Peter Hitchens, writing in The Spectator magazine on the 4th October, carried out one of the most devastating demolitions of the Tory Party published in the mainstream media in modern times. Hitchens, whose mother is Jewish and who takes a generally 'kosher' position on Middle Eastern and racial matters, will never be an ally of organised British Nationalism, least of all a friend of the BNP. Nevertheless, his contributions to the growing political enlightenment in the world of British journalism must be fairly acknowledged. His Spectator article, titled 'A party split from top to toe', also published in abridged form in The Mail on Sunday on October 5th, was a genuine tour de force, and it will have given no comfort to those who still complacently hold onto the hope that some kind of 'reformist' movement in the ranks of Conservatism can rescue it from its slide to oblivion.

Said Hitchens in his opening words:-

'No power on earth can sustain an idea whose time has gone. Can we all please stop pretending that the Conservative Party is worth saving or keeping, or that it can ever win another election? This delusion is an obstacle to the creation of a proper pro-British movement, neither bigoted nor politically correct, which is the only hope of ending the present one-party state. The continued existence of the Tory Party as a bogeyman with which to frighten dissenters is one of the few things that holds together the equally bankrupt Labour Party. Without it, the frequent Blairite cry of "If you don't back me, the Thatcherites will return" could no longer be used. The Conservative Party, in all its shambling ineptitude and pathos, is also a major reason for the growth of the Liberal Democrats, grateful recipients of the anyone-but-the-Tories vote, which is cast for Charles Kennedy, not because of what he is but because of what he is not.'

Of course, no one should expect a journalist in Hitchen's league to call, by implication, for the creation of a pro-British movement outside the Tory Party without inserting the words 'neither bigoted' immediately afterwards - perish the thought that he could be calling for something like the BNP! But since the BNP does not qualify for the description 'bigoted' anyway this can be ignored; bigotry, by definition, is a blind commitment to an idea or preference that defies reason and facts; our own commitment to racial nationalism is based on an objective observation of the world around us. We can therefore overcome disqualification from the kind of movement for which Mr. Hitchens calls, even if in his mind we should be disqualified.

Meanwhile we should be grateful to Mr Hitchens for echoing a truth which was highlighted in this very magazine in January 1992, when the present writer said:-

'It is the Tories who again and again have acted as a barrier to the formation of an effective combination of patriotic forces in Britain which might, by obtaining political power, reverse the tide of national betrayal, retreat, surrender, humiliation and decline...'

Hitchens went on to say of Conservatives of today, with particular reference to the younger elements who perhaps like to dream of political careers ahead of them:-

'They do not like to think, and generally refuse to do so because they believe it is safer to avoid such dangerous activity. This is not unreasonable, given the irreconcilable forces that vie with each other for mastery. The few who do think tend to ponder their own survival and seek to suck up to the spirit of the age. The spirit of the age is not very impressed, since it already has quite enough parties devoted to it and suspects that Conservatives do not really have their hearts in the sexual and cultural revolution.'

And he continued:-

'This has actually been going on for a long time, but polite people have preferred not to mention it. Many let the Tories off during the Cold war. They ignored their cowardice over the big social issues, their failure to save or restore grammar schools, to stand up for marriage, to understand the European issue, to preserve, protect or defend anything old, beloved or beautiful...'

Craven surrenders

Safer. Sucking up. Cowardice. These are the key words that stand out from the above passages, and they get to the very heart of what is wrong with modern Conservatism much more fundamentally than condemnations of wrong turns in policy. What are the latter but craven surrenders to fashionable ideology rather than genuinely thought out solutions to the ills of the country? And why the surrenders? Because, simply, Tories on the way up have tended, almost exclusively, to be interested in self-promotion in their chosen profession rather than in ideas or principles, let alone in public duty. They have jostled for places on the dung heap of modern mainstream politics never seeming to consider that they were wrong to have landed themselves there to begin with, that there might be better, nobler political locations: grander instruments for service to which they might dedicate themselves.

All this is a reflection on the character of today's politician - the Tory politician as much as the politicians of the rival parties, indeed perhaps even more so because in the Tory case it involves, much more than with the others, a preparedness to jettison principles of traditional party faith in return for a seat on the gravy train. The gravy train of mainstream British politics has for more than half a century been moving irresistibly and irrevocably left - towards globalism, internationalism, social and cultural liberalism, multi-racialism and everything else sheltering under the banner of political correctness. That is the course that all must take if they are going to pursue rewarding careers within the system. This 'spirit of the age', as Hitchens has termed it, has gripped the Tory Party thoroughly by the throat, and it demands obedience, subservience and total loyalty - failure to show which is likely to cast the political tyro out into the wilderness, career smashed, place at the feeding trough relinquished and reputation besmirched beyond repair.

And the trouble is that there is almost no one in that party, let alone in the others, who is prepared to risk such a fate - even if to do so is to be politically and morally in the right. We now have a situation in Britain not dissimilar to that in Soviet Russia, where there was a certain established 'orthodoxy' to which every office-holder had to genuflect or at least not dare to challenge openly, even though national and world events were discrediting that orthodoxy more and more by the day. We have a vast network of paid apparatchiks going about their business in the service of a lie - and which more and more of them, in their own hearts, know to be a lie. But this fact does not disturb them, least of all induce them to break free from the racket and ally themselves with the forces of truth. That would be to lay themselves open to certain uncomfortable hazards, of which the loss of their offices and jobs would be the most certain of all. Just a little way behind would be the bogey of social ostracism - no more invitations to dinner in Islington or the genteel country homes where the liberal elite congregate and flatter each other. So soaked up in this demi-monde of comfortable and pleasant national twilight has our political class become that no existence outside it is bearable even to think of.

The cowardice of a ruling class on the run

These are, of course, the classic symptoms of cowardice: in this case the cowardice of a ruling class on the run because the stomach to fight and rebel simply isn't there. And here is the absolutely vital point that must be understood if we are to grapple with this phenomenon: no amount of persuasion that current policies are leading to national disaster, that there must be a better way politically, will move these people to change course. Even if this 'better way' is trimmed of all its rough edges, refined to the nth degree, presented in words so mild and dainty that no one could reasonably object to them, it will be to no avail. Conversion presupposes a backbone that is wholly lacking. The intellect to perceive the truth and good sense of our message may well be present; but the character needed to embrace it does not exist.

The very rationale of the soft, liberal section of the Tory Party that is now in the ascendant betrays the defeatist mindset by which the party has been gripped. It says that the Tories cannot possibly hope to win another election unless they come to terms with the new age of multi-culturalism, permissiveness and 'gay' rights - essentially that they become more Blairite than Tony Blair. This completely alters the whole meaning and purpose of fighting elections. A Party is supposed to contest elections and win power in order to put itself in a position to carry out a programme that is fundamentally different from that of the party presently in office - an aim that presumes that the present programme is utterly wrong. If the purpose of winning power is not to change that programme fundamentally but only to tinker with it at the edges, why on earth not let the present gang get on with it and just make a few mild corrective suggestions from the sidelines? What on earth is the point of defeating one party of liberals, globalists, multi-racialists and disciples of political correctness merely in order to replace it with another of almost exactly the same type?

The only possible answer can be that the purpose is not really a national change of direction at all but merely a change in the personnel employed in top management, of jobs for one set of boys and girls rather than another set of boys and girls. In other words, the driving force behind all political activity is that of career, office, personal power and the enjoyment of being in the news, not any powerful ideals for the betterment of land and people.

A system, a body politic, where this has become the norm attracts into the profession the very worst types for getting anything done. It attracts careerists, egotists, self-servers, fame-seekers, brown-nosers, occupational parasites and above all cowards. In short, it puts character at a discount - and indeed reacts with suspicion, not to say hostility, to anyone displaying the slightest glimmering of that attribute. Yet at a time of national crisis it is character in our ruling circles that is needed more than at any other time. And if a reforming movement is to be created which will one day clear out the augean stables and install better men and women in office, men and women who will halt the sickening spiral of national decline and plant the seeds of national resurgence, that movement must place character in a position of absolute paramountcy over everything. Without character at the top, nothing valuable can ever be done. All the finest manifestos that the human brain can devise, all the high-flown theories, all the brilliant achievements of intellect, will be of no use unless people of the necessary character are installed in power to give effect to them.

And that means not only carrying out the positive measures that the nation needs for its recovery but standing up with courage and resolution against the massed battalions of vested interest that undoubtedly will be mobilised to prevent such measures; it means defending, not abandoning the defences; it means fighting, not running away.

Enduring fallacy

There has long been a fallacy enjoying support in nationalist circles which holds that if members of the public are reluctant to embrace our political beliefs and join parties like the BNP it is because those beliefs are presented too stridently and uncompromisingly, and that if we water them down so that they become just a tame version of the original, little distinguishable from the politics of say, 'right-wing' Conservatism, the hitherto reluctant recruits will throw aside their reluctance and come aboard. This is to misunderstand completely the real reasons for such people's non-involvement. It is not because nationalist policies as we have been presenting them are too 'extreme' too 'harsh', too unpalatable to people's consciences; it is because those people simply lack the inner moral fibre to identify themselves, at least for the moment, with opinions that are 'unfashionable' and might get them into trouble with their friends, their neighbours and, perhaps most importantly of all, their employers.

If policies are trimmed so as to sound 'nicer', 'gentler', more 'moderate', those same people will continue to find excuses for not joining because we have not touched one iota upon the real source of their drawing back; we have not addressed the reality of their failings of character. And in the meantime, in the course of diluting our beliefs (or at least the public exposition of them) we stand every good chance of alienating our natural and solid constituency of hard-core nationalist loyalists, who will defect to organisations in which they see firmer ideological resolve, or else drop out of political activity altogether.

We should certainly not abandon the quest for public acceptability and go to the extreme of embracing political associations that cut no ice with contemporary Britons, associations that are linked to the nutty fringe who engage in politics merely out of exhibitionism and self-indulgence; we should continue with the strategy of building the BNP into a mass movement, contesting elections and winning them - now at the local government level and tomorrow at the parliamentary one. We should continue bidding for the support of mainstream Britain, as we have long been doing.

Casting away delusion

But we should cast away the self-delusion that there is a massive wave of participant support from the professional middle classes just waiting to flow our way if we will moderate our policies a little more, trim a little more and offer a little more in the way of juicy morsels to 'liberal' opinion by parading token Blacks and Asians in our campaign publicity. This will do nothing to add to the votes we are already getting, nor to swell the ranks of the members we are already recruiting. You see, where there are people in these classes who have the character to take the plunge and involve themselves in the BNP they will do so on the strength of our policies as we have been proclaiming them for at least the past decade - policies which events are proving more and more to be right. Where such people do not have that character they will continue to reject us, even if we weaken those policies till we are blue in the face and dress them up in the most sugary coating that spin-doctors can devise. Such people will come aboard proudly and openly when newspapers like The Times and The Daily Telegraph give us their public endorsement and when the occupations in which they earn their livings are no longer in the grip of establishment power and patronage. That will take a political earthquake in this country which at the moment is completely beyond our capability to bring about. In the meantime, there is a constituency out there consisting of large numbers of strong, sturdy, patriotic British people whom we can win over by continuing to win seats on councils, increasing our credibility and attracting ever greater serious public notice. Many of them are people who have turned their backs on the Tory Party precisely because of its cowardice and flabbiness and are looking for something closer to the John Bull tradition. We are not going to win them over by looking and talking like the party they have rejected.

The reason, above all others, why the Tory Party is sunk in irremediable decline is that, in its human content, the character to stand up and fight is lacking. The weak and watery policies that have distinguished the Tories, whether in government or opposition, are not the result of intellectual error - though strength of intellect in the party is sparse enough; they are the result of Tory leaders shirking policies they know to be necessary and right because the exertion of character needed to adopt and defend them is just too much. Says Hitchens:-

'The wretched Major years, in which Britain experienced its first New Labour government without realising it, are a warning to anyone who imagines that a Tory victory at the next election would end our national decline or reverse the damage done by Blairism. The Conservative Party has had ineffectual, directionless leaders since 1990 because it is an ineffectual and directionless party. It is idle and silly to imagine that a different leader might change things now.'

The one bone which many readers will pick with the above assertion lies in the words "since 1990." However, the writer's point is powerfully enough made. But why is the Tory Party so ineffectual and directionless? Precisely because of the moral calibre of the people comprising it - not, perhaps, all the people at the grass roots but most certainly the people who have dominated its upper tiers for several decades.

Smooth faces and dead eyes

And there seems no sign that this is about to change. Run your gaze over the people in the platform party at any Tory conference, and then focus on those in the front rows of the audience within range of the TV cameras. You will see lots of young men with smooth faces, dead eyes and personalities bordering on the effeminate. You will search in vain for fellows who have the aspect of Royal Marines or Paras, or who might look at home in the England rugby XV. Then if you study their elders the impression is no different; the hair is just greyer or less plentiful and the appearance of tiredness even more pronounced. The whole bunch have the look of people who will not fight for anything.

The immigrant invasion of Britain has reached flood-tide proportions. The change in the demographic look of our towns and cities is taking place at such a frightening speed that we face the complete extinction of our national identity within a generation or two.

Meanwhile, crime headlines and statistics, together with the facts of educational non-achievement, make clear to all that the myth of human 'equality', and the dream of successful multi-racial society, have gone up in smoke never to be resurrected. These realities underline the overwhelming truth that the immigrant avalanche is in danger of destroying Britain more completely and permanently than could have happened through any military defeat in our long history.

Yet what have our political 'leaders' been doing while this disaster has been unfolding? They have been cowering in the funk-holes looking the other way and pretending that nothing has been happening-when they have not been bounding forth to embrace the invaders with welcoming arms. Do these 'leaders' in particular the 'leaders' of Conservatism, who represent a party and creed theoretically opposed to the 'equality' fantasy and committed to defending the national frontiers - really not know what is taking place under their very eyes? Can they really claim ignorance of the implications of the present open-door policy? The supposition just is not credible. They do know, and they do nothing. Why? Because the incestuous, tight little, safe little world of Westminster politics and its outposts in the constituencies around the country is too precious for them to risk giving up. Their unblemished reputations in the columns of the national newspapers are gilt-edge investments without which, politically, they would starve and freeze to death. The social and commercial whirl of the liberal establishment, with its rewarding goodies for those who bow and scrape and conform - sleeping city directorships, TV appearance fees, book royalties, the ever-addictive narcotic of popular celebrity - all such things are more important to them than patriotic duty, their obligation to yet unborn millions of their nation and race.

With such people, nothing can be done or ever will be done. Policy arguments are futile because, to them, policies are expendable commodities to be taken up or abandoned according to what serves career and personal interest. The metamorphosis of Michael Portillo from the Tory Party's rightwing Rambo to its dripping wet liberal pussycat says all that has to be said; and Portillo is not untypical of the party as a whole, merely the most ostentatious of its political acrobats: first facing one way and then in a short time the exact opposite way as opportunism calls. A less spectacular but equally substantial about-turn was that of the leader himself, who when the rising member for Chingford a few years ago was making noises of a distinctly traditionalist flavour but later, when his nostrils scented the leadership in the offing, made an abject surrender from almost all his previous positions and became the party's lead singer in the chorus of 'inclusiveness'.

It cannot be said often enough and with force enough: our movement, the BNP, if it is to serve its founding purpose and act as the instrument for the salvation of Britain, must reject utterly everything that the Tory and other parties in Westminster represent - not only in the policies they espouse but in the character of those who conduct and lead them. We must be as different from them as would beings from another planet. We must bring the toughness and courage of our fighting ancestors, the heroes of Trafalgar, Waterloo and Rorke's Drift, into the arena of politics where such things have been so lamentably lacking in the sad and shameful era of modern Britain.

None of this is to suggest that we should proclaim our beliefs in crude and ill-mannered language, that we should not speak and behave with dignity in all our campaigns for popular support. But it is to state that if we try to compete with the other parties in the game of compromise and weakness, showing ourselves not as crusaders for race and nation but as mere 'politicians', jostling with them for places on the merry-go-round of career advancement and personal reward, we will assuredly lose - because it is a game at which they are far more practised and expert than we.

The leader the product of the party

As far as the Tories are concerned, the current media obsession with the leadership issue completely ignores what is really wrong. Duncan Smith most certainly is useless, but of immediate alternatives there is nobody any better. It is not because of Duncan Smith that the party is in its present terminal illness; it is because of the illness that it gets leaders like Duncan Smith.

Hitchens concluded his Spectator article with these words:-

'The Tory Party is a train wreck, not a train, an obstacle rather than a vehicle. There are many good and intelligent people trapped in the twisted ruins who would flourish if only they were released, but are now prevented from doing so by a pointless discipline. There are many voters currently unable to vote Tory even while holding their noses, who long for a party that speaks for them and the country. Such a party cannot begin to grow until the Tory delusion is dispelled and this movement, whose time is gone, splits and disappears. Let it be soon.'

And hear, hear to most of that! When the train is wrecked beyond repair, what is needed is not a new driver but the scrap-metal squad. But let us not imagine that the good and intelligent people of whom Hitchens speaks will in themselves be enough. Their goodness and intelligence must be harnessed to strength of character. Otherwise the 'movement' of which he also speaks will go the same way as the party it replaces.