EU Benefits Ruling

A "win" on one issue in an EU court is not a restoration of our sovereignty or a "victory" - hooting hurrah for this result is understandable but the next EU legal decision may equally go the "other" way.  They are deciding - we are ruled.

SNP – NOT JUST THE TORIES – ARE ATTRACTED BY UKIP

SNP – NOT JUST THE TORIES – ARE ATTRACTED BY UKIP

Across the United Kingdom, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) is attracting increased support, from the previously disengaged and from those now disenchanted with the existing politic elite. According the UKIP, the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats have seen supporters switch to them as, indeed, have some councillors.

This trend is also evident in Scotland where, according to the Chairman of UKIPScotland, Mike Scott-Hayward, even the SNP are now vulnerable to UKIP at grass roots level.

“We were delighted to hear a speech from a prominent former member of the SNP, Michael McCafferty, at our Spring Gathering in Edinburgh,” Mike Scott-Hayward explained.

“We paraded a range of speakers who had previously been members of other parties, and of none, putting to rest the myth that we are comprised simply of former Tories.

"Sure we have ex Tories, including me, but that is just part of the picture.Michael McCafferty, who had been involved with the SNP since from the late eighties and rose to being a member of the YSN National Executive, is now well ensconced with UKIP."

Mr McCafferty told the UKIP Gathering that he had come came to feel that the SNP had turned into just another party of ‘yes’ men and its obsession with the EU seemed misplaced.

He said, “Norway was always trumpeted by Alex Salmond as a role model for Scotland, and yet it wasn’t controlled by Brussels. Indeed the two most prosperous countries in Europe – Switzerland and Norway were fully independent which led me to question the SNP policy of further European integration.

“It was only by spending time in Ireland that I saw the true face of the EU. Ireland had bravely voted ‘no’ to the Lisbon Treaty, but a dodgy rerun got Brussels the ‘yes’ result it wanted. With the EU and IMF firmly in charge now, the country is but a shadow of itself, and is simply a pawn in a bigger game, in which Brussels owns the board and the pieces.

“The situation in Ireland, and in some of the other European countries, encouraged me to look again at the EU. The hand of Brussels was behind all of the major issues affecting the continent, and the UK was similarly being drawn into this economic and social mess.

“But one man was speaking up against this European madness….and it wasn’t Alex Salmond. Indeed it was only when I heard Nigel Farage last year, telling Merkel and Obama to butt out of Britain’s business that I finally decided that it was time to get back into the political game, by joining UKIP.”

Cameron is buying time

Cameron is buying time to get the Tories beyond the next General Election, on grounds that UKIP has shown him are those the public wish to address. His confusion, as Salmond rightly says, is that at heart he still agrees with Nick and wants to stay in the EU.
 
He must also know that negotiating will lead nowhere - he can never hope to get a final settlement; that is not the way the EU works. But his gloss will work for many top Tories who want also need to sneak past the next ballot box. Even Boris is putting on a show of support - that is my big disappointment today - and so we can all expect a review of policy by the Tories if they ever get back in and get to sit at the negotiating table with the EU bureaucracy. They will say they tried thier best!
 
As Salmond says, they are doing the two horse thing. But so is he! Salmond talks about Scottish Independence as if he means that the Scots will govern Scotland. His other horse is the "in Europe" bit - the confusion he is palming off on the Scots is to pretend that there is such a thing as "independence in Europe". There is not. How can any nation state, the UK or, if Salmond gets a positive vote, even Scotland, call itself sovereign when a foreign collective makes 80% of its laws?
 
Scotland needs to be out of the EU as much as does the UK as a whole - and the best way to achieve that is to remain United and to have an in/out EU vote. The chattering political class is truly confused - Cameron's EU option is an attempt at selling a dummy, and from Salmond a wee pretendy independence option for Scotland alone.
 
Clearly, the hopping about by Cameron, Milliband's closing the door on EU debate, Nick not letting anyone have an EU referendum now, and Salmond's play on the use of the word "independence" means more people will turn to UKIP in Scotland; our numbers have come up by 25% in the last three months because, I believe, UKIP offers what the British want - a sovereign United Kingdom freed from the EU political machine.

Sea Change - too slow - take five easy steps now.

The vote was a good call, and the media does need to take notice of the real sea change,  but a far more effective measure would be for the dissenting Tories to take five simple steps to put it all right. 

They simply need to take five steps across the floor, become UKIP MPs and bring real infleunce to the House.

Noble Cause Corruption

Psychologists have a term for the wishful thinking by which we accept any means if the end seems virtuous: ‘noble-cause corruption’…Politicians are especially susceptible to this condition. In a wish to be seen as modern, they will embrace all manner of fashionable causes. When this sets in — groupthink grips political parties, and the media therefore decide there is no debate — the gravest of errors can take root. The subsidising of useless wind turbines was born of a deep intellectual error, one incubated by failure to challenge conventional wisdom.’


http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2012/06/osborne-versus-wind-farms/

British Trade

In or out of the EU, Britain would still trade with the other EU countries.  The UK is the biggest customer of many of these countries. So they would still trade with us.

Moreover, data produced last week shows that we are now increasing our trade with the rest of the expanding world.

We should foster our Commonwealth ties and trade. 

We should leave the EU - switch back from political subservience to free trade.

A waste of a By Election

Bradford West will have shocked them a bit but it is a shame that the voters didn't send a real message by electing UKIP - that would signal real intent for the people to have a say across the whole of the UK. Gorgeous George is an eccentric nuisance, effective maybe, but not a nation wide movement. The Coalition can survive George.

It started with Blair

We are approaching a period of potentially huge change for the United Kingdom – its possible destruction. Not good news on which to begin 2012. The build up to a referendum which will decide the fate of the United Kingdom has now begun in earnest and the battleground is here, in Scotland. UKIP Scotland is unlikely to be a major player; the media will focus on the establishment and parties with elected parliamentarians – but we can and must be more than observers.

The battle over separatism will be waged over as much as two years and set against the background of the potential, probably pending, collapse of the Euro Zone. Both battles are vital to us and UKIP big guns must deploy here often. The major parties will do so in strength, and we should welcome a strong Unionist fight. Facts and figures and numerous scenarios will be postulated; whilst I believe that ultimately most people will vote based on their emotive roots rather than on sophistry, we must battle to win over the undecided.

The SNP have the upper hand now, the initiative is theirs. It is vital that we all resist any temptation unwittingly to aide and abet separation; the mistake of creating a wholly separate devolved parliament in Scotland, distinct from Britain’s Parliament, must not be replicated elsewhere in Great Britain. Our UKIP policy of abolishing MSPs and replacing them within the Scotland Act with MPs proper is, I believe, right. Indeed, I think an England Act should create devolved parliament on those same lines – existing English MPs sitting for England, with all MPs still together in the House of Commons. We have messed enough with our constitution, an horrendous mistake started by Blair and leading by Coalition complicity towards the unravelling of all thet we have ever been.

English Parliament et al

It is my view that the Scottish Parliament, and the Welsh Assembly, should be made up of those Members of Parliament sitting respectively for Scotland and Wales.

English MPs sitting as such would conducted English business but it may well be that there is a need for an England Act, to formalise English MPs sitting as such, with power to elect a First Minister and to create an English Executive. That English Parliament then would have powers similar to Scotland.

There would, of course, be a need for Acts of Parliament to remove MSPs and Assembly Members, to be replaced by MPs, and possibly also to amend and enhance the Welsh Assembly's powers and status to that of a Welsh Parliament, fully equivalent to the Scottish and English Parliaments.

MPs would continue to serve as they do now at Westminster, working together for the UK, and with their feet on the ground within the devolved Parliaments.