Unenlightening Europe

Quelle surprise!  As we noted in September, France was an easy target for terror.  So, ten days on from the Paris attacks, how’s the reaction unfolding?

Canadian blogger Vlad Tepes sums up the polarisation:

“The most important thing you can do when people you don’t know are murdered by Muslims in an act designed to promote the primacy of Islam, is show your moral superiority to people who would like to take meaningful action by demonstrating grief…  People tripping over themselves in self-sacrifice, trying to tell the people who want them dead or enslaved how there will be no ‘backlash’ instead of at the very very least going en masse to the mosques and screaming: ‘stop the hate’.”

Eloi turning on the Morlocks then?  But would that help or not?

And when the candles and the flowers and the teddy bears have been cleared away, what will remain?

There’s little serious anger that carries through.  From a position of strength, that would be good news.  From a position of weakness, it only underlines that weakness.  The silence is nervous.  It’s well-known that the ISIS strategy is to destabilise Europe, to make normal life unpredictable, to create the conditions in which submission to the gangsters’ will seems the safest option.  Part of that strategy is placing Europe’s leaders apart from the led.  They won’t be targeted.  They’re too useful as they are: mostly perceived as bumbling, incompetent, and lacking any will to defend their people.  Get rid of them and you only invite the more determined to replace them.

François Hollande ramps up the rhetoric but results will be another matter.  Pending anything better, la gloire is back.  France is bombing Raqqa, because France is now at war.  France was bombing Raqqa anyway, because that was just fooling around?  The tricolour has been much in evidence across the globe.  It’s forgotten, for now, that its history is no more glorious than the swastika’s.  Remember the Vendée, the génocide franco-français.  France’s politicians, gathering last week at Versailles, belted out their national anthem, as we’re all now encouraged to do.  ‘Do you hear, in the countryside, the roar of those ferocious soldiers?  Let's march, let's march!  Let an impure blood water our furrows!’  Yes, they still get away with that, but it’s not our Europe: it’s a gory theatre of the absurd, founded upon a lie (that France in 1792 was not the aggressor).

Hollande insists that he will defend the Republic.  Not so much France.  Not so much the French.  La République, a hate cult of hypocrisy, historic enemy of European regionalism, the proto-fascist State over which Hollande presides, one that despite his best efforts still cannot bring itself to legalise any indigenous language on its territory besides French.  (To quote Musa Anter, a Kurdish writer assassinated in 1992, "If my mother tongue is shaking the foundations of your state, it probably means that you built your state on my land.")  Republican values are the new Falklands factor – the art of war turned to domestic political advantage.  A false flag operation?  We’ve no evidence, but the motive is clear enough.

France likes to think it has a special relationship with the Mahometan world, one strangely informed by a millennium of conflict with it, real or imagined.  Charles Martel at Tours.  Roland at Roncevaux.  St Louis on Crusade.  Napoleon in Egypt.  Charles X seizing Algiers.  Charles de Gaulle letting it go.  It’s not actually the most promising basis for peaceful co-existence.

Nor is Britain’s record.  A century ago the UK made promises to the Arabs and the Jews.  It would be simplistic to say that the promises to the Jews were kept and those to the Arabs were not.  Neither got everything they expected.  But the Arabs, and the Kurds, got a lot more than they bargained for.  Promises of self-government if the Ottoman yoke were thrown off became the reality of a new colonial yoke.

In 1920 an insurgency broke out in Iraq against the British occupation.  RAF bombing of the area continued throughout the decade.  The Air Ministry considered it useful practice for other territories where “armed forces are required to give effect to British policy and uphold British prestige”.  Not least because it was so much cheaper than deploying ground troops.  Squadron Leader Arthur Harris reported after several such punitive raids that: "The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage.  Within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out, and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured, by four or five machines which offer them no real target, no opportunity for glory as warriors, no effective means of escape."  At the time of the Arab revolt in Palestine in the late 1930s, Air Commodore Harris, as he then was, declared that "the only thing the Arab understands is the heavy hand, and sooner or later it will have to be applied".  Ancient history this may now be, but the lands cursed with oil have a particular way of keeping the past in mind as they navigate the present.  The wonder is not that Europe suffers from terrorist atrocities.  It’s that patience proved so long-lasting.

What strikes westerners as not-quite-cricket is the worldwide extra-territorial jurisdiction that religious regimes claim, in defiance of international norms.  Killing cartoonists is the ever sharper expression of an idea that began in the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran and which the civilised world failed to challenge effectively.  In the UK we may tend to remember the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.  In France it’s more likely to be the murder in Paris of Shapour Bakhtiar, a remarkable man who was secular Iran’s last hope.  But all such incursions into European sovereignty pale into insignificance set against the western assumption that eastern regimes exist to be changed at will, whatever the locals think.  However tempting it is to bomb Syria without UN authority, the result will be more anti-western feeling, coupled with more European guilt for the collateral damage (damage that’s only terrorism by another name).  Or if nothing is done, an equal and opposite guilt for inaction.  If Europeans are to defend themselves, they must first question on what terms they think it proper to decide the fate of others.

Europe’s defence is bound to become more inward-looking because Europe is forming a smaller and smaller proportion of the world’s population.  (Its share is expected to halve between now and 2050.)  The ultimate triumph of universal human rights is no longer assured, because the expanding populations of the world may have no use for them.  They may view them with indifference, or with hostility.  Either way, Europeans need to be more watchful of what happens to their own rights and make that task their first priority, because it may be that no-one else will.  Europe is busy renouncing its enlightenment heritage because others find it offensive.  Since only those with something to hide are offended by the truth, it would be better not to retreat from the enlightenment but to shine the torch deeper, into our own society and into others’.  But that’s not what will happen.  On the contrary, we’ll continue to allow victims to be created by allowing others to use the value system of the victims’ own society against them.  Nice work for lawyers.

As terror attacks escalate, so the paradigm by which Europe’s rulers rule crumbles.  It survives only so long as it offers satisfying explanations of why the world is as it is.  European unity has been shaken by the migrant crisis, with one of its most unambiguous achievements – the borderless Schengen area – now in tatters.  Counter-terrorism demands closer co-operation across borders, better sharing of intelligence, perhaps a Europe where unity is enjoyed by the rulers even as it ceases to exist for the ruled.  It’s not a Europe that necessarily requires the EU, democratic or otherwise, which may be one reason why the EU is under political challenge.

Predictions of Mahometan conquest are far-fetched but only because they’re wrongly framed in military terms: a formal State structure can survive long after the internal reality of which active minority wields power in society has been utterly transformed.  One only has to look at Tower Hamlets under Mayor Lutfur Rahman to see how easily the corruption of Bangladesh can be reproduced wholesale in a London borough if standards are not upheld.  Given the London party consensus that elected mayors are better than open government, we can only expect to see more of this.  But even Europe, tolerant, self-loathing Europe, ever apologetic, ever happy to accept that two wrongs make a right, has a tipping point, a point of calling to account.

Expect far Right, anti-EU parties to fill at least part of the vacuum left by the collapsing paradigm of the politically correct.  Expect xenophobia to make no distinction between guilty and innocent: a presumption of innocence is essential for justice, but not for security.  It’s not impossible to imagine some countries taking things as far as mass expulsion of religious minorities deemed too troublesome to remain, especially once those countries are outside the EU.  It’s what happened in Spain in the 17th century, a move obviously considered worth it despite the economic damage it wrought.  Many of Spain’s moriscos ended up in north Africa, swelling the ranks of the Barbary pirates who took their revenge on Europe’s coastal communities, including those in Wessex.  Terrorism is nothing new and neither is the suite of possible responses.  About the only ‘self-evident truth’ is that the less Mahometanism there is in Europe, and in the world, the less terrorism there can be.  That calculation, that suspicion of the murky middle ground, that condemnation even of the fiercest fighters against the likes of ISIS, is the real tragedy.  Europeans aware of their history and confronted once again by an ideology that demands the death penalty for thought-crime may rather be safe than sorry.  It doesn’t lessen the tragedy.

If far Right parties fill part of the vacuum it’s also true that they can’t fill it all.  There are equal opportunities for other visions of Europe: most vitally a Europe of small nations and historic regions, decentralised, democratic, inclusive (of those willing to be included), yet passionately protective of traditional rights and committed to international justice rather than to the addictions of repression and war.  It’s a strong possibility in the longer term, but getting there could be a close-run thing.

Bex & the Bankers

Colin Bex was on the march against austerity held in central London on Saturday (left).  His attire included 'that T-shirt' from the 2005 election campaign in Dorset South.  (The question 'Westminster Diktat?' appears above an image of the Cerne Abbas giant labelled 'Clubmen Arise' and beneath it the answer, 'Roger & Out!')  Colin reports on the event as follows:

“Turn-out was quite impressive – but nowhere near where it needs to be.  Until a 65 million multi-cultural British population musters at least 1,300,000 (2%) of its number onto the capital's streets against the criminals at Westminster, there will be no progress – 650,000 (1%) is insufficient.

Some of the Muslims departing to be brutalised by ISIS recently voiced their recognition of the blatant betrayal which characterises the early third-millennium British establishment.

I was within an ace of nobbling Russell Brand to tell him to steal our ideas (as I did Jeremy Corbyn), and to stop telling his fawning fan-club not to vote, but as he quit the rostrum, he leapt over the barrier and sprinted down Victoria Street to avoid being mobbed – or being engaged in a conversation with me unfortunately...”

It wasn’t Colin’s first public appearance since the election.  Last month he joined a ‘Positive Money’ demonstration outside 10 Downing Street – and afterwards in Parliament Square Gardens – supporting presentation of a petition for conversations with the Government to re-cast the monetary system by way of a Money Commission.

Our aim is not just to turn politics the right way up, so that local areas dictate to the centre, which acts solely as their executive agent; it’s to turn economics the right way up too, so that it becomes the means to conserve life on earth rather than to destroy it.  This month, scientists reported that a mass extinction of species is underway, caused by humans, and of which humans risk becoming part.

Underpinning this destruction is the obsession with economic growth, with having more and more of everything for more and more people, while never counting the environmental cost.  Economic success is defined in terms of rates of return that exceed the rate at which the environment renews itself.  Political interests have become slaves to economic interests who take and do not give.  Real wealth is extracted through unjustifiable levels of rent and speculation safeguarded by public policy; we need to renew politics so that economics can be made subservient to it and those abuses thereafter ended.  A sane economy must cost factors of production responsibly, for example through land value taxation and public ownership of public utilities.  One of its mantras must be ‘resource efficiency, GOOD; resource depletion, BAD’, another, equally, must be that we really are all in it together and that making ourselves greener by outsourcing our pollution to less developed countries is cruel, not clever.

The meme now circulating in politics and the media is that the banker-bashing is over, that normal times are returning.  It’s bad news if they are, since the revelations of corruption certainly haven’t abated.  The surface has barely been scratched.  Not only are the suspects still at large but there has been no fundamental reform of the institutions they helped to wreck.  The taxpayer is still footing the bill and, short of a revolution, is unlikely ever to be repaid.  The UK Government worries more over the possibility that crooked banks here might re-locate their headquarters than over how we might build an economy that is not dependent upon them.  In their blinkered imagination, politicians believe that devolution is all about creating new, go-getting ‘global cities’ like London.  A Northern Powerhouse in Manchester and Leeds.  A Western Powerhouse in Bristol and Cardiff, or Plymouth and Exeter.  A Southern Powerhouse in Hampshire.  It’s all about bowing down to money.  None of it’s about standing tall.

In the short-term, pouring millions of the unhappy onto London’s streets keeps alternative ideas alive and helps them circulate.  It must always be understood that it has no impact on a government determined to govern – up to 2 million were there in 2003 to oppose the Iraq War that happened regardless.

In the medium-term, it must be realised too that voting for anyone but the main London parties is the only remedy.  We, the people, punished Blair, Brown and Cameron for Iraq.  No, we didn’t, did we?  We’ve re-elected the war criminals three times over now and still wonder why terrorists mean us harm.

In the long-term, we'll have no need of events in London.  In the long-term we want rid of it.  We want its political, economic and cultural power over us set at nought in a free Wessex powerful enough in its own right to ignore it – and maybe laugh at how its fake democracy and its fake finance were ever taken so seriously.

Vote No Evil

Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, explains why the London regime has to go.

Attacks Evader

Chris Huhne’s unscheduled exit from the Westminster stage has created a vacancy we shall be delighted to fill, should sufficient of the disillusioned cast their votes in our direction. WR President Colin Bex heads the list of candidates in the Eastleigh by-election and today we forward his first despatch from the constituency:

“Rumoured to have visited Eastleigh this morning, David Cameron failed to appear in the High Street where he would have seen at least four of the thirteen candidates including myself, standing against him and his party representative.

Could it be that he could not face a second meeting with me as, at the count in Witney 2010 when I stood against him, he failed to say why he had betrayed two million people in conspiring with the Labour administration's illegal invasion of Iraq?”

Cameron likes to set his own agenda and not have to answer awkward criticism. We don’t intend to let him get away with it.

The Sack of Wessex

Pressure is being piled on MPs to toughen scrap-metal legislation in a bid to stop thieves stripping out our infrastructure in search of a quick profit.

There was a time when metal theft was more or less restricted to opportunist pilfering from building sites and removing lead from the roofs of abandoned churches. Not any more. The wholesale looting of metal has lately developed into organised international crime on an industrial scale, causing widespread damage, danger and disruption.

Churches in rural locations are targeted by well-equipped gangs operating under cover of darkness who will return on several occasions until they have taken everything. Fundraising for the repair of historic buildings puts a heavy burden on local communities; some congregations have been brought to the verge of bankruptcy and are facing the closure of their church.

Churches are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of theft of roofing material because insurance payments for damage are capped at £10,000. Repair bills can easily exceed this when rain seeps in where metal has been taken, causing damage to plasterwork and pews. And then there is the cost of replacing the roof. English Heritage has been impelled to abandon its policy of requiring ‘like-for-like’ replacement when a church roof is restored, knowing that traditional lead and copper will simply be plundered. Church bells and other treasures can be targeted too. Not even war memorials are sacred now. When the metal elements listing the names of the fallen are ripped off, the very record of history is obliterated.

Lead is in demand worldwide for lead-acid batteries and a constrained supply has fuelled speculation, driving the price higher. Even more lucrative is the trade in stolen copper which is in particular demand in emerging nations such as China, India and Brazil, so that even a few yards of cabling can net over £100 for the thief. It is reckoned that the theft of copper from lineside installations alone has cost Network Rail over £40 million in the past two years. When copper wire is removed, the signals stop working and trains have to stay where they are or be cancelled or diverted; there is no costing the time lost and the anxiety suffered by countless passengers delayed by such incidents, which are currently running at the rate of eight a day.

Even the telephone lines have not been spared, cutting off subscribers and disrupting 999 services. In some cases BT vans have been stolen by criminals who can use them to pose as legitimate workers, tear out the wires at their leisure and arouse no suspicion. Agricultural vehicles, tools and equipment, garden gates, railings, children’s swings and even metal beer kegs are also easy prey. CCTV is no obstacle: the thieves just take the cameras.

When, in the predictable chaos following the fall of Saddam, news reports told of Iraqi infrastructure grinding to a halt as equipment of all kinds was stolen, it was easy to be complacent. Iraq is Iraq. Britain is Britain. Now it is clear that the skills involved in metal theft are universally deployable and it has come into the province of serious organised crime. It is regarded as less risky than robbing a bank but potentially just as rewarding. So far, fatalities have been limited to the criminals themselves, including, astonishingly, folk attempting to steal live cable from pylons, but it can only be a matter of time before an innocent victim suffers more than mere inconvenience. Manhole covers are an obvious target and an obvious source of concern.

It has been proposed in Parliament that the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 should be replaced by new legislation imposing a single licensing scheme with greater powers for the courts to shut down scrap yards that do not comply. Metal could not then be legally purchased without proof of identity and address and all trade would have to be carried on through accounts rather than with the traditional, mostly undocumented cash payments. So far, deregulatory ideology has held up the legislation and there are no signs of early action from the crooks’ best friends in power. (Crime, along with waste, increases GDP by stimulating demand for replacement items, so the Coalition are very much in favour of both.) Meanwhile, an increasing number of undertakings which use copper wire are coating it with ‘smartwater’, each preparation of which has its own ‘signature’ enabling its owners to be identified, in the unlikely event of it being recovered.

In the short-term, legislation is required urgently. So too are more stringent policing, greater community vigilance, and a tackling at source of the drug culture that underlies so much criminal activity. Now that metal theft is an established lifestyle, even a fall in commodity prices is no deterrent: in fact it acts as a spur to more theft in order to sustain value.

We are becoming an increasingly wired society, dependent on telecommunications, especially the Internet, for more and more of our daily lives. Rail transport, the backbone of all future planning for the movement of goods and passengers over any significant distance, is likewise vulnerable. Renewable energy installations, such as solar panels, also offer the lure of metal content. Economic growth, fortunately at an end in the materially obese countries of the developed world, is, for now, continuing to play a role amongst the emergent economic giants of the south and east. Their aspiration to lift themselves out of absolute poverty is a noble one. But it should not be achieved through tolerating predatory attacks on our own civilisation as we enter the era of ‘peak everything’. We have to be resolute about that. And instead of trying still to impose our way of life on other countries, it’s time to wake up to the pressing need to protect it at home.

Peace & Goodwill?

This September, those who died in terrorist attacks on U.S. cities were commemorated, ten years on. Although the death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan combined is over 300 times the death toll of 9/11, few words were spared for the victims of those U.S.-led crusades for oil, unleashed under the pretext of fighting terror, with terror. Those who care at all will not care enough to withhold their votes from the politicians responsible and cast them in a more sensible direction. Although about 71% of Britons think the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable, according to a ComRes poll for ITV, most tolerate the lies, the lies about ‘our boys’, devoting themselves to ‘keeping us safe’, that we may ‘sleep at night’. Well, wake up!

In October, the conflict in Afghanistan involving western troops entered its second decade. It has cost the UK taxpayer £18 billion and rising. Deaths among the British armed forces have reached 392, among Afghan civilians over 8,800.

Today, we ought to reflect on how little it has all achieved.

Saddam Hussein was tried and executed, for unrelated crimes, while Osama Bin Laden was not tried at all but executed anyway. In contrast, our own conspirators are still very much at large. Some of those, like David Cameron, who voted for war in 2003 enjoy all the trappings of high office, courtesy of the British electorate. So should we now accept Tony Blair’s advice, to ‘draw a line and move on’? It’s true that such issues may seem a long way removed from devolution but they do demonstrate the pressing need for change in our constitutional arrangements. If ‘our leaders’ can be excused justice for reasons of state then there is NO justice, no equality under the law. And the longer they’re allowed to get away with it, the more they’ll feel capable of doing the same again.

Meanwhile, 3% of Wessex continues to be occupied as training grounds by those preparing for the next pre-emptive strike to keep the peace. A less cynical, less Orwellian world used to call them wars.

Almost nightly, our screens are filled with the uniformed portraits of the latest casualties in Afghanistan. Newsreaders don’t normally tell us the names of everyone who has died in a preventable accident at work. Or in collisions on our overcrowded roads. Is it because morale is so low that those ‘heroes’ foolish enough to take the Queen’s shilling are paraded before us? So that, surely, we ought to nod helplessly and approve of them wasting their lives in a pointless cause? British soldiers are NOT ‘heroes’. For two reasons. One is that heroes save lives, not take them. The other is that there is nothing heroic about this shabby little war.

What most appals those who lived through the Second World War is that rampant militarism now goes unchallenged. The priority of disarmament has given way to the priority of ‘intervention’, as if ‘our’ government had some right to act not just as world’s policeman but also as world’s political surgeon. As the dust settles in Libya and talk turns to the contracts for reconstruction, we can see the real agenda all too plainly. As ‘statesmen’ look around for something to restart the engine of ecocide, plenty of advice will suggest that trade follows the flag, that the markets demand greater and greater offerings of human hearts. There’s even a name for it: weaponised Keynesianism. Globalisation – aggressive trade liberalisation coupled with contempt for sovereignty, identity and democracy – is a crime against humanity, a desperate bid to win control of the world’s resources before they run out. Daft, but true.

‘Royal’ Wootton Bassett now has the same initials as Red, White & Blue. It began to enter the national consciousness by spontaneously honouring the war dead passing through. It ended up receiving an honour of its own, for which it never asked, an honour some find manipulative and tawdry. The Mayor told journalists that he expects locals will carry on calling the place simply ‘Bassett’. The establishment could not spare the Queen to present her Letters Patent in person this year but deputed the Princess Royal to convey to the townsfolk the thanks of “the whole country”. Thanks for what? Thanks for “responding with dignity and respect to the losses that this country’s operational responsibilities have forced upon us”. Forced? And when exactly did a war of choice become violence under duress? Perhaps the Queen, as ultimate commander-in-chief, would like to answer that question at The Hague?

We are all Cameron’s conscripts, despite the best efforts of the Peace Tax campaign. It has become unacceptable in most circles to voice any criticism of the remilitarisation of our society. Laws are being twisted to punish those who do, trampling on fundamental rights of free expression in a chilling evocation of the flag desecration laws found in totalitarian states. True patriotism cannot arise from coercion and it would be a despicable thing if it could. The burning of Remembrance Day poppies as a protest against the continuing fact of war does appear to be on the increase, an ugly sign of ugly times. Does it show less respect than allowing the warmongers to lay their wreaths of hypocrisy? Who then are the real criminals?

We are all instructed, even by the young Lefties of the BBC, what to think and feel about RWB and Carterton, and much else surrounding the British murder machine. It’s time the truth was able to be told and fingers to be pointed in accusation. Because regime change begins at home.

Review of 2010

Every year when we submit our accounts to the Electoral Commission we are also required to provide a 'Review of Political Activities' covering the year just gone.

The 2010 Review has recently been forwarded to the Commission and here is what it says:

During 2010 the Party’s on-line presence was maintained and strengthened. The website – www.wessexregionalists.org – is linked to a Facebook page and to a blog. The latter proved particularly useful during the General Election in permitting a running commentary on the campaign independent of the negative bias frequently displayed in the mainstream media. Page-view statistics show that the blog has attracted readers from across the globe.

Colin Bex was elected Party President in February and at the same time selected as prospective candidate in the forthcoming General Election. It was decided to consider contesting Witney, the only Wessex constituency represented in the old Parliament by one of the three major London party leaders. Initial canvassing confirmed that this would be a good choice and Colin was duly nominated.

A folded A4 leaflet – ‘The Truth in Black & White’ – was distributed by Royal Mail to all constituents. At 50,000 copies, this was our highest-ever print-run. Publicity was also provided by the local press, with coverage in the Oxford Journal, Oxford News, Oxford Press and Oxford Times. Interviews were given by Colin to Banbury Sound, BBC Oxford (television and radio), CNN and to Dutch radio and by Nick Xylas to Japanese radio. The Wessex Wyvern standard was much used as a visual aid on the campaign trail and was commented on by David Cameron (the Conservative candidate) at the count. Major publicity appeared shortly before polling day in the form of a full-page article in the London Guardian of 4th May. This included a colour photograph of Party members with the Wyvern at Chipping Norton, sadly in bad weather that offered poor conditions for canvassing. The article was by Alexis Petridis, who had been tasked with writing a piece on an attractive smaller party and as a bonus found himself at the heart of national debate in the Leader of the Opposition’s constituency. A further report appeared in the Guardian on the Saturday after the election. Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail also visited the constituency and noted our candidate’s lively presence in Burford. Travelling almost wholly by public transport, Colin visited all the major towns and some smaller villages, including return visits in some cases.

Two public meetings were attended, at Woodstock and at Witney, both organised by local clergy. At Woodstock, all candidates – or their representatives – were accommodated equally and Colin was able to engage with the audience as he wished. In disgraceful contrast, at Witney parties – and others – without recent UK or current EU Parliamentary representation were excluded from the platform – 50% of the candidates – and the audience was forbidden to express disapproval of views expounded. Colin protested vigorously against this curtailment of balanced debate but without success. The organiser’s pre-selection of candidates deemed fit to be heard is symptomatic of the hypocrisy of an establishment that claims to seek wider participation in political and civic life yet increasingly restricts opportunities to do so to ‘approved’ channels only, which include the near-identical major parties.

Whatever discretion may or may not be allowed to the voluntary organisers of a public meeting, much less can be conceded to the public authority responsible for organising the election. West Oxfordshire District Council’s actions were generally fair and efficient but we consider it unacceptable that the microphone at the count was turned off once David Cameron had completed his acceptance speech and while others were still waiting to add their own remarks. This was an appalling discourtesy to candidates who should be entitled to equal treatment. It was also a discourtesy to the counting staff, as it is customary for candidates to thank the Acting Returning Officer and his assistants for their work. It may be that this action was inspired by a desire to allow the major parties to proceed to give media interviews without interruption; if so, it confirms our view that elections in the United Kingdom are not free and fair, because they provide additional facilities to some parties at the expense of others.

The televised debates between the three major London party leaders were another example of this unwelcome trend towards re-inforcing the existing distribution of power by denying critical voices a hearing. This structural bias is compounded by the disproportionate inputs of rich beneficiaries and the disproportional outputs of the FPTP voting system. It is to such factors rather than to any supposed deficiency in our own campaigning that we attribute the results we have obtained at recent elections. In standing, we are in effect acting as a political thermometer, testing the extent to which the electorate has or has not grasped the dire reality of its situation and become supportive of the radical changes needed to correct it.

In the New York Times of 9th June 2010, Stephen Farrell's 'Peace Protest, London-Style' included reference to Colin's candidacy and his view that the only reason Britain may pull its troops out of Iraq or Afghanistan would be on the basis of saving money. It would have nothing to do with legality, let alone morality.

In November, two WR officers who are also members of Mebyon Kernow – the Party for Cornwall attended its Annual Conference in Bodmin. We consider it important to support other movements for autonomy on the principle that a rising tide lifts all boats. In the case of Cornwall, success also helps to establish in the public consciousness both what our own borders are and the historical basis for them. We have nevertheless continued to resist all calls for any federation of efforts under an all-England organisation or philosophy that would simply mirror the centralism we oppose.

We were particularly concerned during the latter part of 2010 at the implications of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. This, by requiring cross-border constituencies in order to meet an inflexible electoral quota, will prevent both ourselves and Mebyon Kernow fielding candidates across our respective territories, the whole of those territories and nothing but those territories. The defence of local and regional integrity is at the heart of our world-view and we are ill-served by Jacobin arrangements that treat politics simply as a question of which brand of a single global ideology should dominate the House of Commons.

Remember, Remember

Certain MPs – and former MPs – who voted for the conquest of Iraq are likely to seek extra security after their names were again publicised on the Internet yesterday.

We do not condone illegal and arbitrary attacks on the innocent. Nor on the guilty. The mass killing of MPs who voted for mass killing is a rough kind of justice that some would impose but we would rather see justice meted out by a court qualified to try the very real accusations of war crimes that Westminster parliamentarians must face. It cannot come soon enough.

Let today’s unseating of Phil Woolas - for his exercise of the self-assumed ‘right to lie’ - be just the beginning of the retribution they have all so assiduously earned. The fireworks have started. It's time to enjoy the show!

Uncommon Sense

The electorate in the Witney constituency numbers 78,766, of whom 62 were far-sighted enough to cast their vote yesterday for Colin Bex. For the rest, as our society plunges from bad to worse, it will be a case of ‘we told you so’, and sooner rather than later.

Colin reported a busy day’s campaigning in Burford but clear signs that the turnout for David Cameron was already looking decisive. The Leader of the Opposition, with Sam Cam in tow, wafted around the count, exuding the arrogance of those for whom power is a birthright. The Cameron the media presents is scripted; from the actual man what you get is the sneer of cold command. Colin tackled him on his voting record over Iraq. He dismissed the question. All that was over and done with. History now. Justice could go hang.

The declaration of the result was a chilling reminder of the charade that is now British democracy. Cameron gave his acceptance speech, then he and his minders, along with the other major party candidates, were gone. No handshakes offered to the defeated (Colin would have so relished the opportunity to decline). No waiting to hear what others might have to say in the way of gracious congratulations. In fact, all the manners of a mobster.

It used to be traditional – and in some areas still is – for losing candidates to add their own thoughts about the election, especially to thank the Acting Returning Officer and all those members of staff involved in administering the poll and the count. As Independent candidate Paul Wesson stepped up to the mike, the power was cut off. West Oxfordshire District Council’s patience with democracy had abruptly run out.

Undeterred by discourtesy, he made his statement, condemning the media focus on Cameron that had denied the voters of Witney any chance to come to a balanced judgment on the merits of each candidate. As a long-term observer at elections in other countries struggling to understand democracy, he was now determined to seek international censure for the way British elections are run.

Colin followed, warning of the bleak future ahead, with taxes rising and services vanishing. He ended with the reminder that Cameron is a war conspirator, sharing equal responsibility with Blair and Brown for the vast numbers killed, maimed or displaced in Iraq and Afghanistan. A small band of a dozen or so gathered before the rostrum and applauded both speakers, one of the audience shouting that no-one in politics now represented the working class of the country. A man from Southampton reminded everyone that Winchester had been our capital. It was a more benign thought than anything now likely to come from London.

We posed with the Wyvern standard for press photos and Colin gave yet another interview to BBC Oxford. As we left, Nick Xylas was asked to give an interview to a Japanese radio station. You just couldn’t make it up.

The national results, denying the power of diktat to any one party, are the best any democrat could reasonably have hoped for. All small parties will take comfort from the victory of Caroline Lucas – a one-time resident of the Witney constituency – as Britain’s only Green MP. Her success – coming from far beyond the bounds of possibility not so long ago – was the well-earned result of sustained targeting in her Brighton seat. We shall be studying carefully how it was done.

Judged by our standards, the Greens are a centralist party. We take rather more comfort from the progress of Celtic nationalists, with Alex Salmond hailing the SNP’s results as the best in over 30 years and Dick Cole polling Mebyon Kernow’s highest result, 2,007 votes at St Austell & Newquay, on a swing of 4%.

The lesson is clear. Don’t moan. Organise!

Minding Our Own Business

"Peace is a coin which has two sides – one is the avoidance of the use of force and the other is the creation of conditions of justice. In the long run you cannot expect one without the other."
John Foster Dulles, 1956

Dulles was not a man whose actions lived up to his words. Nor can anything better be said of the world’s rulers today. Five years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Iraq remains in turmoil and for those countries involved in its conquest it is the spectre that will haunt a generation. Not simply because there is no peace but ultimately because there is no justice. So long as Bush, Blair and Brown are free to strut upon the world stage, fêted as statesmen, anger will continue to fester and resolution will remain elusive.

Our Party’s policy is clear. It is for judges to decide the legality of war, not politicians or their pocket lawyers. The context for such a ruling must be the indictment of those who orchestrated the invasion, those who, in the formula of the Nuremberg Tribunal, formed part of the common plan or conspiracy to wage aggressive war.

That means, in the United Kingdom context, both Blair and Brown, along with their respective cabinets and the majority of Labour backbenchers. It remains an enigma that the Labour Party continues to exist at all. How can people of goodwill continue to devote their political lives to so vile and valueless an organisation?

But the Conservatives are no less liable to stand trial for war crimes. All but 16 of their MPs present voted for war, an even worse record than Labour’s. (The rebels included three from Wessex.) Apparently they did it because they believed the Prime Minister. The job of Her Majesty’s Opposition is always to do precisely the opposite of that. By failing to do their job they too have forfeited all moral authority. One needn’t think the LibDems are off the hook either. It’s true that they voted against, so no charges stick there, but they gave the war their total support once declared, arguably the least principled position imaginable. Our chaps deserve support, the reasoning goes, because they’re only obeying orders. Now, where did we last hear that excuse?

It is an odd situation in which we find ourselves. In 2003 the majority of the House of Commons became composed of alleged war criminals; an election later, many of them are still there. But that is what happens when the electorate fails to punish politicians for their bad deeds and leaves the meting-out of a harsher and less discriminate justice to the murderous rage of suicide bombers.

We are not the government of Wessex and so, at this juncture, can only take the longer-term view. We cannot magically undo the present mess. We cannot rescue the electorate from the consequences of its folly. What we can do is suggest how the longer-term view should shape a future worth struggling for.

One of the recurrent themes of the past five years has been the extent to which British troops have been sent into combat inadequately equipped. Of course, any sympathy for the troops must be tempered by the fact that no-one forced them to join in the first place; from now on, a boycott of Labour’s armed forces by all principled men and women would do a power of good. Nevertheless, there is undoubtedly a gap between what the armed forces are capable of doing and what they are currently expected to do. It should surprise no-one that the military would close the gap by spending more on defence. A better way would be to spend less. The smaller the armed forces, the weaker the temptation for politicians to play games with soldiers’ lives, to stake their own legacy upon foolish foreign adventures of no conceivable relevance to the defence of the realm. To lecture others on the evils of WMDs, while continuing to stockpile our own, is the depth of hollowness and hypocrisy. If we would be heard, let us rid our own country of them first.

We say this in full knowledge of the importance of defence and allied industries to the economic well-being of Wessex. Preparation for war has dominated our region for centuries. Defence procurement provides Bristol with one of its largest sources of office employment. Hampshire is ‘home’ to both the Royal Navy, at Portsmouth, and the Army, at Aldershot. Further north, air bases at Greenham Common and Upper Heyford became by-words for Cold War fear. Huge areas of Wiltshire and Dorset remain today fenced off as military establishments and training grounds. The villages of Imber in Wiltshire and Tyneham in Dorset, requisitioned ‘temporarily’ for the Second World War, have never been returned to their former inhabitants.

Defence underpins much of the region’s economy, directly or through purchases in the aerospace and electronics sectors. So reduced defence spending must be matched by increased spending on the creation of alternative employment in sustainable industries for those displaced. MoD land is an asset in more than the financial sense. While armoured vehicles have done damage to the archaeology of Wessex it is also true that the exclusion of modern development and agricultural practices has done much for the landscape and wildlife in areas like Tyneham. The future use of redundant defence sites poses huge issues for the planning system. Sites need to be made over to local communities who will cherish them as their environment, not developed, as so often happens, to accommodate the on-going irresponsibility of London overspill.

The world’s nations with the highest quality of life have achieved their enviable position by eschewing the craze for glory. Opponents of the British Empire used to be called ‘Little Englanders’. If we are now judged ‘Little Wessexers’, so much the better. There are so many things to be done around our home, things that centralist governments have put off indefinitely, pleading poverty. So many public service improvements that are needed. So much new infrastructure to prepare Wessex for the post-oil world. Yet sadly, much of the wealth that could fund our future is currently being wasted.

The United Kingdom spends nearly £30 billion every year on defence, £1 billion of it specifically on Iraq. It is also the fifth largest arms exporter in the world and subsidies of arms exports cost taxpayers around £900 million a year. Wessex has a share in this too. Wessex Regionalists condemn the arms trade, whose consequences for global security cannot be limited to the countries to which arms are sold. What hope for peace is there when the ten largest arms exporting countries include all five permanent members of the Security Council?

Another £7.5 billion annually is spent on our behalf on overseas aid. That includes £825 million for India over the next three years. The UK provides one-third of all world aid to that country, one rich enough to have developed its own nuclear bomb in 1974 (grotesquely named ‘Smiling Buddha’). To question these priorities of our government is not to criticise the goal of lifting poorer countries than our own out of grinding poverty. But as well as demanding some responsibility on their own part it is worth remembering that many of these countries were better off when they did not ‘benefit’ from being part of the global money economy, burdened with debts they can never repay. If we would help them now there are better ways than recycling our money through them on its way back to us. Supporting their right to decide their own futures and not suffer the one imposed by the ideologues of the World Trade Organisation might be a good place to start. To buy local, not global, is another. Fair trade is better than free trade. But why trade at all, if we can make it ourselves? If we must give money to other countries, let it be through voluntary contributions, ethically organised, not through the tax and spend policies of governments with murkier agendas of their own.

We have always said that folk on the spot know best what money should be spent on. So let’s be putting that principle into effect, in Wessex, and throughout the world. By all means let us co-operate, more so than today, in the promotion of world peace and justice. But let us also be clear what is primarily our business and what is emphatically not.