An unsurprising coup for UKIP

Pot Head

Angry old white man, joins party of angry old white men..They are welcome to each other.

But, when is the Chingford strangler joining them ?

Tiberius

Good luck to Mr Wheeler. I hope he continues to enjoy wasting his time and money by throwing them down an empty well. I hope he also continues to enjoy talking to the empty bucket at the bottom.

Holly ......

So what exactly have UKIP acheived in Europe
that has been of any plus here in the UK up to now?
Get back to us when someone of any real importance leaves the Conservatives to join UKIP.
NEXT!

JohnPage

How long before Wheeler leaves again in disgust at Farage's antics?

Politics doesn't get smaller than this.

And as long as the Tories continue to get people's votes at the general election, why should they care about the European Parliament elections?

Robert Eve

Good for Wheeler - Good for UKIP.

Tom

Gosh...does Stuart Wheeler still think he matters then?

cityboozer

people, ranging from a vicar to a pensioner

That's the full social spectrum then.

Charles Martel

What has he achieved the frother's ask?

Well, UKIP came 2nd in the EU elections, beating Labour and the LimpDem's... not bad at all for rag-tag bunch of usurpers.

Of course, UKIP would not exist if Conservatives, Labour and the LimpDem's honoured their referendum pledges... but no, that's too much to ask isn't it.

TrevorsDen

Pot head is I am afraid right. Britain is not a country of angry old white men.

The likes of Wheeler are seriously deranged if they think their activities will save Britain - the best they can do is deliver us unto Labour.

Why deranged? I was surprised to learn that Norway which is not in the EU still enacts EU legislation. If the EU come up with standards - are we going to ignore them and run 2 production lines - one for us and one for them?
All the gold plating of EU rules comes from our own civil servants.

The big issue which is going to harm our ability to get benefit ridden claimants into work is immigration. Here EU rules will seriously harm us unless we bend them.

Boudicca

Excellent news. UKIP has another well-known (and wealthy) representative. Roll on the next EU Elections. This time, UKIP should win.

By the way PotHead, I'm female, barely middle-aged but yes, very angry at the stitch up of the Lib/Lab/CON trimvirate and their concensus that we must be in the EU and do whatever they dictate - whether we like it or not. The refusal to grant the British people a Referendum on the EU is the reason I vote UKIP.

If our membership of this anti-Democratic, bureaucratic, indebted European Soviet is so good for Britain, surely it would be obvious and our political elite would be able to persuade us in a Referendum ..... so why are they so frightened of holding one?

And Holly, UKIP aren't trying to achieve anything in Europe; we believe the other European nations should be as free and independent as we want the UK to be. All they have done is create a political grouping with the other nationalist parties - which they have to do. What they ARE trying to do is demonstrate the arrogance of the EU elite; their incompetence and the billions of OUR money the EU wastes. People need to know just how badly our membership is affecting us, so they vote UKIP to get the UK out of the EU.

UKIP engages in UK politics, not the charade that goes on in Brussels and Strasbourg. It is only in the UK where the decision can be taken to leave the EU.

Here is Nigel Farage talking about the sovereignty of nations. Listen to that and then compare to the drivel being spouted by Cameron and Hague over their so-called EU Bill which will not protect British Sovereignty and is intended to ensure a Referendum will never be held. I know who I'd rather have standing up for my country's interests and it isn't 'Call me Dave' or Hague; they are more concerned with appeasing Merkel and Sarkozy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atqJdrKN4ac

Baron

clever man, this chap Wheeler, the time will show that his judgment remains as sharp as it was when he made his money.

Boudicca

TrevorsDen
January 10th, 2011 5:33pm

As members of EFTA, Norway gets the freedom to trade with the EU and to choose whether to enact any EU directives which are issued. We don't. We have to put up with all the job destroying regulations; petty bureaucracy; what used to be meddling in internal affairs but is now dictating internal affairs - and we have to help fund the whole shebang (including helping bail out the Euro-currency folly).

Norway and Switzerland - outside the EU - are the wealthiest countries in Europe. We aren't ... because we are paying £48 million a day into the EU, plus wasting money complying with their regulations; propping up the Euro and everything else. That will be going up to £60 millon a day in a year or so. Money well spent? Hah. We might just as well burn it.

On top of that, we have to allow anyone from an EU country to live and work here. Which is why there are no level entry jobs for our own young people. We are being taken for mugs.

denis cooper

As a member of the EEA but not the EU it is necessary for Norway to accept fewer than one in five EU laws.

Or 12%, according to Daniel Hannan in 2005:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3620612/What-we-can-learn-from-Norwegians.html

Verity

Good for Mr Wheeler for refusing to be a submissive support for the advancement of one David Cameron and one Nick Clegg to membership of the Nomenklatura in the EUSSR. Let us hope that this is only the first of a gathering torrent of large donations from disaffected Tories.

And good for the charismatic Nigel Farage ... and yes, I have talked with him and he is charismatic and quick-witted.

I liked your post, Boudicca, and read what you have to say on The Telegraph. I always click Recommend.

denis cooper

Very revealing comments about "angry old white men". Once again we see how some consider racial slurs to be perfectly acceptable in one direction but not in others. And that's just about race, before we get to age and sex.

Commentator

I would have thought that "angry old white man" was a rather good label for TrevorsDen, the Comical Ali of Blue Labour.

Victor Southern

UKIP will need a lot more than Stuart Wheeler to achieve success and to become anything other than a fringe spoiler party of people who hanker for a past which never existed. With the antics of Farage, Pearson, Wise, Kilroy-Silk, Bloom and others they barely hold on to bare respectability.

raymond jones

Now I can see why there are rules how much can be donated.Economic strategy to keep small parties small.If I were Nigel farageI would take as much as I could and call it free English rules.One does not let ones enemies dictate how many weapons one can have.If he is offered a million, he should take it and brag about it to show the Nation he is not under restrictive rules of the Euro servants

dg

Smoke this, Pot Head:-

1992 votes
Major: 14,093,007
Kinnock: 11,560,484
Ashdown: 5,999,384

1997 votes
Blair: 13,518,167
Major: 9,600,943
Ashdown: 5,242,947

It looks like Blair took 750,000 votes from Ashdown in 1997. Add those votes to Kinnock’s previous 11,560,484 and you get 12,310,484 votes. With those liberal votes in the bag, Blair grabbed an extra 1,200,000 votes from alternate sources, quite possibly from liberal Tories.

What about Major’s vote? He crashed down from 14,093,007 to 9,600,943. 14,093,007-9,600,943=4,492,064. Major lost 4,492,064 voters, but Blair only gained 1,200,000 from alternate sources. What happened to the other 3,300,000 voters? 811,849 voted for the referendum party. 105,722 voted for UKIP. So about 2,400,000 people wanted to vote Conservative again but were turned off and stayed at home. Were these people liberals? No, they could have safely voted for Major, Blair, or Ashdown if they were.

Note, some numbers have been approximated to the nearest hundred thousand. My apologies for the lack of precise accuracy.

David Lindsay

Calling the referendum “a device of demagogues and dictators” was Thatcher’s only ever favourable quotation of a Labour Prime Minister. Yet to those who worship at Thatcher’s altar while wholly ignoring her record on this and so much else, the demand for that deeply flawed and wholly foreign device has become a nervous tick. They honestly cannot see how Pythonesque it is to demand a referendum in the cause of defending parliamentary sovereignty. The Lisbon Treaty is self-amending, so there can never be another treaty. When Parliament reconvenes on Monday, it will soon have to consider the EU Bill. What is needed is an amendment deleting all existing clauses and replacing them with five new ones.

First, the restoration of the supremacy of British over EU law, and its use to repatriate agricultural policy and to restore our historic fishing rights in accordance with international law. Secondly, the requirement that, in order to have any effect in the United Kingdom, all EU law pass through both Houses of Parliament as if it had originated in one or other of them. Thirdly, the requirement that British Ministers adopt the show-stopping Empty Chair Policy until such time as the Council of Ministers meets in public and publishes an Official Report akin to Hansard. Fourthly, the disapplication in the United Kingdom of any ruling of the European Court of Justice or of the European Court of Human Rights (or of the “Supreme Court”) unless confirmed by a resolution of the House of Commons.

And fifthly, the disapplication in the United Kingdom of anything passed by the European Parliament but not by the majority of those MEPs certified as politically acceptable by one or more seat-taking members of the House of Commons, so that we were no longer subject to the legislative will of Stalinists and Trotskyists, neo-Fascists and neo-Nazis, members of Eastern Europe’s kleptomaniac nomenklatura, neoconservatives such as now run France and Germany, or people who believe the Provisional Army Council to be the sovereign body throughout Ireland. Soon to be joined by Turkish Islamists, secular ultranationalists, and violent Kurdish Marxist separatists.

The appropriate person to move this amendment is the Leader of the Opposition, with a Labour three-line whip in favour of it and the public warning that the Whip would be withdrawn from any remaining Blairite ultra who failed to comply. The Liberal Democrats set great store by decentralisation, transparency and democracy, and represent many areas badly affected by the Common Fisheries Policy. The Liberals were staunch free traders who were as opposed the Soviet Bloc as they were to Far Right regimes in Latin America and Southern Africa, while the SDP’s reasons for secession from Labour included both calls for protectionism and the rise of antidemocratic extremism. (Both the Liberal Party and, on a much smaller scale, the SDP still exist, and both are now highly critical of the EU.)

The SDLP takes the Labour Whip, the Alliance Party is allied to the Lib Dems, the Greens are staunchly anti-EU, so is the DUP, and the one other Unionist is close to Labour. The SNP and Plaid Cymru can hardly believe in independence for Scotland, greater autonomy for Wales, yet vote against the return to Westminster of the powers that they wish to transfer thence to Edinburgh or Cardiff; the SNP also has the fishing issue to consider. Even any remaining Conservatives who wanted to certify the European People’s Party as politically acceptable might be brought on board.

Leaving those fabled creatures, backbench Tory Eurosceptics. It is high time that their bluff was called. This is how to do it.

Neil Turner

I supported UKIP in the Election. On priciple, I couldn't vote for the other three mainstream left-wing Parties. Even more so next time, as there is little clear blue water betweemn them on the EU, economy, and Global Warming scam

Wheeler's money will be useful, but needs to be backed up by significantly better organisation, and a few key defections from the Tory Party. David Davies and Dan Hannan would be a good start

Wheeler's money is not sufficient, but it is necessary

Boudicca

Victor Southern
January 10th, 2011 7:14pm

Whilst the antics of Blair, Mandelson, The Moron, Harman, Straw Balls etc make them fit for Governments.

And the antics of our present Coalition - manifesto promises ditched; capitulation to Brussels on every issue and handing over billions to prop up the Euro makes them credible.

I think you will find that UKIP is attracting more and more voters. They are sick of the Lib/Lab/CON stitch-up and they want to decide on this country's future.

John Richardson

What you suggest may be admirable Mr Lindsay, however; the Parasitic Political Class are the traitors....not the solution.

I do not mean to belittle your above effort but it reminds me a little of those Jewish Germans who used to write to Adolf Hitler. They were sure 'something would be done' if only he knew......
The politicians are the problem.
Westminster is occupied territory.
The agents of the State have turned on The People.
What next?

normanc

I'm all for a strong UKIP. In the absence of open primaries we need some right of centre grouping to try and at least keep the Conservatives honest.

I know that seems a forlorn hope at the moment but the tide will turn again and conservatism will become popular. It has to or we're finished.

I really hope UKIP can put sound conservative policies out into the public domain so that people at large are reminded of what conservatives stand for. It seems the Conservative Party abandoned this a few years back outside of a few mavericks plugging away in darkened corners.

TGF UKIP

Getting very careless over keeping your job, aren't you Pete. Under this editor in particular, I understood any mention of UKIP by a Cameron house mag hack in anything other than a snide or smearing way was strictly verboten. Got something already lined up have you?

Dennis Churchill

The coalition is an opportunity for UKIP.
Unlike Norway the UK is the EU’s largest export market and we run a trade deficit with them so they don’t really have much bargaining power if we negotiate sensibly. This may mean not involving “our” normal negotiators.
No party in the EU parliament matters as it is not designed to be lead by elected politicians, remember the EU is Post Democratic.

dg

To add to my above post:-
John Major's 9,600,943 from 1997 + the 1,200,000 Tory votes lost to Tony Blair in 1997 = 10,800,000. In 2010 David Cameron won 10,703,754 votes.

Cameron's strategy worked. He won back the people who switched to Blair. The problem is, that was the wrong answer for winning the 13 million votes that Thatcher managed to win three times in a row.

Holly ......

Again..What have UKIP achieved in Europe...
that is of any tangiable benefit to the UK?
Not trying to achieve anything in Europe makes them a bit pointless.
What is their reason for being there if they are not trying to achieve anything for us back here?
I did not ask what position they came in the EU elections.I would simply like to know what they have done up to now that has changed anything.
They will not gain any meaningful support until they have some solid examples of their successes for the UK.
They ride the gravy train,just like the rest of them.Maybe if they stopped doing that,we would take them a bit more seriously
Or maybe not.
Who came first I wonder?

Boudicca

Holly

You are missing the point. UKIP is not in the EU to achieve anything for the EU or Britain other than withdrawal and/or a Referendum on our membership.

What Nigel and others are doing there is exposing the lies; fraud; corruption; un-democratic nature of the place; the anti-democratic construct and policies it pursues such as:

+ rewriting the Constitution and calling it a Treaty to avoid Referendam

+ forcing Ireland to vote twice when the first answer was NO

Then there is the CAP - transferring billions to France, the 8th largest economy in the world being subsidised by us, the 6yh largest and various smaller economies

The Common Fisheries Policy - which has wrecked the British Fishing Industry and is destroying fish stocks in the north sea

etc etc

UKIP is in the EU Parliament because the PR system gives the British electorate the representation it wants .... not what the political elite want. And that is what is getting up your nose and the nose of so many others. They are there representing us, the people, who want out of the EU.

Unfortunately, we need our political elite in Westminster to get the message as well. There is none so blind and deaf as those who will not see or hear. The Lib/Lab/CON have their eyes and ears covered when it comes to the EU. UKIP will make them listen to the people of Britain. That is what they are achieving in Europe.

anne allan

The UK export figures to the EU include goods passing on to world wide destinations. If, for instance, the goods pass through Rotterdam on their journey to Australia, that is counted as an export to Europe.

Percy

Another recruit to the polyester blazer brigade. Well done.

Dennis Churchill

anne allan
Yes and we still show a deficit.
Not that it matters as foreign trade is only a small percentage of our total economy, unfortunately the regulations imposed by the EU apply to all companies whether they export or not.
Boudicca
Is right, it is not about achieving anything in the European Union Parliament as it is a fundamentally undemocratic system---Post Democratic.

strapworld

My dear friend Trevors Den writes

"The big issue which is going to harm our ability to get benefit ridden claimants into work is immigration. Here EU rules will seriously harm us unless we bend them"

May I congratulate him. Another day where even the BBC report that ABOUT! 61.000 asylum seekers are missing.

Just think about that figure and then next time you see a televised football match from Arsenal Football Club, where their average home crowd this season is 60.045, you will have a vision of the numbers walking our country who our immigration service has lost!

Not counting the illegals, nor those with visa's who have also gone missing.

We are sleep walking into a disaster and the Spectator says nowt!

Such is the state of our country. We are led by corrupt politicians (remember that most of the cabinet are politicians who abused the expenses system!), kept in the dark and never given the truth (remember that word on the numbers of immigrants lost ABOUT!)

But this blog remains silent.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Prayer: Give us this day a chance of freedom,
And deliver us from pseudo-tories and coalitions.
Let the land sing out in English as the church bells drown the wailing of the last collapsing mosque.