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By Alek Yerbury

Party Leader, NRP

 

As the leader of the Party, I spend a great deal of time communicating with people outside of the Party and its movement, and acting as an ambassador for it. In this task, I routinely talk to people from other political organisations, factions, parties, groups. Some of whom I broadly agree with, others I do not. But in any case these interactions have value in that they demonstrate legitimacy for the party, and they are opportunities to learn.

 

A topic which has been good to get some illumination on is that of local councils, local government, and the tasks that local councillors perform. I have engaged at length with two elected councillors, from different parts of the political spectrum, about this topic. One in an inner city area, one in a rural area. It isn’t really relevant what party these councillors are from (they are from different sides of the spectrum so to speak), but they are both highly respected councillors in their local area, who will undoubtedly have no trouble getting re-elected for as long as they decide to stand.

 

So the question then is: ‘Why are they in that position?’

 

Both of these councillors are extremely hard working people. I’ve seen it with my own eyes the amount of hours they put in to dealing with whatever issues people in their area have. One of them, I was speaking to outside a pub, and a local resident, recognising him, came over and asked for help dealing with a housing problem, which was then dealt with. The other, must spend at least 50 hours a week (when she should otherwise be retired) conducting council business, which to my knowledge is entirely unpaid. It’s not difficult to see why, in these circumstances, these individuals are highly thought of by the people around them. They both have party affiliations, but neither are particularly radical or partisan in their work, which is exactly what you would expect from a local councillor.

 

I do not believe that fixing our nation’s problems is possible at such a localised level, instead all that can be done at that level is treat symptoms. But this does not detract from the key point of my interactions with these councillors, which needs to be taken away and recognised by people in our own sphere of politics:

 

That if we  - the harbingers of the National Agenda - genuinely want to be elected instead of these people, and be the ones making the decision, then WE must prove ourselves to be genuinely better, which means working at least as hard if not even harder.

 

As much as many people in our sphere of politics may have all the right political ideas, it doesn’t count for anything unless people actually want to listen to them. It isn’t enough to just be ‘right’ all the time. It is more important for a person to actually demonstrate the evidence that their ideals are capable of adding value to society, and they do this through hard work, honesty, selflessness, and the willingness to make sacrifices.

 

If, tomorrow, someone from the NRP was to run against these councillors, unless they were able to demonstrate, at MINIMUM, the same work ethic, altruism and commitment, there is no way on Earth that they would win. The quality of the points made on a political leaflet, or a poster, or a manifesto, would count. But they would never count for enough on their own. A person who is presented with a choice between a candidate who expresses all the right dogmatic ideas, or a candidate who does not, but who is much harder working, much more selfless, much more invested in their community, will pick the latter candidate the overwhelming majority of the time. And on the few occasions where they don’t, and pick the dogmatic choice, they will quickly revert back if they think they’ve elected someone who fails in every other metric.

 

This is why I always have and always will tell our people, that before they even get bogged down in ideology, they must first make sure that they are value adding members of society, to the best of their ability. And this is ideological in a way, because to be a Nationalist means to add value to your national community. It is not possible for someone to be a nationalist unless they are hard working, truthful, and put their nation, race and community before themselves. That is the bottom line of it.

 

If we intend to destroy the status quo and create a new one, we must prove ourselves to be worthy of the task. There are no shortcuts and there is no way to cheat. Hard work is the only way.

 

Lasting power and respect must be earned. It cannot just be stolen.