Showing posts with label local referendum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label local referendum. Show all posts

Sunday, 2 December 2012

Is democracy losing the battle in the EU?

Can you ignore this?

How can you ignore what the Eu and Common Purpose is doing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8uBxgoLl-s&feature=g-all

Thursday, 1 November 2012

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.

Tuesday, 16 October 2012

Edinburgh Agreement on a Scottish Referendum:

UKIP stands four square behind the unity of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We also firmly believe in the right of the British everywhere to be the final arbiters over their own lives.

That is why we support and would introduce binding (Swiss-style) referenda on vital issues.

That is why we believe it is as much the right of the Scottish nation to determine whether or not Scotland remains an integral part of the United Kingdom, as it is the right of the British people to determine if the UK should remain in the EU.

Our view on those two crucial issues is well known but we will repeat them and fight for them until we achieve what we believe the British people want – the continued integrity of the UK, and full British sovereignty.

So we support the Better Together campaign – we dismiss the SNP 's "wee pretendy Independence" ideas – and we want a referendum to take the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland OUT of the EU to achieve full British sovereignty and true UK Independence.

Vote NO to stop any British break up – and campaign for true British sovereignty thereafter.

Saturday, 8 September 2012

Media Blocks

Pleased to see that Alan Cochrane, writing in Scottish Field,  has taken up the issue of councillors being gagged.

Hurrah! I have been banging on about that for years - and even sent fruitlessly to the media - including the DT.

Ex Cllr Arbuckle used to say nice supportive things when I railed on over the issue in meetings of the Council, and he has since gone to his pet press and published as a journalist on the issue too.  Ironic, as his party was probably the driver for the gagging clause.

Annoying thing is that UKIP policy would put paid to the stupidity but the media seem to have a mental block when they see the letters UKIP - pavlovian beasts, they assume we are a one issue party.

Why don't they read of policies?

Wednesday, 8 February 2012

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.

Monday, 23 January 2012

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.

Battle for British Unity

It is time that people realise that the Battle for British unity will be fought in Scotland.

The future of the United Kingdom will be decided right here, in Scotland. This is the political battleground. The attack on the UK began when a Labour Government and Donald Dewar created the Scottish Parliament. That was the equivalent of offering the SNP a beachhead and Alex Salmond has long since secured it.

The SNP have carried out political guerrilla raids, creating as many divides as possible, giving away freebies here to cause disgruntlement in England. The Scottish Parliament has been the battlefield tank forcing divides over student fees, prescription charges, and so called free home care. Even Tories in Holyrood have succumbed to the momentum, believing somehow that more autonomous power will mend the widening gap.

The shockwaves are now rippling to the surface, discombobulating the English, many of whom are now reacting exactly as Salmond wishes. We now see the predictable reaction which Salmond wanted as formerly sober minds in England call for an English Parliament.

They would rue it - we all will.

Already, in Scotland, MPs and the proper Parliament are being alienated from the electorate.

Very few people ever go to see an MP about a reserved powers issue - people need to see their highest elected representatives about more domestic concerns: housing, hospitals, pharmacies or schools threatened with closure, vandalism, crime rates and police numbers, yes, even dog dirt. In Scotland, this means that MSPs have the better interface with the electorate while our Scottish MPs become aloof, are channelled towards weighty national and international issues.

These are vital issues but the interaction of Westminster MPs and British subjects in Scotland, and Wales, is waning; the domestic issues that keep MPs in touch, which keep their feet on the ground, are no longer there in Scotland.

The same happening in England as well, will make the UK government increasingly remote from the people. The "assemblies" will become the focus and the Union will erode; that is why I say we must not replicate the error of the devolved bodies as constituted.

UKIP has a firm and sensible policy on this: the electorate should elect one MP for their constituency and that MP should be in Westminster most of the time and in the devolved more local parliament for the remainder.

The devolved body, the Scottish Parliament here, would continue as it is, but devoid of MSPs. In England, when Welsh and Scottish MPs are at work in their devolved home, English MPs would deal with England’s devolved issues. That means both UK national and domestic roles remained linked, through MPs who will keep a direct interface with the electorate and, exactly what is needed, excessive government is cut with fewer politicians overall with time on their hands to think of ways to rule us.

UK party leaders must not be tempted to balance the books by adding more overloaded assemblies to the mix - trim out instead - and engage the UK's number 1 enemy, Salmond, here, in the beachhead which he has established in Scotland