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

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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

Unsurprisingly, Nigel is beginning to wilt under the strain of running a one-man-band. But will "his" voters have noticed?

Meantime, David Miliband is receiving bags of publicity but sets out Labour Policy rather in the manner of someone "painting by numbers". Who is pulling his strings?

I doubt it took an LBC interview to persuade many of us that Farage is a total phoney and an unconvincing and unpleasant shit of the highest order.

Interesting, nonetheless...

That video interview with Farage just shows what a nasty racist backstud he is, and it plain to see Farage does not like coming under scruntiny from the media I think he better get used to it if he wants to get a seat in Westminister.

Ivan wrote:

David Miliband

Sometimes known as The Axelrod Gambit the inclusion of a deliberate misquote can serve to confirm the writer's suspicion that nobody ever reads their pearls of wisdom anyway.

......... but there's usually one .....   

Dear Nigel Farage
 
The link below is to a letter written by blogger Nick King to Farage after UKIP council candidate John Lyndon Sullivan wrote this on Facebook:-
 
“I rather often wonder if we shot one ‘poofter’ (GBLT whatevers), whether the next 99 would decide on balance that they weren’t after all? We might then conclude that it’s not a matter of genetics, but rather more a matter of education.”
 
http://www.nickkingsworld.com/blog/2014/5/17/dear-nigel-farage

Some more UKIP horror stories, for those who haven’t yet reached saturation point.   
 
UKIP’s by-election candidate in Newark is accused of assaulting a one-armed protester
 
http://metro.co.uk/2014/05/19/ukip-hopeful-fought-with-one-armed-disabled-man-as-gaffe-prone-election-campaign-takes-another-twist-4733572/
 
Meanwhile, a Southport UKIP candidate wants the death penalty for treason for anyone who votes against him, while Magnus Nielsen thinks the decision to extend the vote to female and middle class voters was a mistake that should be reversed.
 
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2014/05/19/vote-for-me-or-risk-execution-warns-ukip-candidate
 
Anyone who votes for this evil party must be a lunatic.  

I think the thing about UKIP is there are some people who are going to vote for them, however many times they are shown up.
Following the Farage car crash interview, there were people on Facebook complaining about the bias of the interviewer and how he railroaded poor Nigel - and of course the more he looks like the underdog, the more he will get the sympathy vote.

As to the loony comments reported from some UKIP candidates - often they are just saying out loud what some people secretly think - I suspect there's a vein of nastiness in the human psyche that Farage and his merry men are managing for the present to mine quite effectively.

That said, maybe once the EU elections are over, we might see them shrunk to size - on the whole I don't think UKIP have made a really good showing in local politics

Look how many times the conservatives have been shown up, and still lots of people vote for them. if you are honest, most parties have people that open their mouths without engaging their brains.
Who is in the lead for the European polls, UKIP, so there are a lot of people listening to them, they are saying what people want to here, stop immigration and get out of Europe. Personally, I think the party you are all describing is the Raving Loony party and not UKIP.
I don't think there is a perfect party anyway, I see that UKIP will weaken the Conservatives in any election, and erase Lib/Dems altogether, they are disappearing faster than the washing up water down our sink. Ed Millinand said they are going to listen to the voters from now on, it is just a pity they didn't do it before. They probably wouldn't be in the mess they are in. Get back to to old Labour values, and stop following the mantra of Maggie Thatcher, make up with the unions for a start.

Sort of hoping this is a sign of troubles to come for the lovely Nigel

boatlady wrote:Sort of hoping this is a sign of troubles to come for the lovely Nigel

What sign of trouble, it looks like to me that Farage and UKIP are doing really well, won loades of council seats and so have labour, but Labour have lost council seats in areas that are Labour strongholds, these areas have immigrant problems, and East Europeans who are taking jobs at less than the going rate.
Cameron says the Conservatives have the answer to the problems that are concerning the British public, well, if he has the answer why haven't they put them into practise. Running of at the mouth as usual because they have taken an hammering in the council elections, really the Tories and Lib/Dems do not have a clue. I can give them a tip, change their minds about Europe and listen to the British public for a change, their arrogance of we know best for what is good for us is just not on.

Between General Elections, the British tradition is to punish the ruling party with a protest vote.

So what else is new?

jackthelad - I think telling lies about political opponents is usually frowned upon - so telling lies about Andy Burnham may well cause problems for UKIP - and I rather hope it does, because I don't think smearing your opponents is classy at all.

I don't mind saying that today's results in GY have upset me, because I met most of the Labour candidates that were rejected in favour of UKIP, and I know how hard each of them worked, door knocking, leafleting and quite a bit of case work - and I also know that UKIP did nothing in this area except turn up at the polling stations and hang around outside - it's very galling, but it's just a stage of the process, and we will eventually be able to convince the electorate, because a politics based on fear and hate is not any way forward, and eventually people will see that.

oftenwrong wrote:Between General Elections, the British tradition is to punish the ruling party with a protest vote.

So what else is new?

If you don't know I will tell you, UKIP, they have the attention of the British voters, this next coming General Election will be a different kettle of fish. The Lib/Dems are a spent force and have been for awhile, and by going into a coalition with the Tories the plug as final been pulled and they are going down the drain. UKIP are taking lots of Conservatives and Lib/Dem votes, so they could be the next big party to Labour in the General Election. What ever happens it will not be good for the Tories, and the Green will pick up a lop of Lib/Dem voters votes too.
Just wait and see how well UKIP do in the European Elections, then you might have a change of heart about protest voting, UKIP is here to stay, another political force, but this force is in tune with the British voters.

British voters are on the whole attracted to right wing policies then, you think?

I was going to quote some specific policies , but a brief examination of the internet hasn't actually revealed any except get out of Europe, expel foreigners (except of course Germans), oh yes and scrap Human Rights legislation and employment rights.  


I'll pop back and have another look, meanwhile, perhaps you can let us know what are UKIP policies on employment, human rights, social security and maybe even foreign policy (or are we just going to pull up the drawbridge and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist?)

boatlady wrote:British voters are on the whole attracted to right wing policies then, you think?

I was going to quote some specific policies , but a brief examination of the internet hasn't actually revealed any except get out of Europe, expel foreigners (except of course Germans), oh yes and scrap Human Rights legislation and employment rights.  


I'll pop back and have another look, meanwhile, perhaps you can let us know what are UKIP policies on employment, human rights, social security and maybe even foreign policy (or are we just going to pull up the drawbridge and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist?)

First of all, I don't believe that for one moment.

Secondly, I don't know what other UKIP policies are at the moment, never seen those policies what you have mentioned though, just to curb immigration and getting out of Europe, and getting out of Europe will reduce immigration.
Thirdly, I am a labour voter, but if UKIP keep coming up with what I believe in, then I easily could come to be a UKIP voter, I only voted for UKIP in the European elections. Still, Farage seems to have more up and go than Ed Miliband, even Michael Foot was a better leader, and he didn't do to too well either.

The proof of the pudding is in the lap of the Gods.

What will this thread look like in twelve months from now?

oftenwrong wrote:The proof of the pudding is in the lap of the Gods.

What will this thread look like in twelve months from now?

Clumsy Gods, don't they have a tray to eat off.

Don't know what this thread will look like in twelve months, and I am certainly not going to ask a gypsy fortune-teller, but If I am allowed a guess I would say, very much like it is now.  

Keeping things in perspective:-
 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BoWOKNIIIAE1E6M.jpg

I have never really understood the arguments for getting out of Europe
.
Maybe someone would be able to explain to me why getting out of Europe is a good idea.

I get the bit about uncontrolled immigration forcing down wages - but we have a legal minimum wage, so surely that effect is mitigated?
I guess as a member of the EU we have to accept that the borders are permeable and that people will come here to live, work, and be disruptive, just as people from Britain move abroad to live, work and be disruptive.

Britain doesn't any more have an Empire, which, when I was a girl, was a source of wealth and prestige - we don't have any industry to speak of ( thanks Maggie) - it seems to me that  to remain a power in the world we have to be aligned to a larger entity - Europe to me seems a sensible option - in Europe, we are part of a larger community that can be powerful and influential in the world - outside of Europe, we are just a little island with very few resources and no friends

Please explain to me why being out of Europe would be a good thing for Britain

Considering that I don't think UKIP had any council seats prior to these elections, so getting 157 seats in there first attempt seem to to be marvellous. They won a seat in my home town where there was 22 seats up for grab. UKIP was runner up in another in another 17 seats and third in 4 more. Labour retains control of the council, they won 15 seats, UKIP even shoved Labour into 3 place for one seat the other seats that Labour didn't win, they were in second place. So we will keep things in perspective and recognise that UKIP will be a force to be reckoned with in next years General Elections.

jackthelad wrote:-
Considering that I don't think UKIP had any council seats prior to these elections, so getting 157 seats in there first attempt seem to to be marvellous.

UKIP won 140 council seats last year (see page 2 of this thread), and the BBC described their success as “spectacular”. At the same time, Labour won 291 new council seats and that was dismissed as “disappointing”.
 
When I started this thread in March last year, UKIP had lots of policies on their website, as you can see from my opening posting. All very right-wing stuff and nothing which should interest a Labour supporter. You’ve said you’d like to see closer links between the unions and Labour, but it’s been UKIP policy to scrap all laws concerning working hours, holidays, overtime, redundancy and sick pay.
 
Farage is a slippery customer who didn’t want the baggage of policies to hinder these elections, so he’s hidden them all. But you should read this thread and see how Farage associates with some very nasty right-wing extremists in the EU Parliament, while his deputy Nuttall wants the NHS fully privatised. Would you want that? Farage went to a public school, where he got into trouble for his fascist and racist views, then he joined the Tory Party and became a City trader. He is a right-wing Tory through and through, which is why Tories like Jacob Rees-Mogg and Peter Bone want to form a pact with UKIP.
 
UKIP is partly a protest party. Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems have all spent time in power in recent years, but UKIP has nothing to defend (apart from the very poor attendance record of its MEPs). A lot of UKIP supporters feel that the current Westminster politicians are remote people who lack empathy with the rest of us and haven’t done much, if any, real work in their lives. They may have a point, but the joke is that Farage has been a professional politician for fifteen years and is just as much a part of the establishment as Cameron and Clegg. The only difference is that he offers simplistic solutions to complex issues, and he’s provided a respectable home for racists who used to be attracted to the now marginalised BNP.
 
This might be worth a read:-
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/05/ukip-victory-ruling-class

jackthelad wrote: I don't know what other UKIP policies are at the moment, never seen those policies what you have mentioned though, just to curb immigration and getting out of Europe, and getting out of Europe will reduce immigration.

 
If there 2015 Manifesto is anything like there 2010 Manifesto Jackthelad heaven help the UK if the public give them enough seats to form a coalition, in there 2010 Manifesto they said they would privatize the NHS those earning just the minimum wage would not pay tax but those earning plenty would only pay 31p in the £, they also want to get rid of the Human Rights Law which has nothing to do with the EU, I know the Tories want the tax rate for those same people to be 40p in £ so those poor darlings can still afford to buy themselves another Yacht.

People read this sort of crap on a regular basis:-

“Nigel Farage redrew the political map today with a series of spectacular UKIP victories that bloodied both David Cameron and Ed Miliband. His party’s purple army marched into Tory town halls in the south and trampled over Labour heartlands in the north, gaining at least 90 seats and triggering panic among MPs in the old parties.”

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/london-local-election-results-2014-essex-backs-ukip-but-london-voters-stay-labour-9422414.html

Back on earth – UKIP has no MPs and still controls no councils anywhere in the UK. Lord Ashcroft’s latest poll of 26,000 voters in key constituencies suggests UKIP will get no MPs in the 2015 general election.

Ivan was right, I was quoting the seats that UKIP won in this recent Council election, I didn't realise they already held 140 from the previous election. It is no mean feat to over double there seats in this election. I wouldn't rule them out from winning seats in next years General Elections, in these Council elections there was less than 40% turn out of voters, in some areas there were less than 30%. Now if more people turn out to vote next year in the General Election you will get an entirely different picture to what some of the pundits are saying. UKIP might draw more voters out if Ed Miliband doesn't get his finger out and start to do something about UKIP and Farage. At the moment UKIP are more appealing to the British electorate than the big parties.

Best you find out what their policies are then, don't you think??

Perhaps it will transpire that the current burst of voter excitement over UKIP will turn out to be a carbon copy of the temporary success of the SDP in 1981. Until the novelty wore off.

Farage and Ukip have won a load of council seats at Thursdays local elections, what I want to know is will they still have them next year or will some of them have had to resign there council seat because they opened there mouth and put there foot in just like the last local elections.

That is a good point - it sort of feels as if in the drive to field a lot of candidates, there may have been less attention paid to getting people on board who are able or even interested in presenting the party in a good light.

Maybe all part of the quirky charm that is UKIP.

After all, apparently many of their voters don't know what the party's policies are - why assume the elected members will??

How many rugged individualists make a functioning political party?

UKIP policy is to have no policies and not to care about the fact.

The Party is just like one of those blokes at a drunken binge, who seems jolly good fun at the time , but somehow less attractive as the morning daylight and reality reappears -as it most surely will for Farage and his loutish henchmen...

Three words spring to mind, Ostriches, Head and Sand, you think that UKIP are just a bunch of idiots that's been lucky, and next year everything will revert back to what is considered the norm. I think people in power thought the same of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nationalist party, just look what happened there in Germany in the early thirties. Hitler played on the fears and worries of the German people, and got into power, and became the supreme leader, Mein Fuhrer. The British politicians on all sides are ignoring the fears and worries of the British people and are doing sod all to address them. So they bury there heads in the sand while Farage and UKIP slowly and silently take power while playing on those worries and fears.
Ed Miliband is the wrong man for the job, who can trust a Judas anyway, Cameron, well there is not much to say about him only he lies and comes out with a few weasely words that only the party faithful believe. Clegg, he is a busted flush, some of his party are already clamouring for his head, he is blamed for the mess they are on. So a word of warning don't be complacent about Farage and UKIP, there are a lot of unhappy voters out there. A lot haven't bothered to vote yet, but now, Farage and UKIP just might bring them out.

jackthelad. The comparison with Hitler is quite valid. UKIP are the modern day equivalent of  Mosley’s Blackshirts. Instead of Jews, Farage singles out Romanians. As you recognise the potential danger of UKIP, why on earth did you vote for it? Had you been in Germany in the 1930s, would you have voted for Hitler to give people a 'wake up call'??  
 
 
Comparing Ed Miliband to Judas is offensive. Presumably this is a reference to him ‘betraying’ his brother? It strikes me that you have been reading too much of either ‘The Daily Mail’ or 'The Sun', instead of thinking things through for yourself. Why, in your opinion, was David Miliband any more entitled than Ed to stand for the Labour leadership – because he is older? Both had been in Gordon Brown’s cabinet, both were then in the shadow cabinet and both went for promotion. It’s only the Tory press and gits like Cameron and Boris Johnson who could possibly call that a betrayal.

Simple Ivan, I want a referendum on Europe and we will not get it from any of the parties, Labour, Conservatives and Lib/Dems, shock tactics from the voting public will/hopefully get the parties to change their minds. If we get a referendum the public will decide if we are to stay or get out, not the government that is in power at the time. If they vote to stay, then so be it, but I think they want out, and the Conservatives leaders, Labour and Lib/Dems leders know that, that is why they don't want one. I voted against the Common Market in that referendum, never got a chance to vote for the European Union, that should have gone to a referendum too. Conservative and Labour Governments have signed our souls away, we don't want to be dictated to by Brussels and Strasbourg.

You mentioned that Ed Miliband wasn't a Judas, well, as I understand it Ed beat is brother to the leadership of the Labour Party because the unions backed him, now he has turned against the same Unions that back him. Judas or what. Because he got the most support doesn't make him the better man, he is only an MP because he is in a safe Labour seat, I know it is safe because it is my constituency and I keep voting for him.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Winston Churchill


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9696402/Why-Winston-Churchill-will-always-be-the-last-word-in-political-wit.html

I think people in power thought the same of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nationalist party, just look what happened there in Germany in the early thirties. Hitler played on the fears and worries of the German people, and got into power, and became the supreme leader, Mein Fuhrer.
And you would think this a GOOD reason to vote UKIP? Heaven help us

An Announcement of UKIP Policies is expected any minute...