By T. T. Rogers. In ‘Nova Europa’, Arthur Kemp, a former spokesman for the British National Party (BNP), sets out a practical vision for the racial survival of Europeans. Written in the context of these dispiriting and challenging times for Nationalists politically, the book is appropriately short and mordant in style, and can be easily-read and understood quickly by most people.
Kemp presents us with the sober facts: Europeans are declining demographically in favour of non-Europeans who now increasingly occupy our living space. The democratic approach taken by Nationalists of seeking popular support at the ballot box has failed – at least for now.
Kemp explains why this matters, and why something must be done to arrest European decline and preserve the racial characteristics of the indigenous population, and by extension its civilisational attainments.
To understand Kemp’s proposed solution, it’s important to grasp his central thesis about politics: that physical occupation of geographic space is the key to politics, and that as we Europeans lose demographic ground in our own countries, our racial future, and by extension, our distinct European culture, slip away into extinction.
Kemp presents two case studies (Orania and Israel), which demonstrate how this thesis can work in reverse, so that the Afrikaner ethnic group and the Jewish racial group have resolved their own, similar, survivalist challenges by building communities intentionally that protect racial and ethnic integrity.
Kemp concludes with some practical suggestions for how to move forward with a strategy for building a European ethno-state. He, rightly, confines himself to general thoughts and observations on the practicalities, but what he does say is helpful, either because it reinforces what is already known, or because it provides a slightly different slant on existing thinking. Kemp’s preference seems to be building a discrete ethno-state as quickly as possible, but he also allows for the more organic approach of building communities that gradually confederate and evolve into autonomy or statehood.
I tend to approach all books I read critically, and I always look for some basis of critique – especially when, as here, I hold the author in deep respect – and there are certainly points where I can say I differ from Kemp. I enunciate these below.
However, I should also say that I can find little, if any, fault with Kemp’s political analysis of the current situation. It seems clear that the democratic horse has been well enough flogged and is now comatose.
Kemp posits some reasons for the abject failure of Nationalism in Britain in comparison to other countries. The territorial electoral system we have here, in comparison with the Continental proportional model, is one explanation, but I think when Nationalists and others begin talking in those terms we are almost at a diagnosis of excusitis.
I think the real reason for Nationalism’s political and electoral failure in Britain is deeper and ideological, and most Nationalists, if searching for whom to blame, need to take a look in the mirror. Unlike in Europe, British fascism forgot the ‘social’ aspects and failed to build a Popular Nationalism that would appeal, syncretically, across the political spectrum. Instead, the Nationalist movement became an ideological backwater, populated by reactionaries, right-wingers and a small, but significant, minority of neo-Nazi hobbyists. Nationalism is meant to be for everyone who is indigenous to Europe, not just people who are right-wing.
In fairness, the BNP was an attempt to address this. It failed for much of the reasons given in the book by Kemp, and others that he hints at. Those reasons will be well-known by most people who bother to search out this book and read this review, so I will not elaborate, but there is a further factor not often mentioned that I will discuss here briefly.
I call it an ‘intellectual disease’, which I think afflicted Nationalists and which is still evident and holds the movement back. It goes back to this inability of Nationalists to break out of a far-Right ideological and cultural backwater, and in particular, an inability or unwillingness among British ethno-Nationalists to see beyond the limitations of the nation-state model.
To an extent, this flaw is also evident in Kemp’s palliative thinking. He clearly prefers the idea of a speedy movement to ethno-statehood, and he isn’t quite ready to let go of democratic participation. On the other hand, and to his credit, he sees the racial nature of the European problem more clearly than most in Nationalism today – but he doesn’t go far enough for my liking.
I think a quite significant point-of-departure I have with Kemp is that I dismiss the ‘democratic participation route’ altogether, and with it I would also dismiss the British State which, it seems to me, is now Multi-Cultural and thus anti-white. While Kemp’s logic that democratic participation should not be abandoned is impeccable, my view is that we cannot keep our foot in both camps.
To continue engagement now is to waste time and energy on a fruitless and poisonous avenue. The answer has to be a renewed commitment to intentional community-building, but this time on a more radical basis, along the lines of Pioneer Little Europe, or similar, and this has to be the sole focus. It may be, in time, that successful community-building makes the democratic participation route more viable again, and that some interaction between the two strategies is properly restored, but for now I think Nationalists are out of that game. I see that not as defeat, but as a strategic shift in emphasis.
It’s unlikely this book will appeal to a general readership. It’s a book for Nationalists. It’s for those in Nationalism who want to know the thoughts of a major intellectual figure in the Nationalist scene on the central issue facing us: the existential survival of Europeans. There’s nothing new in the content necessarily, but it is a good discussion point for thinking about and developing further the issues. I would also think someone with a general, intelligent interest in politics may find this book an interesting sideways introduction to the White Nationalist perspective.
Kemp’s prose is clear and cogent, and I would have thought it much more difficult for someone unfamiliar with Nationalism to make sense of, say, the PLE Prospectus, than this.