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The National Party of Europe and
The Conference of Venice 1962

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The National Party of Europe, as it became, was launched at the Conference of Venice on March 1, 1962. The principal signatories being the aristocratic Adolf von Thadden of the Reichspartei (later a leader of the NPD), Giovanni Lanfre of the post-fascist Movemiento Socialiste Italiano and Jean Thiriart of Jeune Europe and author of some of the most radical works on the National Communitarian State … and, of course, Oswald Mosley of Union Movement. Their hopes and aspirations were high, being attended by seasoned and experienced exponents of the European idea. Their declaration at this conference included regular liaison between the parties and an intention to change the names of their parties to the NATIONAL PARTY OF EUROPE.
An important principle was to accept a common policy under a centralised leadership, meeting as equals in the interests of common action.

 

From European Action No 9 : Where We Stand Today

  [The editor attempts to answer the many questions from readers concerning the position we take on the National Party of Europe as more than an idea.]

 

Nearly sixty years on, many readers of European Action want to know what happened to the concept of a National Party of Europe and what are we doing about it today.  I can first tell them that the idea is kept very much alive through the pages of this publication and that one of our immediate aims is to spread the word as far and as wide as is possible with the meagre resources we have at our disposal. For, without the idea and the words that go with it, there can never be its ultimate realisation.

For this reason, European Action stands as the flagship of the idea, the only truly effective voice of Europe a Nation in the world today. In the eighteen  months of our existence, the paper has steadily grown in political stature; through perseverance, hard work and resilience we have at last made a name for ourselves in certain important areas of influence. Before then, there was nothing to inspire. We have kept faithful to the original concept formulated by Sir Oswald Mosley and others at the Conference of Venice way back in March of 1962.

Several nationalist groups across Western Europe (the East was still under communism) got together to agree on a formula that would establish the existence of a National Party of Europe, this being regarded as an extension of their patriotism in what Mosley had termed the “higher nationalism” of Europe a Nation. In our supplement to this issue, we publish the aims and conclusions of that conference ... this being the foundation of the revived concept as propagated by European Action.

It was said that most of the parties involved at the conference were far too nationalistic, with some of them enjoying limited later electoral successes as nationalistic groups ... the Italian MSI being an example. The lesson from this being that the sum total of several nationalistic parties do not make the “higher nationalism” ... just as a  larger number of pygmies will never make a giant. Today, there are some nationalistic parties that will occasionally pay lip service to the idea of European “co-operation” but will go no further. It is, after all, pure lip service without any will for going beyond their limited territorial loyalties. Their nationalism will always be fundamentally anti-European by simple definition of their nationalist titles.

On May 1, 1964, ACTION published an appraisal by Mosley in which he began, “How stands the National Party of Europe? May 1964 is a good time to make some report on this matter. The first fact is that the work at Venice stands. It was a very great advance after years of long effort to secure some effective union between European patriots. Indeed, the success of that conference went beyond my expectations. We had for years encountered so many difficulties that I did not anticipate such complete accord on our full programme”.

The fact that the Union Movement and Jean Thiriart’s Belgian party had embarked on an active propaganda campaign immediately after the conference and that the Germans and Italians had failed in this respect because they were both side-tracked by imminent elections, left the entire undertaking in a state of quandary.

Mosley explained that, for the Germans and Italians, the Declaration of Venice was a bigger departure from their previous positions. They had considered their separate national interests to be more important. Perhaps the vital step of setting up a central bureau would have helped things along but Mosley argued that this had failed to transpire through lack of funding. In his words, “But without the central bureau the practical basis of the National Party of Europe can not be established. Certainly we can not effectively implement the fifth point of central direction until we have the means for a central bureau”.

The Nationaldemokratischepartei Deutschlands (the NPD), the successor to the Deutsche Reichspartei, enjoyed limited electoral success in the mid-1960s but only on a strictly German nationalist platform. Its leader then, Adolf von Thadden, was given maximum international publicity. This Prussian aristocrat had been an MI6 agent since 1946, it transpired, his anti-Nazi sister having been executed for treason by the Nazis. With such a family history it was difficult to realistically view von Thadden as a “neo-Nazi”, a media term then coined to describe the rising virulent German nationalism.

These points are important when evaluating the potential of the Venice Conference and why it was virtually suspended .

Jean Thiriart, perhaps one of the most visionary of genuine European unionists, turned towards a form of “national Bolshevism”, albeit within a European context, which involved seeking an accommodation with the Soviet Union. He took a very anti-American position in this regard. But his contribution in terms of ideas and theory has been phenomenal and remains an inspiration to many today.

In 1962, Mosley was to be at the receiving end of a concerted campaign of violence by communists and Jewish groups in Britain, with Union Movement’s last Trafalgar Square meeting being smashed up by organised Red violence, even though he was still in his flat in Lowndes Square before leaving for the meeting. Previous meetings in the Square had passed off without any trouble at all. In fact, previously there was a very successful meeting in which Mosley stood up and spoke on behalf of the National Party of Europe. The violence followed him to other parts of the country and there is no doubt the potential success of the Conference of Venice, as reported in the press around the world, was the reason for it all.  They feared our success.

At a press conference in the Union Movement’s Vauxhall Bridge Road offices after the attack upon the last Trafalgar Square meeting, Mosley said that he did not blame the police for what happened. “But I do”, he said, “blame the Government for having lost control of the streets to Red anarchy”.

There is no doubt that a campaign for the NPE here in Britain would have got off the ground were it not for this series of orchestrated violent attacks upon Mosley and Union Movement. With that, the other parties on the Continent would possibly have felt emboldened to follow suit. As it is, most of them reverted to narrow nationalistic programmes. But, to Mosley, this was not the end. To him, the Conference of Venice was a success insofar that it was initially established as fact. In his autobiography My Life he hoped that a future generation would again pick it up and bring about its reality.

Curiously, on another page in the same issue of ACTION of May 1st 1964, he replies to a correspondent on the question of what happens in the event of the death or disablement of the Leader. Very rarely was this discussed but he clarified his position thus:

In this event the Movement will be conducted by a council until a new Leader emerges who will be chosen by that council. There is no mystery about the council which is already in existence and meets frequently to give me advice and to perform a variety of duties undertaken by its members. This council is selected on the principles in my article [see “Union Movement as the New Model Party” in ACTION of March 13th] according to the work men and women do for the Movement. They are most of them well-known to members of Union Movement. Those among them who will conduct the Movement in the event of my death are all well-known to members and their names will then be published. In addition at present we have secondary council members who attend for specific purposes and, on occasion, some whose names can not be published.

The work of the Movement will be carried on with the same round table method I have advocated and employed in Europe by the people who have served the Movement best until a new Leader emerges by his proved ability.

A Directorate of Union Movement was established in the mid-1960s, as, soon after, I became West London Area Organiser when Martin Moloney was appointed a Directorate member. Jeffrey Hamm remained the Secretary of the Movement with Mosley pursuing his aims, quite successfully, as a man above party politics. He was to remain the Leader to all of us until his death in 1980.

Now we come to the key point of this article: whither the National Party of Europe as previously established? It is very clear that any council appointed by Mosley was not successful in pursuing the ideas of Europe a Nation after his death but reverted to being a kind of memorial society with annual dinners of remembrance being the year’s highlight. The political Movement had been effectively wound up ... until European Action decided to remind the world of a great idea.

Where others failed to continue the struggle for whatever reasons, we have picked up the standard of the Movement. To the Bailey brothers and other members of the Directorate that have passed on, we salute you. Ever loyal to the Leader, you fought the fight.

Now it is time for the end of reflection and what could have been. Rather we turn to the beginning of a revitalised vision and what can still be done for our Europe and its people.

The first thing we need to do is to perfect our propaganda good enough and powerful enough to influence as many of our countrymen as we can. Because, without that, the idea would whither and die.

I would claim that this publication has the potential, as it stands, to persuade the best of our people in the direction of forming a political organisation for all Europeans. This is our main aim.

Secondly, we must learn the lesson of the Conference of Venice of 1962. Quite simply it is that, collectively, the nationalistic parties of the separate parts of Europe are totally unsuited for the creation of a pan-European political force. We need those who already possess a European consciousness ... people like Mosley and Thiriart who had been Europeans from the beginning and were Europeans to the end.

This is not a philosophy or doctrine cobbled together for a quick win in a local election, based on purely populist opportunism and expediency. It is revolutionary and requires patience and hard work. There is a group of political parties in the European Parliament collectively called “Alliance of Europe of the Nations” ... each one is strictly petty-nationalist and virulently opposed to European unity. Do not be fooled by its title because it is the antithesis of Europe a Nation.  We have no allies because it is we alone that propagate this great European idea and we alone who will see it through.

Our position today is very clear. We must make this paper a great success by distributing it to as many people we should find to be good Europeans. First, is the idea and then the word. Keep alive the spirit of Mosley’s vision, my comrades, and one day we shall win.

PROGRESS - SOLIDARITY - UNITY

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(above: Sir Oswald Mosley speaks at the first public meeting in Trafalgar Square in 1962 after the foundation of the National Party of Europe)

THE EUROPEAN DECLARATION AT VENICE - March 1st 1962


We, being Europeans conscious of a tradition which derives from classic Greece and Rome, and of a civilisation which during three thousand years has given thought, beauty, science and leadership to mankind, and feeling for each other the close relationship of a great family whose quarrels in the past have proved the heroism of our peoples but whose division in the future would threaten the life of our continent with the same destruction which extinguished the genius of Hellas and led to the triumph of alien values, now declare with pride our European communion of blood and of spirit in the following urgent and practical proposals of our new generation which challenge present policies of division, delay and subservience to the destructive materialism of external powers before which the splendour of our history, the power of our economy, the nobility of our traditions and the inspiration of our ideals must never be surrendered:

(1) That Europe a Nation shall forthwith be made a fact. This means that Europe shall have a common government for purposes of foreign policy, defence, economic policy, finance and scientific development. It does not mean Americanisation by a complete mixture of the European peoples which is neither desirable nor possible.

(2) That European government shall be elected by free vote of the whole people of Europe every four years at elections which all parties may enter. This vote shall be expressed in the election of a parliament which will have power to select the government and at any time to dismiss it by vote of censure carried by a two-thirds majority. Subject to this power of dismissal, government shall have full authority to act during its period of office in order to meet the fast moving events of the new age of science and to carry out the will of the people as expressed by their majority vote.

(3) That national parliaments in each member country of Europe a Nation shall have full power over all social and cultural problems, subject only to the overriding power of European Government in finance and its other defined spheres, in particular the duty of economic leadership.

(4) That the economic leadership of government shall be exercised by means of the wage-price mechanism, first to secure similar conditions of fair competition in similar industries by payment of the same wages, salaries, pensions and fair profits as science increases the means of production for an assured market, thus securing continual equilibrium between production and consumption, eliminating slump and unemployment and progressively raising the standard of life. Capital and credit shall be made available to the underdeveloped regions of Europe from the surplus at present expatriated from our continent.

(5) That intervention by government at the three key points of wages, prices, where monopoly conditions prevail and the long term purchase of agricultural and other primary products alone is necessary to create the third system of a producers' state in conditions of a free society which will be superior both to rule by finance under American capitalism or rule by bureaucracy under communist tyranny. It is at all times our duty in the solidarity of the European community to assist each other to combat the destruction of European life and values from without and from within by the overt and covert attack of communism.

(6) That industries already nationalised will be better conducted by workers' ownership or syndicalism than by state bureaucracy, but the system of the wage-price mechanism will, in full development, make irrelevant the question of the ownership of industry by reason of the decisive economic leadership of elected government, and will bring such prosperity that workers will have no interest in controversies which belong to the 19th century.

(7) With the creation of Europe a Nation as a third power strong enough to maintain peace, a primary object of the European government will be to secure the immediate and simultaneous withdrawal of both Russian and American forces from the occupied territories and military bases of Europe. Europe must be as strongly armed as America or Russia until mutual disarmament can be secured by the initiative of an European leadership which will have no reason to fear economic problems caused by disarmament as has capitalist America, nor to desire the force of arms for purposes of imperialist aggression as does communist Russia.

(8) The emergence of Europe as a third great power will bring to an end the political and military power of UNO, because these three great powers will then be able to deal directly and effectively with each other. The peace of the world can best be maintained by direct and continuous contact between these three great powers which represent reality instead of illusion and hypocrisy. The production of nuclear weapons will be confined to these three great powers until mutual disarmament can be secured.

(9) Colonialism shall be brought to an end. A way will be found to maintain or to create in Africa states under government of non-European but African origin amounting to about two-thirds of the continent, and other states under government by peoples of European and Afrikaner origin amounting to about one-third. In non-European territory, any European who chose to remain should stay without vote or political rights. He would be in the same position as any resident in another country, subject to the maintenance of human rights within their own communities, by reciprocal arrangement between European and non-European territories. Conversely, any non-European remaining in European territory would have neither vote nor political rights, subject to the maintenance of the same basic human rights. Multi-racial government breaks down everywhere in face of the non-European demand for one man one vote which they learnt from the West and becomes a squalid swindle of loaded franchises to postpone the day of surrender rather than to solve the problem. Better by far is the clean settlement of clear division. Europe must everywhere decide what it will hold and what it will relinquish. The Europeans in union will have the power of decision. Today they lack only the will. We will hold what is vital to the life of Europe, and we will in all circumstances be true to our fellow-Europeans, particularly where they are now threatened in African territory.

(10) The space of a fully united Europe including the lands to be liberated by American and Russian withdrawal, the British Dominions and other European overseas territories, and approximately one-third of Africa is a just requirement for tile full life of the Europeans in a producer and consumer system which shall be free of usury and capitalism, of anarchy and communism. Within the wide region of our nation the genius of modern science shall join with the culture of three millennia to attain ever higher forms of European life which shall continue to be the inspiration of mankind.

NATIONAL PARTY OF EUROPE
THE name agreed by Conference to be recommended by the parties represented at the Conference is "National Party of Europe" in English, "Nationale Partei Europas" in German, "Partie Nationale Europeene" in French and "Partitro Nation-ale Europa" in Italian. It will be noted that in Britain and Germany the party will have the same initials N.P.E. and in the other countries will have the same letters. As stated, the representatives of Britain, Germany and Belgium agreed at once to ask their parties to change their names accordingly.
It was stressed that wherever the name National Party of Europe is used in any language, underneath should be written in smaller letters the words "Progress - Solidarity - Unity". It was agreed that we should never permit ourselves to be misrepresented by our opponents as a policy of reaction. On the contrary our policy is far in advance of any other policy before the European peoples today.
For years we have emphasised in the policy of our movements that we combine the great principles of patriotism and of progress. Our principles are a synthesis at a higher level of the conflict between patriotism and progress in the policies of the old parties. So we are the National Party of Europe with the principles of Progress - Solidarity - Unity.

THE SYMBOL OF THE MOVEMENT
The question of symbols for the National Party of Europe was discussed. As symbols are not used in Germany and Italy in the way we use them here, the questions of symbols in those countries was left in abeyance. On the other hand, our symbol, the Flash and Circle is much used by our Movement in Britain, and the Celtic Cross is much used by Jeune Europe and M.A.C. in Belgium. It was finally agreed between us that we should both use simply the Flash. Our badge means the flash of action in the circle of union. We feel now that in the National Party of Europe the long fight to achieve unity has been achieved. We now need the action.
The Celtic Cross can be seen everywhere in Belgium, others elsewhere have imitated it. But we are most of us not Celts, who are the people living on the periphery, the edges of Europe and Great Britain. We British are mostly of Saxon, Norman and Viking, descent. Most Belgians are of similar origin. On the Continent, also, what we call the Flash is similar to the letter "5", which stands for "Solidarity". So we will both concentrate on the Flash which stands for both "Action" and "Solidarity".


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