UKIP are more than a man in a pub drinking a pint. Behind Farage's Cheshire Cat grin are some dangerous policies.
You don’t have to have real political power in Britain to shift the terms of the debate. Just look at UKIP. Despite the fact that the party is expected to do well in this year’s European Elections, it is unlikely that this will translate into anything meaningful come next year’s General Election – although don’t bet against Nigel Farage overturning Laura Sandys’ majority in South Thanet.
And yet despite this, the Tories and to a lesser extent Labour appear to be running scared of the eurosceptic party – each week both seem to unveil new ‘tough’ announcements on UKIP pet issues such as immigration and welfare.
However while having a risible influence on the mainstream, UKIP’s distance from any real political power allows the party to retain its radicalism (not actually radical at all, but rather reactionary) which those closer to the summit of power are forced to abandon (remember when Lib Dem conference used to vote to hammer the rich and unilaterally disarm?)
Behind Nigel Farage’s charisma, however, the madness remains. Farage may come across like the mildly amiable chap from everybody’s local, but he leads a party which, from a policy perspective, is completely off the scale.
UKIP aren’t simply ‘anti-politics’, but they actually stand for things, such as:
Charging NHS patients to jump waiting lists
Back in July, UKIP’s ‘health spokesperson’ John Stanley penned an article in which he argued that people requiring urgent NHS treatment should be seen within two hours – a reasonable enough proposition. However he added that those requiring non-urgent treatment should be given the option of paying so as to jump the queue ahead of those who cannot afford to:
“We should accept that if a triaging clinician feels we don’t need treating within two hours required for standard cases then we be either willing to pay or willing to wait longer so cases most deserving are treated best. People should pay a higher charge if they haven’t registered with a GP as being directed back to primary care avoids unnecessary A&E visits.”
Stanley also endorsed GPs charging to see patients and said that, under UKIP, people who qualified for free prescriptions would be exempt from the flat fee – but only if they had not been drinking.
Banning all teaching of climate change
UKIP would ban the teaching of climate change in schools were it to win the 2015 General Election, according to the party’s education spokesperson. This, despite the fact that there is a 97 per cent consensus among climate scientists supporting global warming and the fact that human emissions are behind it.
Climate ‘sceptics’ don’t publish many scientific papers (I wonder why), and UKIP doesn’t want children to know about the vast majority of papers which overwhelmingly support the idea of man-made climate change.
Last week UKIP Education spokesman MEP Derek Clark told Index on Censorship:
“We will still ban Al Gore’s video for use in schools if I’ve got anything to do with it. I will not have much opposition within the party. It is, of course, not just this video which needs banning; all teaching of global warming being caused in any way by carbon dioxide emissions must also be banned. It just is not happening.”
The party has the laziest MEPs in Europe
UKIP’s attendance record in the European Parliament is worse than that of their counterparts from the three major parties. Happy to sign-in and collect their allowances (beer money), UKIP’s nine MEPs missed around a third of the votes in the European Parliament between 2009 and October 2013.
The complete abolition of inheritance tax
Just 2.6 per cent of those who die every year pay inheritance tax. The average taxpaying estate is worth £875,000, according to HMRC. Inheritance tax raises £2.9bn a year for the Treasury from some of the wealthiest people in the country, while estates worth less than £325,000 don’t pay a penny.
And yet UKIP wants to abolish it completely.
At a time of rising inequality, redistributive policies such as inheritance tax are a symbolic bulwark against US-levels of inequality. In this respect, UKIP policy panders to the 2.6 per cent of the population who have some of the biggest estates in Britain. Play the world’s smallest violin.
Has friends on the European far-right
UKIP is part of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group in the European Parliament (EFD). The EFD is comprised of 10 parties and one independent MEP. These include the anti-immigrant Movement for France, the ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party and True Finns.
The leader of the Slovak National Party has said the best policy for dealing with the Roma is “a long whip in a small yard”. In December 2011, an opinion poll of True Finn voters revealed that 51 per cent agreed with the statement: “People of certain races are unsuited for life in a modern society”.
Apparently this is ok with UKIP, though. In fact, anyone objecting to such alliances is liable to face severe repercussions. In 2010, UKIP expelled MEP Nikki Sinclaire after she objected to working with “extreme views” of UKIP’s political allies.
316 Responses to “5 things voters should know about UKIP”
trollthriller
Notrickszone is one of the shiftiest sites on the interweb. Poptech, to whom you link, is even pottier, Their list is not what they say it is.
Here, you like videos. Here’s one by a conservative, and ex-sceptic, Barry Bickmore, on how you are being fooled. Bet you won’t watch it. There’s no-one less sceptical than a “climate sceptic”.
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/how-to-avoid-the-truth-about-climate-change/
trollthriller
Twitter is where you stand on your own two feet? That’s potty.
trollthriller
The next ice age has been cancelled due to CO2.
Your op-ed for idiots indirectly cites Professor Mike Lockwood. Here’s him, in person.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/11/solar-activity-and-the-so-called-%E2%80%9Clittle-ice-age%E2%80%9D/
neilcraig
#1 would obviously provide more money to the NHS, allowing them to make a net cut in waiting lists. So the objection is not to try to get anybody treated quickly but merely that everybody should be badly served. There is at least a case for not letting ideology prevent one improving the NHS.
#2 The only people who deny climate change are the alarmists – climate has changed for the last 5 billion years & only alarmists say it never happened before 1979. Therefore the claim that UKIP would prevent kids being taught about climate change. However it is wrong, indeed evil, to use taxpayer’s scare children with false claims such as that “the Arctic will be ice free by 2013”, “children by 2010 will never have seen snow” temperature will rise by 6 C and sea levels by 4 feet by 2025-50, or that “97% of scientists” support the fraud. All of these are wholly dishonest fascist lies, as the alarmists provably know, and thus are promoted by no person with any trace of personal decency.
#3 Is, of course, a lie. UKIP MEPs work very hard promoting the truth to the people. This does not mean spending all one’s time in the bars of the Brussels talking shop.
#4 Cutting and simplifying taxes is a very good way of increasing economic growth which makes everybody better off. Again – there can be an honest disagreement with the totalitarian “left;s” position that we should not seek to make society better off – the only legitimate objective is to ensure that, with the exception of political apparatchiks, everybody is equally poor.
#5 If Bloodworth really believes this guilt by association with those associated with those associated with accused then he will certainly be on record as having denounced himself as unfit to be writing here for having Labour party friends when that party is guilty not just of saying things but of engaging in war crimes, genocide, child rape and the dissectyion of living human beings.
I would certainly be interested in seeing this totalitarian linking to him denouncing himself for his close friends who are Nazi associates.
trollthriller
You provide no evidence for your assertions. Bless. You must be a gullible UKIPer. Join Mr Conway. He’s factually challenged too.
Bet you weren’t censored. Bet you just don’t know how to use Disqus. But you see conspiracy in anything.
Have a shrinking Arctic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OBCXWAHo5I