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I’ll begin this piece by recalling a story told to me recently by an acquaintance of mine:

 

In his area, a charitable person started a community-based scheme designed to help give work skills to unemployed or struggling people. Naturally, it needed charitable input from people in the area, either in time, money or equipment. On the whole, people you would typically associate with the left (even the hard left) were much more likely to provide that input. Even though their political ideals were warped, they were genuinely trying to help, and had no issue giving time, money or resources. On the other hand, people you would typically associate with the right, were for the most part disinterested.

 

What this meant, over time, is that the entire operation became synonymous with left-wing politics, because that was the political view of most of the people involved. The charitable enterprise was not biased in any way – it would assist anyone who asked – but virtually everyone with one or two exceptions was a leftist. This then led to right-leaning people in the area to avoid it even harder. The end result being that a project for the betterment of the local area, ended up reflecting positively on left in the local area, for no other reason than because those people gave their own time and money for the benefit of others. And so, when those people wanted help with other projects, including political projects, many people in the area, even if they didn’t agree with their political views, respected them, because they remembered that they had done something genuinely selfless.

 

This leads me on to the main point:

 

The messages being delivered by nationalist parties and organisations are, on the whole, messages that most people agree with. Most people have no faith in the current establishment. Most people, even immigrants themselves, have concerns about immigration. Most people are horrified at the ineffectiveness of public services. Most people also have no issue with people caring about their own ethnic community. Yet in spite of this, nationalist parties perform horrifically in elections. They find themselves in a position whereby despite huge numbers of people agreeing with them, nobody votes for them anyway. And this can’t be denied, all that a person has to do is look at the election results from earlier in the year. Even if every single nationalist party folded into one party, and every single voter for every single candidate lived in the same constituency, it STILL wouldn’t have returned a candidate. There is no such thing as ‘splitting the vote’ because there isn’t a vote to split.

 

The question is why, and these are the principal reasons:

 

1. Nationalist organisations are (rightly or wrongly) seen as a joke, not to be taken seriously, by most of the population.

2. Nationalists have become disconnected from the world and people around them, by preferring to only ever have the company of other nationalists.

3. The kind of people who have been filling the ranks of nationalist parties, are perceived (rightly or wrong) as being selfish, greedy and untrustworthy. The story that I recalled at the beginning is a microcosm of this.

4. Lack of consistency in the principles being espoused, which makes it impossible for people to accurately know what they are voting for.

 

In short, the problem is NOTHING to do with ideology.

 

So, what does this have to do with ‘Unity’?

 

The dream that keeps coming to the fore in the ranks of nationalist politics is one of ‘all nationalists uniting’ under one banner. This is typically viewed as the ‘first step’ towards any greater success. It never happens, or when it does, it falls to pieces in short order. What I have come to recognise, is that chasing after this goal is a mistake, because it is the wrong kind of unity.

 

Our priority must be unity with wider society, NOT other nationalists.

 

Most propaganda, discourse and engagement from nationalist factions is aimed towards impressing other nationalists. There is an absolute obsession with looking good and posturing to each other, to the point where most factions, parties or organisations will, unintentionally, do things that make them look appalling to the rest of society, in an attempt to impress each other. Things like:

• Shameless publicly stunts including intentionally getting arrested.

• Saying the most ‘edgy’ things possible in order to ‘ratio’ people on social media.

• Trying to get public offices by stealth or by outright deceiving voters.

• Claiming to be the ‘best, greatest and most superior’ nationalists in the country, despite having no actual ability to back the claims up.

 

This whole time, they become more and more ‘unified’ within themselves, and they become more and more isolated from absolutely everybody else.

 

Without even meaning to, Nationalist Parties have become to politics, what Jehovah’s Witnesses are to Christians. Insular, marginalised, and ridiculed.

 

The story at the beginning of the article is an example of how this has happened. Nationalism has, collectively, worked hard to avoid scrutiny, avoid ideas being challenged, hide from opposition, and do things only for gain rather than ideals, and this has shifted the wider movement further away from society (and the voter) rather than closer to it. There is no way that any nationalist party will be able to succeed in the creation of mass movement without addressing these problems.

 

It is perfectly possible to do that.

 

Nationalists must carry out selfless actions, not because they want to put them on social media, but genuinely for the betterment of the people around them, EVEN IF those people are not politically aligned with them. It is not about becoming liked, it is about becoming respected. They must also stop engaging in actions that have no clear goal, or where the goal is purely to ‘prove a point.’ That is the sort of behaviour that makes a person an infamous joke. Above all, nationalists must start treating every single person in society, rich or poor, left or right, even British or Foreign, as a potential ally BEFORE they treat them as a potential enemy.

 

Most of the war for the National Agenda, is fought in our own mind. It is the banishment of the twin evils of hypocrisy and delusion. The creation of a positive, constructive mentality. The will to be selfless and make sacrifices. The rest of the war is won with ease if that internal struggle is. And, at the same time, that is the path to creating a true, UNIFIED, National Community.

 

By Alek Yerbury

 

Party Leader, NRP