Table of Contents
Their voices are loud; as they decry “the very democracy, the very conscience, our families, our very children’s ideas, being taken away and replaced by a vicious ideology”.
The words come not from the United States – but a member of New Zealand’s own conservative right-wing; New Conservative NZ deputy leader Elliot Ikilei.
The conservative vein that gave rise to Donald Trump’s presidency; Brexit and the growth of far-right nationalism across Europe is here.
And it has found a home within the New Conservative Party.
The party – which emerged from Colin Craig’s Conservatives – wants a full repeal of the post-Christchurch terror attack gun-laws. Its rhetoric has drawn comparisons to white nationalism.
Canterbury man Lee Williams has spoken out at rallies against what he sees as the infiltration of the West by people of colour.
“A New Zealand is going down the exact same path of importing in an alien culture that refuses to integrate,” he is heard at a recent free-speech rally.
He has given his full backing to the New Conservative Party in another video on his page.
Auckland University senior lecturer in politics and international relations Dr Chris Wilson says such rhetoric can be dangerous.
“They focus on the importance and superiority of white civilization and the protection of white cultures and homelands in the West,” he says. “These ideas are actually very dangerous; and they are motivating a number of people around the world, young white men in some of the most extreme cases to attack people of colour.”
But New Conservative NZ party leader Leighton Baker rejects any suggestion his party is on the extreme right of the spectrum.
The farmer and businessman says he is “centrist”, someone who believes in human rights.
“I’m a worker, I am a taxpayer, I am a father, I’m a grandfather…I don’t believe that is extreme in any way.”
Read the article in full here and comment on it on The BFD
