Thursday 14 June 2007

"A Sort Of Jacobitism", Again

As previously set out, I do actually know a bit about the increasingly researched subject of English Jacobitism. And I am in the process of rediscovering my various academic interests of yore, now that, at the institution's double request, I am being eased back into university life on two fronts. So the admittedly rather odd anonymous comment below (does anyone know how I could allow non-Blogger comments but not anonymous ones?) has set me thinking.

Jacobitism, as an obvious expression of disaffection with the Whig hegemony, is increasingly recognised to have seeped into every corner of what was in fact (and contrary to how it has been presented) a deeply divided and discontented Kingdom during the period of that hegemony, providing a unifying principle among many disparate and even rival subcultures (the recusant Catholics and the Nonjurors, for example). The contemporary comparisons, not to say linear continuations, are obvious.

And yes, what my neo-Whig antagonists think that they are disparaging when they call my position "statist, syndicalist, nationalist, theoconservative and provincial" (what's wrong with being any of those things?) is in fact the disaffection with their own neoliberal economic and correspondingly neoconservative geopolitical position, itself now hegemonic within this country's oligarchic and extremely narrowly-based political class, that narrow base not least by comparison with the Major years. That disaffection, again, seeps into every corner of what is in fact (and contrary to how it is presented) a deeply divided and discontented Kingdom under that hegemony, providing a unifying principle among many disparate and even rival subcultures.

The Whigs pretended not to know how widespread and how deep discontent was, and their successors among British historians of England, at least, took them at their word. But archives on the Continent reveal that even Walpole and Malborough maintained, through intermediaries, some level of contact with the Stuart court in exile, apparently conscious that restoration might come at any moment, and therefore anxious to preserve what they could of Whiggery if and when it did.

Well, you Jacksonites and Eustonites, you know who those of us most involved in giving organisational form to your hegemony's opponents are, you certainly know what our email addresses are, and the attention that you devote to rubbishing us on the Internet while loudly proclaiming our irrelevance seems to suggest that your own view is not unlike Walpole's or Malborough's. And yet you use "realist" as a term of abuse!

I do not defend James II's decision to become a salaried employee of his cousin, the King of France, although I cannot see how our own pro-EU, "America and Israel Right or Wrong" politicians (what has become the EU having been an American-sponsored project since the 1940s) are in any position to judge him. But it is worth keeping in mind that he was removed only when Tories as well as Whigs invited William of Orange (blessed by the Pope, but that's another story) to replace him.

Today, in similar fashion, both those who define themselves principally as "statists", or as "syndicalists", or as "nationalists", or as "theoconservatives", or even just as "voices of the provinces", need to make common cause in order to replace the morally, intellectually and financially bankrupt neo-Whig hegemony that is the existing party-political system.

When they do, when we do, then a truly Glorious Revolution, and a true Restoration, will undoubtedly ensue. Some of us are already working on this. So do please make contact, whoever and wherever you are.

5 comments:

  1. I am happy to tell you that David was expelled from the party last year! He tried to cling on to membership (although he will deny that) through a claim that the labour party members had 'unanimously' refused to accept his expulsion (he based this on the accidental receipt of an email invitation to a young labour halloween event).

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  2. Oh, I had some fun about the incompetence of it all, still sending me all sorts things (they sometimes still do - is someone actually paid to keep the relevant records?) after I had ceased to be a member. But I knew that my actions were autoexpulsionable, and I carried them out not least (though not exclusively) for that reason.

    Prominent figures in the local party here keep begging me to come back, but they are wasting their breath. They are a lot older (which says a great deal in itself), and I understand their desire to die in the party in which they have lived for many decades. But I have to take a longer view.

    And anyway, what are they going to do in 10 years time, when most of them will still be alive (few of them are THAT old), but when it, like the others, will no longer exist?

    Good to see people who think that I'm an irrelevant crank are still paying me so much attention. Funny, that.

    Oh, and Idiots4Labour might ask themselves why the County Councillor here didn't dare re-contest his PARISH Council seat, and why Hilary Armstrong's office boy and preferred successor nearly lost his. Yes, you read aright: he nearly lost his seat on a PARISH Council!

    Whereas I kept mine, the whole point of the old trick of putting up for the District on the same day even though I never had the slightest expectation of winning (although a successful Labour candidate had to be gently warned not to sign my Nomination Paper, one of the local band of Independents organised as a party was my proposer, and probably or certainly every other candidate living in the ward voted for me).

    I4L would understand these things, if they were the sort of people who condescended to contest elections prior to their imposition as parliamentary candidates for safe seats, or if they were the sort of people who condescended to do the slightest campaigning work even then. But, of course, they are not.

    Rather, such freeloading pseudo-Labourite apparatchiki, and their pseudo-Tory and no doubt pseudo-Liberal equivalents, are the reason why we need entirely new political parties. As we will simply have to have sooner rather than later, if anyone is to contest elections at all.

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  3. You should take him very, very seriously, I'm afraid.

    Hilary Armstrong is giving up office and so probably giving up her seat. Neil Fleming destroyed (mostly by Lindsay). An imposed candidate from outside would look very bad and is just what Lindsay wants for when he puts up as an Independent.

    So let's look at the facts. Apart from one or two Scrutiny Chairs, if that, every position that matters on Derwentside District Council, held whether by Labour or by the so-called Opposition that isn't, is held by an ally of Lindsay's. Every Portfolio Holder is a personal friend of his, including several of his closest friends in the world.

    Lindsay knows more of what goes on in the Labour Group than up to a third, and definitely a quarter, of the elected Labour Councillors on it. He is also very close indeed to the "Independents" - traditional Tories whose main role is to cover the Labour Leadership's backs against that quarter to a third of Labour Councillors. They in turn have links in the Wear Valley, where Labour is pro-Armstrong but the "Independents"/Tories are anything but.

    Then there are, as has been said, the unions, the churches, the farmers, thus the local Tory Party, and so on. A very senior County Council position is held by one of his closest allies from before he was ever even a Labour Party member.

    People read this blog and realise, I have to say, that not only would most people be incapable of writing it, but most people being imposed as parliamentary candidates for all parties would be incapable of reading it.

    He gave up one of his school governorships voluntarily because he'd done the customary two terms, but he might yet be co-opted back onto the other one. Labour have already had to give it to one of his very closest friends and allies, rather than who they really wanted. There are dark mutterings about him and the coming Consett Academy - he certainly has plenty of rich mates to make him Chair of Governors on a salary, or even Principal (because you don't have to have QTS).

    The University really has very enthusiastically brought him back, not that he ever went away. His main critics there are fighting for their professional lives? Coincidence? Lindsay doesn't do coincidences!

    You should take him very, very seriously, I'm afraid.

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  4. David - why are you posting as anonymous? - it is so obviously you as no one else would think to make up that nonsense! Seek voluntary medical assistance before you are sectioned (and not before time!).

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