Rudinblog

Freedom of speech wins the day

This is a great day for everyone who believes that freedom of speech is not only a fundamental, democratic right but that it tends to illuminate and expose those with bad intentions and divisive policies.

Last night's controversial appearance by Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party (BNP) on the BBC's weekly television discussion programme, Question Time, exposed his ignorance, bigotry and, perhaps most surprising in Cambridge - educated man, lack of, erm, intellectual consistency.

Many had opposed his appearance -- justified by the BBC on the reasonable basis that the party had broken out from its few local strongholds to a national presence to gaining nearly a million votes in June's elections to the European Parliament and gaining two MEPs under the Proportional Representation system. The opponents' case, which in some areas was a strong one in my view, was that providing Griffin with a platform on national television and sitting alongside what are usually described as 'mainstream politicians' and other commentators, normalised a party which stands for Britain being peopled exclusively by what it terms the indigenous population of these isles - by which it means (despite some waffle from Griffin) white.

So, if you have a different coloured skin or ethnicity you, even if you are born and raised in the UK contributed to the society, you can never be truly thought of as British.

The second objection to his appearance was that by this normalisation such views were legitimised and this resulted in increased verbal and physical attacks on ethnic minorities. Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, was adamant on this point when he appeared on the Today programme on Thursday. When the BNP's predecessor, the National Front, had been prominent in the 1970s, attacks always increased following media exposure, claimed Livingstone. He went further and said that the BBC would be "morally responsible" if there were such attacks following the broadcast. My former boss, Mark Byford, now deputy Director - General of the BBC, who followed Livingstone on that programme, was clearly uncomfortable about the situation but pointed out that under its Royal Charter, the Corporation had to observe 'due impartiality' and once a political party - which was legal and had passed a certain threshold in national support - the Corporation was in no position to pick and choose whom it invited onto such a programme.

The final objection was that, although it was all right for Griffin and others of his ilk to be interviewed by rigorous inquisitors such as John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman, the format and style of Question Time meant that he would not necessarily be put under pressure to explain his views and that he would be "allowed" to get away with sounding all sweet and reasonable, especially when discussing topics other than race and ethnicity.

 

Although, inevitably, reaction has been mixed and varied, my assessment is that such fears were groundless: Griffin was indeed put under the spotlight and under pressure and looked sweaty, defensive and lacked any credibility as a serious politician. It is also rather patronising to assume that only professional and experienced broadcasters and journalists can make the best job of rigorously examining the views and policies of politicians. In fact, all professional politicians most fear questions from the general public. It was an "ordinary person" who caused Margaret Thatcher the most difficulty when she appeared in an election phone in 1983 when she was pushed about the direction of the Argentine warship the General Belgrano at the time that it was sunk by the British Navy in the previous year's Falklands War. It was the partner of a cancer sufferer who, full of righteous anger, ambushed Tony Blair during an election campaign and accused him of not caring about the fate of such sufferers that caused him one of his most uncomfortable moments.

You see, politicians fear the electorate and know they have to be pleasant and reasonable to the voters. The best arguments against Griffin's odious policies were from members of the audience, especially those from an ethnic minority background who declared themselves proud to be British and who'd lived here all their lives and I especially liked the Jewish teenage boy who was enraged about the invocation of the Holocaust-denying BNP of World War II, when it was the Brits who had saved his grandparents from the gas chambers.

As was pointed out during the panel, the availability of Griffin's previous on and off the record statements on social and media sharing sites such as YouTube mean that it is very difficult for him to claim that he will have been misquoted about his more ludicrous and revolting statements, such as that the Holocaust had merely been 'a Jewish folk tale'. Confronted with his past statements he could only say that he didn't know why he had held these views, or why he had changed his mind. The claim that the reason he couldn't do so was because of an unspecified "European law" was undermined immediately by a fellow panellist, Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, who gave his permission for Griffin to explain about his past statements! That was a great moment.

On the whole, though, I thought the panel was fairly feeble and Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat spokesman, was typically shameless and outrageous when the discussion turned to immigration from EU countries, which his party has fully supported. He now says that his party supported the potential unrestricted access from up to 500 million people in the EU to Britain, without the ten-year phased - in transition arrangements which most countries adopted, because he had relied on government projections that said that fewer than 100,000 people from the rest of the EU would choose to live and work in Britain when the true figure had turned out to be more than three quarters of a million.

The way that the Liberal Democrats twist and turn on this issue is a real lesson in the utter shamelessness and hypocrisy of certain politicians. But at least Huhne had agreed to appear on the programme and had supported Griffin's right to be heard. The same was not true for the rent-a-mob outside Television Centre who physically tried to prevent Griffin from entering the building and, when they found that he had sneaked in by a back door, attempted to storm the building itself and, naturally, were arrested. One such protester, who was dragged away by police chanting: "shame on you! This is how fascism started!" No, fascism was started by people like you who attempted to use mob rule; intimidation; burning effigies; chanting that they would like to burn certain people, etc. For such people, free speech is only allowed if it conforms within their own self-righteous limitations of what is acceptable. The whole point of free speech is that it will be offensive to some people some time. If you don't have that right you don't in fact have free speech. This works, of course, as it were the other way. When there was the brouhaha over the publication of the cartoons of The Prophet, our currently leader, Gordon Brown, said that free speech did not include the right to be offensive to people. We really are in trouble when Her Majesty's Chief Minister says, and presumably believes, in such views and it does explain a lot of the repression and anti-democratic, anti-libertarian measures of this government.

 

Nor does it help to shout down people who are not racist but have turned to the BNP out of despair and disillusionment with the current mainstream parties, especially Labour in its traditional working-class base. Immigration is a legitimate topic of public discussion, as is multiculturalism versus integration, and a requirement/ expectation of all people, whatever their background, to support the basic values of a country such as, indeed, free speech, equality under the law, tolerance, rights for women and for those of different sexual orientations, etc.

It is all very well for there to have a relaxed attitude to all this from the white, middle-class 'trustafarians', who do not see their livelihoods and their culture threatened by those with different culture. The white, educated middle classes such as myself get all the benefits from immigration and none of the downside and it behoves us to have a little humility about those who are at the bottom of the economic scale, with very little or any job security -- or any job at all -- who see the latest wave of immigrants as destroying what little prospects they have for building a decent life and which puts additional pressure on very scarce resources, such as housing.

A lot of this comes down to a sense of place. I'm a typical, peripatetic member of the professional white middle classes in that, although I've lived my current home for 16 years, I have no particular affection or sense of belonging to where I live. My social networks, virtual and real, are mostly not geographically centred and I haven't had generations of my family living and working here - working for and building communities, constructing schools, hospitals and even more fundamental aspects of civilisation such as sewage systems and street lighting (don't laugh -- these innovations are historically very recent in many parts of Britain). I haven't seen streets where generations of my family lived, transformed by new arrivals with a very different and sometimes hostile culture and set of beliefs.

Any democratic politician, or anyone has any experience of life and knowledge of humans, has to realise that when such transformations take place in less than a generation there is bound to be trouble and that people on the sharp end of this policy -- -- over which they have never been consulted and for which they have certainly never voted -- have legitimate grievances that have to be addressed. Some in the Labour Party 'get this' but others are still in denial.

There is another uncomfortable fact the white liberals such as myself in that many people who support directly or indirectly the BNP are - not to put too fine a point on it - not very bright. There was a piece on Channel 4 News a couple of days ago in which a 'social cohesion unit' from Leicester Council was going around putting leaflets through households in a deprived area, suggesting ways in which people can work together more and understand each other better. They then looked at figures on educational levels and found that the average reading age on this particular council estate was seven. They'd been wasting their time leafleting, because most people simply couldn't understand the words. So they then went round door-to-door, explaining what they were trying to do.

When people are under pressure it is the easiest thing in the world for them to the tribute all their woes and problems to a minority who are physically different, or wear different clothes, or insist on, say, going to a mosque where, for generations, a chapel once stood. Shouting down such people or calling anyone who doesn't happen to hold liberal views and thinks that mass immigration is a wonderful idea and that multiculturalism enriches lives etc., etc. is a racist, is doomed to failure and is bound to feed the very parties who move into the political vacuum left by what can justly be regarded as the political elites.

But let's end on an optimistic note -- surely know one who saw Griffin on Question Time programme could find his arguments or approach at all persuasive and it's a reasonable bet that many are tacitly or explicitly supported the BNP are now having a rethink. Last night, in my view, public service broadcasting in the shape of the BBC really did provide a public service.

When Irish hands are voting…

As I write this the Irish are voting for the second time on the Lisbon Treaty. You see, they got the 'wrong' answer the first time round and the EU never takes no for an answer when it comes to a new treaty; they regard it as a blip and an unfortunate consequence of democracy in a particular member state. Funnily enough, when the vote is tight the other way - for a 'yes', as happened for example in Malta in 2004 and even closer for the French vote on the Maastricht Treaty (which only gained a very bare majority because of voters from the outlying remnants of the French Empire) - they never go back to the electorate and check that that is really what they wanted and voted for the 'right' reasons. In Britain, of course, no one under the age of 52 has ever had a direct vote on any particular treaty, let alone our overall membership.

 

When the people are allowed a vote, they do tend to vote against what is on offer. The only member state – Denmark - to have a direct vote on the final stage of European Monetary Union -- "the euro" -- voted against it; the only countries to be allowed a vote on the original Constitution, France and the Netherlands, voted against it; the only country to be allowed a vote on the Lisbon Treaty, Ireland, rejected it the first time. I think we can discern a pattern here. But the institutions and instincts of the European Union (including of course many of the politico's of the member states) are so profoundly undemocratic that they regard the electorates as mere ill informed inconveniences who just have to be goaded, bullied and propagandised until they get it 'right'. Ideally, of course, the electorate will never be given a say and that is indeed what will happen after the Lisbon Treaty is finally ratified by all the member states, because all future treaties will be "self approved", so this really is the very last chance for the peoples of Europe will ever have of rejecting anything that comes out of Brussels. After that, it's all down to what the political class decides, and they of course will sign up to the European project.

 

But first, I think a little explanation is needed as to why I'm so hostile. It is an attitude which has caused me a great deal of difficulty and upset with friends, relations and colleagues, because most of these associate even mild Euroscepticism with those who are xenophobic or closet racist and have various and associated other nasty right wing frames of mind. I can understand this myself because, dear reader, I too, had that approach to those who are anti-the (formerly known as) EEC. To explain my change of heart -- actually two changes of heart – I need to briefly to go back to where I was a schoolboy, when the Heath government put the European Communities Bill to parliament to pave the way for Britain's entry into the 'Common Market'. In 1971 to '72 this was a very major topic. Some sections of the Conservative party were, as now, against, but the main opposition came from the Labour Party, which has always had some "pro-Europeans" such as Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams in its ranks (they of course were to form part of that great quartet 'the gang of four' in 1981) but the majority of the party was definitely against. Fortunately, during the period of the 1960s Labour government, France under de Gaulle was also against Britain's membership, so it didn't become an issue for the Wilson government of 1964-70. If it had, the government would probably have split over it. However, back to the early' 70s and one of my brain waves was to have an unofficial school magazine and for the leader column in the first issue we decided to tackle the European question. One of my co-conspirators, with whom I now have a great renewed friendship after a gap of well over 30 years, went down to London - I think for a gig - and on his way to or from it encountered a very big demonstration in Trafalgar Square to protest against the EEC Bill and brought back some of the literature. This discussed Britain's loss of sovereignty, how the EEC was profoundly undemocratic and was in the clutches and the interests of big business, etc. Using the leaflets as a basis we wrote this editorial column.

When the magazine came out, my history teacher, whom I liked, pull me aside after class and said he was deeply sorry I held these opinions because he was a passionate pro-European and began to explain why. This made me rethink my attitude and from there on I became pro-European. This wasn't a hard switch of approach because being pro-European then, as now, is seen as the progressive, youthful way of looking at international relations. After all, I was the first in three generations of my family not to be forced to put on a uniform and go off to fight other Europeans. Now we only went to Europe to enjoy our summer holidays. I began to associate anti-Europeanism with narrow-mindedness, old-fashioned, reactionary attitudes and that is not what you want to feel when you are, say, 16 years old (or indeed, in my case at least, at any stage in your life!).

Then of course in early 1974 the Labour party limped back into government, first with minority support and then with a tiny majority and Wilson, once more Prime Minister, had to face the problem that, although by then the country was a member of the EEC, at least half of his Cabinet and certainly well over half his Parliamentary party and the party beyond it in the constituencies was deeply opposed to membership. (The party was to have a policy of pulling out of the EEC without a referendum in its only truly left-wing period of domination from the early to late '80s). To avoid his government splitting over the issue, Wilson offered a referendum in which, for the first and only time in Britain's history, the principle of "collective responsibility" was lifted and pro-and anti-EEC members of the Cabinet were given permission to join the cross party platforms and campaigns on both sides of the referendum issue. So, in June 1975, when I just reached 18 years of age, we had what is still the only UK wide referendum ever to be held. In one of those rites of passage, I went to the polling booth with my mum and dad, proudly displaying my "vote yes to Europe" badge. As it happened, public opinion had been turned round from being about 60/40 against, to a 'yes' referendum win of about two thirds in favour. This change in attitude in only a couple of years can partly be explained by the fact it's a more difficult proposition to say we should leave something once you're in, as opposed to if we should join in the first place, and also because nearly all the newspapers were in favour. Furthermore, as the BBC itself in a Radio 4 documentary ('Document', BBC Radio 4, 3 February 2000) and former BBC journalist Robin Aitken has described in a brilliant book, the Corporation was in cahoots with the pro-Europeans from the start and held secret meetings on ways in which the BBC could propagandise on their behalf and marginalise the contrary opinion, including the exclusion of broadcasters and producers who were of the opposing view. It helped that the then Director-General was a close personal friend of Conservative Prime Minister and fervent pro-European Conservative leader Edward Heath. So much for BBC impartiality!

 

Throughout the rest of the '70s and the whole of the '80s I held onto my pro-European views, despite the fact that one of my housemates when I was a senior newspaper journalist was profoundly against, as were some other friends and associates. I guess my attitude throughout this roughly 20 year period was pretty close to the mainstream view now: that there were many silly aspects but overall it was a good thing and it was better to be in it than not.

So what changed my attitude? Well, Britain's ignominious exit from the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992 was the trigger. This policy of pegging the exchange rate of the pound within a band of the mighty German Deutschmark had been forced on a reluctant and politically weakened Margaret Thatcher by her then Chancellor and Foreign Secretary and was supported by pretty well the entire British political establishment -- the TUC, the CBI, the Labour opposition, many Conservatives and certainly all the Liberal Democrats. And guess what? They were all wrong.

Britain's already fragile economy was tipped over the edge by its membership of the ERM, which was a major factor in thousands of people losing their homes, businesses going bust and the economy generally on the slide, as well as costing us at least £4 billion of our reserves. Britain began its longest period of economic growth virtually the moment we left the ERM. This was not a coincidence. So if all the pro-European lobby were for the ERM and were proved to be completely and hopelessly wrong, perhaps they were also wrong about other aspects of this idea of 'ever closer union'? Especially on us joining full European and Monetary Union ('the Euro') which would be 'ERM without the fire exits' and mean a common interest rate which would almost certainly be 'wrong' for us (as it's been wrong for Germany, Ireland, Greece, etc.).

Then, immediately on top of this debacle, we had the Maastricht Treaty. Every treaty in the past had been accompanied by sound and fury by opponents of the hen EEC and I had dismissed them as the usual ravings of reactionary nutters, etc. Now, however, I began to take notice. When I looked into what the Maastricht Treaty actually said (and few of our parliamentarians it seems even bothered to read it - in fact the then Chancellor of the Exchequer urged people not to read it!), I began to see what all the fuss was about.. This did indeed signify a significant transfer of the rights of our national parliament to the (newly re-named) European Union and the people were not to be allowed a say in it. The reason they were not to be allowed to say is, of course, because they would have rejected it.

Whatever the arguments for and against developments in the European Union this is the one overwhelming issue that I keep coming back to: the people whom we elect to a parliament do not have the right to give away the power that is entrusted to them, because that power in fact belongs to the citizens in a democracy and is only loaned to parliamentarians in the period in which the parliament sits and for which they are elected. If they wish to give away that power, then they must at least come back to the people for permission which, I believe, should require a two thirds positive majority of the electorate as a whole, because these are not small issues. If your national parliament is no longer supreme, then that means that your individual and collective liberty is also now compromised and in the hands of people whom we largely do not elect. Those whom we do elect only constitute currently 10% of the European parliament (which is in any case not the supreme body of the EU). If you cannot elect, remove, or petition those who govern your life and make laws, then you do not live in a democracy. You might argue that this is a historical, necessary movement away from national parliaments to "pooling sovereignty" with other nations. But if you believe that, you should put the case to the people and allow them to have their say. All the other arguments pale into insignificance against this one factor in my view.

And of course, once one's mind is turned against the project, you do begin to look at the practicalities of what the European Union actually does, or doesn't do. What it has done for example with its ludicrous and obscenely wasteful fish quotas, which assumes that certain types of fish or swim meeting together, so fishermen can be prevented from exceeding their quotas of the particular fish stock, is just one example. Of course, different types of fish swim together, so if the fishing boats have in fact exceeded their quota catch on that particular fish they have to throw it back in the ocean, dead, or face a fine and criminal prosecutions of various kinds. This has literally led to our fishermen having to burn their boats. Of course, it was Britain's fishing grounds that eventually persuaded the French and the others that Britain should become part of the EC, as 80% of this now "common resource", lies within British territorial limits.

Then you look at the Common Agricultural Policy and you see how this not only artificially inflates prices for the consumer but also results in the excess produce being dumped on poor countries. As these products often form part of their limited indigenous produce, the local farmers then have their prices undercut and so are further impoverished. I doubt that is an exaggeration to say that tens of thousands of people have starved to death and millions of others plunged into a necessary continued poverty as a direct result of the EU. It also gives millions of pounds to rich farmers/landowners NOT to produce anything on their land! (Lewis Carroll could not have contrived anything as ludicrous in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland).

You would not know all of this is of course from the propaganda that comes out of the EU -- and they take propaganda extremely seriously (not least in Ireland for the second referendum), spending millions on it every year, including the neo-Stalinist type of approach and content to schoolchildren, because like all great dictators and authoritarians they believe that if you 'catch them young you've got them for life'. When it is propaganda in favour of the EU of course it is always simply "information". When it is arguments the other way round it is shrill propaganda from those nasty reactionary types, etc.

Of course, this idea that opponents to the European Union are all right wing is complete rubbish but it suits the EU propaganda perfectly to promote that 'link'. In fact, most of the best material I've seen about the EU, particularly its role in the disastrous privatisation of the railways, the closure of Post offices, unnecessary and destructive competition in the Royal Mail, etc., has come from left-wing sources, including the Socialist Worker and the Morning Star. True left-wing radicals certainly oppose the EU and see it for what it is -- a cartel of rich nations who are determined to get richer at the expense of the workers, and other poorer nations, although of course they were always trumpet ideals and ideas of equality, diversity and inclusion. All authoritarian regimes do this; certainly the constitution of the old Soviet Union was a model of this doublethink. And it still amazes me that those who think of themselves as left-wing and radical support the EU. Thoughtful and intelligent left-wingers Tony Benn and his ilk see if for what it is. The propaganda machine has in fact worked supremely well, so that in fact what are really extremist positions -- outlined above- are seen as a moderate point of view, whereas those that oppose them are seen as extremists.

 

But surely there are benefits from being members of the European Union? What about the ability to live and work wherever we want within the 27 countries? What about all those projects and schemes which proudly display the EU logo? This really makes me really laugh. As we pay far more than we get out of the EU it is rather like depositing some money with a bank – say, for the sake of argument, a modest £100. Then you go to the bank one day and say you'd like to get some of the money out. "Well", says the friendly bank manager, "unfortunately we lost about £20 of your money due to fraud, corruption and waste. We might be able to let you have some of the other £80 back but you'll have to put forward your spending proposals to us for approval, and then when you do spend it you must put the logo of our bank to show people where the money has come from".

 

So, OK, it costs…but what about all the investment we get as being part of the European Union – would t go elsewhere if we withdrew? And in this globalised world and inter- dependency, isn't it better to be part of a power bloc that can rival both the old centres of power, chiefly the USA, and the new emerging ones, such as China and India? These are powerful arguments and deserve to be taken seriously but the fact is that at least in in Britain's case, with its almost unrivalled positive attributes of language, culture; being a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and still one of the leading industrialised countries with membership of the G8, its Commonwealth, it's close (I don't say 'special') relationship with the USA, membership of NATO, the World Trade Organisation (which in fact sets most of the rules on trade anyway), plus the fact that citizens of countries which are not part of the EU but are part of the European Free Trade Association also have free movement of goods and people within the rest of Europe and trade perfectly happily with the EU -- you do have to question whether Britain needs to be part of this, given all the negatives I've outlined above. And, incidentally, we were told during the major push to sign up to the Euro in the late '90s that if we did not do so we would lose trade and investment from international companies, who would choose to invest in the 'Eurozone.' I will happily hear of evidence for this but I do not know of a single confirmed case where we have lost investment, etc. through not being in the 'Euro.'

 

As the UK imports far more from the EU than it sells, I think it unlikely that even the EU Commissioners and judges would stop the UK trading with it if we were to pull out altogether or have 'associate status.' All the scare stories that Norwegian citizens were given, for example, if they (twice) refused to vote become part of the EU -- that they would be marginalised, would lose trade, etc have been proved to be wrong; it has all the advantages of EU membership and none of the disadvantages -- e.g. it holds on to its fishing grounds, controls its own laws and so on. In fact, the legal argument is the final clincher for me. The European Arrest Warrant, which is being trumpeted by many, including last week by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, as being responsible for preventing terrorism and paedophile networks, also has the capacity, and indeed has already resulted in, the arrest of British citizens who are then being forcibly removed from the country and spend many months in foreign jails in legal and justice systems are quite different from ours and without the rights and liberties which British citizens have taken for granted so long. The fact that the European Union takes such a robust approach to critics of itself -- for example when there are whistleblowers over its finances, they react by bullying, marginalising, demoting, and eventually removing such people – is deeply troubling, to say the least. As numerous accounts have shown, journalists who attempt to expose the lies and corruption within the EU are treated to neo-fascist treatment, have their files raided, are intimidated and have their professional reputations and private lives traduced with lies and smears.

 

I am now well over 3000 words, so all I can say to finish is that I have no hope or expectation is that the situation will change. I do think that the British people, like the Irish, are too frightened to push to come out and that we are on a one-way track. I predict that in a few years blog posts such as this will probably lead to prosecution for anti-European sentiment, racism or some-such and that having views like mine will be regarded as incompatible with any public service. Sounds crazy and paranoid? Well, so did most of the powers of Europe now has some years ago. Every time the EU acquires new powers, it has been preceded by some years of denial that such powers are proposed, then when they are proposed were told not to worry about them - it won't really affect us – then, when they are finally put into motion and are shown they do impact on us after all, we're told that it's all for our good. This is the policy and mindset of authoritarian regimes and I do find it truly frightening.