Springer5

Does anyone else find all this splitting and wrangling between the English Democrats Party and the Free English Party very depressing, and sad?
I certainly do. I'm just an ‘ordinary’ English person, who wants to see a consolidated voice that speaks for the English underdog, and is prepared to financially back one, as much as possible (being a paid up member of the EDP). Lord knows, we need such voice now more than ever.
If only this were a fictional situation everything would be ok, and we could all just find it hilarious, much like that scene from Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’......
“Are you the Judean People’s Front?”.
“Are we the Judean People’s Front? Did you hear that everyone? As if....”. ”Don’t you dare confuse us with those idiots”. (Spits on the floor in disgust). “We, I’ll have you know, are the People’s Front of Judea, we’re far more sensible!”.
Comical in fiction, but this isn’t fiction of course; this is very (even ‘deadly’, for some NHS patients) serious. You have all worked very hard for 'the cause', initially with one main political party (the EDP) giving it a central political identity, in order to try to bring equality and fairness to the people of England and, without wishing to sound patronising, I for one genuinely applaud all those involved for what you had done so far.
Admittedly, there was still a long a way to go; lack of fair media coverage resulting in most people in England still not knowing how much they are being ripped off and forcibly opted out, the political heavyweights happy to abuse their media domination to continue feeding the English public a steady stream if misinformation, and so on.

However, in spite of all that, for people like me, an EDP member who eagerly awaited my copy of the English Voice, there was a feeling that there was hope, given time. I felt uplifted each time I read my latest copy and was reminded that this national scandal at least had the one positive result, that amidst the galling inequality (because of it in fact) there was an ever growing ‘band of brothers and sisters’ being formed; standing united against Westminster’s injustices; the English Democrats; the biggest party to fight for any solely English cause since the whole ‘semi’-devolution mess began.

Many of their policy specifics didn’t really matter to me at this early stage. It was far too early to worry about what they were going to do when they brought home rule back to England. The important thing was simply to work together to make that happen first, then we could all start to vote, as a self-governing nation, and think about what we wanted to make happen with our new found power, just as Scotland is doing now.
But now this has happened. The main political party for English justice got broken up over a policy issue which is completely irrelevant until the English people are in a position to vote on it (after all it’s what they want that should matter, right ?); and ironically this is now far less likely to happen than ever, because every election will have two parties fighting each other for those already precious few pro-England votes.
Instead of one voice crying slightly louder each day in the Wilderness, we now have two voices whispering (and even then most of that whispering involves arguing about who’s policies of many years down the line are better than the other’s).

I suppose it’s rather like two prisoners who never manage to break out of jail because they won’t work together to smash their chains until they have first agreed which road they are going to walk along once they get out. That doesn’t matter. What does matter first is achieving the freedom to be able to decide in the first place, then when you have your freedom, you can decide what you want to do with it.
And the upshot of all this is that people like me (your supporters) just get disillusioned with the remains of a broken dream, and give up on the whole issue altogether. Perhaps you may suggest that I am alone in this attitude, perhaps I am being naive, simplitic and idealistic, but I don‘t think so, and either way that's not what matters. The real point is, if I can feel this way, the chances are so can others.

The only way to stand up to the three main parties is to be big enough that the media have to notice you, so your message gets broadcast. In politics, size does matter, much as with unions in the business world. If the ordinary person in the street sees that we are now going in the opposite direction to that (breaking up into smaller squabbling pieces , they will simply give up, abandon hope for a free England, and divert their attention and money on more achievable things.

I suspect it’s now far too late to urge you all to put aside your policy differences for a time when such questions will matter (which isn’t now) and get back together to carry on the excellent work you have been doing as a united front so far. For now, I live in hope that such a thing may still happen, but how long that hope will last for I honestly don’t know. And when the hope has finally gone, and voters and supports like me have given up, then the dream really will have died for good, and how sad would that be !

Richard the Lionheart

Interesting post Springer5, and one that I would like to address as a founder member of Free England.

I will take you back a couple of years when it was revealed that the EDP should meet up with the far right EFP to see if there was some common ground. After howls of protests, members were given a reassurance from Kentishman that the meeting would be called off. We subsequently learned that he lied to us.

You may remember the party conference in September when there was a motion put forward to adopt a policy on a referendum for independence for England. Note the term "referendum". No one was asking outright for independence, but a policy which allowed for the people to decide how they wished to be governed. The proposal was hammered. It was clear that the EDP were not prepared to even offer the people a chance to decide. This convinced some of us that this was not a truly English nationalist party, but an English unionist, or federalist one.

Around the same time, it was revealed (via the Electoral Commission website), that the party had taken loans from three people, the chairman, vice chair, and our very own Kentishman. These loans were in excess of £100,000. Coupled with the rejection of the independence policy and the news about party debts, to say nothing about the members being lied to, I began to have serious misgivings about the direction the party was taking, and had completely lost faith in the leadership. For the next four months I was kind of in a political wilderness. I resigned my membership and began to look for something new. It was then the Free England Party was born.

I am very happy about the creation of Free England, because it at last gives me and my colleagues a platform to work towards the creation of a free and independent nation state for England. That is one of the major differences between the FEP and the EDP. They are federalist, we are nationalist.

One word of advice for the EDP though. As an ex-EDP member, and ex-chair of what was the most vibrant and dynamic branch in the country at the time, I would look to your leadership to see exactly where you are headed. To success or to oblivion? Look at the bank balance. Look at what is being spent on the London elections then look at the Evening Standard ratings and see where your mayoral candidate is at the moment. Bottom with 1%. Have a look at recent election results. Ask about the membership figures. Ask yourself, is this the party that should be spearheading English nationalism? In my view, the party is not a democratic party. It is run by the Triumvirate, its three owners. It is heavily indebted which will seriously hamper its ability to operate in the coming years. One of the Triumvirate has singlehandedly destroyed much of the party infrastructure, and most importantly, a lot of goodwill of many members.

At the end of the day, we do not see it as splitting the movement, because we consider the EDP unionists and not nationalists. There is a difference. You ask us to put the differences aside and work together. I for one could never work with the EDP leadership again. I simply have no faith or trust in them. I will be surprised if they are still around in a few years time if they continue to accrue debts in the way they have been.

I know many EDP members. I know even more ex-EDP members. That should tell you something.

__________________
The Free England Party - England's Premier Nationalist Party
www.freeengland.com .....Serious about England

Northumbrian

Your post Springer, would make sense if it applied to Scotland. The SNP is not everyone's cup of tea. They are pro-EU and weak on immigration. If another strong nationalist party emerged in Scotland it would be disasterous for Scottish nationalism. The Free Scotland Party, which opposes the EU, has failed. So have the Scottish Socialists and the Scottish Enterprise Party.
But they can't succeed, because the SNP is too strong. 12,000 members, 6 Westminster MPs, MSPs, MEPs and many councillors. So if you are a Scottish nationalist, you must back the SNP.

In England, the situation is totally different. The EDP does not possess any MPs and has not won a council election higher than the parish level. Membership is much less than either UKIP or the BNP. Therefore, it is still open competition for a party to establish themselves as the premier English nationalist party.

Springer5

Thanks for replying to my post RTL.

There are a couple of responses I would like make to your reply....

Firstly, as for the financial problems you say the EDP has, I don't know what the solution is to those. Perhaps they will end up going bust after a bit longer. I can't really make any fair comment on it because I don't know enough about it, but I accept that you do seem to know more.

Secondly, I do indeed remember the council's determination that complete independence for England should not be considered within the party, and I completely understand that many people disagreed with that policy (and no doubt many other policies as well). Frankly, I can see a case for your opinion on the subject.

However, that is not really the point I was trying to make. I'm sure we could all discuss the purely political issues, and some members of both parties (and *some* of the public) would have their individual view on whether or not England should be completely independent.

But most of the public haven't even got that far yet. They're not ready to discuss England's independence; I know I'm not (even as a party member) let alone the guy in the street who hasn't yet even been made aware of the basic every-day injustices he's being sujected to, let alone the finer points of where the english might want to be when (and only when) those injustices have been removed far enough for him to be able to decide for himself in the first place.

This is at the heart of the problem. What is needed is to get more of the public at 'stage one' (i.e. knowledge of the injustice and that pro-england solutions to it exist at all) before internal members consider who wants stage five or six to be this or that. None of that will matter if relatively few people in England even know there's a problem to start with, which is certainly the case at the moment, because if they did, more of them would be voting EDP, FEP, or whatever, to stop it happening; but of course they haven't been, as you say yourself.

Why haven't they been ?? Certainly not because the only party on offer up until now was a Unionist one, and they all wanted a Nationalist one. No, it's because they don't even know why there's a need for *any* kind of pro-england party at all. Do we agree on that ? I hope we do RTL, otherwise perhaps I'm missing the point altogether

Assuming we do agree, then we must also agree that getting that 'stage one' message across has to have priority before anyone will even realise there's a need for any of us pro-englanders at all. So, in other words, this is not about policies, it's about publicity! (at least to begin with) and we all know that the greater number of people there are involved in a particular group, the more chance there is that the media will eventually start to take some interest in that group and report it to the public at large.

I'm sure you know the details of this better than I do, but one example is that if enough candidates are provided by a party, they are legally entitled to a certain level of BBC coverage. So there is one general, simple example of how one larger organisation gets better publicity opportunities than two smaller ones. Another similar example happening right now is the petition to 10Downing Street produced by one of your colleagues. It's at....

Petition to: shelve the recommendations of Lord Goldsmith’s Citizenship Review for the time being as they are so fundamentally flawed by being based on the fading identity of Britishness, just at a time when following the 1990s devolution legislati

I see it is now closed, and sadly it received only 33 signatures. I signed it on its last day and I coudn't help noticing that very few of the EDP members I know had signed it. There could be 2 main reasons for this as far as I can see..

1 - No EDP members new about it because it wasn't advertised by the EDP (possibly because of the silly rivalry that goes on between what are now different parties)

2 - No EDP members agreed with it because everyone is hung-up on the details of whether the text contained a nationalist or unionist message.

In either case the reason doesn't (or shouldn't) matter. What does matter is that when everyone belonged to the same group the information was passed to everyone in the group and they all new about it. ONe hymn sheet, one song, sung by as many people as possible, unitl the *publicity* has reached a level that the man in the street is aware there is a problem and a possible solution; then there would be room to discuss what solution he wants.

Do you see the point I'm trying to make RTL ? These are just simple examples off the top of my head, but hopefully you see the relevance of what I'm trying to say...the concept ??

BTW please don't think my earlier post was accusational at all. I'm not blaming anyone for what has happened or taking any sides. I sympathise with the difficulties you seem to have been facing. I just think that through no ones fault, 'the cause' has been irreperably damaged. Although I deep down inside I still hope I'm wrong

Springer5

Northumbrian

With respect my post makes far more sense in England than in Scotland.
Please see my reply to RTL for clarity. The issue is not one of 'which party' as it is in Scotland, where they are aware of (and interested in) their nationalist options.
The issue is one of publicity in which the people of England are given that same awareness (by whom is not important at this stage, just by anyone big enough to be heard). Starting again from scratch every now and again is not helping that cause.

Northumbrian

This is my take on it:

Most people in England are aware of the rise in popularity of the SNP, particular Alex Salmond, and that they are separarist.
There are of course, many people in England who are unaware of the injustices suffered by England.

But once they are told about them, wouldn't they expect (and respect more) an English nationalist party which offers independence as a solution?

Englander 1

Well Mr Lionheart and Northern Bloke

How insecure you both are when ever someone mentions the fact that what you have done is just crazy and only dilutes the English cause at a time when solidarity is needed. The truth is you will have little or no impact on the ongoing development of the English Democrats or the development of the English Institutions we are putting into place.

Do you honestly think to shout Independence will have people flooding to your party?


I cannot be bothered to answer all of your comments but I must respond to your badly informed comments on the English Democrats finance.

We have key members of the party that have loaned the party money at zero % interest with no fixed term for repayment...it costs money to fight politically and they have loaned the money knowing it is a long term investment that may never be returned. The EDP does in real terms does not owe a penny and your attempts to twist the truth just shows you up for what you are!

The English Democrats are Englands National Party and will continue to be so.

The fact that we are fielding a Mayoral Candidate and a full candidate list along with numerous candidates across the country in May is a credit to our organisation.

We have just hand delivered 15,000 newsletters;5 million Londoners will recieve information on the English Democrats through the Mayorall booklet and we also get the chance for our first political broadcast....not bad for a party with no paid activists and a party that has to fight for every single piece of coverage in the press.

Of course results are important but it takes time to build a credible party that the public will vote for and we realise our efforts will not always produce the results we deserve.....personally I am in this for the longhaul...England is far too important to **ss about!

Grow up..Get on with...and start fighting the real enemy!

__________________
"There is a forgotten, nay almost forbidden word, which means more to me than any other.
That word is ENGLAND." - Sir Winston Churchill

Andrew Constantine

This very topical anti-Brown petition in fact only closes in March 2009, and I encourage all good English, Welsh and Scottish nationalists to sign it.

Thanking Springer 5 and those who have already signed it for their solidarity.

Regards

Andrew Constantine

__________________
Andrew Constantine says: The EU is a French-German racket and is incompatible with democracy. An independent England will quit the EU forthwith.

Free England Party - Independence for England
http://www.freeengland.com

Signatory to The English Claim of Right
http://englishclaimofright.com

Internationalist

Effectively both parties are at the starting post and either could gain some real momentum. There is everything to play for and it depends which of them manages to both capture the imagination and provide strong organisation.

I do not support the aims of either party but I do believe that the approach of the FEP is the more 'honest' of the two. The EDP seems to flirt with the idea of the break-up of the UK without being prepared to advocate it openly.

If there is no demand for what the FEP offers it will fail, but nobody has the right to say that it should refrain from attempting to win support for its platform.

Springer5

My mistake Andrew, I thought it closed in March 2008. I apologise for any confusion. As it is still open, do sign it as Andrew has said, regardless of your specific politics. This enforces the point I am trying to make, we must stand together as one, at least on the wider issue of a better deal for England anyway. There is no longer a single well established place to advertise this petition, but at least it's mentioned here now.