Community Politics – The Route We Must Take

There are many in Nationalism who will tell you there is no political solution. On the whole these people are simply cowards, lazy or both. The masses often tell you they have no interest in politics because it doesn’t affect them. That is just plain foolishness. Politics affects every facet of life. No matter what subject you deal with in life, there will be a political root. Those that do not do politics should understand that politics will do for them, if they take no part in the political life of the nation. To put it more crudely: If you do not fight, you only lose.

Our ethics at the Homeland Party encourage our people to be brave and active. We will not succeed unless patriots are confident in our worldview and happy to spread the word locally about the benefits Nationalism will and can provide for every individual, neighbourhood and nation.

Our worldview puts the people first, always. Our goal is not to impose some rigid economic theory on our people or to implement some form of legislative stranglehold on them either. We want our people to survive and thrive in their homeland. We want them to have self-determination and the ability to control their own future.

To achieve these things a community must have a cohesive strength, and that requires strong leadership. No community can survive if it does not have control of the levers of power in that neighbourhood. And yet, for far too long Nationalists in this country and beyond have abandoned all positions of authority and control to the destroyers of our people. In local government, the law, education, policing, the media etc. our people have either been forced out, without much effort, or meekly turned away themselves from these areas of influence and control.

It breaks my heart every time I hear of a young patriot who abandons his or her studies in law or the media, or gives up dreams of being a teacher, because they cannot face listening to the contortions of reality they will be bombarded with for a few short years in university.

The nay-sayers will point at the largely poor results garnered by Nationalist candidates at elections in recent times as a sign that the electoral route is a wasted effort. Yet, the votes achieved are on the whole, a reflection of the effort put in by the candidates and the organisations backing them.

No Nationalist organisation has put any real effort into community politics. This may be because many do not actually understand what community politics is. I will elaborate later, on what I understand it to be and why it is the route we must take to regain control of our local communities, but for now I will address what does not work.

Putting a Nationalist candidate on the ballot paper and campaigning during the six weeks of the election period – no matter how vigorously – is not enough. It makes us no different from the rest of the political charlatans who descent on our neighbourhoods during that time, but ignore our needs for the rest of the year.

Voter apathy is high and turnout is low. The people are sick and tired of broken promises and self-serving politicians. They have been for decades. Yet some delude themselves that a registered elector will suddenly be motivated simply by knowing a patriot is standing. People are not moved to act like that.

You can expose people to the truth and promise all sorts of solutions that will benefit their lives, but unless you can actually deliver something positive that has impacted on their daily lives, they will not be driven out of their apathetic stupor.

The well-intentioned Nationalists who understands the need for us to have local councillors elected to serve our people will simply be beating their heads against the proverbial brick wall until they embrace community politics and make an impact all year round in their wards.

I am not so naïve as to think we can win control of Westminster in the next few decades. Contesting parliamentary seats is on the whole a waste of time, money and effort for now under the first past the post electoral system. There may be exceptional circumstances when such a seat would be contested but these would be few and far between in the short term.

As an aside on this point, all Nationalists should support any efforts open to them on electoral reform toward proportional representation.

I do believe however, that we can make an impact from grassroots to local authority level in vast swathes of the country right now where the demographic make-up of the area still favours our people. The history of our people is a mighty one and nobody should write off our island stock just yet.

Any strategy which relies on the mainstream media (MSM) to build a connection between Nationalism and the general public is doomed to failure. This is because that ‘central nexus’ is almost entirely hostile towards Nationalism. No intelligent individual would rely on a foe to deliver a critical message to a friend.

Local is best

MSM publicity usually contains a distortion of the truth and is accompanied by some slur or other on our beliefs. The Homeland Party will always challenge these pieces and we have had some success already in that regard, but it is not our focus.

I have long argued that all promotional material produced by Nationalists should be aimed not at fellow Nationalists, not even the Civic Nationalists, but at the general public. It is the public that we need to win over to gain power for our people. The ‘local nexus’ is direct communication with the communities we hope to represent.

This is achieved through face-to-face interactions at a local level. Campaigns focused primarily on local issues work best. This does not mean we exclude national issues, but we first need to address the concerns of that community on their doorsteps. Experienced political campaigners will confirm that local leaflets always generate a more positive response than a national leaflet ever will.

If leafleting is combined with canvassing – the almost forgotten art of door-knocking and speaking with residents – and genuinely positive community activism, our message gets delivered undiluted directly to those people we need to vote for our candidate.

No amount of third-party interference from the central nexus or slurs from political opponents can blind the voter who has witnessed first hand the efforts you have made. There are many of us who can recall stories such as the Burnley council estate resident who told a Labour Party MP to get lost when he tried to smear the previous week’s clean-up by a local team of Nationalist activists; he told him he did not care what he called us, we were the only ones who bothered to do anything for the community outside election time. Utilising the local nexus is one of the reasons why community politics is so effective.

People not places

The key strength of the Homeland Party is in our ability to attract quality individuals and our determination to seek out community leaders as the first step on our route to power.

Success in community politics can be achieved through the hard graft of a dedicated local team. I have known such teams to get people elected who had stood only because nobody else would do it and then watched in dismay as these individuals crumbled once in office.

Our approach is very different. We build our campaigns around strong and confident individuals who want to take a lead in their community for our people. A strong local candidate, confident in their personal interactions with their community makes everybody else’s efforts in the local nexus approach so much easier. We put teams together to support such men and women and focus our activism on raising their profiles and getting them elected.

Central government cannot function effectively across the nation without the co-operation and support of local government. Any local authority under the control of the Homeland Party, for example, would resist and obstruct at every turn any housing of economic migrants while a single local person is deemed to be homeless. There is power in local government, even at parish and community council level.

Back in the mid-2000s during my second stint as a community councillor, I had occasion to scupper the plans of a Labour Party activist who was a fellow councillor. He had just returned from the Co-operative AGM in Manchester and was encouraged to return with plans to organise a multicultural festival in the town to encourage more integration and more tolerance. Having presented his case the council was moved to agree with him. I then got to say my piece and pointed out that we had no problem with integration and tolerance as the community had very few non-indigenous inhabitants, all of whom, got on very well in the community. The police and unitary authority councillors confirmed their were no issues. I raised the possibility that tensions could actually be raised by suggesting there where problems when none in fact existed. I then proposed that the monies they had earmarked for organising such an event would be better spent upgrading the amenities at the local park for the benefit of all. I’m pleased to say my intervention was successful on both counts.

That incident alone should highlight to all the importance of engaging in local politics. Every one of us has the ability to make a positive impact in our neighbourhood. Community councils and parish councils are worth winning.

Community politics, though, does not just mean elections, nor is it a technique. For me it is about people and giving a voice and power back to that people. It must always be borne in mind that every single position of authority or leadership in a community should be a target for the local community politics teams. If these positions include the spending of public money it is even more critical to get involved to ensure these funds are not used against our people.

If there is an active organisation that forms part of community life then it behoves Nationalists to get involved in the management of these organisations and ensure they do not become a detrimental influence on the community.

The Homeland Party at present is centralised, with Regional Organisers arranging political & social activity up and down the country, assisting the councillors/candidates in their area. In the future we will devolve this activity down to Branch Organisers, inline with local authority boundaries.

Regardless of manpower, a single individual seeking to become a community lead can start to raise their own profile in a community by playing an active role in community life. Get to know your neighbourhood and volunteer where you can.

Remember too, that you do not have to be an open Nationalist or declare your membership of the Homeland Party. We do already support community activists who work outside of the party political structure for various reasons.

As a Party, we have already devised and set in motion a Seven Stage plan for electoral success. Local leads are already working on Stage One in many areas up and down the country.

We were formally constituted on the 8th of May 2023. As of August 2023, we have two Community Councillors in Scotland and two Parish Councillors in England. There are more in the process of seeking office in England, Scotland and Wales.

The only thing needed to make it happen is you. It will require hard work, often unexciting and laborious work, week-in, week-out, all year round. You must believe it can be done and not be discouraged by setbacks or the lack of sudden breakthroughs. The first step is to enter the arena; after that, our fate is in our own hands and our people have always been capable of achieving victory against the odds. This is our homeland, where we belong, and we will secure it by our own efforts alone.

Kenny Smith

Chairman,
Homeland Party

17th August 2023