Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day015.03
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

   Q.   The numbers of the pages are at the top right-hand
        corner.  There are 12 pages in all.  Can you turn to page
        9 of 12, please?  I am going to read the whole of this.
        This block in the first half of the page, leaving aside
        the interesting historical comment in bold type.  You say:
         "Thus, we follow this tangled thread.  At the end of the
        war in 1945, the British Empire was at its greatest ever
        extent in history.  Our armies straddled the globe.  We
        were beginning to get back the territories that we had
        lost in the Far East through Churchill's foolish military
        and naval strategy.  And suddenly the Empire went.
        Groping around in the darkness, we look for", capital G,
        "Guilty", capital M, "Men.  Partly I think that we must
        blame sins of omission.  If we look back from where
        Britain is now, with just a handful of people of true
        English, Irish, Scots and Welsh stock - apprehensive,
        furtively meeting in dinners like this, exchanging our own
        shared sensations and sorrows - then we can see where some
        of the worst errors have been made.
                   "In 1958, for example, we find Lord Hailsham
        saying at a Cabinet meeting, 'I do not think this Coloured
        Immigration is going to be much of a problem in Britain.
        We only have 100,000 of these immigrants so far, and I do
        not think the numbers are likely to grow much beyond
        that!  So on chance I am against having any restrictions
        imposed".  It might be "on balance", is it?

.          P-19



   A.   It should be "on balance", yes.
   Q.   I think it should.  Then you close the quote from Lord
        Hailsham and you say:  "Traitor No. 1 to the British
        cause".  What do you mean by that?
   A.   Lord Hailsham, these were records that were in 1988 just
        released from the Public Record Office, Cabinet records,
        and they reveal Lord Hailsham, who later became a Lord
        Chancellor, I believe, having said at a Cabinet meeting in
        1958 in a totally negligent manner that he did not think
        that immigration into Britain was going to be a problem
        and that so far only 100,000 had arrived, and he thought
        it would not go to more than that.
   Q.   And why does that make him a traitor, No. 1 traitor?
   A.   Because it is the duty of the custodians of government in
        this country to look ahead and to try to ward off any kind
        of misfortunes and tragedies that may otherwise befall the
        country which is put into their guardianship.
   Q.   So what you are really saying is they have an overriding
        obligation to safeguard the racial purity of the mixed bag
        of mongrels of Anglo Saxons, French, Celts, Irish and
        goodness knows what all that you call "English", is that right?
   A.   I am not sure that the British or English would be very
        flattered by the "mongrels" that you have called them.  If
        I were to use language like that, I could be rightly and
        justifiably accused of vilification, of defamation and

.          P-20

        possibly even of racism.
   Q.   Some of us, Mr Irving ----
   A.   Are you calling the English half breeds then?
   Q.   Exactly, one of your favourite terms, "half breeds".
   A.   Well, you called them "mongrels".  If I had used the word
        "mongrel" in my diary, then I would have been the subject
        of massive obloquy.
   Q.   Some people, Mr Irving, leaving aside yourself and some of
        your friends from the Third Reich, do not mind having
        mixed ancestry.  Does that baffle you?  Do you find that shocking?
   A.   Well, I have explained to you what my notion of patriotism
        is.  Patriotism is pride in the country that has been
        handed down to you by your parents and by their parents
        before them.
   Q.   I will carry on with the text, if I may?  There is not
        much more.  I should like to think there is somebody
        somewhere doing what Gilbert and Sullivan would have done
        had Mikado do which is making up a little list of named
        people", to be executed is the allusion, is it not?
   A.   That is a childish remark, frankly.
   Q.   Well, that is right, is it not?  Who is childish, me or you?
   A.   To suggest that a little list, there is a little list of
        people to be executed in some kind of Fourth Reich what
        is, no doubt, what you will have said next.

.          P-21

   Q.   I am not suggesting ----
   A.   That we have democratic processes in this country where
        lists of people get regularly fired by the electorate,
        but, unfortunately, we did not know in 1958 that Lord
        Hailsham had taken this wicked decision.
   Q.   I am not suggesting you wanted Lord Hailsham executed,
        though may be you did ----
   A.   That is precisely the innuendo you placed on that phrase.
   Q.   But the little list in your book, if you are the Mikado,
        is a list of traitors and the nature of their treachery is
        to allow large numbers of people who are not of pure
        mongrel English stock into this country, is it not?
   A.   That is precisely what I did not say.  What I did say, he
        is a traitor because he has not had Britain's interests,
        the interests of the British people at heart.  He has
        failed to see ahead to the tragedy which massive
        immigration would inflict on this country.
                  This country was existing in a relative
state of
        peace.  If you ask the family of Steven Laurence, you
will
        see the kind of tragedy that has been inflicted on an
        individual scale by massive immigration into a foreign
        country.
   Q.   So people like the Laurences, rather like your remarks
        about the Jews, have brought it on themselves, is that
the
        theory?
   A.   Oh, really!  If this is the level of your advocacy ---
-

.          P-22



   Q.   Well, what do you mean?
   A.   --- this morning, then perhaps we ought to take a
break.
   Q.   What do you mean, Mr Irving?
   A.   Shall I spell it out?
   Q.   Yes, please.
   A.   I will repeat what I just said.  In the 1950s, Britain
was
        a country at peace.  We had defeated a major world
power.
        We were licking our wounds and recovering and, for no
        perceptible reason, we then through the folly and
        negligence of the government that we had voted into
power,
        as we now see, through their total negligence, through
        their ignorance, we inflicted on this country a body
wound
        which only began at that time, the kind of wound which
has
        led to 100,000 cases of the Stephen Laurence tragedy
        occurring on one level, and it could have been
avoided.
   Q.   Those tragedies ----
   A.   It was a tragedy inflicted on the immigrants whom we
        imported as slaves, as cheap labour into this country,
and
        it was a tragedy on this country.
   Q.   Yes, and the reason why people like Stephen Laurence
or
        Stephen Laurence, if you like, was killed was because
he
        was black, was it not?
   A.   I think you are absolutely right.  Of course, we do
not
        know because there has been no formal finding in that
        matter.
   Q.   And who is to blame for the fact that Stephen Laurence
was

.          P-23



        killed because he was black?
   A.   Well, I do not want to sound legalistic, but until
there
        is a proper legal enquiry into the matter and the
guilt is
        apportioned and we find out exactly what happened, it
        would be wrong to kind of prejudge that issue, but we
can
        talk in theoretical terms and say who is to blame if a
        black is killed by racist white thugs.
   Q.   Yes, who is to blame?
   A.   The racist white thugs are to blame.
   Q.   Thank you very much.  Now we go on, please:  "Even if
we
        all pull together jointly and severally for the next
10,
        20, or 30 years and manage to put the clock back, say,
        half an hour of its time, the really", capital G,
         "Guilty", capital P, "People" will have passed on
        commemorated only by the bronze plaques and the
statues
        and memorials scattered around our capital.  We can go
        around and efface those monuments;  but it is going to
be
        a damned sight harder to put Britain back where it
was.
        I don't think Mrs Thatcher or her like are going to be
the
        people to do it.  Even less do I think the Socialist
Party
        are going to be the people to do it.  Nothing makes me
--
        Mr David Irving -- shudder ----
   A.   Can I just explain the phrase Guilty People, why it is
in
        capital letters?
   Q.   We have had all that earlier on.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Say what you want to say about it and
then we

.          P-24



        will come back.
   A.   It is a reference of course to a very famous book by
        Michael Foot in 1938 about the appeasers.
   MR RAMPTON:  In this context it means the politicians who
        allowed all these black, brown and Jewish people into
this
        country, does it not?
   A.   I do not think we are talking about specific
categories of
        people.  We are talking about the appeasers, who have
        kowtowed to the Buddha of political correctness.
   Q.   Whatever.
   A.   And have ruined their own country in the process.
   Q.   Mr Irving, please.  Sometimes your interpretation of
your
        own words is, to say the least, bewildering.  In this
        context, it must be, must it not, that one of the
        principal guilty people, in fact possibly the most
guilty
        because he is traitor number 1, was, for example, Lord
        Hailsham?
   A.   And cabinet ministers like him, quite clearly.  I have
        simply taken him as an example because that record has
        just come into the public domain at that time, but we
        presume that there are others like him, Harold
Macmillan
        and others of that ilk.
   Q.   Anybody who, at the very least, acquiesced in the
        admission to this country of large numbers of
immigrants?
   A.   Of whatever colour.  It would have made no difference
if
        they had acquiesced in the immigration into Britain of

.          P-25



        huge numbers of, shall we say, Slovaks or Poles or
people
        of whatever colour.  If you import people, whatever
        colour, into a country on that massive scale, it
        introduces social unrest and economic unrest.  There
is no
        reference in this passage, what you have read, from
which
        one can deduce that I am referring in that passage
only to
        people of colour, let alone the Jews or anybody else
that
        you are trying to shoehorn into it.
   Q.   Do not worry about that.  We have just seen a
reference in
        the Hailsham passage to coloured immigration.
   A.   That is what was happening at that time.  Lord
Hailsham
        referred specifically in cabinet to the coloured
        immigration.
   Q.   Capital C, capital I, Coloured Immigration.  Now we
are
        going to see exactly what you talking about in the
next
        sentence, if you will just let me read it:
                  "Nothing makes me shudder more than two or
        three months, working on a new manuscript, and I
arrive
        back at Heathrow Airport - where of course, my
passport is
        checked by a Pakistani immigration officer (Laughter).
        Isn't that a humiliation for us English?  (Applause)".
   A.   Can we continue, please, and we will see what makes me
        shudder.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No.  We will come to the rest of it in a
        moment.
   A.   That is the parenthesis. He has read the parenthesis
as

.          P-26



        though that is what makes me shudder, and of course
that
        is not what makes me shudder.
   Q.   You are going to be asked a question about that
particular
        sentence now.
   A.   Can we read the whole sentence in context?
   Q.   You can see what comes later in a moment.  Just answer
        Mr Rampton's question first.
   A.   He has paused at the wrong place.
   MR RAMPTON:  No, Mr Irving.  I want to know what is the
matter
        with your passport stamp being put, or whatever it is,
put
        on by a Pakistani.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  "Checked by".
   MR RAMPTON:  Checked by a Pakistani immigration official,
        officer, which caused great laughter amongst the
audience
        apparently, or the laughter anyway, and why you should
be
        applauded for saying that such an experience is an
        "humiliation for us English"?
   A.   Well, presumably, if he is a Pakistani and he is
working
        there, he has less right to check my passport than an
        Englishman who is working there.  I would expect an
        Englishman to be better in control of immigration into
        England than somebody who has born outside the country,
        which is why that remark is made.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is as maybe.  Mr Rampton's question is
        why is it humiliating?
   A.   That is bound up in my answer to the question, my Lord,

.          P-27

        that I would have expected English people to be checking
        the immigration.  If you go to Germany, you do not have,
        for example, Jamaicans, or you do not have Kosovans, or
        you do not have Russians checking the passports going into
        the country.  You expect to have people of the country
        concerned who are checking the passports of the people
        going in and specifically at immigration control.

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