A faint flicker of hope?

In my salad days I was a fervent supporter of the Labour Party: it employed me as a canvasser when I was an undergraduate and in my late twenties I was treasurer of my local branch. Although I've never contemplated voting for another party, Blairism destroyed my affection for Labour and my belief in it as an agent of social regeneration. Like a betrayed spouse locked in a loveless marriage, I've been hoping that I might one day find something which would rekindle my hope in the future.

   Yesterday, whilst surfing the web, I stumbled across a political party of whose existence I'd previously been totally unaware: the European Federalist Party.

   A year or so ago I'd made a deliberate attempt to find a party which shared my belief in a united Europe. To my chagrin the only one I discovered was European Socialist Action, a Mosleyite group which shares its interpretation of 'socialism' with the German NSDAP.

   Fortunately, as far as I can tell, the Federalist Party's policies are perfectly acceptable. They claim to be 'free-thinking' and 'radical' rather than socialist, but I can live with that. Given the threat to their future which faces Europe's nations, political union is the priority. If that were achieved one could then campaign for a socialist government. In any case, we all know what a multitude of sins the word 'socialism' can cover: Stalin's perversion, and Hitler's misappropriation, of the term are simply the most egregious. In an article in today's Guardian, Jonathan Freedland reveals that both Shaw and Beveridge shared the nazis' belief in eugenics. I don't think this invalidates socialism any more than Darwin's belief that the traits which lead to pauperism are hereditary undermines the truth of evolution. But it does suggest that divorced from a belief in the sanctity of all human life, and an acknowledgement that moral values are ultimately grounded in faith rather than reason, socialism can become as dangerous as conservatism.

   I'm not so naive as to believe that the Federalist Party is Europe's saviour. Googling them fails to produce any results other than those related to their own website. Their membership may well consist of two men and a dog. Nevertheless I've signed up as a member - given my beliefs I feel it would be an act of moral turpitude to do otherwise.