John Tyndall on the Jewish Question

4,872 words

“A Jewish Question”

Editor’s Note:

I have decided to reprint John Tyndall’s impressively dignified, rational, pragmatic, and moderate discussion of the Jewish Question in British National Party politics because it is an ideal introduction to an issue that remains relevant to all White Nationalist parties and organizations.

It keeps coming back to haunt us–the Jewish Question, that is. So it has done for many hundreds of years and so it will continue to do as long as Jewish power is a major factor in the world.

I well remember my own induction into Jewish issues. It occurred when, as a young man in the late 1950s, I first became involved in British Nationalism. Essentially, I wanted to do something to lift up my own country and people; I had no wish whatever to become engaged in fights with Jews. I recall, with some embarrassment today, the rather pompous and precocious lectures I gave to others that they should steer well clear of any mention of Jews in an unflattering context lest this bring down upon us the charge of ‘anti-Semitism’ or, even worse, ‘Nazism’. I once wrote a letter to my then chief and mentor A. K. Chesterton containing some strictures of this kind. His reply stung me a little at the time, though when I think about it now it seems a masterpiece of diplomacy. Here was this upstart–a virtual know-nothing–presuming to tell him what was what on a subject on which he had been a world-acclaimed authority for at least 20 years!

But sobering experiences and enlightenment were not far away. I soon came to realise, in the course of being a keen activist in the patriotic movement, that though we may do everything possible to avoid conflict with Jewry, Jewry–or at least its politically organised elements–was determined on conflict with us. Protesting that one was not ‘anti-Semitic’ was of no avail; the moment one became involved and identified with the struggle for one’s own race and nation–in my case the British race and nation–one became tarred by the Jews with the mark of the Devil. And, as I later learned, one became a name on a file in the offices of various Jewish organisations and a figure on the Jewish ‘hit list’–perhaps not literally in the sense of assassination but most definitely figuratively, as an enemy to be watched, monitored and, when thought necessary, publicly reviled.

Awakening

I described this process of awakening in The Eleventh Hour:

Bit by bit, it started to come home to me, in the form of incontrovertible evidence, that there was present in Britain and around the world a definite Jewish network wielding immense influence and power – through money, through politics and through its strong foothold, in some sectors amounting to virtual monopoly, in the mass media.

And further on:

Then what of the uses of Jewish wealth and power? I set to work studying the political orientation of Jewish writers in the press, Jewish book-publishers, Jewish political leaders, political philosophers and academics. I investigated the various causes to which Jewish money was being donated.

The truth was inescapable. In not one single case could I find any prominent, powerful and influential Jewish personage who identified himself or herself with any cause complementary to the interests of the British Nation… Quite the contrary, every cause inimical to these things seemed to have Jewish participation and backing. Looking back to the political arguments I had had earlier, it now occurred to me, as it had not done at the time, that the most vociferous and aggressive opponents of all I believed in had been Jews.

I became aware of a strange paradox. While Jews were to be found among the most ardent and committed opponents of British Nationalism and British race-loyalty, they were at the same time the most passionate champions of nationalism and race consciousness on the part of their own people . . .

Unavoidable question

This awakening forced me, against all my initial inclinations, to acknowledge that there was, very definitely, a ‘Jewish Question’. It was a question which patriots of all countries seeking the salvation of their peoples were bound to encounter and deal with, whether they wished it or not. Exactly how that question should be dealt with was, and remains, a subject of much greater complexity, and this subject has given rise to a vast myriad of opinions and arguments. But to suppose that the question could just be ignored or wished away was to dwell in cloud-cuckoo-land. The wrath and hatred of organized Jewry is a mountain that stands in the path of every movement of enlightened racial patriotism wherever one cares to look in the world, but in particular among nations of White European pedigree.

Right now this issue is being brought home to us in almost every TV news bulletin as we see scenes of carnage in Iraq–the legacy of the insane war against that country waged by America and Britain and their coalition allies. And why are we in Iraq against all our better interests? Every knowledgeable observer of the international scene knows why we are there, although few–particularly in the ranks of well-paid journalists and broadcasters–dare admit it publicly. We are there because Israel demands that we should be there to serve as its own shield against an insurgent Arab and Muslim world, And how is tiny Israel able to dictate such a policy to nations like the United States and United Kingdom? Again, every knowledgeable observer knows how but few dare to say: the Israeli lobby in Washington virtually owns the US government and President, while its brethren in this country virtually own Tony Blair.

In an article in these pages last month the writer quoted from a statement by Israeli President Ariel Sharon made on radio October 3rd 2001: “We the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.” This quote has had an extensive world wide circulation and, to my knowledge, has never been publicly disavowed by anyone in Sharon’s administration. In any event whether authentic or not, it represents what everyone knows to be the truth.

The tragedy now being enacted in Iraq is but the most recent installment of a whole series of major tragedies convulsing the world extending back to the Russian Revolution in 1917, through World War II, through the fiasco of Suez in 1956, right up to the present–and not excluding the economic rape of post-communist Russia–in which organized Jewry, whether as instigator or perceived victim, has played a central part. Whether we care to admit it or not, there is a ‘Jewish Question’–a phenomenon that has cast the Jews in an absolutely unique role that sets them quite apart from the rest of the nations. Whether this leads to us viewing them sympathetically or in opposition, acceptance of that overriding truth is the essential foundation of all debate. And the Jewish Question simply will not go away.

Attempted sabotage of meetings

Let us come now to the impact which this Jewish Question has on our own movement, the British National Party. That impact was manifest in a very special way back in 1998, when I headed a team of BNP officials whose job it was to organize our then customary Annual Rally. We experienced great difficulty in obtaining premises for the event until one was eventually acquired in the West Midlands. A year previously we had run up against the same problem when a hotel booking in Shepperton, Middlesex, had been canceled at the last moment as a result of threatening telephone calls to the management. In reply to our inquiries about these threats, a management representative had admitted that they had come from “a Jewish organization.” Now, for the 1998 rally, we had booked a large room at the Moat House Hotel in Northampton. Shortly afterwards, this booking was terminated. The manager told us quite openly on the telephone that the cause of the termination was a telephone call threatening demonstrations which he had received from the “Jewish Board of Deputies” (customary shorthand for the Board of Deputies of British Jews).

The BNP subsequently had an exchange of correspondence with the Board on this matter in which the latter made no attempt to deny its role in putting pressure on the hotel (details of this correspondence were given in two reports in the January and February 1999 issues of Spearhead).

To appreciate the significance of these attempts by organized Jewry to prevent the BNP holding meetings, it is necessary for the reader to know that neither up till that time nor since did the party make any statements, written or verbal, that could be reasonably construed as ‘anti-Semitic’ or ‘anti-Jewish’. Some periodicals published independently in support of the BNP had occasionally published articles critical of actions by specific Jews and Jewish organizations, but even in these cases nothing had ever been written calling for Jews to be ill-treated individually merely because they were Jews. In fact these articles were no more ‘anti-Jewish’ than articles attacking the IRA could be called ‘anti-Irish’.

This episode of the canceled meeting-hall bookings was just one of many that have underlined that organized Jewry has been at war with the BNP since the party’s inception 22 years ago. Our crime, quite clearly, has been that we are patriotic and nationalist–something which only the Jews themselves are permitted to be in this modern world.

And here is the vital point: the war by organized Jewry against the BNP is going to continue for as long as it is perceived to be a patriotic and nationalist party and as long as it is regarded as a political ‘threat’, quite regardless of anything the BNP may itself do to convince the world that it is not ‘anti-Semitic’ or ‘anti-Jewish’. Likewise, non-Jewish politicians, journalists and broadcasters who have been opposed to the BNP for all these years are not going to weaken in their opposition as a result of any such declarations.

And here is where it is time to examine the latest ‘gimmick’ employed by the current BNP leadership by its adoption of a Jewish candidate to contest a local government election in the Epping Forest area. I use the word ‘gimmick’ deliberately for that is precisely what it is–just as previous gimmicks have been used, notably the adoption of a candidate in Cumbria who was reported as rejoicing in his black son-in-law and half-black grandchild and the granting of a regular column to a Sikh writer in the party newspaper. These previous gimmicks have achieved nothing other than to cause considerable internal disquiet within the party, leading to some resignations, and so it will be with this latest one involving the Epping Forest candidate.

Doing what is needed to win

Let us at this point clear the decks of confusion as to what this argument is all about. To some people, it may appear as an argument between the ‘purists’ in the nationalist camp, who insist on the maintenance of absolute ideological rectitude, and the ‘pragmatists’, who insist that the party must say and do what is necessary for political success. It may surprise some people when I state that I belong very firmly among the latter. I too believe that the BNP must say and do what is necessary to win, and that where that might involve tactical compromises that are intelligently designed to have some tangible political effect I am prepared to endorse them. In fact, I have no more time than Mr. Griffin professes to have for those perpetual ‘losers’ on the nationalist scene who are more interested in purity than in victory.

And in this regard the ‘purists’ would do well to study the histories of the movements and leaders they claim most to admire, for they would discover that they too were not above tactical compromises when the situation demanded.

My opposition to the adoption of the Jewish candidate is based on the same considerations as those which led me to oppose the previous gimmicks and stunts mentioned. I do not believe that, in terms of practical politics, it will achieve anything useful at all. It will not win the BNP a single vote. It will not make it in the slightest way more popular either with the Jewish community in this country or the broader internationalist establishment of which that community is the driving engine. It will not gain the party any brownie points with the mass media.

The one thing that the adoption will achieve–and has already achieved–is to cause further alarm, dismay and disillusionment in the ranks of the BNP’s most dedicated supporters and activists.

We must never forget that part of what is necessary to win is that we keep our movement together, united in conviction, strong in resolve and high in morale. Tactical maneuvers that have a contrary effect are not politically clever; they are politically self-defeating.

This latest move has been defended on similar grounds to the moves made in the past. It will convince the public that the party is not ‘racist’. It will nail the ‘anti-Semitic’ smear. It will scotch the allegations that the BNP is a ‘Nazi’ party.

Well, so far nobody outside Mr. Griffin’s circle seems to be listening. Immediately the adoption of the candidate, Mrs. Pat Richardson (née Feldman), was announced, the London Jewish News published an article making it clear that the Jews were not fooled, and it quoted a Labour Friends of Israel spokesman, David Mencer, as calling the move “a sick stunt.” Meanwhile top Jew Lord Janner reacted by saying: “The BNP are trying hard to be respectable but we know them for what they are–the direct descendants of Hitler’s Nazis.” Then in a report in The Guardian on the 23rd March it was announced that:

MPs from all parties are hoping to use the horrors of the Nazi holocaust to attack right-wing extremists in Britain.

Amid fears that the BNP could win a seat in the European parliamentary elections in June, MPs from all the main parties used visits to the Auschwitz concentration camp to warn of the dangers of embracing the far right.

And the Board of Deputies, referred to earlier, is still busy in the anti-BNP war. It was announced last month that the Board was urging all Jews to vote in the forthcoming European elections to keep the BNP out.

Not an issue to voters

There will no doubt be some simple souls who will protest that all this underlines the need for the BNP to parade its credentials as a party that is not ‘anti-Semitic’, hence the need for a Jewish candidate or two. But the thinking is fundamentally flawed. The claim, as can be seen, cuts absolutely no ice with the influential and the powerful. What then of the ordinary voters? Well, my own experience when the party’s parliamentary candidate at Dagenham in 1994 was that never once was the issue of Jews raised in any one of the hundreds of calls I made when canvassing (nor, incidentally, was the question of whether repatriation of other ethnic groups should be obligatory or voluntary). What of more recent times? Take Burnley, the area of our greatest successes so far. Steven Smith, who more than any other single person was the architect of those successes, has confirmed to me that neither were Jews ever an issue in the campaigns in which he was involved. Public concern which led to BNP councillors being elected in Burnley was about the impact of other minority groups, particularly Muslims, on the town. Public knowledge there that the party had a Jewish candidate standing somewhere, he says, would have neither increased nor reduced the BNP vote in Burnley one jot. The matter would have been one of supreme indifference to the voters there. In the course of the victorious campaigns in Burnley the local and national media and the active left screamed loudly that we were ‘racists’. This did not in the slightest way spoil our prospects, and may indeed have enhanced them.

Then there is Steve Batkin, the BNP’s victorious council election candidate in Stoke-on-Trent, another area where the party vote has risen enormously. Immediately prior to the local government elections in the city last year, the local newspaper persuaded Steve, against his better judgment, to make a statement denying the so-called ‘Holocaust’. This was plastered across the front page on the eve of the poll. Steve still got elected! He acknowledges now that the statement was a mistake, but it didn’t stop him winning! The issue simply did not impinge one way or the other on the concerns that occupied Stoke voters. Steve Batkin, like Steve Smith in Burnley, has confirmed that Jews simply weren’t an issue on the doorstep in Stoke; asylum-seekers certainly were, and very much so. Knowledge that the BNP had a Jewish candidate, he has confirmed, would not have made the slightest difference either way.

I have spoken to organizers in a number of other areas where the BNP has obtained good election results, and these, without wishing to be named, have said much the same thing. Jews have not been an issue. ‘Anti-Semitism’ or ‘pro-Semitism’ have been far from people’s minds.

But these matters are not far from people’s minds in the BNP. For all the reasons I have given in the earlier part of this article, they are very much in the forefront. To those experienced in party activity and at the higher levels of political understanding, organized Jewry is perceived as an enemy of everything we stand for–not by our choice but by its choice. We would far rather it be otherwise, but that is the way it is in the world we live in. This being so, it is fair and honest to say that there is within the BNP a great deal of very powerful feeling over the fact that Jewry, while insisting on the right of the Jews to be nationalistic and ‘racist’, will not recognize the right of other peoples to be so–but, on the contrary, will not hesitate to sabotage the activities of those who assert this right.

Cynical game

I know nothing of Mrs. Richardson, having never met her. In what I write here there is nothing personal intended against her. She has simply become a pawn in what I believe to be a quite cynical game being played for no real advantage to the BNP but solely in order to further a certain agenda for change in the party of which she probably has no inkling. I believe that in her interest, as well as the party’s interest, she should never have been placed in that position–a position that has already put her under some exceedingly unpleasant pressure, which is likely to increase as the election campaign hots up. The pressure results from the strong feelings within the BNP that her selection has generated and, not least, it has also come from her fellow Jews outside. All this is probably a great deal worse than the lady deserves.

The pressure from people in the BNP is derived from background knowledge of the role of the Jewish community in opposition to our party. Mrs. Richardson is not to blame for this but, as happens in the real world, she is by her Jewish identity inextricably linked with the forces responsible.

In World War II persons of German nationality residing in Britain were interned without trial because our country was engaged in a war with theirs. They probably had nothing to do with that war. They may well have opposed the German leadership of the time. But by the very fact that they were German, in a war situation in which Britain was fighting against Germany, it was considered that they could not enjoy the rights of ordinary citizens but must be placed outside the pale of citizenship–as much for their own protection as from the standpoint of our national security.

And of course this ruling would have had double the force had there ever been any suggestion of a German occupying a position of responsibility in the country at the time. In such a situation that suggestion would have been regarded as quite preposterous.

And this is a question that has nothing to do with the rights and wrongs of World War II, only with the existence of the war as a fact.

Likewise, the question of the BNP adopting a Jewish candidate has nothing to do with the rights or wrongs of organized Jewry’s quarrel with our party, only with the recognition of that quarrel as a fact. Jews would not tolerate BNP members joining Jewish organizations, let alone acting as their public representatives, even if those members were in no way anti-Jewish but wanted good relations with the Jewish community. There can be no alternative but for the same rule to operate in reverse.

And the fact of Jewry’s quarrel with the BNP is one of which Mr. Griffin is as aware as anyone. Not only is he on record as having written numerous articles and pamphlets addressing the realities of the Jewish Question–notably in the field of Holocaust denial–but I have in my office a large file of correspondence in which he has expressed his opinions on the subject to me in no uncertain terms. All this makes a complete nonsense of his current Jew-friendly postures. There may be people in the BNP who can with straight faces and complete honesty publicly proclaim their philo-Semitic credentials, but Nick Griffin is not one of them.

Talking about party image…

There is one thing on which I am in complete agreement with Mr. Griffin. This is that, with elections coming up which are of huge importance to the BNP, the party needs to take great care not to present any avoidable propaganda weapons to its enemies, that the public image it puts across to the British voters is–as far as this lies within its control–vitally important.

But a very welcome weapon has in fact been handed to the BNP’s enemies on a plate by the selection as leading candidate for a seat on the Greater London Authority of a man who in his earlier days established for himself a police record of unruly behavior at football grounds–who in the parlance of those enemies would be called a ‘football hooligan’. Now many of us can get up to silly things in our younger days, as I can myself testify; but the idea that this man might be the BNP’s leading (and possibly sole) representative on the GLA sits rather oddly, to say the least, with the claim that a Jewish candidate must be adopted because it is essential to the party’s ‘good image’. So it was also with the selection not long ago of a candidate in the North of England who once was convicted for posting razor blades to a Jewish judge. Again, that candidate would no doubt regret his past behavior and it should not be held against him for ever; but this is a party whose present leaders insist that it has ‘changed’, that it is has smartened up its public image and that they are making it much more ‘acceptable’ than previously. So just what is going on?

The purpose of the stunts?

I suspect that what is going on is something very different from the policy line now being peddled to the membership and the public. I have said earlier that these various stunts–the candidate with the black son-in-law, the Sikh columnist, and now the Jewish lady standing in Epping Forest–make zero difference to the BNP’s appeal to the voters. And this is certainly true in the case of those voters whom the party can conceivably hope to win over in the foreseeable future. But I have also said that the stunts cause a great deal of unrest internally, leading to dissatisfaction and lowered morale in the ranks, and in many cases to people leaving the party.

But perhaps to some in the BNP this is the very purpose of the exercise. Conversations that I have had with some members and conversations with other members that have been relayed on to me, suggest that there is a great deal of exultation in some circles when certain people do leave. It is, in some minds, all part of the necessary process of turning the party from a fighting movement of genuine racial nationalists into one of tame Tories–perhaps so much so that it will place itself in a position to link up with other Tories in a realignment of the so-called political ‘right’ that would become nothing but a toothless safety-valve run by the establishment instead of a serious challenge to it.

Of course, this is not the way the supporters of the stunts would describe it. They would describe it as part of the necessary process of making the BNP ‘electable’. And I would have no doubt that some of them actually believe this.

But they are tragically and dangerously wrong. What has made the BNP more electable is the drastic change in the national political climate that has occurred as the disaster of multi-racialism, predicted by the party’s pioneers so long ago, has started to impact on millions of voters, as our cities and towns have been torn apart by ethnic strife and crime and, not least, as the tabloid press has been forced to face these issues honestly and admit that the entire ghastly experiment is collapsing. That is what has made the BNP more electable.

That and the hard work and dedication of superb teams of activists in the areas where we have had the greatest success–to many of whom I have spoken and many of whom do not share the naive supposition that adopting Jewish candidates is going to help take us into the ‘mainstream’ of politics.

But also tragically and dangerously wrong are the people who imagine that resignations from the BNP are going to solve anything. Those who might decide that burning their membership cards is an appropriate response to the adoption of Jewish candidates and similar gestures are falling obligingly into the very trap set for them by those who want to mold our party to the specifications of an emasculated Toryism rather than a virile nationalism. With the nationalists gone, the Tories will take over. It would be insane to let that happen.

Rules of engagement

To round off this article, I would suggest a few basic ground rules that should govern the BNP’s approach to the unavoidable ‘Jewish Question’.

The first is that the party should not, under whatever perceived provocation, be drawn into crude attacks on Jews as a race–a necessity from the standpoint of avoiding prosecution, quite apart from its obvious moral ramifications.

In our behavior towards individual Jews we should act with absolute correctness, treating them as we would have them treat us.

We should nevertheless recognize their self-imposed separateness and perception of themselves as ‘special’ and ‘chosen’–something which their own leaders have made abundantly clear again and again.

Moreover, we should recognize that organized Jewry constitutes a formidable power in the world with an agenda of its own, dedicated to the pursuit of Jewish interests above and beyond any other interests. This is something for which we should not ‘hate’ Jews but should respect them. We should display the same single-minded dedication to British and white racial interests as the Jews do to Jewish racial interests.

When, and only when, the pursuit by Jews of their own racial interests brings them into conflict with our interests should we do battle with them, and in that event we should make clear what the nature of the battle is: it is not a battle waged by the BNP against Jews because they are Jews; it is one waged only against certain Jews who are threatening us.

We should on no account ill-treat Jews on grounds of their race, and we should make it clear, whenever the subject of Jews and the BNP arises, that in a future BNP-governed Britain Jews who mind their own business and do not attempt to use their power to damage Britain have nothing whatever to fear from us.

At the same time we should not make a taboo of the issue of Zionism and organized Zionist power. Within party circles and in our publications we should permit a frank and free discussion of this power–always provided that it is conducted in moderate language, that it avoids insults and that it excludes the emissions of obvious cranks.

No person or group should be attacked because they are Jewish but neither should any person or group be immune to attack because they are Jewish. If certain individuals or groups give us strong grounds to attack them for their actions, the fact that they may be Jewish should not exempt them from such attacks.

When all this is said, the BNP should, so long as it is legally permissible, exclude Jews from membership, and in any event should not appoint Jews to positions in the party nor select them as candidates for elections. They would not do it for us, and there is no reason why we should do it for them.