Young Independence continues to grow after Jakob Whiten, a Deputy Chairman of Conservative Future in the East Midlands up until last week,  announced that he is joining UKIP.

Jakob, 19, commented that the Conservatives “showed their true colours” earlier this month after enforcing a stringent three line whip to compel their MPs to vote against the prospect of an EU referendum. The decision didn’t sit too well with the former CF member’s libertarian, democratic values.

“I entered politics and joined the Conservative Party to help people” reflected Jakob, before revealing that he was unable to discuss the EU and other issues of national importance when in his official role with the Tories. “I believe being a member of UKIP I can now be honest about the issues that matter most to people” he added.

His defection is another example of a notable Conservative member switching allegiance to UKIP and follows names such as former government Chief Whip Lord Hesketh and respected South Tyneside Councillor David Potts in what has been an increasingly troublesome period for the Tories.

While the Conservative Party have broken promises and continuously ignored the views of the British public, UKIP have become a highly credible and well-oiled alternative for youngsters across Britain. I’m sure that I speak for all of YI when I say that I am pleased to welcome Jakob to UKIP and I look forward to his contribution.

After having read several articles regarding current debate on the proposed NHS reforms, it seems that although some initiatives are well-meaning, they will, in many ways, affect the NHS in ways that they should not.  

The ethos of the reforms: that the transfer of decisions and “responsibility for public health to local authorities“, is perhaps a step in the right direction in terms of making the organisational structure of the NHS more trim and accountable. But don’t be fooled; these reforms do not tackle the NHS’s obvious bureaucratisation enough- if at all.

Heavy criticism has come in today from Labour’s Lord Robert Winston, writing in the Daily Mirror that government promises to ring-fence NHS funding in research are ‘sleight of hand’, stating that:

The NHS is already being cut. Managers have been told to find £20billion in efficiency savings to avoid widespread closures. In London, where so much research, teaching and training leads to the excellence of the NHS, we face a 14% cut in junior hospital posts. And 70 key training posts in general medicine out of 300 are to go, with another 70 posts from the other specialities cut by 2014.

I would expect a Labour peer to oppose the de-layering of an institution that their party made one of the most heavily bureaucratised bodies in existence. However, what we see here is not the defence of consultants and administrators, but of the loss of important junior positions and training posts. These practical positions should not be lost.

In addition, Lord Winston’s notes that during a recent hospital visit, attracting the attention of a nurse was a tricky task, “because they were all doing paperwork”. It is safe to assume, as Winston says, that if so much more responsibilty was to be transfered over to a local level with no further support from government bodies, GPs and nurses would have an additional mound of paperwork to deal with, adding to this issue. Furthermore, he finishes with the assertion that:

We must have GPs whose key role is to see their patients – not diverted by running the NHS machinery. And we must make certain our excellent nurses are properly valued – more involved with patients and less with paperwork.

Surely this is something that we in UKIP can raise a glass to. Though it is highly bizarre hearing such words from a Labour politician. Frontline paperwork was a constant  complaint during the Labour government, yet the bureaucracy increased and increased.

Really, the problem lies in the existence of this mound of paperwork itself, not in who is carrying it out. In UKIP, we don’t want nurses and doctors to carry out this much administration- nor do we want government bodies or QUANGOs to do so. Red tape and admin must be cut so that the NHS can serve the British public as effectively as possible.

Very often when I talk politics with people, the comment of “nothing gets made in Britain anymore” arises. Now, although ’nothing’ is a big exaggeration, the UK’s secondary sector has slumped hugely since the 1980′s, demonstrated by the fact that in November, a record trade deficit of £25bn was recorded. Simply put: we import too much and do not make enough.

All the while, fellow European nations like Germany actually still have large mass-manufacturing plants for an array of companies. Manufacture makes up a quarter of their GDP, to our one fifth (also bearing in mind the fact that their GDP is larger). In fact, the comparison is no clearer than when we consider the automobile industry, still incredibly strong and fruitful in Germany. Britain was once a thriving location for car production itself with many British-ran companies enjoying manufacture here. Since then, just about every British car brand, including Aston Martin, Jaguar, MINI, TVR and Lotus have all been taken over by foreign companies and much of their production has gone elsewhere.

Though, it isn’t soley the buying-out of our companies and the distribution of their manufacturing jobs elsewhere that is hurting us, it’s equally the fact that very few large manufacturing companies now see Britain as a good place to set up shop at all. After all, it’s cheaper to manufacture in the Far East and simply import to affluent consumers here; the only British jobs coming out of this being in sales. But back in 1986, Nissan opened their first ever European factory in the UK. Now, this can’t be due to ease of distribution, as they exported into Mainland Europe also, so based on this, choosing a central location such as Belgium would have been much better. Surely the reason was that the UK was an attractive climate in which to set up a factory- the UK was a successful industrial driven economy. This attractiveness has long since gone stale, due not only to the comparatively miniscule labour costs in Asia, but the UK’s shift of focus off of mass- production and onto more ‘efficient’ fields such as ‘green technology’. In truth, these new manufacturing methods provide far less jobs and contribute much less to exports (as the deficit shows).

Germany still does have that industrial-driven economy, which many businesses favour when choosing where to locate inside Europe. Germany has an impressively strong manufacturing network, facilitates large-scale manufacture and is reaping the rewards; their economy is in a strong position despite those astronomical bail-outs.

Simply put, we must become a country orientated around manufacture again. Only large manufacturing companies and initiatives can produce in abundance apprenticeships for the non-academic, unemployed youth. And in turn, this can create  thriving, high employment areas in currently dilapidated territories such as on Teesside. Such an augmentation in manual, skilled jobs across the country will enrich youth society, ease University demand and will undoubtedly lower crime rates.

To gain this, though, we must lower the barriers to entry to entice companies to set up here. Corporate and income tax could be considerably reduced and grants be given when necessary to attract business. The key is to create an environment attractive for business, as is found in free market Hong Kong and Singapore. For this, we must of course be independent from the European Union and make our own economic decisions. Thus, UKIP is the only party who can advocate such an important initiative to get jobs back in Britain.

Cameron may soon have a battle on his hands against those desirous of weaker ties with Europe and stronger immigration controls

In an interesting, but wholly unsurprising article published yesterday, the Daily Mail revealed that:

Five million people have ­given up on mainstream political parties in the past ten years. Most of this huge number has stopped ­voting altogether…

For the first time, the concerns of the army of five million have been analysed [through website NothingBritish.com]. They are the ANTI voters. Their characteristics?
‘Angry’
‘Neglected’
‘Traditionalism’
‘Immigration’

These millions of people look at David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg and can’t see much of a difference between them…

They look at their ­policies and see the same attitude to punishing criminals; the same signing up to the European Union’s demands; the same support for multiculturalism and more immigration…

I say ‘wholly unsurprising’ because we UKIP members say many of these things on a weekly basis. Not only is this our rhetoric, but this is how the party was born. A growing number of our folk during the 1990′s, previously mostly Conservative or Old Labour voters, found themselves totally unrepresented on the European issue.

But since then, we have seen the mass convergence of our three mainstream political parties, resulting in legions of voters being unrepresented by them on a great many more issues. Crime, immigration, tax, multiculturalism, education, the military, renewable energy- the list really does go on…

From the first moment [Cameron] became Tory leader, he aimed to win back the votes of ­‘Liberal England’ — the people who had defected from the ­Conservatives to either the Liberal Democrats or to Tony Blair. 

He built up a campaign machine at Conservative HQ that focused not on the whole country, but on the two million swing voters in the 100 marginal seats who tend to decide who becomes Prime Minister.

Now here we see hardly needed proof that in his campaign, D.C. put every drop his effort into re-attracting a comparatively small section of voters that had already jumped ship from the Tories (and may well jump back to Labour next time). In turn, he gladly squandered the opportunity to re-franchise many of those loyal, ideological conservatives- countless numbers of whom have left his party in the last ten years. But I guess that this is inevitable; the Conservative Party of old is dead and a growing number of their traditional voters and activists have been regarding UKIP their as new home for years.

As for the Daily Mail’s assertion that ‘there are at least hopeful signs’, on the matter of immigration, I tend to disagree. Caps (applied to European migration too) may have been all well and good even ten years ago. But it really is simply too late, and irresponsible, to still be allowing an annual net gain in immigration. In fact, a ‘hopeful sign’ would be for Cameron to at least attempt to re-negotiate our ridiculous open- door policy to Europe. Of course, if the Conservatives really were ‘EU reformists’, then they may have a go, but given recent developments, I’m starting wonder if they are now even that.

Until mainstream politicians really listen to the people they are supposed to serve and make changes based upon what they want, this country’s electorate will continue to move further into disaffection and even civil tension.

As for the ANTI voters; principled, of common sense and apathetic; I hope many do begin voting and begin to really send the greedy, converged and colourless establishment a message by supporting a party equally angered by the unrepresentative nature of modern day British politics. UKIP.

For my premier blog post here on Independence Home, I thought I’d offer an overview of how I see things in politics in general and in our party. Now, the good news is, as shown in the title, the outlook could indeed be very bright.

The bad news is, this is, by the blog’s standards, a massive article, so if you have to shoot off in a second, maybe consider leaving it for later?

Shock, horror. In a rather rare turn of events, much of the media is actually covering European issues this week. Such a shame, however, that it’s taken the impending bankruptcy of one of our dearest neighbours to force our terrestrial news broadcasts to pay attention for once.  

Of course, the big story is that save a giant bail-out, the Euro is on its last legs. Of course, in their usual style of dreamy federalist ideology over means, common sense or basic intelligence, this disaster of a currency will again be propped up- until its next crisis- (Spain or Portugal- anyone?)

While Angela Merkel wearily creates more capital to sink into a bail-out, the true dangers of further European integration are reaching the masses in the United Kingdom. Brits fearful of a similar crash over the water (or border, as it may be) in the Isles should be mindful of the fact that there is only one serious political party in which nobody would even consider the adoption of the single currency. One opposition to said European political and economic union.

Nope, definitely not the Tories- but UKIP.

Added to the debacle of Prisoner’s voting rights issued above the heads of our courts by its mammoth European counterpart, along with the idea of Mr. Cameron celebrating a 2.9% European budget INCREASE while those for local Councils and Tax Credits are relentlessly slashed, and the idea of this political union is becoming less and less popular. This series of events can only help our party, as the average voter sees that the Conservatives resistance towards Europe is practically zilch (or more precisely, 3.1 % of the budget!)

While these issues, long-predicted by us (yes, those ‘fruit-cakes and loonies’), prove to make the E.U. membership seem less of a good idea as each day goes by, I cannot re-iterate enough that this party must do more to gain popular support. This of course means votes coming in from not only those who are keen students of Keynesian theory, but those who prefer Coronation Street to the news and even those who don’t even know the name of our prime minister, (a surprising number according to recent statistics).

The starting point, mentioned on a regular basis by some of our MEP’s such as D.C.B. and Paul Nuttall, is a strong focus on domestic policy- as was on show during the Politics Show starring Nigel Farage recently. Whether we like it or not, the average voter in the street still believes that we are an obscure, old boy’s single-issue pressure-group (even if we do represent the majority view). Since it’s not possible (or maybe better put, advisable) to shout at each one until we’re purple in the face with a list of our non- Europe-based policies, media is a key approach.

Commenting (and acting upon) general, local issues in local newspapers as UKIP activists and councillors is undoubtedly a strong grass-roots approach to take. If the work starts now, the wider, national electorate may just get the message by 2015…

Domestic policies must be not only publicised, but could do with being improved- to demonstrate the changing, modernising, mainstream image of this party, our European policies preserved and put at the fore-front when relevant in the political climate (such as now) and most importantly, the party united.  The current problems with European integration and political disaffection have given us an opportunity to fill a void, time will tell if we can successfully slot in!