive, liberal left.

22) Accusations of Racism

If you vote for a right wing party, you are racist. If you voted to leave the EU, you are racist. If you would like controls on immigration to the UK, you are racist. If you think Meghan Markle is a pain in the arse, you are racist. If you criticise any person or group of colour, you are racist. It gets pretty tiring

Quotes on Personal Responsibility

UnHerd Online

‘The War Against Objectivity’

James Bloodworth

14th Aug 2019

https://unherd.com/2019/08/the-war-against-objectivity/

The proliferation of information produced by the internet has made it easier to blur the distinction between truth and falsehood. Conspiracy theories increasingly fill the void where ideology – and certainty about the future – used to be. When there are so many competing truths that few individuals have the time to adequately parse, we are inclined to accept the narrative (however far-fetched) that chimes with our emotional predispositions

Christopher DeGroot

‘Duty to Others in an Age of Individuals’ Takimag, June 8^th 2018

Takimag, June 8^th 2018

https://www.takimag.com/article/duty_to_others_in_an_age_of_individuals_christopher_degroot/2/

In the past, people were born into a culture from whose moral customs they’d deviate at their peril. A couple who had a child out of wedlock, for example, would be shamed by their fellows. Quite an unpleasant experience that certainly was, and yet not necessarily unjust, because negative emotions like shame and disgust serve to uphold moral and therefore social order. To eschew these in the name of “self-esteem,” “tolerance,” “inclusion,” and the like progressive therapeutic concepts is destructive…. In the past, a sense of duty to one another was built into the culture, in a reflection of shared religious mores. But when those shared religious mores are replaced by “rights” and an individualist perspective generally, such a sense of duty becomes more and more elusive

Roger Scruton

‘Bring Back Stigma’

City Journal, Autumn 2000

https://www.city-journal.org/html/bring-back-stigma-11807.html

Unlike the old forms of stigma, however, whose function was to bind a community together and to seal each member into the common fate, this new form of stigma has precisely the opposite aim: to permit social fragmentation. The talk of “social inclusion” is a mask for the reverse. Political correctness does not seek to include the Other in “our” community but to accept his otherness and allow him to live outside. In effect, it is attempting to create a society of strangers, each pursuing his own gratification in his own freely chosen way, and none answerable for what he does to anyone but himself.
.

BTL Comment on The Spectator website by ‘Save The West’

The whole point about totalitarian inventions like “hate-crimes” is that eventually everyone is guilty. You supported the monstrous marxo-fascist idea of “hate-crimes” – apparently without realising that the powerful would use the ghastly concept to suppress free speech, and augment their power by doing so. Wakey-wakey!

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-liberals-must-stand-with-kathleen-stock

Quotes On The EU

Diana Johnstone

‘Italy: The Center Cannot Hold’

The Unz Review, 1st Sep 2018

The mystique of the European Union is anti-nationalism, based on the theory that “nations” are bad because they caused the devastating wars of the twentieth century, while European unification is the sole guarantee of “peace”. Convinced of their mission, the Eurocentrists have had no qualms in throwing out the baby of democratic choice along with the nationalist bathwater….The disappearance of left political forces has been almost total in Italy. There are many reasons for this, but a curable part of the problem has been the inability of what remains of the left to face up to the two main current issues: Europe and immigration.

The left has so thoroughly transformed its traditional internationalism into Europism that it has been unable to recognize EU institutions and regulations as a major source of its problems. The stigmatization of “the nation” as aggressively nationalistic has held back left ability to envisage and advocate progressive policies at the national level, instead putting its hopes forever in a future hypothetical “social Europe”. Such a transformation would require unanimity under EU rules – politically impossible with 28 widely differing Member States.

Without such inhibitions, the far right capitalizes on growing discontent.

Another related handicap of the left is its inability to recognize that mass immigration is indeed “a problem” – especially in a country like Italy, with a flagging economy and 20% official unemployment

https://www.unz.com/article/italy-the-center-cannot-hold/

Brendan O’Neill

‘Justin Welby’s EU Delusion’

The Spectator Coffee House, 6th June 2018

It’s pretty clear now that the EU has become a God substitute for our increasingly faithless intellectual elites. It’s their church, their symbol of goodness, their paragon of purity in this world beset with populism and — brace yourselves — people whose political opinions differ from the Guardian’s…The EU acts as a kind of God Replacement Therapy. It is the one article of faith our chattering classes can cling to in these otherwise morally confused times. That is why they praise it so wildly, and so inaccurately. That is why they treat any dissent from the Brussels writ as heresy: Brexit is basically the Beelzebub to their godly EU, the black in their black-and-white moral universe. Because for some of these people, love for the EU isn’t really a thought-out political position — it’s a moral signifier, the way you show you are a good person.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/06/justin-welbys-eu-delusion/

I Am A Westernist

A lot of the dialogue on political issues focuses on whether you are a Nationalist or a Globalist. Nationalists voted to Leave the EU. Globalist voted to Remain. Nationalists want controlled immigration in order to protect – or maybe even improve – their quality of life whereas Globalists are all for mass immigration so that they have access to cheap labour.

I am not a Globalist. I feel that overthrowing millennia of tribalism in favour of multiculturalism will have many unintended consequences. Plus, The West cannot accomodate everyone who wants to live here. We need to protect the special culture of The West so that it can continue to thrive.

Yet Globalists are prepared to open up The West to anyone and everyone for the sake of a few extra pips on GDP.

I’ve heard Jordan Peterson say that different cultures do not get on (which is why there has always been so many wars). I think the tensions we are seeing in our society confirms this view.

However, ‘nationalism’ is now a tainted term. It is a term associated with fascists. It is a term associated with small-minded, inward-facing bigots. Yet nationalism, for me, doesn’t fit the bill anyway: I want all of Western culture to be protected. I’m not just struggling solely on behalf of English culture. Therefore, the ideology I propose is ‘Westernism’. This is the term for all those that see the threat to The West and seek to protect it.

Many feel that forced multiculturalism is eating away at Western civilisation. Our customs and traditions are being reshaped or abandoned in order to better accommodate immigrants. The Left tells us that Western civilisation is nothing to be proud of. We should discard our history and start from a clean slate.

The Left are convinced that Western Civilisation is bad and thus they have set their phasors to ‘destroy’.

Let me take a paragraph to point out the many brilliant things about Western Civilisation:

Democracy; Exploration: Science; Medicine; Inventions; Intellectual Curiosity; Art; Literature; Legal systems; Relative lack of Corruption; Architecture; Gardening;

We see that our fight to replace the British class system with a meritocracy is being undermined by diversity quotas where standards are lowered to allow certain favoured groups to qualify.

There are active attempts from The Left and minority interest groups to bring down Western Civilisation. They feel that, should they succeed, they will be the beneficiaries. They seek a New World Order.

I do not want these subversive to succeed. They are revolutionaries. They are a 5th column amongst us. What they have to offer will not be better than what has gone before. It will be immeasurably worse. And for that reason, I am not a Nationalist, I am a Westernist.

Political Consensus Helps No One

The referendum result shocked politicians because the views of the electorate on the EU had not been tested for so long. Politicians assumed that the electorate shared the same view as them (or could be cajoled into the same view by unleashing ‘Project Fear’). What became apparent is that politicians cannot adopt a cross-party consensus, fail to consult the electorate on a major element of policy for 40 years and then expect no divergence to have occurred. Let’s summarise all areas in which divergence was allowed to occur:

* There was no popular mandate for the EU that derived from open debate and transparency.
* There was no political debate on the EU as part of the UK general election cycle.

*There was no discussion of the objectives of the EU as part of European election campaigns

* The growth and direction of the EU was not driven by the UK electorate.
* The EU is not accountable to popular opinion as a genuinely democratic political institution should be.
* The UK electorate had not had any say in the various EU treaties that UK has signed up for since we joined the EEC in 1973.
* There was political consensus on Britain’s role within the EU across all UK political parties which left no scope for genuine critical analysis of the EU.
* The expansion of the EU was being driven by the political ambition of a small number of professional European bureaucrats hell-bent on creating a European federal superstate.
* The UK electorate were not provided with information as to the objectives of the EU and the steps that would be taken to reach those objectives.

The EU is a crystal ball that can be all things to all people, depending on the prism of prejudice through which it is viewed:

* To those who distrust politicians, the EU offers a frightening future of a heavier political yoke.

* To those who loathe the Tories, the EU will always be preferable.

* To those that like big government that absolves personal responsibility by controlling every aspect of our lives through regulation and intervention (and spends a lot of money in the process), the EU is a godsend. It’s no coincidence that most public sector workers voted Remain. They have put their faith in the public sector that government will look after them. Leavers, on the other hand, accept personal responsibility as a price worth paying for reduced government intervention.

* To those that harbour John Lennon type feelings of the world living as one, the EU is the start of that utopian vision. The EU appeals to idealists. Idealists are prepared to overlook the negatives of the EU in favour of the ‘big picture’. Rather like how revolutionaries are prepared to overlook gulags and mass executions in order to protect fledgling political movements.

* To those that like to adopt an ‘internationalist’ outlook because they know that such an outlook is fashionable amongst the liberal elites and they don’t want to appear to be ‘Little Englanders’, they will support the EU come what may.

* To those that believe that the UK has too close a relationship with the USA, the EU is a welcome – if unknown – antidote.

However, in truth, we know nothing about how the EU will operate in the future. It is a black box. To support such an entity under these conditions would be foolhardy. I was struck during the referendum that no one from the Remain camp made the positive case for the EU. No one argued how great the EU is. The only Remainer arguments were negative ones: how disastrous it would be for the UK to leave the EU. If that is the best that can be said about the EU, it is clearly best to Leave.

If we had not joined the EEC in 1973, what would be the argument for the UK to join the EU now? There isn’t one. (Please don’t cite the Eastern European countries that have been keen to join the EU as a positive case for the EU. These countries have joined the EU primarily for protection from Russia).

Remainers want to create a homogeneous world. They want to create a world where the same rules apply to everyone. They do not want countries gaining competitive advantages by pursuing their own paths such as optimising tax rates, or reducing red tape or any other measure that might stimulate growth or make their country a better place for its citizens. Remainers want to remove this kind of competition between countries. They want equality, you see. It’s part of their need for conformity.

Appeals to Democracy don’t work on Remainers. They tend to feel that Democracy delivers poor results because democratic governments are always trying to curry favour with the electorate. A significant number of Remainers believe that elections are a distraction and that we should be ruled by a class of bureaucratic elites who know what’s best for the rest of us because they went to the right universities.

I Am The Counterculture. Hear My Roar!

I am now part of the anti-establishment counter-culture. How thrilling. And how surprising. My background does not provide any indication that this would be the case. I was a Tory from a young age. I always found myself supporting the establishment. I regarded the Greenham Common protests very disapprovingly. These people were Lollards. Did they not understand that there were issues of national security at stake?

When it came to the miners’ strike, I again sided with the authorities. The UK couldn’t be held to ransom by militant unionism.

I even tried defending the Poll Tax: surely it made more sense that each person paid rather than each household. It didn’t seem fair that a little old lady living alone in her family home should pay as much for local services as a family of 5 adults living in a similar house next door.

Yet something has changed. I now find myself in opposition to the establishment on almost everything:

I find all the main political parties – and the Lib Dems – to be untrustworthy. They are hypocrites. They lie.

I am a climate change sceptic having realised that the link between CO2 levels and temperatures is very weak.

I look with shock at our police who seem more interested in dancing at Pride marches and prosecuting hate crime than prosecuting actual crime.

I witness in disbelief the vigour with which transgenderism has dominated our culture. Yet there has been no debate: you are either fully supportive of every aspect of transgenderism, as it is presented, or you are transphobic.

I no longer watch the news on terrestrial TV channels as I find the bias insufferable. I was long told there was bias in TV news but I couldn’t see it myself. However, once seen, it can never be unseen.

I think of HS2 tearing through the English countryside and I shake my head at the mediocrity of our leaders. Yet again, all roads lead to London. The government is unable to initiate a major infrastructure project that doesn’t involve London.

I read of Savid Javid, the Home Secretary of a (notionally) Conservative government, publishing plans to crack down on internet freedom by introducing the most draconian internet regulations of any democratic country

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/04/iplod-sajid-javids-new-internet-rules-will-have-a-chilling-effect-on-free-speech/

Then there is Brexit. The big Kahuna burger of Brexit. Brexit, which has done more than all of the above points put together to highlight the gulf that exists between the people and our cultural overlords. We live in a society where virtually everyone in a position of cultural authority – politicians, journalists, artists, academics, the intelligentsia, FTSE100 board members – and Andrew Adonis are convinced that Britain can only survive as part of an undemocratic, unaccountable federal superstate. They have embraced globalism as their new religion: nationalities and cultures must be swept away to be replaced by something we are assured will be much better. Better for who, we wonder as we witness our homes becoming more expensive and our roads more congested and government incursion into our lives ever more invasive and crime going up.

So, I find in my glorious middle years that I am an anti-establishment rebel. Who’s with me?