The Difficulty In Distinguishing Between Today’s Labour Party And Hitler’s 1920 25 Point Nazi Program

This is an interesting corollary of Poe’s Law, the difficulty in distinguishing between satire and reality. One of the outlets for the leftier part of the current Labour Party, Labour Hub, had an article up which was quite obviously poking fun at that leftier part of today’s Labour Party. For it was a simple rewrite of some half of Hitler’s 25 point program for the Nazi Party as released in 1920. Essentially, the stuff about race got dropped and everything else stayed in.

Thus showing that there’s not a great difference between what the Nazis thought would sell to the working class back in 1920 and what the Momentum arm of the Labour Party thinks will sell to today’s working class:

Labour Blog Publishes Half of Hitler’s Manifesto

The left wing blog Labour Hub published 13 points of Hitler’s 1920 Nazi manifesto.

We do rather all hope it was a spoof, obviously:

Labour Hub, a new blog site for the far-left of the Labour Party, has published an article which replicates half of Adolf Hitler’s 25-point 1920 manifesto.

“Demands from the grassroots”, published on Labour Hub on 22 October, lists 13 of the 25 Nazi policies, portrayed as measures which Hitchen and Harpenden CLP believe the Labour Party should adopt.

In what appears to be a hoax article, policies relating to Germany specifically or the claimed supremacy of the Aryan race were omitted, but several of the remaining statements should have set off alarm bells at Labour Hub nevertheless.

Well, mo, not really. Why should listing what you think will appeal to the working classes set off alarm bells? And why should what does so appeal be thought of as unwanted?

A copy of the post is here. The Nazi manifesto is here.

Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery.

No one should live off money from rents or other income unless they have worked for that money.

The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable the capable and industrious to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the state must be striven for by the school as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the state of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession.

We want to change the system of schools and education, so that all hard-working can have the chance of higher education.
What is taught should concentrate on practical things
Schools should teach civic affairs, so that children can become good citizens
If poor parent cannot afford to pay the government should pay for education.

We want to change the way land is owned. We also want
a law to take over land if the country needs it, without the government having to pay for it;
to abolish ground rent
to prohibit land speculation (buying land just to sell to someone else for more money).

We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.

It’s difficult to immediately select which is the source there, isn’t it?

At one level we can all just chortle and mutter about how easy it is to get fooled. But at the important level it’s necessary to worry, a lot. For there’s very little here that wouldn’t gain support in parts of the modern Labour Party. That’s why the spoof was successful. And the thought that parts of any current day political party would sign up for a good half of the Nazi Party program isn’t a comforting one, is it?

Do also note that this isn’t a one off. Strip the racist nonsense out of the BNP manifesto and you’d equally get half those tribunes of the left to sign up to it. Showing, perhaps, that fascism really is a left wing movement, however it is usually described as far right. The truth perhaps being that economic populism is economic populism, it being only the addition or not of the racism which leads to the fascist and lefty versions of it.