The collapse of the banking system, and with it the candyfloss economy of the last fifty-odd years, might be very distressing for its beneficiaries but has put a spring in the step of  most British nationalists.  It has always been plain to them that things had to get a lot worse to get any better . A public mired in complacency by easy credit, consumerism, welfare benefits and popular entertainments was never going to change anything very much ; including its voting habits. If they switched their votes at all when elections came round it was more out of boredom than principle or conviction. So when hearing of Churchill’s remark that five minutes conversation with the average voter disabuses anyone of democracy, one is tempted to reply ‘Oh really? As much as that?’   But it is plain to any intelligent observer that events not arguments are what generate real change in politics.  The banking collapse is certainly one such event.

The consequent business failures and unemployment are now gathering momentum like an economic tsunami advancing on a beach still full of disbelieving holidaymakers.  And as people look around at the desolation they discover it has included the social security refuges taken for granted for most of their lives.  The comfort zone of the Lib/Lab/Con coalition is collapsing around us ,and with it the confidence that a marginal vote-shift will somehow see us through.   The current brouhaha about ‘British jobs for British workers’ is an early sign that people are waking up to the real world of survival politics.  Among other things it is exposing the betrayal of working people by their trade union leaders.  And the fact that people like Mandelson and Brown condemn the present walk-outs ought to persuade anybody that such action is entirely appropriate. The truth is it has caused a shiver of apprehension in government circles ; where it is seen as a portent of public awakening to the disastrous consequences of EU membership and mass immigration.  And already we are hearing the Establishment and media bleating about ‘extremists exploiting public disquiet’ Well if we aren’t we certainly ought to be!  For there’s no disguising the fact that the this recession may be the best ( and perhaps last) opportunity for British nationalists to shatter the Westminster facade. We can only advance through the ruins of the present regime, not its thriving shopping malls. So the Winter of this government’s discontent should give way to the Spring of a resurgent nationalism.

From now on every upsurge of public unrest during the recession has to be vigorously exploited by nationalist campaigners.  And this has to include demolishing the Tory pretensions that they offer any hope of national recovery, committed as they are to both EU membership and mass immigration.    As Shakespeare said ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood,  leads on to fortune…’   And this could be it for the nationalist movement.