UKIP

Why Should UKIP Voters ‘Come Home’ To The Conservatives?

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David Cameron UKIP Voters Come Home To The Conservatives General Election 2015

 

With only a month to go until polls open for the 2015 general election, the smart money is saying that Nigel Farage’s insurgent party, UKIP, are on the back foot.

A growing number of articles and opinion pieces are talking down UKIP’s prospects, citing poll results which point to a decline in UKIP’s level of support from recent highs of 20% back down to the mid teens, and even speculating that Nigel Farage could fail to win his seat of South Thanet and be forced to follow through on his plan to resign the party leadership if he does not become an MP.

Finally sensing weakness after months on the back foot, the Conservative Party have pounced with David Cameron using an interview on the Tory battle bus to appeal to disaffected former Conservative Party voters to “come home” and abandon their new allegiance to UKIP.

From the Telegraph’s interview with David Cameron:

Asked if he believes Ukip defectors are finally returning to the Tories, Mr Cameron says: “A little. I think that is beginning to happen. There are people who have been frustrated about wanting more changes on immigration, wanting more certainty about the situation in Europe and they can now see that we have listened to those concerns. The referendum is now there, as it were, on the ballot paper if I’m prime minister before the end of 2017.

They can see the tougher approach we’ve taken to immigration. They can see the changes we’ve made. And I think it’s the time for Conservative voters who went off to Ukip – it’s the time to come home. On the basis that the real choice in this election is economic mayhem and chaos under Ed Miliband, possibly backed up by Nicola Sturgeon, or the certainty of continued competence and growth under the Conservatives.

“This election is about choosing a government. It’s not a moment of protest. It’s not a moment to send a message. Those times are over.

“I would say to those voters who have concerns – message received and understood. Now please, come on, let’s get together and take the country forward and avert the danger of a Labour government.”

This is more than a little patronising.

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Dispatch From Hampstead And Kilburn – Interview With Magnus Nielsen (UKIP)

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

 

UKIP candidate Magnus Nielsen is perhaps best known for his eyebrow-raising comments on Islam, proposing that mosques should only be able to hire imams from a government-approved register of non-extremist preachers. When interviewed prior to the candidate hustings on Thursday, Nielsen stated that he is in favour of peoples’ right to practice religion freely, so long as it does not “intervene on the human rights of other people”.

Nielsen also defended UKIP from what the party sees as media obsession with the misdeeds and wacky opinions of some of their “loose cannon” candidates, pointing out that “UKIP is the only party which will not allow you to become a member if you have been a member of the BNP. That is not true of the Labour Party”.

Interestingly, Magnus Nielsen did not have a ready position to take on TTIP, declining to say whether he was for or against the trade deal currently being negotiated between the European Union and the United States until he researched the issue further.

 

Click here for interviews with each of the 2015 candidates standing for election in Hampstead and Kilburn, and a summary of the recent hustings organised by West Hampstead Life.

Magnus Nielsen - UKIP - Hampstead and Kilburn - General Election 2015

The Reaction To Labour’s Immigration Mug Is More Than A Storm In A Teacup

Samuel Hooper4 Comments

Labour 2015 General Election Mug Control Immigration - Immigration Policy

 

To mark the official start of the 2015 general election short campaign, the Labour Party celebrated by offering their supporters a commemorative coffee mug with Adolf Hitler’s face adorning one side, and quotes from Mein Kampf on the other. Or so one might be forgiven for thinking, judging by the pant-wettingly hysterical reaction of some left-wingers to Labour’s latest piece of campaign merchandise.

In reality, what happened was that the Labour Party released some campaign trinkets based on their “five pledges” outlining what they would do in government. The offensive mugs make reference to the fourth of these pledges:

CONTROLS ON IMMIGRATION: People who come here won’t be able to claim benefits for at least two years, and we will introduce fair rules making it illegal for employers to undercut wages by exploiting workers.

Cue hysteria and frantic disassociation from the “campaign essential” merchandise from the unthinking wing of the Labour Party, and its odd-couple ambassadors, Chuka Umunna and Dianne Abbott MP:

Diane Abbott, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington and a former Labour leadership hopeful, tweeted a picture of the mug on Sunday afternoon with the words: “This shameful mug is an embarrassment. But the real problem is that immigration controls are one of our five pledges at all.”

Her tweet prompted a barrage of criticism against Labour on Twitter, with the Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert writing: “Wow. The stories are true. Labour have actually produced a campaign mug championing ‘Controls on immigration’.”

Owen Jones also felt the need to get in on the action, though one cannot disagree with his wider point that the Labour Party (and the others) would be better offering some hope, or a positive vision backed up by tangible policies:

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Where Was Nigel Farage’s Safe Space When Left Wing Bullies Attacked?

Samuel Hooper11 Comments

Nigel Farage UKIP Pub Protesters Attack Protest Free Speech

 

It is increasingly fashionable among self-identified progressives and left-wingers, particularly within academic environments, to promote the idea of “safe spaces” – places where the normal right to free speech is heavily curtailed in order to protect designated minorities and victim groups from encountering words and ideas that might cause them mental discomfort.

This blog finds the idea of such “safe spaces” utterly repellent, and a prime symptom of the infantilisation of many students in Britain and America – a generation of cosseted idealists who interpret any political disagreement as a sinister attempt to “invalidate their experiences”, who are unable to tolerate even polite dissent and who are lightning-quick to call for authority figures to come crashing down upon the heads of those who question their “dearly and closely held beliefs”.

But put aside the childishness of the “safe space” and the potentially chilling implication of such policies on the fundamental right to freedom of expression. Put aside the fact that protecting certain ideas from scrutiny, however noble they may be, leads to intellectual atrophy and erodes our democracy in just the same way it undermines the core purpose of a university.

What is really shocking is the double-standard at play. Those designated victim groups and their advocates on the left are free to say and do anything they please, empowered and protected by the perceived righteousness of their cause, while those outside this bien pensant collective have no right to hold their own opinions, let alone to express them or to campaign for them politically.

It is this double-standard which allows a mob of young anti-UKIP protesters to invade a London pub far from the campaign trail where UKIP leader Nigel Farage was quietly enjoying lunch with his family, to harass and intimidate Farage’s family to the extent that his young children fled and were separated from their parents, and to jump on the bonnet of his car as he attempted to drive away – and still come away feeling as though it were they, the mob, who had taken a stand for freedom, tolerance and decency.

From the Telegraph’s report:

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UKIP’s Suspicion Of The Establishment Lapses Into Dangerous Paranoia

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Nigel Farage Mark Reckless Douglas Carswell UKIP Defectors Phone Hacking

 

After a few quiet months, prompting endless speculation about  party rifts and even the health of its leader, UKIP are dominating the news agenda once again. Most notably in the Telegraph, which has had us capitvated all weekend with the serialisation of Nigel Farage’s latest book.

Over the course of eight compelling extracts there has been something for everyone – from the human interest angle of Nigel Farage’s multiple brushes with death, through unapologetic socialist-baiting with his candid thoughts about the NHS, to the political intrigue surrounding his all-important fight to win in the constituency of Thanet South.

There were breathless passages shedding light on the secret talks which lead up to defection of former Tory MPs Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless. Indeed, parts of the serialisation read almost like like Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, with Nigel Farage assuming the role of John Galt, the outlaw who furtively persuades America’s leading industrialists to abandon their failing nation and defect to his Objectivist promised land.

But while it makes for a jolly good read, Nigel Farage’s book also goes too far. Specifically, at this point in the seventh extract from the Telegraph’s serialisation where Farage writes (emphasis added):

Mark Reckless came twice to see me at my home in Downe, Kent. No lunch, no wine, just pots of tea, and we talked. The first time he came was before Douglas joined, but the second was after. By then, the campaign to put the frighteners on any Tory looking to join us was intense, Mark turned up in dark glasses and a baseball cap so that the neighbours wouldn’t recognise him. He was convinced that he was being followed, most likely by someone at Conservative central office. It was certainly our suspicion that everyone at Ukip HQ – from me to the press office to the strategists – had their mobiles tapped. Life had become quite surreal.

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