Yesterday we highlighted the suspension of Philip Lardner as Conservative candidate for North Ayrshire & Arran because of remarks he made about Ian Smith, Enoch Powell and Edward Heath. By way of background republished below is an article Mr Lardner wrote for Freedom Today about Zimbabwe.
"ALBERT CAMUS, the 20th century French writer, said that, ‘Politics and the fate of mankind are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness. Men who have greatness within them don’t go into politics.’
As a candidate in the forthcoming Scottish Parliamentary Elections on the 3rd of May I would, naturally, wish to exclude myself from such a damning verdict on politicians. After all, we all like to think we are above the foibles and failings of others around us. Having been described on the UK Independence Party’s unofficial web blog as an ‘Honourable Tory rebel . . . Who has been true to his values . . . By signing up to the BETTER OFF OUT campaign’, it would be quite easy to fall into a self-indulgent delusion that greatness may be lurking around the corner. The truth is, I am not aware that my joining BETTER OFF OUT actually qualifies me in terms of Party technicalities as a ‘rebel’, although I would certainly like to think my decision was honourable.
My decision to join BETTER OFF OUT was prompted by a realisation during recent campaigning that in almost all important areas of our self-governance the European Union is utterly dominant, making our deliberations over party manifestos virtually pointless. Our European Union ‘border’ now lies completely open to over 400 million EU citizens, with the immigration policies of successive governments already having perilously diluted our common values.
It is also becoming increasingly clear that our British identity and United Kingdom are under threat as never before. Not only do few politicians appear willing to make a stand to defend them, but many appear to be deliberately conspiring in their undoing, often breaking the oaths they took as MPs and Privy Councillors in order to put EU and foreign interests before those of their own Queen and country. The decline of our strategic manufacturing base, politically-correct brainwashing of our children and uncontrolled immigration - legal and illegal - are just a few of the threats we face. So where are the great men, or for that matter, great women of politics to step forth in our time of need?
With 646 Members of the Westminster Parliament, and a few hundred Members of the Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland and Welsh Assemblies, why is it that so many of our Parliamentarians seem to care so little for the interests of the people they seek to represent? If they’re not willing to speak out, why, we must ask, do they actually want to get elected in the first place?
Sir Lewis Namier, in The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III, was clear about the motives of eighteenth century politicians for wanting to enter the House of Commons: ‘Men went there “To make a figure”, and no more dreamt of a seat in the House in order to benefit humanity than a child dreams of a birthday cake that others may eat it . . . The seat in the House was not their ultimate goal but a means to ulterior aims.’
At that time, of course, the economic self-interest of the individual MP would almost certainly have involved enterprises which either directly or indirectly profited the emerging Empire and national interest. The opportunity to exploit markets at home and in the colonies usually created jobs and wealth on our farms and in our own towns and cities. Today, however, our politicians seem only too happy to hand over our jobs and money to foreign control with no apparent regard for the self-interest of their nation or the British people.
In the exercising of its devolved powers, the Labour/Liberal coalition (which constitutes the “Scottish Executive”) recently handed a contract for two fishery protection vessels to a Polish yard in preference to a yard on the Clyde - so much for Devolution helping Scots!
Politicians should be driven by a desire to make our country a better place to live in; to make our passage through life easier, not more difficult; to make a stronger and more secure United Kingdom for the future for our children. Ian Smith, the former Rhodesian Prime Minister, noted that there were too many politicians in the world ready to say, “These are our principles, but if you do not like them we can change them for you”. The fudge or compromise is often promoted as being pragmatic and unavoidable, but principles must be our bedrock: “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit” (Matthew, 12:33).
The turnout at the last Scottish Parliament Elections in 2003 was only 49.5%. John Curtice, the professor of politics at Strathclyde University, and Martin Boon, from the pollsters ICM, were commissioned by the Electoral Commission to conduct a wide-ranging survey into the electorate’s apathy. They found that most of those who did not vote (57 per cent) took that course of action deliberately because they did not trust politicians to keep their promises.
Politicians constantly bleat on about low turnouts and some even talk of forcing the public to vote, but is it any wonder the majority stayed away? They know the politicians at Holyrood and Westminster have little real control over their lives, and little appetite for wresting any back from Brussels - as was typified by the Tory leadership’s recent change of emphasis on the Common Fisheries Policy. Most British politicians are as detached from the interests of their electorate as the biblical ‘hireling’ who ‘careth not for his sheep’. We desperately need ‘shepherds’ in Britain who will stand by their flock.
My great uncle, Private Harry Lardner, died aged 19 from wounds he received while fighting with the Highland Light Infantry at the Dardanelles in The Great War. His was one of countless sacrifices made in the name of King and Country. In 2007, the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union, we can look back at the efforts of a great British people united in one law, one land and one Monarch. Our ancestors fought and often died together to build this proud, free nation - but for the last forty years or more, most of our ruling politicians have simply handed away the very spoils of freedom, wealth and liberty for which they died. Lady Thatcher’s defence of the Falkland Islands stands, of course, as a rare exception.
The former British outpost of Rhodesia (now the broken and bankrupt state of Zimbabwe,) provides a classic example of political treachery by British politicians, and one which has been greatly neglected by those who lament our accession to the EU. In proportion to Rhodesia’s population, more men and women volunteered and lost their lives fighting for Britain during the dark days of war than from any other Commonwealth country. Its former Prime Minister, Ian Smith, in his book, The Great Betrayal, flatly accuses the late British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, of “selling Rhodesia down the river”.
In 1972, Alec Douglas Home, the Tory Foreign Minister had brokered a compromise deal which would have set the country on the path to gradual majority rule. However, Heath was engrossed with taking us into the then ‘Common Market’. Due to opposition from the Labour Party and a prescient Tory faction, he needed to get the Liberal Party on board to give him the necessary Commons majority to force through the European Communities Act. The Liberals were, however, against the Rhodesian agreement because it was opposed by the Marxist-dominated Organisation for African Unity - although it was acceptable to just about everyone else. Heath duly reneged on the deal and sacrificed his blood kin as a bargaining chip to win Liberal votes in the Commons!
It was quite an achievement by Ted Heath to sell Rhodesia down the
river to economic and social catastrophe on the one hand, and Britain
and her Queen down the river to dominance by a foreign entity on the
other. Perhaps the ultimate example of ‘Perfidious Albion’ - both
undefeated on the battlefield, but undone by their own Prime Minister’s
treacherous hand - that is the greatest argument in British politics.
The powerful vested interests which wish to see us remain within the
European Union and proceed to their inevitable, sovereign, Charlemagnic
super-state will not stand idly by and watch any elected politician
make headway towards UK withdrawal. The term ‘rebel’ will be used to
pressurise the main parties to take action against those opposed to the
emerging United States of Europe. As Benjamin J. Montalbano observed,
“Hell hath no fury like a crooked politician denied his cut”.
However, as is said (and attributed to Edmund Burke) the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. It is time for our politicians - and indeed our political parties - to stand up and be counted, and put their own self-interest behind that of their people. The so-called Rhodesian ‘rebels’ ended their 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain with a ‘humble submission to Almighty God’ and an ‘unswerving loyalty and devotion to Her Majesty the Queen’. If that makes you a ‘rebel’, then maybe I might just qualify after all.
Churchill said, “It is nothing to me whether I am in Parliament or not, if I cannot defend the causes in which I believe.”
If the electorate felt more politicians subscribed to this standard, then perhaps concern about low turnout at elections would become a thing of the past, and we would have the political leadership of ‘ideals and greatness’ our country deserves."
