Each Spring Bank Holiday weekend, North Wiltshire’s picturesque town of Chippenham hosts the Folk Festival with close ties to Whitsuntide. This year, the 51st festival was held with over 200 artists and performers from across the UK and abroad. The festival website reports that “… we once again turned Chippenham into a blaze of colour, music, dance, fun and laughter”, and it is certainly a very positive event with entertainment taking place in the High Street and throughout the town, in the local park and most pubs.
As a folk festival, there is a great emphasis on traditional music and dance that has been performed for hundreds of years, in many instances, in both Britain and overseas. These include Morris Dancing (originating in the fifteenth century), clog and step dancing, traditional English folk and Celtic music, and musical styles from further afield, including the Appalachians in the east of the United States.
The site also has a large market area with stalls selling traditional craft items, food and drink. Members of the Homeland Party, keen to support the traditions and culture of our land, attended the festival and thoroughly enjoyed it. However, there is a dichotomy regarding the festival. As said, the culture and old traditions are rightly kept alive in the performances, but it is apparent that many of those attending and performing at the festival lean towards the political liberal left.
Our members saw many festival-goers with badges and stickers indicating, for example, their support for the Labour Party, a party that is anything but supportive of British tradition and culture; it could even be argued that the party in question has done its best to undermine all that is great and good about our nation.
It seems that the Labour Party felt this an ideal opportunity to drum up support for the forthcoming election, as the candidate for the Chippenham constituency and his electoral team were seen out and about amongst the people. Ravi Venkatesh, the candidate, arrived in this country from India in 2006, and his website advises he is “… Labour through and through, … and from a working-class family in India”.
He is currently a Swindon Borough councillor, which is unsurprising given the town’s large number of residents with an immigrant background. However, in the Chippenham constituency, it is very different, with Labour never doing well in elections, and this trend looks to continue, given that the Many supportive messages on the Facebook posts announcing his candidacy for the constituency appear to come from individuals with names not traditionally associated with the local area. This observation raises the possibility that some voters and supporters may align themselves based on their own ethnic and cultural considerations.
So, despite enjoying the festival, our members felt a tinge of sadness, almost as if it was a case of turkeys voting for Christmas, as those who performed and attended the festival whilst also enjoying the event were seemingly oblivious to the future that awaits them by supporting the type of progressive politics that ultimately seeks to undermine traditional life and our distinct identities, unlike the Homeland Party that will ensure we maintain and protect our culture and traditions.
