Another political attack on a former UKIP candidate

Hope not Hate have published another attack on UKIP, this time targeting a former UKIP candidate in Wales - John Humberstone - for tweeting a criticism of British workers that reads very much like a joke that's been doing the rounds for years:

The great british work force start @ 10 tea break@ 11 lunch @ 1, bugger off home @ 4 is it any wonder we are on our knees no one gives a hoot

With no sense of irony whatsoever, Hope not Hate have responded to the tip-off by "a political source" with a disparaging article describing his tweet as "an astonishing attack on British workers".

For years now Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories have been telling us that we must open our borders to mass immigration despite rampant unemployment amongst the people already living here because British workers won't do the "menial" jobs.  They've been telling us for years that we'd rather be unemployed that do the type of work that immigrants tend to gravitate towards because we just don't have the work ethic that immigrants do.  This isn't "an astonishing attack on British workers" though because it's from the establishment parties that support them.

Humberstone explained his reasons for tweeting what he did:

I want to reopen the hotel as quickly as I can but I'm not being helped by workmen who behave as if they were employed as school dinner ladies, turning up at 9.30 9.45 or 10.30 in the morning. I'm talking about painters, plumbers and electricians. About 30% to 40% of the ones I've used have been like that – it’s a fairly high percentage. When they carry on like that, I tell them I don’t need them any more. I think it is a problem today.

When I worked in the building trade I used to be on site by 7 and I’d put in a good day’s work.

The tweet stemmed from my frustration. I'm not doing much politically at the moment because the be-all and end-all for me is getting the hotel open again. We’ll have to do that in stages, but I'm hoping some rooms will be open in a couple of weeks time.

So his tweet was based on personal experience and was certainly nothing like the scale of the continual denigration of British workers by the three establishment parties yet Hope not Hate have attacked him because he's a UKIP member.  What possible motivation could they have for this?

Hope not Hate: union sockpuppets

Because Hope not Hate is a political campaign group and not the grass roots campaign it claims to be, they have to declare donations over £500 to the Electoral Commission.

Let's have a look at who pays Hope not Hate's bills ...

Donor	Amount	Year
Anonymous (Total of £500+ donations)	£15,750	2004/05
Anonymous (EU elections)	£7,500	2004
Anonymous (EU elections)	£49,085	2009/10
Anonymous (EU elections)	£16,293	2009
Joseph Rowntree Trust	£9,750	2004
Unison	£19,500	2005
Joseph Rowntree Trust	£11,025	2005
TUC	£9,000	2005
Amicus	£10,000	2005
Unison	£80,000	2009
Fire Brigade Union	£8,500	2009
Unite	£13,250	2009
GMB	£8,000	2009
Unite	£65,000	2009
Joseph Rowntree Trust	£42,500	2009
Henry Tinsley	£10,250	2009
National Union of Teachers	£60,000	2010
Unite	£10,000	2010
Unison	£70,000	2010
Malik Karim	£27,500	2010

Henry Tinsley is a Lib Dem and board member of left wing lobbyists 38 Degrees who is currently campaigning against the British governments botched attempts to tackle political lobbying by people like him and the organisations he's backing.  We aren't aware of Malik Karim's background at this time.  Every other donation over £500 that hasn't been anonymised is from the trades unions and left wing lobbyists Joseph Rowntree Trust.

You'll note that their big donations are all made during election campaigns - the 2004 EU elections, the 2005 general election, the 2009 EU elections and the 2010 general election.  Hope not Hate's main line of business is political campaigning on behalf of the trades unions and the Labour Party which is why their attacks on UKIP started when by-election results started showing that UKIP are as much of a challenge to the Labour Party as we are to the Tories and Lib Dems.

Hope not Hate may have started out intending to be a grass roots anti-fascist campaign group but it's nothing more than a front for the Labour Party and trades unions.  Proscribing the organisation as a majority of members at this year's conference voted to do would be daft but every time Hope not Hate launch a politically-motivated attack on UKIP the party should respond by reminding the press that Hope not Hate is a political front organisation doing what they're being paid to do by their paymasters.

Left try to baffle with bullshit - Grangemouth bailout: Did Ineos screw the taxpayer of £134million? - Daily Record

However much complexity the Daily Record raise around the accounts and tax situation, the key point is that the shareholders believed their money could be better used elsewhere.

Grangemouth bailout: Did Ineos screw the taxpayer of £134million? - Daily Record

I used to play chess. I was taught that when playing against a much better player, my only chance of winning was if my (superior) opponent made an error. I was further instructed that a much better player would not make a mistake against my normal 'sensible' game, so the tactic to employ was to make the game as complicated as possible. A complicated game also made it more likely that I would make an error - but with out the complexity I was going to lose anyway!

A similar tactic comes up in politics - especially (but not exclusively) in broken left-wing politics. When an argument cannot be won the opponent will create a fake, complex, web of arguments to divert attention from their obvious failure.

This story in the Daily Record is an example of just such a tactic.

You must remember that Ineos the owners of the Grangemouth plant had left their chair, put on their coat and were going out the door - they had walked away from the plant as a business. There was no path for them to reopen negotiations, it was game over from their side. Ineos shareholders had decided that their money (£00's of millions) could be better used elsewhere than at the Grangemouth plant under the unions terms. End Of.

The story in the Daily Record seeks to suggest that there was lots of profit to be made from Grangemouth, they are suggesting that the Ineos shareholders turned away from those big profits - but can make no suggestion as to why the shareholders would do that.

However much complexity the Daily Record raise around the accounts and tax situation, however scheming they paint the shareholders as being, however cunning and duplicitous they paint the shareholders as, the key point is that the shareholders believed their money could be better used elsewhere and were taking it with them.

The Shareholders were not cunning - they simply decided to put their money where it would get the best return - that was not at Grangemouth under union control. The shareholders were simply rational, the Unions were simply incompetent and arrogant.

If persuading Ineos to reopen their offer has cost the taxpayer - i.e. the taxpayer has had to pay for an offer that was available *free* only days earlier - then that cost is directly attributable to Len McCluskey and his Unite union - and if that is the case, and I had my way, the union would be surcharged every penny of that cost to reimburse the innocent taxpayer.

First published at http://free-english-people.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/left-try-to-baffle-with-bullshit.html

Opinium currently polling on leaving the EU

Polling company Opinium are currently conducting a survey on leaving the EU and how you would vote in a referendum.

Bizarrely, despite being all about the EU they have decided not to prompt for UKIP, forcing people to choose "other" to find UKIP when answering questions about who you intend to vote for at the next election and which party you trust most on the EU.

When the results come out they should make very interesting reading, especially if UKIP comes out ahead of all the other parties on the EU despite hiding the party away in the "other" section.

English Democrats' homophobic slur against Nikki Sinclaire MEP

Just when you thought the English Democrats couldn't get any lower, they pull this out of the bag ...

I have no time for Nikki Sinclaire as a person or a politician because of the awful, selfish way she behaved during her final spat with UKIP but this sort of attack on someone because of their sexuality is disgusting. There's enough prejudice in society against homosexuals and transsexuals without a political party stirring up homophobic sentiment. It seems that the English Democrats aren't just racist but they're homophobic as well - and they're asking for 1.2m votes in the EU elections next year!

I have reported this picture twice to Facebook but they've refused to take it down (although their moral compass did lead them to suspend my Facebook account for 24 hours a month or so ago because someone objected to me saying that unemployed people should do community service for their benefits - something that weeks later is announced as government policy). I have sent the details to Nikki Sinclaire so that she can take whatever action she deems necessary.

2014 MEP lists announced

The regional lists have been announced today and they are topped by the strongest candidates we could have hoped for.  If UKIP wins the EU elections next year as expected we will see some fantastic MEPs working for our withdrawal from the EU.

What is nice to see is the number of women who have made the lists this time round and without a quota in sight.  The LibLabCon parties have to force their members to choose women candidates through all-female shortlists while we choose them based on merit.  With two lists topped by women and another three in second place we should see at least two or three female UKIP MEPs.

Eastern
Patrick O'Flynn	22,610
Stuart Agnew	21,441
Tim Aker	6,841
Michael Heaver	6,054
Andrew Smith	3,475
Mick McGough	2,517
Andy Monk	2,374

East Midlands
Roger Helmer	19,590
Margot Parker	9,340
Jonathan Bullock	3,245
Nigel Wickens	2,242
Barry Mahoney	2,229

London
Gerard Batten	26,093
Paul Oakley	8,627
Elizabeth Jones	4,667
Lawrence Webb	4,275
Alastair McFarlane	2,869
Andrew McNeilis	2,736
Anthony Brown	1,750
Peter Whittle	1,278

North East
Jonathan Arnott	9,683
Richard Elvin	4,025
John Tennant	2,530

North West
Paul Nuttall	53,313
Louise Bours	6,981
Steven Woolfe	6,372
Shneur Odze	5,247
Michael McManus	4,909
Lee Slaughter	2,322
Simon Noble	2,099
Peter Harper	1,587

South East
Nigel Farage	89.909
Janice Atkinson	23,304
Diane James	18,131
Ray Finch	13,344
Donna Edmunds	5,475
Patricia Culligan	5,192
Nigel Jones	4,225
Alan Evans	2,491
Simon Strutt	2,463
Barry Cooper	1,982

South West
William Dartmouth	16,796
Julia Reid	11,155
Gawain Towler	6.174
Tony McIntyre	4,391
Robert Smith	4,366
Keith Crawford	2,856

West Midlands
Jill Seymour	10.483
James Carver	4,763
Bill Etheridge	4,423
Phil Henrick	3,080
Michael Wrench	2,818
Michael Green	1,849
Lyndon Jones	1,717

Yorkshire & N Lincs
Jane Collins	10,264
Amjad Bashir	8,349
Mike Hookem	3,136
Gary Shores	2,500
Jason Smith	2,058
Anne Murgatroyd

Wales
Nathan Gill	1,254
James Cole	697
Caroline Jones	668
David Rowlands	639

Northern Ireland
Henry Reilly

Conservatism vs. Toryism

Recently we have had a lot of tiresome articles in the "right wing" press around the theme of "uniting the right" prior to the next general election.

As you would expect, there was a lot of  nonsense about formal pacts with the Conservative Party: let us not even bother with that. However, what was most risible was an article in the Spectator by Toby Young suggesting that the differences between the UKIP and the Conservative Party were essentially petty, and that both parties were conservative with a small 'c'.

It is amazing the extent to which the dwindling band of Conservative Party supporters delude themselves about the true nature of their party, and why it is now is such steep decline. In am article of rare insight, Tim Stanley nails it in the Telegraph, explaining current Conservative Party troubles in terms of the fundamental split between proper small-c conservativism and toryism.

The fact is that at the core of the Conservative party is toryism. The Tory Party was of course  the ancient predecessor to the Conservative Party, originally formed to protect vested interest and the status quo during the reign of Charles II. The party  adopted the mantle of conservatism much later under it's leader Robert Peel, whose maximum was the much more progressive idea of reforming the bad but preserving the good in society. Peel's subsequent repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 led to a major split in the party.

However the Conservative Party has never been able to get rid of the canker of Toryism, and throughout it's history an inner core of aristocratic or well-born Tories have always cynically used the party as a very effective shield for the preservation of elite interest. This has been especially true since extensions of the electoral franchise meant that the numerically small number of high-born Tories were vastly outnumbered by the total voting population. The strategy always adopted by the Tories within the Conservative Party has been to co-opt various small 'c' conservative sections of society under the party banner in order to remain in power and see off the threat of socialism.

Throughout the 20th Century this was surprisingly electorally successful, but the underlying presence of toryism within the Conservative Party has nonetheless caused a lot of harm. One very damaging consequence was the continued association in the minds of many people of capitalism with the exploitation of the workers by the aristocracy. Another was that benign institutions that deserved conservative support such as the grammar schools were left undefended because their destruction was actually helpful to elite Tory interests.

The modern age has seen an ever-widening and unbridgeable gulf between the interests of conservatism and those of toryism, and this is perhaps the central reason for the Conservative Party's long term decline. Perhaps the dominant reason was and is the rise of the European Union and the new international elite, which pitted the Tory lust for power and position directly against the conservative desire to preserve and nurture national institutions: "Conservative" governments have proved enthusiastic supporters of signing away our sovereignty in a way that truly "conservative" governments would never countenance.

The diametric opposition between conservative and tory goals is manifest in a multitude of other ways, too. Consider:

A conservative is in favour of grammar schools, whereas a tory sees their destruction as helpful to the preservation of their own public school educated dynasties.

A conservative believes in the wealth-creation of free market capitalism, whereas a tory is happy with corporatism, better preserving as it does the old boy network. 

A conservative would support traditional marriage, whereas a tory sees little value in doing so, as the breakdown of marriage damages the poor far more the than the rich.

A conservative would help the traditional family in the tax system, whereas a tory sees the lower orders as mere units of production to be sent out to work.

A conservative would believe in limiting immigration, not least because of it's impact on local communities, a tory has no interest in doing so and just sees another source of cheap labour.

A conservative would support meritocracy, whereas a tory would be quite happy with gender quotas, knowing how these can be subverted to create an elite of extremely wealthy power-couples and concentrate wealth still further.

A conservative would support a feee market in energy, whereas a tory supports wind farm subsidies, as they transfer resources from the taxed poor to those with landed estates.

A conservative has set principles, whereas a tory is a Vicar Of Bray.

The sad fact is that, whatever deluded conservatives like Toby Young think, the Conservative Party only believes in conservative ideas fitfully. Moreover, the suspicion is deeply lodged within the minds of large sections of the electorate that it only ever adopts conservative positions when it helps the inner tory elite. This has had the tragic effect of estranging vast chunks of the electorate from conservative ideas. Quite obviously, as Dr. Stanley says, in many ways under the blue-blooded leadership of the Cameroons this is a decidedly tory government rather a conservative one.

UKIP may not be an out and out small-c "conservative" party, but it certainly contains strong elements of conservatism within it. What it certainly is not is a "tory" party, and it should have nothing to do with a Conservative party that is forever deeply tainted with a tory cynicism and selfishness that has hobbled the progress of this country for so long.

At the end of the day, you cannot touch pitch and not be defiled.

A voters' guide to getting an EU referendum

David Cameron and other Conservative MPs keep telling us that we must all vote Tory at the next election because that's the only way we will get an in/out referendum on our membership of the EU.

It's time the truth was told.

David Cameron has promised a referendum (like he did with the Lisbon Treaty) on our membership of the EU in 2017 if he wins the next election - which he won't - and it will be an in/in/out referendum, not an in/out referendum with all three of the LibLabCon parties using all the power and resources of the state to campaign for an "in" vote.

Three options will be presented in this mythical referendum - stay in as we are now, stay in with some meaningless "concessions" or leave.  This is because it is human nature to choose the "safe" option which is what the reform option will be presented as even though it is equally dangerous as the status quo option because there will be no other vote for at least a generation.

Under Cameron's policy of a 2017 referendum the "negotiations" that have already started will continue until 2017 assuming the Conservatives manage to form a government after the routing they're going to get in 2015.  A deal will be done to give the illusion of repatriating power from the EU whilst in reality repatriating no powers as there is no legal basis under EU law to do so.  We will have a referendum some time in 2017 and if the electorate votes to leave then the provisions under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty will be invoked which means a further two years of negotiations to try and find a way of keeping us in and in all likelihood a further referendum or suspension of the referendum result whilst negotiations continue.  At best we might see an exit from the EU in 2020 if no barriers are put in the way.  In reality it is likely to be at least a decade from now, if not longer.

Contrast that with UKIP's policy which is vote UKIP, leave the EU.  Whether we do so via Article 50 and we're out after two years or whether we just stuck two fingers up to the EU and leave when we want is something that would need to be decided at the time but two years is realistically the longest we would have to wait to leave under a UKIP government.

So we know whose policy will get us out of the EU quickest and with the least disruption and uncertainty and of course we know who can be trusted most out of Cameron and Farage but who is in the best position to deliver the referendum we need?  If you listen to Cameron it's the Tories but they're not going to win the next election and they're not capable of attracting large enough numbers of Labour, Lib Dem and traditional non-voters to make up for their rapidly draining support.  The Lib Dems will be lucky to survive the next election with any of their MPs left and Labour are absolutely opposed to an EU referendum.

Only UKIP attracts votes from traditional Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem voters as well people who've never voted before, people who haven't voted for years and of course traditional UKIP voters.  UKIP is the only party with broad enough support to win the next election outright and stop the inevitable Labour victory but only if the Tories stop splitting the UKIP vote.

Voting Conservative at the next election will let Labour win and we won't get an EU referendum, voting UKIP will let UKIP win and we'll be out.