British Politics: UKIP and Nigel Farage. Credible or not?
For our friends in places other than the UK, Nigel Farage is the leader of a political party called UKIP: The UK Independence Party.
UKIP currently has 11 of the 73 UK seats in the European Parliament following the 2009 elections and subsequent changes. It also has three members in the House of Lords, all the result of defections.
The party also has one seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly, due to a defection by former Ulster Unionist Party MLA David McNarry in October 2012.
UKIP has not won a seat in the House of Commons to date.
The leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, was re-elected on 5 November 2010, having first served from 2006 to 2009. Farage has been a UKIP MEP since 1999, and is a founding member of the party.
In the 2009 election to the European Parliament, UKIP obtained 13 seats with 16.5% of the vote, coming second behind the Conservative Party, overtaking the Labour Party in terms of votes, and drawing level with it in terms of seats.
Their site is here: http://www.ukip.org/
They are a right of centre political party occupying the space the Conservatives once sat in – in the Thatcher years – before David Cameron (or Mr Slippery as some call him) became more interested in gay marriage and centrist Blairist politics than rebuilding Britain’s economy.
Their general aim seems to be to pull Britain out of the EU and thus removing the UK from the obligation we have of paying Billions of pounds to build roads in Bulgaria and such places; to regain control of our own borders, export terrorists back to Jordan or wherever, and for our courts to make their own decisions rather than being bound by ‘Human Rights’ decisions made in Brussels by unelected faceless people.
To me, Nigel Farage seems an unlikely party leader. And an even more unlikely Prime Minister. But his policies echo more and more common sense. He is from the Jeremy Clarkson school of common sense. And I subscribe to common sense.
They are already winning small seats in our neighbourhood:
Friday, 8th March 2013
UKIP National Executive member Louise Bours made a welcome breakthrough on Thursday with a comfortable win in a local Cheshire by-election, the party’s first council victory in the North West.
Louise topped the Tories in the Congleton Town Council poll with 769 votes, leaving the Conservatives on 587, one Independent candidate on 263 and a second Independent on 125.
Following the victory Cllr Bours said: “I am both proud and humbled by the people of Congleton West placing their trust in me.
“Throughout our country on May 2 voters will be given the choice to at last have their voice heard. UKIP councillor’s will deliver that voice and will bring to councils across our country, common sense and trustworthiness so badly lacking’.
Do you think UKIP is a credible party?
Should the UK leave the EU?
Is Nigel Farage a credible party leader?
Would you vote for UKIP?
Ukip is empowering the British people against the harmful policies of LibLabCon.
I have never been a Labour voter. Nor a middle-of-the-road yellow Liberal Democrat voter. My formative years were the Thatcher years, and I agreed with much of what Mrs Thatcher did and said.
Traditionally, I have been a Conservative voter. I think the Blair/Brown consortium did damage to this country that will likely never be repaired.
But what kind of Conservative Prime Minister do we have now? One who denied the people a vote on leaving the EU; breaking his manifesto pledge? One who seems more concerned about gaining middle ground and who seems to want to be Blair MkII? One who bothers himself about nonsensical subjects like gay marriage while the country is in recession? I really tried to like the bloke, but he has done nothing of any note. Apart from letting the UK still pay £53,000,000 a DAY into the EU for um…. nothing.
I kinda leaned towards the BNP for a while as there seemed nowhere else. They trumpet the anti-immigration stuff well enough, but seem pretty thin on actual other policies. Some of it is a bit far right even for me (when you drill into the details). And since the one eyed BNP bloke won a European seat, we haven’t heard a peep from him now he is on the EU gravy train.
I have been aware of UKIP for a few years. Only recently after seeing Nigel Farage on Question Time, did I take the trouble to go and read their aims and watch some Youtube footage. I liked what I saw! The man is what Cameron should be. But isn’t. The man is a Thatcherite through and through. I will vote for the bloke, and I hope he becomes PM. I havent yet found anything he says to be objectionable. #FarageforPM #UKoutofEU
The ability of 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians to enter our shores and claim benefits that way exceed their current average wage in nine months is something the government needs to address urgently. But they are doing zero apart from telling lies about the numbers that will come. As they did with the Poles. And look what happened there……
Our politicians are doing nothing about real issues, and seem more concerned with slotting themselves into a future Eurozone retirement package (look at where Kinnock and Blair went) in exchange for singing from the pro-EU hymn sheet whilst in power.
I find it amazing that the average voter can’t see this stuff. Is the average Brit so dumb they will automatically vote Labour just because their Dad did?
Interesting video from the political blogger Pat Condell: