From its birth in 1967 the National Front was opposed to the Common Market, the forerunner of the European Union. NF policy was essentially that of AK Chesterton and the Empire Loyalists. Ted Budden was a founder member of the NF who had been in the pre-war British Union of Fascists, the 1960 British National Party, and the Racial Preservation Society. In 1990 he wrote an article for 'Vanguard' magazine which dared to challenge the party line on Europe. Thirty-two years later we have quit the EU and are now facing the consequences.
A United Front for Europe - Ted Budden
With thanks to the Roots of Radicalism website
Europe is changing: there is no doubt whatever of that. The Iron Curtain is melting away. Communism, the creed we have always advocated containing, until it collapsed beneath the sheer weight of its own iniquity, is doing just that at a speed that few of us could have foreseen. The system that claimed the ability to change the very nature of Man by economic means has failed spectacularly to deliver the goods and is now totally discredited everywhere. The supposedly monolithic Eastern Bloc is disintegrating into its component parts. The USSR, bankrupted by its attempt to match America in the arms race, is desperately seeking remedies to stave off impending economic collapse.
All of which should be good news for us. But is it? Is it, in particular, good news for the National Front whose policies with regard to Europe are, I believe, in need of urgent review.
Firstly we must consider the European situation as it stands and ask; is the political liberalisation in the Eastern Bloc genuine and lasting or is it capable of reversal?
All the available evidence points to the fact that it is genuine. Mikhail Gorbachev may not have fully realised the consequences when he let the genie out of the bottle and no doubt now has severe misgivings about the results of his action, but it is inconceivable that even a monster like Joseph Stalin could ever force it back into the bottle again.
Secondly; if the Cold War is really over, are we headed for a new era of peace in Europe? Paradoxically, the reverse may be the case. The Cold War killed very few people and was, at least, a kind of stability. The stand-off between the mutually hostile East and West Blocs, both armed to the teeth, brought more than forty years of peace. The collapse of the Russian Empire could herald a period of violent instability during which local conflicts are frequent.
The vast multi-racial Russian Empire, under both the Tsars and communism, was held together by ruthless tyranny. The Eastern Bloc was cemented by the same means.
Ancient Enmities
Even Gorbachev's modest reform of that tyranny has resulted in the re-emergence of ancient racial and tribal enmities that had been stifled for many decades; in the case of Russia itself, for centuries. Virtually every country in Eastern Europe has longstanding territorial claims against its neighbours and national minorities trapped within those neighbours' borders. While Western Europe may now feel that the threat of attack by the Eastern Bloc is fast receding, the threat of war itself is probably greater than it has been for half a century.
So, with Eastern Europe in an unprecedented state of flux, it is vital that Western Europe should present a united front, both militarily and economically . A new Europe is being born and I believe that Britain should be in at the birth.
Which brings me to the small matter of the National Front policy towards the EEC and its effect upon our standing as a credible political party, for it is that which I believe to be in need of urgent re-examination.
As a founder member of the National Front, I was implacably opposed to the idea of Britain joining the the EEC. I believed that it would result in the loss of this country's economic independence and the erosion of our national identity, already diluted by massive coloured immigration. I believed that we had a duty to preserve our links with the White countries of the Commonwealth and that we could forge an economic union with them that would provide a viable alternative to the EEC. That was National Front policy and I genuinely believed it to be one that would strike a chord in the hearts of the great majority of my fellow citizens - that it was a gilt-edged vote winner. In that belief I was grievously in error.
For in the seventies, in the two years preceding the Labour Government's referendum on Britain's continued membership of the EEC; the National Front pulled out all the stops in the campaign to secure a 'No' vote. Anti-EEC leaflets were delivered door-to-door by the hundreds of thousands and I personally delivered many thousands of those, pounding the pavement several nights a week. We held marches and rallies. We attended meetings. We even gained the support of some renegade Tories.
Disaster
The result of the referendum was a two to one majority in favour of remaining in the EEC. The renegade Tories returned to the fond embrace of their one true love. As a means of building up the membership of the National Front the campaign was an unmitigated disaster; the spin-off being negligible. Branches contacting headquarters as to why they hadn't received any follow-ups from the leafleting campaign were simply told that there weren't any.
Two years, vital to our party's development were effectively wasted. If we had taken the hint then, I believe that we would be far batter placed today to influence Britain's future.
Some members of the party would have us believe that that opposition to the EEC has been a fundamental principle of the National Front. This is simply not true. The principle involved was our belief that EEC membership would harm the interests of the White Commonwealth and sever our trading links with them. It was a simple matter of loyalty to those who had been loyal to us.
Fifty years ago, at the outbreak of the Second World War, nobody in Britain doubted for a single moment that, in the war against Germany, wew were assured of the total support of Australia, New Zealand, Rhodesia, South Africa and Canada. That confidence was fully justified.
But many years have gone by and many of the certainties of old have gone with them.
Does anyone seriously believe that if Britain were to be involved in war today we could count on the remnant of the White Commonwealth committing its soldiers to our defence? Of course not. South Africa was driven out of the Commonwealth, Rhodesia was betrayed by Britain; Australia is set to become a republic; Canada is an appendage of the United States. All have pursued immigration policies that have made them progressively less British and infinitely more multi-racial. It surely cannot have escaped anyone's notice that at the last Commonwealth Heads of State meeting, the White Commonwealth consistently sided with the Blacks against Britain.
Like it or not, the Empire is dead. Like it or not, Britain is a member of the EEC and, like it or not, there is not a damned thing we can do about it. So we may huff and puff and holler "Get Britain out" but nobody will listen.
There is scarcely a Parliamentary by-election that does not feature a forlorn anti-EEC candidate who is positively guaranteed to finish bottom of the poll with a derisory handful of votes; often trailing far in the wake of the Moster Raving Loony. Even amongst saloon bar patriots, the iniquities of the EEC are no longer considered a worthwhile subject for a bout of bellicose boozy blether.
Quite simply, the people of this country do not believe that an anti-EEC policy is credible any more. They do not want Britain to quit the EEC for they are terrified of the consequences if we did.
Credibility
We can achieve nothing if we do not have the support of a sizeable section of the population. We have quite enough of a struggle to gain political credibility as it is. In the face of all the evidence, to persevere with a policy that the great majority find incredible is the worst kind of folly and smacks not of iron resolve but of political ineptitude.
I believe that we must face up to the fact that our anti-EEC policy has been a dismal failure and realise that a general who persistently commits his reserves for a battle that has already been lost is destined to lose the war. If it were truly a matter of principle it might be different - we might soldier on and hope for a miracle - but it isn't; it is a policy that has failed and become a millstone round our party's neck.
So we simply have to review our policy towards the EEC, like it or not. What do we stand to lose within the EEC? Our independence? Well, anyone who believes that Britain is independent in any real sense of the word has been asleep for the last twenty years. Madam Thatcher has tied Britain to America's coat-tails and is besotted by a 'special relationship' that no longer exists, if indeed, it ever did. Our industry is increasingly being bought up by Japanese and Americans whose products the great British public seem to prefer, regardless of the consequences. All this with the approval of the 'mainstream' political parties who appear oblivious to the fact that the profits of our labour will either be repatriated by the Japs and Americans or used to buy up yet more of our country.
In international trade we are increasingly facing cut-throat competition from multinationals exploiting the cheap labour of the Far East. The technological superiority we once fondly believed entitled us to a higher standard of living is no more. The machine tools used in British manufacturing are most likely to be Japanese - the same machine tools that are being used by rhe coolies of the fast developing countries of the East - and being used far, far cheaper. In truth, the only way to compete with a coolie is to become a coolie. British workers might well consider a downward spiral of wages and conditions to be a high price to pay for an independence that has become somewhat illusory. At least we can hope that the EEC might become a unified trading bloc whose members are obliged to observe common standards and from whose markets cheap labour products are excluded.
Compelling
But surely the most compelling reason for a rethink on Europe is quite simply the fact that we are members of the National Front. We are not Little Englanders, we are racial nationalists who understand that we have much in common with our racial kindred in Europe and nothing whatever with a 'British' negro born in Brixton, or for that matter, Brighton.
If we are honest we are compelled to accept that racial nationalism appears to be languishing in Britain despite our best efforts whereas in Western Europe it is fast gaining ground and in Eastern Europe it is a way of life. In the early days of the NF we thought in terms of Britain saving Europe. Will Europe in the future, be the saviour of Britain?
The EEC is, at present, very far from being a perfect instrument or a European homeland. The people who purport to represent this country in the EEC are the kind who believe that coloured immigrants are as British as you and me and who are about as far from being racial nationalists as it is possible to get. All the more reason, therefore, why we should seek to make common cause with racial nationalists on the continent to ensure that Europe becomes exclusively the homeland of Europeans.
Charles de Gaulle's vision of a united Europe stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals may well come to pass eventually. It may need to be unified, as in days of old, in the face of the threat offered by the exploding populations of the non-White world and the burgeoning economic and military power of the East against which the Russian Empire was once a bulwark but soon may no longer be.
Europe may offer the impetus to racial nationalism that it so badly needs. A racial nationalist policy for Europe is one many people will consider sound, rational and, above all, credible.
Are we forever to continue muttering impotently on the fringe or will we strive to achieve a newer, bolder vision?
Sid Chaney
In 2008 the battling pensioner Sid Chaney, who stood as a BNP candidate, lost a libel action against Gerry Gable of Searchlight magazine; but he never paid the costs which amounted to £80,000. The story is told on Youtube -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2hdqwNaGGc
Sid had already made a name for himself by ripping off Barclays Bank in the eighties to the tune of £117,000. He applied for credit cards in the names of his pets and gave the money away to various good causes.
In 1999 he struck again, this time against American Express. He borrowed £7,000 which he gave to local pensioners. He explained:
"I'm not a crook. Im an honest, principled man but those banks are greedy. They asked for it and they got it. They tried to force an old woman into taking out a credit card and I wonder how many other elderly people theyve done the same thing to."
But his finest achievement was badgering the Association of London Government into dropping their grant funding to Searchlight which came to £250,000 per annum.
Sid, who lived in a sparsly furnished one bedroom flat, died in 2011 at the age of ninety.
We Told You So
Cornish fishermen, Welsh farmers, Northern Ireland politicians, businessmen, and housewives throughout the country, are complaining bitterly at the results of Brexit; a policy which they voted for.
We told them that leaving the EU would be a disaster and we were right. The Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine have added to our problems but Brexit is the main reason for rising prices, continued immigration from outside Europe, and breakdowns in the supply chain.
The Right Honourable Jacob Rees-Mogg MP has been appointed Minister for Brexit Opportunities, but as there aren't any, he might as well be the Minister for Unicorns.
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Sid Chaney - so it was the same man who was in the NF and BNP and making fools of the banks! I wish I'd known him.
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