Why I’m voting for Ukip

Anthony Price

The arguments that are put forward here apply even more forcibly in favour of voting BNP.
UKIP MEPs have a (let's be kind) questionable record regarding expenses.
BNP are also committed to dealing with Islamofascist terrorism.

wonderfulforhisage

More power to your elbow Mr Wheeler.

I am delighted to see some of the 'voluntary tax' I have paid over the years via I G Index, put to such good use.

I can forgive the politicians their greed but not their treachery. How dare they cede our sovereignty without even a 'by your leave'.

Traitors! traitors! traitors!

And I'll bang on and on about Europe until I'm a free subject of Her Majesty once again.

Chris

The opinions of this man are of no interest. His belief that he should be able to buy British politics is highly offensive. We need to sort out a system which allows Stuart Wheeler to have an influence.

Ken

Right, this makes up my mind. I'm voting for Ukip. Mr Wheeler is right. Not even the Conservatives understand the anger within the country about EU membership, and it's time Dave got a very clear message. I have no faith in Ukip as a party. I will regard my vote as being what I am sure will be one amongst millions of protest votes.

Dwight Vandryver

Both the main political parties and the media have decided that it's best for us if Europe is not mentioned (mustn't scare the horses). In fact, "Europe" is more "off limits" as a subject than immigration.
Logically, it is not commonsense for us to support two Parliaments, unless the ultimate intention is to downgrade Westminster to the status of a "local" democratic body, while the important decisions would be taken by the faceless ones in Belgium.
Only UKIP has dared to expose the cost of UK membership, the loss of sovereignty, and the extent to which Brussels regulates us.
The main parties must realise that this crucial topic will not vanish, and they should prepare their arguments accordingly in advance of the general election.

David Watkins

Of course you are right that the Tory leadership is not to be trusted on "Europe". But what else did you expect? Look at the pretty well-known history of Britain's involvement with the EU. It was MacMillan's Tories who first attempted to take us into "Europe" - fiercely opposed by Labour under Gaitskell. It was Heath who finally succeeded, by instantly conceding every outrageous demand that the French government made as a price of ceasing to block our admission. It was Thatcher who whipped the Single European Act through Parliament, again opposed by Labour. It was Major who signed the Maastricht Treaty. The high command of the Tory party is, and has been for half a century, doggedly committed to "Europe". "Europe" is a Tory project. Labour has still not done a tenth as much for the cause. How any convinced British anti-"European" can ever have contemplated supporting the Tories I will never understand.

David

"reducing the powers of the EU"

But not leaving it. Righto. So, you are voting for a party whcih isn't in accord with what people want.

Peter Davies

I think that this letter by Bob Lomas is spot-on:
.
By Bob Lomas.

Having realised that our association with the European Community was totally illegal and that the parliamentary process that brought it about was without any doubt an act of treason against the British people, I saw the situation not one of politics but one of an issue of law and constitution. With this regard I could see no achievable remedy to be found through politics until the illegality had been exposed and redress brought through the courts.

As time progressed it became clear that the judiciary and the courts had been politicised, and like Parliament itself had been taken over. Redress therefore could only be brought about by the weight of public demand, and for this to happen it would need a political vehicle. Clearly this was not to be found in the pro-EU LibLabCon, it would need a national political party dedicated to our withdrawal from the EU. Such a party did come along in the form of the UKIP, but it soon became apparent that it too had been taken over and formed into a sponge organisation for dissenting Tory voters. It was noticeable that every time the UKIP started to make progress some internal dissent would occur to disunite its structural cohesion, not least when the Party elected to engage in the European elections, a move that was seen by older members as fraternising with the enemy and betraying a principle.

Then the BNP started to emerge, but it had a particular handicap, its leaders had a history of what some considered to be extreme nationalism, albeit little more extreme than the nationalism that was common during the war years. But the country had moved on from those times and had entered into a phase of extreme left wing socialism, nationalism became a dirty word. The way forward was to be found in the European Community, based on the soviet principle. Nationhood and independent national sovereignty was to be a thing of the past. However, a thousand years of independent self government and sovereign freedom is not so easily destroyed by political bludgeoning and any such attempt causes people to close ranks in the defence of their long established lawful rights and liberties; nationhood and nationalism has become reborn.

The time is right for a nationalist party to defend all that we lawfully are as nation state, led and supported by patriots. The steady growth of the BNP has proved that neither its leaders nor supporters are fools and the growth continues despite the totalitarian efforts of Parliament and the far left media to halt the BNP's progress by casting unqualified aspersions and innuendoes. Indeed, some independent commentators are now openly referring to the BNP as 'the people's party', which it undoubtedly is both in principle and by default, for to those who believe in nationhood there is no other option.

Like the majority of the British people I see myself as a conservative socialist. The British people are instinctively conservative, they do not like radical change and they have a strong social conscience; we always support the underdog. The BNP upholds this national and sensible disposition that gave us national stability for so long, that is until the radical extreme left made their play to destroy it. By and large we as a nation are a level headed and fair minded people, we are not disposed to excitable reaction, but when challenged we respond with level headed determination and doggedness, a trait appropriately reflected in the BNP, as it was in that great leader who confounded our enemies in the past, Winston Churchill. The BNP's leader Nick Griffin, a much more modest man than one might suppose, would in no way compare himself to the man voted for as the Greatest Englishman, but he does aspire to follow his example in this essential struggle to regain and maintain our sovereign independence.

For some time, I was opposed to the BNP engaging in the European elections, for I had seen how the UKIP had almost destroyed itself by going down that road.

Today circumstances are different, we are in a more desperate situation, and extreme circumstances call for extraordinary measures, and in this instance the BNP enjoys a greater unity than did the UKIP at that time. Also, the BNP does not suffer the delusion that the Conservative Party, or indeed any of the LibLabCon might be persuaded to totally change their direction on the European totalitarian establishment.

At this time, we the British people are being denied all that our courageous forbears made great sacrifice to preserve, worse, we are being denied our national temperament and disposition as a law abiding, peaceful and generous people. If we are to confound those who would destroy this nation it is essential that we unite under a banner of nationhood. The BNP, 'the people's party' has raised that banner, it is now down to us to shake off complacency and doubt and respond accordingly, for the alternative is unacceptable to all who love this green and pleasant land and its long history of democratic freedom so aspired to in the civilised world and beyond.

george deighton

Why I am not voting for UKIP it has been disclosed that Farage is the biggest fiddler of all by openly saying he took 2 million from the public puse in ten years.

Two if UKIPs MEP are in the slammer for having their noseses in the EU trough So Stuart Wheller Join the U. KIP fraud club

David Cameron, please note.........

If Lisbon is ratified then the Conservatives promise of legislation for a referendum on all future sovereignty transfers to the EU will be pointless. The Lisbon Treaty gives power to the EU to make all future constituional arrangements. The Treaty is self amending and will over ride any British referendums.

David Cameron has got to address this otherwise if he does become PM he will eventually be held inthe same contempt as Brown.

This issue is of the utmost urgency. It is not a fringe indulgence......

george deighton

Why I am not voting for UKIP it has been disclosed that Farage is the biggest fiddler of all by openly saying he took 2 million from the public puse in ten years.

Two if UKIPs MEP are in the slammer for having their noseses in the EU trough So Stuart Wheller Join the U. KIP fraud club

Agincourt

Well said! The EU's has replaced our Parliament as our nation's rule maker - 3200+ new EU directives & regulations per year, as against about 8 acts of Parliament per session. A huge imbalance - & the current Labour government has supinely & deliberately co-operated by by-passing our parliament at every opportunity! It's left our MPs with nothing better to do than to fiddle their expenses. What's the solution? Leave the EU & get our democracy back!

Steve.W

This may seem like nit-picking but some people who would wish to stop ID cards can see problems ahead with the EU. It's all very well the ex-MEP and holier-than-thou Nick Clegg saying he opposes the UK based scheme but what with 'e-borders' and 'inter-operability' the time will come, is coming, when an ID card system from the EU is proposed. What then from the 'liberal' minded politicians?

So to get rid of one mad idea, ID cards, deal with another, the EU, first. There is a relationship here that should be seen clearly.

Finally I am anti-EU but UKIP is rather corrupt.

Austin Seal, Liverpool

I didn't need Lord Tebbit or Stuart Wheeler to advise me to vote UKIP in the Euro elections. But it was very gratifying that these two principled persons had the guts to ruffle the feathers of the Cameroons and speak some common sense. And what do you do for a local protest vote in a safe Labour constituency? Where's the local chapter of the Monster Raving Looney Party in our hour of need?

Tim Wilson

What planet is Stuart Wheeler on? Can he seriously be unaware of the sleaze associated with UKIP? Excuse me but hasn't one UKIP elected MEP already done a jail stretch for defrauding the taxpayer? Isn't another UKIP elected MEP due up in court next month for allegedly defrauding the taxpayer through his expenses claiming? Isn't it also true that OLAF, the EU's fraud investigatory body, is "taking an interest" in the expenses claiming activities of other UKIP elected MEPs? If that was not bad enough why haven't any of UKIP's MEPs produced audited accounts of their claiming from the EU public purse? And what should we make of Nigel Farage's defence of the £2 million in expenses he has claimed (accordinding to an interview on the Daily Politics Show earlier this week)?

It seems bizarre to me that the Tory media should take such a delight in exposing the wrongdoing of Labour MPs when, by comparison to its size, UKIP is demomonstrably the most corrupt party in British politics! Todate, to my certain knowlege, no Labour (or Tory) MPs/MEPs have either been charged with defrauding the taxpayer - far less of "doing time" for so doing - unlike the greedy little blighters in UKIP!

Chris J

If politicians talk about Europe then they will have to talk about how little work they now do at Westminster, and the ideological implications of the EU. It is a conspiracy of silence amongst the political class who feel nice and cosy sitting on the fence.

pip

"...our membership of the EU costs us £120 billion a year."

That's a huge number. Is that correct?

Stephen Allen

I'm assuming that your use of column inches by providing space for Stuart Wheeler to enlighten us as to why he is sending his latest gambling wind fall to Ukip was more for our general amusement on his backward outlook on the world than an important news item. Ukip’s total inability for credible argument about the UK’s relationship with its fellow European neighbours is summed up brilliantly by their use of one of the greatest Britains as the core imagery in its current marketing. Do they not realise that Churchill was a key thinker and instigator for the creation of an enlightened and resilient governing structure to build what he termed as a ‘United States of Europe’. Perhaps your Editor and the Ukip folk should review Churchill’s speech at Zurich University on September 19th, 1946. Let’s not waste time on similar ignorant noise please.

Contravariant

Here in Eastern Region we have a choice of 6 clearly anti-EU candidates, which says a lot for the coherence of their self- indulgent position. If not arguing with the Tories they argue with each other. The consequence could be another 5 years of Brown - it could happen - and we'll know who to thank for that.

Cogito Ergosum

As I commented recently on another thread, some things in politics are there for a reason.

SATs are there because of the disaster that befell education under the child-centred teaching of the 60s and 70s. The EU is there because of the disaster that was Europe in 1918 and again in 1945.

SATs need some detailed changes. The EU need more than just detailed changes; indeed for its 50th anniversary in 2007 it should have had a proper constitutional rethink rather than than the Giscard D'Estaing carve-up. But neither SATs nor the EU should be abandoned.

paul gilboy

This is a complete side show and, your howling at the moon. Sending people to represent you at an institution you don't want to belong too seems a contradiction.
If you believe that the main issue for the people is membership of the E.U why is their voice not being heard.
Is it because the rules of the political game have excluded them.
It would appear this is the time when those rules are going to be changed.
If you have a point of view you must step up and make it heard.

Martin Morrow

I do note that many writers are dismayed at the UKIP votes because of the dishonesty of their elected members.
I think people will vote UKIP in spite of this because they see a danger, through voting Conservative, that a country which became great because of its individualism and entrepreneurialism has tried to throw everything away and pay exorbitantly for the dishonour of doing so.
Some may also feel that we cast aside as irrelevant all those dead in the First and Second World Wars.
I hope the out of touch grandees of the Conservative party recognize a warning shot across their bows.
They'd better.

James Price

Europe is a red herring. The real problem is enormous levels of waste and incompentence here in Britain, be they quangos, devolution, the NHS, governement procurement, the civil srevice, local governement, Whitehall itself. Europe is too easy a scapegoat. Nobody seems to be talking about the recent devaluation either. Let's be honest and face the demons at home before we start blaming Johnny Foreigner.

Fred Attlee

According to the BNP website N Farrage has had £2,000,000 EU expenses since he became an MEP.

Is this true ?

Peter Day

Well done Stuart and Norman. It's about time that leading Conservatives started telling the truth about the EU and its ultimate intention of destroying the European nation states in favour of the EUSSR. I will not only vote UKIP in the European Elections but also in the General Election unless the Conservative Party gives a cast-iron promise to hold a referendum on Lisbon, irrespective of whether it is already ratified or not.

Diversity

We have had one referendum about Europe. I remember it well. Mr Wheeler's view lost 2:1.

However, I think we need euro-sceptics making their points. What puzzles me is supporting the euro-sceptic party with the highest proven level of corruption of any of our political parties. It seems out of character.

jon livesey

I'm sorry to say this, because I am about as sceptical of the EU as they come, but there are many things that are easy to say if you are *not* the leader of a major Party.

When you are not the leader of a major Party, you have the luxury of indulging in single-issue politics. When you are the leader, then your first and really only job is getting yourself into office. In office, Cameron can adopt whatever policy on Europe he wishes, but getting into office requires not looking like a Euro-loon.

Here are three simple predictions. One, Cameron will continue to downplay Europe. Two, Cameron will win the next election. Three, in office Cameron will encourage the continental EU countries to continue with whatever measures of integration they wish, while the UK picks and chooses what it wants or does not want to be part of.

After ten years of that, Cameron will be able to claim that he did not leave the EU, but that they left him.

And if you don't want an integrated Europe with which we trade but of which we are not a province, then what exactly do you want?

cuffleyburgers

Stephen Allen - Churchill was indeed in favour of a European union to prebìvent us having to save France from germnay yet agin, but it was always very clear that Britian ws to remain on the outside.

Churchill was a great fan of the commonwealth, the betryal of which was, along with the theft of our fish stocks one of the key demands made by France as a condition of our entry.

Alan, Chester

I agree with much of Stuart Wheeler's reasoning and he is welcome to support whichever party he pleases but if he finances UKIP he will be wasting his money.

UKIP is a single issue party. It has not been distinguished by the achievements of its members in office, but instead has been discredited by their antics, in particular first the ludicrous Robert Kilroy-Silk and now by Neil Farage, who has not only chosen to try to emulate one of Orwell's pigs but has had his snout well immersed in the trough at the same time. My impression is that UKIP is promoted as a safety-valve for the European protest vote to avoid that vote going to the BNP, and that many of its voters are those who would otherwise vote for the BNP in a European election but cannot yet bring themselves to do so. Mr Wheeler has thus fallen for the safety valve trick and in financing it he will in fact be doing the established parties a favour.

I agree fully that the letter by Bob Lomas is spot on. Having joined the BNP myself four years ago, I can say that it is not the party of skinhead thugs beloved of the mass media, but is a modern nationalist party of people - with skilled workers and professional types particularly well represented - who are genuinely concerned about what is happening to our country and the failure of the LibLabCon trio to address it. In contrast to the single issue UKIP, it has a full programme of policies and its candidates by and large are genuine individuals who hold down "proper" jobs.

Week after week I read articles in this magazine expressing opinions which are often in line with those of the BNP, but if the BNP is ever mentioned at all, it is always in a pejorative sense, usually alongside the adjective "odious". It is not "odious". I believe that it is the only party which will address our concerns in Europe seriously, in particular the abrogation of our sovereignty and legislation by European entities (the so-called "Euro-creep"), the repeated attempts to foist a European constitution upon us, the attempts to impose supra-national entities, be they EuropEuropol, European armies or Courts of "Human Rights" upon an unsuspecting British public and the monument to profligacy and waste which the whole EU apparatus has become. It has also taken a robust stance against what I call "Islamo-creep".

I have far more confidence in the BNP's ability than in UKIP to take on the unelected, patronising, venal and inefficient members of the European Commission. Just the thought of Tony Blair as President of Europe should
concentrate our minds this way.

Craig Pond

"Why I'm voting for UKIP."

We know why, Mr Wheeler,
because you have more money than sense.

Steve Crowther

I think you'll find the £2m slur was perpetrated by Dennis McShane and is being promulgated by the BNP. Nice to see these two lining up to try and scupper the rising UKIP vote.

It seems McShane took a line from a speech Nigel Farage made, in which he said that the total cost of his tenure as an MEP over 10 years was probably around £2m (a criticism of the cost of the EU), and told the TV audience it was his expenses claim. McShane is, of course, one of Europe's best known 'truth economists'.

"Two if UKIPs MEP are in the slammer for having their noseses in the EU trough So Stuart Wheller Join the U. KIP fraud club". No, not only illiterate but unsurprisingly wrong. One UKIP MEP did time for a benefit fraud committed before he was a candidate, and is appealing; the other has been charged - not convicted - in relation to claiming around £20,000 in undeserved expenses (seems small beer this week, don't you think?). Both were dismissed from the party. Still waiting for the trials and dismissals in Westminster.

Clearly, UKIP is doing so well among the real people of this country that all kinds of unsavoury types are being rolled out to try and hold back the tide.

By the way, Nigel Farage has committed all UKIP MEPs elected on 4 June to total transparency of expenses, which will be published on the web. You can check this on www.ukip.org.

Happy voting.

Mark Solomon

The quickest way for Gordy Broon to win the next election would be for the Tories to indulge in yet another spot of Euromadness. You have to learn from history or you are doomed to repeat it - madness can be defined by repeating the same actions and expecting a different result. The Labour landslide of 1997 occurred after the Major govt was wrecked by internal quibbling generated by those who saw Eurocrats under every bed. Europe bothers politically conscious people on the right greatly but is of no interest to the vast majority. In an opinion poll - judging on one question only (or a Euro election) people can indulge themselves but at a general election no anti-EU party wins any seats, which should be the clue that for once DC has the policy exactly right.

UKIP is a joke - the corruption and criminality has already been mentioned, but their MEPs don't even sit in the same group now as they keep having splits and have gone native.

The BNP is simply fascistic - I am not talking about rascism but referring to their backward-looking dreamworld economic policies which aim to turn the clock back to a situation that never existed.

On the verge of an electoral triumph we must not be diverted by irrelevancies and the indulging of fantasies, otherwise we will lose and deserve to lose. What has happened these long 12 years should be warning enough. Vote Conservative in local, general and Euro-elections for the change the UK desperately needs.

Brian Smith

Even if UKIP is no more honourable than the main parties? See article in today's Observer about Mr Farage's £2million from the the EU. I doubt he could afford to campaign for taking Britain out of the EU. And anyway, what have they been doing during their time as MEP's?

David Watkins

Mark Solomon repeats the claim that the Labour landslide of 1997 was the fault of Tory Eurosceptics. This is nearly the opposite of the truth. Support for the Tories collapsed after Black Wenesday in 1992 and never recovered. Major, Heseltine, Clarke and the other Eurofanatics who controlled the party in Parliament after the fall of Thatcher had destroyed their party's greatest asset - its reputation for economic competence - by staying the ERM long after it had become obvious that the policy was doomed to costly and humiliating failure. Even after this they gritted their teeth and whipped the Maastricht Treaty through Parliament, wantonly provoking the backbench rebellions which they tried to make an excuse for their failure to impress the electors.

Lee Pefley

BNP is much to be preferred. They might actually DO something.

Umut Koc

Yes, that makes sense, let's get political advice from a gambler. Mr Wheeler has probably put a large sum on the number of seats UKIP is going to get and is trying to better the odds through this rather inane piece of creative writing.

Archie

It would surely make more sense to vote BNP who call for complete withdrawal rather than merely "reducing influence"? We should all be very worried considering the recent announcement from Berlin! Plus the BNP have promised to deal with the other major concerns of the voters, unlike single issue UKIP.

Archie

It would surely make more sense to vote BNP who call for complete withdrawal rather than merely "reducing influence"? We should all be very worried considering the recent announcement from Berlin! Plus the BNP have promised to deal with the other major concerns of the voters, unlike single issue UKIP.