My Bridlington Speech

Below is a slightly edited down version of the speech I delivered at the recent Bridlington meeting that I reported on here.

.....

It's a pleasure to be here tonight. It's always a pleasure to come over to the Yorkshire coast and Bridlington in particular and it's a privilege to be able to address the first meeting of the English Democrats in this area.

I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Michael Cassidy and the work he has done in this region - I'm going to embarrass him slightly now as he's just walked in. Most of you won't know him simply because this is the first meeting for a lot of you I know but even in my limited time in this party I've seen the hard work that Michael does, the way he's always travelling round the region spending who knows how much on petrol and time and all the rest of it and I've seen that just in the few months that I've been a member of this party but he's been doing it for many years before any of us came along so I think we should all just take this opportunity to show our appreciation of the work he's done and continues to do for our party.

(APPLAUSE)

Exciting Times

These are very exciting times to be in the English Democrats. Nobody would deny that we are still a small party. Nobody would deny that, but we are clearly going in the right direction. We won our first council seats earlier this year. We won 2 in Boston in Lincolnshire. We not have 5 councillors, in addition to that we have a county councillor, we have an elected executive in Doncaster of course, we have a number of parish councillors.

We continue to gain new members from other parties who have fallen out with their old parties and lost all faith in them and come to the English Democrats. We are a growing party.

We got a fantastic result in Barnsley the other night in a by-election there in which I helped out and Michael did and various other people. We were only 28 votes from coming second in that election and this is in a ward that we have never contested before where we were up against some real entrenched opposition that had year and years head start ahead of us and we almost came second just by putting in the effort that we did so we may be small but we are certainly going in the right direction.

Potential for our party

There is huge potential for us out there, there really is. When you look across Europe at the results that we have seen in various countries in General Elections in country after country we have seen parties that look and sound like ours doing well in general elections and really causing shockwaves in those countries and beyond. I think it's high time that we had that type of thing here in England.

We've been proven right, and continue to be proven right, on many of the issues that we stand for.

It was mentioned earlier by Michael, I believe, about the crisis in the Eurozone. This crisis could lead to a break-up of the Eurozone and the problems being experienced in Greece and in the Eurozone as a whole are extremely debilitating for all the old parties, all the main parties, because all of those parties are in favour of Europe. The Tories like to pretend that they are euro-sceptic but they're not. Nearly all the major treaties that have been signed over the years including the one that actually took us into the European Community was done under Tory governments. The Tories are just as much to blame for the mess that they have got us in and for the integration that we have seen within the European Union, as all the other parties.

The crisis in the Eurozone is extremely debilitating for them, it undermines them and it proves that what we've been saying has been right all along. I remember when I was in the sixth form I learnt in A-level economics that you cannot have one currency across lots of different economies that require different exchange and interest rates and so on, you just can't do it, this is a very fundamental thing.

We as a party object to the idea of entering the Euro and in actual fact we make it quite clear in our manifesto, and we have done for a number of years, that we would actually withdraw from the European Union. People are sick and tired of having to prop up our countries membership of the European Union. They are sick of having to prop up profligate inefficient Eurozone economies. We've been proven right on this issue and this is one of the things which points towards future success for our party.
As has also been touched upon, we have seen the state of our economy at the moment. Yesterday it was announced that there is record inflation at present. A huge amount of inflation and low economic growth so what that means for the people here and the other working men and women in this party is that your wages are not going up very much if at all, prices are going up, energy prices are going up, everybody, just about all normal read people let's say are much worse off and people are really starting to feel the pinch, and unemployment is rising.

All these things point towards disillusionment with the main parties and this opens doors for us and provides opportunities for us.

Fair enough, these are things which aren't necessarily going to benefit just us, they could benefit other small parties as well, but leaving aside such negative things, there are also a number of positive things out there which also point to potential for our party.

One example is the increase in a recognition of Englishness among our people a good indication of that is the degree to which people celebrate Saint George's Day. We all seem to take it for granted now that we have Saint George's Day events but cast your minds back a few years and there were very few of these things. I remember going out in the nineties with a friend of mine on Saint George's Day and it was almost regarded as a bit of a cranky thing to do - celebrate Saint George's Day- and I remember going out and someone asked what we were out to celebrate. When we said Saint George's Day they looked at us as if we were idiots or something. It would have been quite acceptable for them to go out and celebrate Saint Patrick's Day as if that's the big one and we were the idiots for celebrating Saint George's Day. Happily that's not the case anymore, over the years more and more people have started celebrating it. It has been officially recognised, there are celebrations everywhere including in my home town of Morley where they are getting bigger and bigger every year. This is one of the things with which our party is more closely associated that any other party. One of our key issues, one of our cornerstone issues in this regard, is that we want to make Saint George's Day a bank holiday - what a common sense policy that is, and why aren't any of the other parties pursuing it? We know why, it is because they don't want to pursue a patriotic agenda. They don't want people to start getting ideas about that type of thing, but that is one of our key issues. The English Democrats have a Facebook cause with over 700,000 people on it -that is a huge number of people to be signed up to this online campaign to make Saint George's Day a bank holiday so things like that really do point to potential for our party.

In addition to that, over the years since devolution and the creation of the Scottish parliament and the Welsh Assembly and to a lesser extent the Northern Irish Assembly, we have seen more and more people become aware of the disparity between circumstances in England and circumstances in Scotland and the other home nations with regard to things like tuition fees and proscription charges, as Gary mentioned earlier, and earlier this year, for instance, England became the last of the home nations in which people still had to pay prescription charges and in these tough economic times people notice things like that, they really do; this made headlines, people were talking about it, people are aware of this issue. And what party is doing anything about it? What party is campaigning on it? The answer is we are the main party that is doing anything about it we are the party that people associate with bringing an end to this situation.

There is huge potential for us out there at the moment and this is why it is a great time to be in the English Democrats.

The Evil of Political Correctness

But without wanting to be negative, at the moment that's just potential, that's all it is. Potential is not enough. We have to realise that we are really up against it. Political Correctness has infected this country for decades, and this has been quite deliberate. It has been quite deliberately forced upon us by our opponents in the far left and there is now no part of public life and increasingly less and less of our private lives where political correctness holds no sway. Political Correctness really is at the root of the problems that we have in this country. People, when asking how did things get so bad, why are things like this, may look to things like mass immigration or the rise of Islamism as manifested in our soldiers being abused in the street and poppies being burned and that type of thing . People may think that those are the causes but they are not the causes, they are simply the symptoms of political correctness and the decades and decades of political correctness that has been forced down our people's throats.

I am very glad that the English Democrats take a tough stand on political correctness and identify it for what it is and there is a section in our manifesto regarding this very subject, which I will read from very briefly.

It states:

The English Democrats unreservedly condemn this intolerant creed. We reject the self-righteousness of political correctness and condemn the ideology as an evil.

As an evil. And it is evil. 'Evil' is a very strong word and not one that should be over-used, particularly in the political sphere, but it is an evil, and the effect that it has had on people has been extremely negative and evil.

We have all seen the effects of political correctness and how it manifests itself but what is it exactly? How would we define it? It's not an easy thing to define. Again, the manifesto is very useful on this point and is a good starting point, it states that:

an institution or a government is politically correct when they cease to represent the interests of the majority, and become focused on the deliberate subversion of English national culture and interests, the denigration of English history and of the English themselves, and the promotion of the objectives of minority pressure groups.

Well that's a fairly good place to start I think and it is important to recognise just how damaging political correctness has been.

Political Correctness has various buzzwords of course and these buzzwords, when utilised, can render grown men, mute, they can turn supposedly so-called men into a quivering wreck. I am thinking of terms like 'racist' for instance. As soon as words like that are used, that's where people's reactions kick in and people don't want to be called racist.

There are towns in this country where grown men would quite literally rather see their daughters and granddaughters groomed and put on drugs and used as prostitutes and raped, they would quite literally rather see that and do nothing about it than speak out about it and identify the perpetrators and risk being called a racist. This is no exaggeration, this is not a rhetorical point I am making, I mean this quite literally, and this is sickening and it is heart-wrenching and this is an extreme example of political correctness, and you all know it's right.

Unfortunately it is just the tip of the ice-berg. I'm not saying this to try and depress anyone, but it is very important that we understand what we are up against, and that we are at a disadvantage. Our kind of people - right thinking, rational, decent patriotic people, have not been running this country for the past 50 years, far from it, the exact opposite has been running this country and this is what we are up against.

So I've spoken about the potential that there is for us out there and I've spoken about the evils of political correctness and its pervasive grasp that it has on our society. These may seem to be mutually exclusive ideas; how can there be that much potential for is if that's what we are up against.

The English Democrats Approach to Politics

This brings me to the point I would like to make about the approach we need to take in politics; the English Democrat approach. We don't have the luxury of being a philosophical debating society, we don't have the time to spend debating about the finer minutia of policy in order to great the ideologically perfect party, which we are all happy with and our little group is happy with, but the population at large is not interested in in the slightest. That's not what we are about, we are a political party and we need to gain power. What we must do is ensure that everything that we do and every time we put a message across to the public it is geared towards making the maximum number of our people feel receptive towards it and it must be aimed at winning the maximum amount of support. We need to bear in mind the degree to which political correctness influences our people.

This does not mean that we need to become politically correct ourselves, absolutely not, and it is not true to say that speaking in a moderate way and presenting your ideas in the most appropriate way in an example of political correctness. If you are terrified of ever being called a racist then the only way to make sure that you are never called a racist is to stop opposing mass immigration, and welcome it, and when others are saying that we should only let 5 million in a year you need to be arguing that it should be 10 or 20. There is no way that our enemies will stop calling us racists for opposing immigration. That's just what they do, it is too much of an easy trick for them to pull.

We shouldn't be scared of these attacks but equally we should do everything we can to make sure that for all rational and decent people out there it is quite clear that we are not racist in the way we think and the way we do things. When I use the terms 'racist' I use it in the way a rational person does, and that is that we don't think less of anyone because of their race and we don't want to treat anyone less favourably because of their race, that is what I mean by racism, but the way it's used by liberals of course is just to try and silence any debate on immigration and if you believe even in just controlling immigration, if you believe what Cameron says (although we don't expect it to happen) and you believe that immigration should go down to tens of thousands a year rather than hundreds then that's racist. And this, of course, is nonsense. And this is something that we should never be terrified of and we should tackle it head on when we are called it but in order to maximise the support that we get we need to think very carefully about the way that we present ourselves.

Just to use one example, we have mentioned the issue of proscription charges and the fact that in Scotland and the other countries we have mentioned they have been abolished. But in England they are. This argument could be phrased in a number of different ways. It could be phrased in a rather idiotic anti-Scottish jingoistic way: why should the Scots get this, we don't get it etc. now clearly framing arguments in that way allows opportunities for our opponents to use those against us, they can say we are being anti-Scottish and being derogatory towards other people and this is to be avoided in my opinion and the last thing I want to see is us being attacked and losing support because it sounds like we are being jingoistic and anti-Scottish. That argument wants to be framed simply by saying that we simply want to make sure that people in this country are not discriminated against, we simply want to make sure that they are not getting a worse deal that the people in the other home nations. People in Scotland, much to their credit, have voted themselves into a situation where they do not pay tuition fees, they don't pay proscription charges, good for them. We need English people to show that common sense as well.

The rise of the Scottish National Party in Scotland, quite irrespective of what we might think of them as a party, some people think they are great and that we should try and emulate their policies and everything they do, some would disagree on that, that is kind of irrelevant because most people in England won't know the intricacies of the Scottish National Party's policies but what they will see is that they are a successful party that is growing, they now control the Scottish Parliament, which is a huge victory for that party considering the stranglehold that Labour had up there until very recently. People in England look to that party and are asking the question well that is good for them, where's the English equivalent, how can we vote for the English version of them? And as should be clear, we are that party and we need to be aiming to get those people voting for the English Democrats.

I don't want anyone to think that I've gone PC myself and I hope that I've made it quite clear that I haven't but it's all about how we present ourselves. When I looked at the English Democrats as a party to join it was like a breath of fresh air for me, when I read the manifesto and saw the policies I thought yes this is the way forward because this is an ideologically sound party which is worth all good people joining and really dedicating our time to. And victories that we can bring to this party would be really beneficial to us. But this party has a good image and presents itself in a respectable way: people don't instantly turn their noses up, quite the opposite in fact, when you look at the way that our campaigns on issues such as Saint George's Day have been received amongst the population, including from many quite non-political people, they have been received really well.

I don't want to be politically correct, absolutely not.

Entho v Civic

One argument which is raging at the moment, or rather one sort of false debate which has been started if you like is, a number of people have tried to say that within nationalism you need to define yourself as what kind of nationalist you are, are you an ethno-nationalist as some people call themselves, or are you a civic nationalist, as other people call themselves. I have heard this on a number of occasions, people identifying with either side and I thought I would address it tonight.

I have seen certain people call themselves ethno-nationalists. Clearly what they are trying to do by saying that is that they believe that ethnicity is a key part of nationalism- they want to make it clear that a person's ethnicity as part of their nationality is relevant and it's important to them and I can understand that.

On the other hand, I have only ever heard the term civic nationalist being used to denigrate people and I haven't heard many people referring to themselves as that but of late I have heard one or two people mention it as a different stance to the ethno-nationalist stance and what people who describe themselves as civic nationalists are basically trying to say is that, going back to what I was just speaking about then, that they don't have ethnicity at the core of their beliefs and they don't want to be called racists and be portrayed as being racist and again I can understand that.

From my own part of view I don't rush to attach labels to myself, I think it's better to not to do that, it's best to be avoided if at all possible. I am happy to call myself a nationalist, I always have done. But I would not insist that people call themselves that. I have no problem with people who don't. If people broadly agree with our policies and are patriotic then that will do for me. And this argument, that you need to define yourself as an ethno-nationalist or a civic nationalist, or some people call themselves a cultural nationalist, I find it very divisive and not particularly useful because hoe many of us can say exactly which category we fit into.

I support the English Democrats open membership policy that says anyone can join us if they agree with our manifesto. I wouldn't like to see anyone mistreated because of their race or ethnic background. Does this make me a civic nationalist?

On the other hand, I believe that all peoples have the right to self-identify however they want in terms of culture, language, background, ethnicity and I wouldn't try and tell other nations that they cannot do so, whether we are talking about Apache Indians or Zulus.

Before I came here this evening I got an idea in my head, because I don't just turn up at these meetings and talk about the first thing that comes into my mind, I do actually think about what I'm going to talk about sometimes, it might surprise you to know. I printed off the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as this is something I have read up on in the past and I thought it would be relevant to this ethno-nationalist v civic nationalist debate. It is quite an interesting document which has clearly not been designed with the English in mind but there are few people who would disagree with the sentiments expressed in it . The third point down in this document (it's quite a long), I thought the third point was particularly good and it states that:

that all peoples contribute to the diversity and richness
of civilizations and cultures, which constitute the common heritage
of humankind...

the common heritage of humankind. Now I can support this entirely and I believe in this - I don't want to see smaller nations wiped off the map and undermined by occupying forces, by colonist etc. and I wouldn't expect anyone here to.

Up to this point probably PC liberal types would agree, they would be nodding along at this point thinking yes we support the rights of the eskimos and kurds and basques and all these peoples who have been oppressed over the years, they should have the right to their own culture and identity and the difference between me and those types is that I wouldn't stop there, I would extend this to the English as well. I believe that people who want to identify themselves as ethnically English should be allowed to do so and that it should be monitored on ethnic monitoring forms. The laws that are in place to look after all the other ethnic groups should also be used to look after the people who identify themselves as ethnically English as well. People who want to tick this box on the form should not be disadvantaged because they class themselves as ethnically English anymore than they should be disadvantaged if they tick the Bangladeshi box etc. so that is a little bit about what I believe about ethnicity and the role that it should play in our society.

Does that make me an ethno-nationalist? It's not a term that I would use or recognise. I don't find it particularly useful and I find it divisive and I am quite happy to identify myself as English and I am quite happy to identify myself as European for that matter. I am anti-EU but very pro European, I would class myself as European culturally, and I would class myself as a nationalist as well. What we need to do is get away from this divisive argument with regard to where we stand on these issues because it is very important that our party is a broad church of opinion. We can have people who care about such things and people who don't, it really doesn't matter. We can handle these things because we are a democratic party. If people disagree then we can talk about it. That's what distinguishes us from a religious or political cult. The fact that we are democratic means we can be a broad church of ideas, and that's what we need to be. So let's just leave those types of arguments for other people and not get bogged down in that sort of nonsense because we really do have a much bigger task ahead.

It's been a pleasure speaking to you tonight, I'm going to end now, I'm happy to take questions at the end. It is a very exciting time to be an English Democrat and it's good to see lots of familiar faces here tonight and a few unfamiliar ones. If you're not a member you can join tonight, we have membership forms here, we can take payments by cash, credit card, cheques. If you are a member can I ask you to redouble your efforts, let's make a success of this. This party has got huge potential but things are not going to fall into our laps. We are going to have to work hard. I've been in this party a few months and I've seen that we have got fantastic potential, fantastic foundations, and I look forward to working with you all to help make this party great.

Tory Hot Air on Human Rights?

Here is my latest article from the English Democrats website:

Leeds English Democrats Chairman Chris Beverley discusses the Conservative Party's attitudes to Human Rights and their proposed reform of the European Court of Human Rights.

Tory Justice Secretary Ken Clarke (pictured) has exposed further inconsistencies ithin his party over the issue of human rights laws and the European Court of Human Rights in particular.

It was only very recently that Mr Clarke attempted to rubbish the sentiments expressed by his party colleague Theresa May, who called for an end to the abuse of the Human Rights act at the Tory party conference and drew attention to the now infamous case of a Bolivian immigrant who appears to have been spared deportation so as to avoid infringing upon his human rights by separating him from his pet cat (see our article on this here).

It would now appear that Mr Clarke has changed his tune.

Mr Clarke has declared that; 'The biggest priority for the British Government as a whole is to try and get some reform of the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg. There's a lot of support among other member states for reform and quite a lot of support in the court itself and in the Council of Europe.'

He wants the Court to; 'stop entertaining things which are trivial' and 'concentrate on the things that are properly the work of an international court'. This statement was given in advance of Britain's taking over next month of the rotating chairmanship of the Council of Europe, which is the organisation which controls the European Court of Human Rights.

The Council of Europe predates the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights is not an EU institution, as was explained here. The distinction is an important one as the desire to escape some of the crazy decisions of the European Court of Human Rights is often cited as a reason to leave the EU, despite this being a non-sequitur. It seems the Daily Mail doesn't know the difference either, as on their article on this subject which can be viewed here, it is stated:

"His latest remarks, however, echo those of Attorney General Dominic Grieve, who on Monday accused EU (sic) judges of being too keen to overturn UK court decisions. Mr Grieve insisted social policy issues such as prisoner voting were for Parliament to decide, and the ECHR was wrong to overturn its will."

Leaving aside the issue of the Tories' inconsistency and downright hypocrisy, the substantive issue is an important one for all of us. Could Britain's chairmanship of the Council of Europe really be used to trigger reform of the European Court of Human Rights?

If the Strasbourg court could be reformed in a way which rediscovers its original purpose, which was to enshrine in international law the fundamental and immutable human rights that were abused so egregiously during and in the aftermath of the Second World War and to act as a deterrent to regimes that seek to pursue genocide and ethnic cleansing etc., as opposed to the Court being used to pursue all manner of politically correct outrages and interfere with the sovereignty of individual member states, then this is surely to be welcomed.

It would hardly be prudent to take the Tories on their word, however, particularly over anything to do with 'Europe', so we will not be holding our breath!

Read more articles by Chris Beverley here: www.chrisbeverley.com

Bridlington Meeting Report

The following report appeared on the English Democrats website yesterday:

An excellent meeting of the English Democrats was held in Bridlington on the Yorkshire coast last night. The following report was written by Chris Beverley, the party's Leeds Chairman, who spoke at the meeting.

The meeting was chaired by Gary Pudsey, who opened the meeting and told the audience of the ongoing work of local English Democrat activists in the town. This consists primarily of regular leafleting, with the aim of raising the profile of our party in the town in the run up to the next round of local elections in 2015.

The first speaker was Michael Cassidy, former area chairman for Yorkshire English Democrats, and current Hull committee member. Michael gave a fascinating speech that encompassed a wide variety of issues relating to our party. He explained how the party had grown from a handful of members in Yorkshire in the early 2000s to a vibrant area with 8 active branches today.

On policy, he offered a fascinating and thought-provoking insight into his views of the English Parliament issue, one of the English Democrats cornerstone policies, but one, he argued, that fails to enthuse a sufficiently large section of the electorate in the same way as issues such as immigration or the EU do. This is not a failing of the policy itself, which is undoubtedly important and a necessary prerequisite of the achievement of fairness and democratic accountability for the people of England. Rather, the policy needs presenting in a more emotive way and we as a party need to demonstrate that the creation of an English Parliament is imperative if the English people are to be given a voice.

Michael spoke about the importance of the nation state and impugned liberal claims that nation states are an increasing irrelevance in the modern world. On the contrary, he argued; nation states are a cornerstone of our civilisation.

Michael's speech was very well received by those present, many of whom were attending their first English Democrats meeting and were pleased to learn more about our party's history and ideology.

Following Michael's speech a collection was held in which £282.00 was raised. This paid for the buffet and a new order of leaflets that had been bought for distribution in Bridlington, as well as the excellent new banner which can be seen in the photographs accompanying this article, and a good sum was left to bank and put towards future campaigning.

Following a short break I delivered my speech.

I began by paying tribute to the hard work done by Michael Cassidy in the Yorkshire area over the past few years, and said what a pleasure it was for me to be speaking at the first meeting of the English Democrats in Bridlington.

I spoke of the potential for our party but reminded those present as to the debilitating effect that political correctness had had on our people and society. I spoke on the English Democrats approach to politics, and why I believe this is the correct and only way to pursue a patriotic political agenda, and I spoke on attempts by some to divide our patriotic cause into various factions, which I argued was unnecessary and contrary to the interests of our movement.

I will be posting the text of my speech online here www.chrisbeverley.com shortly.

All in all this was a fantastic meeting which has helped to put our party on the map in this town.

Barnsley By-Election Result

The results from yesterday's by-election in the St. Helens ward of Barnsley council were as follows:

Dave Leech, Labour Party: 1,257 (75.1%)

Danny Cooke, BNP: 174, (10.5%)

Kevin Riddiough, English Democrats: 146, (8.8%)

Clive Watkinson, Conservatives: 61 (3.7%)

Edward Alan Gouthwaite, Independent: 21 (1.3%)

Turnout: 20.53%

This was an excellent vote for our first time ever standing in this ward.

Our campaign consisted of around three and a half sweeps of leaflets - one of which was localised for the campaign - the rest were standardised English Democrats leaflets.

Our opponents in the BNP put in what was, by the standards of those who are still in this organisation, a substantial campaign, which appeared to consist of four seperate leaflet drops which included 2 localised pieces of propaganda, some Voice of Freedoms, and a sweep of Nick Griffin's EU-petition leaflets.

These EU leaflets were produced through 'Budget Item 400', which is the name of the communications budget allocated to each MEP. Items paid for through this budget are not allowed to be distributed in elections, so their distribution of these leaflets in this by-election may be regarded as a further example of fraudulent use of EU funding.

The BNP's 10.5% is a far cry from the 30% achieved in this ward in 2008 or even the 23% achieved as recently as the by-election in 2009.

In Barnsley, just like everywhere else, the BNP vote is going in one direction and one direction only. The BNP's truth truck (being driven by the odious Ian Kitchen, of Granny Porn infamy) was in town yesterday and the party had a national election day mobilisation.

The fact that all this still could not achieve better than 10.5% says a great deal about the party's decline.

Obviously it would have been very nice to have got an extra 30 votes and finished second but our result was a good one regardless which sets us in good stead for future growth in this area.

I will conclude by congratulating our excellent candidate, Kevin Riddiough, who worked really hard during this campaign. As I said in my recent conference speech, it was a pleasure to help out in this campaign, and I am delighted that our efforts resulted in a highly respectable vote.

Tony Linsell and Darcus Howe

This was sent to me recently. It was aired a while ago but is still well worth watching.

I have had the pleasure of meeting Tony Linsell on a number of occasions and he is certainly one of the leading intellectuals of the English nationalist movement.

I wrote several years ago that his book, An English Nationalism, was the single most important book that a nationalist, English or not, could read, and I still believe this to be the case today.

You can buy An English Nationalism by clicking on the 'buy now' button down the right hand side of this page. Also for sale are two classic back issues of Steadfast magazine, which is edited by and contains articles by Tony.

All profit from the sales of these items will go to support the work of Leeds English Democrats.

My Conference Speech

Here is the speech I gave at the recent English Democrats' conference, which has been published today on our party website.
.............

I would like to begin by saying what a pleasure it is for me to be here today and what a privilege it is to not only be here but to have this opportunity to deliver this short speech to you.

I have only been a member of this party for about six months now but I can tell you that in that time I've had a sense of enthusiasm for politics that I haven't had for a long time.

It was a pleasure to stand as an English Democrat candidate in the elections in May. At the outset of the campaign in May we didn't have any money at all but we managed to scrape some together - we paid for leaflets ourselves, went to donors and local supporters, and got some money together and put in the best campaign that we possibly could across Leeds and we got some good votes.

In my own ward of Morley South I managed to get 20% of the votethere which I feel was a respectable vote for our first ever attempt at winning this ward for the English Democrats.

(applause)

Whilst I may be new to this party that's not to say that I'm new to politics. I've been involved in nationalist politics my entire adult life. I first got involved when I was fifteen years old and I've been involved at an active level ever since.

I've stood for election on many occasions over the years from parish council level right up to European Election level and my personal highlight I guess was probably getting elected back in 2006 when I was elected in Morley South to Leeds City Council and I held the seat until 2010 when unfortunately I lost it despite actually getting more votes when I tried to defend the seat that I did when I was elected in 2006, but this is what can happen in politics unfortunately.

So over the years my ideas and my ideology has evolved and changed and I am very grateful to Robin and the English Democrats for giving me an opportunity to join this party and make a difference for this party and I hope I have shown that it is possible for me to do that.

We all make mistakes in our lives and we all have ideas that we hold that we change over time but I believe and have come to the realisation that the English Democrats' approach to politics is the only hope that our people have - it's their best hope. A sensible, moderate rational approach to patriotic politics is not only the approach which is the most strategically viable, it is also the only morally acceptable one as well.

The English Democrats, by opposing the extremism that is espoused by other parties, give our people our best hope. I endorse this approach completely and I oppose all forms of extremism.

I believe that we have a fantastic opportunity to do great things with this party and I intend to do everything in my power to make sure that we do.

(applause)

No political party exists in a vacuum and I'm sure that it won't have escaped your attention that there is another political party -a rival party of ours out there - which is currently undergoing a process of self-destruction, as has been mentioned previously. And I'm talking of course about the British National Party, of which I used to be a member.

This has led to a number of people voicing concerns in this party that we're set for a deluge of ex-BNP members who want to join the party and take over it and change it and make it into something that looks and sounds like the BNP. I've spent a lot of time and many years in that organisation - I've seen that party at its best and at its worst. I know how that organisation works - this is something you can trust me on, I know what I'm talking about here. I can tell you that I honestly don' t think that there is going to be a deluge of ex-BNP members wanting to join this party.

Many of the BNP's activists will fall out of politics altogether as a result of the current problems in that party. In fact there is plenty of evidence to show that that is already happening. Others will go off and join splinter groups that have split off from the British National Party and continue to do so, and the lowest calibre of all will stick with Nick Griffin in the BNP or whatever micro-organisation that replaces the BNP. Only a fraction of those people leaving the BNP will be interested in the English Democrats - only a fraction.

The good news for us is that it is only the best people in that party that will have any interest in us. The most intelligent, rational, enlightened decent people - that's the good news for us.

(Cheer in audience)

Yes obviously an ex-BNPer over there.

(laughter)

Obviously I can tell you that we do not want to take over this party and make this party a BNP mark 2. I spent alot of years in that organisation and the last thing I want to do is to end up with a party that looks and sounds like the BNP, albeit one that is draped in the cross of Saint George rather than the union flag. Absolutely not. And we've got to bear in mind that you don't need to take my word for it, some people have joined this party who used to be in the BNP and have either come directly from that organisation or they were in that organisation some years ago and eventually ended up with us. These people have made a real contribution to our party - some of them are now proud English Democrat councillors , others stood in the elections in May and delivered some of the best votes that our party has ever got in the local elections. Others are here today. So this isn't just a theoretical thing, the people who have joined this party who used to be in the British National Party have made a good contribution.

Now, we're talking about the BNP here. Nick Griffin despises the English Democrats. He is doing everything in his power at present to attack this party and he is doing it in two ways. One way is the frontal assault if you like and he is obsessed with trying to smear our chairman Robin Tilbrook and other senior members but he and his henchmen are also involved in far more devious ways to try and destabilise our party. One such way is trying to find people in this party who will listen to what their poison-mongers say on the internet forums and suchlike, and try to get them to turn against the idea of people joining from the BNP or turn against those of us who are proud members of this party who at some point in the past were members of the BNP. And I think that Robin slightly alluded to this earlier in his discussion of The Art of War. Now I'm not suggesting for one second that Nick Griffin sits there with his henchmen reading ancient translated documents like Sun Tzu perhaps one week, next week sitting there discussing Plato.

(laughter)

I'm not suggesting for a second that this type of thing happens but it is a danger, and we are seeing the effects of that to a very small extent. Now I'm sure the people in this room are far too intelligent and astute to fall for that type of thing but it must be taken into consideration that the BNP and Nick Griffin do hate this party and any rumours that are spread by his henchmen about those of us who are currently involved should be take with a pinch of salt at best.

So my speech today has been purely about the BNP really, I wouldn't have chosen to speak about this subject but I did for two reasons. One was that I was asked to by Robin, but the other reason was that there is a debate going on in the party about how people should be treated who want to join this party from the BNP and I feel that I do have a perspective that is worth sharing with you.

Personally I would rather have spoken about something else. I've moved on in my life and when I look at the BNP now I find it hard to believe that I was ever even a member to be quite honest but clearly the next few months are going to be interesting from this point of view.

So I hope that I have allayed some concerns and demonstrated that people who join this organisation, providing it's done correctly and through the correct channels in the correct way, that this can actually be of benefit to our party.

With the exception of Eddy Butler who is a good friend of mine, and the leading expert in the field of elections, and also a leading moderate I have to say, he has always been far more moderate than most of his peers in nationalism and would be far more at home in this party than in the BNP, so with the exception of Eddy Butler I can say quite honestly that I don't expect any national figures, nationally recognised figures from the BNP to want to join this party. I don't think there is going to be any sort of deluge of high profile people I think the vast majority of those who want to join the party will simply be local activists who came to the same conclusions that I did some time ago and thought I really am in the wrong party here and wasting my time and the English Democrats are a far far better more suitable party which represents my beliefs better. These are the type of people who are going to be wanting to join and these are the type of people who I am sure will make a contribution to this party.

These people who get involved will go about their business in their local areas distributing leaflets and campaigning for the English Democrats and they will do it with a fresh spring in their step and great enthusiasm and I know that they will do this because this is exactly how I feel. I feel like that when I am out campaigning in Barnsley as I was in support of our candidate earlier this week and will be tomorrow and I am sure I will be there on many other occasions between now and election day because it's just feels so good to be in a party like this with such potential which is clearly going somewhere and it feels good to be able to make a contribution to that.

To me the English Democrats represent everything that is good about England. Free Speech and robust debate - which we've seen to some degree today already - civility, candour, these are the things which make England great and these are the things that make this party great.

Now as much as I respect Robin as someone who is of obvious high calibre and dedication, it nevertheless pleases me when I hear about him getting a roasting at national council meetings over some issue of other because this shows that this is a truly democratic party - truly democratic - and that is what we need. The English people don't tolerate dictators and tyrants - our history has shown that time and time again. And it's a relief and a pleasure to be in a party that is truly democratic and not one that is held hostage to the whims of its leader. I'm not suggesting that you have any particular whims that you want to hold us hostage with Robin.

(laughter)

I'll conclude by saying that I really appreciate the welcome that people have given me in the English Democrats and I hope that will be extended to all the sensible good people who want to join this party and who do so through the proper channels and I would ask you to give them the chance that you gave me and I'm sure that they can make a real difference.

This party has such huge potential, such huge potential. Just take the issues of making Saint George's Day a bank holiday and the creation of an English Parliament, two of our cornerstone issues. These are things which there is huge support for our there in the population at large and this is just increasing with every passing year. And these are issues which we own - these are our issues. Other parties will come along and jump on the bandwagon and copy these issues but the English people are not stupid.

The English people realise that we're the people that put these items on the agenda and we are the party that needs to capitalise on them. I'm going to work tirelessly for this party. I want to build us up so that we have got a presence in every town and every village in this country because that's what we need to do.

When I look around at this conference today, and I see how the party does things, it is clear to me that we have got very very solid and sturdy foundations in this organisation. What we now need is to expand our organisation so that we can have a presence everywhere because once we have a presence everywhere in England we will be a force to be reckoned with. We will be unstoppable. And finally the English people, we, will have the government that we deserve.

First thoughts on Panorama

So what do we make of tonight's Panorama?

The programme did not tell me much that I did not already know.

Included in the show was:

- an account of BNP’s recent fundraising explained by Jim Dowson.

- Former BNP web editor Simon Bennett explaining a dodgy appeal that was launched following a DDoS attack.

- Revelations regarding some undeclared donations.

- Former BNP National Treasurer John Walker exposing the fabrication of some information on accounts submitted by the BNP.

- Some great insights from Mark Collett

- A few details about the OLAF (EU anti-fraud watchdog) investigation into Nick Griffin.

- A description of how electricity had been siphoned from Nick Griffin's Euro office to the BNP office next door.

- Some story about Jackie Griffin getting credit checked by Panorama being refuted.

- Some details about the Romac press and Newton press invoice-faking scandals.

- Details of how Marion Thomas was kidnapped and held hostage by Griffin's thugs.

- Footage from the West Midlands freak show event.

None of the above was news to me, but I wasn't familiar with the last story of the show which consisted of some emails from the late Dave Hannam that appeared to detail Nick Griffin's personal involvement in a scam to fake invoices regarding a trip to Europe.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of this.

Interestingly, the show did at one point mention that Andrew Brons MEP refuses to misuse Euro money. This shows that claims that the show would be used as an attack on nationalism as a whole, rather than just being an exposé of the Griffin regime, appear to have been unfounded.

With that in mind I would like to congratulate all the nationalists (I will word it like that as Diane Wallis does not deserve my congratulations!) who cooperated with the makers of tonight's programme, and particularly those who appeared on camera.

What did people think of the show?

Should EU taxpayers be subsidising Squalidarity?

In my last post I made reference to some of Nick Griffin's 'refutations' of certain facts that are apparently due to appear in tonight's Panorama.

Much of it seems to involve fraudulent use of European Union funding.

One in particular caught my eye. The sections below in italics are taken from the BNP's website in an article entitled Panorama – Answering the smears and my comments follow.

ALLEGATION: £4,446 of European Union funds were fraudulently used to pay for offices and associated costs in Edinburgh. In May 2011 you instructed that this money be reimbursed to Europe but only because you knew that your fellow MEP Andrew Brons would not go along with this misuse of European funds.

ANSWER: To provide an office for the use of two of my EU Assistants from which to carry out their research and other duties is perfectly legitimate. Where other non-EU work is carried out in the shared office, a proportion is paid for that. Mr Brons, who at the time employed the staff based there part of the time, refused to pay towards office costs. He has a track record of failing to provide resources for staff to carry out their necessary duties, and sadly my budget has had to carry many of the costs towards which he should have paid. Mr Brons and the Party were sent an E-mail as long ago as July 2010 stating that I was expecting a third share from each of them towards office costs. The Party (due to financial constraints) was slow in paying their share but did settle this bill. Mr Brons refused. He failed to explain his grounds in any specific or reasoned fashion.

I will decipher the above obfuscation for you as follows: we now know that Panorama are onto Nick Griffin for using his General Expenditure Allowance (i.e. EU money) to pay for the office of the fake trade union Squalidarity in Edinburgh.

'How is this possible?', you may ask.

MEPs are provided with around €50,424 per year to pay for their constituency office(s) and once this money is paid to MEPs it is not scrutinised, unlike, say, their staffing budget, over which the parliament has oversight.

There are of course rules ask to what General Expenditure Allowance funding must be spent on, and it absolutely must not be spent on party-related items or other non-MEP related costs.

It is highly amusing that Nick Griffin is now desperately trying to claim that the Squalidarity office is actually related to his work as an MEP.

I await tonight's programme with great interest.

Panorama Tonight

The episode of Panorama which has whipped Nick Griffin and his henchmen into a frenzy of paranoia and frenetic refutation is finally due to be aired tonight at 8.30pm on BBC1.

The programme has been many months in the making and is perhaps unique among documentaries made on the BNP in that so many current and former BNP officials were eager to take part in the show. I know many people who were contacted by Panorama and with only one or two exceptions every one of the co-operated with the show, with some of them appearing on camera and some simply telling them what they knew.

This would have been unthinkable even a year ago but such is the contempt and disgust that is felt for Nick Griffin and his henchmen within the nationalist movement nowadays that the BBC are regarded as a much lesser evil.

Achieving such a ignoble feat will perhaps be regarded by future historians as being the ultimate legacy of Nick Griffin.

This from the BBC Website:

BNP facing accusations of fraud

BNP facing accusations of fraud Mr Griffin accused the BBC and Panorama of bias in the reporting of the BNP

The British National Party is under investigation by the European Union and the Metropolitan Police for alleged fraud and breaches of electoral law.

The dual investigations come as a former BNP administrator told the BBC's Panorama programme that she was instructed to falsify invoices.

Those invoices were then submitted by the BNP to the Electoral Commission.

The BNP has strongly denied any suggestion of wrongdoing.

The allegations come as the party struggles with debts run up during the 2010 general election campaign.

'Invoices faked'

Internal party documents seen by Panorama reveal that 12 months ago the BNP owed creditors more than £570,000. Party chairman Nick Griffin recently said the party now owes just £52,000.

Former party worker Marion Thomas said after the 2010 general election she was instructed by the party's treasurer, Clive Jefferson, to alter invoices and in at least one case stamp an outstanding invoice as "paid".

The invoices were submitted to the Electoral Commission and had been altered, Mrs Thomas said, in order for it to appear that the BNP had complied with the law on election spending.

Asked how she felt about doing this, Mrs Thomas said: "I made my objections known."

She added: "You can't do that, you cannot do that. That is fraud."

Mr Jefferson told the programme that Mrs Thomas' allegations are "untrue".

Mrs Thomas, who now works for Britain First, a rival political organisation, has since been interviewed about her claims by detectives from the Metropolitan Police who are investigating alleged breaches of electoral law by the BNP.

That investigation began after Richard Barnbrook, who used to be the BNP member of the London Assembly and Mr Griffin's 2010 election agent, went to the High Court to say that he had submitted printing invoices totalling nearly £10,000 as paid when they too were outstanding.

Mr Griffin also signed those returns. Both he and Mr Barnbrook, who has since been expelled from the party and now sits as an independent in London, have said they acted in good faith, believing the bills had indeed been paid.

The High Court judge has referred the case the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Metropolitan Police were notified.

'Cash cow'

Another former party worker, Alistair Barbour, was recruited to Mr Griffin's European staff after he and one other BNP candidate were elected members of the European Parliament in 2009.

Nick Griffin's appearance on BBC Question Time prompted protests
Mr Barbour was hired to work on European Parliament business and was to be paid out of the £260,000 pot of EU money that each MEP has available to them to pay for staff and expenses.

He told the programme that some money intended for MEP business was diverted to help bolster the party itself.

"Europe was the big cash cow you know, 'let's get our noses in the trough and see what we can get out and... see what we can fund the party with,'" he said of the approach to the MEP funds.

He added: "This is what it was all about, party work and just trying to figure out what expenses we could get out of the European Union."

Other party insiders have told the programme that at one point electricity from Nick Griffin's European constituency headquarters on an industrial estate in rural Cumbria was siphoned to the unit next door which served as the BNP's national headquarters.

When the European Parliament's fraud unit, OLAF, travelled to Cumbria five months later to investigate the allegations they found no evidence of an election scam but Panorama understands that they continue to investigate other allegations of misuse of European money by the BNP.

The BNP has denied using money from the European Union to fund national party work.

Panorama: BNP - The Fraud Exposed, BBC One, Monday, 10 October at 2030BST and then available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer.

Who Uses Flickr?

Do any of you use Flickr?

I thought I would give the site a go and have uploaded a small number of photos from a few of my political and work-related activities here.

I particularly like the fact that each photograph can be 'geotagged' on an accompanying map.

If you have any thoughts regarding the value of Flickr or any specific tips regarding the site I would be glad to hear them!

The Perversion of Human Rights Laws

Here is my latest article on the English Democrats website.

Pictured: European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg

Leeds English Democrats Chairman Chris Beverley writes about the issue of Human Rights legislation and how more often than not this legislation is twisted and used in order to defend the 'rights' of criminals.

Whenever we see large scale criminal behaviour that is carried out by members of a particular ethnic group, the politically correct establishment immediately goes into overdrive in support of the human rights of those committing the offence. Apparently, certain ethnic groups have a fundamental human right to break the law with impunity, whilst others do not.

There is little wonder that the subject of human rights is such a divisive one in our society, provoking such derision and ridicule. Think only how often you have heard the phrase; "but what about our human rights?" being voiced in response to the latest outrage in the press.

There are many misconceptions about the source of human rights law and it is worth very briefly clarifying matters here before we go any further.

Many assume that the UK's adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has something to do with our membership of the European Union, but in fact the ECHR and its court in Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights, were created by the Council of Europe, whose creation pre-dates that of the European Union and also has its headquarters in Strasbourg (situated close to the European Parliament -no wonder there is confusion!)

Those drafting the ECHR took into account the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

The issue of human rights law is therefore one which is not primarily connected with the issue of the UK's membership of the European Union, however let me qualify that, and perhaps muddy the waters somewhat, by mentioning the European Union's very own, and much more recently-drafted, Charter of Fundamental Rights, which overlaps with the ECHR in many areas.

With such technicalities dealt with, let me return to the substantive issue of human rights and the laws which uphold them.

It seems barely a week goes by without us hearing of perverse rulings from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Literally as I was writing this article I was sent a link to an article in the Express which detailed:

"SEVEN rapists, two murderers, 13 other sex offenders and 66 violent thugs escaped deportation last year after they successfully used the European Convention on Human Rights to support their cases."

"Scrap the human rights laws" or "abolish the European Court of Human Rights" is often the visceral and entirely comprehensible response to such cases.

How can it be that rulings so perverted and alien to our people's sense of natural justice can emanate from the highest court at which our people may seek justice?*

The tragic thing is that there is little, if anything, in the European Convention of Human Rights that most decent, rational people would disagree with. The document was produced just five years after the conclusion of the second world war. The horrors of mass genocide were still palpable. Stalin still tyrannised the Soviet Union.

The attempt to introduce a binding convention that forbade, for instance, torture, mass murder, and enslavement was a most explicable and, indeed, noble undertaking. Such international rules, if implemented correctly, should contribute to fairer and more just societies wherever they are enforced.

It is the perversion of human rights legislation in the name of political correctness which has led to the unjust situation that we must endure today, in which the human rights of criminals and special interest groups appear to be elevated above the rights of law abiding citizens. Once again liberals, with their warped and irrational view of the world, have succeeded in taking a fundamentally positive set of ideas and twisting them beyond all recognition.

For wherever someone legitimately claims a right, this implies an obligation on the part of someone else. One cannot exist without the other.

Let us take the example of the right not to be murdered. (I use the term 'murdered' rather than 'killed', as the original ECHR does not prohibit lawful killings e.g. with regard to a state's right to implement capital punishment). No sane person could argue with this fundamental human right.

Citizen A has the right not to be murdered, as does everyone else is in society. This means that Citizen A also has the obligation not to murder others. It would be entirely unreasonable for him to demand a right not to be murdered whilst at the same time taking upon himself to murder others. And yet we hear time and again of examples in which the human rights of murderers appear to be elevated above their obligations not to murder, or indeed the rights of their victims not to be murdered.

The problem with liberals is that they believe in rights without responsibilities. They are the babies of the political arena.

When a baby wakes up in the night hungry, he will cry and demand his bottle. He wants it now and has no interest in the effort that others must go to in order to provide it. He acknowledges no responsibility on his part to do anything other than demand that it is provided; the provision of his bottle is entirely the responsibility of others.

Our baby's behaviour is perfectly understandable of course, as babies could not possibly be expected to understand the concept of rights and responsibilities. As babies become toddlers and toddlers grow into bigger children, they are taught by their parents that the world is, in fact (quite contrary to their previously held belief), not organised purely around their needs and wishes. They are taught to respect others and to treat others how they would wish to be treated. They are taught that they cannot just take - they must also give.

Liberals are grown up babies that have never really grown up. They demand rights for themselves and their pet interest groups but do not acknowledge any corresponding obligations and responsibilities. They are hypocrites who have no qualms about denying others the exact same rights which a moment before they were championing.

Such hypocrisy is a cornerstone of political correctness and these attitudes have been so pervasive in our society over the past few decades that there are few areas that have not been infected with them.

Our party rejects political correctness in all its many guises. A whole section of our manifesto (section 3.19) is dedicated to this issue.

Our manifesto recognises the abuse of human rights laws in the name of political correctness and declares that we stand for:

The repeal of the Human Rights Act and the withdrawal of the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights. Both of these flawed items of legislation have perversely assisted criminals while offering little of substance to the law-abiding population. (Section 3.15.11.4)

An English Democrat government will restore common sense and fairness to our society. We English have a proud legal and constitutional history which equips us well to ensure justice for all our citizens.

When our children read about terrorists failing to be deported due to concern for their human rights, they will be reading about such cases in history books, not in the latest issue of a gutter tabloid.

*The Human Rights Act 1998* actually subsumed the European Convention of Human Rights into English law, meaning that English courts can hear human rights cases thus obviating the need for them to be heard in Strasbourg.

Leeds English Democrats Update: We Need your Help!

Last Monday a group of Leeds English Democrat members and supporters met for an informal gathering in Morley.

We discussed the latest organisational developments in the party and also our plans for the coming year. We have an exciting campaign planned in Leeds which will be launched very soon.

I was happy to have a founder English Democrat member from Leeds present who contributed many good ideas himself and was able to explain to people about the party's development over the past 10 years.

One thing that is perfectly clear is that if we are to be able to take advantage of the opportunities that have arisen for our party in Leeds we need to raise funds to pay for our campaigns now.

We have recently set up a bank account for our Leeds branch - none existed before - so this makes things alot easier. We can therefore accept payment by cash, credit card (via paypal - by clicking on the 'donate' button at the top right of this page) and by cheques made payable to 'English Democrats'.

If you can make a donation, no matter how small, this would be very much appreciated.

Join Us

By joining the party through our branch you will also be able to support us financially, as your first year's subs will be retained by our branch rather than party HQ. This is a generous scheme which incentivises the signing up of new members by branches.

If you are not already a member but would like to join please print off this form and fill it in as normal but instead of sending it to the Norwich PO Box please send it, along with a cheque made out to the English Democrats, to:

Leeds English Democrats
PO Box 116,
Leeds,
LS27 9WW.

Thank you for your support!