In American terms, I identify with those who were attracted by the economic populism (including the economic patriotism) and the foreign policy realism (including the economic patriotism) of Barack Obama while also upholding traditional marriage in California and Florida, non-discrimination against working class white men in Colorado, restrictions on gambling in Missouri and Ohio, and the values embodied by (though not restricted to) the black and Catholic churches from coast to coast. Economically populist, morally and socially conservative foreign policy realists. Pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker and anti-war.

I believe in the conservation or restoration of such good things as national self-government (the only basis for international co-operation, and including the United Kingdom as greater than the sum of its parts), local variation, historical consciousness, family life (founded on the marital union of one man and one woman), the whole Biblical and Classical patrimony of the West, agriculture, manufacturing, small business, close-knit communities, law and order, civil liberties, academic standards, all forms of art, mass political participation within a constitutional framework, and respect for the absolute sanctity of each individual human life from the point of fertilization to the point of natural death, all of which “free” market capitalism corrodes to naught, both directly and by driving despairing millions into the arms of equally corrosive Jacobinism, Marxism, anarchism or Fascism.

Just as one cannot logically oppose the decadent social libertinism deriving from the 1960s without also opposing the decadent economic libertinism deriving from the 1980s (or vice versa), and just as one cannot logically oppose the European Union’s erosion of our self-government and culture without also opposing that by global capital and by American hegemony (or vice versa), so likewise one cannot logically oppose the unrestricted movement of people without also opposing that of goods, services and capital (or vice versa). I do oppose all these things, and questions most searchingly the received opinion of Left and Right alike where the 1980s, in particular, are concerned.

If, in the words of Margaret Thatcher, “there is no such thing as society”, then there can be no such thing as the society that is the family, or the society that is the nation; therefore, there must be such a thing as society. There cannot be a “free” market generally, but not in alcohol, gambling, drugs, prostitution or pornography; therefore, there must not be a “free” market generally. The case against organized labor and its proper political role (notably the affiliation of trade unions to one or more political parties, with all that that entails) is the case against the aristocratic social conscience and its proper political role (notably, at least in Britain, the hereditary peerage), and vice versa; both with organized labor and its proper political role, and with the aristocratic social conscience and its proper political role, Britain has been more blessed than any other country on earth.

A country’s sovereignty, liberty, democracy and identity are all eroded at least as much by that country’s heavy reliance on imported goods, rather than on a domestic manufacturing base, as by any other factor. The same is true if a country is heavily dependent on imports in order to feed her people, instead of maintaining a thriving agricultural sector, itself characteristically a bastion of strong family ties, and therefore also of strong community spirit; and the same is true if much of a country’s agriculture, industry or commerce is owned or controlled by persons who are either not her citizens or not resident within her borders for tax purposes. My country’s sovereignty, liberty, democracy and identity have been, and are still being, so eroded.

Liberty, equality and fraternity are inseparable from nationhood, family and property, since liberty (the freedom to be virtuous, and to do anything not specifically proscribed) is inseparable from equality (the means to liberty, and never to be confused with mechanical uniformity), thus from fraternity (the means to equality), thus from nationhood (a space in which to be unselfish), thus from family (the nation in miniature, where unselfishness is first learnt), and thus from property (each family’s safeguard both against over-mighty commercial interests and against an over-mighty State, and therefore requiring to be as widely diffused as possible), which is the guarantor of liberty as here defined.

Therefore, I fight for the universal and comprehensive Welfare State. I fight for the strong statutory and other (including trade union) protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment. I fight for fair taxation. I fight for full employment. I fight for the partnership between a strong Parliament and strong local government. I fight for co-operatives, credit unions, mutual guarantee societies, mutual building societies and similar bodies. And I fight for every household to enjoy a base of real property from which to resist both over-mighty commercial interests and an over-mighty State.

And I do so from firmly within the traditions of Old Labour monarchism, Old Labour constitutional caution, Old Labour and Old Liberal Euroscepticism, Old Labour and Old Liberal Unionism in relation to Great Britain, Old Labour Unionism in relation to Northern Ireland (including the present importance of the British State in protecting the Catholic interest there both against any Orange State at home and against the subscription to the “two nations” theory on the part of the Dublin Establishment), Radical and Old Labour ruralism, Old Labour defence of the grammar schools, Old Labour moral and social conservatism, Old Labour economic patriotism, Old Labour foreign policy realism, identification with opposition both to Stalinism and to apartheid, and identification with the better strands of Toryism.

We need to get as many of our people as possible elected to Parliament, almost certainly as Independents, next year. Dissent from up to four of the twelve points in the last paragraph could be tolerated, provided that there was full subscription to the paragraph before that. After all, we want and need to be a broadly based movement, in order to coalesce into a new party once in Parliament, just as the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party (one parent of the Liberal Democrats), the Labour Party and, albeit at a very accelerated pace, the SDP (the Liberal Democrats’ other parent) all emerged.

And, if I may say so, you need to get elected to Congress as many as possible of those who were attracted by the economic populism (including the economic patriotism) and the foreign policy realism (including the economic patriotism) of Barack Obama while also upholding traditional marriage, non-discrimination against working class white men, restrictions on gambling, and the values embodied by (though not restricted to) the black and Catholic churches from coast to coast. Economically populist, morally and socially conservative foreign policy realists. Pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker and anti-war. Be they Republicans, Democrats or Independents.