Hunter Wallace on an Ominous Trend in the BNP — Updated

“British Nationalism and White Nationalism”
from Occidental Dissent, September 9, 2009

Lee John Barnes, the British National Party’s Legal Director, has a few choice words for White Nationalists. At Majority Rights, this has invited a flurry of negative responses from GuessedWorker and other British commentators. In response to the BNP’s recent legal difficulties, Barnes has attempted to construct an all encompassing culturalist ideology which he juxtaposes against White Nationalism and other versions of racialism.

Here is a point by point response to Barnes’ accusations:

(1) British Nationalism is a political movement designed to represent and promote the interests of the Indigenous British people, whilst white nationalism represents the interests of all whites worldwide.

This is a caricature of White Nationalism based on a single facet of its platform. Insofar as White Nationalism has an “international” aspect at all, its adherents only seek to foster intraracial amity and cooperation on issues of mutual concern such as third world immigration, fighting multiculturalism, the Jewish Question and overthrowing the ideological hegemony of liberalism in the West. There is nothing whatsoever objectionable about this – unless one prefers the bloodshed and ethnic bigotry of twentieth century Europe, which may ultimately prove fatal to the White race, especially if it were to be revisited.

(2) At the same time as the Equality Commission are labouring under their own delusions as to what the BNP stand for, the White Nationalist mob on the various internet forums are demanding the BNP fight to the death for its ‘white only’ membership policy – which merely confirms these people are idiots and have never even bothered to read the BNP constitution as well as the Equality Commission.

These “idiots” on “various internet forums” (most of whom are probably BNP supporters) are only expressing the sentiment that the BNP should remain an exclusive political vehicle for ethnic Britons, as opposed to the Front National in France which has non-White members and elected representatives. They are using the word “White” as a litmus test for “assimilated Indigenous British” or “European race” which you admit are mentioned in the BNP Constitution.

In other words, John should not be denied membership on account of his Irish grandmother; Jacob who is 1/8th Dutch; Winston Churchill who was 1/2 American; Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II for having German ancestors. The line of “assimilable” should be drawn around Europe. On the other hand, your garden variety Abdul or Mohammad would remain excluded. This is a sensible policy. What is so objectionable about it?

(3) What we have is an INDIGENOUS FOLK COMMUNITY membership which is not the same as a ‘whites only’ membership.

If not Whites of European ancestry, who are the “assimilable aboriginal members of the European race also resident in Britain?” It is plainly a legal obsfucation of ‘White’; one only made necessary by the Orwellian legal circumstances that British nationalists live under in the United Kingdom.

(4) A whites only membership would make the BNP a ‘white nationalist’ party not a BRITISH national party.

No, it would not. The BNP could remain a “British national party” while admitting that Winston Churchill or Queen Elizabeth II are British in spite of their “non-indigenous” ancestry. That wouldn’t necessarily entail open borders with Poland or Romania.

(5) The fact that the idiots on some internet sites think the BNP is a white nationalist party, as opposed to a BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY for the indigenous British people, merely proves these people are too busy believing their own propaganda to realise they are talking nonsense.

The misunderstanding could easily be corrected by amending your membership policy to explicitly include non-Whites (from Jamaica, Pakistan, India, etc.) or by excluding “non-indigenous” Europeans (Germans, Irish, Poles, Italians, etc). Instead, the BNP tries to have a “whites only” membership policy by using other euphemisms for it to satisfy the Equality Commission.

(6) … have no regard for the preservation of indigenous British culture and cultures and would allow any whites membership to the party such as unassimilated Poles and white Eastern Europeans and allow unlimited whites access in to the country.

This is a straw man. As GuessedWorker pointed out, White Nationalists generally don’t have any objection to the preservation of British culture, excluding unassimilated Europeans from BNP membership, or a more restrictive immigration policy that would obviate the problem of mass immigration from the Continent. After all, it’s your country; you should run the show.

(7) A white nationalist welcomes mass immigration into the UK as long as the immigrants are white eg Polish, Russians etc regardless of how this affects the interests of the indgenous British folk.

This is a spurious, unsupported fabrication of the White Nationalist position on immigration. Barnes is conflating a “whites only” membership basis with support for unrestricted mass immigration from Europe. There is no reason why the former entails the latter. Even Americans tailored our immigration policy to privilege Northwestern Europeans over Whites from Southern and Eastern Europe.

(8) A white nationalist would never support the slogan ‘British jobs for British workers’ as that would mean that all immigration into the UK from white nations would have to be stopped and whites who are not British would be denied access to British jobs

Once again, Barnes creates and attacks a straw man caricature of the White Nationalist position on immigration. I don’t know many White Nationalists who object to nativist preferences in employment. Personally, I would rather American jobs go to American workers than unassimilated European foreign nationals.

(9) whilst the fundamental aim of white nationalism is the compulsory repatriation of all non-whites and them replaced by whites from anywhere in the world, the fundamental aim of British nationalism os to put the interests of the British people first.

This is false. The fundamental aim of White Nationalism is the creation of a Jew-free, White ethnostate in North America for Americans and Canadians who wish to secede from the multiracial polygot. The immigration policy of this hypothetical nation-state is only a secondary consideration and has little to do with your racial circumstances in the UK other than wishing you good will.

(10) The fact that the policies of white nationalism if enacted into law would destroy British culture by importing into the country millions of culturally disparate whites from around the world to replace culturally british non-whites and at the same destroy the unique ethnic gene lines of the indigenous British folk groups via the mixing of the different ethnic sub sets of the white race into one homogenous racial enetity is irrelevant to white nationalists – white nationalists do not care that the indigenous British could become extinct in our own country along with British culture as long as Britain was filled with whites.

This is a baseless accusation. Adapted to British circumstances, White Nationalism would entail 1.) a racially based ethnostate for the British people 2.) and the repatriation of all Jews and non-Whites abroad. It would not necessarily entail open borders with the European continent. Membership in this British ethnostate would be on a White basis. The non-indigenous White elements in Britain would be repatriated or absorbed over time like the Irish and Huguenot minorities that came before them. This alternative is infinitely preferable to the liberal status quo that now prevails in Britain.

(11) Only white nationalists regard British culture as irrelevant and disregard the fact that Polish people may be white, but that they are not indigenous British and that real genetic ethnic differences exist between us.

If British nationalists don’t desire Polish immigrants, they could easily amend their immigration laws and exclude them without raising much objection from White Nationalists on this side of the Atlantic.  Barnes continues to attack his straw man of White Nationalism. In reality, White Nationalists support the preservation of traditional British culture, say, the cultivation of the English language. I don’t know where Barnes got the impression that White Nationalists insist upon open borders with Europe.

(12) Polish people may easily assimilate into Britain and British culture and become British, but they are still of Polish ethnicity.

Would assimilated Poles be excluded in a Britain under BNP rule?

(13) A simple DNA test can reveal whether we are Anglo-Saxon or Celts, or Italians or Germans thereby revealing that real genetic ethnic differences exist between the ethnic sub sets of the white race.

Actually, these ethnic categories shade into each other in a far more subtle way than the broad racial differences which have accumulated over thousands of years. They cut across and through artificial European borders. The difference between a Nigerian and a Dane is far more clear cut than the small differences that have accumulated between Norwegians and Icelanders.

(14) There is no one white race – the white race is comprised of a set of ethnic sub sets that have evolved from the original white racial root group.

Ethnicity has far more to do with superficial cultural differences than heredity.

(15) Over time the different tribal groups that grew from the original racial root group have evolved real ethnic genetic differences that make them unique ethnic groups.

These “ethnic genetic differences” should not be conflated so easily with the existing national groups of Europe which are drawn primarily along linguistic fault lines.

(16) Therefore white nationalism and British Nationalism are diametrically opposed both in ideology and application.

This is nonsense. White Nationalists and British Nationalists mostly share common goals.

(17) The BNP want all immigration including white immigration from Europe stopped. White nationalists want more white immigration into the UK.

This is another reiteration of the same straw man addressed above.

(18) The BNP want white Eastern European immigrants returned home. White nationalists want white estern europeans to stay and non-whites returned home.

Actually, White Nationalists have no clear cut position on the issue, and neither do British Nationalists. Instead, there is a spectrum of opinion that ranges from deportation/exclusion to assimiliation/inclusion. American White Nationalists really don’t give much thought to your immigration policy aside from recommending that non-Whites be excluded/deported.

(19) The BNP want all illegal immigrants, white or otherwise, returned home. The white nationalists want whites to stay.

… provided they assimilate and the borders are closed.

(20) A white nationalist would rather have in the country a white Eastern European Muslim than a Black British born Christian.

This is true.

(21) The BNP want all asylum seekers, white or otherwise, returned home. White nationalists want white immigrants to stay.

Yet another straw man.

(22) The BNP say Britain First – white nationalists say ‘Our Race is our nation’.

Most British White Nationalists would agree with the slogan “Britain First,” but would not agree that entails hostility to non-Britons or indifference to the racial struggle abroad.

(23) The flag of the BNP is the British flag, the symbol of white nationalism is the Celtic Sun Wheel.

White Nationalism doesn’t have a symbol.

(24) The political ideology of white nationalism is National Socialism, the politics of the BNP are British Nationalism.

White Nationalism isn’t National Socialism. The aspiration to create a White ethnostate in North America has little to do with the Third Reich and goes back centuries. It is an indigenous American ideal that was reflected in traditional American immigration law until the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952.

(25) You cannot say ‘My race is my nation’ and then say ‘I am a British nationalist’ – the two are fundamentally opposed and irreconcilable ideological positions.

Nonsense. That particular slogan (one that is rarely used by White Nationalists) entails nothing more than social concern for the welfare of Whites abroad. There is no contradiction between British Nationalism and, say, caring about the fate of the Rhodesians and Afrikaners in Southern Africa.

(26) The problem is that white nationalists have not realised this – so they think that when the BNP has to change its membership policy this is an abandonment of our ‘white nationalist policy’ when the BNP is not a white nationalist party anyway !

White Nationalists probably haven’t realized the positions you ascribe to them as they were concocted out of your own imagination and then are wholly due to the peculiar circumstances of the BNP and its institutional need to reposition itself in a changed legal environment.

(27) What we have have to do is therefore finally define what the BNP stands for in a way that British nationalists and white nationalists can see the difference.

All you have to do is to amend the BNP membership policy to include assimilated non-Whites. That will indeed create a vital distinction between White Nationalism and your version of British Nationalism.

(28) After the constitution changes the BNP will still be an Indigenous British party based on ethno-nationalism which represents the interests of the indigenous British people. But we will also be shifting emphasis onto the defence of British culture as well as indigenous rights.

In other words, the BNP is repositioning itself as a neoconservative political party.

(29) This therefore shifts us further away from white nationalism.

… and further towards liberalism.

(30) Whilst the BNP represents the interests of the indigenous British it can also represent the interests of the Naturalised British citizens who are ASSIMILATED as we defend British culture.

… like the black soldiers who fight in Britain’s imperial wars.

(31) The BNP cannot, and will not, ever represent the interests of Colonists.

I’m not so sure. You seem to be moving in that general direction.

(32) Assimilated British Naturalised Citizens want to defend British culture and values.

i.e., Neoconservatism.

(33) They do not want to see Sharia law in the UK, they do not want Islamist thugs spitting at British soldiers, including black British soldiers, on British streets, they dont want multi-culturalism as they want to live in a British culture, they dont want mass immigration as they know it will lead to a civil war in the future, they dont want to be given extra rights on the grounds of their race by white liberals who despise British culture, they dont want their kids taught about the joys of anal sex, they dont want their children sexualised by pervert teachers who think its more important that 5 year olds are taught how to wear a condom than to read and write properly, they dont want their taxes spent on refugee centres and translations services, they dont want British streets turned into war zones between different foriegn drugs gangs, they dont want crack gangs, white prostitutes, islamist heroin dealers and the rest of the filth of multi-culturalism perverting their children and British society, they dont white liberal teachers teaching their kids to have a chip on their shoulder about racism and that they dont have to work hard at school as they can be rap stars or unemployed drug dealers, they dont want their kids taught about Islam and not about Christianity, they want free speech not political correctness and liberalism. They want a decent British society with a mono-cultural British culture, not a multi-cultural society with no British culture.They are not the enemy.

… and they are non-White!

(34) Between them and us we share a mutual desire for the return of our British culture. The aim of any constitutional change must be to create an alliance based on them and us defending British culture.

This isn’t British Nationalism at all. It is Neoconservatism.

(35) Whilst the primary aim of the BNP will always be to represent the interests of the indigenous British people, the BNP must also create a mass social movement for the preservation of British culture that enables us to bridge this gap.

We must be practical! We have to sneak up on the liberals! This means downplaying the importance of race, exaggerating the importance of culture! This is textbook Neoconservatism.

(36) The real irony is that the white nationalists are multi-culturalists – they would rather have a multi-cultural Britain comprised of Polish, Russian, German immigrants who retain their own ancestral cultures, than a Britain with a British culture if that means we have to have a tiny minority of non-whites who are British by birth and culture.

The real irony here is that Lee John Barnes is trying to disguise this seachange in policy from British Nationalism to Neoconservatism by attacking American White Nationalists who have no interest whatsoever in whether or not Poles are allowed to settle in Britain.

(37) White Nationalism is by its very nature a multi-cultural ideology, for it puts the issue of race before the preservation of national cultures.

White Nationalists oppose multiculturalism and multiracialism. Lee John Barnes is surrendering to multiracialism while maintaining a fictitious opposition to multiculturalism. Is any serious minded British nationalist stupid enough to believe that Britain’s West Indian minority will ever assimilate to British cultural norms?

(38) The irony is that when white nationalists say ‘my race is my nation’ this statement is anti-nationalist, anti-the British indigenous folk communities and anti-British culture.

No, it simply indicates that White Nationalists aren’t narrowminded, bigoted Little Englander neocons who care only about their own backyard. We’re not about to abandon our concern for the plight of Whites abroad out of political expediency.

(39) Even the politics of white nationalism – National Socialism – are despised by the majority of British whites who we need to vote us into power.

White Nationalism isn’t National Socialism. Watering down British Nationalism into Neoconservatism only confirms our suspicion that nothing will ever come of the BNP aside from a few council victories and seats in the European Parliament. Why vote for the BNP when authentic conservative parties like the UKIP or the Tories already exist?

(40) Its a pity they do not analyse this statement

Feel free to write back.

Update: A further addendum in response to Barnes’ comments.

Are you honestly trying to tell me there are no WN’s in the BNP or no British WN’s !!!!

Of course there are White Nationalists in Britain. I haven’t seen you present any evidence that your caricature is a representative sample of their views.

The fact is the ideology of WN is simpy that , an ideology, it is not based on genetic or scientific reality today.

British Nationalism isn’t based on any “genetic or scientific reality” either. Science is a purely descriptive understanding of the natural world. It has nothing to do with (prescriptive) political philosophy of any kind.

WN is National Socialism – not British Nationalism.

White Nationalism is the project of creating a Jew-free, White ethnostate in North America for Americans and Canadians who desire to secede from the multiracial polygot. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the political programme of the NSDAP as it existed in NS Germany. There are only superficial similarities between the two.

Regardless of what country a WN is in they are a WN, as WN is anti-nationalist, that is the point of WN !

I know bullshit when I see it. The raison d’être of White Nationalism is the creation of a White ethnostate in North America. How in the world is such a project “anti-nationalist”?

So an US WN is the exact same as a UK WN !

This is false.

But my article does not relate to the USA, it relates to Britain – and white nationalism in the UK is completely superfluous as to our ethnic and cultural survival.

White Nationalism is preferable to Neoconservatism.

The fact that there are no intellectuals in white nationalism is proof exactly of my point – the WN’s in this country are defined by their thuggery, anti-social behaviour, lack of thought and intellectual analysis and their fetish for Nazism.

This could easily be a verbatim description of the BNP found in the Guardian.

In the UK all WN’s should stay out of politics – as they are simply a liability.

This is also the attitude of the liberal mainstream in Britain towards the BNP.

THE PATH TO POWER IS CULTURALISM, AS CULTURALISM IS A POPULIST POLITICAL IDEOLOGY THAT THE VOTERS WILL VOTE FOR – unlike racialism which voters have been conditoned to despise.

Restated: Conservatism is the path to power. Racialism is impractical in a democratic political context in which voters have been conditioned to have a knee jerk reaction to any expression of White racial interests.

The threat from WN’s is that they are unlectable and therefore they make any party they associate with unelectable.

Barnes is invoking liberal talking points (the same ones used against the BNP, I might add) to attack White Nationalists.

WN in the UK is merely political suicide and delays our transition into power.

In a nutshell, the case for conservatism.

Most US WN’s are Nazis – and proud of it.

No evidence is presented to support this accusation.

The intellectual elite of the US Pro-white movement may not be Nazis eg Jared Taylor but the movement and white youth is 95 % WN.

White Nationalism isn’t National Socialism. Barnes continues to use every liberal talking point against British nationalists.

The elite may reject nazism, but the youth and nazi groups that comprise 95 % of the US ‘white rights’ movement reject them.

Anywhere from 5% to 15% of White Americans still hold old fashioned traditional racial views. That’s millions of people. The vast majority of them have never heard of White Nationalism. An insignificant miniscule fraction of them are Neo-Nazis.

The politics of WN have been, and would be, disastrous for the White Ethnic Communities worldwide, and no one votes for Nazis.

Barnes doesn’t have any real concern for preserving the distinct ethnicities of Europe. This is just a convenient talking point. He is willing to accept assimilated and naturalized non-Whites into Britain and the BNP.

Nazis are a political liability, and are usually the loudest mouthed in any group simply as the politics of Nazism attracts the cranks, the show offs and the egotists.

White Nationalism isn’t Nazism.

I think you can have a politics of Ethnicity, Nationalism and Culture – I am British by ethnicity, I live in Britain a Nation and I want to preserve British culture.

In other words, Barnes is advocating a form of nationalist politics - one based on the terminology of Franz Boas and Ashley Montagu.

These are the boundaries that I want to preserve, the natural organic boundaries of folk, nation and culture – not the mythos of race.

A hundred years ago, British nationalists used the language of race to describe what are today termed ’cultural’ and ‘ethnic’ characteristics. There is nothing whatsoever organic about what Barnes is proposing. It is borrowed wholly from mid-twentieth century cultural anthropology. It is the product of the various anti-racist ideological crusades against racialism.

They are organic realities, the politics of blood is based on myths. The lines of defence that concern me are BRITISH ones, not mythic ones.

Nonsense. Barnes fetish for “British culture” isn’t based at all upon objective, hard nosed, natural science. There is no scientific argument for preserving the English language or enjoying British literature.

The baby was left so long in the bathwater by those obsessing over race, that it drowned long before it was ever thrown out of the tub.

The liberal mainstream would love to cast the BNP out of British politics.

The issue about nazis in the white community movement isnt that they will replicate 1933 in Germany and take power, the danger is that they prevent nationalist parties taking power.

Feel free to do a Google blog search of your own site. You are frequently attacked for being sympathetic to Nazism yourself. Your furious attacks on White Nationalism hasn’t impressed the crew over at Harry’s Place. If every Neo-Nazi in Britain were to disappear tomorrow, the mainstream “anti-fascist” line against the BNP wouldn’t miss a beat.

If you honestely are saying the WN movement in America isnt the majority of the white activists, then you need to speak to the people who actually know the real situation. For every Jared Taylor there are a hundred skinheads.

For every Jared Taylor, there are thousands of racially conscious White Americans who have never heard of White Nationalism. Even Leonard Zeskind or Carol Swain doesn’t argue that the majority of White Nationalists are Neo-Nazi skinheads.

You appear to think the primary motivation of BNP members is WN, it isnt – its about defending british culture, national sovereignity, against the EU, UN, the domination of american culture, the defence of our people and heritage – race hardly figures at all except for the WN’s.

Is this the BNP? Now it sounds more like the UKIP.

we are too busy fighting for our national and cultural survival to worry too much about the survival of whites in south africa

I will make a note of that: the nu-BNP doesn’t care about the plight of Whites in South Africa.

We may despise whats happening to whites around the world, but we have to hold and defend our soil – not fixate on how others defend theirs.

In Barnes mind, the two are mutually exclusive.

Culture is a populist philosophy, racialism isnt. We have to get elected into power – so we must be a populist movement and party, otherwise whats the point of being in the political process.

Barnes is apparently ignorant of the etymology of ‘populism’: it is an American term derived from the late nineteenth century Populist Party whose rank and file were almost exclusively racially conscious White Americans.

Posturing forever on the margins of politics about race wont save either our race, nation, folk or culture.

The solution, you see, is to replace British Nationalism with Neoconservatism. That’s the ticket!

I dont think our shared ‘genetic specificity’ mattred much when in WW2, and it wont matter much when Europe and the EU allows in millions of african immigrants into Britain.

Barnes wouldn’t object to millions of African immigrants in Britain provided they speak English, watch the BBC, play cricket and ‘motor’ around on Sunday.

We must defend our soil – not mythic ideas of race. Myth is an miniscule aspect of culture, it is not an aspect of politics. Politics is based on history, not myth.

Barnes knows little about politics. The driving force behind liberalism is the mythic ideal of a colorblind utopia where racial differences are nonexistent. As for British soil, it wouldn’t be worth defending if it was populated by Pakis and Jamaicans.

Those who live in a world of myths worrying about the white race whilst the streets of Britain are filling up with immigrants are simply wasting what little time we have to get into power and save our folk, nation and culture. We do politics, not myths and solipsistic navel gazing masquerading as politics.

Why not vote for the Tories or the GOP? They’re far better at democratic politics than you are. That’s the obvious conclusion to draw from this line of reasoning.

Yes it is simple – we either get voted into power or we lose everything. People dont vote for racialist parties.

The vast majority of British Whites aren’t voting for the BNP either.