PLATFORM REVIEW: PATRIOTIC ALTERNATIVE (4/20)

Originally published by White-Papers, 2022-03-19

Welcome to the next instalment of our project, posted first here on Telegram and syndicated on the Hyphen-Report. We are reviewing the policy and political platforms of White Nationalist, Ethno-Nationalist and Pro-White political parties. And we are looking for practical answers to the broad question:

“How could our Nations actually be reformed? How could any of this be done”

We believe it is helpful to reformulate this question in more concrete and particular terms. So in part one of the series we looked at a specific contemporary Nation, and asked:

“How could the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland be reformed according to the principle of Ethno-Nationalism? How could this be done, politically?”

And we answered this question with reference to the manifesto of Patriotic Alternative (PA), the British Nationalist party led by Mark Collett.

A Patriotic Alternative banner drop.

Part Four of the Patriotic Alternative platform reads as follows:

4. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

Freedom of speech will be enshrined for all British citizens. So-called ‘hate speech laws’ will be overturned immediately and all those imprisoned under such legislation will be freed and have their criminal records expunged. The only exception to this will be those who promote violence or terrorism.

Part four of Patriotic Alternative’s platform could scarcely be more important, and anyone who reads our content or content within the dissident right political sphere would know why; freedom of speech has been cast aside across the West in order to suppress dissident thought and action, and to prevent opposition to the ruling neoliberal order. Britain is, most unfortunately, among the countries which are becoming ever more restrictive of this conceptual and valuable freedom.

America as a constitutional model

In the realm of written law no nation has broader freedom of speech than the United States of America, the nation best described as the lovechild of British colonisation and Locke’s ideological prescriptions for the rights of man and governance. Unlike the United Kingdom, American freedom of speech is prescribed in its often cited constitution. The first amendment to the Bill of Rights guarantees this freedom beyond reproach and reads as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

There is no mechanism given in the American constitution where the government may interfere with freedom of speech; this, however, is not the case in the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom freedom of speech is prescribed as freedom of expression in the Human Rights Act 1998. Article ten subsection one of the Human Rights Act states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers….”

British Restrictions

However, unlike the American right to freedom of speech, this supposed “right” granted to the British people by the Human Rights Act is anything but, and the evidence is provided in subsection two, the very next line of text; “No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. This Article shall not prevent the imposition of lawful restrictions on the exercise of these rights by members of the armed forces, of the police or of the administration of the State.”

Parliament did anything but grant the British people the right to the freedom of expression. Instead they, for the first time, enshrined the concept into law, and then granted themselves the ability to restrict it on odious and ill-defined terms such as health, morals and the protection of other rights and freedoms. And while one might imagine that restricting speech on the basis of health seems impossible, it is worth noting that ostensibly respectable medical journals such as The Lancet have published studies about how racism affects the mental health and wellbeing of young people in the UK which have gone on to be quoted in Parliamentary debate on restrictions.

Subsection two’s prescription for restrictions has already been put into use on numerous occasions such as the Online Communications Act and most recently in Scotland. Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act 2021 has made it illegal to pursue conduct which amounts to harassment of another person on the basis of race. This conduct includes speech. More worrying yet, and in the same piece of legislation, the Scottish government has invented an offense known as “stirring up hatred” which they define as “behaving in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting”. All people who hear things they find offensive are going to consider it insulting, particularly persons who are a member of an ethnic minority with a vested interest in undermining the native British.

Lived Reality

While White-Papers nor Patriotic Alternative endorse harassment nor “hatred”, both organizations are well aware that what qualifies as hatred in the modern era is defined in emotional terms and is designed to squash any rational political discussion. We also know governments write this legislation to persecute us, not to protect would-be victims of ill-defined “crimes”. 

We know these laws are already in use to pursue current year political agendas, as in 2018 when Kate Scottow, a 39 year old mother, was arrested and taken from her home for calling a mentally ill male in a dress, who we are expected to refer to as a transgender woman, a “pig in a wig”. While a magistrate court in St. Albans found her guilty of misuse of a public communications network, Ms. Scottow was later freed by the divisional courts.

The only way to ensure more Britons are not subject to needless arrest, legal fees and jail time, and the only way to ensure freedom of speech and expression for the British people would be for Patriotic Alternative to usher through an Act of Parliament which defines freedom of expression in terms as absolute, or nearly as absolute, as the United States constitution or similar. Furthermore it is the recommendation of White-Papers that any action taken by a future Patriotic Alternative government be sure to include provisions which require private corporations such as social media networks to adhere to freedom of speech and expression, and to only ban persons who violate terrorism, libel or decency laws such as those established to protect children from exposure to pornogrpahic material.