Toby on Tuesday

 

'Liberal Fascism'

 

 

 

It was H.G. Wells (1866-1946), known as “the father of science fiction”, who first coined the term “Liberal Fascism”.   The author of “The Time Machine” (1895), “The Invisible Man” (1897) and “The War of the Worlds” (1898) had by the start of the 20th century been swept up on the tide of scientific and political fantasy that is still all-too recognisable today.   In 1900 he claimed that a World State was inevitable, a planned society that existed to advance science and end all national borders.   And the same spirit that inspired so much 20th century European political thought, both communist and fascist, brought him to argue in a 1932 speech to Oxford University Young Liberals that “progressive leaders must become Liberal Fascists or enlightened Nazis who would compete in their enthusiasm and self-sacrifice”... He wanted to “assist in a kind of phoenix rebirth of liberalism as an enlightened Nazism”.   Although European Nazism was finally defeated in 1945, the proponents of Liberal Fascism survive along with their ideas in both Europe and America.   Indeed it was to America that the New York author Jonah Goldberg addressed his 2008 polemic “Liberal Fascism:  The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.”   And in the past two generations, Liberal Fascism has prevailed, seeking to colonise thought and language and exclude those who disagreed with its ideology from the public arena.   It likewise colonised much of the media, in particular the BBC, and all political parties, including the Labour Party of Tony Blair, Nick Clegg’s LibDems and the Conservative Party of David Cameron and George Osborne, the “heirs to Blair”.

 

Now with Brexit there is a chance to expose clearly the failures of this prevailing culture of Liberal Fascism, which has so enriched its proponents and so impoverished those who do not form part of its narrative.   The key to it is internationalism, the end of nation state democracy and the end of national borders.   Multilateral and international institutions are, with global corporations, essential to its success, but it has no answer to how to deal with these institutions when they fail.   Evidence and experience are swept aside in order to uphold the ideology.   And the point is that these institutions only work when all involved live by the same set of rules.   Yet this rarely occurs and, in a rule-based society like Britain, we so often find ourselves at the receiving end of others using the institution wholly for their own ends.   Two examples from the EU, both involving Germany, the principal beneficiary of that organisation, are especially telling.   Britain had joined the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1990 to demonstrate its pro-European credentials but, when in 1992 the Bank of England asked for the support of Germany’s Bundesbank to prevent a run on Sterling, the request was declined.  It was plain that no such thing as European solidarity existed.   Equally, when Chancellor Merkel invited over a million migrants into the EU, a major demographic decision for the whole Continent, she both failed to consult her EU “partners” and openly broke the terms of the EU’s Dublin Convention.   The whole experience of multinational organisations, adored as they are by the BBC, Channel 4 and much of the press, is that their proponents are impervious to the simple evidence and those who question them are treated as, in the words of Hillary Clinton, “a basket of deplorables” or, to quote David Cameron, “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists.”

 

And of course a prime example of where all this translates into the prosperity and well-being of our citizens is in the United Nations target of members spending 0.7% of Gross National Income on Overseas Aid.   In order to show his “progressive” credentials, David Cameron enshrined this in law.   Britain is now the only country to have shouldered this burden at a time when our public services are under relentless pressure.   Under Margaret Thatcher, Aid spending ran at around 0.27% of GNI.   Now it is costing the UK taxpayer some £12 billion a year and rising rapidly, a burden akin to that of our EU membership.   The evidence is that so much Aid spending has always been, and continues to be, misappropriated.   Yet to question the policy, to argue that 0.27% of GNI spent well is infinitely preferable to 0.7% spent badly, is to be consigned among Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” and David Cameron’s “closet racists”.   This attempt to control the thought and language of politics is the vital core element in Liberal Fascism and those who doubt its wisdom are excluded.    Experience and evidence are ignored to uphold the ideology.   So while the fight for a clean Brexit continues, the challenge for the coming generation will be to drain the poison of Liberal Fascism from our body politic.   And for the real world of the future where policy needs to stem from clear evidence and the benefit of experience, the role of UKIP will be to become the party that drives forward this new and exciting agenda!

 

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

'Tipping Points And Tooth Fairies'

So America has a new President and the free world a new leader.   I am an optimist about Donald Trump, believing that his canny Scots (MacLeod) forbears on his mother’s side will “trump” any German impetuousness from his father’s side.   But however you view him, nobody can deny that for a man who will be 71 in June he’s in terrific condition.   And compared to our very own, wholly unique Jeremy Corbyn, 68 in May, you can see where the years have taken their toll,   Now for the first time in countless years we have a US President who openly values and likes Britain.   His first act on taking office was to restore Winston Churchill’s bust to the Oval Office.   And talking recently to Michael Gove he declared, “I think Brexit is going to end up being a great thing...I’m a big fan of the UK, we’re gonna work very hard to get it (a free trade deal) done quickly and done properly.   Good for both sides...People, countries, want their own identity and the UK wanted its own identity...You look at the European Union and it’s Germany.   Basically a vehicle for Germany.   That’s why I thought the UK was so smart in getting out.”   Now America is Britain’s biggest single trading partner, accounting for 20% of our commerce with the rest of the world.   It buys some £46 billion of British goods a year while 3 million Americans travel here every year, spending over £8 billion during their visits.   So this endorsement from the new President is a miraculous sea-change from the dismal predictions of his “back of the queue” predecessor.

 

So today I want to introduce you to Professor Theodore (Ted) Roosevelt Malloch, the 64-year old Research Professor at Yale University School of Management and Chairman of the Roosevelt Group.   Indeed he is a descendant of the original President Theodore Roosevelt and is now about to be appointed as President Trump’s new Ambassador to the European Union.   And having Ted Malloch on Britain’s side during our Brexit negotiations will strengthen our negotiators’ hand during the complex discussions that lie ahead.   A devout Presbyterian, he has a degree from Aberdeen University and among his many publications are “Thrift:  Rebirth of a Forgotten Virtue” (2009), “Doing Virtuous Business” (2011), “The End of Ethics” (2013) and “Davos, Aspen & Yale: My Life Behind the Elite Curtain as a Global Sherpa” (2016).   And the other day he said, “Europe...is adrift without a soul and evolving rapidly away from its moorings...America is now alone in defending freedom and upholding the tradition of faith and reason,”   He went on, “The US isn’t part of Europe and doesn’t really have a say in that matter.   But it does have a great interest, and its preference is moving towards an alliance for nation states in Europe rather than a transatlantic, multinational alliance.”   With elections looming in Holland, France, Germany and possibly Italy, what Ted Malloch is saying is that America no longer wishes to support the EU’s old mantra of “ever-closer union”, but instead a Europe of independent nation states.

 

And Ted Malloch also believes that Brexit was the “tipping point” for the creation of a new Europe, which needs to take a “step back” from full union.   This is immensely important, not just because he has been advising President Trump on the EU but also because it sets the tone for a reconstructed Continent where the will of the electorate prevails over the grandiose, crazy schemes of its so-called leaders.   What we in UKIP have been saying for a generation now is finally coming to pass and the events of 2016 will be seen simply as precursors to yet more dramatic changes in 2017.   In Ted Malloch, President Trump will recruit a thoughtful analyst of the ills of the Continent, a man with a strong moral compass who will be a vital ally for Britain as we embark on our Brexit adventure.   And as one unnamed member of the Cabinet is reported as saying the other day, “Trump has come along like the tooth fairy – this is one massive, magnificent gift.   It’s transformative.”   With a true friend at last in the White House and a wise counsellor as his envoy in Brussels, supporting our own Brexit negotiations, Britain’s future is looking more secure by the day!

 

Until next Tuesday!

Toby

Toby on Tuesday

 

'Free From The Shackles' 

 

 

Before anything else, a very happy New Year to readers of this blog.   And what a wonderful start to 2017!   In defiance of Project Fear, the figures for manufacturing output have reached a 30-month high, the Stock Market is hitting new all-time records, the Environment Secretary has announced a bonfire of damaging farm regulations post-Brexit and Sir Ivan Rogers, our so-called Ambassador to the EU and living embodiment of Whitehall defeatism, has finally resigned.   The liberation of Britain from the calamitous EU’s straitjacket is underway.   And during the coming weeks – better late than never – Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty will at last be invoked and our country can start to awake from the nightmare of EU membership.  But forced to accept this, the hysterical Remoaners are now shifting their tactics to arguments over a “Soft” or a “Hard” Brexit, with arguments over the Customs Union, the Single Market, the Internal Market and the rest.   But the truth is that what Britain needs is a clean Brexit under which we can control our own borders, make our own laws, enter into our own trade deals, stop paying into the Brussels budget and reclaim our North Sea fisheries. 

 

And the background to this was spelt out vividly the other day in forecasts published by Oxford Economics.   In round figures, during the year 2000 Britain’s exports to the EU amounted £55 billion while exports to non-EU countries amounted to £45 billion.   By 2008 these figures had reached parity, with exports of around £50 billion to both EU and non-EU countries.   By 2015 the numbers had been reversed with some £45 billion of exports going to the EU and some £55 billion to the rest of the World.   And by 2020, Oxford Economics are forecasting £40 billion of exports to the EU and £60 billion to the rest of the World.   The reality is that the EU is in long-term decline as a market while growth in the rest of the World is soaring.   And our trade deficit with the EU is running at a massive £60 billion a year, while we run a £30 billion annual surplus trading with the rest of the World under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.   So there is nothing to fear and everything to gain from life outside the EU’s doomed construct.   And in a World of falling tariff barriers the simplest Brexit outcome would be to work with the EU under those very same WTO rules as we do with other countries.   On manufactured goods, the average tariff is just 2.4%, far less than the depreciation of Sterling since last June.   Indeed, we import so many German cars, so much French wine and so many Italian fashions that our Treasury would gain hugely from the imposition of WTO tariffs.

 

So a clean Brexit, operating under WTO rules, would avoid endless painful negotiations with Brussels while offering simplicity and clarity to the whole process.   And at the same time as triggering Article 50 during the coming weeks, our Government should introduce its Great Repeal Bill to Parliament with immediate effect.   This needs to be enacted at the very start and not the end of the Brexit process.   All EU-derived laws can then be incorporated into our own law and in the years ahead they can be adapted and unpicked by our own Parliament as and when necessary.   The World is changing rapidly, the failures of the past generation are all-too clear and a bright future beckons for a bold and independent Britain.   All that is needed is the will to make this happen and, under Paul Nuttall’s leadership, UKIP now has that will in abundance!

 

Until next Tuesday!

Toby