Is it time that we took a closer look at UKIP?

The UKIP vote in Eastleigh rose from 3.6% in 2010 to 27.8% in the by-election on Thursday. It may have been because the party is mopping up the mid-term protest votes which traditionally went to the Liberal Democrats before they climbed into bed with the devil in May 2010. It may be because many people – wrongly - feel that the three main parties in Westminster are “all the same”, a feeling which the Tories have helped to create by transferring so much real power from democratic accountability to unelected and unaccountable corporations as they privatise everything on which they can lay their grubby hands. What I don’t believe is that this bubble of support for UKIP is because of the party’s reactionary, right-wing policies, which aim to take us back to the 1950s.

The one policy which everyone associates with UKIP is withdrawal from the EU. UKIP has claimed that by leaving the EU, the UK would save over £45 million a day plus £60 billion a year, conveniently ignoring any EU rebates and regional grants. I’m not sure where it gets those figures from, since the Treasury says that the UK paid £8.9 billion into EU budget in 2010/11 (out of £706 billion of public spending). The European Commission puts the UK's net contribution at £5.85 billion.

The EU is the UK's main trading partner, accounting for 52% of our total trade in goods and services; if Britain went for a clean break from the EU, its exports would be subject to EU export tariffs. Millions of jobs could be lost as global manufacturers move to low-cost countries within the EU, and Britain's foreign-owned car industry might well shift into the EU. However, withdrawal from the EU was the issue which UKIP exploited and which put it on the political map. With his half-baked promise of a referendum at some point in the future, the idiotic Cameron has increased UKIP’s credibility by showing that he’s afraid of it.

Cameron also said that UKIP is “full of fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists", and perhaps on that last point he could now be right. The Eastleigh by-election showed that UKIP is appealing to racists, causing one person on Twitter to refer to it as “the BNP for the Notting Hill set”. UKIP may be more subtle than the BNP, but it wants to freeze immigration, pandering to the Alf Garnetts who see all foreigners as problems, and has even thrown in the contentious claim that “multiculturalism has split our society”.

In December 2011, the UK had 88,179 people in prison, more per head of the population than any other country in Europe, yet UKIP wants to double the number of prison places. UKIP says that the £2 billion cost of building new prisons is negligible compared to the cost of crime, but it hasn’t factored in the cost of keeping prisoners in jail, which amounts to at least £40,000 a year for each of them. Yet UKIP would refuse to accept European Arrest Warrants, which could well mean delays for the UK in extraditing suspects from other European countries.

The NHS would be no safer with UKIP than it’s been with the Tories, since the party believes that “other models are worth considering to see whether lessons can be learned from abroad”. On education, UKIP wants to bring back grammar schools, so that we can once again tell about 80% of eleven-year-olds that they’re failures, while at the same time giving parents education vouchers, which would be a way of subsidising private school fees.

The cornerstone of UKIP’s tax policies is to roll the employee national insurance and basic rate income tax into a flat rate of income tax of 31%. There would be no higher rate tax, since UKIP perpetuates the Tory lie that the 50% income tax rate cost the economy money; it hasn’t, it has brought in £2.7 billion a year. UKIP’s policy would be a massive tax cut for the rich, far bigger than the one that’s being introduced by the Tories in April. Even greater inequality would be created by abolishing national insurance for employers.

UKIP policies, like so many Tory ones, amount to an attack on our rights. UKIP would put an end to most legislation regarding matters such as weekly working hours, holidays, overtime, redundancy and sick pay, while leaving it up to each employer to decide whether to offer parental leave. It says it would also scrap most ‘equality and discrimination’ legislation.

If you need any more reasons not to vote for UKIP, it denies climate change and would make increased defence spending “a clear priority, even in these difficult times”. It opposes equal marriage, would hold a referendum in each county on ending the hunting ban and would allow smoking in allocated rooms in public houses, clubs and hotels. It’s no wonder that UKIP has been likened to “the political wing of a Home Counties golf club”.

You may not like the EU, and you may think that after 38 years it’s time to hold another referendum on our membership. However, before you vote for a party that makes that its flagship policy, look a little more closely at what else you would be voting for at the same time.

Sources used:-

http://www.ukip.org/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20448450

I agree Ivan with what you have said about the UKIP party all they are is second hand Tories, I spoke to a man in Eastleigh who had voted UKIP and he thought one UKIP MP in the H.O.C. would get us out of the EU - so what in heaven's name are they telling their voters or anybody who will listen to their tripe??

I've been a bit worried about UKIP all along - the positive thing about a single-issue party is that they can come up with compelling simple slogans

You have to wonder how either UKIP or the Scot Nats would fare without their respective charismatic leaders.

Salmond is at least knowledgeable and articulate in a compelling way , while Farage is an over-excitable waffler who is as credible as a nine-shilling note.

The SNP Top Dog could knock Cameron into the proverbial cocked hat so far as intellect is concerned, whereas UKIP's finest is just about as nauseating and untrustworthy as the Tory Tyrant...

Cameron also said that UKIP is “full of fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists", and perhaps on that last point he could now be right. The Eastleigh by-election showed that UKIP is appealing to racists, causing one person on Twitter to refer to it as “the BNP for the Notting Hill set”. UKIP may be more subtle than the BNP, but it wants to freeze immigration, pandering to the Alf Garnetts who see all foreigners as problems, and has even thrown in the contentious claim that “multiculturalism has split our society”.

IVAN....Your view is a minority view in the UK. Maybe you just dont want to see it but many people are rightly concerned over immigration levels and none of the 3 main parties are seious about addressing the issue. This is why most people think Lib, Lab and the Tories are all the same just with different colour rosettes. Attempting to play the Racist card just alienates people even more and shows your lack of knowledge on the issue

What a wonderful blinkered view of UKIP Ivan, why is pulling out of the EU a negative, we buy more than we sell to them are they going to tell us to piss off? At least UKIP have said what they want to do (simplicity is good), what are labour offering to the working man?

tlttf wrote:What a wonderful blinkered view of UKIP Ivan, why is pulling out of the EU a negative, we buy more than we sell to them are they going to tell us to piss off? At least UKIP have said what they want to do (simplicity is good), what are labour offering to the working man?

There is only one thing wrong with UKIP party, it's like a L/D Lasagne, full of Tories.

It’s significant that the two criticisms of my opening posting are about the EU and immigration, probably the only issues with which voters associate UKIP. If anyone wants to discuss those topics, these are appropriate threads on which they can do so:-

https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t47-the-eu-is-the-future

https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t119-should-immigration-always-be-perceived-as-a-problem

The point of this thread is to highlight that there is a lot more to UKIP than just the EU and immigration, although it is those two policies which have attracted most of its support. One UKIP prospective parliamentary candidate has written: "A removal of multiculturalism and assimilation of these people needs to be done to save them from the abyss of exclusion and welfare. Above all, one should not shy away from contemplating forced repatriation.” That’s straight out of the BNP handbook.

What Alex Androu has written for ‘The New Statesman’ reveals that Nigel Farage is co-habiting in the European Parliament with racists and fascists:-

UKIP is part of the group Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD). The group includes representatives of the Danish People’s Party, the True Finns Party, the Dutch SGP and the infamous Italian Lega Nord – all of them far-right. Nigel Farage is co-President of the group along with Lega Nord’s Francesco Speroni, who described multiple murderer Anders Breivik as someone whose “ideas are in defence of western civilisation."

Mario Borghezio, another member of the group, declared in a radio interview that Breivik had some "excellent" ideas. Farage’s reaction was to write a strongly-worded letter to Borghezio, asking him to withdraw his comments or Ukip would pull out of the EFD. Borghezio not only did not apologise, but responded with an extraordinary speech in which he raged: "Long live the whites of Europe, long live our identity, our ethnicity, our race… our blue sky, like the eyes of our women. Blue, in a people who want to stay white."

Nigel Farage did not withdraw from the EFD. He continues to co-preside over it, along with the leader of the Lega Nord. However, MEP Nikki Sinclaire was expelled from UKIP for refusing to be part of the EFD because of its “extreme views”.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/02/ukip-party-bigots-lets-look-evidence

Young ladies might like to think twice before supporting UKIP. One of the party’s MEPs, Godfrey Bloom, has said that “no employer with a brain in the right place would employ a young, single, free woman”. What was Farage’s reaction to that? “Dear old Godders! His comment has been proved so right.”

So before voting for such an extreme right-wing party as UKIP, people should take a closer look at all its policies. We’re lumbered with the Tories for the time being – does anyone really want an ‘even nastier party’?

I'd certainly consider them Ivan, what is Labour offering or the liberals presently in power?

a bigoted chancer

tlttf. That was your description of John O’Farrell, presumably because of what he said about the Brighton bomb but then rescinded about fourteen years ago. Yet you’d "certainly consider" a party whose leader currently associates with fascists and supporters of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik?? Maybe that says something about you.

He never rescinded it and he also never rescinded his wish that Argentina should win in the Falklands Ivan. If you believe all you read in the papers mate then that's down to you. Where has UKIP ever shown support for Breivik, would love to see that transcript?

Yes it does say something about me not being stuck into party politics to the extent that all they see is "for the best" when they offer nothing that benefits the working man/woman.

tlttf wrote:He never rescinded it and he also never rescinded his wish that Argentina should win in the Falklands Ivan. If you believe all you read in the papers mate then that's down to you. Where has UKIP ever shown support for Breivik, would love to see that transcript?

Yes it does say something about me not being stuck into party politics to the extent that all they see is "for the best" when they offer nothing that benefits the working man/woman.

As far as John O'Farrell said in his book at that time tittf the majority of the UK thought the same thing but never said it in a book, so why not pick on them ? or is it as I suspect more political games to try and stop free speech which your gov't is still trying to do today.

UKIP campaigned hard in our by-election last November, and beyond question their campaign leaflets were so close to racist as to make no difference.

Labour's vote in Eastleigh increased a little, while both the Tory and LibDem votes fell by 30%+, so it's clear where UKIP picked up their support. In more sensible constituencies, all UKIP did was eat the BNP vote and some of the Tory support, so there's some comfort in that.

Ivan's point is correct - UKIP is an extreme right-wing party in its politics, but happy to ride on the back of a few simplistic public policies that appeal to the lowest common denominator and attract the simple-minded.

And you really can't overestimate the appetite of the public for simple policies and simple solutions

boatlady wrote:And you really can't overestimate the appetite of the public for simple policies and simple solutions

Boatlady and skywalker I met someone while in Eastleigh that thought if they got a UKIP MP into the H.O.C. she would get them out of the EU so God knows what they are telling there voters, are people so gulible they would believe that one MP could get them out of the EU??

Where has UKIP ever shown support for Breivik, would love to see that transcript?

tlttf. Don’t try twisting my words – I’ve never said that UKIP has “shown support for Breivik”.

Maybe you don’t mind UKIP aligning itself with people who support a mass murderer, but no doubt John O’Farrell having a ‘bad thought’ 29 years ago is much worse in your eyes. There’s also a slight difference – O’Farrell was an ordinary candidate who probably won’t stand again, while Farage is a party leader.

Just to remind you: in the EU Parliament, UKIP is part of the far-right EFD group. Farage is co-president of the group along with Francesco Speroni, who described multiple murderer Anders Breivik as someone whose “ideas are in defence of western civilisation""

Mario Borghezio, another member of the group, declared in a radio interview that Breivik had some "excellent" ideas. Farage asked him to withdraw his comments, saying that otherwise UKIP would pull out of the EFD. Borghezio not only did not apologise, but responded with an extraordinary speech in which he raged: "Long live the whites of Europe", and a lot more besides.

Farage did not withdraw UKIP from the EFD; he continues to co-preside over it. At the very least, UKIP is guilty of supporting Breivik by association.

UKIP is essentially a party of liars, racists, scaremongers and misogynists. From January 2014, transitional controls on migrants from both Bulgaria and Romania will expire, and so their citizens will have a right to live and work in any of the 27 EU countries – just as we all have (and at least a million Brits do just that). However, both Bulgarians and Romanians are far more likely to migrate to Italy or Spain than the UK, since a considerable number of their fellow citizens are already in those countries. Besides, why would anyone want to come here these days?

The BBC gives the oxygen of publicity to Farage, even though he represents a party which has no MPs at Westminster. He’s been on ‘Question Time’ twelve times since December 2009, peddling his lies. Recently he claimed that the average monthly salary in Bulgaria is €200, when it’s €385.5. He said that the average monthly pension in Bulgaria is €100, when it’s €138. He said that almost 50% of the people in Bulgaria live in poverty, when the true figure is about 27%.

The UKIP candidate in Eastleigh, Diane James, claimed we’d get 4 million immigrants from Bulgaria. One UKIP leaflet during the campaign was so despicable as to claim that 3 million Bulgarians are coming to live in Eastleigh! (I'm not sure exactly what’s so attractive about Eastleigh.) By the way, there are only 7.5 million people in the whole of Bulgaria, and as 90% of them own their own homes, I can’t see them all flocking to Eastleigh or anywhere else in the UK.

Marta Andreasen is an MEP for the South East of England. She was UKIP’s last female MEP, but she has now left the party and joined the Tories. She accused Farage of bullying, being “anti-women” and surrounding himself with "an old boys’ club of like-minded sycophants". Farage replied by saying that the Tories “deserve what is coming to them”, adding that “the woman is impossible”.

Farage calls his grubby little party ‘libertarian’, yet it opposes equal marriage. He told ‘The Guardian’ that he believed religious faith played an important role in society and "the equality rights agenda has come to the point of head-on conflict" with it. So out with equal rights, out with human rights and in with racism, prejudice and misogyny. UKIP almost makes the Tory Party look half-decent, and that really takes some doing.

Sources used:-

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/02/ukip-party-bigots-lets-look-evidence

http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/3346851-dear-mr-farage

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/04/uaf-conference_n_2804691.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21555727

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20961650

The problem with UKIP is that they have a lot of decent people, disillusioned with the main political parties, signed up to their version of 'common sense' - which only looks dodgy when you start to think about it.

In times of uncertainty and hardship, people look around for someone to blame, and parties like UKIP, just like Mosely's party in the '30's, have been able to identify a discrete group (immigrants) who can be 'blamed' for all the ills of society. The Tories are doing the same with the poor and the disabled - thanks to 'comedies' like 'Little Britain' we all know exactly who they mean.

It's a simple message, doesn't need too much thinking about, and offers a promise of things getting better.

The real causes of our insecurity and discomfort are complex and hotly debated - makes people feel powerless.

Your last line hits the nail on head exactly boatlady. People in general are totally dismayed with like choices on offer from the main stream professional politicians.

boatlady wrote:The problem with UKIP is that they have a lot of decent people, disillusioned with the main political parties, signed up to their version of 'common sense' - which only looks dodgy when you start to think about it.

In times of uncertainty and hardship, people look around for someone to blame, and parties like UKIP, just like Mosely's party in the '30's, have been able to identify a discrete group (immigrants) who can be 'blamed' for all the ills of society. The Tories are doing the same with the poor and the disabled - thanks to 'comedies' like 'Little Britain' we all know exactly who they mean.

It's a simple message, doesn't need too much thinking about, and offers a promise of things getting better.

The real causes of our insecurity and discomfort are complex and hotly debated - makes people feel powerless.

It will be interesting to see what the voters have to say after the 1st April Boatlady, maybe then the people of Eastleigh will be kicking themselves for voting for someone who helped the Tories get their nasty cuts through the H.O.C.

Interesting poll by the Spectator:-


The truth about Ukip supporters


Who are all these folk jumping on Nigel Farage’s bandwagon? Ukip — which received just 3 per cent of the vote in 2010 — is now averaging about 11 per cent in the polls. Its rise has fuelled all sorts of speculation about where its supporters are coming from and why they’re turning to the party. Today, YouGov have thrown a bit of data into that speculation. They’ve combined the results of all their February polls, which sampled 28,944 people including 2,788 who said they’d vote Ukip. The results are a mixture of the expected and the surprising.

First, the expected: most of them voted Tory in 2010 — 60 per cent of them, in fact. 15 per cent of them voted Liberal Democrat, 12 per cent Ukip and 7 per cent Labour.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/03/the-truth-about-ukip-supporters/

How refreshing that the one-man party known as UKIP is so different from the others! Farage has had what he thought was going to be a secret dinner with Britain’s real Prime Minister, Rupert Murdoch, to get approval for his plan of an electoral pact with the Tories. He's also asked Murdoch to sack his messenger boy, who currently resides at 10 Downing Street:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/9916636/Farage-suggests-Conservative-pact-at-secret-dinner-with-Murdoch.html#dsq-comments

Of course Farage would form a Coalition with a Tory minority, UKIP is nothing less than the Provisional Wing of the Conservative rump. Their policies are inseparable, apart from a soupçon of coquetry.

oftenwrong wrote:Of course Farage would form a Coalition with a Tory minority, UKIP is nothing less than the Provisional Wing of the Conservative rump. Their policies are inseparable, apart from a soupçon of coquetry.

Thank goodness someone else other than me OW thinks that the UKIP party are no more than second hand Tories.

Redflag wrote:-
the UKIP party are no more than second hand Tories.

UKIP is certainly that, of whom Neil (‘cash-for-questions’) Hamilton is a prime example. That man is so sick that when Greville Janner said he had lost half of his family in the Holocaust, Hamilton replied:
“Unfortunately, the wrong half”. In a debate about amputees, he told Frank Dobson that he “didn’t have a leg to stand on”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Hamilton_(politician)


guardian.co.uk

Nevertheless, the BBC is quite happy to have such scum on ‘Question Time’. For some reason, our so-called ‘impartial’ broadcasting service seems determined to give as much publicity as possible to this tinpot party of extremists which has no MPs at Westminster. UKIP only won seven seats in the local council elections of 2011, and Farage is so obnoxious that he has fallen out with half of the MEPs in the party’s history. Yet as I’ve said before, Farage has been on ‘Question Time’ on twelve occasions since December 2009.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14857078

Alan Sked, who founded UKIP in 1993 but resigned his leadership of the party in 1997, said: "UKIP has been fooling its voters and members for far too long. Its third-rate leaders, propagandists and MEPs all need to be sacked and the party re-established." He’s also said that UKIP is racist and has been infected by the far-right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sked

"You can fool some of the People all of the time - and those are the ones we should be concentrating on."

George W Bush (allegedly)

I remember the cash for questions of Neil Hamilton and he has the brass neck to deny it to this day, so UKIp is the right wing party for him, did you see the Eastleigh candidate that came second was alllowed on last night I would understand it if she had won, I think Cameron will go into coalition with Farage he would do anything to get back into power but his nasty and Incompetent policies have sort of fcuked up his chances of enough people voting him back him even his own constituency in Witney so I think he will have to find another seat maybe in an area that has B(W)ankers hedge fund managers and there ilk.
 
I believe that next year is the EU elections so let us see how Farage gets on there he keeps wanting the UK out of the EU but is willing enough to let them pay his salary !! such a HYPOCRITE, I seen him when I was in Eastleigh we frequented the same Weatherspoons me for food him and his side kick Nuttall to have a pint and there egos stroked by there supporters.

UKIP is certainly that, of whom Neil (‘cash-for-questions’) Hamilton is a prime example

Hmmm could be that Hoon, Byers and Hewett will join UKIP too....what do you think Ivan and Redflag?

blueturando wrote:

UKIP is certainly that, of whom Neil (‘cash-for-questions’) Hamilton is a prime example

Hmmm could be that Hoon, Byers and Hewett will join UKIP too....what do you think Ivan and Redflag?

Or maybe Parkinson Leon Britten Huhne Osbourn and Cameron blue do you think they would get on with Farage???

Today, Savers in Cyprus should be an easy target for UKIP recruiters.

tlttf wrote:What a wonderful blinkered view of UKIP Ivan, why is pulling out of the EU a negative, we buy more than we sell to them are they going to tell us to piss off? At least UKIP have said what they want to do (simplicity is good), what are labour offering to the working man?

A lot more than the Tory or UKIP for that matter tittf, Ukip is just nothing more than the second hand Tory party. All the Tories are giving the people that voted Tory in 2010 is a slap in the mouth and a kick in the guts, but they will have learned a very hard lesson and know not to vote Tory ever again.

The Tories where out of power for 13 years they will have to keep there hand on there ASS for a long time before they EVER get voted back in again, and come 2014 the Scottish referendum, Scotland will leave the UK reason is Scotland learned from the Maggots years in power what a shower of BACKSTUDS the Tory party ARE.

Voting UKIP throws up lots of dilemma s for lots of people, for example many working class people who would normaly be expected to vote Labour, find UKIPs hard line against both immigration and Europe very appealing, but the problem is that UKIP is a twin sister to the right wing of the Tory party - not very appealing to working class people.

Speaking on Question Time a couple of years ago, Nigel Farage spoke out against too many employment rights, which he described as red tape and barriers to employing people, and he spoke out against the National Minimum Wage.

Just as Labour cannot get elected without votes from the middle classes, I believe that UKIP cannot get anywhere without working class support.

On balance, as Eastleigh demonstrated recently, UKIP seem most likely to split the Tory vote. What a shame that would be.

oftenwrong wrote:On balance, as Eastleigh demonstrated recently, UKIP seem most likely to split the Tory vote. What a shame that would be.

And in Rotherham, Middlesbrough, Croydon etc, they ate the BNP vote and the Tory vote. Which says a lot, really..

UKIP will split the Tory vote so you lot should be cheering them on really. It's a shame there is no longer a Left wing party where true Labour voters could put their X....But you will have to make do with Ed and his Tory lites for now I suppose

blueturando wrote:UKIP will split the Tory vote so you lot should be cheering them on really. It's a shame there is no longer a Left wing party where true Labour voters could put their X....But you will have to make do with Ed and his Tory lites for now I suppose

Anything would be better than voting Tory or UKIP one is as bad as other, niether of them know their ASS from their ELBOW.

Ed and his Tory lites

That makes a change. I expect by next week, we'll be back to hearing Tories talking about 'Red Ed' again.

Falange
(fə lanj′, -länj′)

noun

a fascist organization, founded in 1933, that became the only official political party of Spain under Franco.

Farage
spelt similarly.

I can see NO difference between the Tories and UKIP OW, I suppose through time they will join up together and become ONE BIG FASCIST PARTY.

If/When that happens, Red, would the Lib-Dems swallow the tiny scrap of integrity remaining to them and renew their coalition pact anyway?