Robert Stark, “The Stark Truth: Interview with Benjamin Noyles” (Voice of Reason, 15 June 2012)
Ah, that Robert Stack, how I love him, fearlessly striding into no-go media zones where the mainstream news and current affairs media avoid like one hundred raging plague epidemics: in this episode he interviews Benjamin Noyles of the Integralist Party of the United Kingdom. Noyles talks about Integralist philosophy and policies and how the party’s approach differs from that of other political parties in Britain; the importance of principles for parties based on nationalism, such as the BNP; the importance of nation, national identity and national life; and building a movement among a nation’s youth. Noyles is a passionate speaker who all but runs away with whatever question or topic Stack puts to him and it’s major work indeed just trying to keep up with him. A sneeze on my part and I’ve lost him forever so I have to re-run the interview. Fortunately the topics he deals with are interesting and important ones about politics, society and culture so I’m not worried about having to replay the interview several times.
To understand what Noyles is saying, listeners really have to do some background research on Integralism as a philosophy. The nation is an organic unity and institution in which social differentiation and hierarchy naturally exist with the different social classes co-operating with one another. To that end, Integralism supports the existence of trade unions or guilds, corporatism (a system of political / economic / social structures in which people are organised into corporate groups on the basis of common interests such as work) and organic political representation that reflects the structure of society. It follows that different countries might have different forms of Integralism as no two countries will have the same corporate structures and organisations and their corporate-based political representation will also be very different. The citizens will identify with their country as an end in itself and therefore nationalism is seen as a positive force. The political / social tendency is towards conservatism, preserving values and traditions that are believed to represent the nation and the people, though economic practice may not necessarily be conservative in the sense usually understood. A social welfare state might fit in easily in this set-up if economic egalitarianism is valued by the people as part of their national identity; on the other hand, if economic egalitarianism is not such a big deal and individualism, economic self-reliance and resourcefulness are more valued, a welfare state might be frowned upon and the country will do without it.
Having that as our context, we can start to understand Noyles when he explains the policies and strategies of the Integralist Party of the United Kingdom, and what he considers are the mistakes that far right-wing parties in the UK have made. He considers that right-wing parties try to make themselves respectable to the public and this is a great mistake; rather these parties should be aiming at empowering people to believe in the nation as their highest goal and value and to subsume themselves and their energies and talents in working for the nation. He and Stark discuss the Wikipedia article on Integralism in some detail which then leads into a brief talk about the history of fascist political groups in Britain. Other topics covered include the current state of liberalism in the West. I must confess that for much of the first half-hour of the interview, I was lost as Noyles covered so much territory, drawing in human rights abuses in Iraq committed by the United States, the way in which Adolf Hitler’s name is used to silence people and block debate about important issues, and criticisms of Integralism and mild forms of fascism by so-called liberal groups, among other things.
After a break, Noyles continues with criticism of current economic systems and neo-liberalism and how these have degraded culture, society and the natural environment.
The interview can be hard to follow and repeated listenings will be necessary for most people to get a hang of what Stark and Noyles discuss. I suggest that to get a better idea of Integralism and Noyles’s beliefs, listeners should refer to the website of the Integral Party of the United Kingdom highlighted in the first paragraph above and explore it. Looking at the website myself, I can see how people equate the party with fascism though Noyles emphasises that Integralist ideology is different from classical fascism: Integralist ideology is about devolving power to corporate groups whereas classical fascism seeks to centralise it.
My major criticism of Integralism is that among other things it depends on everyone as individuals and as members of corporate groups agreeing on what ideals and values are representative of the nation and which are worth striving for. Social differentiation and hierarchy are seen as natural but what do Integralists do if hierarchy, through natural tendencies, drifts into a situation where the upper classes and lower classes disagree on values and their interests start to clash? What if national ideals and values start to conflict, how will leaders and their followers agree on which ideals and which values take higher priority? Will an Integralist society also be a flexible society, able to promote original thinking and innovations in political, economic and cultural practices, and ready to adapt to external traumas that can’t be avoided and which wreak irreversible changes to the society?