TFC with Smith and Rafeeq: 11 July 2010

[Helphand]

(Apologies again if this is in the wrong place, please relocate in that event, tia.)

I notice that in the TiU front page - *urgent news* section - there is a critique of Ramsay's 1952 book "The Nameless War"  (..."Why is he peddling this noxious nonsense so aggressively...")

http://theinfounderground.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11983

@46mins in the TFC Radio Show of 11 July  DBS refers en passant to the Regulation 18B incarceration - without charge or trial - of Ramsay. Given the apparent (renewed) controversy of Ramsay's book, as a prelude to a possible brief response - or retort - to that other post, I thought I might add here some extracts from The Duke of Bedford's speech in the House of Lords on 25 January 1944 moving for the review of 18B. It gives some background on Ramsay and the reasons for his predicament.  

In this regard consider reading also the separate thread about Regulation 18B, "WWII: UK's Paragraph 18B of the Defence Regulations":

http://www.theinfounderground.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&p=45096

Extracts from the Speech:

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1944/jan/25/regulation-18b

"...
if they are unable to produce such evidence their action is due to political jealousy and spite is greatly strengthened by their treatment of my own Party, the British People's Party. I defy anyone to produce evidence that the statement of policy of that Party is in any way undemocratic. From the point of view of the old established Parties and from the point of view of those financial interests which are so influential in this country and in America, it had, however, one very great defect: it included in its programme the reform of the monetary system, and that meant that, unlike any of the older political Parties, it could not only make election promises but, if it came to power, it could also carry them out. "
...

"Another charge against Mr. Beckett [the BPP Secretary] was that he advocated a negotiated peace. Every member of the Peace Pledge Union and of the Fellowship of Reconciliation advocate a negotiated peace, but they have not been interned. Again, Mr. Beckett was charged with saying that there were financial interests behind the war, and also with discouraging investment in War Loan. Every Social Credit paper has continually said that there are financial interests behind the war, and even supporters of Social Credit who are violently pro-war have attacked the foolish policy whereby the country is burdened with unnecessary debt. I may say also that I.L.P. writers have constantly stated that the war was waged for capitalist interests, but they have not been interned. "

...

"Then there is the case of Captain Ramsay, M.P., who is still detained, although he served with distinction in the last war and is still suffering from the effects of wounds. He is charged with desiring to assist the Germans in the event of invasion and even to take a post under the victorious German Government. It is, however, an open secret that the real reason why he has been detained is that he is anti-Semitic and anti-Communist and may perhaps know too much about certain prominent people. Not a scrap of evidence has been produced to prove that he is disloyal, for the very excellent reason that no such evidence exists. If Parliament had really been concerned with freedom and justice, whether the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary liked it or not, they would long ago have seen that this gentleman was allowed to defend himself in a proper manner. Too often, I am afraid, they have behaved like a pack of political hounds, so well disciplined by the Party Whips that they feared to take any new line of their own on any matter. "

"After all, if people are to be interned for being anti-Semitic the Government should take the advice of that curiously-named body the National Council for Civil Liberties, and make it a criminal offence to say anything against Jews. They might also make it a criminal offence to say anything against Communists. Then, anyhow, we should know 495 where we were, even if it were a long step further along the road to complete Fascism. And, after all, if we are going to deal in a consistent manner with this "anti-" business and to hold that because a person who is anti-Jew resembles Hitler he therefore must be a traitor anxious to assist Hitler, the same argument applies to those who are anti-conscientious objector, for precisely the same reasons. What is sauce for the goose is surely sauce for the gander. And another singularly disgraceful feature of 18B, though it is strange that it is I who should have to point it out, is the very large number of men with distinguished Service records who have been interned under this Regulation. I believe it is true at the present time that every male British internee who was of military age in the last war served with more or less distinction. If the nation had not completely taken leave of its senses under the influence of war emotion and war propaganda it would detect something uncommonly fishy about a Government which has to detain as potential traitors so many ex-Service men; and, I would add, they might see something rather fishy about the war which is held to render such detention necessary. "

...

[ this part looks particularly spiteful and Jewy:]

"Even when interned prisoners are released they are not free from persecution, because the police have sometimes made it a practice to visit their employers, if they have got a job, and inform against them with the result that they have been immediately sacked. ..."


The Lord Chancellor:
...
...the noble Duke mentioned in the course of his speech a case I know a little about, so I will here and now expose it. It had to do with a man named Greene. He told your Lordships that Greene had information laid against him by a person named Kurtz, and he said that Kurtz afterwards admitted that the statements he had made were untrue ... I think the solicitor who acted in that case for Mr. Greene has since died, so I will call him Mr. X. This agent who had given information against Greene was trapped by a trick into Mr. X's office, and he there found himself surrounded by men much bigger than himself....

[how convenient - the Solicitor for Mr Greene dies and so cannot testify on whether the retraction by the complainant against his client of his false accusation was made freely and voluntarily...]

...
"I think that Lord Morris spoke of it as unprecedented, but there he is entirely mistaken. A very similar order was made in the last war. It was then called 14B. I happened to be the Home Secretary who had the duty of administering it in the first part of the war..."

[well, nothing like being seen to be impartial!]