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Election Watch
Apr 11th
One result to report from the first of April from the John O’Gaunt Ward of Lancaster City Council
Lab 603 35.2% (-4.9%)
Lib Dem 389 22.7% (+22.7%)
Green 339 19.8% (-17.5%)
Con 301 17.6% (-5.1%)
UKIP 83 4.8% (+4.8%)
On April 8th, there were no by elections with UKIP candidates.
This coming week, vacancies in the same place on three councils are being contested by UKIP, with Paul Clapp standing for the Kirkgate Ward of Fenland District Council and the Wisbech North Ward of Cambridgeshire County Council and Edward Lay standing for the Kirkgate Ward of Wisbech Town Council.
The County Council seat in particular could yield an interesting result, with us having taken second place here in last year’s elections and coming within 200 votes of taking the seat.
2009 result
Con 729
UKIP 537
Lab 271
Lib Dem 212
So good luck to everyone up there and let’s hope for some good news this week!
Welfare to Workfare
Mar 30th
One of the things that makes UKIP stand out from the crowd as far as political parties are concerned is its policy on welfare. The document – entitled ‘From Welfare to Workfare’ – details ways in which the party hopes to bring an end to welfare dependency in the UK.
As the document itself says: “The UK welfare system has developed from a simple safety net into a ridiculously complicated system that almost deliberately entrenches poverty”. It draws attention to the increasing number of “scroungers” who place a heavy burden on taxpayers, and the links between those living on benefits and things like anti-social behaviour and crime.
So how does UKIP propose to tackle the problem? The first measure to encourage those living on benefits to get back into work would be the raising of the tax threshold to over £11,000 and abolishing National Insurance. This would mean that someone in a minimum wage job would earn significantly more per year than they would if they relied on benefits. The current system with a tax threshold of under £7,000 makes the gap between the net incomes of a minimum wage worker and a benefits dependent so small that it is hardly worth the effort of going to work for a year. Making minimum wage more profitable to the individual encourages everyone to go out and look for work rather than being a burden to the state. The entire principle of the free market is that individual hard work results in individual benefit, and the current system takes this away from the lowest earners, trapping them in poverty.
Alongside this, UKIP also proposes a complete reform of the entire welfare system. The central aim in this reform would be to bring an end to means testing and to roll all key benefits (e.g. job-seekers allowance, income support, maternity pay) into one Basic Cash Benefit (BCB)*. The removal of means-testing, and the introduction of a flat benefit rate per person would save £8 billion per year on administration fees. To receive BCB, each claimant would have to take part in a workfare scheme run by the local council. These schemes would ensure that claimants give something back to the community, through a range of skilled, semi-skilled or low skilled services, such as litter patrols, manning telephone switchboards at local council offices or teaching English as a second language. This has clear benefits in that those on benefits give something back to their local community in return for being supported through a period of unemployment, and also ensures that they do not get out of the habit of having to work for their income. Those claiming BCB would also not receive the £11,500 tax-free allowance proposed in UKIP’s flat tax policy, encouraging them to seek employment as soon as possible in order to increase their income overall. Again the principles of individual gain come into play as an incentive to get people back into work. Child benefit would also be paid on a non-means-tested flat rate per child for the first three children in each family. The money saved in administration fees over the entire welfare scheme runs into the tens of billions.
This is a very detailed and technical policy, and no summary could do it justice. This is a very brief outline; if you are in doubt about any single policy outlined here, the full document is available here, or you can ask questions via comments.
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*There would be no change to disability allowance, attendance allowance or mobility allowance.
UKIP And The BNP: A Real Comparison
Mar 27th
By Julian Conway…
Symon Hill, the co-director of a theological think thank known as ‘Ecclesia’ published an article this week entitled ‘The BNP and UKIP- what’s the difference?’ The article appeared on The Samosa an online magazine promoting Human Rights and Equality which was awarded £15,000 from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.
Mr Hill who describes himself on his Twitter as a ‘Quaker Christian’, ‘socialist’ and ‘pacifist’, attempts to come to an objective conclusion about the extent to which the two parties are similar. However, his comparison either severely lacks research and context, or it has been written intentionally as a smear against UKIP.
First, Mr Hill addresses the issues of race and immigration together. This gives the impression that the two are somehow linked, however, for UKIP this has simply never been the case. Thus Mr Hill gives the impression UKIP is a party with a racial ideology. This could not be further from the truth and this is evident when you look at UKIP’s view of immigration and race separately.
On immigration, Mr Hill reduces UKIP policy- which is written in a document 52 pages long- to the facts that UKIP would impose a 5 year ban on immigration and prevent any future immigration exceeding 50,000 per annum. He totally ignores the clearly written points that, under UKIP, you would still have students and economic migrants coming into the UK, they just wouldn’t be granted an automatic right to citizenship after a short period of time. Economic migrants or students would be granted VISAs/Permits and when these expire the migrants could reapply. Furthermore, after 5 years, these migrants would be allowed to apply for citizenship.
Fortunately, Mr Hill does, in fact, summarize the BNP policy quite accurately as the fact they would ‘stop all new immigration except for exceptional cases’. Unlike UKIP, the BNP do not talk about letting students or economic migrants into the UK. Nor do the BNP, again in sharp contrast to UKIP, put a figure as to the number they would allow into the UK in the future.
Moving onto race, I think Mr Hill could not be more disingenuous. UKIP and the BNP have a fundamentally different outlook. The BNP is led by a former member of the National Front who has openly denied the holocaust in the past, and has ties to the KKK. Up until a recent court verdict, the BNP did not allow non-whites to join their party. The BNP website is brimming with pictures of Muslims queuing up to enter the UK holding bombs.
UKIP, on the other hand, has many members who are from ethnic minority groups including myself. UKIP also has black and Asian candidates, and in stark contrast to the holocaust-denying BNP, UKIP has spoken out in defence of Israel on a number of occasions.
Mr Hill refers to the Burka ban as a policy that makes UKIP ‘more extreme than the BNP’ when it comes to religion. However, the ban merely states that UKIP feels that in public buildings such as post-offices, people should not be allowed to have their faces covered whether by a motor cycle helmet or a niquab. Given that no religion requires you to wear a niquab, cycle helmet or any other face covering for that matter, this policy is not against any religion.
Moving on to education, I would agree there are some similarities between the two parties, especially when it comes to teaching more about British history and opening new grammar schools. One must keep in mind though that the BNP write very little about education and thus its only a few small points that they have in common with UKIP.
Nevertheless, Mr Hill makes one of his strangest comments in writing:
‘UKIP describes themselves as “the first party to take a sceptical stance on man-made global warming claims”. This is odd because the BNP “firmly rejects the ‘climate change’” dogma.’
Actually, Mr Hill this isn’t odd because while the BNP might be sceptical, UKIP is saying that they were the ‘first party’ to take this stance, as in chronologically first, as in the BNP adopted this policy after UKIP.
There are also countless times when Mr Hill acts as though UKIP is the only party with whom the BNP shares policy. He says that both parties ‘would repeal the Human Rights Act’. But wait a minute, isn’t it the Tories that talk endlessly about repealing the Human Rights Act?
I also like some of the interesting terminology Mr Hill uses. He says that the BNP are on the ‘statist far-right’ while UKIP are on the ‘free market far right’. In both phrases appears ‘far right’ despite the fact UKIP have an economic libertarian stance and the BNP practically the same one as Mussolini!
Mr Hill does a good job of branding them under the same banner on military and defence issues as they are both ‘militaristic’. This despite the fact the BNP have a totally different approach to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He mentions, that the BNP would reintroduce national service with a civilian option, and ignores the fact that this was one of David Cameron’s big ideas!
To conclude, Mr Hill insists individual like myself who ‘detest what the BNP stand for need to remember that far-right views are promoted… in UKIP’. Well the fact is Mr Hill it precisely what I detest about the BNP which is not promoted in UKIP. Unlike the BNP UKIP is a libertarian, non-racist and mainstream political party and Mr Hill does a poor job trying to draw otherwise.
Restoring Britishness
Mar 23rd
For those considering voting for UKIP in the upcoming election, the UKIP policy document entitled ‘Restoring Britishness’ is arguably its most controversial. Many would argue that the British people don’t need to be told what Britishness is, that it should be the duty of a party to represent the people’s views rather than to tell them how they ought to view their own nationality. The vast majority of UKIP’s supporters and indeed its opponents will not have read the document in full, instead drawing their own conclusions from the title. However, there are many valid points raised within this paper, to which I wish to draw voters’ attention.
Firstly, in answer to those who would argue that we do not need to be told what Britishness is and how we should display it, the simple answer is that, unfortunately, we do. This nation has lost all sense of its own identity; just look at the theme for the 2012 Olympics. Watching Beijing 2008, there was a real sense of the pride that the Chinese felt for their heritage and their history. What do we have? Granted, the red bus is a vague British cultural reference, but what of our proud history? Where were Shakespeare and Elgar? Where are the celebrations of the democratic freedoms the British people have enjoyed since the signing of the Magna Carta? The emphasis for our Olympics has instead been placed on the multicultural nature of British society which has been encouraged under this Labour government. Our national identity and our sense of pride in our heritage have all but disappeared. UKIP proposes in their cultural policy to replace multiculturalism with a term that not many people in this country will have heard of before: ‘uniculturalism’.
This approach encourages all the differing cultures in this country to conform to a British model, for all immigrants to accept certain quintessential ‘British’ values which they are to uphold if they wish to exist in British society, such as – and I quote from the document – “belief in democracy, fair play and freedom, as well as traits such as politeness.” This alternative cultural policy would reverse the current trend for immigrant communities to isolate themselves from wider society, encourage integration and stamp out alienation.
The aim of every strategy outlined in the document is to re-affirm the sense of fairness which this country used to be celebrated for, and to reverse the damaging effects of ‘positive’ discrimination. This term itself is attacked quite rightly in the document: “UKIP believes in meritocracy, not in state enforced egalitarianism.”
Although the more ignorant might view an attempt to define and encourage a British culture as BNP-esque, the crucial factor in this document is the fact that UKIP defines Britishness as “a civic nationalism… defined by loyalty and identification with the symbols of nationhood, such as the national flag… open to all, whatever their ethnic, religious or linguistic background”, the basic principle being that all immigrants to this country – rather than being labelled as immigrants for the rest of their lives – can integrate successfully into their local community and into the national mindset, closing rifts between migrant groups and those who would call themselves British.
The policy also has practical implications: UKIP states that one of the defining attributes of Britishness is “being English-speaking”. One would have thought that this is simply common sense. How can someone be expected to integrate if they do not speak the same language as their neighbours, or even the same language as potential employers, colleagues or customers they have to deal with? The recent Forza AW scandal has provoked new criticism of the current British immigration policy.
So the paper on ‘Restoring Britishness’ – one of UKIP’s most controversial documents – speaks a whole lot of sense. It is intended to unite the people living together on this island and encourage a sense of national pride and an entirely new approach to immigration. It would lead to the end of racism and discrimination. If this is UKIP at their most controversial, then why are they not in power already?
Lunch with Lord P
Mar 21st
Stumbled across an article with Lord Pearson, felt it was a bit different to how UKIP and Lord P tend to be portrayed by the media.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3eb73970-32de-11df-bf5f-00144feabdc0.html
Personally I was rather pleased with it. What to you guys think….
Maximum Wage? Are You Serious?!
Mar 14th
My usual Sunday fix of politics did not fail to get me enraged about something. This week my blood pressure went through the roof watching the Big Questions where one of the topics discussed was…should there be a maximum wage?
It was not the topic which made me angry, but rather the pitiful response from people in the audience who mostly seemed to be in support of the idea. Shaking my head in despair and wondering why people are incapable of understanding key principles of liberty and morality I eneded up tearing strips of some dipsticks on the television from the safety of my kitchen.
To watch the episode on iPlayer click here
The proposals was to cap the maximum wage at a multiple of those at the bottom. E.g. a company which pays its lowest paid employee £20k would only be able to earn £200k and if they wanted to earn more would have to pay those at the bottom less.
Well apart from the immorality of stripping freedom of action and freedom of private contract and voluntary exchange for all of us, there are many good reasons this is a crackpot idea, not least stifling incentive and reducing the risk/reward ratio significantly and thus preventing entrepreneurs bothering in the first place.
If the maximum i could earn was £200k then i may well think it better for me to work for somebody else and have the security of employment, pension, etc, and a reasonable working week rather than exert myself or take on personal risk.
I am so infuriated that I cannot summon the patience to write a lengthy argument here. Indeed I just find the whole idea so blisteringly offensive that I am not sure it needs me to write a counter argument for its stupidity is self evident!
So discuss in the comments…
Question time on Thursday
Feb 16th
With the General Election fast approaching, Nigel Farage will be on Question Time this week from Middlesbrough.
Question Time can be seen live on Thursday at 10.35pm on BBC One. It is repeated on BBC Parliament at 6pm on Sunday.
UKIP Chairman Paul Nuttall was on Radio 4’s Any Questions on Friday – if you missed this, you can hear it on ‘Listen Again’ at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qldxz.
Looking forward to seeing Nigel wipe the floor with the rest of the panel!!
I recommend anyone who hasn’t heard it listens to Paul’s link as well/
UKIP and face coverings THE ACTUAL POLICY
Feb 11th
And now for those of us who waited before attacking the party for the so called “burka” policy, here you go. Good, reasonable policy in my opinion, maybe a tad controversial but I can see the reasoning, pity the media reported it so much as a “burka” issue
http://www.ukip.org/content/ukip-policies/1444-ukip-and-face-coverings
The UK Independence Party believes that different religious and cultural customs should be practised and enjoyed privately. Multi-ethnic societies can function successfully where there is a common belief in, and loyalty to a common set of public institutions, and laws that apply equally for all.
Multiculturalism as it is being practised in Britain, and other parts of Europe, is creating division and conflict, and with different sets rules developing for different groups of people. This situation has to be redressed and a firm message sent to all British citizens that we are all equal under the same laws.
In accordance with this the UK Independence Party has formulated a policy on face coverings in public and private places that will inevitably impact on the wearing of veils and burqas. UKIP is not opposed to the wearing of religious symbols and does not propose the banning of face coverings on the public highway.
The burka is not an Islamic requirement.
Contrary to what some Islamic fundamentalists assert female face coverings in public are not an Islamic requirement. The wearing of face coverings, and indeed full body coverings such as the burka, is a cultural custom and not Islamic religious requirement. It has been banned in a number of Islamic countries.
For example, the Grand Mufti of Cairo, Ali Gomaa1, has announced that, “The niqab (the full cover with small eye-holes or a screen ) is not only not a religious obligation but also an outfit blatantly in contrast with the Prophet’s teaching , and can be banned in places of work like banks and hospitals.” The Egyptian Minister for Religious Affairs has banned it from ministerial offices.
The Tunisian Religious Affairs Minister, Aboubaker Akhzouri2 has said the hijab is “counter to the county’s cultural legacy”, and that it is a “foreign phenomenon” in society. We can safely conclude from these statements that the wearing of face coverings and burkas is one that divides even Islamic countries.
Proposed UKIP policy
All public employees shall carry out their duties with their faces uncovered; unless their particular profession requires them to cover their faces for specific tasks.
People will be required to have uncovered faces in all public buildings and premises.3 For example, in national and local government buildings, post offices, hospitals, doctors surgeries, schools, colleges, universities, libraries etc. This will also apply to all transport systems, their buildings and conveyances.
Private organisations, businesses, and institutions will be given the option of imposing the same rule, that faces must be uncovered, in their buildings, premises and conveyances. For example, in offices, banks, shops, cinemas, theatres, coaches, buses and taxis etc.
Those who refuse to remove face coverings in the appropriate circumstances will be refused entry. The responsibility will be on the custodians of the premises to enforce the law, with possible penalties for non-enforcement.
If private organizations decide not to adopt the uncovered face rule then they cannot impose discriminatory partial restrictions on face coverings, i.e. they cannot require a visitor to remove a crash helmet or balaclava while allowing another visitor to wear a veil or burka.
Discretion and sensitivity will be displayed to those who may wish to cover their faces because of severe physical deformity or injury. Weddings and religious ceremonies are excluded.
The police will have the right to ask anyone to uncover their face on the public highway if they feel it is necessary to carry out identification in the course of their duties.
These laws should be introduced in the interests of national security, and equality before the law.
Ah UKIP…
Feb 11th
A lot happens ina very short time
I havent posted in a while on this and whilst ive been away my conviction to support the UKIP cause has doubled.
Labour have sold out Northern Ireland, they have done so much harm to unionism in Northern Irealnd in recent years via both Blair and Brown but now they have taken the biscuit, through plotting with SF IRA and fellow nationalists the DUP they have handed the control of the police to Stormont, now im sorry but I just dont like it that known terrorists are in charge of my countries police force, maybe in being unreasonable, if I am I am proud to be. Thanks for that one Gordon you ****
Why UKIP then, shoudlnt I join SF’s sister party the DUP, or maybe the TUV or the new Tory UUP? )after all the Union MUST be maintained and I want to do my part to do this, unionists need to be kept onside and Nationalists need to be shown the benefits of the union) the simple answer is NO. Yes I can see the appeal of going to these establsihed “tribal parties” where people vote for the party not the policy. Could I (or most voters) name you a single UUP/DUP/TUV policy, well maybe one but not many. As for SF IRA how many know they are far left? and ridiculed by the voters down south?
UKIP have less than a hundred members in NI, Little funds and few know about us, and you know what? I love it, some day I plan to take my seat in the commons as an MP not a Northern Irish MP just an MP equal to all the others, its time to end the separation from the province and the rest of the UK, after all our offical flag is the Union Flag, I dont unserstand why this isnt the case in the other “regions”. UKIP NI will grow, people are getting fed up with secterian polices, with NI in pieces, no jobs, bad health system, education falling apart and little hope, what is the point in Unionism and Nationalism, we are a drain and nothing more, the Republic couldnt afford to take us on and we are a drain on the UK. I want to see Northern Ireland put away the begging bowl and stand proudly on our own two feet. The Union debate has went on for hundreds of years **** it we have more pressing matters to deal with, who cares what flag we fly if we can barly heat our homes and feed ourselves.
UKIP NI is small, but it shall grow, I am proud to say I am invovled in it, and I am certain one day we shall be the big guy in town. One day Labour were our size, and the Conservatives, just watch us rise, we get riducled now by the other parties here and on the mainland, and you know what, I love it, it shows they fear us!
Sorry for the weird thread, wanted to get it off my chest
Robin Hood Tax?…Ugh!
Feb 10th
Somebody please kick me in the shin to make me feel better!
A transaction tax on banks would raise as much as $400bn a year (£250bn; 291.2bn euros), campaigners have said.
Supporters say money raised could help protect public services and jobs, fight poverty and tackle climate change.
The campaign is backed by almost 50 groups, including the TUC and Oxfam, as well as big names like actor Bill Nighy and film maker Richard Curtis.
No, no, no. But they even have this helpful video to show how the ‘win-win’ (!) idea is simply brilliant…
Now we all know Richard Curtis, Bill Nighy, the TUC and Oxfam are world renound economists, but the film conveniently doesn’t explain a couple of issues…
1) Only people pay taxes. Levying a tax on banks simply means the cost falls on people differently. Lower interest rates for savers, higher rates for borrowers, etc.
2) A transaction tax will significantly impact liquidity, and have consequential impact throughout the whole economy – less fiannce for business, less explansion, less employment, etc.
For these campaigners to suggest it is a win-win idea – that it is some kind of ‘free’ pot of money that will only hit rich nasty bankers – is disingenuous at worst and naive and ignorant at best.
The biggest disaster of this whole eocnomic crisis is the credibility and support it has given to the loony left-wing who do not understand economics.
An Iron Fist Has Come Down On Europe
Feb 9th
Nigel Farage on usual fine form telling a little fable to the Strasbourg Plenery…
A call to arms for UKIP
Jan 27th
We now have a leader to unite behind (who I for one believe in, an honest politician is a dangerous weapon!).
We have success at the last election to build upon.
We now an experienced campaign manager, an improved ICT team and other recent appointments throughout the party to help us in our fight.
We have incredibly dedicated teams all around the UK.
We have a wide variaty of strong candidates on our card.
We are announcing (and long may it continue) good policies than anyone can agree with.
We are being featured more by the media in recent times than I ever remember before.
We have experieince gained from past elections and lessons learnt from our mistakes (which we have had more than enough of).
Yes UKIP has had some problems in recent times, yes we have had division. But we are very much a party on the up, we are in a great position to increase our share of the vote. We must all pull together, work as a cohesive unit, push our brand and beliefs and use this election as a statement of intent and make sure we are in a position to become a true force in four years time.
It is now time to kick on and begin to save our country, feck Brussels the focus must now be placed firmly and permanently upon our shores. Councillors dare I say MP’s? this is our bloodline.
A good interview with our leader
Jan 22nd
I read this interview and I thought Lord P, who many people are very hard on but I have total respect for spoke very well. http://www.totalpolitics.com/magazine_detail.php?id=728
The new leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party tells Iain Dale he is a reluctant leader, admits he makes gaffes and desperately wants a hung Parliament. He also claims he never wanted to be a politician
ID: So what on earth made you decide to stand for leadership of UKIP?
LP: There was quite a lot of arm-twisting from a number of leading people within the party and from several of the major donors.
Because you haven’t actually been in the party that long…
No, I have only been in the party a couple of years because before that I sat as an Independent Conservative after being sacked from the Conservative Party in great disgrace.
How much of a wrench was it to leave?
I was always a rebel. I said I would be loyal to Margaret Thatcher and I remained loyal to her, but that wasn’t the same thing as being loyal to Mr Major. I’d been the most rebellious backbench peer in the Lords and when I was sacked for suggesting people should lend their vote to UKIP in the European elections, it was actually a great relief. I have always been a bit of a maverick, so I’m afraid it didn’t trouble me at all. I kept my personal friends in the party, not that there’s very many of them.
It’s slightly ironic though, isn’t it, because the Conservative Party is more eurosceptic now than it has ever been?
The Conservative Party, the leadership, isn’t nearly eurosceptic enough. The project of European integration, as originally envisaged by Monnet, is complete and everyone knows that. Cameron is simply not telling the truth when he pretends a sovereignty act to prevent further losses of sovereignty to Brussels is meaningful. I think they know he’s talking nonsense when he says he can reclaim various powers from Brussels.
But surely he would only be misleading people if there was no further sovereignty to secede to Brussels but there clearly is?
What further sovereignty?
Economics and taxation for example.
Well they’ve got that if they want it.
Well, they don’t have the power to raise taxes.
I believe they do. You only have to look at their use of Article 308 [allows EU Council to act on a proposal with extra powers], which they have been using since the French and Dutch rejection of the original constitution, to do anything they wanted, in fact.
But under that Article everything has to happen unanimously. A British prime minister can veto it.
He can, but the British government has not been vetoing it.
No, but a Conservative government could.
Yes, for anything new – not what’s already been done. Don’t forget our old friend the ratchet – the Aquis Communitaire [EU law made so far]. Our position is they don’t need anything new now and even if they were to, they are already talking about raising tax and I’m not aware that either Cameron or any of the established parties have screamed about that.
So if all that is true then basically the game’s up – what’s the point of UKIP?
Because the only way out is the door and the point of UKIP is, in the next general election campaign, to try and inform the public more precisely about why we are in this position. The people have got the point about why this has gone seriously wrong. Even the lawyers and the accountants in the City of London have now got the point. They never cared about the fishermen or any other industries that have been damaged, sometimes to the point of extinction, by our membership of the European Union. But they have now got the point because of the Hedge Fund Directive. People are beginning to see clearly what this project has always been about.
Isn’t part of the problem though that you can wax lyrical about Section 308 of the Treaty of Rome or the Hedge Fund Directive all you like, but you’ve actually got to appeal to people’s hearts and minds? Isn’t the problem with UKIP that it looks less like the rest of the British people?
Well, that’s not what the latest opinion polls would tell you. A large majority of people wish to go back to free trade and friendly collaboration with the European Union. If you ask a slightly different question – do you want to come out? – then that’s more frightening. In the general election campaign we are simply going to deliver two messages that are incredibly simple. One is that your democracy has removed your right to elect and dismiss those who make your laws. We are also going to run another idea which hasn’t really been tested in the political world and it runs right alongside getting out of the European Union. The idea is direct democracy, power to the people, the Swiss system of referendums and the Daniel Hannan/Douglas Carswell plan. The British people are fed up with all the regulation that is coming at them from Brussels and, to a certain extent, Westminster.
This is where I think you personally have a problem. I could accept a lot of what you say as could most people if it came from Nigel Farage, but people will have more difficulty taking it from an unelected member of the House of Lords.
I’ve been elected to the leadership and Nigel’s one commitment to me is he will remain the chief party spokesman. He’s going to be in charge of media relations and he is our front man with the media. Obviously Nigel’s a genius, he’s a great man and a great politician and I don’t pretend to be. He was a Derby winner. UKIP have now got a sort of carthorse [laughs]. We know that and I accept that and I have said that all the way through the hustings.
But we all know that dual leaderships never work.
Nigel will be our spokesperson and obviously if I am called upon because I’m the leader then I will speak. I don’t detect people are holding my background against me and if they are then there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m not going to apologise. I’m not going to resign from White’s Club. I’m not going to stop shooting and stalking and I’m going to carry on because I never wanted to be a politician. I have always said I’m not a politician and I’m not and I can’t pretend otherwise. And so I make gaffes, I talk about the ‘disband’ word when what I meant was get together and fight. I’ve accused the Muslims of breeding ten times faster than us when what I really meant was their population is going up and so on. I’ve made mistakes and I will probably make more. I try and do better but that’s where we are.
Do you not think though that you might be seen as the Ming Campbell of UKIP?
Possibly. I am 67 years old. I have never been much involved in party politics. I’ve done a bit of canvassing but that’s all, so therefore when I look at the structure of a political party I have to learn as I go along. The trouble with UKIP is that its success has outgrown its infrastructure and that needs putting right. Now that’s not Nigel’s scene. He’s not an organisation chart man. He’s a political genius and a brilliant man. Organisation charts are not his strong point and he’s very happy to leave that to me.
The party itself historically has been a shambles hasn’t it, organisationally?
I wouldn’t dare use that expression but it has certainly not been very well organised. Our communications have been bad. People have been learning things in the press that they ought to have known about in advance. A proper organisation chart and proper communication is not difficult and we are going to do that. We will have a more efficient fighting machine.
But isn’t part of the problem that to do any of what you just said, which is obviously necessary, you have to have money and UKIP has not got the money to do it. In fact, it’s got to pay back £360,000.
We have that covered already and I will try and raise more money for the rest of it. One of the reasons I stood for leadership was that I thought, as leader, I would be better able to raise money. As leader, I would be able to raise the sort of money we need or would be more likely to be able to than if one of the other candidates had become leader. When I stood for leadership I didn’t have a single enemy. But as leader of course one is bound to make a few. Such as those who find it an anathema that David Willoughby de Broke and I made the offer to the Conservatives which was: Give us a binding referendum on an agreed wording on our membership in the European Union and we will make sure you are in a position to deliver.
I thought the offer was on the Lisbon Treaty?
No, never! Lisbon Treaty was always a red herring really.
You couldn’t have seriously expected the Conservatives to accept that. Wasn’t that just a bit of trouble-making?
No, not at all. Our position in the European Union is now so desperate, the only way out is the door. It is unthinkable that Cameron will get anything worthwhile in any form of renegotiation.
Fair enough. But all I’m trying to understand is your thought process before you put that offer to Lord Strathclyde, the Tory leader in the Lords. You hadn’t cleared this with your party colleagues as such.
That is not so. This was, we thought, a settled policy from Nigel. He had the support of the National Policy Committee for it. He’d mentioned it at conference, he’d mentioned it live on the Politics Show and certainly to a large lunch I had attended. He was actually cross-examined at the lunch by Freddie Forsyth, who said: “Nigel, did I get this right – what are you saying?” And Nigel said: “A binding referendum with wording we agree, free vote for the Conservative Party and we will…” Nigel did not say disband. I said disband at the end of the conversation with the lovely Alice Thompson and Rachel Sylvester. I should never have used that word. Tom [Strathclyde's] answer to us was: “Are you sure you want this referendum because we will have the new prime minister. Presumably we will be in a honeymoon period. You will have the whole Labour and the whole Liberal Democrat machine against you. Ok, you will have the Conservative activists with you…” My reply was: “I couldn’t imagine anything better.” Fighting an issue against the whole political class would be wonderful.
And then you heard nothing from them?
No, not a squeak. I went back to Tom as he was seeing David Cameron two days later in a one-to-one, and I asked Tom what had happened the next week. He had said: “Oh, it’s all too bloody awful” and disappeared. I mean Tom’s a lovely man, but he is part of the Conservative leadership apparatus in that sense.
Did you get the impression that Lord Strathclyde was in favour of it?
Well, he thought we might lose [laughs]. He actually said we might lose, and we said we would have trusted the people. So then I asked someone else who sits on the frontbench, who had better remain nameless: “What’s happened to this? We have given this offer and absolutely bloody silence?” They said the Norwich North by-election is coming up and the hope is you will fall back to two or three per cent and we can forget it. Well, we got 13 per cent in Norwich North and in fact 43 per cent in some Cambridge council seats that day. But we have heard no more. And since then, we have got our answer because Cameron has ruled out any referendum for five years thereby slapping in the face the whole of that part of the Conservative Party that actually wanted a referendum, even just on Lisbon.
Would you again now stand against every Conservative candidate including the Better Off Out people?
I hope not.
That’s the logical thing to do now.
No it wouldn’t be. Let’s go back to square one. We must start to build in the House of Commons a genuine come out group of MPs so we will not be standing against Philip Davies, Richard Shepherd and Douglas Carswell, although I’m slightly talking out of turn as I haven’t had time to clear this with the relevant constituency chairman and parties.
But this is an existing policy, isn’t it?
It is existing policy but it is resisted by some people who want to fight absolutely everything. But if we fail to get a referendum then all you can do is to start building people in the Commons. If there’s a seat where we don’t think we can get in and there is someone who could get in with our support, who will fight for it, when they get in and not be wishywashy Better off Out of it.
What’s wishy-washy about that?
How energetic are these people in the Commons? What questions do they put down? Will they actually fight in the House of Commons for Britain to leave?
You’re putting another hurdle in front of them, aren’t you?
Yes I am. But each constituency is different, each individual is different, each UKIP political party is different and each individual case has to be looked at on its merits. But it is madness if we put up a candidate against Philip Davies and he doesn’t get back into the Commons.
What have you learnt from your first few weeks of being leader? You’ve had a bit of a baptism of fire. The Daily Telegraph has had a go at you. Was there a point when you thought what on earth have I done?
Oh yes, but I think I am over that now. The ‘disband’ word and ‘breeding’ weren’t very clever, so I have learnt that one word out of place can cover the whole of the picture on a newspaper. So I have to learn to do better and do less badly in future. I am having media training. What that will do I don’t know because a lot of people say that I shouldn’t be like ‘them’.
You will inevitably be compared with Nigel Farage, won’t you?
Yes, and it’s a great tragedy he’s gone. I didn’t want him to go. He was overworked with his job in the European Parliament. I tried to stop him going and I wish he had stayed on as leader, but he hasn’t and he is now our spokesman. People will make of me what they make of me and I can’t change that in any way and I’m not really going to apologise for it.
But do you think you are going to have to curb your predisposition to be completely honest about stuff?
I hope not.
How will you attract votes from the broader left, not just the white working class left?
I think our policies do appeal to the broader left. Nothing will appeal to the intellectual left and the crazy idiotic political class which have been running this country for far too long. But direct democracy definitely appeals. It isn’t just Labour voters we have to make sense to. Don’t forget the 40 per cent who have given up voting.
As leader will you be inviting Geert Wilders back to this country?
Yeah, I hope he’s coming back in early March.
What purpose does that serve?
We want a conference in London attended by the black Christian community; some of the black African bishops who are really living through what violent Islam means, for instance the wonderful Bishop of Jos in Northern Nigeria whose wife was recently publicly raped and dragged through the streets. These are people who can come and really warn what is in store from violent Islam. I want Geert and the black African bishops there and I also want the mild Islamic community there. I hope we will be producing a charter of Muslim understanding which will be an analysis of those verses in the Qur’an which uphold the disgraceful treatment of women and appeal to the Jihadists. I think our leading expression will be ‘gender apartheid’ and I think this country needs to address it. It needs to address it in cohesion with the vast majority of mild Muslims who at the moment are sitting there not doing very much.
Do you think there is a sort of apartheid operating in this country at the moment in some parts of our cities, where you have essentially got areas that are entirely inhabited by immigrant communities who have not assimilated into our society at all – what do you do about that?
Surely the minority which isn’t trying to assimilate is the Muslim community and Sharia law is gender apartheid. It is accepted by all the Muslims and sometimes it takes precedence over British law. We should be teaming up with Peter Tatchell and the gay lobby and the humanist lobby and so on. It’s wrong for all of us.
What are you genuinely hoping for at the next election because there’s all the speculation about what might happen to John Bercow with Nigel fighting him.
I think Nigel has a very good chance against him.
Is that what you will be throwing all your effort into?
No, at the moment we have about 500 candidates. We are going to fight across the board.
If we meet in a year’s time, what will you hope to achieve by then?
We have to go for a complete re-alignment in British politics and I think the first step towards that has to be a hung Parliament. If we can help to achieve that I will feel we have done quite well. Now I know what they say against that, they say Dave needs a very large majority so he can cut public expenditure in a way to save the country. To which I say, I see no sign of Dave even pretending that he’s going to do that. He’s backing the 50 per cent tax rate, he’s backing the tax on bankers and so on and therefore helping to cripple some of the life blood in this country, part of the GDP [Gross Domestic Product] that comes in through the City of London is oxygenated blood and it’s madness to kill that. I don’t see that he’s talking of cutting anything like the amount that must be cut. So I think a hung Parliament will be fine. It will be a first step.
But how would that benefit UKIP?
We would then be free to join up with decent real people, Liberal Democrats in the south west.
And then you will have a more Europhile government than you had before.
Not necessarily.
If there’s a hung Parliament, whoever it is will have to govern with the support of the Liberal Democrats who are the most Europhile party in British politics. If they are in a coalition, it’s possible Nick Clegg could be foreign secretary.
So what? The people will get angrier…
…oh so you will be trouble-making?
No, it’s not. It’s answering what the people need. It’s providing the only way out of all this which is UKIP at the moment. Conservative activists will agree with you on that and quite a lot of Liberal Democrats in the south west will agree with you, quite a lot of Labour in the north. What else can we do? What else have they left us with? They have turned down an offer where we put our country before our party. They have done the opposite. The people know that, the people aren’t stupid. The people are a bloody lot cleverer than the political class now, which is why they should have binding referendums.
DON’T Ban The Burka
Jan 16th
More in despair than anger, I see UKIP Leader Lord Pearson has called for the Burka to be banned in Britain.
The UK Independence Party is to call for a ban on the burka and the niqab — the Islamic cloak that covers women from head to toe and the mask that conceals most of the face — claiming they affront British values
But why, apart from Lord P’s unhealthy obsession with Islam, would anybody think this is a good idea? The fact Nick Griffin posted a boasting tweet proudly asserting…
I hear Ukip have just said they’d can the burqa. Bnp conference voted for that over 2 year ago.
..must be enough to sound alarm bells that politically, if not morally, this is a repugnant idea!
But it gets worse…
Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the leader of UKIP, said yesterday: “We are taking expert advice on how we could do it. It makes sense to ban the burka — or anything which conceals a woman’s face — in public buildings. But we want to make it possible to ban them in private buildings. It isn’t right that you can’t see someone’s face in an airport.”
Firstly how does it “make sense”? And secondly what the flipping flip is a supposedly libertarian party doing thinking it is ok to make moves to ban the burka in PRIVATE property?!! I understand the airport argument, but that is, surely, public property, and there are legitimate security concerns – in which case the rules should apply equally to everybody about face coverings, and so forth.
He explained that UKIP wanted to bring to the fore the issue of the increasing influence of Sharia in Britain: “We are not Muslim bashing, but this is incompatible with Britain’s values of freedom and democracy.”
Nigel Farage, the former UKIP party leader, will announce tomorrow that the party believes the fabric of the country is under threat from Sharia and that forcing women to conceal their identity in public is not consistent with traditional Britishness.UKIP believes that the burka and the niqab have no basis in Islam, are a threat to gender equality, marginalise women and endanger the public safety because terrorists could use them to hide their identity.
If forcing women to wear the burka is abusive, then forcing them not to is equally abusive!
And the hypocrisy oozes from this ridiculous, illogical and indefensible position – how can banning the burka (a confessed non-religious item of clothing) help to uphold “Britain’s values of freedom and democracy”?!
The argument the burka may marginalise women and threaten gender quality is merely a thin and translucent disguise which lacks credibility. It is a poor argument with which to defend this idea. The argument about hiding identity does have some legitimacy, but it has not been deployed in a sober, rational, and though-through manner sufficient to legitimise the policy.
Two years ago Rowan Williams triggered a row over Sharia when he argued that Britain had to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system and that adopting parts of Islamic law would help to maintain social cohesion
Now here is a genuine issue. Everybody in a society should live under the same laws, and receive equal treatment under the law. However there are ways of dealing with specific, defined, issues.
The UK Independence Party’s constitution states…
2.3 The Party will be guided in its activities by the principle of non-discrimination, including non-racism and non-sectarianism, and will be guided by the principle that all people are equal before the law.
I am not sure this proposal counts as sectarianism, and it certainly isn’t racism, but it is inequality under the law. Unless, of course, the proposed ban is a general ban on facial coverings, but even then the law would disproportionately restrict the freedoms of a particular religious group.
It is perhaps worth a challenge to the party’s NEC, to see whether the policy is compatible with the values established in the party constitution.
The Snow Brings Out Our Inner Child
Jan 14th
This story caught my eye this afternoon. I have to say I fully support the sentiments of the common sense member of the public…
Police officers filmed using riot shields to sledge down a snowy hill while on duty have been reprimanded.
Mr Latham said they were only there for a few minutes and praised the officers for having a “sense of humour”.
Supt Andrew Murray said those involved have been spoken to and advised that their actions were a “bad idea”.
But the local policing area commander added that the snow had “a habit of bringing out the child in all of us”.
“I have spoken to the officers concerned and reminded them in no uncertain terms that tobogganing on duty, on police equipment and at taxpayers’ expense is a very bad idea should they wish to progress under my command,” Supt Murray added.
Mr Latham, 50, from Oxford, said he was on the hill when the officers came over.
“I thought they were going to tell us off at first,” Mr Latham told BBC News.
I agree entirely that it is nice to see the police being human beings. Exactly which point did we all have to stop being human beings and uber boring and robotic? Personally i think the loss of humanity, driven by a politically correct/corporate culture is what has destroyed communities.
That this guys first reaction to the police heading his way was that he was in trouble embodies all that has gone wrong. The police, like most government agencies and organisations, has become distant, remote, ridiculously authoritarian and illiberal.
“But they had a look at the hill and two of them went down on their shields.
“They were jovial and it was nice to see officers taking time out to get involved.
“They were only there for a few minutes so I don’t think they should be criticised.
“Since I’ve put the footage up lots have people have commented saying how good it is to see officers having a sense of humour.
“It makes a change of the image you usually read about.”
Quite right.
Just to press home the point, can you imagine the same people who think we need diversity outreach officers or ’street football coordinators’ ever doing something as human and community-spirited as these police officers? No. Because they are the same breed of grey, humourless, politically correct officials who have pushed the tyrannical bureaucratic and process-driven statism we have today, and which has destroyed community.
A call for unity in UKIP
Jan 13th
I think its about time this party wised up. We are a small party that reply on a team of incredibly dedicated members, we may not have the numbers of our opponents but the effort some of the ordinary put into making this party a success is unreal.
I have my view on the situtation and personally I am fully behind Nikki, but regardless of this its about time the leadership and infulential players like the MEP’s got together, and started to sing from the same hymn sheet, not for their own good but for the good of UKIP and for the good of our once proud nation. its time UKIP did right by their silant (or in the case of some not so silant) army of motivated, dedicated supporters who go out rain, shine or snow to try to get out the word. We have a fantastic opportunity at this next GE to become a true force in British polics, feck the Euro parl I dont give a stuff about that, its time we rewarded our supporters hard work by becoming a force in our own country. The leadership had better not ruin the hard work of theirselves and so many others by immature infighting and bickering and certainly not over a stupid group in the EU much of membership dont want anything to do with. Time to pull together and unleash our true potential, this party WILL be a success but we all have to pull together to make it so, country before party but party before self
Sorry if this blog annoys anyone
