This editorial by Alistair McConnachie appeared originally in the September 2003 issue of Sovereignty.

What is "politically respectable"?

The question struck us this month as we heard someone complaining that a certain group of people were not "politically respectable" in his eyes.

This is an important question because people -- especially British people it seems -- will not act on a political issue unless they are convinced it is "respectable" so to do.

This suggests that such Britons will always lose any political conflict, if their first priority is always to be considered "respectable".

Others seem to think that the grand effort of "freeing the country" ... you know ... "Independence for the UK" and all that, is just a little matter of eating enough cheese and drinking enough wine at one of those awfully civilised and "respectable" meetings in the House of Commons.

Wrong!

It is not going to be possible to "free the country" without offending some powerful people.

That means anyone whose main concern is to remain "respectable" -- by someone else's definition -- is simply not cut out for the task.

Does this mean we should not be "politically respectable"?

Of course not!

It just means we need to get clear what we mean by "politically respectable".

We must define the concept of "politically respectable" in our own terms, rather than in the terms set by the media, or -- as at present -- in the terms set by our political opponents.

We say it is politically respectable to free Britain from the EU.

We say it is politically respectable to stop the unprecedented immigration-invasion of this country -- 110,700 "asylum-seekers" alone in 2002, according to the UN High Commission on Refugees. If these huge figures continue then the time could come when it is no longer even possible to stop such numbers via the democratic process.

We say it is politically respectable to speak out against the anti-free speech laws, which seek deliberately to muzzle the words and ideas, which hold the key to achieving the above two objectives.

We say it is politically respectable to work and to support and to vote for any person or party who fights on that platform.

This is not a game. The clock is ticking. We have around 25 years and a handful of elections, to create a new political consciousness which will enable the country to change course.

It is the people who seek to abolish this country, and turn it over to the EU, or who work to perpetrate the immigration-invasion, or who seek to silence opinions and ideas they don't like, who are the real politically not-respectable ones!