THE COLLINS ENGLISH Dictionary defines Self-Determination as ‘the right of a country to be independent, instead of being controlled by a foreign country, and to choose its own form of government.’ (1)

This definition effectively sums up one of the main reasons why the National Liberal Party – NLP – is standing in the forthcoming Greater London Authority (GLA) Elections.  Here we’re fielding five candidates, including lead candidate Upkar Singh Rai, who’re standing on Thursday 6th May under the banner of National Liberal Party – Self-Determination For All!

Basically, the National Liberal Party is appealing to everyone in London who desires freedom – and particularly National Freedom in the form of Self-Determination – to vote for us.

As everyone knows, Greater London is home to many people from around the world.  Many of these people are economic migrants – the exploited victims of capitalism.  Some would be legal, others illegal.  All are effectively wage slaves – and some are literally ‘employed’ as slave labour.

Others would be refugees fleeing from war in their homelands.  Ironically, they’ve had to flee their homelands as they’re usually illegally occupied by US & UK troops who’re bringing ‘democracy’ & ‘freedom’ to them.  (The geopolitical importance of the occupied nation invoved and the presence of valuable oil & mineral resources is obviously a mere coincidence.)

POLITICAL REPRESSION

However, many people have also come to London to escape direct political repression in their country of origin.  It’s the latter group that we’re particularly interested in – especially the long-suffering Kashmiris, Sikhs & Tamils.

The NLP also wants to use the GLA elections to draw attention to the plight of the indigenous English, who’re still waiting for some form of national parliament or assembly, years after those in Scotland, Ulster & Wales were given theirs.

As we noted earlier, we’re standing under the banner of National Liberal Party – Self-Determination For All! Thus, our main aim is to use the 6th May elections as a springboard to raise awareness of the concept of Self-Determination.

We also intend to gain valuable experience in electioneering strategy & tactics.  The NLP believes that such experience will be invaluable and will stand us in good stead for future elections.  Much of the GLA campaign will be conducted online – although there will be some physical leafletting & canvassing.  We also hope to use this campaign to learn more about building our Social Media presence.  It will also help us forge links and build alliances between various different self-determinists living in London.

But we can only do so much on own.  We need help – and that’s where you come in.  With your help & support we can do much, much more!

SELF-DETERMINATION

Earlier  we  provided  a  definition  of  Self-Determination  provided  by  the  Collins English Dictionary.  At root, Self-Determination is all about people choosing their own destiny without outside interference.

This means that ordinary working folks get a real say in the way our countries are run. Self-Determination enables us to make our own laws, rules and regulations. It means that we keep our traditions, customs and way of life. And it allows us the right to say how we work, who we trade with and who can come to live and work in our countries.

As we’re promoting Self-Determination via an election, it would be useful to know the definition of democracy.  Here the Collins English Dictionary notes that democracy ‘is a system of government in which people choose their rulers by voting for them in elections.’ (2)

Definitions are one thing – but reality is another.  As we all know, democracy is really the preserve of the rich. Just look at the costs involved in the GLA elections. (3)

There are still a few weeks left before the GLA elections.  We need to raise as much money as we can during this period. The National Liberal Party has no wealthy backers.  This election gives us the opportunity to represent the oppressed against the oppressor.  However, as everyone knows, the oppressed tend to be poor whilst their oppressors are rich.  So, what does this mean for those who desire freedom?  Basically, for our voice to be really heard at the highest local level in London, Self-Determinists must get rich!

WILL YOU HELP YOUR PEOPLE?

Will you help support our brave candidates who’re fighting for Self-Determination?  Our candidates are part self-financing their campaigns.  They’re literally putting their money where their mouths are.

Will you help those who’re doing their upmost to fight for their people & nations?  Will you help your people?

Remember, the more money we raise the more we can spend on our campaign.  And the more we can spend the more likely we’ll get candidates elected to represent you at  City Hall in London!

Please transfer any donations to our Bank of Scotland account.  Here’s the details:

Account Name:  National Liberal Party

Sort Code:  12-11-03

Account Number:  06186181

If you prefer to donate via cheque send to:  National Liberal Party, PO Box 4217, Hornchurch, Essex, RM12 4PJ, England.

For  obvious  reasons  our  GLA  election  campaign  will  focus  on  National  Self-Determination.  However, the National Liberal Party believes that Self-Determination can be  applied  to  two  other  areas  –  Political Self-Determination  and Economic  Self-Determination.

Self-Determination is the raison d’étre of the National Liberal Party.  The following is our general statement in respect of Self-Determination:

SELF-DETERMINATION FOR ALL!

THE DISCONNECT between professional politicians and the people has never been greater. The decisions taken by the former are more often viewed as self-serving in the eyes of the latter.

Professional politicians, often labelled as so-called ‘elites’, are largely divorced from the everyday experiences of the great mass of people. Thus, we should not be surprised that they are often seen to take political positions and decisions at odds with most people.

The answer to this gulf between the present day ‘rulers’ and ‘ruled’ is found in the principle of Self-Determination; i.e. Putting decision making into the hands of the individual rather than ‘others’.

PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DETERMINATION

This principle can be applied largely in three areas; National, Political and Economic.

• 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).

• 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).

• Economic Self-Determination seeks to distribute ownership as widely as possible and as close to the individual as practical by favouring home ownership, self-employment, small businesses, cooperatives and employee shareholdings. (We believe that ownership is the key to economic and social health: where workers obtain a just reward for their labours and gain a feeling of well-being through their having a genuine personal stake in society).

The above principles underpin many National Liberal policies but others are rooted in common sense and usually aim to strike a balance between conflicting opinions, as befits a centrist party.

(1)  https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/self-determination

(2)  https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/democracy

(3) https://www.londonelects.org.uk/im-candidate/campaign-spending-and-expenses

REGULAR READERS will be aware that Self-Determination is the raison d’étre of National Liberalism.  To this end, National Liberals believe that the principle of Self-Determination can be applied largely in three areas – National, Political and Economic.  It follows then, that the National Liberal Party supports practical policies that advance National Self-Determination, Political Self-Determination & Economic Self-Determination.

One  socio-economic  theory  that  chimes  with  our  ideal of  Self-Determination  is Distributism.  It advocates the widespread ownership of private property and the means of production to as many people as possible.  In short, the ownership of businesses should be in the hands of those doing the work.  Distributism opposes both capitalism and socialism, which are viewed as centralist & exploitative.  In contrast, it supports the likes of co-operatives, the self-employed and small family businesses.

Its  main  advocates  were  two  famous  Catholic  writers,  Hilaire  Belloc  and  G.  K. Chesterton.  Their writings were based in the Church’s social doctrine of subsidiarity  – the dangers inherent in too much power being centralised in the hands of the state – as expounded by Pope Leo XIII in Rerum novarum (1891), a doctrine that would be re-stated, re-confirmed and reinforced by Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo anno (1931) and by Pope John Paul II in Centesimus annus (1991).

Some time ago our attention was drawn to an old article – https://oldthunderbelloc. blogspot.com/search?q=Neither+Capitalism+Nor+Socialism – which appeared on the Old Thunder Belloc blogsite.  It is a reprint of Belloc’s Neither Capitalism Nor Socialism, first published in the July 1937 issue of The American Mercury.  (‘Old Thunder’ is a reference to the Anglo-French historian, essayist and poet, Hilaire Belloc.)  This section of the article should be read directly on from Part 1 – see link below.

It goes without saying that there are no links between The American Mercury, the Old Thunder Belloc blogsite & the National Liberal Party.  It should also be noted that whilst Belloc was a Catholic, the NLP welcomes members & supporters from all religions and none.  Please note that we’ve kept the original US spellings as they are.

The Anglo-French writer Hilaire Belloc – known as ‘Old Thunder’ – was the main advocate of Distributism in Britain. His social & economic ideas are of great interest to National Liberals. We feel that Distributism would set the tone for a society which aims to transfer all forms of power down to the lowest level possible. Here, for instance, ‘workers will own - and owners will work’ & small will definitely be beautiful!

It is important to insist upon this last point because there is great confusion upon it. Not only do the enemies of well-divided private property and the Distributist program ridicule and belittle it as impossible in modern large industry, because modern large industry involves concentration of capital, but many friends of Distributism become muddled on the same point. They would like to see the resurrection of the small craftsman. They deplore the damage done to society by large industry, they forget that while small craftsmanship may be subjected to economic servitude, large industry might be held co-operatively by a guild or a great number of shareholders. There have not been wanting states of society in the past where the small craftsman was a slave. There have not been wanting states of society in the past and the present also where the small craftsman and the small farmer was a wretched dependant upon usurers and tax collectors. The two ideas of small craftsmanship, small husbandry, etc., and the distribution of ownership must not be confused. They have a common spiritual appeal, but they are not identical.

From this list of what Distributism is not, let us turn to consider what the social philosophy of Distributism is.

We desire a better distribution of private property in a least a sufficient amount to secure freedom of action to the average man. It is natural to man to own, and to use his possessions under the action of his own will. To have one’s life ordered by other men with no authority other than their possession of the means of production is not the norm, consonant to human instinct. There are conditions where life must be controlled: for instance, for the ordering of an army or a religious group, or the saving of imperilled people such as shipwrecked men on a raft at sea. Among these you may and sometimes must suppress the action of individual will, and in some cases even such action of the will over material objects as we call ownership. The soldier acts under, the monk and member of a ship wrecked crew own nothing; the one because he has abandoned the natural human right of property for a particular purpose, the other because under highly abnormal circumstances he was compelled to do so. The shipwrecked crew can only save itself as a communist body; the monk can only fulfil his vocation as the member if a communist body. But in either case the whole point of such membership is that it is an exception to the common run; in the one case voluntarily, in the other (for the moment) inevitably.

When men are at once politically free and economically unfree (because they do not own the means of production and so cannot live save by leave of a master) they are called proletarian, and their general body is called the proletariat.

One might quarrel with that term also. It comes from an old Roman term which meant something very different. But here again things must have names, and this is the accepted name for that very inhuman human condition. When a proletariat has come into being, that is, when there are so large a number of citizens dispossessed of any useful amount of property as to impose their spirit upon the mass of society, we talk of that society as Capitalist.

Here again is a bad term; there can be no production of wealth anywhere or anyhow without the use of capital; every society is capitalist in that sense. When a man talks of abolishing capital in industry he might as well talk of abolishing air in breathing. The discussion turns not on whether there should be capital but on who should control it. The term Capitalist, however, has come to be used as a sort of shorthand for a society in which a minority, control the means of production, and the rest, the proletariat, live at the will of such controllers. Capitalist in that sense the industrial areas of the world have become—and we know the result. The attempted combination of political freedom with a lack of economic freedom is not permanently workable, and meanwhile there is constant confusion, loss, and a direct opposition of interests between those citizens who actually produce the wealth by which they live and those who control the production of that wealth—and control the producers at the same time.

Of the innumerable evils proceeding from so unnatural and abnormal a state of affairs, the worst are, as always, spiritual evils.

• THIS ARTICLE should be read in conjunction with ‘Old Thunder’: Neither Capitalism Nor Socialism (Part 1) https://nationalliberal.org/‘old-thunder’-neither-capitalism-nor-socialism-part-1

REGULAR READERS will be aware that the National Liberal Trade Unionists – NLTU – have been running a series of articles concerning the Guilds.  The links (to date) to these articles appear below this article.

With the above in mind, it’s recently been brought to our attention that a couple of articles have appeared on Quora, a US-based question-and-answer-website, concerning the Guilds.  In answer to the question What become of guild socialism? Tom Wetzel, a writer, philosopher & former editor of an Anarcho-syndicalist magazine provided the answer that we reproduce below.

It goes without saying that there are no links between Quora, Tom Wetzel & the National Liberal Party.  Please note that we’ve kept the original US spellings as they are.

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What Became Of Guild Socialism?

George Douglas Howard Cole (25th September 1889 - 14th January 1959). Cambridgeborn Cole wrote several economic and historical books. These included biographies of Robert Owen (published in 1923) and William Cobbett (published in 1925). His book Guild Socialism Restated (published in 1920) is said to be the most complete exposition of Guild Socialism. An online copy of it can be found here: https://archive.org/details/ guildsocialismre00coleuoft

THE MOST complete exposition of guild socialism was in GDH Cole’s book Guild Socialism Restated, published in 1920. Guild socialism was a form of libertarian socialism in that it was based on direct democracy in neighborhoods (via “ward meetings”, in Cole’s words, that is, neighborhood assemblies) and the worker self-management organizations for industry. This type of socialist politics went into eclipse after the Russian revolution for several reasons.

First, radicals were increasingly persuaded to join the Marxist-Leninist or Communist movement in ’20s to ‘40s, due to the seeming “success” of the Soviet Union’s economy in an era of capitalist economic collapse. Leninists had no use at all for the concepts of social governance through directly democratic bodies and preferred technocratic state centralization for control of production, not worker management. The revolutionary syndicalist movement of the World War 1 era had been a major inspiration for guild socialism, and syndicalism went into eclipse due to government repression & Communist competition and seemed to disappear altogether after the crushing of the syndicalist-inspired revolution in Spain in 1939.

Second, with the various concessions to the working class won in the ’30s and ’40s it seemed that capitalism could be reformed to provide benefits to the working class & the social-democratic parties with this type of orientation gained a major position after World War 2 as the only alternative to the Communists. Like the Communists, most social-democrats also had no interest in workers self-management or directly democratic re-organization of social governance.

In the USA the followers of guild socialism changed the name to “industrial democracy” and created the League for Industrial Democracy in 1919 to advocate for it. Robert Dahl’s book in the ’60s extolling cooperatives as an alternative comes out of this tradition.

Guild socialism is based on a concept of a socialist economy with structured negotiation between the community, and people as consumers, and worker organizations. This idea was revived in the late ’70s by a number of economists with a New Left background. Nowadays there are several people who advocate forms of negotiated coordination. In Britain there is the economist Pat Devine. But most well known is the participatory economics advocated by Robin Hahnel & Michael Albert. This modifies the guild socialist concept by using an ideal non-market price system to reduce the number of direct face to face negotiation meetings that would be needed. But the basic concept of community and worker self-management and negotiation between the two is retained.

• SEE TOM WETZEL’S original answer in Quora here: https://www.quora.com/What-became-of-guild-socialism

• READ THE previous NLTU articles about the Guilds here:

From The Liberty Wall – National Liberal Trade Unionists – Restore The Guilds (Part 1) http://nationalliberal.org/from-the-liberty-wall-–-national-liberal-trade-unionists-–-restore-the-guilds-part-1

From The Liberty Wall – National Liberal Trade Unionists – Restore The Guilds (Part 2) http://nationalliberal.org/%20from-the-liberty-wall-–-national-liberal-trade-unionists-–-restore-the-guilds-part-2

From The Liberty Wall – National Liberal Trade Unionists – Restore The Guilds (Part 3) https://nationalliberal.org/from-the-liberty-wall-–-national-liberal-trade-unionists-–-restore-the-guilds-part-3

From The Liberty Wall – National Liberal Trade Unionists – Restore The Guilds (Part 4) https://nationalliberal.org/from-the-liberty-wall-–-national-liberal-trade-unionists-–-restore-the-guilds-part-4

• CHECK OUT the National Liberal Trade Unionists Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/277840098977231

AS NATIONAL LIBERAL TRADE UNIONISTS, we seek nothing less than the national & social liberation of our people. But where – or who – do we look to, in order to achieve this?

Despite what they may tell us, we feel that modern day Socialists & Capitalists (and those on the ‘left’ and ‘right’ who promote these ideas) are just really interested in concentrating power & wealth in the hands of the few – basically themselves! We on the other hand, seek ideas and practical methods of spreading power & wealth to the many.

One idea which may go some way to achieving this is the restoration of the Guilds – the Guilds being generally understood as ‘an association of craftsmen or merchants formed for mutual aid and protection and for the furtherance of their professional interests.‘

With this in mind, the NLTU came across a thought-provoking article in the Plough Quarterly, a US-based ‘magazine of stories, ideas, and culture to inspire faith and action.’ Written by Gary Dorrien, the article – https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/socialjustice/economic-justice/restore-the-guilds – provides an excellent history of Guild Socialism (called ‘Christian socialism’ in the article).

We invite our readers to share their thoughts when this article is reproduced on the NLTU Facebook site – https://www.facebook.com/groups/277840098977231/ – or the National Liberals Facebook site https://www.facebook.com/groups/52739504313/ It goes without saying that there are no links between Gary Dorrien, Plough Quarterly, the NLTU and the National Liberal Party. We’d also like to point out that whilst the article is written from a Christian perspective, the NLTU and NLP welcomes members & supporters from all religions and none. Please note that we’ve kept the original US spellings and phrases as they are. This article should be read in conjunction with Parts 1, 2 & 3 – see links below.

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Restore The Guilds – What today’s labor unions, democratic socialists, and mutual aid societies might learn from the colorful history of Christian socialism in Britain.

(Left) George Holbrook Jackson (1874 – 1948) and (right) Alfred Richard ‘A R.’ Orage (1873 – 1934). Orage, a primary school teacher, was born in Dacre, Yorkshire. He met Liverpool-born Jackson (a lace merchant & freelance journalist) in 1903, when they formed the Leeds Arts Club. It was one of the most advanced centres for modernist thinking – combining politics, philosophy, spiritualism, modernist art and poetry – in pre-WWI Britain. Visiting speakers included George Bernard Shaw, G.K. Chesterton, W.B. Yeats & Hilaire Belloc. In 1906 they moved to London. With financial help from George Bernard Shaw & Lewis Wallace they bought The New Age, a struggling Christian Socialist weekly. With the help of Cecil Chesterton (younger brother of G.K. Chesterton) and Clifford Sharp, they transformed it into an influential arts journal. Around 1913, The New Age was promoting syndicalism & Guild socialism. After WWI it also supported the Social Credit ideas of Major C.H. Douglas.

Edwardian England, a brief and hollowed-out version of Victorian England, crashed ingloriously just before World War I. The Victorian expansion of the British Empire had waned. The Boer War drained the English economy and dominated English international affairs. The clash between corporate capitalism and a growing union movement made labor strife routine. The Victorian belief that England had a national mission waned along with the British Empire and economy. In 1910, nine kings rode in the funeral procession for Edward VII, a formal ending. Britain seethed with protest movements over economic oppression, imperial overreach, women’s rights, Irish home rule, and political representation. Syndicalists won beachheads in the railway unions and Welsh mines, espousing the syndical doctrine that workers should run the country and One Big Strike would make it happen.

This was the context in which guild socialism arose. It was a declaration that the nineteenth century had not settled what was possible and what socialism should be. Guild socialism was a blend of Christian socialism, radical democracy, syndicalism, Fabian theory, and nostalgia for the medieval artisan guilds. Syndicalism had a marginal status in British unions, which did not like the rhetoric of violent overthrow. Guild socialists played down the syndical fantasy of One Big Strike. They contended that socialism should be about worker determination, not building a collectivist government. The productive life of the nation should be organized and operated by self-governing democratic organizations embracing all workers in every industry and service. These national guilds would emerge from the existing union movement.

Guild socialism attracted Christian socialists from the Maurice tradition, secular readers of Ruskin and Morris, followers of Catholic authors Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton, who wanted to recreate the medieval guild economy, and disciples of political theorist John Neville Figgis. For twenty years it attracted the best of the upcoming generation and caused a ruckus in the fledgling Labour Party, opposing its Fabian leadership. The guild movement, which began in 1906 when Penty’s book The Restoration of the Guild System registered the disgust he felt at Fabian meetings, had become a force to be reckoned with (1).

To describe Penty’s book more positively, it showed why he treasured Ruskin and Morris. Ruskin said trade unions should convert themselves into self-governing guilds, refashioning the medieval guilds. Morris imagined a decent, beautiful, civilized society in which people found happiness in equality. Penty grieved that Fabian technocrats brushed aside these ethical visions of a good society. It seemed Ruskin’s dream of worker self-governance had died with Ruskin and Morris. Resurrecting it was imperative.

Somehow the medieval traditions of craftsmanship, self-regulation, and self-government had to be recovered. Penty said capitalism was corrupting and dehumanizing, while Fabian collectivism was corrupting and balefully bureaucratic. The guilds could not be recovered by refashioning modern lines of development. Only social forces that opposed modern development could do it. He named three: trade unions, the arts and crafts movement, and religion. Religion was crucial because it always linked back to something; Penty argued that any serious hope for the future must be rooted in reverence for the past. His book inspired two Fabians, A. R. Orage and Holbrook Jackson, to revamp an old radical magazine, The New Age, in May 1907, with Shaw’s money. Orage, a brilliant editor, turned The New Age into a must-read sensation, the best politics-and-culture magazine of its time. He recruited a sparkling cast of writers featuring Shaw, Penty, Belloc, Chesterton, Ezra Pound, Havelock Ellis, H. G. Wells, Belfort Bax, and most importantly, S. G. Hobson, a political economist and Quaker(2).

(1)  Arthur J. Penty, The Restoration of the Guild System (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1906).

(2) Editorial [A. R. Orage and Holbrook Jackson], “The Outlook,” The New Age: An Independent Socialist Review of Politics, Literature, and Art, New Series 1 (May 2, 1907), 1.

•  THIS ARTICLE should be read in conjunction with the following:

From  The  Liberty  Wall  –  National  Liberal  Trade  Unionists  –  Restore  The  Guilds  (Part 1)  http://nationalliberal.org/from-the-liberty-wall-–-national-liberal-trade-unionists-–-restore-the-guilds-part-1

From  The  Liberty  Wall  –  National  Liberal  Trade  Unionists  –  Restore  The  Guilds  (Part 2)  http://nationalliberal.org/from-the-liberty-wall-–-national-liberal-trade-unionists-–-restore-the-guilds-part-2

From  The  Liberty  Wall  –  National  Liberal  Trade  Unionists  –  Restore  The  Guilds  (Part 3)  http://nationalliberal.org/from-the-liberty-wall-–-national-liberal-trade-unionists-–-restore-the-guilds-part-3

• CHECK OUT the following debate hosted by Liberal Worker – The Voice Of The National Liberal Trade Unionists:

Liberal Worker Debate (1) – How Should Workers View Stop & Search? http://nationalliberal.org/from-the-liberty-wall-–-national-liberal-trade-unionists-liberal-worker-debate-1-–-how-should-workers-view-stop-search

Liberal  Worker  Debate  (2)  –  How  Should  Trade  Unionists  View  Open  Borders  &  Mass Immigration?  http://nationalliberal.org/from-the-liberty-wall-–-national-liberal-trade-unionists-liberal-worker-debate-2-–-how-should-trade-unionists-view-open-borders-mass-immigration

THIS IS THE LATEST in a series of articles reproduced from issue 1 of New Horizon – NH – the online ideological publication of the National Liberal Party.  We’re publishing these articles as a means of promoting & popularising both NH and the ideology of National Liberalism.

This article – What are the ingredients of a successful political party?: An idiots guide – is rather self-explanatory.  However, it’s always worthwhile repeating (especially to new members and supporters) that political success simply doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes years and years of hard graft – literally blood, sweat and tears – to build up a ‘following’ and even get a few local councillors elected.

With the above in mind, if a well-funded & organised political party or movement came to national prominence overnight, we’d be naturally sceptical about it.    Initially, we’d be wondering where the money, organisation & activists came from.  In particular National Liberals would be wondering if such a party or movement was some form of ‘safety valve’ with its followers being led by the nose by hidden forces.  And – depending on the political stance it took – we’d be wondering if it was some form ‘honey trap’ with a bought leadership that was being directed by elements of the State.

As we noted earlier, there are no shortcuts to building a successful political party.  There are, however, several factors that can help it on the way.  Read on to find out what they are …

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Education – What are the ingredients of a successful political party?: An idiots guide

Robert Kilroy-Silk (left) and Joan Collins (right). These two ‘celebs’ were closely associated with UKIP, particularly during the early 2000s. Kilroy-Silk, who’s since been dubbed the ‘Godfather of Brexit’, fell out with them and went off to form his own political party, Veritas in 2005. Collins was an admirer of Margaret Thatcher and has been described as an ‘old-school Tory’. However, no matter how Kilroy-Silk & Collins are viewed – we think that it’s probably fair to call them ‘National Capitalists’ – it’s a safer bet to build political foundations on a solid ideology as opposed to the fluctuating popularity of ‘celebs’.

A SUCCESSFUL political movement normally requires more than one of the following strengths: A personality(s), popular policies, a committed and sustainable organisation and an attractive ideology.

Any movement that has all these ‘qualities’ would certainly be a force to be reckoned with but any that only had one of them is likely to fail.

For example, a personality will always be attractive to many, often a celebrity, and may also attract the much desired media attention. The impact of ex-MP and TV personality Kilroy-Silk is a good example. His ‘defection’ to UKIP, understandably attracted his media contacts and other ‘celebs’ e.g. Joan Collins and propelled them into the limelight. The result in the 2004 European elections was a very large increase in their vote and seats (being more under PR than ‘First past the post’). Subsequently however, he fell out with them and the glow of victory became tarnished (it is not a co-incidence that their present leader, Nigel Farage, retook his position following the ‘lacklustre’ performance of his then successor Lord Pearson). Personalities can boost a party but they can also damage it if they leave. Better to have such personalities as figure heads only.

Being populist can attract support and, if topical, significantly boost votes. For example, the Greens benefited in the Euro elections in 1989 from the (first) discussion about dangers to the environment by winning 15% (but no seats!), the Referendum party came from nowhere in 1997 to score nearly over 800,000 votes in the notoriously difficult ‘first past the post’ system because Europe was on the national (and Conservative party) agenda and the far-right generally does better when stories abound of migrant influxes. Equally of course, voters and activists can dry up when the issue is no longer ‘sexy’. Better to espouse firm and broad based policies that later become popular.

A strong, efficient party with a committed membership can ensure that ideas and policies can be promoted even if the media are reluctant to. The problem is, it means nothing if the policies are unattractive or hard to sell. The history of the far-left is a perfect example of an ideal(s) that has attracted firm believers full of dedicated endeavour but little or no support. The most successful group in recent years, Respect, arguably relied upon ethnic minority votes as they chimed with opposition to the Iraq war but then drifted away when it was no longer topical (see populism above) leaving Respect to indulge in the far left’s (and right’s) favourite pastime – faction fighting. Better to ensure you have some popular policies and focus on those.

Ideology is the foundation upon which a successful movement, as apart from a transient party, is based. Parties are that or populist. The ‘idea’ is not necessarily holistic, it could be an attitude such as Conservatism or single-issue based as with the Greens. It is however very difficult to sustain a party, let alone a movement, without it and many a party languishes or dies because no-one really knows why it exists (or seeks it out). A party based on a big idea(s) will attract the best activists.

Of course, success might come with some ‘magic bullet’ e.g. a large benefactor or a well-timed alliance, but in the absence of winning the political lottery, hard-work selling a good product will take you far. If however you actually want to implement some of your policies (!) then find some good partners and multiply! (see A Grand Coalition of the Centre on p.16) [To read this article see link below.)

• ALSO Check out:

Build New Horizon! http://nationalliberal.org/build-new-horizon

New Horizon – Head & Heart http://nationalliberal.org/new-horizon-head-heart

New Horizon – National Liberalism In Action – Civil Liberties http://nationalliberal.org/new-horizon-%E2%80%93-nationalliberalism-in-action-%E2%80%93-civil-liberties

New Horizon – National Liberalism In Action – The Nature of Democracy http://nationalliberal.org/newhorizon-%E2%80%93-national-liberalism-in-action-the-nature-of-democracy

New Horizon – Ecology: The Silent Fourth Pillar of National Liberalism https://nationalliberal.org/ecology-thesilent-fourth-pillar-of-national-liberalism

New Horizon – ECONOMICS Part 1 – The Economic Roots and influences of National Liberalism http://nationalliberal.org/new-horizon-economics-part-1-%e2%80%93-the-economic-roots-and-influences-of-national-liberalism

New Horizon – My Concerns For The NHS https://nationalliberal.org/new-horizon-%E2%80%93-my-concerns-for-the-nhs

New Horizon – Strategy: Building a Grand Coalition of the Centre
https://nationalliberal.org/new-horizon-strategy-building-a-grand-coalition-of-the-centre