Free Speech, Oldham, Hypocrisy and Paul Nuttall
By Andrew Moffat--Free speech is indivisible. It does not submit to transient political vogue. Either it is open to all or it does not exist. It is not selective.
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| Andrew Moffat |
Many members and supporters will be incensed at the treatment of Derek Adams, the British National Party’s candidate in the Oldham by-election.
At a hustings meeting, Mr Adams was told to leave the hall. His views – and those of his party – were deemed to fall beyond the Orwellian parameters of permissible discussion.
The establishment parties and their pale shadow, Ukip, were not prepared to be challenged by Mr Adams on questions judged beyond the artificial boundaries of what may and may not be discussed. Nor were the candidates prepared to subject themselves to controversial public debate and the right of the public to scrutinise them and their policies.
Complicit in this type of conduct, during the campaign, was Paul Nuttall, MEP and Ukip deputy leader.
What action did he take to safeguard British free speech and condemn the disgraceful treatment of Mr Adams? Worse, on the recent Sunday Politics Show, the interviewer stated that Nuttall had refused to engage in debate with Mr Adams, who had to be interviewed separately.
Inexplicably and paradoxically, Nuttall is prepared to debate with those who have treacherously surrendered Britain’s sovereignty to the EU.
Contempt for the Electorate
In June 2009, when elected MEP for the North West, Nuttall made a point of joining the ‘establishment’ parties in dismounting the stage at the announcement of Nick Griffin’s election.
By his action – no doubt designed as a sycophantic bow to attract the approbation of the establishment – Nuttall displayed his disdain for the electors of his North West constituency.
Failed Objectives
Nuttall knows that Ukip is acknowledged as a safety valve by those who have no allegiance to the concept of the British nation state, both to divide the patriotic anti-EU vote but also to marginalise the British National Party. Nigel Farage has frequently boasted that his party’s existence has thwarted the BNP.
On the recent Politics programme, Farage made his sole point: “I want us to thrash the BNP in this constituency.” Farage and Nuttall have not stinted their party in that respect: various estimates to date place Ukip’s eye-watering expenditure at anything between £40,000 – £60,000 – a fortune, merely to ‘thrash’ a fellow anti-EU party, which spent approximately £4000.
The result, however, was a disaster for Ukip and an own goal: Ukip failed to ‘thrash’ the BNP. It exceeded the BNP’s vote by a paltry 469 votes, at a cost of between £20-£30 in terms of its total vote or £85-£127 in terms of the aforementioned 469 votes.
Nuttall also failed in his own stated objectives: he did not secure third place and he failed to secure double digit figures. How much of his money did he contribute to the campaign?
Safety Valve and High Powered Meeting at the BBC
The establishment campaign to back Ukip began in earnest at an important, high level meeting between it and the BBC, prior to the 2004 European Parliamentary elections.
There, the two organisations agreed to the promotion of Ukip, with the explicit purpose of stifling and undermining the potential of the BNP.
Readers will have observed the special relationship between the BBC and Ukip, whose current leader, Nigel Farage, has received more appearances on Question Time than any other politician since it began over 30 years ago.
Similarly, readers will have observed the contrast in the treatment meted out to Nick Griffin by the BBC and its specially selected audience on the one hand and that accorded to Farage, whenever the latter appears on the programme.
The agreement between the two organisations – which has similarly received the approval of allied establishment agencies – is not without obligations.
Ukip is permitted to imply a tough line on immigration but the small print in Ukip’s policy ensures that this refers to EU immigration and there is no policy to deny or revoke citizenship to such elements, erroneously assuming a Ukip administration many decades hence.
As has often been reflected, what is the purpose of preserving the integrity of the nation state when, as a consequence of massive and uninterrupted immigration, there will be no nation within the state worthy of preservations within 50 years?
Indeed, at the present rate of demographic change, there is every risk that the UK, or regions within it, will become Islamic and subject to Sharia law.
Should that occur, the ideal of preserving our ancient rights and freedoms from the EU will become an historical pipe dream.
The Ukip leadership knows this. Either elements within it, who should know better, will not act because, contemptibly, they are gutless and spineless or, as is also the case, certain elements will not act because they are complicit with the political process and therefore treacherous to their own members’ and national interests.
Pastor Martin Niemoller
Nuttall and his sanctimonious colleagues cannot fail to appreciate that Ukip’s success – which falls well below that of the BNP in Westminster elections – depends upon the BNP’s fortunes.
Without the BNP, Ukip and its members would find themselves under similar pressure to that currently experienced by the BNP.
Pastor Martin Niemoller’s statement is relevant:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist; then they came for the social democrats and I did not speak out because I was not a social democrat; then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist; then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew; then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Where were Messrs Farage and Nuttall when Trevor Philips and the Government attempted to close down the BNP and alter its policies and fundamental constitution?
Nuttall’s EU Attendance Record
Demonstrative of Nuttall’s performance is his attendance record at the European Parliament. VoteWatch records Nuttall as the MEP with the poorest attendance record in the UK, bar his colleague, Godfrey Bloom.
Nuttall attempted to defend himself on Sunday’s Politics programme, stating that he voted only on laws affecting the UK.
A perusal of the EU Parliamentary website, however, will demonstrate that Plenary sessions do not allocate voting matter according to countries.
The main exception is regional or emergency funding, which is only available because of the financial contribution of the UK and is therefore opposed by the BNP’s two MEPs.
Attendance records, moreover, are based upon daily attendance not upon individual votes.
The North West’s constituents sent Nuttall to the EU to vote on legislation, directly or indirectly affecting the UK. Nuttall must therefore justify his salary and explain his absence.
He might also care to explain why there is no Ukip MEP on the most important Parliamentary Committee, i.e. that which determines constitutional affairs and overseas the transfer of the UK’s sovereignty.
The only MEP to mind Britain’s interests is Andrew Brons, of the BNP, whose attendance record in Parliament is presently first equal amongst the UK contingent.
Gross Hypocrisy
In spite of Nuttall’s knee-jerk political-correctness in terms of his theatrical hostility to the BNP, his stance in the EU is entirely different.
The long-standing Junius website contains many pages relating to Paul Nuttall. Amongst them is one which describes his colleagues in the EFD, the EU Parliamentary group, co-led by UKIP.
As Junius observes, the forerunner of the EFD, prior to Nuttall’s election in 2009, was the Ind Dem Group. Georgios Karatzaferis, was a member and vice-president of the group in the European Parliament (2004-2007).
In 2000, Karatzaferis stated: "The New World Order means that we are a puppet at the hands of the Jews... The Global government has taken place in Europe. The common currency too! They are dancing it to their tune. Do you know what kind of money the Jews are profiteering with these ups and downs? We are being led to the fulfillment of targets set 200 years ago."
Junius goes on: “In 2001, the rhetoric became more menacing: "The Jews have no right to provoke, because they have filled the world with crimes". He also challenged the Israeli ambassador to come and debate "the Holocaust, the Auschwitz and Dachau myth".
The US State Department, in its Annual Report on Religious Freedoms in 2005, singled out LAOS, and its leader (and then MEP) Giorgos Karatzaferis, for promoting “radical nationalism, anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia”.”
Junius continues: “Adonis Georgiadis, a LAOS Member of the Greek Parliament, has attracted criticism for his literary activities. A writer and publisher, he has been accused of promoting a book, Jews: the whole truth, by Konstantinos Plevris, himself a former LAOS member, which describes Jews as "subhuman" (p.582).
Plevris is critical of the Nazi regime for "not ridding Europe of Jewish Zionism", and states that Jews should be "rounded-up and executed within 24 hours" (p.742). Plevris, who describes himself in his book as a "Nazi" (p.600) also claims that former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is a "descendant of cannibals".”
Laos currently has two MEPs, attached to the EFD.
Elsewhere on the website is an account of the activities of some of the EFD’s MEPs, including overt and illegal racism, arson, ‘heiling’ Hitler and more.
Doubtless, this type of behaviour was instrumental in persuading Ukip MEPs Mike Nattrass and Nikki Sinclaire to leave the EFD.
The grave question therefore arises, why is it that Nuttall and his colleagues find themselves unable to resist repeated condemnation of the BNP, in order to parade their own politically-correct sycophancy, whilst simultaneously associating themselves with the EFD, some of whose members might cause the BNP to be imagined as a social democratic party?
Is this gross hypocrisy or is it, perhaps, to do with the additional funding EU Parliamentary groups receive, allied to the increased media exposure the EFD’s egoistic leader, Farage, receives?
* Andrew Moffat stood, twice, as a Parliamentary candidate for Ukip, achieving amongst its highest votes at the time. He departed Ukip, inter alia, because of the leadership’s nonsensical hostility towards an anti-EU party and its determination to split the anti-EU vote.
