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

First topic message reminder :

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

oftenwrong wrote:".... the dire shortage of social housing."

.. is not an accident.  It was an intentional component of Thatcher's Right to buy policy, which specifically forbade Councils to use the proceeds for building social housing.  Fewer houses maintains a steady rise in the price of homes, producing fat pickings for mortgage lenders AND simultaneously the private landlord.  Either/or.  No escape for the plebs.

i.e. class war. they hate our guts, and if they didn't live off us like lice they'd kill us all.

class war. they hate our guts, and if they didn't live off us like lice they'd kill us all.  Penderyn

Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs is unlikely.  Not while all political parties are in broad agreement on the Capitalist system continuing to provide a comfortable living for the Leadership.

oftenwrong wrote:Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs is unlikely.  Not while all political parties are in broad agreement on the Capitalist system continuing to provide a comfortable living for the Leadership.

 
All they can afford to kill - the very poor and the leaders.  It is on the way.

Is it time we took a closer look at UKIP?

(abrutis)

" That's better - Farage looks further away through this end..."

Why can the people not see right through Farage & Ukip PH, there is a story in today's Sunday Mirror by an undercover reporter who attended their Spring conference and none of it good.   What I can not understand is it is as plain as the nose on your face that all Ukip are Tories Mark 11, so a vote for Ukip is a vote for the Tory party because on todays Andrew Marr show Farage has said he would go into coalition with the Tories in 2015 if that was the case. 

We haven't had a coalition of just one Party since Thatcher stunned her right-wing into silence by her radical ideas. Although that didn't last, because the Conservative Party had been divided ideologically ever since Ted Heath took them into Europe by the use of smoke and mirrors. Though Cameron has promised a referendum, umm err, "after the next election", so that's alright then.

He has got big tickets on himself does Davy boy after what he has done to 99% of the people in the UK he still believes they will vote for him and his nasty party in the general electiion in May 2015.  

If people vote fot the nasty party in 2015  I hope they are prepared to see the rise n the building of WORKHOUSES worse than it was in Victorian times.  

Most UKIP members and supporters seem to come from another planet, so I guess this election broadcast should come as no surprise. Watch it all if your constitution can stand it, but if not, the last minute or so is a 'must':-
 

Source: YouTube

Incredible. I love how they end with wanting to put a stop to hospital waiting lists whilst at the same time lowering taxes.

What a load of Tory LIARS this lot are Tory mark 11, from what I have heard they have at least 3 policies the same as the Tories mark1. 1) they want a two tier educational system 2) to getrid of the Human rights law 3) I have heard Farager on tv say he wants OUR NHS in the hands of the private health sector.

I am sure I do not need to go on the people on this forum will by now have the UKIPs number.

That is scary - these people are seriously deranged - absolutely can't see how anyone is taken in by this s--t

An impressive line-up. We must contain our impatience to see the assembled potential UKIP Cabinet Members shown on the film actually come to power - not least the young spotty chap who clearly has so much to contribute.
 
The chief narrator - who must have last appeared in Orwell's 1984 before losing his Equity Card for over-acting - is a sure-fire Minister for the Arts - once he has been certified sane , of course.
 
Just one disappointment - we didn't see Farage make a grand entrance from one of those spaceships , holding a pint , puffing a fag and shouting " Behold the Chosen One...!".
 
( Is this clip X-rated , or can I show my young nieces? )       

I think you have summed up the UKIP party very well PH.

Farage has had a makeover in the hope of appealing to more Tory voters:-
 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkTPNcBCIAE0Llr.jpg

Not so close to tea-time - please, Ivan!        

If Farage had his way, it would be more like 'Tea Party' time!   
 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkKy4o2CYAAR_nA.png

Our Nigel must agree with the Oscar Wilde aphorism:

"The only thing worse than being talked about is NOT being talked about!"

We're giving him plenty of the "oxygen of publicity" that so exercised the late Baroness.

UKIP gets more like the Tea Party every day!   
 
Nigel Farage calls for UK gun laws to be relaxed
 
UKIP leader says ban on handguns brought in after Dunblane massacre is "ludicrous".
 
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/24/nigel-farage-uk-gun-control-laws-relaxed

Another certain vote-winner. I must invite Nigel to dinner and show him my AK 47 - at very close quarters...    

I'll light his fag with it...

What do the following have in common: Nigel Farage, Alex Salmond and Vladimir Putin?

All want to change the political status quo, but without any concrete idea of what might replace it. Each is promoting destabilisation, but what voter is going to choose instability as the bright new future?

Maybe that why Farage was chased out of Edinburgh last year OW, I have the same reason for voting NO on the 18th September Salmond and the SNP are so right wing its frightens me but Salmond knows the cuts coming from Davy boy could force the Scots to vote Yes, which he knew would have the desired effect on the people of Scotland. 

What does UKIP stand for? As far as the EU and immigration is concerned, its position couldn’t be clearer. Every voter in Britain is probably aware that UKIP stands for Britain leaving the EU, and restricting immigration. Without a single member of the Westminster Parliament UKIP has successfully established its distinctive political brand, based on two policy areas and a general dislike of anything involving political correctness, human rights, equality, or health and safety.
 
But in many major policy areas, do we know what UKIP actually stands for? Before last year’s Council elections the BBC attempted a round-up of UKIP policies  here. It concluded that UKIP was for: large tax cuts and large public spending cuts, increased defence spending, a doubling of prison places, fracking, student grants and grammar schools. It was against: equal marriage, wind farms and HS2.
 
But earlier this year, UKIP’s 2010 General Election manifesto was disowned as ‘almost 500 pages of junk’ by UKIP’s new policy director Tim Aker, a statement with which Nigel Farage agreed. A new manifesto is currently being written and ‘will be published later this year for the 2015 General Election’ At the moment, in many areas, UKIP policy is something of a mystery.
 
So as we approach May’s European Elections it could be quite difficult to predict how UKIP members of the European Parliament will vote on any particular issue. That is, if they vote at all. They have been heavily criticised for poor attendance and voting records, even on votes that may be finely balanced and have significant impact on the UK.
 
Conservative MEP Vicky Ford complained in October 2013: “The votes are so close and if Ukip is not in the room then we will lose the vote. Small numbers of votes regularly tip the balance.
 
“Every bit of detail is hammered out in a three-way meeting between the European Parliament, European Commission and Council of Ministers but on financial services I am often the only Brit in the room, or with LibDem MEP Sharon Bowles.
 
“Ukip has never once turned up to trialogue meetings. These negotiations are crucial to the UK and the City of London.
 
“The big scandal is they are invited to these meetings and do not bother to turn up.”
 
In response to such criticism, Paul Nuttall MEP, Chairman of UKIP, replied:
 
"So what? I treat Brussels with the contempt it deserves." His website states, "As well as defending the UK’s interests in the European Parliament, Paul will campaign in Britain so UKIP can make a breakthrough at Westminster.’ Indeed it seems that UKIP MEPs have, whilst holding the European Parliament in contempt, used the public profile and
generous salaries and allowances that come with being an MEP to build their party in the UK.
 
So in the May elections, UKIP candidates may be asking people to give them their support, with little idea of how or if they will use that mandate in the European Parliament. This could be said to show a lack of respect for the electorate. Even on an issue as significant as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, it is difficult to know where UKIP stands. Iain McKie, an investment banker and UKIP Parliamentary candidate for the Isle of Wight in 2015, has written, in something of an understatement, "Given that this would be the world’s largest ever free trade agreement, we really should have an opinion."
 
As UKIP is attracting disillusioned voters from both Labour and the Conservatives, this ‘blank sheet’ approach seems to be working, a way of pleasing all of the people all of the time. People on low incomes may feel that a UKIP vote is a protest against the political establishment. Prosperous people who resent paying tax, or any restrictions on their freedom, identify with the buccaneering, libertarian approach of Nigel Farage. When definite policies are finally published, it will be interesting to see how many people find that UKIP was not quite the party they had imagined.
 
“This blog first appeared on Ekklesia and is reproduced with acknowledgement. www.ekklesia.co.uk
© Bernadette Meaden is an Associate of Ekklesia.”

Yer pays yer money and yer makes yer choice!

But you always end up paying.

UKIP is NASTY

Is Nigel Farage going to get his comeuppance at last? Are we heading for a Loony Eclipse?   
 
Farage under fire over MEP expenses claims
 
"UKIP leader Nigel Farage is facing questions over the £15,500 in expenses he claims annually for office costs, after it emerged he pays no rent on the small Bognor Regis property where he works. A former manager of the West Sussex office told ‘The Times’ that upkeep of the converted grain store in terms of bills and other non-rental costs only amounts to £3,000 a year. That leaves £12,000 a year apparently unaccounted for.

Farage has been referred to the European expenses watchdog by a former UKIP official over how he has spent about £60,000 of office expenses since transparency declarations about expenses began in 2009."
 
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/15/nigel-farage-under-fire-over-office-expenses
 
Nigel Farage says tax haven fund was a mistake
 
"Nigel Farage has admitted he made a mistake by setting up a trust fund in an offshore tax haven. He has previously spoken out against tax evaders in a speech to the European Parliament, but he admits he paid an adviser to set up the Farage Family Educational Trust 1654 on the Isle of Man."
 

 
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jun/21/nigel-farage-offshore-fund-mistake
 
N.B. Although Farage has spoken out against tax evaders, he voted in the EU Parliament last year against tackling them:-
 
http://www.markpack.org.uk/41203/ukip-meps-vote-against-tackling-tax-evasion/
 
Only last week, Farage said that Maria Miller had “taken the mickey out of the system” for wrongly claiming thousands of pounds in expenses.  

oftenwrong wrote:Yer pays yer money and yer makes yer choice!

But you always end up paying.

This is what surprises me OW, left thinking voters voting for a far right party can they not see that there is no difference between Davy boy and Farage ??

Just a small point, Ivan, it's a while since I have been to Notting Hill but I would be flabbergasted were I to come across anyone living in that area who were inclined to vote for UKIP OR the BNP!

Not even Hugh Grant?

guffaw.

UKIP's own privately educated clique
 
by George Eaton
 
"In an attempt to portray the investigation by ‘The Times’ of Nigel Farage's EU allowances as part of a sinister establishment plot, UKIP has published a series of disparaging profiles of some of the paper's senior journalists (Daniel Finkelstein, Matthew Parris, Alice Thomson, Hugo Rifkind, Rachel Sylvester, Tim Montgomerie and Alexi Mostrous). It drew particular attention to the fact that six of the seven were privately educated, an odd line of attack given that its leader was schooled at the none-too-shabby Dulwich College.

And Farage isn't the only senior UKIP figure to have passed through the nefarious public school system. Two of the party's other MEPs, Stuart Agnew and William Legge, were educated at Gordonstoun and Eton respectively. In addition, all three of its peers were privately schooled (Eton, Stowe and Institut Le Rosey), its treasurer, Stuart Wheeler, is another Old Etonian and its defence spokesman, Alexander Fermor-Hesketh, was educated at Ampleforth College.

As I said, a dubious line of attack indeed."
 
The full list is here:-
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/ukips-own-privately-educated-clique

Thank you Ivan for confirming my suspicion that Ukip is no different from the Tory party, I have heard Farage say that OUR NHS should be fully privatized that in itself say's it all.

I could not believe that people where being hoodwinked by the Ukip SPIN, I know people are not happy with the Labour party I will be the first to say the Labour party did not get everything right that is part of the reason we have a Tory led gov't today.  But do hope that this Tory gov't is the hard lesson the people of the UK needed, and remember this in May 2015 and every time a general election  comes round  so we NEVER EVER have any sort of Tory gov't whether a coalition or majority gov't.  

The supporters of UKIP are likely to be those unfortunates who are primarily opposed to just about everything.

I have an uncomfortable feeling that all the complaining and pointing out of the absurdity and plain nastiness of the UKIP position may have the unwanted effect of advertising the 'brand'.

A noticeable factor in recent local elections was that UKIP hardly knocked on a door or posted a leaflet, but, by displaying the distinctive gold and maroon logo on every lamppost and telegraph pole they managed to get quite a groundswell of votes, here in Norfolk anyway.

Maybe, by using the name so frequently, albeit in a negative context, we are just playing into their hands by making the 'brand' more recognisable?

I think you could be right there boatlady, when I was in Eastleigh February 2013 I had my meals in Weatherspoons Farage & Nuttall where in there every time I went in either for my breakfast or dinner pair of lazy backstuds.

boatlady wrote:-
I have an uncomfortable feeling that all the complaining and pointing out of the absurdity and plain nastiness of the UKIP position may have the unwanted effect of advertising the 'brand'.

I understand and respect that point, and it highlights the dilemma. To Farage, all publicity raises his status and he thrives on it, although I notice that he refused to be interviewed a second time by Channel 4 News after the drubbing which Jon Snow gave him here:
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu-VZKpKqlI
 
I think Clegg was foolish to get involved in debates with Farage, but he may have felt that the Lib Dems are in such a desperate position that he had nothing to lose. Farage was widely declared to have ‘won’ those debates, but I can’t comment on which of them was more truthful as I refused to watch the spectacles.
 
The BBC is culpable of giving Farage (and thereby UKIP) so much oxygen of publicity. He’s the leader of a party with no MPs at Westminster and only 3.2% of the votes at the 2010 election, but he’s been on ‘Question Time’ 26 times, far more than any other individual. The BBC may argue that he’s “good television”, but when he’s not on the programme they frequently drag up someone else from his grotty party.
 
Before deciding on how to counter the rise of UKIP, we first need to understand its attraction. Rafael Behr has written a very comprehensive article for ‘The New Statesman’ on the party’s appeal, saying that it “feeds on and fuels pessimism, especially among older constituents”. Not being an MP, Farage isn’t tainted with Westminster politics, which is judged to be “for the benefit of someone else – migrants, welfare recipients, bankers and Brussels bureaucrats”. And while the ongoing scandal of MPs’ expense claims has reinforced the hostility felt for Westminster politicians by UKIP supporters, Farage’s own dubious use of allowances has received little attention until very recently (see the Jon Snow interview above).
 
Farage gets away with being ‘the bloke down the pub’, when in reality he is another ex-public school boy, just like Cameron and Clegg. (For the record, Ed Miliband went to Haverstock Comprehensive School.) Farage is also a former City trader who runs his party with allowances claimed from the EU and money from a handful of ex-Tory donors.
 
Behr points out that UKIP still takes more votes from the Tories than from anyone else, but that “it plainly appeals to disillusionment from across the political spectrum”, and to people who feel “left behind” (who are often older, low-skilled white men). Their anger has been fuelled by “faceless, arrogant officialdom” in the form of such things as the ban on smoking in public, political correctness, excessive health and safety issues, human rights which are perceived to favour criminals, and the wicked EU.
 
UKIP offers simple solutions to the complex issues in our society; leave the EU, crack down on immigration, turn the clock back to the 1950s and all will be well. It may well score 25-30% of the vote in EU and even council elections, when there is usually a low turnout, and maybe 15% in a general election, but because its support is spread fairly evenly, it’s unlikely to win many, if any, seats at Westminster. Fortunately, as Behr states, “there is a ceiling on the level of support UKIP can reach, set by its own hostility to swaths of modern Britain and its tendency to recruit cranks”.
 
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/welcome-militant-england
 
So what can we do to counter the threat from UKIP? I don’t think we should just keep quiet and hope it will go away. Firstly, I think we must accept that those of us on the left have been concentrating on certain issues, such as environmentalism, gay rights, feminism and racial equality, while not giving enough emphasis to low wages, job security and a lack of social housing. If Labour focuses on those issues when it returns to power, the UKIP bubble may burst. In other words, tackle the conditions which allow right-wing extremism to thrive. Secondly, my own feeling is that politicians should always face up to issues which they find ‘uncomfortable’. Positive cases can be made for both our membership of the EU and for immigration, and I think that’s the best way to counter the ignorance and prejudice on which UKIP feeds.

I thought Rafael Behr's piece made for interesting, if uncomfortable reading.

It is easy to get side tracked into the intellectually seductive side issues when talking about politics, and to seek ideal world solutions (world peace, universal brotherhood) when actually what most people want is decent housing, fair treatment at work, good health care and a robust social security safety net. Labour may indeed have taken its eye off the ball - maybe the current focus on the cost of living and the uneven distribution of resources will be able to resonate sufficiently to give the party a bit more traction.

[quote="Ivan"]

boatlady wrote:-
"... politicians should always face up to issues which they find ‘uncomfortable’."

In society as a whole we have "taboo" subjects (such as incest) which are avoided in general discussion. Politicians have their own additional taboo subjects, which appear to include voluntary euthanasia, MP's salaries, housing deficiency, established inequality and misuse of the Royal Prerogative.