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

Mark Reckless claim that EU migrants could be asked to leave overruled by UKIP

UKIP disowns remark by former Tory, saying it is not the party’s policy to round up migrants and put them on a boat at Dover.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/19/ukip-mark-reckless-immigrants-rochester-and-strood

UKIP's 7 most controversial policies

- Deport migrants

- Legalise handguns

- US Style NHS

- Speak English on trains

- Blow up wind farms

- Make friends with Vladimir Putin

- Bar HIV positive people from the UK

For the details:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/11239826/Legalise-handguns-and-repatriate-migrants-Ukips-7-most-controversial-policies.html

I really do begin to despair, when the hateful ranting of this group of bigots is actually being taken seriously - there are people out there who will be willing to vote for this arrant nonsense

I think they will have a lot more nasty policies up there sleeve boatlady if by chance they get into No10 Doening St.

Yes I read about them yesterday, they are a disgusting mob to say the least

The more things change, the more they are the same.  For at least fifty years, the Great British Public have punished the ruling party with a protest vote in between General Elections.

Not only this but Cameron's crew are cutting another 64,000 police force staff mainly cops themselves.

I just love hearing Nige saying 'Vote Ukip-Get Ukip'....so far in the last four by-elections they have won two and lost two, but the two they have won have been with sitting ex-Tory MP's and the two they have lost have been with real Ukip candidates.....

Last night on the election special the Ukip spokes woman said that they needed to get defectors from other parties otherwise the voters will start to see Ukip as just another branch of the Tory party......

It is really astradt but just further right wing is it not?

astradt1 wrote:I just love hearing Nige saying 'Vote Ukip-Get Ukip'....so far in the last four by-elections they have won two and lost two, but the two they have won have been with sitting ex-Tory MP's and the two they have lost have been with real Ukip candidates.....

Last night on the election special the Ukip spokes woman said that they needed to get defectors from other parties otherwise the voters will start to see Ukip as just another branch of the Tory party......

Well at least the people will be seeing the truth of Ukip astradt1, all they are is the second hand Tory party

Exactly Redflag tory defectors, what I cannot understand though Redflag why not change your own party instead of defecting to a more far right one?

"....why not change your own party instead of defecting to a more far right one?"

A very good question, Stu. It's a convenient shorthand for newspapers to say "Cameron" or "Miliband" when they are referring to the views of an entire Parliamentary party, but of course as in many human groupings there is a whole range of opinion within that description. Back in the 1990s when John Major was PM, he complained about the bastards in his cabinet who strenuously opposed continued British membership of the EU, and since then very little has changed.
Conservatives are still divided on the issue, and it seems to be a personal choice whether they go outside to piss on the Tory tent or stay inside to piss.

(Please excuse the technical terms employed for illustration.)

Never have to excuse yourself for my purpose OW, AHAH.
So basically what the issue is within the party is the EU membership? those that are opposed to it are leaving the Tory party for UKIP membership in a nutshell if they were honest?

stu wrote:-
why not change your own party instead of defecting to a more far right one?

Unless your party is ruling with a wafer-thin majority, it's not likely to take much notice of its backbenchers, they are just 'lobby fodder' for voting through government legislation. Hardly anyone had heard of Mark Reckless before he jumped ship from the Tories, and although Douglas Carswell is slightly better known, he is now much more prominent. In the scary event of UKIP being part of a government, I'm sure those two defectors would at least have junior ministerial roles; had they stayed in the Tory Party it's unlikely that they ever would.

So instead of staying with the Tory party and in the backbenchers, they can move to UKIP and have a ministerial role and therefore have more power in the new party, is that what they have moved for then Ivan?

You are right there bobby as they will probably hold balance of power, the grubby so and so's.

My forecast for the likely constitution of the House of Commons after May 2015:

And very attractive, too

It was only a matter of time before ow went on a 'quilt trip'...

What is worse than a majority Tory gov't = Tory/Ukip coalition gov't the UK will not know what has hit it PH

Well sorry for being late replying to your posts guys and gals, but my daughter has just gone home, after thrashing me at monopoly yet again
Personally I would sooner have a Tory majority than have bloody UKIP HAVE anything to do with it at all.

Neither verfsions will be any good for the people of the UK if you think the last 5 years where vile & nasty the next five will be worse Workhouse will be back if you have read any of Charles Dickens novels that will be the UK.

It may well be Redflag, especially for the unemployed,and the invalids unfit for work yet made to by the tory government.

Quilty as charged I suppose then, Phil.
Lots of people seem to think it's time for a change, but with no clear idea of what we should change into.
I think I'll choose to be a hibernating dormouse. Wake me when it's all over, please.

Andrew Rawnsley on UKIP:-

"The party’s myriad contradictions, splits and flip-flops have been treated as if they do not matter. UKIP has been for massive spending increases and for massive spending cuts; it has been for ultra-low tax for the rich and for higher taxes on luxury goods until it wasn’t again; it has been for privatisation of the NHS and against privatisation of the NHS.

During the (Rochester and Strood) by-election campaign, the UKIP position on whether they would forcibly repatriate migrants from the EU changed in the space of 24 hours. Immigration and withdrawal from the EU are supposed to be their specialist subjects and they can’t hold to a consistent line even about that."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/23/ukip-fewer-images-nigel-in-pub-more-tough-questions-policy

I guess the one thing UKIP bring to the party (pun intended) is that more people are thinking and talking about politics - perhaps a sense is emerging that we do in fact get the government we deserve, and people are beginning to wonder what kind of government they believe they deserve - there's still a bit of voter apathy but maybe UKIP with their magical mystery tour of policy proposals will get people thinking - and that can't be a bad thing?

I think I feel like OW at this moment in time, just let me go to bed and wake me when it's all damn well over, because at this moment in time i've had enough.

First someone from UKIP thought that the Royal Pavilion in Brighton was a mosque, now one of their halfwits from South Thanet has reached the same conclusion about Westminster Cathedral.....
http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/ukip/ukip-mistake-cathedral-for-mosque-4140  

As John Stuart Mill might have said, not all stupid people are Conservatives, but UKIP supporters are most definitely stupid!

That was certainly a stupid mistake, but I think we might be unwise to assume this means all of UKIP are stupid - they've obviously got some pretty sharp PR people working for them and some links to powerful institutions like the BBC

That is very true boatlady,

I did say that UKIP supporters are stupid. On the other hand, the apparatchiks who run the party know exactly what they're doing. They're funnelling public rage and discontentment into supporting a very nasty right-wing party which scapegoats immigrants to deflect attention from avaricious bankers and our corporate masters.

This gentleman was photographed in Rochester last week:-


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B3cHNgPIQAA0xpg.jpg

Pat him on the back anyone that sees him please.

The Daily Mirror has came up with another piece of good news for those of us on here that know the full truth about Farage & Ukip I think you will like it a lot. I am coping the aritcle wo for word but I am not saying anything about the gramar LOL.

Heading FARAGE'S MP HOPE DENTED

Ukip leader Nigel Farage dream of becoming an MPsuffered a blow yesterday. A survey in the Kent constituency where he will stand for Parliament next year showed the Tories are on course to win.

The Poll by Tory peer Lord Ashcroft, put Mr Farage 5% behind in Thanet South. And Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg was just 3% ahead of Labour in his previously safe seat of Sheffield Hallasm.

I hope this cheers up the Labour voters on tghe forum stuart I have copied this word for word from todays Daily Mirror.

Yes I read that too Redflag, as I also get the mirror.

The Daily Mirror is the best left wing truth telling newspaper in the UK, I get it most days Kevin Maguire Paul Routledge & Roz Wynn Jones are all great reporters we have the sister paper here in Scotland the Daily Record I wish a lot more people would pick up the Daily Mirror then we could be certain that people where getting told the truth not the LIES the right wing press tend to print stuart.

Certainly beats the Sun.

One factor that does affect which papers people are exposed to is the habit of some cafes of providing a paper for people to read while they have their tea.
In my local Sainsbury's it used to be the local rag, the Times the Sun and the Daily Mail. I notice they now provide the 'i' as well - provides a bit more balance - may have a chat with the manager when I'm next in and see if he would be willing to replace the Sun with a Daily Mirror

Redflag. Of course it will be good if Farage fails to get elected in Thanet South, but it doesn't cheer me up if a Tory wins the seat. Just two cheeks of the same arse.  

In 2010, the Tories won Thanet South with a majority of 7,617 over Labour. As 6,935 people voted for the Lib Dems on that occasion, it must be hoped that many of them will be switching to Labour. The only good news that could emanate from Thanet South is if it becomes a 'Labour gain' next May.

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/conlist_t_z.html#ThanetSouth

lets hope so Ivan, and farage loses deposit.

Cameron is being forced into such painful policy contortions by the threat of UKIP that he is in danger of resembling a human corkscrew. Interviewed on the media, his supporters can only repeat feebly, "Nothing has been ruled out". (Except common sense).

"Nothing has been ruled out"

And most especially not even the painful prospect of a coalition with UKIP, one imagines...