In face of June 7 elections which centered on economic issues, the Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) in the United Kingdom issued a statement on the lack of ideological and moral content of the electoral debate. The statement “Are We To Be Treated As a Nation With Only a Stomach?” was published in three daily newspapers and handed out in public street campaigns in London.
Published in The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, and The Daily Express.
Are We To Be Treated as
A Nation With Only a Stomach?
Now that the Prime Minister has called for the elections to go ahead on 7 June, The Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family and Property would like to offer some considerations to the British public regarding the lack of ideological and moral content of the electoral debate. The various political parties seem purposely to skirt around the true cause of our nation’s problems while pushing ahead harmful reforms.
No one can deny that society is undergoing a grave social and moral crisis. Our daily press is full of news concerning the rise in violent crimes; the increasing drug and drink problem among our young; child bullying or even children killing children; the demise of the institution of the family and family life; the abolition or reform of laws governing public morality; therapeutic cloning; abortion; prescription-free morning-after pill; and the list could go on.
Why is the real problem not mentioned in the electoral debates?
This social and moral chaos is the real underlying problem that needs to be addressed if our country is to prosper. The British people have the right to expect solutions to these pressing issues to be a central part of the electoral debate.
But this has not been the case! No matter whether Labour or Tory, both have, by and large, narrowed their electoral platforms to matters of production and consumerism.
In the words of Tony Blair, “Labour will fight the coming election on the ‘key battleground’ of the economy and the promise of better public services…”. (The Times 8/01/01). Or even: “Now that Labour had established its economic competence in the public mind, the time has come for it to define itself as a force for progressive politics, taking down the barriers that prevent people making the most of themselves… enabling ‘the full potential of every individual to be liberated'” (The Times 8/02/01). And William Hague and the Tory party have said much the same with their promises of tax cuts and improved public services.
To state that the economy and public services — no matter how important they may be — are the central issues is to treat the British people as if they only had stomachs and no moral or ideological dimension.
The late Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, founder of the Brazilian Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), in his book Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites, points out: “The misconception that prosperity is always the mainstay of the order and well-being of nations, and that poverty is the principal cause of crises is clearly disproved by events in postwar Europe.”
A stealth tax undermining the foundation of our nation’s well-being
Over the past decades we have seen an almost total abandonment of a morality based on the time-tested natural order and the law of God. And this process has only accelerated under this Labour Government with its Godless legislation. This process is the real stealth tax undermining the foundation of our nation’s well-being. And we are now reaping the bitter fruits.
The first step to solving society’s problems is a return to a full observance of God’s law and to the sound moral values based on that law. “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things will be added unto you,” says Holy Scripture (Matt. 6:33).
This must take place at every level, whether that be in government, society at large, the family or the individual. As Pope Pius XII rightly said in an allocution to the Roman Patriciate and Nobility in 1947: “History has already cruelly proved that any human society without a religious foundation rushes inevitably toward its dissolution and ends up in terror.”
We shall avoid crises with God’s blessing, not with atheistic policies.
This lack of religious foundation was recently exposed by the recommendation of Government officials and Church of England leaders to stay away from Sunday services due to the foot-and-mouth epidemic. In former times, whenever there was a plague or a national crisis, people flocked to the churches and held processions to implore God’s help. And History has recorded the efficacy of such action. How sad and symptomatic of our atheistic society that national leaders unashamedly suggest the opposite course of action.
We sincerely hope the British people will not be lulled to sleep by the economic largesse of the present Government, nor by the hollow promises of all the political parties. But rather demand, from whoever wins the election, that they put God’s law and moral values based on the natural order back into the centre of an urgently needed legislative, social and moral reform. Only in this way will our nation obtain true prosperity and true peace. In this light we applaud the recent document of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales Vote for the Common Good.
In an age of uncertainty and in a destabilised world, may Mary, the Mother of God, whose many shrines grace our land, help us to restore our nation as a beacon of sanity and stability by keeping a firm hold on our Christian traditions, and guide us safely through this new millennium.
The Society for the Defence of Tradition, Family, Property
May 31, 2001
Further information can be obtained at the following email address: [email protected]