The Revival of British Patriotism?

First published on FrontPage Magazine.

By Enza Ferreri

Beside the birth of Prince George, the most significant event to take place in Britain over the last few months has been the incredible rise of a small party opposed to immigration, multiculturalism, the European Union, same-sex marriage — in short, all the things loved by the main parties and ruining Britain.
Coming almost from nowhere, with support of barely 5% of the population, the UK Independent Party (UKIP) had a historical victory in November 2012, achieving a record second place in the by-election held in the northern town of Rotherham to replace the resigning local Member of Parliament. It was the highest percentage of the vote ever achieved by UKIP in any parliamentary election: 21.8%.

This “safe seat” was previously held by Labor, which has provided the town’s MPs since 1933.
Another “far-right” party, the British National Party (BNP), came third, following the extreme-left, Islamophile Respect and the Conservatives.

The fact that the Labor-run Rotherham Council had removed children from a foster home only because the foster couple are members of UKIP played a role in the election results. The thought-police behavior of the council nauseated many.

Rotherham was also one of the numerous English towns where Muslim pedophile gangs were allowed to prey on white girls without being disturbed by local police, social services or the media for 20 years.

This shameful neglect of duty and cover-up, recently brought to light, may have won supporters for the BNP, which first alerted the public to the scandal years ago, but was ignored amid accusations of racism.

Then in February, in another by-election, UKIP did even better, polling 27.8% of the votes, coming in a close second to the Liberal Democrats, and pushing the not-so-conservative Conservative Party into third place.
In that by-election, in Eastleigh, southern England, 55% of all votes went to candidates who opposed the new same-sex marriage law about to be introduced in Britain. Many blamed the Conservative Party’s third place on its leader, Prime Minister David Cameron, who pushed for that law, the same man who had called UKIP supporters “closet racists, loonies, nutters and fruitcakes.”
And finally, in what was described by UKIP leader Nigel Farage as a “game changer,” reshaping British politics possibly forever and making it no longer a three-party, but four-party system, the UKIP stormed the May local elections throughout England and Wales, getting a quarter of the vote nationally, with an astonishing gain in number of seats from 8 to 147.

While someone described the Conservative Party in the coalition government as being on the left of the U.S. Democrats, there have been comparisons made between UKIP and the Tea Party.

Alas, the UKIP, in its ascent to power, has undergone a transformation. Its policy to put an end to the age of “mass uncontrolled immigration” through a 5-year-freeze on immigration and a cap of 50,000 people per annum on future immigration, its main selling point, is under review.

Its positions on Islam have increasingly shown signs of the same battered wife syndrome that has long affected the British elites vis-à-vis the religion of peace, to the point that UKIP is now indistinguishable on this issue from the three mainstream parties — Tories, Labour and Liberal Democrats.

A revealing example was a UKIP politician’s announced visit to a mosque in Scotland, the destination of a school trip that was opposed by almost a third of the schoolchildren’s parents. The man, Jonathan Stanley, said:

I am in no way condemning these parents, but I do not agree with this decision, and so I want to go and reassure the Muslim community.

Contrast this with the position of the BNP, whose Scottish organiser backed the parents:

Unlike UKIP, we fully back the growing number of parents who we feel are saying No to their children being taken to mosques, as if Islam is a part of Scottish heritage and culture, it is not. They are told all about the wonders of Islam, but there is no mention of Islam`s horrific Sharia law, no mention of women being classed as second rate beneath men, as per scriptural understanding. It`s all about cultural conditioning.

The problem with the BNP, though, is that it’s often been accused of having anti-Semitic and racist elements in its midst and even leadership.

How can UKIP take such a nonchalant approach to mosques, when we know that a high number of them are a hotbeds of Islamism and jihad?

Only Saturday, July 27th, the East London Mosque hosted a fundraiser for Cageprisoners, an Islamic charity for Muslim terrorists in prison, including those held at Guantanamo, calling for them to be freed.

These are busy days for British jihadists and counter-jihadists. This is the same mosque about which George Whale of Liberty GB sent a letter of protest to two MPs, which complained about the hundreds of people praying outside the mosque and occupying the pavement, something that has been going on for at least the past three years.

Liberty GB – to which I belong – was formed last March to fill the gap in British politics that exists between the UKIP, a clear Islam appeaser, and parties like the BNP with a less-than-clean reputation.

The party stands for Christian civilization, human rights, animal welfare, capitalism, and against jihad, multiculturalism and mass immigration, and it will contest the 2014 European Elections with its chairman Paul Weston as a candidate.

Liberty GB is part of the increasing British resistance to the Left’s imposition of its various politically correct agendas. This movement includes patriotic, nationalist groups and parties misleadingly called “far right.”

Paul Weston told me:

The rise of so called “right-wing” parties is logical and inevitable. If the Left control the institutions and the Left carry out the policies of mass immigration and divisive multiculturalism, then they can only realistically expect others to resist this path to national suicide. It is not about “right-wing ideology” to combat the Left on this issue, it is about national, racial and cultural survival – a perfectly natural, moral and civilised reaction to an unnatural, immoral and barbaric process propagated by the wicked and genocidally racist Left.

Weston is not new to Americans. He was in the U.S. early last year and made a speech hosted by Act for America in New York, warning America not to go down the same path Britain has taken. He’s planning another visit to the States in September or October.

Could the softening of UKIP’s positions explain its sharp decline in opinion polls, already evident in June and now even more pronounced? It was supported by 18% of respondents in May, 12% in June and now just 7%.

Could UKIP be repeating the mistake the GOP made in choosing half-conservative Romney as a presidential candidate? Maybe people want a clear, uncompromising message and don’t trust U-turns.

There has recently been in Britain a proliferation of nationalist groups and parties.

One of the best-known is the English Defence League (EDL), which is not a party, but a street protest movement. Among the parties, in addition to those already mentioned, are the British Democratic Party and English Democrats, and among the non-party groups are Britain First and England National Resistance.

This fragmentation is a good thing and a bad thing. On one hand, it is a sign of excessive discord and therefore weakness, which may be the result of the difficulty of doing political work when one is constantly accused of the worst thought crimes under the sun.

On the other hand, this mushrooming of truly conservative organizations is a sign of how dissatisfied the British public is with the vast shift of the nation’s politics to the extreme left. Being Christian in the UK is regarded as something to hide, to be ashamed of. The “culture wars” that in America are still being fought are over in Britain, having been won by the “progressives.”

The birth of future king Prince George may indicate that some elements of traditional British culture and institutions are still alive and kicking, the monarchy being the best example.

But we’re not so lucky. Even that is under threat of corruption from the Islamophile monarch-in-waiting Prince Charles, who doesn’t recognize the primacy, let alone uniqueness, of Christianity, and from the new same-sex marriage law, which would lead to problematic legitimacy of heirs to the throne.

About Enza Ferreri

Enza Ferreri is an Italian-born, London-based Philosophy graduate, author and journalist. She has been a London correspondent for several Italian magazines and newspapers, including Panorama, L’Espresso, and La Repubblica. She is on the Executive Council of the UK’s party Liberty GB. She blogs at www.enzaferreri.blogspot.co.uk.