What Daniel Hannan Should Have Said About The BNP

The brilliant Sean Gabb, academic, broadcaster, Director of the Libertarian Alliance in England, and a friend (who is not too good at keeping in touch), says what Daniel Hannan (scroll down) ought to have articulated about the British National Party (BNP), instead of disgorging the fascist epithet. The column you want to read in its entirety is “The British State and the BNP—The Post-Modern Tyranny of ‘Human Rights.'” Here are excerpts:

“We in Britain are endlessly told nowadays that freedom of speech does not involve the right to preach hatred and ‘intolerance.’ But it does. Freedom of speech means the right to say anything at all on any public issue, and to make any recommendation on what the law should be.”

“I was born into a Britain where this understanding was broadly accepted. I live now in a country where it is not. Thus Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote dismisses freedom of speech as an ‘almost sacred cow.’ He even appeals for support to the majesty of the British Constitution:

Over centuries our unwritten constitution has given us a framework for our democracy. From Magna Carta to the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, our democracy has evolved to reflect our changing times. This framework gives us a democracy which, for all its limitations, seeks to balance individual freedoms with fairness and tolerance.

“In the technical sense, Woolley may be right. Being unwritten, the British Constitution is whatever the authorities decide it to be.

But his claim is irrelevant. A constitution does not legitimise oppression. Rather, it is legitimate so far as it protects rights. If the British Constitution no longer guarantees freedom of speech, so much the worse for the Constitution.

* Second, as said, the authorities are frightened to make a direct attack on freedom of speech. Instead, they are relying on laws that abolish freedom of association.

But this is barely less important within the liberal tradition than freedom of speech. The two rights complement each other. Freedom of speech is the right to say anything. Freedom of association involves the right to propagate what is said. It means the right of people to come together for any purpose that does not involve aggression against others. …

I am not frightened that the BNP is a party of national socialists, and that its leaders are counting the days till they can rip off their business suits, to show the black and red uniforms beneath. Under its present leader, Nick Griffin, the BNP has become a white nationalist party. The party believes in the expulsion of illegal immigrants, an in some voluntary repatriation of non-whites who are legally here, and in dismantling the Equal Opportunities police state from which people like Mr Wadham benefit. Other than this, a BNP Government might easily show more respect for the forms of a liberal constitution than have the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown—after all, this would not be difficult.

The problem is that the BNP and much of its leading personnel used to be national socialists. There are too many published statements in praise of Hitler or denouncing the Jews.” …

READ THE COMPLETE COLUMN, “The British State and the BNP—The Post-Modern Tyranny of ‘Human Rights,'” on VDARE.COM (where else?).