Ramesh Ponnuru

April 01, 2009

From National Disgrace Online

I wanted to follow up on Jonah?s posting ?British Fascists have always been on the Left.? I can?t agree more that the British Nationalist Party is

a party of the far left. They’re in favor of nationalization, they’re in favor of protectionism, they want workers’ councils to run industry, they want a massive state program of rebuilding manufacture. Like Hayek said about the socialist roots of Nazism, they are a national socialist party and the socialist bit is very important to them. Plus, there is a line, a very important line in politics, between being anti-immigration and anti-immigrant. And they’ve crossed that line.

It?s understood that anyone who cares about a country?s industrial base is really a Leftist. My only criticism of the author is that he doesn?t go far enough. The BNP?s immigration policy is also leftwing as it derives from a program of identity politics for white people?a leftist ideology whose progenitors are crazy leftists like Cornell West, Lani Guinier, and Joseph de Maistre.

That said, the BNP isn?t as bad as the far Left in America, led by Pat Buchanan. Unlike Pat, the BNP supports Israel in its crusade against Islamo-fascism, thus adhering to a central injunction in Russell Kirk?s Canon of Conservative Thought.