The Battle of Trafalgar

One of the many contradictions in the BNP’s ideas is their views on foreign policy.

On the one hand, the BNP are keen to take advantage of Britain’s proud history. Their annual fundraising dinner every year is entitled the “Trafalgar Club”, and Nothing British has of course frequently referenced their use of World War II imagery. One of their surrogate websites British Pride asks its readers to choose who was the greatest British commander out a list including Montgomery, Nelson or Alfred the Great. Articles sing the praises of Britain’s heroes, and claim that we should “never be embarrassed of the Empire or ashamed of it.”

But on the other hand, the BNP’s policy is to withdraw from the world, to institute a new age of isolationism. They would withdraw from all international institutions, leave the European Union, NATO and the WTO, end foreign aid and retreat to a new era where Britain focussed on its own interest.

Imagine if Britain had followed the BNP’s policy throughout our history. Wilberforce would have decided that, no actually, the slave trade is none of our business, while Pitt let Napoleon trounce through Europe. Germany could do whatever it liked with Belgium or Poland, while Churchill stuck to his painting. The Falklands and Gibraltar? Let them look after themselves.

There are many strategic challenges in the upcoming century. The rise of China and India. Terror, and Islamic extremism. The global debates over climate change and energy shortages. The moral urgency to help the poorest billion in our wold.

Does Britain have something to offer in confronting these problems?

Or are we too weak, too small, too unimportant as the BNP would have you believe. Compared to the big boys of America and China, what can we do?

It is difficult to see the BNP’s supposed heroes such as Churchill or Marlborough agreeing with such defeatism. It is difficult to see how the world of Britain or the world would have been a better place if we’d turned a blind eye to the Nazis or Napoleon.

If you’re proud of your country, you don’t try to hide away and hope the global problems will pass without your involvement. You think the world would be a better place if Britain had more say in it, not less.

There are countries such as Switzerland that have a long history of remaining neutral and keeping out of world affairs. Britain is not one of them – instead, we have sought to lead the world, and for the most part, the world is better because of it.

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To be truly patriotic is not just to be proud of your country’s past, but confident in its future.

Britain has one of the proudest histories in the world, which the BNPare all too happy to exploit. We are the country of Agincourt and Dunkirk, Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution, the Principia and Hamlet. Britain gave the world far more than our fair share of its language and poetry, its democracy and freedom, its sport and its science.

There are many challenges in the upcoming decades. Economic challenges, as we look for new jobs in the wake of the new age of Asia, abundance and automation. Social challenges, as society adapts to our new cultural liberalism and mores.  And international  challenges as new superpowers emerge, the world struggles with the debate over global warming and tries to lift up the poorest in the world.

The BNP believes that Britain can’t cope.

That we’re not creative enough to come up with new jobs and industries. That our people are morally bankrupt, and need the harsh hand of the law to set them straight again. That we need to cower behind our borders, and hope that the external threats in the world don’t notice us. Rather than take a lead in the world, the BNP argues that we should hide from it.

The BNP’s response is a manifesto which seems specifically designed to turn us back to the 1950s. The BNP believes that our only possible future is to return to jobs of the past (even if that means a return to the living standards of the past). That the people will only be brought back under control if we bring back the cane, guns and death penalty, and censor popular entertainment. If we just pretend that China and Russia will keep to themselves, and that we never heard of global warming.

That’s not “standing up for Great Britain”, as the BNP claims. That’s being ashamed of it.

If you believe in Britain, you believe in its people and potential, that the future will be better than the past.

Britain is a creative, tolerant, friendly, dynamic country. While times are tough, we’ve seen off bigger challenges in the past. It’s not like we haven’t faced hostile foreign superpowers, economic revolutions and natural disasters before. In the end we always come through, stronger than before.

The BNP should start having faith in the country it claims to represent.

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