Two National Liberal Party (NLP) posters raising awareness of - and promoting - the concept of Self-Determination. The NLP hopes to run a slate of candidates in the Greater London Assembly elections, scheduled for May 2020, in order to highlight the plight of peoples who aspire to nationhood. Such peoples include the English, Flemish, Kashmiris,Kurds, Sikhs, Tamils and many, many more. Our article seeks to introduce various Self-Determinists to the National Liberal Party andwhat is philosophically termed the‘Three Pillars’ of National Liberalism. Our ideas relating to National, Political and Economic Self-Determination all flow from these ‘Three Pillars.’ Those who wish to increase their in-depth knowledge of both National Liberalism and Self-Determination should readNew Horizon, the ideological journal of the National Liberal Party. To get hold of issues 1 – 4, simply e-mail natliberal@aol.com and ask for your FREE pdf copies.

IN LATE AUGUST of this year, the National Liberal Party announced –https://nationalliberal.org/ self-determination-for-all-3 – that it intended to fight the forthcomingGreater London Assembly elections, scheduled for May 2020.

Our intention was (and still is) to run on a Self-Determination For All! ticket at the ballot box.  This will give us the opportunity to highlight the plight of the various peoples of the world who aspire to nationhood.

Many of these people now live in the Greater London area and are in the sad position of being political refugees, who are hundreds of miles away from their homelands. Others, like the indigenous English, are still waiting for some form of national parliament or assembly, years after those in Scotland, Ulster & Wales were given theirs.

After posting up thispreliminary information about our campaign, we decided that it would be appropriate to provide some general background material relating to self-determination and explain why we feel that it’s such an important concept. In fact, we noted that ‘it’s probably fair to say the raison d’êtreaof National Liberalism is the concept of self-determination.’

Our article#SelfDetermination4All – https://nationalliberal.org/ selfdetermination4all– invited supporters to read an comment on a general statement relating to the concept of self-determination. It noted that the principle of self-determination could ‘be applied largely in three areas; National, Political and Economic’ and went on to briefly describe thenational element of self-determination:

‘National Self-Determination seeks to ensure decisions affecting the collective future of a nation are taken by ALL the people via referendum. This may be ‘External’, for example: the creation or maintenance of a nation state, or ‘Internal’ – framing/updating a constitution to reflect how a people should rule themselves. (We favour independent nations and liberal, democratic, states).’

Earlier this month we provided a follow-up articleGreater London Assembly Elections 2020 – Help Us Fight For National & Political Self-Determination For All! –https://nationalliberal.org/greater-london-assembly-elections-2020-–-help-us-fight-for-national-political-self-determination-for-all– which provided some more details of the May 2020 election and what would be expected of the 25 London-based prospective candidates ‘who’d like to represent their people & nation.  Candidates must be prepared to help partly self-finance their campaigns.’  If you think that you fit the bill, please contact us as soon as possible by e-mailingnatliberal@aol.com

It also went on to reproduce more from the NLPsgeneral statement relating to the concept of self-determination. This time it focussed on the political element of self-determination:

‘Political Self-Determination seeks to ensure that the collective will of the people as well as the variety of political opinion is reflected in decision making. Thus, for example, we favour greater use of referendums to meet the former, and PR to reflect the latter (we favour a system close to the Swiss model of Direct Democracy).’

We aim to follow this up with another article – provisionally titledWill You Represent Your People? –which’ll look at theeconomicelement of self-determination. This should be published early next month.

Before we do that, however, we thought that it would be both instructive and beneficial to formally introduce ourselves to those who’re considering standing on our

Self-Determination For All! ticket in May.

So who – or what – is National Liberalism and why does the National Liberal Party put so much emphasis on self-determination?  Hopefully, the following will answer some of these questions:

National Liberal Party – True Liberalism

The National Liberal Party is a British political party launched in late 2013.  It’s full title is theNational Liberal Party – True Liberalism but is normally called the National Liberal Party, or NLP. It took over a party registration with a similar name.

Its political ideology can be broadly described as National Liberalism and Centrist.

Ideology and policies

The National Liberal Party is a political party supporting the principle of National Liberalism. This is expressed as the protection of individual rights (civil liberties) within the framework of a democratic nation state.

This is in contrast to left-liberalism which the NLP accuses of supporting the breakdown of nation states, most notably by supporting the Unionist aims of the European Union and the breakdown of borders through globalisation.

The result is a weakening of a nation’s traditional cultures and loyalties which has encouraged Western Governments’ to impose or attempt to impose, anti-liberal measures to help control a fragmented populous e.g. via ID Cards, increasing surveillance and information gathering.

The NLPs main slogans are Liberty, Independence, and Democracy, which it calls the ‘Three Pillars’ of National Liberalism.

The first pillar, Liberty, concerns individual rights and liberties (often called political liberalism) it sees threatened by Governments under the guise of ‘security’. The NLP calls for a Civil Liberties Watchdog to guard against any erosion. It has some sympathy with libertarian opposition to state intervention on individual choice.

The second pillar, Independence, highlights opposition to any loss of ‘British’ (or any other nation’s) sovereignty to the European Union but also supports greater recognition of the United Kingdom’s constituent nations i.e. England, Wales, Scotland and Ulster via a Federalist/Devo-Max Constitution. The NLP looks to Switzerland’s ‘Neutralist’ position as a model in world affairs.

The third pillar, Democracy, focuses on what the NLP views as a lack of democracy in the U.K. and supports measures which would increase participation.  This would include the greater use of electoral proportional representation, a None of the Above (NOTA) box on ballot paper, Recall and Direct Democracy along Swiss lines using referendums and citizens’ initiatives. The NLP also opposes over-centralised government and promotes Subsidarity i.e. decision making at the lowest practical level.

There is fourth, unstated, pillar, namely Ecology, which is based upon a belief that the land is held in trust for future generations, and that urban development is in danger of threatening the citizen’s ‘Quality of Life’ by reducing green spaces and building on flood plains. It ultimately foresees an ecological ‘point of no return’ if the UK does not seek to limit population growth and thus opposes ‘open borders’.

Economically the NLP supports the self-employed, small business, small shopkeepers and co-operative ownership.

• DURING THE run up to the May 2020Greater London Assembly elections, we hope to feature many more articles which’ll look at National Liberalism, the National Liberal Party and self-determination.

We intend to look at the work of the NLPs ruling National Council – which consists ofDoris Jones, Upkar Singh Rai, Jagdeesh Singh, Dean Williamson and Graham Williamson – in promoting the ideal of self-determination.

We’ll also examine the legacy ofearly 19th century European liberal thinkers such as Hilaire Belloc (1870 – 1953), Rudolf von Bennigsen (1824 – 1902), Earnest Brown (1881 – 1962), Joseph Chamberlain (1836 – 1914), Eduard Lasker(1829 – 1884) andGuiseppe Mazzini (1805 – 1872).

If you wish to comment on this article or pose questions to be answered as part of our  series on self-determination, simply leave a post on either theNational Liberals Facebook site –https://www.facebook.com/groups/52739504313/ – or the National Liberal Party Facebook site –https://www.facebook.com/NationalLiberalParty/ And just remember, speech is free with the NLP!