An Interview with Derek Turner

Who started Right Now? When and why was it started?

The first issue of Right Now! came out in October 1993. The magazine was the fruit of a series of discussion meetings that had taken place in London amongst a disparate and ever-changing group of people on the "Right", who had little in common but a profound dissatisfaction with the direction of British politics and culture. Although I attended many of the meetings and was privy to the plans, I had little to do with the magazine until I became editor in mid-1995.

Although we were, as I say, a fairly diverse group of people, we were all broadly in favour of patriotism, civility and Western civilisation and opposed to Britain's membership of the European Union, large-scale immigration and multiculturalism and globalism. We were all natural conservatives but regarded the Conservative Party as being deficient in many ways.

There is still little recognition within Conservative ranks of the dangers posed by both globalism and mass immigration - although they now seem to be taking their first, hesitant steps towards declaring for leaving the EU. Nor is there much conception of the importance of culture or, indeed, the importance of anything except economics. For example, Margaret Thatcher privatised council homes and the utilities but left the teacher training colleges firmly in the hands of the Left. The scale of priorities was all wrong. There is also a widespread refusal on the part of many Tories to be populist or to address real peoples' concerns (eg, preserving jobs or protecting the environment). The Party was long ago captured by free market reductionists and it has not yet managed to break free, although there are now some encouraging straws in the wind. To put it into American terms, the "paleoconservatives" had been ousted or they were silent (with a few honourable exceptions).

Beyond the Conservative Party, there was and is a Eurosceptical movement which is motivated largely by patriotic instincts and is, indeed, made up largely of ex-Tories. But this, although large and vociferous, is effectively a single issue movement, with an unfortunate tendency on the part of some of its members towards foolish talk about "Bilderbergers" and "Freemasons". (This is less true today.) There are also small-c conservative people in other parties, right across the political spectrum even to the Labour Party, who were potentially receptive to the ideas of the Right but who would never accept them in Tory packaging. We wanted to find some way of encouraging fruitful dialogue between all these natural allies, and to provide ideological ammunition for politicians, academics, journalists and political campaigners of all kinds. I see the role of Right Now as being a provider of moral rearmament for demoralised troops! Hardly anyone on the Right was talking about such important things as human inequality, manners, the arts, sex differences, race relations or the environment. A whole range of ideas was being neglected, to Britain's detriment. It was also important, we thought, that these ideas should be discussed in a manner that was lively, intelligent and accessible to the average reader of a broadsheet newspaper. Much Rightwing discussion is either too lofty or too crude.

What was the initial reaction to the new magazine?

The initial reaction was muted, partly because we had no money to market the magazine. The Conservative establishment ignored it completely, doubtless thinking that Right Now, like most endeavours on the Right, would fold after a couple of meetings or issues. (Many on the Right establish organisations on a whim or when feeling especially outraged, and do not plan properly.) Indeed, some people within the Conservative establishment still ignore RN, but they are not the people with whom one would necessarily want to become embroiled in any case. A few advertisements in Rightwing journals brought us in a first crop of readers, and our readership has crept up slowly but steadily ever since, thanks to networking, some meetings, judicious advertising, leafleting and some media coverage, both friendly and unfriendly. This having been said, our marketing efforts are hampered by a general lack of resources and time.

Your board of patrons has included such outstanding names as Victor Serebriankoff of Mensa, Professor Antony Flew, and Hans Eysenck. How did you get such an illustrious board?

Simple - I asked them! There are still some people in important places who believe strongly enough in patriotism and in freedom of expression to permit the use of their names as patrons. They do not necessarily agree with everything that appears in the magazine - but then nor do I! Sadly, two patrons of ours have died - Hans Eysenck and, very recently, Victor Serebriakoff, former International President of MENSA - but I am confident that other eminent people will be willing to help in this way.

Tell us about your background.

I was born in December 1964 in Dublin to a Protestant family. My father is a retired ship's captain. I had three brothers (one has since died tragically). I spent my childhood in Blackrock and Foxrock in south County Dublin. After an undistinguished scholastic career, and without any idea of what I wanted to do, I joined the Merchant Navy and eventually the Irish Naval Service (military). I was an Able Signalman. After I left that, in 1988, I came to live in London. After a succession of jobs, I now work as a senior editor for a publishing company and do freelance writing for a wide range of publications. I am married. My hobbies are reading, writing, exploring London/the English countryside and restoring my country cottage.

While the primary orientation and subscription base is British, you do seem to have a number of American supporters. How did this come about with such a British oriented magazine?

We decided from the start that there was no reason why we could not have a decent number of US and Canadian readers, as so many of the things we discuss are of more than parochial relevance. There are plenty of civilised Americans who are interested in the "Old Country" for both intellectual and sentimental reasons. Furthermore, I always try to have at least one US article in every issue, both for the interest of US readers and because British Rightwingers need to follow developments in the US. What happens there is likely to happen here eventually, albeit on a smaller scale. So we set up a magazine contact and bank account. This has proven successful, although we now have a different distributor after some teething problems. Recently, Right Now has been incorporated in the US as well as in the UK. We plan to use this new status to market the magazine more effectively to American and Canadian readers. Incidentally, we have also recently set up a distribution operation for Australia/New Zealand (PO Box 160, Bankstown, New South Wales 2200, Australia), which seems to be going well.

Why is it that America doesn't have anything really comparable to Right Now?

I don't know why there is nothing exactly like Right Now in the US. But I wouldn't worry about it, as there are some excellent US magazines available. I think Chronicles is the best magazine on the US Right. I also admire the Last Ditch, the Sam Francis and Joe Sobran newsletters, the New York Free Press, the Social Contract and the newly-revamped Citizens' Informer. There are often interesting articles in the National Review, the American Spectator and the Catholic magazine Crisis. Although racial science is not really my field of interest (and I'm afraid I harbour suspicions about some of the conclusions) there is always something worth reading in American Renaissance.

How do you see the relationship of Right Now! to the Intellectual European New Right such as Alain de Benoist, and to the political ENR, i.e. Haider, Le Pen, Blocher, and the Vlaams Blok in Belgium?

There is no formal connection between Right Now and any of the European New Right groups or individuals, whether intellectual or political, but we have many friendly informal contacts, and I admire many European Rightists. The political and cultural framework in the United Kingdom differs greatly from those obtaining on the continent. Much of what might be said by someone like Le Pen or Haider would mean little to a UK audience (which still does not think of itself as really a European nation, insofar as it is an island nation with a maritime history). There are also important differences in presentation, which are derived from cultural norms. It is generally true that British people (in particular, the English) are less demonstrative than most Frenchmen or Austrians. This is reflected in political styles. For instance, I remember once seeing a Haider commercial showing him scaling a cliff face, with a voiceover that went something like "Jorg Haider - 30 metres in 15.1 seconds". The idea was to show how athletic and therefore dynamic Haider was. To a British audience (and, probably, to an American audience) such a commercial would be preposterous. But this kind of formula seems to work on mainland Europe. Be that as it may, some of these Rightist leaders on the continent are doing a very good job. Insofar as they speak up for the embattled cultures of the West, and because they never get a fair hearing from the establishmentarian media, these groups should be supported - but we would never support any such group uncritically.

You have published a number of interviews in Right Now! What was your most interesting and why?

All of the interviews we publish are interesting in their way. All of the people I interview are considerable people, with intelligent views on all sorts of issues. If I had to single out some for especial praise, I would mention, first, the interview with the remarkable French philosopher Alain de Benoist (RN 15, April 1997), who exposed a British audience to a whole range of Continental opinion, which is almost completely unknown in Britain. Secondly, I would mention my interview with the British academic Roger Scruton (RN 9, October 1996), which required the least editing of all the interviews I have ever conducted. He is amazingly lucid, in a nicely cynical English way. I was also delighted with the interview with Peter Brimelow (RN 21, October 1998), which again will have exposed our readers to a massive amount of new information about the problems caused by the almost unchecked immigration taking place into the United States. The interview with British journalist Michael Gove in the latest RN (RN 26, January 2000) is also particularly enlightening.

Right Now! has apparently been growing rather rapidly as you recently incorporated. What do you envision as its future?

I hope that Right Now will continue increasing its number of readers, and that it will begin to be relied upon even more than at present by media commentators, academics and political activists as a source of recondite information deemed too controversial for other journals to print. There is a crying need for such a publication in a country in which there is no effective political opposition to the Blairite juggernaut. We want to be an indispensable journal of record that can inspire the campaigners and writers of the present and inform the historians of tomorrow. The magazine doesn't need to be all that big for this to happen - it's already beginning to happen - but we do need to achieve a certain critical mass (which I estimate at about 15,000 readers) for our success to be assured. More specifically, I believe that Right Now needs to increase in its number of pages and frequency (it is presently a quarterly). I would also like it to be produced in full colour, and for it to be more of a campaigning journal than at present (whilst retaining our emphais on ideas and the arts). I want to revamp the website, and get a full time person to do it. All of this, sadly, will require more funds and more commitment of time.

The US seems to be much further down the road to multicultural/multiethnic doom, yet in some ways the British seem even more eager to go down that road. Is this the case and do you have any explanation for it?

Our elites have been consumed by the same sort of neuroses and self-doubt as the American elites. In particular, there is a lot of guilt about real or imagined wrongs carried out during the imperial period. The British carry the "white man's burden" still, which is why they won't dump the (massively expensive) Commonwealth.

Furthermore, the British pride themselves on their fair-mindedness and their sympathy for underdogs, real or perceived. Because the immigration debate is so emotive, and because that emotiveness is so one-sidedly pro-immigrant, immigration realists (who might be called "immosceptics" in the British context!) will always be at a disadvantage. All the well-reasoned arguments in the world count as nothing when weighed against the appealing face of an unfortunate Rwandan child with a distended belly on the 9 o'clock news. I think the British are especially susceptible to hard luck stories and get genuinely outraged by examples of injustice - for example, by stories of "racism" directed against harmless black youths. The fact that these stories might not be true or might be exaggerated or misrepresented often doesn't seem to occur to people - mainly because few people in the media will discuss such issues. A final reason for British docility in the face of enormous social upheaval (to which immigration is both a contributory factor and of which it is a symptom) is that, unlike many Americans, most British people still trust their various governments. There is still a residual belief in British solidity. The more complacent kind of Conservative, who will sometimes fight on other issues, revels in the fond belief that "we" are more sensible and that "At least it's not like America". With the death of Enoch Powell, virtually no one now is discussing this vital issue. Some of those who do mention immigration have traditionally been either dotty or unpleasant. One of Right Now's aims is to bring this matter responsibly into the public arena, and so influence eventual policy.

Why is the role of religion so different in the British right than in the US right?

Very few British people (even Anglican clergy!) believe in Anglicanism, although most people still say they believe in God - and most Low Church sects are only really suitable for unreflecting people. Anglicanism is rapidly becoming a cultural artifact rather than a real force. Figures vary, but most seem to agree that only about 5 percent of British people go regularly to Anglican services on Sundays. This 5 percent is made up mostly of the over-50s. The Church of England will almost certainly be disestablished in the not too distant future. British people are too cynical and too interested in shopping to believe in the Bible any longer. I cannot criticise these people as, like Winston Churchill, I support the Church of England, but "from the outside...like a flying buttress"! Religion has simply ceased to become a factor in most peoples' lives. This is reflected in British (and other European countries') politics. According to one survey, for example, Vlaams Blok voters in Belgium are the least likely of all voters to go to church. The high rates of religious belief and practice and the importance of the religious Right in the US are anomalous in modern terms. The writer Mark Steyn says that America has become powerful because many Americans have no sense of irony. Perhaps there is some connection between this national earnestness and the prevalence of religion.

Does Britain's best hope still lay with the Tories, or do you envision some sort of Powellite or other new party taking over the reigns of the cultural new right?

My personal view (Right Now has no corporate view on this matter) is that the only hope does rest with the Conservatives at present. This is not because I am very impressed by their performance, but because there is no alternative unless - and this is presently unlikely - we get a proportional representation electoral system. In the meantime, there is some scope for activism in European elections (which are now conducted on a PR basis) and at local elections, where the increased number of self-described "independents" or "taxpayers' representatives" gives grounds for optimism that a real Right is stirring in the political jungle. I would also urge all on the Right to ensconce themselves at all levels within society, from the arts to residents' associations and heritage groups. This kind of activism is often of more lasting importance anyway.

What would you suggest for those of us that would like to see a successful RN! type magazine in the US? Do you think we are ready for it?

If you do want to launch an American magazine, then I would suggest that you first locate some steady people willing to make a long term commitment to help. Then you should plan minutely where you want to be at each chronological stage, and who you will be selling to. There are so many magazines in America that you will need to target your audience very precisely. Obtain a few recent mailing lists. Then you need to obtain a little money for the launch. You will need to get some well-known people attached to the magazine, otherwise the magazine will just be ignored. You should discourage monomaniacs and keep away from people with criminal or disreputable pasts. Small things like stylistic consistency, spelling and having nice quality pictures matter greatly. Finally, don't give up the day job!