Nigel Farage's party may win up to 10 seats in the Welsh Assembly
HOPE not hate launched its Welsh Assembly campaign against UKIP last week.
We began with a hard-hitting ad van that toured the South Wales valleys and by the end of the week 125 volunteers had hit the nation’s streets, organising leafleting actions, flash mobs and voter registration drives across the country.
Polls suggest UKIP will win up to 10 seats in in the Welsh Assembly next month, taking advantage of the regional vote system.
Candidates angling for seats include the disgraced former ‘cash-for-questions’ Tory politician Neil Hamilton (who suggested he might buy a mobile home in Wales if he wins); ex-Right-wing Tory Mark Reckless (standing in a region where Thatcherism is despised); and Gareth Bennett, who remains top of the UKIP list for South Wales Central, despite a bizarre attack on Cardiff’s ethnic minorities in March, blaming them for rubbish on the streets.
The General Election last year saw UKIP billboards begin to spring up for the first time in Wales.
The party’s tactics were divisive. The Swansea candidate published a leaflet with the words: ‘Islamic terror, abuse of our children, the consequences of multiculturalism…UKIP candidate condemns diversity.’
Their candidate in Merthyr Tydfil was caught on camera telling Welsh shoppers that the Polish shop down the road would not serve them. Both have been re-selected as candidates this year.
Voters get two votes in the Welsh Assembly: the first is for a constituency candidate; the second is for a party, held under proportional representation (PR).
It is the second vote that will benefit UKIP, and it is the candidates above who are hoping to take advantage of PR. Because of PR, we know we can’t prevent UKIP getting people elected to the Welsh Assembly.
What we can do, though, is to make it as hard as possible for them to do so: by educating and mobilising communities to understand the divisive truth behind UKIP’s message.
Over the next four weeks we will be out campaigning in every corner of the fantastic Welsh nation, distributing over 500,000 leaflets and postcards. Many more people will be engaged through social media.
We will do what we can to limit the success of UKIP in Wales, and we will continue after this campaign to challenge the party’s divisive message.
Tom Godwin is Welsh organiser for HOPE not hate @HNHWales
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12 Responses to “UKIP on the rise in Wales – how can we fight back?”
CR
UKIP have a valid set of arguments. They need to be listened to and debated.
Garry Blyth
Best of luck to you Nigel we are with you keep up the great work and let the people know the truth ,they must be shown what the EU has in mind for this country if things go wrong we must leave to secure our Great Britain and not a EU state best to your team .Garry
David Langdown
Lets hope the people of Wales notice that big business are only looking after their own profit by wanting to stay. The steel industry in Wales need to take notice of what the EU is doing to them, and the motor industry must look at what the EU has done with their deal with FORD by paying them to close the Southampton plant and move to Turkey to produce Transit vans there. FORD were paid big money to do this , out of the cash that Gt Britain are paying the EU (52 million pounds per week) Does this make sense?
Mark Hirst
You can’t fight back, the traitorous left have had their chance and blown it big style. The ordinary man in the street has had enough so suck it up.
RobertC
UKIP are a great protest vote, not much good for anything else, and I think the protest will happen. Listening to all the guff this morning sitting on the red settee all are going to give millions upon Millions to the NHS, all are going to do it by savings , labour the same we will make savings from bureaucracy after all the time in power one would have thought you would have done this already if you could .
Others are going to cut all non jobs within the NHS, non jobs which employ people, since we are not blessed with employment , all you get is the same old rubbish from politicians once the election is over they all return to doing sod all.