ukip

Enough is Enough

Sat, 02 Nov 2024 15:16:05 GMT

Cameron Bishop

Former Police Crown Servant, Solicitor & UKIP Activist

“We can be in no doubt that 2 tier policing is rife in the UK today. Our police no longer serve the British public but bow down to the Muslim community : dealing differently with Islamic demos, incidents of crime and even riots.

Before the Southport stabbings Leeds Police ran away from an angry Islamic mob and left the rioters to it; in contrast the treatment of peaceful demonstrators throughout the UK has been totally the opposite.

Officers "facing off" dressed in riot gear from head to foot with batons at the ready and shields being used to bash passers by; even being prepared to arrest pensioners out with their dogs as was the case at Westminster.

At the height of the Summer riots police were seen to crack down on British patriots while allowing Islamic hate fuelled gangs to stab or mame pub goers without making any arrests.

Daily stabbings occur even now months after Southport with perpetrators being arrested but not named : they are not even racially profiled while British patriots are demonised in the media arrested and convicted for merely attending or being in proximity to a demonstration.

Additionally 2 tier policing results in a chant or a tweet or a God Bless You prompts half a dozen officers at your door while Muslim gangs or Socialist councillors can with impunity shout death threats in the full knowledge they will get away with it.

The police are simply not on our side exercising their mantra to us of “Nothing to see here…” when clearly there is. Two tier policing which is designed to intimidate: cow- towing to one community while smashing another is the tragic face of policing in the UK today.

Enough is enough.”

Cameron Bishop

Former Police Crown Servant, Solicitor & UKIP Activist

Ever wondered what makes UKIP different?

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 18:44:17 GMT

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

So, not only are we different from all the other mainstream political parties on policy - policy which is just about to become even more radical , we aren't politicians of the type the electorate have come to expect, even from the new kids on the block!

Last week, UKIP's National Executive Committee resolved to really make its candidates and elected representatives stand out from the crowd.

The party pledge's that for every Parliamentary and Regional Assembly election, UKIP's candidates will stand on a ticket whereby "if elected" at least 40% of their allocated wage will be donated to Local Veterans Charities.

UKIP stands firm in being the only political party who aren't in it for themselves and will help support local veterans where candidates are elected. They served their country and our candidates will serve them in return.

Look out for your local candidates who are going to start popping up across the UK and support their pledge to support our hero's!

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

The Father of BREXIT Dies

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 19:37:10 GMT

Jeffrey Titford

24.10.1933 – 09.09.2024

Jeffrey Titford, the former Leader of the UK Independence Party and two term MEP for the East of England, has passed away, after suffering from cancer. His family announced his death on 10 ^th September, aged 90. Jeffrey was one of the fathers of Brexit, coming to the fore in national and international politics at a time when leaving the EU was considered unthinkable and long before it became official Conservative Party policy.

A visionary and a democrat, who did not believe that EU membership provided a viable future for Britain as an independent, self-governing nation, Jeffrey Titford was elected to the European Parliament at the 1999 European Parliamentary Elections, aged 63. He was one of three UK Independence Party MEPs elected, which sent shock waves through the political world. He became Leader of the Party in 2000 and served for three years bringing stability and respectability to its campaigns. During this period, he made seventy speeches a year, travelling all over the country. He also served as interim Leader from September to November 2010, following the resignation of Lord Pearson of Rannoch, while the election of a new Leader was held.

During his time in the European Parliament, he made dozens of speeches in Plenary session severely criticising the EU and particularly the level of fraud in its finances. He also extensively lobbied the European Commission and the Government in Westminster on behalf of the British fishing and farming industries. He led several delegations of fishermen to see UK Agriculture Ministers in Westminster and also took a delegation to meet the European Commissioner for Fishing in Brussels. He wrote monthly columns for the East Anglian Daily Times, the Hertfordshire Mercury and Farmers Guide and made many appearances on regional television. He also made a guest appearance on Breakfast with Frost.

Jeffrey Titford’s political career began in 1970, when he became a Councillor on the Clacton Urban District Council. He ended his association with the Conservative Party in 1992, in protest over Prime Minister John Major’s signing of the Maastricht Treaty. He joined Sir James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party and, in a sign of things to come, stood in the General Election of 1997 in Harwich when he was the Party’s most successful candidate, securing almost 10 per cent of the vote and, in the process, unseating the sitting Member of Parliament.

Following the death of Sir James Goldsmith, Jeffrey was invited to join the UK Independence Party (UKIP), where he established a branch in Clacton and a regional committee, which led to his successful campaign in the European Elections in 1999. He paved the way for Nigel Farage’s subsequent success in Clacton at the 2024 General Election. He was re-elected to the European Parliament in 2004, with a greatly increased share of the vote and UKIP also returned a second MEP. He retired from European Politics in 2009 and was made an Honorary Patron of the Party in 2006 and became President for Life in 2011.

Life before politics

Following National Service in the RAF, Jeffrey joined the family’s funeral directing business in 1956, where he had a 35 year career, during which he served for 12 years on the National Association of Funeral Director’s (NAFD) National Executive and rose to National President in 1975-76. He was instrumental in developing an official code of practice for the funeral profession, at the request of the Office of Fair Trading. He also successfully campaigned for funeral directors to have the right to sell a package funeral and carried out the first review of the practice manual for funeral directing, which led to the creation of a formal qualification for funeral directors, recognised by the NAFD. He sold the company in February 1989 and retired from the profession.

An enthusiastic Rotarian, Jeffrey served as President of the Clacton and later Frinton Rotary Clubs. He also belonged to the Clacton Operatic and Clacton Dramatic Societies, taking lead roles in both companies. However, his most successful hobby was rally driving. He was a leading light in the Clacton Motor Club in the early seventies for whom he was the regional rally champion for six consecutive years.

Jeffrey Titford was a devoted family man and is survived by his wife Margaret, one son, three daughters, eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

They are certainly "Changing Britain"

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 20:05:27 GMT

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

We are a month in, and our NEW Labour government has wasted no time in showing its true colours.

No attempts to stop the boats

Emptied our prisons of dangerous criminals

Waged war on patriotic people and Free Speech

Accelerated the growth of Two-Tier Police and Legislative systems

Robbed our pensioners of the Winter Fuel Allowance

Prioritised cultures over our own

And are now planning extensive tax rises

Our Interim Leader, Nick Tenconi has wasted no time and attending protests, meetings and speaking to many groups of disaffected and under-represented patriotic people, offering them a voice and a political home. His hard work is beginning to pay off.

There is no denying that the re-emergence of Mr Farage on the political scene has impacted our party. For some time, the party has been looking at ways in which it could differentiate itself from Reform who have based much of their policy positioning on ours. With Nick at the helm, its clear for all to see the political space we are now targeting.

Over the coming weeks, there will be changes made to the party’s website and manifesto to underpin our new radical direction. We all know that the Reform bubble will burst, its just a matter of when. UKIP will be ready and as I say, the work has already begun.

Please check out all our social media platforms and YouTube handle to see what Nick has been up to.

There are new activists joining us which will help to build our new campaigning structure, one of which is Father Calvin Robinson, the Political Commentator and former GB News Presenter who now serves as the party’s Lead Spokesman. A strong and key appointment which will help guide the party in its new direction and assist with our strategy to do so.

Many of you will feel deflated by the recent General Election result which is completely understandable. We were badly letdown by our short-lived former leader whose political career ended so abruptly. UKIP benefits from unwavering support and commitment from its loyal core membership and we ask that you continue to stick with us through this exciting period of change for the party.

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

The Power of Labour Suggestion

Wed, 07 Aug 2024 19:39:18 GMT

Donald MacKay

UKIP Spokesman for Scotland

When a Cabinet minister suggests that people adopting a particular attitude should no longer be entitled to NHS care we are moving into predictable and alarming territory.

One scarcely needs to endorse uncivilised behaviour to nonetheless wonder if the NHS might cater only for those who ultimately agree with the objective that a homogeneous Christian Britain should be systematically destroyed .

Football hooligans and violent prisoners receive medical attention.

So they should in a remotely civilised environment.

Legal penalties where appropriate should follow.

But if I am not atheist/pro abortion/pro LBGT/pro Islam/pro woke rather a person who likes Christianity, thinks people should stand on their own two feet, doesnt think that people should arrive and be given the same privileges as indigenous citizens- then maybe I ought to avoid any medical emergencies in my own country.

At least if we are going down that road then perhaps I can opt out of making a tax contribution to the NHS so I can make alternative arrangements

Donald MacKay

UKIP Spokesman for Scotland

Reform isn't Working (even with its closest relative)

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 21:27:13 GMT

Steve Unwin

UKIP Spokesman for Home Affairs, Political Reform and Local Government

(UKIP Parliamentary Candidate for Christchurch)

Why aren’t UKIP combining their efforts with Reform UK, is a common theme I have seen from Reform supporters asking UKIP supporters. Perhaps Reform supporters should direct these questions to their own Reform UK leadership?

For over two years UKIP nationally has approached other like-minded parties on the center-right with an aim to open discussions on either combining, working together or at least co-ordinating candidates, but the Reform leadership - specifically their two senior Company shareholders and Directors, Richard Tice (the then Leader, now Chairman), and Nigel Farage (the then President and now Leader) have refused to engage even in discussions on working together.

Whilst leadership talks are above my pay-grade, I was with the UKIP national Party Chairman at a Parliamentary By-Election when a text reply from Nigel Farage arrived, which I saw, and it was a clear and blunt refusal. The terminology was exactly the same as he describes the Conservative Party today.

Other parties did engage and in the meantime, the English Democrats (formed in 2002) formally entered a "Patriots Alliance" with UKIP which we registered with the Electoral Commission - an agreement to co-ordinate and not stand against each other.

The English Democrats recently confirmed to me that Reform did not want to engage in working together here:

https://twitter.com/EnglishDemocrat/status/1799375730712654184

However, as a gesture of goodwill, when Nigel recently took over the Leadership of Reform, UKIP offered to stand back in seven prime constituencies. But Reform still refused to talk.

UKIP are therefore fielding candidates in our target constituencies (bar the five promised, as the English Democrats are now contesting the two Barnsley seats in which they have strong local Barnsley candidates).

Reform stated they would be fielding candidates in every constituency. However, in my local county (Dorset) Reform failed to field candidates in West Dorset or Mid Dorset and North Poole. UKIP were always going to target what are historically our three best Dorset constituencies - Christchurch, North Dorset and Poole, where Reform appears to have token last-minute or “paper” candidates.

I was (briefly) in 2019 a registered supporter (they didn't have members) of the Brexit Party, but when they pulled all their candidates at the last-minute in “Conservative seats” (sic.) in 2019. I spoilt my ballot paper (first time in my life, but I just couldn't vote for a pro-EU pinko dripping wet "Conservative"-in-name-only MP or Green, Lib Dem or Labour). I also re-joined UKIP, and I have worked for five years to ensure that we will be standing at this election. I was a co-author (with five others on the policy team) of the UKIP manifesto which we have been developing in consultation with members since 2021, the latest version is here:

UKIP Manifesto 2023 Final version 2 (web) (cdn-website.com)

As Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Christchurch, I visited every UKIP member in the Christchurch and East Dorset constituency and was endorsed by each one (save one who was out when I visited). None said they are going for Reform. We have considerable support in the constituency and my candidacy has the full thirty nominations. The only other candidate with the same is the outgoing Tory MP Christopher Chope:

https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/documents/d/guest/statement-of-persons-nominated-and-notice-of-poll-ukpge-christchurch-4-july-2024

Reform UK have not been fielding candidates in most local council elections. In the May 2024 local council elections here in the South West, there were 340 council seats up for election in 8 local authority areas. Reform UK only contested 21 of the 340 seats (17 of the 21 were in Plymouth). Comparing Reform’s 21 contested seats (6%) the Conservatives had candidates for all 340 seats. Lib Dems 293 seats (86%); Labour 273 seats (80%); Greens 240 seats (70%).

Furthermore, across Dorset there has been virtually no activity on the ground by Reform UK, and indeed I had only heard of Martin Holden (Reform candidate in Bournemouth East, a former UKIP candidate, who we agreed locally to not contest as it was not on our target seat list and he is a genuinely active candidate). The others appear to include a number of “paper candidates” with no “boots on the ground”, doing little or nothing – which is realistically not enough to break-through in our broken First Past the Post system.

Further still, Reform's tactics are very different from UKIP's. Reform appear to be appealing to disaffected Conservative voters, and give a very much "Tory lite" tame “not in front of the children” image. UKIP's strategy is virtually the opposite. When UKIP produced our record (almost 4 million votes) in 2015, the Conservative vote ended up being pretty firm (fear of a Labour government). We did exceptionally well in appealing to anti-Conservative voters, and squeezed the patriotic anti-Conservative vote - effectively tactical voting, particularly whilst the Liberal Democrats were being punished by the voters for their unholy coalition with the Conservatives. In 120 constituencies UKIP came a clear second place, knocking aside the Lib Dems, Labour and Greens - which we echoed in five out of the eight Dorset constituencies, or knocking back the Conservatives in more Labour areas.

Now Nigel is standing in Clacton, Reform will likely (and quite rightly) put everything into Clacton.

But what of the rest of the UK? Local UKIP candidates and campaigners will put everything into the target constituencies that UKIP (or our English Democrats colleagues) are contesting.

If you Believe in Britain vote for the Patriotic Alliance of UKIP and the English Democrats.

Steve Unwin

UKIP Spokesman for Home Affairs, Political Reform and Local Government

(UKIP Parliamentary Candidate for Christchurch)

General Election 2024 - Our Mission Graphics

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 15:14:45 GMT

UKIP & Reform UK - What's the Difference?

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 15:10:15 GMT

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party spokesman for Treasury

Reform has just announced a new scheme to tax employers for every overseas worker they employ, to encourage them to take on UK citizens otherwise unemployed and living on Universal Credit.

I really am not impressed by the work of Reform’s Policy Group who don’t understand that UK people don’t want to do menial work. Also, apparently the NHS is the worlds’ 5th largest employer, many of which are nurses and doctors from southeast Asia.

The government loves overseas nurses and doctors because they are instantly available instead of taking years and lots of funding to train our UK people.

Has Reform actually thought of the cost of the overseas employee Tax added to the NHS wage bill?

Reform UK intends to ‘reform’ all sorts of things including the NHS but are very short on how this would happen. In truth it would end up like Yes Minister with bodies set up to work on the reforms, thereby increasing the overhead without solving the problem.

Reform now wants to dramatically reduce the rate of decarbonisation towards Net Zero but has not made a firm commitment to end this stupidity. Really, they keep trying to put clear water between themselves and the Westminster crowd, but they are just the party for disaffected Tories. Tory light??

The UK Independence Party has a brilliant Manifesto honed and polished each year since 2021. In it are addressed almost every major aspect of UK politics identifying the problem and offering a workable solution.

In 2021 we came up with the £20,000 annual personal allowance two years before Reform adopted it, BUT we also wish to introduce a flat tax which will reduce the 11,500 pages of tax law and tax avoidance to less than 500 pages.

Less will be demanded from high earners who are then more likely to pay than avoid, which has been proved time and again, that when tax rates are lowered, tax revenue increases.

We have worked tax tables to show that all lower paid workers will pay less tax than they do now and the only who will pay a couple of hundred pounds more tax is a limited band around a gross income of £50,000 per person salary.

Our latest scheme, still to be finalised is a change in Housing Benefit eligibility that presently precludes young couples on low income from receiving it and causes them to split up. That is so short sighted as we must try to promote the family unit.

My calculations based on the young man on part time or full-time employment as breadwinner for a family, together with means tested Housing Benefit would keep couples together on a living income, reduce the need for homes and flats for them living separately and cost the government less than it presently pays single mothers of at least one child, in Universal Credit + Housing Benefit.

In reality it requires the male breadwinner to live with the family and be subsidising the amount previously paid to the single mother in Housing Benefit and Universal Credit.

This is better for the economy and better for the families. As a family unit it frees up the mother to do evening and weekend work and is better for all with their ‘right to a family life’ (as the lawyers would argue).

Tony Nailer

UK Independence Party spokesman for Treasury

The bill for PIP is Unsustainable

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 15:04:24 GMT

Dr Chris Ho

UK Independence Party spokesman for Health and Social Care

The government has announced plans to reform disability benefits.

Whilst my fellow spokesperson on welfare might have some comments on the proposed move away from a fixed cash benefit system, I am in favour of the move away from over-medicalising milder mental health conditions.

In my day-to-day frontline work, I see both sides of the spectrum. I have patients who carry various disabilities yet find ways to carry on meaningful employment, and I also have patients with mild illness and seemingly fit to carry on some form of employment but continually look for ways to claim benefits. Whilst critics of the proposed system might raise worries about cutting the benefits bill, I can only see that as a good thing as the welfare state has grown into a bloated monster.

On the surface, moving away from cash benefits also means more responsible spending on the things that do help and reduces the potential of irresponsible spending.

The taxpaying public must be tired by now of seeing people on sizeable benefits spend their money on tobacco, alcohol, gambling/scratch cards, and pets. And who can forget the recent case of the London-based Bulgarian gang who fraudulently claimed £54 million?

As is the case for many bureaucratic setups, I can only hope the consultation serves to

bring the DWP back to first principles: The right help, to those who rightly need it.

Dr Chris Ho

UK Independence Party spokesman for Health and Social Care

Starmer's Energy Security Policy

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 14:59:19 GMT

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Energy Spokesman

Since the start of the Election Campaign and reinforced during the first Leaders Debate, Keir Starmer reiterated the intention of the next Labour Government to create a new organisation called British Energy to provide ‘clean’ energy for all our needs by 2030.

This means he will create a Quasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation (QANGO) part funded by the government and part he hopes by investors. Its function will be to fund the installation of enormous amounts of offshore wind, and onshore solar farms.

Yesterday was a rare and unusual day when the peak rating of both wind and solar was achieved providing 17GW of the 32GW of UK electricity demand.

Another 4.5GW was provided by three of the 4 remaining nuclear power stations built in the 1960’s with an intended lifespan of 40 years, now exceeding that by 24 years. The remainder of demand was a combination of gas, coal, and interconnects with Holland, France, and Ireland.

We are now in the summer months with central heating switched off and UK demand 10GW lower than during winter months. During the winter months with leaden skies the sun low above the horizon solar generation is pathetic and cannot be relied on. Wind electricity generation is also more irregular because of winds so high that turbines need to be feathered so they don’t turn too fast and self-destruct. During the winter months there are also very cold frosty days when there is wind so low that total UK renewable generation is under 2GW.

The recent franchises for building wind farms originally offered the same tariff of £43 per MWh because of the claims that the price of wind generation was coming down. There were no takers and the government had to keep increasing its price per MWh to near double the previous rate before there were takers.

Even then the biggest ever proposed wind farm was abandoned by the Dutch company that had intended to install it.

The towers for wind turbines are now shipped in from China because the cost of making the steel for them in the UK is uneconomic due to high energy prices and the moratorium on burning coal. The turbine blades are made by the German company Siemens and the installations are done by the Dutch. There are virtually no new jobs for British workers.

Hinckley Point C Nuclear power station is a huge undertaking which so far has taken over a decade of construction and is still many years from completion.

When it is complete it will add about 3.5GW of continuous generation. But will the old 3 or 4 nuclear power stations still be limping along in 6years time?

Even if it was feasible to double the existing offshore and onshore wind farms and solar farms and even double the existing number of homes with solar arrays, there might still be less than 4GW of renewable generation in the winter months when demand is in excess of 40GW.

A study I undertook for the Democrats and Veterans Party in 2018 compared the true cost of coal and gas fired electricity generation stripped of carbon taxes or the added cost of carbon capture and storage to the true cost of renewables without subsidy. Without wind and solar, the generation would be 40% cheaper.

Since then, the sabotage of one of the two North Sea gas pipelines has limited the amount of gas to western Europe and the UK to punish us for supporting Ukraine, and gas prices are still 3 times higher than they were before that war started.

The rest of the world is now abandoning renewables in favour of coal because it is cheap and in plentiful supply and the coal fired stations the quickest to build and commission. India and China are literally building hundreds of new coal fired power stations, without carbon capture and storage, with new ones in China coming on line every fortnight or less.

Keir Starmer has pledged to cut our reliance on Russian gas and oil and at the same time has stated he will revoke the new licences granted by the Tory government for drilling and extraction in the North Sea. How then will he keep the lights on when the wind doesn’t blow, and the sun doesn’t shine?

The truth is that it is impossible to provide so called clean energy morning and night 365 days a year using renewables. To get up to 10GW of nuclear fired generation will take at least another 15 to 20 years if we started right now. We will need fossil fuels for generations and may never be able to provide for our needs using only renewables. Labours energy plan is cloud cuckoo land.

Tony Nailer

UK Independence Party Energy Spokesman

National Press Release

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 07:05:35 GMT

Business as Usual!

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 06:44:13 GMT

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

Now that “Tricky Dicky” has gifted the leadership of Reform by way of a handshake not election, Nigel Farage has entered the political arena once again to take an opportunity which he believes is for the taking. Don't be fooled into thinking this is the end result either. With a history of deals and decisions which have let down candidates and voters before, this move may just be the first of many.

I wish Nigel luck in Clacton where he has decided to stand in the General Election, but despite the Aaron Banks polling, this may not prove to be the best seat for him. Only time will tell.

Much like Tice’s support of mandatory COVID vaccinations, he was resolute in preventing our party UKIP working with Reform in the interests of the UK’s electorate. I very much hope that with Mr Tice out of the picture, the sensible people in his company will recognise UKIP’s value.

As before, we are ready to work with any political party, group or candidate who share our values.

Either way, its business as usual for UKIP. Working in partnership with The English Democrats, we intend to field as many candidates as we can in the abruptly called General Election and we call on you to support a truly democratic, political party which supports British values and not the egos of its personnel. Support UKIP, the original political revolution and agitator. We even carry out our own vetting and don't rely on the services of lefty extremists to do it for us.

Family – Food - Future

The July 2024 UK General Election

Wed, 22 May 2024 20:33:20 GMT

Lois Perry

Leader - UK Independence Party

Sunak has only gone and done it; called a General Election which employs the only tactic he had left available to him – The element of surprise!

Well we are all surprised that he and the men in “grey suits” have decided to make this play but let us quickly try and unpack his logic.

The Tory High Command will believe this decision wrong foots both the Labour Party and Tice’s Reform company. Sir Beer was not expecting it this soon whilst still peddling nothing and Tice does not have the candidates, money, or activism to make the dent he so desperately craves.

It’s clear that with an ever-growing Muslim vote, lending its support to extremists such as George Galloway and the Green Party, Labour could lose out on a section of the electorate they have historically benefitted from. All because today’s political class are unable to curb immigration and quell growing support for the terrorist organisation Hamas throughout sections of our very own country, by woke induced lefty students and people who simply don’t believe in the country which protects them. Sunak’s hope is this erodes Labour’s ground swell of support.

This is not about trying to win for the Tory Party. This is about consolidation – damage limitation. The fight for the heart and soul of what remains of the Tories comes after this impending defeat and whatever that may end up looking like.

UKIP’s strategy remains clear and targeted. We will be standing in key areas where we believe we can make a stand or effect the election result. Working in partnership with the English Democrats we will ensure that our policies and values are on offer to as much of the UK as possible.

A full list of seats we will contest along with the candidates will be published by us in due course.

This election is not about the best party for the job. Unfortunately, it will be about who the public deem to be the least bad, but I ask that you vote with your feet.

This election is lost to all but the mainstream political parties but let us make it the beginning of the change the country so desperately needs. Vote for who you believe will be the best person/party for the job, even if that means voting for a rank outsider.

Where you have a UKIP candidate, vote for them. We are the only political party with a track record of achieving its political aim. We stand for common sense policies and the everyday working man and woman. There are literally millions of you that can change the impending election result in a flash. Don’t just think there is no point – my vote doesn’t matter. Register to vote now and send a BREXIT referendum shockwave through Westminster once again.

Our manifesto is simply the best in the business and the one every single political party tries to emulate, so why lend your support to imposters? Lend your support to our authentic, original, and trailblazing brand which is tried and tested, successful and recognised.

We are not here to just make up numbers. We are not here to further our nest eggs and fluff our egos. We are here to be the defender of you and the enemies of those who seek to undermine our great nations, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Our pledges to you are simple. If you believe in a UK that can produce its own FOOD , support the growth and developments of its FAMILIES and always looks to create a better FUTURE for its people, then UKIP really is the only choice for you.

I call upon all our candidates, activists, branches, regions, supporters, and potential voters to get behind a patriotic party that genuinely believes in you and this country, our past and our future.

If you like me detest the ” Woke Mind Virus” and “Net Stupid - Net Zero” then support us.

We have been in existence for over thirty years and will not let you down unlike many of the other political imposters. A vote for us is a vote for an Independent United Kingdom. Independent of foreign influence and globalist pressure.

VOTE UKIP – LIE FREE since 1993

Lois Perry

Leader - UK Independence Party

We Reap What We Sow

Wed, 01 May 2024 11:11:14 GMT

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party spokesman for Housing and Immigration

We need to look at the facts; cold hard facts forget any discussion or arguments of race or ethnicity.

No matter how you dress it up we do not have the facilities or services required to actually provide for UK Nationals and certainly no additional reserves to provide for the masses of people arriving here expecting their every need to be met. Most of these new arrivals are not genuine refugees.

The grant rate for asylum seekers in the UK is 61% compare this to France, where it is 23% The UK Government is rushing to approve new arrivals and making grave errors of judgement, allowing criminals to roam freely around our country.

However, these economic migrants have itchy feet and have turned their attention to The Republic of Ireland an even better option for them, generous welfare payments, housing, medical care, better job opportunities and NO DEPORTATION! Not bad news for the UK but The Republic of Ireland is not happy. Eight out of ten turning up with outstretched hands are from the UK.

The Republic of Ireland has a virtually invisible and open border, no customs or security, no passport control, no vehicle checks, nada. The only way you can tell the border at all is by paying attention to the road markings and signage especially speed limits, if it’s MPH you are in Northern Ireland if it’s KM/H you are in the Republic. Dashed yellow lines of the Republic switch to the solid white line of Northern Ireland and these crossing points can cross the border more than once within a few miles/kilometres. Many houses exist that are partly in one country and partly in the other.

In December 2023 the population of the Republic of Ireland was approximately 5.1 million, compared with 3.9 million in 2002. Currently the population of the Republic of Ireland includes 22% non-nationals they are mostly unvetted males. An increase in criminality is guaranteed, criminality not only from the new arrivals. Arson attacks arising out of disputes over the housing of asylum seekers or Ukrainian refugees has focused national attention on rising levels of hostility towards migrants.

The Republic want to return migrants coming from Northern Ireland to the UK, but we cannot return our aliens to France, same difference!

The Republic of Ireland wanted to remain part of the EU, we reap what we sow!

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party spokesman for Housing and Immigration

Holyrood? - More like "Hollyoaks!

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 09:35:45 GMT

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Lead Spokesman for Scotland

Perhaps it is in order amidst the recent pantomime in Edinburgh to comment that scarcely in the history of British politics has there been any individual less suited to the rigours of high office than the gentleman who has currently vacated the position with the grandiose title of "First Minister".

Billy Connolly shrewdly referred to "the wee pretendy parliament" and the events of the last few days have demonstrated the validity of his point of view.

Holyrood is a joke. Populated by a wide variety of second-rate sociology students who specialise in nothing.

The only people who benefit from it are those lackeys in the Scottish media whose pay-packet depends upon it.

What was the political issue that led to Mr Yousaf’s downfall?

Something lofty perhaps: fiscal policy? the nature and limitations of sound government?

Regrettably not. Rather it revolved around such matters as whether or not teenagers should be given puberty blockers to delay its natural onset.

The UK Independence Party promise that we shall campaign to get rid of the Holyrood Parliament and will be the only mainstream party to do so. It has no serious purpose, nor does it improve the lives of ordinary citizens in any way.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Lead Spokesman for Scotland

Shortage of NHS Doctors – The Push and Pull Factors.

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 09:29:39 GMT

Dr Chris Ho

UK Independence Party spokesman for Health and Social Care

A recent BMA report has estimated that doctors leaving the NHS prematurely costs the taxpayer up to £2.4bn a year. 15,000 to 23,000 doctors estimated to have left the NHS prematurely in England between September 2022 and September 2023.

Correlating to other figures provided by the Channel 4 News link below, approx. 5000 of those are new junior doctor graduates. We only produce 8000-9000 new doctors annually, so we are losing around 50% of our medical graduates each year.

All the while, demand is ever increasing with population growth driven by mass immigration.

Bearing in mind that despite tuition fees of £9000 annually in England, the cost of medical education is still heavily subsidized, and it is totally subsidized in Scotland. Hence the costs mentioned. The reasons for doctors leaving are myriad but can be broadly categorised into push and pull factors. The push factors include poor working conditions, e.g. pay, workload, regulatory practices, demonization in the media especially with GPs and societal/political factors like lack of protection of whistle-blowers, politicisation of the NHS. The pull factors include better working conditions abroad and a lesser degree of the push factors.

The mainstream political parties’ aims of recruiting more doctors (e.g. 5000 more doctors in last Tory manifesto) are clearly untenable without addressing any of our push factors. Any government would find it difficult to do so though, as socialised healthcare translates into trying to milk the workforce for as much as possible.

Greater spending just means greater debt and inflation. Trying to take the shortcut of recruiting foreign doctors’ risks exacerbating problems of immigration and integration and our pull factors pale in comparison to other nations. Harking back to my January article on healthcare models, whilst government spending could be more wisely used on priority areas, maybe it is time to ask if the taxpayer should continue to trust any government with healthcare provision beyond the bare necessities.

Dr Chris Ho

UK Independence Party spokesman for Health and Social Care

Are they trying to "break" BREXIT?

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 09:20:16 GMT

Pat Bryant

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Food and Rural Affairs

As of today, next the Government will be instituting “Food Security Checks” at the ports on all animal products imported from the EU.

They estimate that it will add £330,000 a year to the cost of importing food from the EU. Industry experts disagree, saying the true figure is closer to 3 times that amount of money.

This will be passed on to the consumer…. BUT it is totally unnecessary as UK food standards are already fully aligned with EU Standard.

This is a choice Government has made – and at a time when there is already a cost-of-living crisis they are planning that food will cost more.

ARE THEY ARE TRYING TO BREAK BREXIT?

At the same time, they are withdrawing all support for food production in the UK – and transferring any subsidies to “Green Projects”.

It appears that they have no regard for farming, food security or the consumer.

That is, you – you will be paying the bills.

Pat Bryant

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Food and Rural Affairs

Scotlands Hate Crime Legislation

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 20:15:42 GMT

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Scotland

As Scotland is on the eve of further hate crime nonsense much has been written about it from an essentially negative point of view.

UKIP are the only party which expressly states that we shall repeal the 2010 Equality Act and get rid of any so called "hate crime" legislation which criminalises actions which are not actually criminal.

Subjective approaches to "hate" are rather like subjective approaches to "bad manners". We all have our own individual ideas about what these abstract concepts amount to.

They should not be the business of the law or the police.

On the other hand, we do not need to cluck like nervous hens when such legislation is proposed.

A firm UK Independence vote as a General Election approaches will put this puerile nonsense where it belongs-into the nearest recycling receptacle.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Scotland

Leadership Election 2024 - Update

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 20:05:00 GMT

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

It is with regret that as the party's Returning Officer for the current UKIP Leadership Election, I have to inform Party Members of the following news.

On Friday 22nd March 2024, I was informed in writing by Anne Marie-Waters that she was withdrawing from the election for personal reasons.

This will come as disappointing news to her supporters as it was to me.

Anne had been accepted as a candidate and successfully passed the vetting process. We were looking forward to hearing her impassioned speeches and robust answering at the forthcoming Leadership Hustings.

The NEC and myself wish her well and offer our full support.

Anne is an asset to the party and key activist and will be missed from this election.

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

NHS nurses from Nigeria, being investigated for ‘industrial scale’ qualifications fraud.

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 19:46:23 GMT

Dr Chris Ho

UK Independence Party spokesman for Health and Social Care

As published in the Guardian and other outlets, this scam involves 700+ healthcare workers, of which 48 are already working in the NHS and are due to face individual hearings. Most of the 700+ workers are nurses but include a few midwives. Until the hearings/investigation is concluded, they remain on the nursing register and have been told to retake the competency test. Whilst this has come to light from a specific testing centre in Nigeria (Yunnik), the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has stopped using 40 of the 800 test centres worldwide, leading to suspicions that this is far more widespread.

This is a prime counterpoint to the left-wing argument of “but the NHS needs foreign workers”. I would hope that all of these workers do turn out to be competent and legitimately trained staff. But this issue seems less of a surprise when we scratch under the surface into contributory factors. Is the NMC a competent regulator?

Nigeria itself, has been somewhat of a meme nation since we started getting spam emails from Nigerian princes wanting to deposit a large sum into our bank accounts. And if the state can’t even regulate “legal” immigration well, what chance does it have, or does it even seem like, they are looking to regulate illegal immigration?

The Guardian then raised the issue of 2 Nigerian staff who have had their NMC applications refused and have been dismissed by the private care home they were working at. It of course mentioned that they now fear being deported with their families. Again, that raises all sorts of considerations. There certainly was little consideration to whether any harm has resulted from this fraud. Or how locally trained healthcare workers may have had to compete, and their wages stagnated due to this influx of foreign workers.

How have they been allowed to commence employment whilst their NMC applications were still pending? How have they been allowed into the UK, presumably on “work visas”, prior to full NMC registration and job offer, AND bring their families along with them? Call me cold, but should their qualifications turn out to be false, the just thing to do would be to deport them and their families, as they have no legal right of stay, in addition to potentially committing criminal fraud.

The UK Independence Party’s policy is to train more local workers negating such issues. A much more sensible method of directing public funds.

Dr Chris Ho

UK Independence Party spokesman for Health and Social Care

Spring Budget 2024

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 20:41:26 GMT

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Treasury Spokesman

Last Wednesday 6 March 2024, the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, presented the budget to the Commons.

Summary

The headlining NI reduction doesn’t give back enough money to cover the increased energy costs of the last 2 years, nor the rampant increase in food price inflation.

Removing non-Dom status means they will be asked to pay UK tax on overseas earnings. This will cause an exodus in these investors, reducing revenue for the Treasury. At least theoretically it prevents Labour from claiming it will have done the same to fund all their spending pledges. So now where will Labour’s extra revenue come from now?

Though the Chancellor stated the UK now had the lowest Personal Tax and NI rate since 1979 it is more than offset by the highest Indirect Taxation in 70 years. He claimed it was a budget for growth but the increase in VAT threshold won’t do that and nothing else in the budget will. The ongoing cost of decarbonisation, with windfall taxes on Oil & Gas production, and building an unreliable parallel renewable infrastructure is costing a fortune, destroying jobs, and beggaring these nations.

Detail

The headlining tax reduction is a reduction from 10% to 8% on Employed NI contributions. The threshold for paying this is £9,569, so a person on a basic wage of £26.500 a year will save £237 a year. That doesn’t cover the doubling of electricity bill over the past two years, nor even the climate levy of over 20% added to every bill.

Higher Property Capital Gains tax reduction doesn’t affect most people.

Removing non-Dom Status, meaning they have to pay UK tax on overseas earnings means a massive exodus of people who previously invested in the UK.

Multiple Dwelling Purchase Relief being scrapped won’t affect the vast majority of people.

Air Passenger Duty on Business and 1 ^st Class air travel to increase, doesn’t affect the majority of people.

Extending the windfall tax on Oil and Gas Production till 2029 will ensure energy bills won’t be coming down again anytime soon. We will continue to pay a punitive price for energy.

Child Benefit will not now be withdrawn until earnings exceed £60,000. Doesn’t affect the majority of young parents.

Duty on vaping to start in October 2026 and tax on tobacco to increase at the same time. They have to get the tax from somewhere as use of tobacco declines. Doesn’t affect the majority of the people.

Fuel and Alcohol Duty frozen at its present high level. Thanks for nothing.

VAT threshold for registration raised from £85,000 to £90,000 will have an insignificant effect.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Treasury Spokesman

PRO-PALESTINIAN ACTIVISM THREAT

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 20:58:25 GMT

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party - Policy Team Member

On Monday 26 ^th February, MP Lee Anderson spoke in Parliament about the pro-Palestinian marches that were taking place in our major cities every Saturday and how the city centres were now controlled by the mobs of Muslims.

On Tuesday 27 ^th February, Sadiq Khan was on television denouncing Lee Anderson and claiming the whole of the Conservative Party was Islamophobic. Rishi Sunak reacted by having the Whip withdrawn from Lee Anderson meaning he was no longer recognised as a Conservative MP. Rishi stated that the Conservative Party was not Islamophobic.

On Wednesday 28 ^th February, Rishi Sunak pledged £31,000,000 for the protection of MPs and their families and homes, so although he was afraid for the safety of MPs from the Muslim marchers or their allies, his Party was not Islamophobic.

On Thursday 29th February, Rishi Sunak pledged a further £78,000,000 for protection of the Jews from harassment and threats of violence from anti-Semitic protestors and extremists involved or allied to the pro-Palestinian marches. So, although he was afraid for the safety of the Jews from the Muslims and their allies, his Party was not Islamophobic.

On Friday 1 ^st Marc, Rishi addressed the nation from his podium in Downing Street stating that “democracy itself was now a target for extremist forces here at home (who) are trying to tear us apart.” He went on to describe the sources of the threats as ‘the far right and the far left’ but not from the Muslims. Strange isn’t it that the Centre and Far Right are activists who want to protect our culture and our history and might better be described as right-wing Conservatives that his party no longer includes.

Conversely the Far Left are actively undermining these nations, by supporting mass immigration, splitting our people in groups by race and gender, trying to re-write history, making us feel guilty about the part we played in world slavery, to berate ourselves for our successful industrialisation, and working to depress contrary views and free speech.

According to the ONS, the government granted 1,400,000 visa applications last year. Net migration was supposedly 740,000, which implies that 660,000 people emigrated from the UK to other countries of their countries of origin. I just don’t believe!

Presumably the Net Migration to the UK included about 40,000 people who had used identity papers to travel legally through Europe and then threw them into the channel to enter this country illegally by crossing from France in inflatable boats, aided by French navy vessels and British Border Farce and the publicly funded RNLI.

This week on the news it was reported there are now 140,000 of these fighting age Muslims with no identity living at taxpayers’ expense in hotels, in camps and even on a barge in Portland Harbour. As of April 2023, the British Army totalled just 77,540 soldiers.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party - Policy Team Member

Middle East Crisis - Our Position

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 09:55:57 GMT

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Business, Foreign Affairs and Culture

As UKIP’s Foreign Affairs Spokesman I am often asked about the Party’s current position on the Middle East crisis.

On 7 ^th October last year, Israel, an independent democratic state, suffered a cross border invasion from Gaza without warning. There were serious atrocities carried out and the invaders took back a large number of hostages, many of whom have still not been returned.

Our Party Leader Neil Hamilton issued this statement on 7 ^th October:

“Israel deserves the support of all civilized people against indiscriminate terror by Hamas. Whatever its failings, Israel is a beacon of democracy surrounded by autocracies, failed states and religious fanatics from the Dark Ages. Israel is a true friend of the West, and our hearts go out to the victims of Hamas’s barbarism”.

The UK Independence Party’s approach to foreign affairs is to put our own people, our own culture, and our own national interests first. UKIP is primarily concerned with the politics of the United Kingdom, rather than political disputes in distant parts of the world. UKIP respects the democratic right of all sovereign nations to act in their own national interests. Our policy is non-interference with the affairs of other nations, unless a country presents a specific threat to our own national life or directly threatens a UK citizen.

Israel is a sovereign state, and it poses no direct threat to the UK. Since 7 ^th October, it has taken steps to defend itself, has counter attacked and has sought to recover Israeli citizens who were taken hostage. Sadly, as we know wars have awful consequences and this has led to a huge and regrettable loss of life in Gaza of children, aid workers and media personnel.

The United Kingdom government does not recognise Palestine (or Gaza) as a sovereign state. HAMAS formed in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising, or intifada, as an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch. It is not a democratically elected government, and it is committed to armed resistance against Israel and the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state in Israel’s place. Membership and expressing support for Hamas is an illegal act in the UK, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Dozens of countries, including the United Kingdom and United States, as well as the European Union, have designated it a terrorist group.

Despite all this, there have been protests and demonstrations in the UK demanding that the UK government gets involved to call for an unconditional ceasefire. A great deal of hot air has been expended by establishment politicians in Westminster arguing the merits of this issue.

So, what is UK Independence Party’s policy? Whatever the merits, UKIP will not get involved. It is none of our business. The UK is an active member of the United Nations and UKIP supports its work to bring the conflict to an end peacefully.

UKIP’s priorities are not in Israel, or Gaza they are with our own working people whose main concerns lie at home. Our priority is to put our own people and their own priorities first. Our own people care about the cost-of-living crisis, housing shortages, NHS waiting lists, lawlessness and crime, massive immigration, food insecurity, illegal cross-Channel invaders, grooming gangs, woke political correctness and the loss of freedom. That’s why the UK Independence Party will stay out of the Middle East Crisis.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Business, Foreign Affairs and Culture

Reform UK isn't working - Join a party that can!

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 09:48:08 GMT

Steve Unwin

Spokesman on Home Affairs, Political Reform and Local Government

Since they rebranded in 2021, Reform UK have fought 18 Parliamentary by-elections and have achieved a miserable average vote share of just 3.8% (as of 21 February 2024).

The combination of dropping out in “Conservative” seats on the eve of the 2019 General Election followed by rebranding from the Brexit Party has been a disastrous failure. I for one, being disenfranchised at the 2019 General Election, spoilt my ballot paper (I couldn’t vote for the Lib/Lab/Green/Con – the “Conservative” candidate was probably the most extreme pro-EU pinko of the lot) rejoined UKIP and resolved that would not happen again - even if I have to stand for UKIP myself!

CONTRAST Reform’s 2021-2024 results of an average vote share of just 3.8% with the periods BEFORE Reform UK. Under the banner of the Brexit Party, they only fought two Parliamentary by-elections (2019) and got a credible average vote share of 19.7% - FIVE times Reform UK’s current performance.

Prior to that, UKIP fought 23 Parliamentary by-elections from the 2010 General Election up to the June 2016 EU referendum and over this long period UKIP achieved an average vote of 17.0% - over FOUR times Reform UK’s current performance.

Even excluding Clacton and Rochester & Strood (special cases as defector sitting MPs were our candidates) UKIP achieved an average vote of 13.8% - over THREE times Reform UK’s current performance.

Professor Matthew Goodwin recently pointed out that UKIP averaged 38% across the final by-elections before the 2015 general election. That’s TEN times Reform UK’s current performance – really putting this point in perspective as we are now so close to a likely 2024 General Election. Also, in the ten parliamentary by-elections in Great Britain 2013 to May 2016, prior to the EU referendum, UKIP came second EVERY TIME (save twice taking first place) as well as coming second in 120 seats at the 2015 General Election.

Reform UK has not even once come second in a Parliamentary election.

Even in the six Parliamentary by-elections after the 2016 EU Referendum and prior to the Brexit Party’s formation the average UKIP vote (whilst the media were dissing UKIP with the compliment “job done”) was 9.8% - over DOUBLE times Reform UK’s current performance.

In spite of UKIP standing back in half (nine) of the 18 Parliamentary by-elections 2021-2024, it has made no perceivable difference. Giving them the benefit of the doubt and standing back might have seemed politically expedient at the time, but we must do this no longer.

Under Reform UK, our “side” of the political divide has faced a collapsing vote share, perhaps due to Reform’s perceived limited “Tory-lite” appeal. If anything, Reform’s performance demonstrates the importance of collaborative working on our side of the political fence, but Reform UK’s leadership are not interested in even discussing collaborative working even with those they largely agree with.

Reform UK are the common cuckoo of the political world – they are NOT on our side!

The country needs a functioning ‘populist centre-right’ but one that is united and supportable by a broad spectrum – which means one that will not scuttle back to the Tories “for fear of letting Labour in” as has been the case with Reform’s Tories under our broken First Past the Post electoral system. Only UKIP has an unbroken record of standing firm over a 30-year period and actually changing politics for good.

At our peak, UKIP had almost 600 elected local councillors scattered around the country, along with a network of constituency branches. Reform UK don’t appear to treat either of these as important. They rarely contest local elections and currently have six elected local councillors, all in Derby, and I have seen no evidence of a realistic branches, possibly due to their top-down control by company directors, rather than being a democratically run party.

If there is one important thing UKIP learned in the 2010 to 2019 period: we don’t necessarily need to win that many (or even any) Westminster elections to be an electoral threat to the Establishment parties. What we need to be able to achieve is a sizeable vote share taken from the Conservative and Labour Parties that we can and will affect the outcome of that election. The only electoral language the Establishment parties understand is losing their seats because we have taken sizeable quantities of votes from them.

Even in the current climate, with a weirdly woke, politically correct Conservative government that is deeply unpopular with its core supporters, with their worst Leader since John Major (who led them into oblivion in 1997) faced with a woke, politically correct, Labour Party that no longer represents its traditional working-class base, with a weak, uninspiring Leader in Kier Starmer, Reform UK, whilst they improved on their previous deposit-losing (under 5%) dire performances, they continue to be nowhere near affecting any actual results, or posing any perceivable electoral “threat”.

Britain’s Establishment crazy commitment to uncontrolled mass immigration and Net Zero madness deserve a far stronger challenge than Reform UK appear to be capable of. Our “side” needs to perform far better. Reform’s Divide and Rule strategy is plain wrong. We need to Unite the Right. The record of 20 years of Parliamentary by-elections (see below) highlights from 2004-2009 and the full picture from the 2010 General Election to 2024 show Reform UK is not appealing to disaffected working-class voters (who are currently more likely to stay at home than vote).

Reform is not an inspiring enough message (assuming you have the vaguest clue of what they want to reform – I don’t!) We need to rebuild UKIP and show that UK Independence is not just from the EU (important though that is).

UKIP has formed the Patriots Alliance – English Democrats and UKIP, so future ballot papers may have this description. We now need you to join and put yourself forward to either stand under the new “Patriotic Alliance” banner in local elections (we need names by March 2024 to stand in the May 2024 local elections) or, better still the General Election, or (even better) for both.

Join online - www.ukip.org

UKIP wants a proud, free, democratic, independent United Kingdom. So, END mass immigration, DUMP the green agenda, STOP the woke politically correct nonsense and NO MORE taking away of our precious freedoms!

Parliamentary By Elections

UKIP’s prime period (2004-June 2016)

2004 Hartlepool

UKIP 10.2%

2006 Bromley & Chislehurst

UKIP 8.1%

2009 Norwich North

UKIP 11.8%

2011 Oldham East & Saddleworth

UKIP 5.8%

2011 Barnsley Central

UKIP 12.2%

2011 Leicester South

UKIP 2.9%

2011 Inverclyde

UKIP 1.0%

2011 Feltham and Heston

UKIP 5.5%

2012 Bradford West

UKIP 3.3%

2012 Manchester Central

UKIP 4.5%

2012 Cardiff South and Penarth

UKIP 6.1%

2012 Corby

UKIP 14.3%

2012 Rotherham

UKIP 21.8%

2012 Middlesborough

UKIP 11.8%

2012 Croydon North

UKIP 5.7%

2013 Eastleigh

UKIP 27.8%

2013 South Sheilds

UKIP 24.2%

2014 Wythenshawe and Sale East

UKIP 18.0%

2014 Newark

UKIP 25.9%

2014 Clacton

UKIP 59.7%

2014 Heywood and Middleton

UKIP 38.7%

2014 Rochester & Strood

UKIP 42.1%

2015 Oldham West & Royton

UKIP 23.4%

2016 Sheffield Brightside

UKIP 19.9%

2016 Ogmore

UKIP 15.4%

2016 Tooting

UKIP 1.6%

Post-Brexit (June 2016-2017 GE)

2016 Witney

UKIP 3.5%

2016 Sleaford & North Hykham

UKIP 13.5%

2017 Copeland

UKIP 6.5%

2017 Stoke on Trent Central

UKIP 24.7%

Brexit Party prime period (2018-2019)

2018 Lewisham East

UKIP 1.7%

2019 Newport West

UKIP 8.6% (BXP stood back)

2019 Peterborough

BXP 28.9%

2019 Brecon & Radnorshire

BXP 10.5%

UKIP 0.8%

Reform UK rebrand launch to date.

2021 Hartlepool

Reform 1.2% (UKIP stood back)

Heritage beat them with 1.6%

2021 Airdrie & Shotts

Reform 0.2% (45 votes)

UKIP 0.1% (39 votes)

2021 Chesham and Amersham

Reform 1.1% (UKIP stood back)

2021 Batley and Spen

Reform announced they would stand back to help the Conservatives beat Labour!!!

2021 Old Bexley and Sidcup

Reform 6.6%

Eng Democrats 1.3%

UKIP 0.8%

Heritage 0.5%

2021 North Shropshire

Reform 3.8%

UKIP 1.0%

Reclaim 1.0%

Heritage 0.2%

2022 Southend West

UKIP 2.7%

Eng Democrats 2.2%

Heritage 1.6%

(Reform stood back)

2022 Birmingham Erdington

Reform 1.7% (UKIP stood back)

2022 Wakefield

Reform 1.9%

Eng Democrats 0.5%

UKIP 0.5%

2022 Tiverton & Honiton

Reform 1.1%

UKIP 0.6%

Heritage 0.4%

For Britain 0.3%

(For Britain disbanded and their Leader is now UKIP Justice spokeswoman)

Chester 2022

Reform 2.7%

UKIP 0.6%

2022 Stretford and Urmston

Reform 3.5% (UKIP stood back)

2023 West Lancashire

Reform 4.4% (UKIP stood back)

2023 Selby and Ainsty

Reform 3.7% (UKIP stood back)

2023 Somerton and Frome

Reform 3.7%

UKIP 0.7%

2023 Rutherglen and Hamilton W

Reform 1.3% (UKIP stood back)

2023 Mid Bedfordshire

Reform 3.7% (UKIP stood back)

2023 Tamworth

Reform 5.4%

UKIP 1.7%

2024 Wellingborough

Reform 13.0% (UKIP stood back)

2024 Kingswood

Reform 10.4%

UKIP 0.5%

By-election due in

2024 Rochdale

Reform TBA% (UKIP stood back)

Steve Unwin

Spokesman on Home Affairs, Political Reform and Local Government

NO Farmers - NO Food

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 09:31:57 GMT

Pat Bryant

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Food and Rural Affairs

If you value the British Countryside then you must stand up and support the farmers who not only produce some of the finest food in the world but who maintain our beautiful landscapes and against all the odds do their best to maintain biodiversity.

Why do I say against the odds? Because at all turns farmers are inhibited in their labours by some government regulation.

British Farming is on its knees. Every sector is suffering – my niece who is dairy gets 33.5p a litre for milk which costs her 50p a litre to produce. The pig industry has shrunk to about half its pre- pandemic level due to government policy. Similarly, egg production has fallen due to the mass slaughter of birds during the bird flu outbreak leading to a shortage of replacement birds and a rise in the costs.

Arable sector is also in trouble and the likelihood is that far fewer acres of cereals will be grown next year. The growing of rape seed for oil is at an all-time low due to government bans on seed dressings and insecticides.

Our requirements are being made up by imports from countries which have not banned these substances.

Unless this is changed farming in Britain will cease and the countryside will either revert to scrub or be covered in solar panels, windmills or rabbit hutches masquerading as dwellings.

You, the public can influence this situation – you can write to your MP or better still you can buy direct from the farmer or farmers’ market.

Let’s work together to save British Farming and our beautiful British Countryside.

Pat Bryant

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Food and Rural Affairs

UKIP's Personal Tax Allowance Proposals

Sat, 24 Feb 2024 07:39:03 GMT

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Taxation

PERSONAL TAX POLICY 2021 - 2024 (Released in OCT 2023)

Existing Tax Bands
The Personal Tax Allowance is presently £12,570, and there are 3 basic tiers of tax at 20%, 40%, & 45%. The Personal Tax Allowance is removed for earnings over £100,000, adding additional £2,514 to the 40% tax demand. It also means that for earnings over £150,000 there is an additional £2,514 to the 45% tax demand.

Earnings

Tax Rate

£12,571 - £50,270

20%

£50,271 - £100,000

40%

£100,001 - £150,000

40% + £2,514

£150,001 and above

45% + £2,514

It is fundamentally immoral to charge people a higher proportion or percentage of their earnings just because they are high earners. The government knows this and realises people will actively avoid paying the immoral tax requested.

To avoid industrial scale tax avoidance, the tax law includes complex exemptions and allowances that can be utilised to reduce the tax burden. This complicates the tax law which apparently runs to 11,000 A4 pages. (Now a 400-page pack of 80g/m ² A4 paper is 4.3cm high. So, 11,000 sheets would be a stack of paper 1.18m, (46.5”) high.)

The UK Independence Party Policy, since October 2021, is to raise the Personal Tax Allowance to £20,000 and change the complex tier of tax bands into a single flat rate of 27% regardless how much is earned.

This simplification of the tax calculation will still require a number of genuine exclusions, but it is estimated they would take 550 pages of tax law. That will now be a stack 5.9cm (2.3”) high. It is so straightforward, like VAT, that everyone should be able to understand it.

Existing Employed NI Contributions

National Insurance Personal Allowance is presently £9,569 for Employed people and rates from 6 April 2022 are:

£ 9,569 - £50,270 at 13.25% and £50,271 and above at 2%.

The UK Independence Party Policy since October 2021 is to charge £3.85 a week (£200 a year) NI Contribution for employed earnings in the range £5,000 - £20,000 and a single rate of 15% above that income, regardless how much is earned.

Self - Employed NI Contributions

Self-Employed people pay lower National Insurance because they don’t get sick leave payments. The National Insurance Allowance from 6 April 2022 is £6,515 and there are 3 bands:

Earnings

NI Payments

£6,515 - £9,568 class 1

£3.05 a week

£9,569 - £50,270 class 4

10.25%

£50,271 and above

The UK Independence Party Policy, since October 2021, is to charge £3.85 a week (£200 a year) Self-Employed NI Contributions on profits £5,000 - £20,000 and a single rate of 12% above that income, regardless how much you earn.

Summary

The tax and NI tables have been worked out and reveal that the combination of the 27% flat tax together with the £20,000 Personal Allowance and the single NI rates for Employed and Self-Employed people will reduce deductions for earnings of £15,000 by more than £1000, and for earnings of £20,000 by over £2,500 a year.

The tables further reveal that middle income earners will pay less combined tax and NI, except those earning £50,000 who will have to pay £111 a year more. The high earners will be asked for less but with fewer exemptions and allowances, the demand will be more reasonable and less likely to necessitate avoidance. Tax revenue will go up, as it always does when the Treasury reduces the top rate of tax.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Taxation

Disaffection with Devolution

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 09:41:24 GMT

Donald MacKay

UKIP Scotland

In the week when the daughter of a terrorist is elected First Minister of Northern Ireland and her equivalent in Holyrood is on record as saying that there are too many white people in Scotland it is gratifying to see that a panelbase poll in the Sunday Times revealed that 26 per cent of Scottish voters regarded devolution as a failure.

We then might ask which party will represent the anti-devolution sentiment thus expressed.

The usual suspects - not a chance! a £68000 salary keeps them quiet.

Only the United Kingdom Independence Party has as one of its central planks the objective of abolishing all three of the devolved "parliaments" and the London Assembly to boot.

These bodies are expensive, bloated, vacuous and above all useless.

A vote for UKIP is a vote to get rid of them and dispense with the musings of their second-rate circus acts.

Donald MacKay

UKIP Scotland

Green - UNEMPLOYMENT

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 09:34:36 GMT

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Energy, Environment, Transport and Treasury

Tata Steel has announced it will be dismantling its two coking coal fired blast furnaces at the Port Talbot plant and replacing them with electric arc furnaces. Unfortunately, the electric arc furnaces can only work on scrap steel and cannot produce steel from iron ore. It will also cause the loss of up to 3000 workers. The word on the street is that this is to reduce its CO ₂ emissions and meet Net Zero targets.

On Sunday 28 January 2024 Kemi Badenoch, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, was interviewed by Camilla Tominey on GB News and was asked whether this form of producing steel from iron ore was being sacrificed on the altar of Net Zero.

According to Kemi Badenoch. This was all about saving jobs, that Tata Steel was losing £150m a day because it couldn’t compete with the cheap steel flooding the market from China. She said Tata steel was responsible for 10,000 people employed locally and going over to electric arc furnaces would limit the losses to 3,000.

According to Wiki. On 30 March 2016 Tata Steel threatened to pull out of steel making in the UK due to imports of cheaper Chinese steel, high energy costs, and weak demand. It put withdrawal on hold due to the Brexit referendum result of Leaving the EU.

According to the BBC. Tata Steel in Port Talbot is capable of producing 5 million tonnes of steel per year. (1 tonne is 1000kg, equivalent to 0.98 tons). That the plant had lost £160m in the last three months, (which is £1.7m a day, not £150m a day). Losing the two blast furnaces will cause the loss of 2800 employees and many times that in the supply chain.

They also stated that the Port Talbot site was the largest single emitter of CO ₂ in the UK and removing the blast furnaces would reduce the CO ₂ emissions in Wales by 20% (1/5th) and in the UK by 1.5% (1/66th). Tata Steel was committed to meet its Net Zero target by 2045 by building Carbon Capture and Storage and by the use of Green Hydrogen Fuel.

According to the Guardian. Tata employs 4000 workers at the Port Talbot site and 2800 will be made redundant in the next 18 months. It will cost £1,200,000,000 (£1b) to construct the new electric arc furnaces and will take 4 years to complete. We will then be the only G20 country without the ability to make steel form iron ore.

The Future for Port Talbot. Let us suppose that Tata will make 2800 workers redundant and there are three times that number in the supply chain. That is 11,200 people employed from the town and surrounding area all using local infrastructure and spending their earnings in the town. So, it isn’t just about the immediate commercial supply chain for Tata Steel it’s also the economic life blood of the local economy.

We hear constantly about how the use of renewables and its attendant infrastructure is creating thousands of new jobs. That is a lie, and the truth is we need to be using a new expression, Green Unemployment. There is also no such thing as economic Green Hydrogen Fuel.

Consider the Effect on the Economy. If the average wage for the 11,200 people employed in Tata and its supply chain is £30,000 a year, they each contribute £5,500 in Tax and NI which is a total of £61m a year contribution to the Treasury. Tata Steel is the largest employer in the area and staffed by workers ranging from at least 18 to 67 the vast majority of those made redundant will never work again.

So, if they all end up on Universal Credit, that is a cost to the Treasury of £291m a year. Total loss to the economy is £61m + £291m = £352m a year as well as the loss of being self-sufficient in steel production from iron ore. If the Treasury is going to lose £352m a year because of closing just the Port Talbot plant and the loss of making steel from iron-ore, they should subsidise Tata to keep the plant open.

The electric arc furnaces cost four times as much to run as furnaces burning coking coal. And the coking coal would be even cheaper if the climate tariffs added onto it were removed. The use of electric arc furnaces is much less economic than ones using coking coal so that is going to make the steel cost much more. This will dramatically increase the daily loss to Tata Steel and bring about a rapid total closure of the plant.

Where is the £1.6b coming from to build the electric arc furnaces and to install carbon capture and storage over the next 5 years, in order to meet its Net Zero target by 2045?

Also, we need to consider that 60% of the generated electricity used to fuel the arc furnaces will be from fossil fuels. So, the new electric arc furnaces are not zero emissions of CO ₂ but are just transferring its generation to the electricity producers.

Likewise, if and when Tata Steel pulls out completely from UK, all our steel production needs will come from China where they will be producing CO ₂ using blast furnaces.

That is not reducing the human emissions of CO ₂ it is just geography.

This is all a result of the Climate Change Act of 2007. Labour ending coal mining and coal burning, resulting in the knock-on effect of increasing costs of iron and steel production.

Visit any of the towns in Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire and take a look at once thriving towns, now shabby and with half the shops in the high streets closed and boarded up. Go to the shipyards of the northeast and in Scotland and find wastelands.

The UK Independence Party urges the government to stop the Net Zero nonsense, revoke the 2007 Climate Change Act and subsequent acts preventing the building of new coal fired power stations. To start mining our own coal again and creating our own coking coal for the blast furnaces and make steel production cost effective again in the UK. This will create many thousands of fossil fuel jobs in South Wales, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire creating revenue for the Treasury.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Energy, Environment, Transport and Treasury

Asylum Seekers & Faith

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 08:29:22 GMT

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Education and Religion

The revelation that asylum seekers are professing a conversion to Christianity in their attempts to enter the UK strikes a new low in our national humiliation.

That such assertions seem to be taken seriously adds to the farcical nature of this development and exposes the vacuity of those who govern us and their inadequacy at protecting their own citizens from invading criminals.

A simple theological test (assuming the British Government have on their payroll someone capable of carrying out such an exercise) would make transparent the emptiness of any phony expressions of faith.

A job for the Archbishop of Canterbury perhaps?

Then again maybe not!

Strangely not too many Christians are heading for Saudi Arabia to claim asylum as new converts to Islam.

Wonder why!

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Education and Religion

You can't eat "Net Zero"

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 21:46:02 GMT

John Gartside

UK Independence Party - Fishing Spokesman

Our seas, some of the most productive in the world (of fish obviously) are filling up with wind turbines to such an extent that the politicians are running out of zones where seabed installation is feasible. This might be an opportunity to reconsider the limits of what is achievable through ‘renewable’ power generation, mainly from wind and wood chips shipped across the Atlantic.

However, a large new wind farm is now scheduled to be built off the east coast of Scotland, the Ossian Wind farm which will float whilst anchored to the seabed. All in pursuit of the unachievable Net Zero introduced by a Labour minister whose father was an avowed Marxist and left on the statute book by the Tories and vigorously pursued by Scottish politicians.

Generation by wind turbines is not financially viable without the Contracts for Difference or the subsidies for which providers bid in Dutch auctions to receive taxpayer funds. However, wind generation is also destroying the viable activity and mainstay of many coastal communities so do our fishermen receive subsidies for having their fishing grounds covered in wind turbines and having then to go further afield to catch fish? Will they get compensation for when the Tory party denominates their fishing grounds as Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs)? Did they get compensation when the Tories handed over massive ‘quotas’ of our fish to the EU ‘to get Brexit done’? Will they receive compensation for the extra cost of the diesel which they will have to pay because the refiners are being forced to produce fuel through the use of ‘green’ technology and then capture the carbon dioxide and do something with it, whatever.

This is all part and parcel of using Net Zero as a wrecking ball to undermine our way of life. It must bring a warm glow to those who froth at the mouth as they spout vitriol at those they deprecate as ‘nativists’; that’s us, we are the ones being deracinated by the mainstream political parties who deliberately undermine our traditional industries of the sea and the soil and replace them with those activities which are preferred by their alien imports.

John Gartside

UK Independence Party - Fishing Spokesman

Rise in Measles. Declaration of a national incident!

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 22:28:47 GMT

Dr. Chris Ho

UK Independence Party spokesman for Health and Social Care

A few days ago, the UK Health Security Agency declared a “national incident” regarding the rise of measles in the UK. The agency’s annual figures showed that in England MMR vaccine uptake for first and second doses by five years has fallen to the lowest rates since 2010/11.

Metro report that London fared the worst Areas with best and worst MMR vaccination rates revealed – is yours on the list? (msn.com) Concurrently, the WHO has issued an urgent warning over an “alarming” 30-fold rise in cases across Europe WHO issues measles warning as yearly cases in Europe rise more than 30-fold | MMR | The Guardian

To give some background, measles transmission was re-established in the UK in 2018, after the country achieved eradication status in 2016 and 2017. In 2019, prior to the covid-19 pandemic, there were around 808 confirmed cases of measles and 5 deaths, in England and Wales. There was a reduction in cases in 2020 and 2021, likely due to pandemic measures, before recent increases.

Obviously, there are at least 3 major considerations here: 1. certain communities have lower vaccine uptake than others. Whilst correlation does not always equate causation, it seems pertinent that London, as well as Birmingham which has an ongoing outbreak 'Urgent' measles action required as UKHSA declares 'national incident' - Pulse Today ), have high immigrant populations, possibly from countries with lower MMR vaccine uptake. 2. The heavy handedness of the covid-19 vaccination measures may have yet another spill over effect in increasing reluctance to other vaccines. 3. It is possible that after achieving eradication status, measles has been re-introduced into the UK from our lax immigration policy, and by the extension of Europe too.

If a government is focused on its primary objective in protecting the interests of its citizens, and is sufficiently competent, one would hope that these considerations would be made in determining future policy.

Dr. Chris Ho

UK Independence Party spokesman for Health and Social Care

SIZE MATTERS - The British Military is in crisis!

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 22:19:26 GMT

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson R’td

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Defence and Veterans

The number one priority of any government is to ensure the safety and defence of the country. Our British military is in crisis, with a critical shortage of personnel.

Is wokeism to blame for the lack of recruitment? It seems that Gen Z are not stepping up to the demanding roles required by the armed forces. I have met and know many Gen Z, they are not all, by far, the generation they are painted to be. Yes, they have a different focus on life, times have changed.

The armed forces have seen a reduction in physical fitness requirements, the acceptance of neck and hand tattoos and the allowance of beards in the army and air force. Certainly, Diversity and Inclusion has a lot to answer for, as many experienced military personnel are making the decision to leave the armed forces due to the imposed regimes.

Recruitment goals have not been met since 2010. Infantry units are 30% under strength and the Royal Navy cannot send one of its two aircraft carriers to the Red Sea due to staffing problems. Grant Shapps has indicated that the UK’s two amphibious assault ships that are used to project power across the world via the Royal Marines and the Commando Helicopter Force are going to be mothballed. This could indicate the end of the Royal marines as we know them. On top of this the Royal navy are to retire two frigates due to “shortages”. Admiral Nelson will be turning in his grave.

As for airpower, the RAF and Navy F35’s will not be fully up to operating capacity until 2025, with the current aircraft in service, mainly being used for training. In the year 2000, the armed forces stood at 110k personnel, in 2023 this had fallen to 77.5k and is projected to be a total of 73k by 2025, with just over 50k personnel in the army.

Yet despite all of the above, the British Army are to be the first line of defence should President Vladimir Putin decide to push beyond Ukraine and invade Europe. At best our troops could expect to defend and fight for two to three months. A senior US General has publicly stated that the UK is no longer a tier one fighting force.

As I stated in the opening sentence, the number one priority of any Government is to assure the defence and security of the country, yet year after year, government after government, the country has witnessed the decimation of our countries self-defence, this is a dereliction of duty.

Despite being the world’s sixth biggest spender on defence, the country still has a £17bn black hole. Finances have been wasted on employing CAPITA to undertake recruitment, their focus, it seems, is achieving diversity and inclusion quotas rather than filling the recruitment numbers badly needed.

The world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place and the defence of the realm through a strong, fully funded, well trained and experienced fighting force across all three services should be a major priority. A mutually assured defence commitment though NATO is vital. The countries expenditure on the defence budget needs to increase substantially. The recruitment of personnel needs to focus on the quality of personnel across the board and not to concentrate on diversity and inclusion quotas.

The armed forces need to be trained well, paid well, equipped well and accommodated in quality accommodation. The armed forces deserve the countries respect, now more than ever, those that serve to keep us all safe are doing so with dwindling resources and manpower, managing to do so with the utmost professionalism.

The United Kingdom Independence Party would ensure the armed forces are rebuilt to a formidable force, with the correct equipment, training, pay scales and career advancement, capable of projecting the UK’s military might across the globe. We would also ensure that our armed forces veterans are treated with the dignity they deserve for serving their country, ensuring they have all they support they need.

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson R’td

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Defence and Veterans

Together in Electric Dreams

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 22:12:57 GMT

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Energy and the Environment

Maybe 10 years ago people started using smart phones with lithium-ion batteries. A small number of them burst into flames, for no apparent reason but probably a chemical reaction. As a result, the royal Mail banned the transport of goods including specifically lithium-ion batteries, but they became wary of all batteries.

Around the same time the new fleet of Boing Aircraft, maybe the 737, started suffering electric fires from the batteries mounted below the cockpit, probably also lithium-ion batteries. The makers of the batteries modified the chemical content and smart phones and planes now very rarely burst into flames.

More recently container ships carrying electric vehicles from the continent and the Far-East have had vehicle batteries spontaneously combust, some cause the complete loss of the ship and all its vehicles. Also, electric cars are much more likely to spontaneously combust than petrol and diesel vehicles, referred to as internal combustion engines, (ICE).

In December 2022 I wrote a Press Release about the comparative cost of the Royal Mail fleet of 41,500 petrol and diesel Fiat Doblo’s with a similar size e-Expert and e-Partner vans. Using the new fleet of electric vans would cost £640m a year more to run than the ICE versions.

At that time the Royal Mail was losing £1m a day due to operating costs exceeding income. OFGEM has continued to fund new electric vans to the Delivery Offices as the older vehicles are retired. What no-one seems to have considered is that although the batteries have nominal 7-year life, they also have a life based on charge and recharge equivalent to 100,000 miles, which if the van does 100miles a day, this limits the life to just 3 years!

Having spoken to the delivery van Postmen they have told me they are wary about using the electric vans on high mileage routes because of the likelihood of running out of charge and becoming stranded.

Last week around 18th January Hertz in the USA announced it is selling off its fleet of 20,000 electric vehicles because the customers having used them once or twice then go back to hiring petrol and diesel vehicles. The customers have the same wariness of finding suitable charging points during their journeys. The point here also is, with high mileage rental vehicles, who will want to buy them. They might be quite a lot of miles on the clock with only limited battery life left.

On 20th January 2024 on GB News, it was announced that in the last 6 months the Royal Mail has lost £390m, that is £2.1m a day. They really cannot afford to run electric vans!

Giant batteries made up from end-of-life electric vehicle batteries also spontaneously combust and now there are signs popping up around the country saying No to Dangerous Giant Batteries.

Now I hear that multi-story car parks are now limiting electric vehicles to the top deck only. Which means there will be a lot of wasted spaces on that deck because who can risk parking an ICE car next to a number of electric ones.

Rishi Sunak has recently confirmed by an act of Parliament to enforce that by 2030 a dealer can only sell one petrol or diesel car for every 4 electric vehicles sold. But the sales of electric vehicles to the public and now also to fleets are falling fast. If the statute stays on the books, electric cars sales will fall to zero and that will stop the sales of ICE vehicle as well. The government will have successfully stopped the sales of domestic vehicles. All in the scheme to meet the impossible target of Net Zero.

It is no good voting for Labour or the Liberal Democrats in the forthcoming general election because they are even greater fanatics with Net Zero than the Conservatives.

A vote for UKIP is a vote to keep the efficient, low cost, and safe ICE family car.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Energy and the Environment

Adding Insult to NI Injury

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 21:02:24 GMT

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party spokesman for The United Kingdom

The Northern Ireland Protocol and Windsor Framework are a constitutional boil that should be lanced at the first opportunity. It strangles trade between two parts of the UK and drives a wedge between two UK communities. Thus, leading to the current gridlock over power sharing in Stormont.

But the Tory government, as naively optimistic as ever, have come up with what they see as the solution.

And that is to re-name the Windsor Framework ‘Green Lane’. The Green Lane being for goods from the UK that will stay in Northern Ireland and not move on into the EU single market, so attracting fewer checks.

They want to rename it as the ‘UK Internal Market Lane’.

Well, WOW! Makes you want to weep!

It’s akin to the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, changing the name of his ULEZ scheme into the Car Owning Enhancement Programme. That is to say, it’s a blatant lie.

The reality is that the Green Lane should be renamed the “EU border fast track for certain accepted UK goods”.

I really do wish that the EU put as much effort into controlling its external borders and English Channel beaches as it puts into the new Irish Sea border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

However, the swiftest route to remedying this sorry situation, is to ditch the protocol and the Windsor Framework entirely.

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party spokesman for The United Kingdom

The Folly of Burning Woodchip!

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 20:50:02 GMT

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Energy and the Environment

An article in Physics World by Kate Ravilious and published online on https://physicsworld.com/a/biomass-energy-green-or-dirty/ includes studies by John Sterman of MIT and Mary Booth an Ecologist from Massachusetts about the rate of release and re- absorption of CO ₂ by burning and re-growing trees.

The paper reveals that burning woodchip produces 50% more CO ₂ than coal and the rate at which it is being liberated will take between 40 and 100 years of new tree growth to sequestrate. This means that woodchip burning is not carbon neutral and is worse in the short term than burning coal.

The CO ₂ being generated by the burning of diesel fuel to drive the logging and chipping machinery together with lorries, and trains required to transport it from the forests of eastern USA and Canada as well as the emission of CO ₂ by the ships bringing it to the UK is being dismissed as insignificant. It is another classic example of the science fiction and creative accounting of the Net Zero lobby.

The woodchip pellets arrive at Hull, Newcastle, and Liverpool in a continuous stream of ships from North America. Each ship takes 3 days to unload into freight trucks and it takes 37 trains per ship to get the woodchips to Drax in north Yorkshire, which consumes them at a rate of 24,800 tons a day.

Birch and Ash from North America is four times the volume of coal. There used to be a single huge storage building the size of the Albert Hall to store coal, so now, four times that amount of storage is required at Drax. Coal mined in the UK would save thousands of miles of transport. Also, the residue from coal is large quantities of gypsum used to make plasterboard needed for building homes.

Now it seems that the German owners of Drax have accepted that woodchip burning is producing 1½ times the CO ₂ of burning coal and because it won’t be re-sequestered for 40 to 100 years, they have now decided to build Carbon Capture and Storage facilities there, for which the budget is £40,000,000,000 (£40b). Just to produce up to 2.5GW of electricity.

It is the policy of the UK Independence Party to build sixteen of the Small Modular Reactors proposed by Rolls Royce each producing 470MW at a cost of £2b.

This would produce 7.5GW of electricity continuously and together with Hinckley Point C would bring the nuclear generation up to 11GW, about a quarter of our daylight electricity needs, and carbon zero. All at the price of £32b, or £8b less that the Carbon Capture and Storage at Drax.

There is really no point in Carbon Capture and Storage because satellite and

radio-sonde measurements show there is no warming trend due to the rising levels of CO _2. The only place that global temperature is rising is in the General Circulation Models of the Meteorological Office and the laboratories of the Universities of East Anglia and Exeter.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Energy and the Environment

Again, Ministers caught sleeping at the wheel

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 23:49:13 GMT

Neil Hamilton

Leader - UK Independence Party

The Post Office scandal proves once again that the Westminster, Whitehall and Big Business Establishment are all in it together as the enemies of ordinary people. The likes of Paula Vennels and 'Sir’ Ed Davey aren't fit to wipe the shoes of sub-postmasters.

The Post Office must be stripped of its power to bring private prosecutions. Its mafioso-style criminal investigations branch must be closed down and replaced by an independent body.

All Post Office apparatchiks involved in the persecution of innocent postmasters should themselves face justice - dismissal for gross misconduct and criminal prosecution if they lied, concealed evidence or were guilty of criminal negligence in pursuit of unlawful prosecutions.

Ministers responsible and asleep at the wheel at material times should apologise for their indolence and stupidity and be publicly humiliated. They should also make financial recompense for their negligence.

Most importantly, sub-postmasters ruined financially should receive full restitution of what they lost. £75,000 total compensation announced by Kevin Hollinrake is utterly derisory for ruined lives and businesses.

It proves the Government still doesn't get it. Compensation should be a minimum of £250,000 for each victim in addition to their financial losses. £1,000,000 would not be excessive for the families of those who committed suicide. The Post Office has blood on its hands and should willingly pay 'blood money'.

Fujitsu should be vigorously pursued by the Government and Post Office for exemplary damages for covering up the truth after the scandal was publicly revealed.

'Sir' Ed Davey should hand back his knighthood - there is nothing honourable about his part in this saga - and he should disgorge his £250,000 ill-gotten gains for 'advising' Herbert Smith Freehills, the Post Office's rottweiler solicitors who wrecked the lives of so many blameless people.

The whole Westminster Establishment should be booted out. The old parties are the problem - they are all in it together. We need new parties to replace the rotten hulks who will be competing for our votes in 2024.

UKIP broke the EU mould in 2016. Let us do the same for Britain in 2024.

Neil Hamilton

Leader - UK Independence Party

UKIP calls for an end to colour-blind policing

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 23:39:05 GMT

Anne Marie Waters

UK Independence Party Spokesman for- Justice, Equality and Disability,

Abuse and Exploitation

The latest report into police failures involving so-called “grooming gangs” reveals that our policing or political leaders have learned no lessons. The report focused on 111 Rochdale cases between 2004 and 2013 and stated that evidence of the repeated rape of young girls was never investigated. Furthermore, it identified 96 men who are still considered a risk to children in Rochdale.

What is not addressed is the political policing that permits such terrible crimes to go unpunished. It is our firm belief that if groups of white men raped non-white girls, action would have been taken, and indeed our political leadership would have stepped in and tackled the problem.

Furthermore, police were, and still are, encouraged to apply the law along racial lines and to consider the political fallout of criminal punishment. This is an affront to justice.

The UK Independence Party Justice Spokesperson Anne Marie Waters said;

“The only way to deliver justice is to treat all people equally, regardless of skin colour or religious affiliation. The politicisation of policing must stop immediately, and we must face uncomfortable truths about whether multiculturalism is working or has left some of the most vulnerable people in our society without help or support because of the colour of their skin”.

The UK Independence Party calls for an end to colour-blind policing as the only route to true justice for all people who live in our country.

Anne Marie Waters

UK Independence Party Spokesman for- Justice, Equality and Disability,

Abuse and Exploitation

Time for a new Health Care Model

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 23:30:52 GMT

Dr. Chris Ho

UK Independence Party spokesman for Health and Social Care

Wednesday 3rd January marked the start of a new 6-day strike by the junior doctors in England over pay. The longest strike in history during a period of the year typically characterised by seasonal pressures of winter flu, holidays and staff absences due to sickness. I remind readers that junior doctors carried out strike action last month prior to Christmas, and also in March, April, June and July last year.

The BMA have set a “starting figure” of 35% pay rise to make up of years of “pay increases less than inflation”. The inherent assumption of course is that public sector pay is tied to inflation, however, there is no legal regulation that stipulates this.

The estimated costs of these strikes range from cancellation of many thousands of appointments, elective surgeries, increased waiting times, monetary costs in the many millions, and unknown harm to patients. This is compounded by other strikes previously by nurses, ambulance workers, consultants and specialty doctors last year too. It is completely understandable to feel aggrieved about decreasing real time pay, and that is the consequence of poor spending of public funds and mismanagement by the state. Case-in-point: The NHS’s diversity tsar is paid an annual salary of £230,000, more than its chief executive.

In Scotland, the junior doctors agreed a pay increase of 4.5% 2022/23, and 12.4% 2023/24. This was after First Minister Humza declaring “there was nothing left in the coffers”. This estimated £60m will be met from existing budgets, i.e. cuts elsewhere. This is true of course, as fundamentally, Scotland and the UK, are both running at a deficit. If funds are not spent more wisely (assuming that’s achievable), then the gap would be bridged by, you guessed it, more borrowing and printing of money. Any economist not ideologically possessed will tell you that that will only worsen inflation, leading to more demand for public sector pay increase and strikes. Where then is the end to the vicious cycle?

The next general election is likely to be in the second half of 2024 and will be a chance to rethink the model with which healthcare and other services are provided. The UK Independence Party’s section on health policy is a thought-provoking start to addressing some of these issues. If strike action continues to be protracted, I see no winners here. The taxpayer and wider public would again end up paying the unseen costs, and the stealth tax of inflation. And I see no signs that any of the mainstream parties have the competence or the will to solve this.

Dr. Chris Ho

UK Independence Party spokesman for Health and Social Care

What's the story with wool?

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 12:24:19 GMT

Pat Bryant

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Food and Rural Affairs

If you like to wear wool, one of the most sustainable of fabrics, do you ever wonder why it is so expensive?

Well, I have more questions than answers… Many farmers are just burning fleeces or giving them away to gardeners because the British Wool Board who buys them pay so little.

A fleece shorn from a lowland sheep will weigh approximately 2kg and the average price paid to the farmer is 20p per kg. The cost of shearing a sheep is approximately £2.15 but that is just the end cost.

Prior to shearing the sheep have to be checked daily and treated for fly trike to ensure the fleeces are in good order and saleable – the total cost of which comes to about £4.20 including labour. So, the cost to the farmer is £6.35 and all he receives for the fleece is 40p!

Questions – for the British Wool Board

1, Why are you robbing the farmers?

2, Why are you not marketing British Wool – TV advertising – product promotion?

3, Insulation is a big issue – why are you not promoting wool as a natural insulation material?

The British Wool Marketing Board states on their web site …

“Our purpose is to champion British wool and the farmers who produce this amazing, natural fibre, whilst promoting every aspect of wool production and usage.”

I can see no evidence of any of that being true.

Pat Bryant

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Food and Rural Affairs

Tice - A Saturdays Child, or does he "work" for a living?

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 09:38:37 GMT

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party Director

Richard Tice, leader of Reform UK, made such a song and dance about the huge announcement he planned to make on the 3 ^rd January 2024.

Telling all and sundry to make certain they did not miss his proclamation, organising national press to be at the ready with their recording machines and notebooks, declaring on Social Media that he had big breaking news to share with everybody. He had everyone champing at the bit. It was truly a damp squib!

He announced that Ben Habib was going to stand as a Parliamentary Candidate for Reform UK in a by-election that hasn’t even been called. Is he off his rocker? Or desperate for any sort of publicity?

Nigel Farage who is currently Reform UK’s honorary president and according to Richard Tice ‘a master of political timing’ is still ‘assessing’ what role he will play in the general election. Nigel was conspicuous by his absence at this eagerly anticipated event.

While listening to a rather agitated Richard Tice you could not help but notice his constant reference to the ‘working class’, who, these days uses such language? What does working class even mean to the average citizen?

Is it an insult? Is it a compliment? Does he think he is speaking in the vernacular to reach a larger audience? The man is out of touch with society in general.

It was the case that the social group known as the working class consisted mostly of people who were employed in unskilled or semi-skilled manual or industrial work. Not today, Richard, you obviously haven’t noticed, things have changed.

Get with the programme Richard Tice. By constantly referring to the working class you are coming across as a privileged, self-important snob.

You will have lost many votes by using this outdated tongue.

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party Director

Reform UK are nothing without Nigel!

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 09:22:54 GMT

Janice Mackay

UK Independence Party National Campaign Manager

UK Independence Party would like to formally challenge the general perception presented by the mainstream media that Reform UK will be a threat to the Conservative Party at the forthcoming General Election.

Reform UK is hanging on to Farage’s coat tails. By themselves they are a collection of “Johnny Come Latelies” to the patriotic cause. Where were they when the fight to leave the EU was at its most demanding?

Most of UKIP activists have been actively getting on with the job for years and in some cases, for decades building up a sound opposition to the EU globalists and the principle of mass immigration.

Where were Mr Tice? Mr Habib? Before 2021. Nobody had ever heard of them! Now they are our political saviours. That is until a more appropriate carrot is dangled in front of them. At the first sign of trouble, they will disappear like snow from the proverbial dyke.

The UK Independence Party will use whatever resources we have to challenge the current Conservative nonsense and we remind everyone that a full set of carefully thought through policies are available for inspection on our website.

We urge like-minded people to stick with us or to join us.

Our track record is an honourable one. We expect no personal gain just what is truly best for our country.

Reform UK simply exist to inflate the egos of those whose egos are already well extended.

The UK Independence Party is here to stay, and the mainstream media would be carrying out their duties in a more professional manner were they to give a tried and tested party such as UKIP the same courtesies they extend to the money men of Reform UK

The UK Independence Party is finalising target seats and candidates for the forthcoming General Election.

The Party pledge that we shall not field a candidate in any Parliamentary constituency where Nigel Farage chooses to stand.

This pledge applies only to Nigel, other Reform UK candidates are fair game from our point of view.

Janice Mackay

UK Independence Party National Campaign Manager

We want London back.

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 11:29:40 GMT

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Business, Foreign Affairs and Culture

Once upon a time, London felt a safe place to live. People could leave their front door unlocked and walk the streets without feeling threatened. But things have changed. Violence is an all-too-common occurrence.

On Saturday 30 th December, armed and violent Eritrean and Ethiopian immigrants attacked each other in Camberwell Road in Southwark, in southeast London. There is video footage of hysterical protesters wielding sticks battling with police and throwing objects at them. Riot vans and batons were needed to restore order. A section 35 dispersal order was imposed for up to 48 hours.

The protests concerned a third-world dispute which revolves around Ethiopia’s claim to regain access to the Red Sea after losing it in 1991 when Eritrea became independent. Half-a-million people are estimated to have died in the Tigray War which started in 2020. In November 2022, the two countries signed a peace deal to end the war but the dispute continues.

Those committing criminal acts to bring violence to our streets should be deported. None of this is relevant to the natives of the UK, the natives of London or to the London police force. It is NOT our war.

Successive governments’ immigration policies have failed and led to too many new people arriving with alien values and incompatible cultures. Third world disputes, customs and traditions have no place in the UK. These serious disturbances are proof that we have stark problems with immigrants in the UK, principally in London.

The UK Independence Party believes multiculturalism results in divisive, parallel communities where minority communities have values and customs that conflict with British ones. Successive governments have been too slow to act and the whole mess is now completely out of hand.

The UK Independence Party rejects the importation of third world values, because allowing them to take root means that the UK would end up like the third world. The UK Independence Party will send these people go back to their own countries so that they can protest there rather than pursue their third-world disputes in our once peaceful country.

We do not want this anti-social behaviour on our streets. But the Conservative Home Office is doing nothing to prevent it.

The UK Independence Party will end the madness. We will have zero tolerance and we will deport foreign criminals who attack our police and who bring unwanted ethnic violence to the streets of London.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Business, Foreign Affairs and Culture

Is it too late to save Christianity?

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 17:43:23 GMT

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Education and Religion

In 1961 the Islamic population of the UK was 0.1%. Twenty years later in 1981 it was 1.11%. Forty years later in 2021 it was 6.5%. Projections for 2050 are for that figure to treble.

There are around 50 countries in the world where it is illegal to teach from the Bible- around 10 where any kind of Christian worship has to be underground with one exception (North Korea) these countries have one thing in common. Their religion is predominantly or exclusively Muslim.

Freedom to worship your understanding of God or to reject Him entirely if that is your wish is one of the foundations of Western democracies with their vague allegiance to Christianity.

We are, to partially quote a British statesman of a previous generation, a nation busily engaged in building our own funeral pyre. This has happened under the watch of Conservative Governments. Madness abounds and the Christian churches- both Protestant and Catholic are as usual asleep.

The UK Independence Party recognize that there are such things as nationhood and citizenship which ought not to be granted casually or carelessly.

A vote for us is a vote to prevent this coming catastrophe,

assuming it is not already too late!

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Education and Religion

No support for Food Production. Why?

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 17:38:40 GMT

Pat Bryant

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Food and Rural Affairs

It has been a difficult year for Farmers and Growers trying to plan their forward business under a government which does not appear to know if it is coming or going, and it does not appear that things are set to improve in 2024.

According to Professor Chris Elliott, of Queen’s University Belfast consumers are likely to suffer shortages of fruit and vegetables in the coming year – due amongst other things to the lack of the UK Government having a strategy for Food Security.

For the life of me I cannot understand why not? They have targets for Net Zero, Heat Pumps, Green Energy but nothing for food. They do not appear to accept that food is the primary source of energy.

To make matters worse they use the taxpayer pound to push forward their targets but despite the promises made when we left the EU there is little or nothing for food production. Farmers are offered money for planting Trees, Hedges and Wildflower meadows but food is distinctly lacking from DEFRA’s plans.

Pat Bryant

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Food and Rural Affairs

Farm Assurance Scandal

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 17:32:45 GMT

Pat Bryant

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Food and Rural Affairs

Farm Assurance was supported to give the consumer confidence that the food they buy is reared to the highest standards and to give the farmer a premium on produce to compensate for the high standards and increased costs.

RED TRACTOR is probably the best known of the Assurance Schemes. The sight of a Red Tractor on your joint of lamb was supposed to be a sign that it was reared in the UK to the highest welfare standards BUT…. a check of the small print on your joint (proudly bearing the Red Tractor logo) is likely to reveal that your lamb was produced in New Zealand and your beef and chicken in Poland.

Of course, the Supermarkets don’t care – high welfare costs money and they do not want to pay the UK farmer the going rate – so they buy in food stuffs (which may be fine to eat) over which they have no assurance of the Welfare Standards. And that premium that the Farmers were promised – well that evaporated pretty quickly as well.

The consumer is being duped and the UK Farmers are being pushed to the edge of bankruptcy.

Pat Bryant

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Food and Rural Affairs

The Rwanda Farce

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 17:27:07 GMT

Anne Marie Waters

UK Independence Party Spokesman for- Justice, Equality and Disability,

Abuse and Exploitation

Known as the UK and Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership, or the Rwanda asylum plan, Britain’s new arrangement with the African country is unlikely to “stop the boats” as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak continually promises. Now that it has passed its House of Commons hurdle, it’s perhaps time to reflect and examine precisely what the plan is, what it means, and why The UK Independence Party must oppose it and expose it as political theatre.

The intention was to remove the thousands of people who come here and are housed and fed on an ever-more-overburdened British taxpayer and send them to Rwanda instead. It was introduced in April 2022 and meant that “asylum seekers” would be sent for processing to the African nation; they could stay there, go home, or go on to yet another country. It is more than a year old, and yet, not a single “asylum seeker” has been removed from Britain under its terms.

Let me explain why I place “asylum seeker” in quotation marks. The people coming to Britain on boats are not asylum seekers because such a person must be fleeing persecution on the grounds of their race, religion, or similar grounds. That persecution must be personal to them, but upon arrival in the UK, this is never asked or tested. People are coming from countries that have no conflict, and no evidence of ethnic persecution, and yet, thousands come under the asylum pretence. These people are fleeing the poverty they and their leaders have created, and many want the Western world to provide for them instead of providing for themselves.

The last-minute intervention of the European Court of Human Rights thwarted the government’s initial attempts to deport people to Rwanda. This institution should have no bearing on British decisions.

In the latest developments this month, the government has passed a new piece of legislation that allows deportations to take place without paying heed to the demands of the European Court and classifies Rwanda as a safe country. Good news? No, because “asylum seekers” will still be permitted to challenge their deportation under human rights laws, which renders the whole exercise moot.

Sunak was forced to re-legislate not solely on the grounds of the European intervention but because our own Supreme Court found the arrangement with Rwanda unlawful because it risks the safety of the “asylum seeker.” The Court stated that “refoulement” was a possibility and, therefore, the deal was illegal. Refoulement means returning the “asylum seeker” to their own country and is unlawful under numerous legal instruments, including, of course, the Human Rights Act.

Under the new legislation, Home Secretary James Cleverley said refoulement is not a possibility, and a new panel will be established to ensure that Rwanda lives up to that and other obligations. A new appeals process will also be established, and Britain will pay the living costs of deportees for their first five years in Rwanda. Isn’t this extraordinary? How is it that our government can go to such efforts, lengths, and cost, to protect total strangers from the other side of the world, who have no legitimate claim to asylum, but British people are subjected to horrific crimes without any effort to protect them or any regard for their safety by the courts.

The UK Independence Party should reject this farce in its entirety. It will do nothing to secure Britain’s borders. To do that, we must scrap the Human Rights Act and review any other piece of domestic legislation or international treaty that prevents us from keeping British people safe from unvetted migrants and ensuring the survival of British culture for generations to come.

The United Kingdom is not independent, regardless of Brexit status, because we cannot enforce our own laws without external interference. UKIP must be clear – we will pull out of any arrangement whatsoever that prevents us from closing our borders. It is necessary and popular, and The UK Independence Party is the only party tough enough to pull it off.

Anne Marie Waters

UK Independence Party Spokesman for- Justice, Equality and Disability,

Abuse and Exploitation

Britain is BROKEN!

steve@sgrimes.com (Steve Grimes) — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 12:20:22 GMT

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Business, Foreign Affairs and Culture

Before the Second World War the UK essentially had a single national culture and identity but that began to change with the demise of the British Empire. The 1948 British Nationality Act gave everyone who lived in the UK or any British colony around the world, the same rights to live and work in Britain and between 1947 and 1970, nearly half a million people migrated to the UK. Fuelled by the liberal “human rights” brigade, the notion of a native Englishman, Scotsman, Welshman or Irishman gradually went out of fashion as all post-war governments lost their will to preserve our national identity and forced the UK population to ‘celebrate diversity’.

In the early years, immigrants from different nations and ethnic or religious backgrounds generally respected each other and accepted a common way of life. They adopted the “when in Rome” principle and generally fitted-in with their hosts and lived and worked side by side. But, with the passage of time, the UK split into widely different, often incompatible, cultural identity groups, and this is now creating division. Thus, multiculturalism is now a problem. State-sponsored promotion of diversity is breeding divisive politics of identity.

Once a predominantly white, Christian country things are changing. Multiculturalism is rapidly changing the face of our nation. Our institutions are obsessed with celebrating a multicultural ideology, applauding ‘difference’ and ‘diversity’ while pouring scorn on the concept of a single UK national character. Swathes of multicultural UK have sunk into the divisive politics of identity which falsely portray UK history, culture and traditions as a matter of shame. In 21st century Britain our political elite are embarrassed by any hint of patriotism or pride in the UK’s history and achievements.

Since the 2016 EU referendum there has been a penchant amongst liberal academics to undermine our national identity. Patriotism and love of our country are out of fashion. Left-wing politicians’ have taken to the knee in acts of fake contrition to those who hate our country and all that it stands for. Liberal left-wing cultural Marxists deride traditional values like duty and loyalty and vilify or even try to burn the Union flag. These woke, unpatriotic attitudes thrive in our universities, schools and in left-wing, woke media such as the BBC. Needless to say, the UK Independence Party wants nothing to do with them.

Multiculturalism is the politics of ‘divide and rule’. It creates divisive parallel communities where people of different cultures hold values and customs that conflict with traditional UK norms and standards. It does not require “new arrivals” to integrate but encourages dissimilar ethnic and religious groups to live separate lives and retain and celebrate their differences at the expense of integrating into the majority culture.

In 1966, Labour’s Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins ushered in a state-backed policy of multiculturalism. He rejected the ‘melting pot’ policy of assimilating migrants into a UK identity in favour of ‘cultural diversity’. Labour’s efforts to create a multicultural society went too far, too fast. We now see cultures which largely do not coexist, living parallel lives, observing different laws and engaging in illegal barbaric cultural practices in the UK. On New Labour’s watch, multicultural UK first saw the rise of radical Islam in towns and cities across the UK. Almost sixty years later the divisive consequences of Labour’s policy are obvious, and the UK Independence Party aims to reform UK law and policy to make assimilation the key objective.

Of course, the Conservatives are no better as all the establishment parties now applaud the UK’s multicultural society. No disagreement is tolerated by any of them. Anyone who attempts to condemn the failure of multiculturalism is immediately accused of racism, excluded from the media and will become a “non-person”. Parties like the UK Independence Party that applaud patriotism will be side-lined, falsely condemned and kept as far as possible in the political wilderness. Many ethnic communities retain their allegiance to their country of origin by means of dual passports, and although being UK citizens, these people actually have a greater allegiance to foreign nations than they do to the UK where they live.

With so many minority groups now living within our country there are so many different views on what it means to be a UK citizen. We are no longer English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish. We have a country made up of minority societies who all live amongst us with their own different ideas and perceptions and who have no belief in common values or a national sense of purpose.

The UK Independence Party deplores the neglect of successive asleep at the wheel governments. Third-world customs and traditions have no place in the UK. Woke, namby-pamby police are scared of causing “community tensions” so do not bring perpetrators to justice. Our Party will therefore fully investigate the failure to enforce UK law in culturally alien communities.

Since 2001, when al-Qaeda attacked New York on 9/11, we have seen deep cultural tensions across Europe with the growth of radical Islam. There have been violent battles, involving ethnic groups on the streets of Sweden, France, and Belgium, gangs of Muslim and Hindu youths attacking each other in Leicester and anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas protesters marching on the streets of London to attack Israeli buildings, the police and our own historic statues. Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath sacked Enoch Powell from his position as Shadow Defence Secretary following his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, delivered on 20 April 1968. At the time, several polls suggested that 67% to 82% of the UK population agreed with Enoch Powell. Many people in the UK felt that Powell ‘was the first British politician who was actually listening to them’ and many today will say, ‘Enoch was right!’

The UK Independence Party recognises the dangers of a divided society. We want to restore a single unifying culture, to our nation, open to anyone who wants to identify with the UK and its traditional values and culture, regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity. We reject multiculturalism and believe that only a process of assimilation can overcome the divisions of the past, re-claim a cohesive nation and repair the damage caused by successive establishment politicians since the Second World War. Our fight for what we stand for as a nation is now more important than ever.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Business, Foreign Affairs and Culture

The true meaning of Christmas

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 23:10:39 GMT

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Education and Religion

Christmas is a time of year when we are supposed to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Obviously, this simple message of Christianity is lost in the sea of commercialism and self-indulgence.

The UK Independence Party is not a religious grouping in any format but recognize that the great history of our country is in no sense disconnected from the essential basic Christian faith of its inhabitants since the time of the Reformation.

In areas such as the law and justice, our desire to prevent our governments from becoming tyrannies, the importance of protecting minority opinions and respecting your opponent’s together with the strong missionary zeal which was part of the foundation of the much-maligned British Empire: all of these ideas are rooted in the New Testament.

Perhaps amidst the jingling of the bells and the endless pop tunes we can pause for a moment to reflect on the birth of our Lord whose teachings transcend human history in a way that is true of no other.

Wishing everyone the compliments of the season.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Education and Religion

'Tis the season to be let down, by a governing class, who couldn't give a Fig!

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 10:18:19 GMT

Neil Hamilton

Leader - UK Independence Party

Traditionally, Christmas is the season of goodwill. But Christian charity is stretched to the limit when we look at the collection of incompetents, shysters and liars masquerading as Her Majesty's Government and Loyal Opposition.

The Westminster political class has failed us at every level:

* taxes higher than any time since 1949.

* the national debt doubled since 2019 (it is now nearly 100% of national income).

* the Government still spending £100 billion a year more than it gets in tax revenue.

* mass-immigration worse than ever - adding a city the size of Birmingham to the UK population every 2 years.

* British culture under sustained attack as 'white British' become the ethnic minority in all our big cities (only 36% of Londoners were 'white British' in the 2021 census (compared with 60% in 2001 and 90% in 1971).

* extortionate 'green taxes' make ordinary people poorer and colder whilst filling the boots of largely foreign multi-millionaires, wrecking the countryside with giant windmills which don't work when there's no wind or too much.

* the 'woke' tyranny makes George Orwell's fictional 1984 reality as police arrest us for 'thoughtcrime' and employers sack us for using the wrong pronouns. The very concept of man and woman is under attack.

* the NHS has become the International Health Service providing poor value for money, with 7,000,000 people on waiting lists.

* public sector unions create chaos everywhere, wrecking working lives at the taxpayer's expense.

There's a General Election within 12 months. The "choice" is between Tweedledum Sunak v Tweedledee Starmer. What is the difference apart from the sun tan? Both are well-off globalist technocrats with zero personality. Both clueless about ordinary people, out-of-touch, useless and incompetent.

Brexit was a revolt against the political class. Farage fled the field before the job was done and handed Boris his 90 seat majority in 2019. The Tories squandered Brexit and Labour wants to shackle us ever closer to the EU. We should fill those empty seats on planes to Rwanda with our traitor MPs.

UKIP kept the faith and is needed more than ever. We are still fighting to stop mass-migration, defend British culture and history, build up our armed forces, support veterans, cut taxes & red tape, end woke policing, restore Law & Order, end profligate government, slash waste - and much else besides.

2024 is our chance to reject the old parties with no answers to the problems they created. UKIP exists to show the way as we did on Brexit.

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and let's make 2024 a Happy New Year.

Neil Hamilton

Leader - UK Independence Party

All I Want for Christmas is a Bed to Sleep In.

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 10:00:10 GMT

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson R’td

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Defence and Veterans

Let me get this straight, an illegal immigrant who has not contributed to this country in any way, that had all his needs catered for; clean, warm, secure accommodation, a free laundry service, specialist food and drink provided free, medical and dental needs provided, spending money and free legal advice, decided to commit suicide and the far-left wing and liberal Human Rights advocates go into terminal melt down. The death of this person is quite naturally regrettable and clearly should not have happened.

Yet the death of homeless veterans by suicide at the rate of two a week is deemed perfectly acceptable by the Human Rights advocates and virtually all MPs within our political system. These veterans who have served this country loyally, paid taxes and all suffer from PTSD due to the horrors they have witnessed and whose entire life is whatever they can carry live on the streets. No clean, warm secure accommodation for them, no chance to clean their kit, only scraps for food, no medical or dental services, no free spending money, many have to beg on the cold streets and no lawyer fighting their corner.

There are wonderful veterans’ charities such as Help for Hero’s, Soldiers Off The Streets, The Rawthey Project to name just three, but where is the extensive support and help from the government and those in opposition? How about the Reform Party, is there any thought or policy on supporting our down and out veterans? All we hear is a constant mantra about stopping the boats and the illegal immigrants coming to our shores. The silence about the scandal of our veterans living and dying on the streets, that fall through the charity safety net, on our cold, wet winter streets is deafening. I find this state of affairs disturbing and a sad inditement of our country.

It would seem, very few care. Only the United Kingdom Independence Party have an effective policy to support our homeless veterans, to strive to provide warm, secure accommodation, to quickly and effectively meet their physical and mental needs, to provide counselling and training to ensure they can adjust to a life off the streets.

As we approach Christmas, please spare a thought for our homeless veterans and if you can also donate or help any of the veterans’ charities in any way, I urge you to do so.

I wish everyone, whatever your political allegiance, a safe and warm Merry Christmas; yes, even those of you who fervently disagree with my point of view.

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson R’td

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Defence and Veterans

A Fair COP or COP Out???

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 09:51:33 GMT

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Energy

As COP 28 closes without a definitive direction of travel for future energy production either way, here's my take on why we Need Fossil Fuels.

Wednesday 6th December 2023.

A typical winter morning with freezing fog and low wind.

As at 8.20am the demand for electricity was 40.9GW. This was being supplied as follows.

Closed Cycle Gas Turbine 24.63GW 60.2%

Nuclear 4.74GW 11.6%

Wind 4.22GW 10.3%

Biomass 3.0GW 7.3%

Miscellaneous 1.72GW 4.2%

Coal 0.96GW 2.3%

Pumped and Gravity Hydro 0.79GW 1.9%

Open Cycle Gas Turbine 0.48GW 1.2%

Foreign interconnects 0.4GW 1%

Solar 0GW 0%

TOTAL 40.9GW 100%

Note: We are receiving 1.3GW from Holland and France and delivering 0.9GW to a Europe interconnect and Ireland.

When the wind isn’t doing much and the sky is overcast, so called renewables aren’t going to keep the lights on. They can NEVER replace fossil fuels, only be an addition to them. It is duplicate infrastructure, which is quite expensive despite the lies, and uneconomic without the government subsidies. Our bills would be much lower without them.

Even if the 10,000 onshore and offshore wind turbines were quadrupled, which is the government’s intention, it would cost as much as 3 more nuclear power stations the size of Hinckley Point C and couldn’t be relied on to add more than 12GW at a time like this.

The lifetime of onshore wind turbines is 20 years, the offshore ones due to the hostile environment not as long and at a high ongoing maintenance cost. Nuclear power stations coast along without high maintenance cost and like our remaining fleet of 3 or 4, built in the 1960’s and early 1970’s to last 40 years, are still limping along after 53-60 years.

There is enough coal under the UK to keep us going at 10GW 24/7/365 for 400 years. There is a huge resource of gas under the land and under the North Sea, and crude oil there too.

Don’t underestimate the use of oil. From it is derived Liquid Petroleum Gas for heating, Petrol for vehicles, Naphtha for plastic, Kerosene for aeroplanes, Diesel for vehicles, Fuel Oil for ships and industry, Lubricating Oil without which nothing rotates and Bitumen for our roads.

Let’s keep Oil and Fossil Fuels!

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Energy

Ban on Sales of New Petrol, Diesel, and Hybrid Cars

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 08:25:47 GMT

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Transport

In 2020 under the leadership of Boris Johnson, Parliament approved a ban on the sales of New Petrol, Diesel, & Hybrid cars to come into effect in 2030.

After the recent by-election in Boris Johnson’s former seat of Uxbridge, which was held by the Conservatives over Labour, by campaigning against the extension of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone out to the M25, Rishi Sunak had a re-think and pushed the ban date back to 2035.

Under pressure from the Civil Servants, on Monday 4 ^th December his government used a Statutory Instrument to amend the 2035 date back to 2030. This legislation enforces a target of 80% of cars sales to be electric by 2030. That means four electric car sales for every one petrol or diesel car sold. It isn’t going to happen!

So, Rishi Sunak has now re-affirmed Parliament’s commitment to getting rid of the motor car, with the support of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, but with 38 Tory MP’s voting against it. And with either the Conservatives or Labour in power at least until 2028 this isn’t going to be repealed. The thing is wealthy consumers have already bought electric vehicles as an addition to existing high price household vehicles as a demonstration of their green credentials and as a status symbol.

Now the reality of using the electric vehicles has shown them to be inferior to petrol and diesel cars because of uncertainty of charging at any destination. High current charging points installed at home cost thousands in addition to the cost of the car. Trying to charge an electric car that does a daily round commute of 60 miles can take 12 hours or more from a basic 230V ring main.

To re-charge for the commute taking into account a 6% charging loss will require 40kWh, which at 47.5p per kWh plus 5% VAT works out at £20.00. To do the same journey in a petrol or diesel vehicle will consume about 2 gallons of petrol, which at £1.75 a litre works out at £7.88 a gallon and £15.76 for the journey. Note the diesel will do it on less fuel than the petrol vehicle but diesel is dearer at the pump.

Insurers are now realising that any electric car involved in an accident that might have damaged the battery they cannot take the risk of it spontaneously combusting. So, in addition to the 100,000 miles or 7-year battery life, they now have to factor in even minor accidents.

Because accidents with modern vehicles, which often include large sections of plastic facia costing typically £1000 each, the insurers either have to exclude replacement batteries from the policy or have premiums sufficient for them to make at least a 40% profit over a 7-year period. So that is a certain £12,000 - £15,000 insurer outlay within seven years. With profit of 40% that is £16,800 - £21,000, producing premiums of £2,400 - £3,000 a year.

People really cannot afford to buy an electric vehicle that is £10,000 dearer and with insurance 10 times that of its fossil fuelled counterpart. Add to that, the lack of adequate charging infrastructure around these Islands, and an electric vehicle 5 years or older has no second-hand resale value. Also, that within 7 years, or 100,000 miles, it will require a minimum expenditure of £12,000 on a new battery. Also, that in the winter the cold battery loses efficiency, and night time driving with headlights on, and interior heating dramatically reduce the range. Do I need to go on? Who needs this?

At present domestic sales of electric cars has slumped, because the yuppies already have theirs and the word on the street from any ordinary household is that they are a nightmare.

The vast bulk of sales of electric vehicles is as fleet cars and vans by large companies, again to prove their green credentials. Like the Royal Mail though, the cost of buying them and running them and installing charging points will quickly ramp up debts that are unaffordable, unless of course it is subsidised by the government using tax-payers money.

If this ban comes to fruition, car dealers will be decimated and we will become a third world country, where the vast majority of the population have old and beaten-up bangers, and there is a thriving sole trader and small business car repair industry. And finally, it will otherwise have no effect on reducing CO ² emissions or saving the planet.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Transport

TORIES - Hang your heads in shame!

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 08:01:36 GMT

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Spokesperson for Immigration and Housing

Every ’political commentator’ of which there is an abundance, has an opinion on immigration and they endlessly echo each other. The public are sick of hearing their opinions, they just want action.

I quote a TV Presenter (they all think they are terribly important) “the illegal boat crossings are a drop in the ocean when it comes to numbers”. I hope there was no pun intended.

Yes, illegal immigration numbers are smaller, but focus has to be on the word illegal, they have entered or been ushered into this country without identification or visa. We are seeing record numbers of young fighting age men arriving here looking forward to being taken into the bosom of this country, we have no idea who they are or where they are from. We see very few women and children, they have been left behind to fend for themselves, says a lot about the mental and moral qualities distinctive to these individuals.

Why does this government open its arms and welcome them all like long-lost relatives giving them every possible comfort at the expense of our young families, veterans and those of all ages, down on their luck? It is deplorable.

We can deal with these interlopers, the UK Independence Party would have no truck with these people arriving in dinghies or boats, intercepted in the Channel by the RNLI or discovered in the back of commercial vehicles. As a national of their native country like any other traveller abroad they can be returned home voluntarily or not.

It is argued that we need legal immigration to run our national health service, to build our infrastructure and care for our ageing population. What a disgrace! Let’s just kick the can down the road again, shall we? Has no one thought that these immigrants will age and will require care and pensions in the future? The problem will multiply!

To try and show themselves in a good light the government has conveniently exempted itself from the £38,700 skilled worker visa minimum salary threshold for care workers. Health and care workers will still be able to earn less before applying for a visa.

Let’s hope the new changes to the Student Visa Regulations are watertight!

Why is there no Government Data Base for those asylum seekers already here? This is more shocking evidence of sloppy governance. Who knows how many are living here the answer is nobody knows.

The government is boasting they are settling more asylum claims but this is creating another problem, once refugee status has been granted, ‘section 4’ support stops 28 days after the decision. The Home Office do not provide accommodation to refugees so more pressure on local authorities and as we have seen, an increase in tent cities. What a shambles!

Lack of control and considered management of immigration has brought misery and despair to the World. This government and others should hang their heads in shame.

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Spokesperson for Immigration and Housing

The Saga of the Defiant and the Antonio Maria

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 11:12:55 GMT

John Gartside

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Fishing

“When we leave the EU, the UK will become an independent coastal state under international law, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) with jurisdiction over our territorial sea and an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) – out to 200 nautical miles or the median line between us and neighbouring states”, said a Tory Party Spokesman. So, our fishermen were finally to have exclusive access to our traditional fishing grounds after the Tory, Edward Heath, had agreed previously to donate them to the European Economic Community under their newly minted ‘Common Fisheries Policy’ in exchange for the right to join their exclusive club.

Well, no. Once again, our fishermen were sold down the river by the Tory Party under Boris Johnson in order to ‘Get Brexit Done’ i.e. sell out to the EU in order to get a trade agreement with them as quickly as possible.

On Monday 16th of October this year, the Spanish-owned, French-flagged trawler, the Antonio Maria deliberately endangered the Scottish trawler, the Defiant, 18 nautical miles East of Unst in the Shetland Islands, by steaming dangerously close past the vessel while trying to foul its propeller with a line thrown over its stern.

When the Isles MP, Alistair Carmichael raised the issue with the Tory government, he was answered by Mark Spencer MP, the Minister of State for Farming Fisheries and Food (in England and Wales) who replied, “It was a deliberate act to try and sabotage a UK fishing boat, it was outrageous behaviour, as he identified it is difficult to enforce because this is a Spanish boat under a French flag, but I will most certainly raise it with my ministerial colleagues given the seriousness of the event.”

This was not a fishing matter and did not take place in our territorial waters which only extend to 12 nautical miles, it was one of safety at sea which is the responsibility of the UK Department of Transport but in relation to British flagged vessels only, not those of other nations.

The Tory Party may claim to wish to preserve our union with Scotland but by giving the EU access to Scottish fishing grounds within our EEZ, they have jeopardised our relations with the Scots by their having to tolerate the outrageous behaviour of EU fishing vessels in their waters which are a vital source of both employment and income.

John Gartside

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Fishing

Believe in Britain

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 10:56:41 GMT

Sqn Ldr. Peter Richardson CFS(H) Rtd

UK Independence Party Spokesman Defence and Veterans

I recently stood on Whitehall for the Armistice Commemoration, and the following day for the Remembrance Day Parade. What a week it was.

Palestinian protestors disrupting the Armistice two-minute silence. The sacking of Suella Braverman by the PM Rishi Sunak and promoting Lord David Cameron into the Foreign Secretary position vacated by James Cleverly who took Suella Braverman’s Home office position. Over 1000 illegal immigrants arrived on our shores and yet the PM states his policies have reduced the numbers. Well unless his policies can control the prevailing winds, as it is these that have reduced the number of crossings, by regularly blowing from the north over the past year, making crossing unviable he hasn’t. The Rwanda plan is in tatters and no amount of tinkering around the edges will make this busted flush of a plan work. We have witnessed pro-Palestine supporters climbing onto the Royal Artillery memorial and Sir Mark Rowley stating they had not broken any law. I beg to differ. The Desecration of War Memorials Act 2020 states. “Desecration of a war memorial states a person who without lawful excuse, destroys, damages or otherwise desecrates a war memorial shall be guilty of an offence.

The definition of Desecrate: transitive verb.

1. To violate the sacredness of profane.

2. To divest of a sacred character or office; to divert from a sacred purpose;

to violate the sanity of profane; to put to an unworthy use.

I put it to you that these protestors with their Palestinian and Hamas Flags, their chants of racist hate, did put the clambering over this memorial to an unworthy use. Yet Sir Mark Rowley thinks otherwise, yet eight Just Stop Oil protesters who undertook a similar stunt were arrested and charged. It seems to me that there is a two-tiered policing strategy going on here.

I cannot point any blame at the “Bobby on the beat”, they carry out the orders and direction from above, but something is not right here when a young white male gets a warning of arrest because he shouts his opinion at these protesters, but chants of racist hate from the protesters go unchallenged. The protesters are now emboldened, after pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable time and time again and I fear for what may happen during the next round of protests.

What has become clear is that the current government is struggling to keep its head above water and not really getting to grips with the problems of the day. Defeat at the general election is looming and even with the disarray in Labour over Sir Kier Starmer’s policy over an Israeli ceasefire, it looks increasingly likely that Labour will take the day. However, there is a solution to this malaise of dismal politics. I and others like me within the United Kingdom Independence Party have been calling for the “right to unite”. We have reached out to likeminded parties to come together in the interests of the British people and fight the next general election as one. All but one party agree this is what’s needed. Unfortunately, Reform refuses to even discus the matter. Richard Tice believes that Reform can make the change by itself and without help. I believe this approach only splits the vote and enables Labour with or without the help of the Liberal Democrats to steal the election. So, I ask and offer again, would all like minded parties to the right of centre please, for the sake of the country, because time is running out, come together as one for the country and the British people.

Sqn Ldr. Peter Richardson CFS(H) Rtd

UK Independence Party Spokesman Defence and Veterans

UKIP's Response to the Autumn Statement

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 10:36:14 GMT

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Treasury

The Autumn Statement was hailed as being pro small business and the Self Employed. A freezing for a further year of the 75% reduction of business rates for Retail, Hospitality, and Leisure doesn’t help any business that is growing the economy by manufacturing, or any form of technology.

A reduction of employees National Insurance contribution from 12% to 10% looks really good on the surface. Abolition of NI for the self-employed saves them £158.60 a year, but there could be a downside. The allowance to big business to allow total offset against tax for new investment is a massive benefit to them. Most don’t pay minimum wage, so their annual costs don’t rise. No raising of personal allowance at the different thresholds of income means fiscal drag will continue to add more tax as wages increase to catch up with inflation. Apparently 4 million more people will start paying tax at the higher rate.

For a small business employing people on minimum wage of £10.34 an hour, 37 hours a week and 52 weeks a year, employees were receiving £19,894 gross, less £1,465 tax and less £1,239 National Insurance (at 12%). Total deductions £2,704. Take home pay £17,190.

The government has raised the minimum wage by £1.10 per hour to £11.44, which means for a 37-hour week, 52 weeks a year, the employee will have gross wage of £22,010, less tax of £1,888 and NI (at 10%) of £1,244. Total deductions £3,132. Take home pay £18,878, an increase of £1,688. Yippee for the employee.

The wage bill per employee has risen by £2,116, plus, the employer NI of 15% per employee of £317.40. Total cost to the employer is an increase of £2,433.40 per employee per year. Loss of profit for the small business.

The government will be getting additional Tax and NI of £428 from the employee, plus additional £317.40 from the employer, a total of £745.40. Yippee for the government.

The self-employed have no such thing as a minimum wage and the government is abolishing their small NI contribution of £158.20 a year. That’s good isn’t it. But beware, the state pension is based on the number of weeks worked in a year and the number of years paying NI contributions up to a maximum of 40 years. Abolishing self-employed NI contributions now paves the way to reduce the state pension by 1 year every year for the next 40 years. That amounts to a state pension reduction of 2.5% per year and completely phasing it out for the self-employed by 2063. Yippee for the government which has now found a way to reduce the future unaffordable state pension.

Universal Credit is to increase by 6.7%, equivalent to £450 per year, and there is to be an £800 a year

increase in Housing Benefit. People on benefits are linked to the Gross Average Wage, not the take home pay of those on minimum wage. You are still better off not doing minimum wage work. Yippee for the people on benefits.

The State Pension is linked to the triple lock, and they are unable to break the lock because retired people are more likely to vote Conservative than Labour. The average Public Sector pay rose by 8.5% so although unaffordable economically it is worthwhile politically. Yippee for Pensioners.

The Renewable Industry has been claiming for several years now how unbelievably the cost of offshore windfarms is falling. At the previous auction for sites the rate was set at £44 per MWh of generation. So, with costs apparently falling the latest new offshore wind farm sites should be snapped up. Unfortunately, there was not a single tender for a site, because like everything else the cost of creating and maintaining offshore wind farms is increasing dramatically. So, the government has increased the offer by 33% and is now offering £66 per MWh in the hope of selling offshore sites. At the same time the government is claiming that by creating more offshore wind farms that energy bills will go down. Both the Renewable Industry and the Government are blatantly lying. All other governments know that the cheapest source of energy is coal.

Over the last two or three years the average annual fuel bill has increased from £1,000 to £2,500 or more. None of the Chancellors ‘so called tax reductions’ come close to redressing this issue. Many businesses are now uneconomic, and households are struggling.

The steel industry here has to switch from imported coal and coke for blast furnaces for making steel from ore. They instead have to use Electric Arc Furnaces that cannot reach the required temperature to refine iron ore into steel. Henceforth they can only use recycled iron and steel as their source material. Refining ore must now be done overseas. All this to supposedly meet the Net Zero target.

We could again be economically viable for manufacturing and commercial and domestic fuel, and bills could fall dramatically if we stopped subsidising unreliable and costly renewables and re-started mining coal and started fracking for gas instead of importing it to produce low cost continuously available energy.

Importing gas and coal is just geography and isn’t actually reducing the UK CO 2 footprint. It is an extremely expensive illusion. Is there no end to the amount of sacrifice on the altar of Climate Change?

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Treasury

A Country Divided

Sat, 11 Nov 2023 09:09:02 GMT

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson CFS(H) R’td

United Kingdom Independence Party - Defence and Veterans Spokesman

As we head into the most solemn weekend in our calendar, our veterans are told not to wear their medals and regimental insignia for fear of retribution from pro-Hamas protestors.

Every veteran served with pride to protect our freedom, to protect free speech and the right to protest within the law, as did those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Our Government and the Metropolitan Chief Constable has capitulated to the left-wing mob.

Whilst I agree that pro-Palestinian protestors have the right to march, marching over the most solemn weekend in the UK’s calendar is insensitive and crass to say the least.

As veterans, we are proud of our service, showing our respect to the fallen at hundreds of Cenotaphs around the country this has zero to do with the Palestinian ceasefire protest.

As for the Israel/Palestinian conflict: Fact, Hamas has stated they want the total destruction of the state of Israel, Fact, Hamas has broken the last four ceasefires. Fact, Hamas hides behind the Palestinian women and children and in bunkers under hospitals. Fact, Hamas committed unspeakable terrorist acts against men, women and children on the 7 ^{th of} October. Fact, Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups are holding over 200 hostages.

A ceasefire is there for the taking, all that is required is the release of all hostages. Once done, brokering of a lasting peace can be negotiated. It is interesting to note that, Jordan and Egypt refuse to take any Palestinian refugees, one has to ask why? These Arabic countries are not the only ones, in fact not one Arabic or Islamic country has offered sanctuary.

In this country we have Inman's preaching hate every Friday, hate of the very people who have allowed them to settle in this country, in many if not all Mosques across the country.

Where are the leaders of the Islamic faith in this country why are they not asking for restraint during this difficult time? Action from them is sadly missing,

Postscript: people of Britain, whatever your faith or political leaning, can we all just for one weekend put all prejudices aside and commemorate those brave men and women of all faiths who gave their lives so we can live free.

When you go home, tell them of us and say, “for your tomorrow, we gave our today”.

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson CFS(H) R’td

United Kingdom Independence Party - Defence and Veterans Spokesman

Do you support the reinstatement of the Death Penalty?

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 19:22:12 GMT

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Scotland

Is there Public Support for the reinstatement of Capital Punishment?

The UK Independence Party are the only mainstream party in Britain which will campaign for a YES/NO referendum to determine public support to reinstate the offence of capital punishment.

This is not political posturing but a serious attempt at giving the electorate a say on this highly contentious issue which is ignored by the political establishment.

The subject was last given a full vote and debate in the House of Commons in 1983.

That is now forty years ago, and an entire generation have had no opportunity to express their view in our Parliament.

The UK Independence Party have long maintained that there must be a connect between the will of the public and the legislature which frames our laws.

This subject has been suppressed for too long.

We have a manifesto commitment to bring it to the forefront of current political discussion.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Scotland

Referendum on Voting Reform - NOW!

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 10:21:41 GMT

Steve Unwin

Spokesman on Home Affairs, Political Reform and Local Government

Our voting system for parliamentary and local council elections: First Past the Post - where the winner takes all – is outdated. Designed in an era of Whigs v Tories, and more recently, the Reds v the Blues, it takes no account that in our modern democracy the choice on a ballot paper is rarely binary.

Yet under our archaic voting system anyone who does not support the winning party gets no political representation at all. It pays lip service to democracy and leads to literally millions of voters, at every nationwide election, being completely unrepresented.

More often than not, the winning party in a General Election achieves little over 40% of the vote, and sometimes (such as 2015 and 2005) wins with a little over 35% of the vote. Under First Past the Post, we are therefore nearly always governed by minorities, yet smaller parties with pretty significant votes win little and sometimes no representation, or voice to reflect their voters.

Increasingly numbers of people are not even bothering to vote in General Elections – and who can blame them bothering in this rigged, broken system, where most voters cannot make a significant outcome in the election result?

In the six General Elections since the year 2000, voter turnout has NEVER reached 70%, and the average was a turnout of just 64.7%. As a comparison, in the 16 General Elections 1950-1999, voter turnout NEVER reached as low as 70% with an average turnout of 76.3%.

Based on the electorate at the last General Election, voter turnout in the 21st century, is 5.5 million voters less than it was in the last half of the 20th century – a significant number, as at that last General Election 15.56 million voters didn’t vote. This figure is now more than the 13.97 million who voted for the winning party. The joke “None of the Above” now actually forms the biggest block of voters.

It is time to replace this broken system with Proportional Representation (or PR), so seats match votes and all votes count equally.

UKIP aims to give the electorate this choice in a referendum – so, to either keep the existing system or to replace it with a system of PR. If the electorate opt for change, we will then hold a supplementary referendum to choose which of the types of PR is best suited to be implemented here in the UK.

A fair voting system will ensure that votes count equally, will therefore encourage more to participate in elections and that will mean that those elected in the future have a legitimate mandate that people can respect.

Steve Unwin

Spokesman on Home Affairs, Political Reform and Local Government

Demand Exceeds Supply

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 10:14:59 GMT

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Scotland

Demand Exceeds Supply

Scotland , as you would expect, is in the middle of a housing crisis. Too many prospective tenants and not enough properties.

So, what does our Holyrood titans do?

Naturally, make it as unattractive as possible to be a landlord!

The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland ) Act 2022 must have been thought through by a professional buffoon.

Mortgage costs are soaring so let’s make sure we cannot increase the rent.

Tenants not bothering to pay the rent? Solution - make it illegal to evict them.

That great defender of small businesses - the Conservative Party - obviously follow the motto that silence is golden.

The journalists in Scotland behave as if they are paid lackies of the Holyrood farce.

The age of mediocrity is truly upon us.

The UK Independence Party will get rid of the whole second - rate Scottish Parliament and turn the building into something useful like a political museum.

Then maybe we can work, make profits, expand our commerce, offer employment opportunities, and possibly even smile again.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Scotland

Israel's fight is our fight

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 15:27:22 GMT

Hamas is the enemy of civilisation

Hamas intended to provoke a massive reaction by Israel. It intended to kill as many peope as possible in the most savage ways imaginable, but it always wants as many deaths of Gazans as possible and will work to ensure that's the case by preventing people from leaving northern Gaza, thereby enlisting them as human shields.

The game is to leverage public opinion in their favour so that Israel bows to international pressure and pulls back from its mission to deny Hamas a base of operations. Thus, though not everyone who was at demonstrations yesterday was a Hamas supporter, they are Hamas's useful idiots.

Only reluctantly do I conclude that Israel must fight Hamas inside Gaza. It's no small thing to drive a million people out of their homes. But in the final analysis, Gaza will always be a beachhead for Islamist operations, and Gazan residents and Israelis will always suffer the consequences.

There are only two basic options here. Either return to the status quo, in which Hamas is able to launch indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel, forcing Israel to maintain a blockade that keeps Gaza in poverty, or to simply drain the sea Hamas swims in.

Those who would have Israel abandon its military action are pushing for the status quo in which Hamas is able to continue its racist terror campaign, and for Gaza to remain a dysfunctional and institutionally corrupt enclave - sustained by bad faith actors with the sole motive of destabilising the region and demonising Israel in the eyes of the world.

Sadly, a military operation in Gaza will have civilian casualties. It's inevitable consequences of a war that Hamas started. It is also a consequence of Hamas using Gazans a human shield. The aim is to blackmail Israel into leniency so Hamas can continue to operate. Israel is obliged to do all it can to prevent civilian casualties, and does so within the limitation of the situation. Hamas does not. But Israel, like any nation state, must put the lives and property of its own citizens first. No other country would be asked to compromise on that.

Some British nationalists argue that this is not our fight. But they are wrong. Islamism is the enemy. It is the enemy wherever we find it; whether it's in Gaza, Iran, Pakistan, London or Oldham. We must carve it out wherever we find it. There is no accomodation to be reached with this murderous ideology. Moreover, we stand for the sovereignty of the nation state, and a nation's right to self-defence.

As much as anything, proudly declaring our support for Israel is a message to foreigners in our lands that these are the values we will fight for, home and abroad. Let them come out on the streets in protest. Let's see who they are - and mark them well. And let us vote accordingly so that these people are promptly removed and do not threaten us.

We have already allowed too many to make our lands their home. We already face a fight to reclaim our cities and our capital. This weekend underscores once and for all that multiculturalism has failed and must be reversed. If our political establishment will not do as instructed, we must consider them part of the problem and an aid to the enemy. We only have a short time to reclaim our country through peaceful means.

Sunak's Net Zero smoke and mirrors act

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 17:18:13 GMT

Always read the smallprint. Never Trust a Tory.

There was only one pertinent point in Sunak's speech yesterday . He said "we will still meet our international commitments and hit Net Zero by 2050". Us plebs were thrown a couple of scraps from the table in the form of a delay to the petrol vehicle ban, but he's spent today reassuring the blob that the Net Zero destination remains the same.

And indeed it does. Always read the smallprint. Extending deadlines is smoke and mirrors. All the other market distorting measures remain firmly in place and will remain so unless the Climate Change Act is repealed. Which won't happen under Sunak.

The auto industry will still be penalised for not meeting EV quotas, while stealth taxes will gradually tilt the market in favour of heat pumps. Our bills are only going to go upwards. The intention is to strangle the car industry on the quiet and tax us into submission on everything else. As more details emerge, it will become more obvious that Sunak has pulled a fast one. So much for that "honest debate".

Today Mr Sunak has said eco-zealots "just don’t care about the impact on families", but in truth, nor does he. We're going to lose our auto industry to China, and nothing in his latest musings is likely to do anything to bring down household energy bills. Sunak is still intent on throwing our money away on foreign aid eco-imperialism and ridiculous contraptions like carbon capture. He'll no doubt attempt to sweeten the deal for wind barons. The man is a fraud.

The notion that Sunak has opened "clear green water" between the Tories and Labour is a confidence trick. The Tories disagree with Labour only on the means, but not the destination, and even then, there isn't much to choose between them.

Admittedly there is a lot of politics yet to come, and more aspects of Net Zero to hit the buffers in the same way the wind industry has, but this latest Tory con isn't an attempt to delay or roll back Net Zero. It's an attempt to save it. The performative outrage of the green blob is wholly tactical to make this meagre policy tweak seem more significant than it is so they don't lose any more ground.

Even if Sunak was playing straight with us and there was a genuine intention of mitigating the impact on families, this is very far from a radical change of direction, and the Tories are still going to inflict a lot of pain and cause incalculable, irrecoverable damage in the name of Net Zero. This is little more than a political grift, to yet again establish that Labour would be worse. We're again being blackmailed into accepting mediocrity. You'd be a fool to fall for it.

There is only one party that fully opposes Net Zero - and that's Ukip. The Reform Party today put out a video alleging to oppose Net Zero in which Alex Phillips says "What we should be looking at, is finding ways to monetise, whether it be through tariffs or penalties or whatever, products coming from the big polluters, and then we can use that money to fund the green transition." She's talking about a carbon border tax, the same as the EU's - to exclusively to "fund the green transition". So in fact Reform wholeheartedly supports Net Zero and green taxes. Ukip is the only party offering a real choice.

We're willing to work together - Are Reform?

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 10:35:59 GMT

Janice MacKay

National Campaign Manager

The UK Independence Party is a political party which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. We have only managed to get to this point with thoughtful management and well-planned campaigns in recent years.

Our primary function is to contest as many Westminster and local elections as resources available allow.

We are conscious that the sensible "right" in British politics are regrettably fragmented and chasing support from the same pool of voters.

Our Deputy Leader and Party Chairman have taken the lead in seeking to resolve this impasse by being continually willing to engage in dialogue with other parties of a similar hue with a view to establishing some common ground in terms of electoral strategy.

With this spirit in mind UKIP have decided that we will not contest the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by election on 5th October.

We urge our supporters in this constituency to vote for the Reform UK candidate even though Reform UK appear unwilling to enter into our well-intentioned discussions.

This is a "one off" act of goodwill on our part which shows our commitment unlike that of others is to protect this country from the horrors of a socialist government whether lead by Mr Starmer or Mr Sunak.

The liberal right needs to stop challenging one other and turn our limited weaponry against the real enemy- the Globalist elites who are currently in charge.

Janice MacKay

National Campaign Manager

Llanelli locals remain as buoyant as an illegal dinghy despite politician failures

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 19:56:17 GMT

PRESS RELEASE

UK Independence Party

(Picture - Neil Hamilton, UKIP Leader with Cllr Amanda Carter)

Whilst the local community continues to protest against the forced closure, loss of employment and re-purposing of the Strady Park Hotel as a haven for Illegal Migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, media outlets continue to ignore their plight along with their elected representation.

With the exception of one…

Witnessing the UK Independence Party’s support of the protest, mobilisation of public meetings and soft power pressure being added to the campaign, the party welcomes a new Town Councillor to join its growing ranks.

Councillor Amanda Carter, an independent Llanelli Town Councillor has joined UKIP due to our sensible approach to migration and that we are the only political party willing to support the protest and the silent majority in Llanelli, who continue to be devastatingly let down by elected councillors, Senedd members and MP’s.

Speaking at a recent packed public meeting Councillor Carter said:

“I have been disgusted with the ghost politicians our area has been lumbered with and being the only councillor speaking out against the madness of forcing unvetted, unknown individuals on an area, already with its own struggles to the detriment of local people. I was delighted to see the support given by UKIP to offer direction to local people who care about our town. I joined because they are the only political party willing to stand up for what’s right”.

Membership in the local area has soared and the party intends to keep it that way!

“I have been astonished at the courage, organisation and will of the locals who really are the trailblazers for action which should be taken in every town across the UK where the Home Office has forced an illegal migrant hotel on them. They were never consulted, and any concerns raised are ignored. We are witnessing human trafficking on an industrial scale, in plain sight. Tens of thousands of mainly young men with incompatible faiths and outlooks will eventually be waived through our broken migration system, changing the UK at a rate we have never witnessed before. The worst thing is the beneficiaries are criminals and companies cuddled up to our toxic government and political elite. The losers – well that will be our children”.

Ben Walker – National Party Chairman

UK Politics is broken. Every part of our country is at breaking point. It will only get worse if people continue to vote for the same old insidious mainstream parties. Apathy can’t continue to win. If every single voter, voted and voted differently, the result would quickly change.

PRESS RELEASE

UK Independence Party

Bodgit and Scarper!

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 20:07:32 GMT

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party Spokeswoman for Immigration

A bodged job and they are about to scarper!

Royal assent to the Illegal Migration Act was granted on 20 ^th July 2023. This means that if you enter the UK illegally you should not be able to remain here. Instead, you will be detained and promptly removed either to your home country or a safe country where any asylum claim will be considered.

However, there is no mention from the government as to how we deal with those already here and awaiting asylum decisions. The total number has more than doubled between 2020 and 2022 from 70,000 to 166,300 and the numbers are rising daily.

This has to be as a result of inefficiencies within the decision-making process, a lack of returns agreements and not knowing the exact numbers of asylum seekers in the Country.

Those already here and waiting asylum decisions are quite happy to be lost in the system, It is not a problem for them, they can continue living in their free comfortable living accommodation, rest easy in the knowledge they can access free health care including dentistry and of course be safe in the knowledge that there is a mass of lawyers queuing up to help with endless appeals and to challenge any attempt to remove them from the UK. The cost of all this is met by the British Taxpayer. The average British taxpayer who is struggling to survive the current devastating cost of living crisis.

The worsening conditions in France are responsible for the services of unscrupulous people smugglers who encourage the invaders to risk the ‘dangerous’ cross-channel journey. I have no idea why this is still described as a ‘dangerous’ crossing, these invaders are guided and watched every step of the way until they safely reach the shores of the UK.

The UK’s ‘shadow economy’ is much larger than that which exists on the other side of the Channel. Here asylum seekers can often find low paid and menial work in takeaway food outlets or cleaning cars in addition to receiving the generous benefits handed to them by the British Government. Sounds like a good move to make.

How is this fair treatment by the British Government? No wonder the electorate show complete apathy when it comes to voting for the incompetent shameless individuals that sit in the Houses of Parliament.

The problem of the “Legacy Asylum Seekers” those already here, must be addressed!

We have to start somewhere and that is by creating an accurate data base, using finger printing, iris scans, biometric testing of blood groups, DNA, and wrist x-rays. We can systematically commence deportation and segregation immediately where screening has highlighted criminals, bogus claimants, imposters claiming they are underage and those from safe countries.

This government should be renamed “Bodgit and Scarper”, they bodge most things and soon will be forced to scarper.

At the next General Election make certain you vote for a UK Independence Party Candidate; they have heart and conscience in good measure. Put your faith in them!

Better still, become a candidate and help us with the fight back.

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party Spokeswoman for Immigration

Taking back control of our fishing grounds.

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 20:39:37 GMT

John Gartside

UK Independence Party - Fishing Spokesman

Our fishing fleet and our fish processing industry are shadows of the thriving coastal industries we possessed in 1973 before we joined the EU and before they had hastily thrown the Common Fishing policy together as a trap to steal our fish.

At that time this policy hit us from day one. The Tory party agreed to phase in greater catching rights for our fishermen slowly on an annual basis after we had left the EU so as to allow our neighbours a period of adjustment.

During the time we were trapped in the EU, Norway an independent coastal state, has continued to build a thriving fishing industry without the need for subsidies of any kind by not only zealously protecting its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) from foreign predators and domestic rule breakers but by ensuring that they have up to the minute information on what is happening in their seas so that areas that have become spawning grounds and nurseries can be immediately closed off and left undisturbed.

This ensures an optimal supply of mature fish for domestic consumption and export. We could do no better than take a leaf out of Norway’s book and that of Iceland as well.

What is certain is that allowing the EU and its inputs from its Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) and from the International Conference on the Sea (ICES) to tell us what the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for different species is and then take the lion’s share for themselves is no longer tolerable if it ever was.

On January 1 ^st , 2020, we left the EU but agreed to negotiate with the EU on an annual basis concerning our entitlement to fish in our own EEZ up until 2026. Whilst George Eustace was DEFRA Secretary, he suggested that a major objective of the government at that time would be to wrestle from the EU the exclusive entitlement to catch fish in our own 6-12 nautical mile territorial zone. This is not nearly ambitious enough.

We must tell the EU that we intend in future to go it alone in deciding what fishing is sustainable in our EEZ and apportion it exclusively to ourselves.

They have said they would refuse to buy our fish unless they could catch it for themselves; well, there is a world out there outside the grasp of the EU.

John Gartside

UK Independence Party - Fishing Spokesman

The worst deal makers ever??

steve@sgrimes.com (Steve Grimes) — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 20:33:35 GMT

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Foreign Affairs Spokesman

ONLY A TORTOISE COULD NEGOTIATE

SO FEW FREE TRADE DEALS ANY SLOWER!

From 1972, when Heath dragged them into the Common Market, our elected MPs and governments did not need to bother themselves with negotiating independent free trade agreements (“FTA”s). From then on, until the 2016 independence referendum, they just sub-contracted the job to Brussels, and then sat back, went to sleep, and accepted whatever the EU (in its infinite wisdom) decided to dish-out.

Nevertheless, UK Independence Party MEPs, members and supporters always believed that the UK would be better off outside the EU so that it can make its own trade deals and pursue an independent trade policy.

Now the subject of FTAs dominates UK foreign affairs and domestic business policy, and the UK has some 70+ international trade agreements in our own right. Some merely replaced existing EU trade agreements so did not make much difference but there are some major deals worth mentioning.

On 31st May, two important FTAs with Australia and New Zealand became effective. They help some UK businesses but not others, especially those in the agricultural industry.

Combined bilateral trade with these two countries amounts to over £15bn per year. Inward direct investment from them into the UK is £16.6bn, and outward from the UK is a combined £42.1bn. Estimates suggest that by 2035, the Australian deal could boost our economy by £2.3bn per year, and the New Zealand deal by £0.8bn, over the long-term, with benefits across the UK.

In particular, the FTAs offer beneficial terms for UK firms exporting green goods and services to New Zealand. According to the World Trade Organisation, the UK could potentially double its green trade exports by 2030.

The downside is that there is not much in them to benefit the UK farming community. They eliminate tariffs for agricultural products so sectors like beef, lamb, dairy and horticulture will face fiercer competition. There will be no limit on Australia and New Zealand agricultural imports. As farmers in UK already face significantly higher production costs than do farmers in Australia and New Zealand, our own farmers are the losers, and their bottom-line is sadly likely to come under increasing pressure.

Not an ideal situation, but obviously doing deals requires some give and take and the Conservative government sold-out the farmers.

On 16 ^th July, the UK acceded to Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). This is a much larger FTA between 11 countries around the Pacific Rim i.e. Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Japan. The UK and each existing member state still needs to ratify the agreement in accordance with their domestic law. The UK will formally become a CPTPP member 60 days after the last of the current members gives notice that it has completed its domestic legal procedures.

CPTPP accounts for a substantial share (about 13%) of world GDP. When the UK formally joins the CPTPP that will rise to around 15% and is likely to expand bringing further trade advantages for the UK. The Government estimates that joining CPTPP would increase UK GDP by about 0.08%. There is no suggestion that this figure will significantly change but the benefits may grow if new countries join the CPTPP or if trade develops in a way for which the CPTPP rules are helpful.

The good news is that there are no ‘CPTPP regulations’ as were the case in the EU, so the UK will not have to change its standards to join. Unlike the EU, CPTPP is an economic organisation with no aspirations to ever-closer political union. CPTPP members do not pursue a common foreign policy, common currency, or common citizenship. CPTPP is a comprehensive FTA, rather than a customs union or single market. Visa requirements apply for workers from one CPTPP country to go and work in another, so there is no issue with “freedom of movement”. There is no ‘CPTPP law’, ‘CPTPP directives’ nor a ‘CPTPP Parliament’. All decisions taken by CPTPP member states are by consensus and there are no provisions for qualified majority votes, as there were in the EU. There is no ‘CPTPP Court’ equivalent to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). In the implausible event that the UK were ever wanting to re-join the EU, it would have to leave the CPTPP, since having separate free trade agreements is incompatible with being a member of the EU’s single market and customs union.

Negotiations for an FTA with India are ongoing, and they are making slow progress. There is little hope of sealing a deal before Indian elections next April. Efforts are underway to finalize negotiations as swiftly as possible, but issues exist in particular over immigration, intellectual property rights, rules of origin and services. There are some unresolved "red lines" on both sides.

UK negotiators are trying to get India to liberalize its highly-protectionist services markets to allow more City of London firms to set up shop there.

On the Indian side, negotiators want the UK to grant more visas to Indian workers. India has made access to the U.K. jobs market through internal company moves and access to the services sector for its citizens a key part of its demands and is asking for easier access to the U.K. for workers in occupations such as nursing, care and consultants. Immigration is putting a strain on negotiations, which are dragging on.

In this regard, the UK Independence Party has a clear stance. Trade deals must not be an excuse for yet more immigration.

UK bus inesses still experience obstacles to exporting and they come up against trade barriers in some countries. There are ongoing negotiations with some smaller countries and trading blocs. The major exceptions are with the USA and China. A trade deal with China looks unlikely due to foreign policy and security considerations. Likewise, a trade deal with the USA is a remote possibility under the current US administration. Overall, despite slow progress by the Conservative government since the 2016 referendum, we are now (7 years later), only just beginning to see the benefits coming to reality.

Being realistic, negotiations do take time, but it is looking increasingly likely that the current UK government will be gone before they get round to finishing the job.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Foreign Affairs Spokesman

First Past the Post - Bad for Britain

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 20:23:03 GMT

Steve Unwin

Spokesman for Home Affairs, Voting Reform & Local Government

Satisfaction with the government is currently at near-record low levels. Recent polling (Ipsos, 23 June 2023) found 80% of people unhappy with how government is running the country. Whilst that is terrible, almost half of voters - 49% were dissatisfied with Labour leader Keir Starmer.

Our electoral system to the House of Commons is not only outdated – it is dangerously bad for Britain’s failing democracy – designed to provide a duel choice – but that choice is simply terrible versus lousy.

The terrible Tories have had their time mucking up our country – so everyone knows Britain is now more-or-less guaranteed a lousy Labour government, by default.

Government should be by merit, and not by default!

Many people know that their political engagement is irrelevant – due to this outdated and undemocratic system designed for a different era. Significantly more people are not bothering to vote in General Elections – and who can blame them for not bothering in this rigged, broken system, where most voters cannot make a significant outcome in the election result?

There have been six General Elections in the 21 ^st century. Voter turnout to date has NEVER reached 70%, and the average is just 64.7% turnout. As a comparison, for the latter half of the 20 ^th century, there were 16 General Elections, and voter turnout averaged 76.3%, and NEVER reached as low as 70% turnout. Political engagement has become increasingly irrelevant in a system where the political Establishment “Blob” have no recognisable legitimate democratic authority.

It is time to replace First Past the Post with a system of Proportional Representation, so seats match votes and all votes count equally. A fair voting system will ensure that those elected have a legitimate mandate that people can respect.

In the 2015 General Election, UKIP famously polled 3.9 million votes – 12.6% of the vote - but won just 1 of 650 seats. At the same time the SNP polled less than half of UKIP’s vote - under 1.5 million votes - but won 56 seats. And the Conservatives, with under three times the UKIP vote – 11.3 million votes -36.8% of the vote, won – not 3 seats - but 330 out of 650 seats (50.8% of seats with 36.8% of the vote!)

The current system is not only disproportionate – it leads to literally millions of voters being completely unrepresented. Possibly as bad, it also leads to hundreds of MPs between the Conservatives and Labour having so-called “safe” seats for the blue and red teams. These members of Parliament – good, bad, or indifferent – can, and in some cases do, take their electorate for granted.

Britain needs to move on from our 19 ^th century system of disproportionate Un-representation to something fit for the current time. The UK Independence Party believes that Britain needs a true system of Proportional Representation.

Steve Unwin

Spokesman for Home Affairs, Voting Reform & Local Government

Britain’s Educational Disaster

Fri, 14 Jul 2023 21:16:36 GMT

Jack Thomson

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Young People

The Marking Boycott

In recent times, the education system in the United Kingdom has been plagued by various challenges. One particularly contentious issue is the marking boycott, a tactic employed by some academic staff to protest against systemic problems within the sector. While the concerns raised by those participating in the boycott are legitimate, this disruptive approach ultimately undermines the very education it seeks to protect. In this article, we will delve into the detriments of the marking boycott and explore alternative paths to address the issues at hand.

At its core, education is a collaborative endeavour between s tudents and educators. The marking boycott disrupts this symbiotic relationship by denying students the necessary feedback and assessment required for their academic growth. Constructive feedback is a crucial component of the learning process, enabling students to identify areas of improvement, develop critical thinking skills, and enhance their overall understanding of the subject matter. By refusing to mark assignments, academic staff hinder students and their ability to progress academically, potentially impacting their future prospects.

The boycott also threatens the overall quality of education provided by institutions. Without timely and thorough marking, students may lack clarity on their performance, making it difficult for them to gauge their progress accurately. The absence of feedback can impede students and their ability to address knowledge gaps and refine their understanding of the subject matter.

As a result, the educational experience is diminished, undermining the credibility and reputation of the institution. This decline in academic standards can have far-reaching consequences for both current and future students. In addition to hampering student progress, the marking boycott disrupts the functioning of educational institutions. Institutions rely on the assessment and feedback processes to evaluate student performance, track academic progress, and maintain accountability.

When academic staff refuse to carry out these essential tasks, it creates administrative chaos and compromises the integrity of the institution. Timelines for the release of results, certification processes, and subsequent academic planning become uncertain, causing confusion and frustration among students and other stakeholders.

The marking boycott can also alienate students who may become collateral damage in the protest. Students invest time, effort, and financial resources in their education, expecting a supportive learning environment. The boycott can breed resentment among students who find themselves caught in the crossfire of the conflict between academic staff and institutional management. Such animosity risks eroding the trust and mutual respect necessary for a productive learning environment.

While the concerns driving the marking boycott are legitimate, it is important to consider alternative avenues for addressing these issues. Open and transparent communication channels between academic staff, institutional management, and policymakers are vital to understanding and resolving the systemic problems facing the education sector. Constructive dialogue can lead to meaningful reforms, ensuring fair pay, manageable workloads, and better employment conditions for academic staff. Collaboration among all stakeholders is crucial to achieving sustainable improvements in the education system.

Instead of resorting to disruptive tactics, it is imperative that all stakeholders engage in constructive dialogue to address the systemic issues plaguing the education system. By working together, meaningful and sustainable reforms can be implemented, creating an environment that fosters the holistic development and success of both students and academic staff.

Jack Thomson

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Young People

Building on Brexit

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 16:49:59 GMT

We've left the EU. The establishment must stop living in the past.

Britain is still in Brexit limbo. We've left the EU but the Wesminster blob is reluctant to do anything with Brexit. A decision was made (with the backing of parliament) to leave the single market and that demands that we adapt. But we're not doing that. The Tories, with their Windsor Framework, have committed us to continued alignment, while the thinking within Labour is to go one further and unilaterally declare full alignment with a view to restoring instruments like mutual recognition.

There's a problem with that though. The thing about the single market is that you're either in it - or you ain't. Alignment of regulation without adopting the full stack of the single market will not restore our EU trade. As much as the food industry relied on "frictionless trade" from regulatory harmonisation, it also depended very much on an (effectively) unregulated pan-EU haulage industry, and a ready supply of exploitable low wage labour.

The problem there is that even if we had remained in the single market, the EU is experiencing many of the same labour shortages, an acute shortage of HGV drivers and a shortage of vets. Single Market supply chains as we knew them were already unsustainable and ready to implode. Maintaining EU regulation to sustain that model when we're not in the single market, and when the model is collapsing, is absolutely insane.

Over the last three years we've seen an acceleration of small abattoir closures, partly due to rising energy and labour costs, but also legacy EU red tape. We need to ease the regulatory burden on small abattoirs, moving away from the EU veterinary system - which is bureaucratic, expensive to maintain, and doesn't add value in terms of food safety. But self-appointed Brexit trade experts (remainers to a man) believe that regulatory harmonisation alone equals more trade, and push for continued alignment even if it means losing small, sustainable food production for the domestic market.

Labour is also wrong on this. We do not want an SPS agreement with the EU. It makes sense for landlocked Switzerland to have one but Britain, as an island nation, can better protect food and livestock biosecurity by maintaining its own regime. It may cost more, superficially, in terms of border friction - but not when you add up the cost of livestock diseases and food scares. The more you think about it, the more insane it was that we ever joined the EU veterinary/SPS system.

Meanwhile, the EU is pushing for Net Zero circularity in the chemical industry, imposing massive new costs on chemical manufacturers, who are already struggling to stay in business because of energy costs. Economic realities don't intrude on the thinking of EU policy makers. (They've already decided to destroy the European auto industry with the ICE ban). Brexit might have caused some interim costs for the UK chemical industry, but if the EU goes ahead with its net zero chemical reforms, the UK industry might well be the last man standing - provided we act now - and re-regulate accordingly.

But again, we're not going to do that. Britain under the Tories is in lockstep with the EU on Net zero policy, and Labour will be the same or worse - because they believe our only salvation lies in maintaining EU regulation - even if that regulation is absolutely dreadful.

But it's also because they don't have the brains or the imagination (or the interest) in re-regulating. They're far too used to having technical governance done for them. Many of the trade bodies are the same - with the NFU calling for continued alignment. They're stuck in the past, failing to recognise the urgency of the situation.

There is a general belief in the political blob that Brexit was a mistake, and that we should, at the very least, re-join the single market. The thing is, though, we *did* leave the EU, and parliament voted to leave the EEA. They made that choice, and there is no putting Humpty back together again - which is what they're attempting to do with voluntary alignment.

Whatever they believe, it is not going to happen. The EU has said as much. Even a basic SPS deal is at least ten years away and will take as long to negotiate its final form. EU producers are likely to lobby against such a deal now that we're out of the single market. We have to adapt to that reality and start regulating in the national interest - towards regulatory objectives of our own making.

We now have two options. We either run with the choice we made in 2016 and get busy trying to make the best of it (and it's certainly not all bad), or we waste time trying to keep a failing status quo from falling apart in the vague hope that the EU might throw us a bone if we're a bit nicer to them. If we continue with this remainer delusion, then the economic consequences of Brexit will be far worse than they ever needed to be.

This is not a question of "believing harder in Brexit to make it work". This is about recognising that a we have set upon a major change in leaving the single market that cannot realistically be undone (and certainly not for the next twenty years) - and the more we try to undo it - or pretend it never happened, the more damage we will do.

Follow Pete North at @FUDdaily .

Here's how UKIP would stop the boats!

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 20:25:20 GMT

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson (R’td)

UK Independence Party - Defence and Veterans Spokesman

Parliamentary Candidate for Somerton and Frome By Election

It is obvious to all that Rishi Sunak’s plan to end the small boats and the illegal immigrants has come to a shuddering and quite frankly an embarrassing stop.

We now have a statement from ISIS stating they intend to carry out a large-scale atrocity in the UK.

This poses the question, how many who have arrived on our shores since 2018 are sleeper ISIS terrorists?

Our hard pressed and underfunded security services do not really have a clue but ISIS themselves know who is walking freely amongst us, waiting for the moment to strike causing death and destruction.

Enough is enough and a coherent plan that adheres to the UNHCR principles, is lawful and respects people lives must be put into place. The UK Independence Party has such a plan. A plan that will work, will stop the boats coming and will end the work of the evil people traffickers. That policy can be found at https://www.ukip.org/ukip-policies/policy-immigration it clearly states how we will ensure these illegal immigrants will be prevented from coming to our shores.

Those that are already here awaiting a decision on their asylum claims are a blight on the communities that house them and a threat to community and national security.

We have a plan that will remove these people to a purpose-built facility with all the required amenities and a dedicated team of asylum claim staff to process claims quickly and efficiently, well away from the mainland shores of the United Kingdom. Thus, ensuring safety and the well-being of the asylum seekers, but more importantly the communities where these immigrants are currently housed.

UK Independence Party Immigration Policy:

https://www.ukip.org/ukip-policies/policy-immigration

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson (R’td)

UK Independence Party - Defence and Veterans Spokesman

Parliamentary Candidate for Somerton and Frome By Election

Voters of Somerton & Frome

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 21:29:04 GMT

Peter Richardson - Squadron Leader (Rtd)

Defence Spokesman - UK Independence Party

Parliamentary Candidate - Somerton & Frome

After fourteen months of little to no representation, I am the candidate that will ensure your issues and worries will be heard in Westminster.

I am Peter Richardson the UK Independence Party candidate, a military veteran, a parish councillor and a local person who understands your local issues.

I loyally served my country for forty years and I now wish to serve the residents of Somerton and Frome with the same loyalty and integrity and I will put the local community at the heart of my programme.

I will give you six good reasons to vote for the UK Independence Party:

Cost of living: Other parties are obsessed with Net Zero and conspire to make you poorer. Net Zero increase energy costs for families and fuels inflation. We will end this madness, repeal all climate legislation and exit all treaties that increase the cost of living for the forgotten majority.

Small and Medium Businesses: We are the party of the smaller businesses and sole traders. We will help them improve their cash flow by keeping more of what they earn, so they can invest it back into their business. We will scrap green taxes that make business uncompetitive by driving up energy process. We want a low energy cost economy and a healthy UK.

Housing and Infrastructure: Other parties encourage population growth, which has reached record levels, this puts pressure on housing and other infrastructure, lowers wages and the quality of life for everyone. We will encourage building developers to build affordable housing and help young people get on the housing ladder by removing stamp duty on primary residences up to £500,00.

Local Development: Demand not supply is the reason for the housing shortage. We will stop building on green spaces and control population growth by ending mass-uncontrolled immigration. We will bring all farmland into production and we will not use it for hosting electricity generating equipment or re-wilding to save the planet.

Transport: We understand that rural areas require an affordable integrated transport network and strive to provide this. We will end the war on motorists, scrap smart motorways and bring back hard shoulders and toll roads. We reject 15-minute cities.

Illegal Immigration: This government has lost control of our borders. We will exit all international conventions that prevent an elected government from exercising the democratic to control who comes into our country. We will turn back illegal immigrants who arrive in small boats and we will not let them enter the UK.

This is your chance to make a change, your vote is important, vote wisely, vote for the UK Independence Party.

Peter Richardson - Squadron Leader (Rtd)

Defence Spokesman - UK Independence Party

Parliamentary Candidate - Somerton & Frome

Do The SNP Really Want Independence?

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 18:17:37 GMT

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party - Scotland

Politics is invariably a sordid business where nothing is ever as it seems, and people are playing all kinds of elaborate games behind the scenes.

What if the following hypothesis bears some semblance to reality.

You are a second-rate politician in a glorified local authority debating chamber. Earning £67661 per year.

You do not need to think a single original thought. Just nod your head when the leader speaks.

Regurgitate endless vacuous slogans.

Nothing needs to work or actually create any wealth.

Westminster is to blame for everything.

Keep repeating the mantra that only independence will set Scotland free.

Then make absolutely sure it never actually happens.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party - Scotland

Don't Fear What You Already Know

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 10:40:08 GMT

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

Whilst I recognise that socialist governments of old are rightly feared by those who sit themselves firmly on the “right” side of the political fence, we must no longer fear an impending Labour government for one simple reason…

We already have one!

For 13 long years, the failed Conservative party have dished out what can only be described as left leaning policies, designed to appease wets and the ever deepening politically correct cesspit we inhabit.

Policy, principles and plans are now all distant memories of the past as the media now commands debate and government direction. Long gone are the politicians who hold a firm set of beliefs who try to convince and carry the public with them in pursuit of a better future. Our system is riddled with short-termism and people sold out to big business and global elites.

Even the majority of the parties and groups on our side of the political argument appear to have no real belief in the UK itself, ignoring calls of partnership working, looking only for small gains to simply further their political platforms for their own betterment.

It really is the saddest state of affairs the UK electorate faces.

No trust in politics,

A political class who simply don’t believe in our countries,

A broken political system set to never change,

And a never-ending stream of immigration set to change the UK indefinitely.

You would have heard the same call from UKIP before, but the people MUST stand and force change once again by joining us, standing for us and supporting us.

Anything else, simply is a waste of time. Ponzi Scheme’s or drip feeding of sound bites to support said social media platforms.

UKIP is Real People , standing up for Real Issues who are all living in the Real World .

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

The UK Independence Party’s policy - SEND THEM BACK.

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 09:06:19 GMT

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party Immigration Spokesman

616 migrants crossed the English Channel in 12 small boats on Sunday 11 ^th June. Bringing the total arriving uninvited to our shores this year alone to 8,380.

Vile ruthless traffickers taking advantage of the heatwave, low wind and calm seas and cramming in around 51 people per boat.

This current Government has no plan to stop the boats. The UK Independence Party is the only political party in the UK that has the political will and a plan to do just that.

We would not be housing these people on giant engineless barges that cannot even accommodate the numbers of illegal migrants arriving in one day.

Yes, we would have vessels in the Channel, but they would have an engine. They would act as reception and transport vessels, As capacity is reached with illegals, and the necessary medical and security personnel the vessel would set sail for a Reception Centre in the Falkland Islands. Their asylum claim would be heard there. We would build a reception centre on the West Falkland Island where asylum seekers would be housed in comfortable accommodation and free to come and go.

We would stop the boats by erecting a nautical defence mechanism consisting of several moveable floating barriers at sea sufficient to deal with the numbers arriving. The design will be unsurmountable and will not allow any hand or foothold. They will be placed exactly on the international border with French waters by means of nautical GPS.

A "mothership” stationed 500 m behind the barriers will control the positioning of barriers using secure communications. It will control unmanned airborne vehicles, which will identify migrant boats, their course, and their projected international border crossing point. It will be registered under a flag of convenience (to avoid it being UK territory and to eliminate potential asylum claims).

Potential intruders must stay on the French side at all times. It will be the responsibility of the French to rescue them at sea. The mothership will inform the French Coast Guard of the co-ordinates and that there are inflatable vessels with occupants that need their attention on their side of the water.

It is crucially important in order to stem the flow of illegals to totally change their expectations of how they will be treated when they arrive.

There is much more in our new policy document that highlights the Government’s dereliction of duty to protect our borders. We have solutions! We have detailed plans to deal with the Legacy arrivals, those already here. Look out for future press releases.

The Government doesn’t know which way to turn. It should turn to the UK Independence Party. The Party with innovative ideas and solutions to problems.

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party Immigration Spokesman

Permanent Structured Cooperation

Tue, 30 May 2023 13:35:03 GMT

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party Spokeswoman for Immigration

Back in November 2022 I wrote an article covering the EU Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO). This group of EU member states agreed on 7 ^th September 2017 to form a military cooperation pact within member states for mutual defence.

PESCO is under the governance of the European Defence Agency (EDA) and all member states are required to sign up to the EDA’s regulations regarding defence and military action, there are currently 26 European member states, and the UK is a third-party member, although outside the EU.

The then Prime Minister Liz Truss signed an agreement with the EDA hence the UK joined as a member of PESCO on 6 ^th October 2022 and on the 15 ^{th of} November 2022 the UK joined with the Netherlands to work on the Military Mobility Project. This project is effectively a military Schengen to allow the free movement of member states across Europe. Would this mobility project be better handled by NATO rather than PESCO and the EDA?

The security and defence of the UK is and should always be the number one priority of any government, it would now seem that this not the case. It would appear that the Government has been in talks with the EU and the EDA with an aim of handing governance of our armed forces to Brussels to create a common and harmonious joint defence force, thus reducing costs.

However, will this mean that the UK will be required to fall in line with future procurement and buy the hardware the EDA tells it to? Will our armed forces be directed on operations by the EDA? Will the UK be able to conduct operations as it sees fit, but only with agreement from the EDA? What of the UK’s nuclear deterrent? Will this fall under the jurisdiction of the EDA, one would certainly hope not. In the future, I can see our armed forces quietly becoming part of the European Army, an aim that the EU have held for a long time.

By signing up to PESCO, part of the joint agreement is to, “share the EU’s values and their laws” and to contribute to the European Defence Fund. All of this is being agreed under a cloak of, “you the people do not need to know”.

The UK and all the other member PESCO states are also members of NATO, a strong and reliable defence pact that has worked well since the end of the 2 ^nd World War, so why do we need to sign up to a European Defence Pact, especially as we are no longer a member of the EU? The USA is very sceptical of the reasoning behind PESCO and are not happy about the arrangement.

I wonder what the final end game of this quietly manoeuvred closer cooperation with the EU is?

The UK is now required to share EU values and their laws, is this the thin edge of closer cooperation wedge to bring the UK back under total control of the EU? The lack of transparency and dissemination of information on PESCO and the EDA by the government certainly makes me think so.

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson R’td

UK Independence Party - Defence and Veterans Spokesman

Corruption is not what it used to be.

Mon, 22 May 2023 20:20:11 GMT

Member Opinion

Ivor Jones

UK Independence Party Member Bath and Somerset Branch

Representative for Bridgewater and West Somerset

In the eyes of the Public, those days of yore and brown envelopes stuffed with cash, things were far more straightforward – not commendable of course, but pretty unequivocal.

Nowadays, however, a particular word has morphed into something more insidious and downright dangerous. When referring to computers, for example, a corrupt program usually means that the thing is doing something other than what you were intending it to do. This can be catastrophically detrimental, despite its appearing to be working quite normally.

In much the same way as a computer program can be corrupted, various national institutions continually throw up outcomes which defy logic and decency, resulting in bad, flawed and unreliable end results. These are then misrepresented to the trusting Public as the considered judgement of those wise people who have long regarded themselves as infinitely superior and of unimpeachable integrity, as we all know.

On numerous occasions, we have been sold a particular pup in the fields of medicine, law, education, politics, science, etc. and other important areas which fundamentally affect our lives These are, however, often totally at odds with the truth. A good example is the Great Postmaster Scandal, when it was a computer error all along. The fact that this was grudgingly and finally admitted only after years of official high-level denial demonstrates something much more reprehensible and sinister in every way. Likewise the contaminated blood debacle.

At the time, life went on for most of us and wasted away for those others. Weeks, months and years of some people’s lives were being summarily squandered or destroyed, never to be regained, and all because of ponderous and institutionally corrupt systems.

Our judicial process is complicated and multi-layered. It needs complete reform, a so-called root and branch job. Unfortunately for us mere mortals, because of the way things are, this is most unlikely to happen simply because of who would have to carry out such reforms?

Those comfortable, cosily cossetted turkeys are never going to vote for Christmas, that’s for sure. Eureka! We have just discovered the third certainty of life, after death and taxes.

That’s a very vague glimmer at best. We know the worst – those illogical mild sentences we frequently read about. Then there are those mysterious ‘family courts’ ominously cropping up in the newspapers from time to time. They give rise to a lot of hot air and outrage, but then things soon return to an often deeply flawed normal. And so it goes.

In each and every case of tragedy, triumph, trial or tribulation, you’ll find some kind of lawyer with a hand stretched out. What price ethics at times like this? An ex-politician’s wife springs nimbly to mind for some unaccountable reason.

While on the subject of PMs past, it has been suggested that the wonderful, much vaunted Irish ‘peace’ deal was so ably and expertly negotiated unilaterally and without proper due parliamentary process or consideration for a specific purpose. Surely it could not have been simply a trade-off unconditionally to liberate numerous convicted murderers, thugs and low life in return for ensuring the consequential safe passage of an otherwise prime political target. Now would that be a cynical thought, or top-level collusion?

The fact that, once again, more Paras are still being hounded for doing an impossibly difficult job all those years ago by a biased official process further reinforces this idea of institutional corruption.

Of other cases more recent, the mysterious circumstances surrounding the fate of Dr David Kelly have never publicly been made known. Somebody knows, but why the official cover-up?

Currently, the re-emergence of the strange happenings regarding the death of the private investigator Daniel Morgan throws up some important questions, especially since much relevant information had been locked away in an office in Scotland Yard, or so it appears.

We are now told that the local fire brigade had to break open the safe to recover it. Wouldn’t you think the police might know a few old lags who would have welcomed the chance to practise their skills?

Now we hear that Mr Sunak has reneged on that solemnly declared commitment to abolish the whole tranche of EU regulations. We are all the much poorer for being betrayed by those very people we trust to act in our best interests, whatever they may be. However you look at it, corruption’s not what it used to be – it’s much worse.

Ivor Jones

UK Independence Party Member Bath and Somerset Branch

Representative for Bridgewater and West Somerset

Remember Us?? We were right all along!

Mon, 22 May 2023 20:12:43 GMT

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party Spokeswoman for Immigration

Labour and Tory Governments have swamped Britain with mass immigration since 1997. The rapid population growth is unsustainable. No thought was given at the start as to how great numbers of additional people could be looked after.

Nobody thought about housing, schools, healthcare provision infrastructure, how would it all work, how all these different cultures would be assimilated and actually……… nobody cared.

We have nowhere for these migrants to live, it seems accommodation offered to them is not up to their expectations and the Government is bending over backwards to appease them for fear of being called racist. Many are housed in better conditions than a lot of UK citizens….. that is not right.

Every day £11.4 million + of taxpayers’ money is being used to house migrants in Hotels up and down the UK. Weddings Birthday celebrations corporate meetings are all being cancelled as the Hotel is under contract to the Government to house migrants. Hotels accommodating 400 migrants are in communities of just 1,400.

This reckless and desperate action by the Government has changed peoples‘ lives forever. This is wrong!

People who have rented the same property for years are being forced out of their homes by greedy landlords. Landlords are being bribed with excessive rental income offers to house migrants, tenants are being priced out of the rental market.

Local Authorities are receiving money to build accommodation specifically for migrants. Why? In 2022 there were one million two hundred and six thousand and thirty-six households on social housing waiting lists in England. Who cares about them? Nobody!

There is a skill shortage here and Government say we need immigration to fill vacancies. These skill shortages should immediately initiate increases in the related educational and training programme. Recently five trades were added to the skills shortage list. Making it easier for migrants to apply for work visas to fill job vacancies bricklayers, roofers, carpenters and plasterers added to the list.

A recruitment drive and a suitable training programme offered to secondary school pupils could solve this problem. University is not for everyone. With the retirement age going up and up……. many skilled tradesmen would welcome the opportunity to train up the next generation.

Life is changing for many in the UK the Brits are becoming the minority in their own country. People do not feel safe and relaxed here any longer and of course, nobody cares!

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party Spokeswoman for Immigration

I'm a Patriot Me!

Fri, 19 May 2023 10:41:31 GMT

Phil Bottomley

UK Independence Party - Member & Activist

British is best! Britain is the best country in the World!

Sadly, thanks to two World wars, numerous dodgy conflicts and insipid Government those statements are no longer true. Once upon a time we were disliked but feared, as was true of most Imperialistic States. The British lion roared and people sat up and took notice, today we are lucky if the sad old lion manages a whimper.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not nostalgic for the old days of Empire but, as someone who is immensely proud to be British, I do despair at the present state of our nation. When did the 'rot' set in, when did Britain stop being Great? More important than that, when did we, the British people , stop caring?

We haven't got enough roads and even the one's we do have are pitted with potholes. The railway system is a joke and instead of trying to get it sorted out our esteemed leaders seem to think that a new high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham will solve the problem! As much as I admired Margaret Thatcher I have to admit that even she was complicit in the downfall of the UK. In my opinion, though she got a lot of things right she allowed bitterness to rule where foresight was needed. In curbing the Unions she actually destroyed British industry and put her faith in the Financial Sector . All very well but, as we have all found to our cost, the financiers proved to be ten times worse than the Union Barons ever were.

The other half of the equation was the ruinous thirteen years of New Labour. Whatever good came from the Thatcher and John Major years, New Labour destroyed. They destroyed it by feckless spending of the reserves built up by the previous Conservative administrations, embroiling the country in foreign wars based on lies and false statement. They destroyed it by taking the UK deeper into the EU with little reward for our financial input and borrowing on a scale more akin to a Third World Dictatorship. They too relied heavily upon the City to bankroll them out of trouble but found that it was they who had to bankroll the City using taxpayers money. To make matters worse, as I alluded to earlier, there was no British industry or infrastructure left to fall back on.

So, where do we go from here? The first thing that we need to do is to, "get over it!" We are no longer a World leader, we are no longer a major military force and we no longer have an Empire. Having said that, we should also stop apologising for having said Empire. We tend to dwell on the past too much in this country instead of looking to the future. We are also not very good at recognising the home-grown talent that we have. We have let technologies, designed and tested in this country, slip through our fingers. Usually through short-sighted Government Officials who look to their Departmental budgets rather than taking a chance on innovation. I have often wondered why someone has not had the foresight to set up an ophthalmology clinic in the Palace of Westminster as they would never be short of custom.

Austerity measures implemented by the likes of George Osbourne and more recently the equally short-sighted Jeremy Hunt have further hampered innovation, entrepreneurship and the ability of business to kick-start the economy. As for the military, it has been pared down to such a degree that pretty soon the Territorial Force will outnumber the Regular Force. It is a ridiculous position to be in, we have been fighting in conflicts on foreign soil which are un-winnable and paid for on credit when the National Debt is already in the £trillions! Thank goodness we no longer do have an Empire, that would surely have bankrupt us! Cuts to Welfare, cuts to the Armed Forces, Cuts to the NHS (ring-fenced?), cuts to the Police, Cuts to the Emergency Services, cuts to Air-Sea rescue, cuts to salaries, cuts to pensions, everywhere a cut-cut! Increased funding for foreign aid, increased salaries for politicians, still funding the EU. It is crazy, ill-thought out and crazy!

Nigel Farage was always telling us that, unlike he, non of the present political leaders have ever had a proper job. Doesn't it show? How can anyone who has never held a job run a business as big as The United Kingdom plc? It beggars belief, more so because we, the General Public, let them get away with it.

I heard a chinless Tory saying on TV the other day that people are losing faith in the Conservative Party because they have failed to get the message across. The message being that they have more policies than SSM, foreign aid or arguing for the UK to have close ties the EU.

The truth is, it really doesn't matter because all three "Main Parties" are giving out the same messages, albeit in differing word format. We need change and if, as I hope, people rally to the side of those campaigning for the UK to completely break from the EU that is precisely what we will get. No more lies, no more false promises, no more EU, no more cuts for cuts sake; just a new beginning which will see this country rise in the World rankings once again.

I doubt if Britain will ever be truly "Great" again but we can reach a stage whereby we can stand tall and be proud to be British.

Having read thus far, please don't come to the conclusion that I am knocking Britain because I am not. I served in the Armed Forces and fought for my country, I'm immensely proud to be British and Britain will always be "Great" in my eyes. However, I am concerned for the future and unless we as a Nation accept that we need radical change in order to keep our Sovereignty I see Britain being left behind. The Tories have ruined the fishing industry and destroyed whole communities and once thriving towns in the process. Likewise the UK farming industry which is still beset with EU rules and regulations because the useless Government has not got around to getting rid of them.

There are a myriad of areas that need ‘Radical Change’ including this Party which I love. The UK Independence Party has strong leadership, strong sensible policies but a weak following. We need influencers who can entice big business to support us, we need expertise in marketing, people who will shed the right wing shackles of the old UKIP and shine a new light on this new brand of centre right politics. In order to make the UK great we first need to make the UK Independence Party great. This way we can build the membership and be in a better position to give the people of this great country the change for the better that they really deserve.

Phil Bottomley

UK Independence Party - Member & Activist

OFSTED - No longer fit for purpose

Wed, 10 May 2023 21:37:42 GMT

Jack Thomson

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Young People

The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (OFSTED) is an independent organization in the UK responsible for inspecting and regulating schools, colleges, and other educational institutions. While OFSTED should play an important role in maintaining educational standards and ensuring accountability, its methods and policies have been criticized for their negative effects on students and teachers.

One of the main criticisms of OFSTED is that its emphasis on high stakes testing and exam results creates a culture of anxiety and pressure in schools. Teachers are often under immense pressure to deliver results, and students are subjected to a relentless cycle of testing and assessment, which can be both stressful and demotivating. This focus on testing also tends to prioritize certain subjects, such as English and Maths, at the expense of other subjects, such as the arts and humanities, which may not be as heavily tested or valued in the OFSTED system.

Another negative effect of OFSTED is its impact on teacher workload and wellbeing. In order to meet the demands of OFSTED inspections, teachers are often required to work long hours, undertake extensive preparation, and engage in a range of administrative tasks, which can leave them feeling exhausted and overworked. This can have a detrimental effect on their mental health, and may even lead to burnout or attrition, which can in turn negatively impact the quality of education that students receive. The tragic suicide of Ruth Perry, a headteacher in Reading, only shows how much of a stigma OFSTED ratings can be to teachers.

Furthermore, the focus on OFSTED inspections can also have a negative effect on the curriculum and pedagogy in schools. Teachers may feel compelled to test and assess, rather than focusing on more meaningful and engaging forms of learning, such as project-based learning or inquiry-based learning. This can limit students' exposure to a diverse range of subjects and teaching styles and may lead to a narrow and overly prescriptive curriculum that fails to inspire and engage students.

Finally, there are concerns that OFSTED inspections may perpetuate inequality and discrimination in the education system. Schools in disadvantaged areas may be unfairly penalized for low exam results, despite the fact that they may be facing significant socio-economic and cultural barriers. This can exacerbate existing inequalities and create a self-fulfilling prophecy in which schools in disadvantaged areas are further stigmatized and marginalized.

In conclusion, while OFSTED serves an important role in maintaining educational standards and ensuring accountability, its methods and policies have negative effects on students and teachers in the UK. An independent review is much needed to evaluate OFSTED. Our schools need regulation by a body that does not discriminate and treats every school fairly.

Jack Thomson

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Young People

Tories sink ever lower!

Wed, 10 May 2023 21:23:29 GMT

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party – Brexit and Northern Ireland Spokesman

Tories sink ever lower!

Not only has Rishi Sunak’s Tory party effectively handed over Northern Ireland to the EU, but it also now wants to voluntarily force the whole UK to kow-tow to EU labelling rules.

As of October 2024, all milk, all butter, meat, fish, and vegetables sold in the whole UK will be labelled as ‘not for EU’! Why not also put 'not for US' or 'not for China' on them too?

This is part of Rishi Sunak’s ‘Windsor framework’ for Northern Ireland - which is more like a frame-up or a stitch up of the UK.

Is this what a Sunak deregulation looks like? Instead of ditching redundant EU laws, we’re pandering to Brussels by putting more of them in place. This will also force all retailers to needlessly spend money on new packaging and paperwork.

Now, the justification for this, we’re told, is to prevent extra packaging costs falling on those that move goods into Northern Ireland. Well, the best way to do that is to remove EU control and ECJ jurisdiction over Northern Ireland.

Having 'not for EU' plastered over everything we buy across the UK is unnecessary and sends out the wrong message.

Rishi Sunak needs to get a grip!

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party – Brexit and Northern Ireland Spokesman

Who pulls the strings of ‘eco’ fanatics?

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 09:06:32 GMT

Member Opinion Piece

Ivor Jones

UK Independent Party Bath and Somerset Branch

Representative for Bridgwater and West Somerset

In the light of the current spate of organised vandalism perpetrated in the names of Eco This or Stop Something Else, haven’t we seen this kind of near mass-hysterical action before?

With certain obvious exceptions, most of the activists appear to be in the teens to

early twenties bracket, and of a comfortable so-called middle-class group. In any event, they have been persuaded that this business of ‘climate change’ which has steadily become some sort of cult, is about to destroy all life as we know it.

In reality, the world’s climate has been changing since the ‘Big Bang’ and will continue so to do until the whole thing eventually fizzles out. They have not yet cottoned on to the fact that by far the biggest threat to human existence is that of overpopulation.

What is more disturbing, however, is the ease with which they have been recruited into behaving as they do – with no regard to everybody else’s opinions and wishes.

Whether by disrupting a Snooker Tournament, the Grand National, obstructing motorways or whatever else, it is clear that there is a core group of these ‘eco’ fanatics who can be directed to any place or event that somebody decides should be attacked, whenever and wherever they choose. For this to happen, there has to be a hierarchy at large, as opposed to and directing the cannon fodder who actually make the mischief.

As we have seen on various other occasions, it is those ‘useful idiots’ who do the dirty work while the organisers stay safely away and laugh at those gullible enough to take it all in, regardless of the veracity of their cause’ or the consequences of their mindless actions.

This is not new by any means. The Nazis in pre-war Germany used similar tactics involving some sort of brainwashing and intimidation, which resulted in the emergence of Hitler Youth and we all know what a misguided bunch they eventually turned out to be.

Of more concern these days is the potential for the organisers of these events to bring together at short notice a substantial gang of activists who can be easily manipulated into carrying out acts of serious civil disobedience against any stratum of society they decide needs their form of correction or treatment.

This is a form of grooming however you look at it. Of course, there will be a percentage who will duck out of any really serious civil disorder, but that would still leave a substantial number of organised troublemakers who will relish the thought of seizing some sort of power to affect political thought or action. This is generally accompanied by those seeking to maximise damage to public and private property.

It is regrettable that the Courts have so far failed to acknowledge this current spate of ochlocracy. Meanwhile, we all have to put up with that troublesome element intent on testing the boundaries of a decent democratic society.

Ivor Jones

UK Independent Party Bath and Somerset Branch

Representative for Bridgwater and West Somerset

Ten Good Reasons to Vote for the UK Independence Party on 4th of May

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 08:57:08 GMT

Steve Unwin

UK Independence Party Spokesman

Home Affairs, Voting Reform & Local Government

1. UKIP believes in Direct Local Democracy

Many local issues are decided by a limited number of Councillors representing a major party and only sometimes conducted with a local consultation which often allows local councils to bulldoze. through contentious local proposals such as out-of-town supermarkets, incinerators, major housing developments or construction of vanity projects. UKIP will ensure binding local referenda decide these issues.

2. UKIP will keep Council Tax down

We will cut highly paid council executives. According to the Taxpayers Alliance, 2,759 council bosses received OVER £100,000 in pay, perks and pensions in the year 2021-2022. UKIP would scrap this Town Hall Rich List to keep YOUR council taxes down.

3. UKIP will End the War on Motorists

We will scrap largely unused bus and cycle lanes that cause tailbacks in remaining lanes; remove Low Traffic Zones and other measures that cause longer journey times; scrap all forms of Congestion Charges, ULEZ, as well as punitive kerbside and other excessive council car parking fees. UKIP will also help local shops and traders by incentivising local authorities all over the UK to provide adequate parking facilities with at least 30 minutes of free parking in every town centre and local shopping parade.

4. UKIP says NO to Climate Emergencies

The UK unilaterally pursuing NET ZERO will severely damage the domestic and industrial sectors and has already been driving our heavy industries, and CO2 emissions abroad. UK pursuit of NET ZERO will destroy our way of life yet World CO2 emissions will continue to rise anyway. UKIP will end the mad yet meaningless virtue signalling of your local council declaring a Climate Emergency.

5. UKIP will End Uncontrolled Mass-Immigration

Rapid mass uncontrolled Immigration has been extremely damaging to Britain. Our gutless political class has been so “woke” and weak they have facilitated the organised crime of people traffickers via the backs of lorries and in increasingly larger-capacity inflatable “small boats” embarking on dangerous journeys across the English Channel. They have done nothing to realistically end the pull-factor. Four-star hotels, with various other perks and no foreseeable end was never going to be the solution. UKIP will do whatever is required to stem this flow of illegals by doing whatever is necessary to prevent them reaching UK territory, and (if they do reach it) totally change their expectations of how they will be treated when they arrive.

6. UKIP will Stop Local Councils from Charging for Domestic Waste.

We will stop councils from charging for disposal of waste from domestic DIY work and garden rubbish etc. People pay huge council taxes, that supposedly covers waste disposal, and local council charges lead to greater problems of fly-tipping on private land. We will also put pressure on local authorities to increase recycling rates and incineration capacity to justify the manpower efforts of residents in maximising the amount of waste that is recycled.

7. UK Independence Means a UK self-sufficient in food production

We will support British farmers to bring all farmland into food production. We will scrap the Green agenda; reward farmers who produce wholesome food; say NO to non-stun slaughter of livestock (removing religious exemptions); and we will promote the highest standards of animal husbandry. We will end the practice of whole life “factory farming”, ban battery hen farming and end the export of live animals for slaughter. We British have always been animal lovers.

8. UK Independence Means a UK self-sufficient in energy production

For energy security we will use existing UK resources of primary fuels such as gas (including shale) and coal, as well as nuclear, and solar arrays, especially on buildings. We would remove the UK from various “Green” measures and prioritise an independent supply of energy for the UK.

9. UK Independence Means a Free, Democratic, Self-Governing UK

UK Independence is not just about the UK’s independence from the EU (including Northern Ireland; our fishing; and our border control). We will not only liberate the UK fully from the European Union, but also ensure primacy of UK laws over and above global institutions including the World Economic Forum, the UN Refugee Convention, and the ECHR. Nobody voted for any of these forms of one world government.

10. UKIP councillors will work hard for the best interests of local people

Your priorities are our priorities – we believe in prioritising People NOT Politics. UKIP councillors have never been “whipped” and our prime focus is on the smooth running of your services such as planning, housing, education, local refuse and recycling, parks, leisure facilities, transport, libraries and keeping you safe. UKIP believes these services must run effectively and efficiently, and we will always oppose those wasting YOUR money on their vanity projects.

If you agree with the UK Independence Party and our Belief in Britain – but you turn up to vote and there is no UKIP candidate … well whoever you thought would stand in your patch was obviously leaving it to you! So, you will be VERY welcome to PLEASE join us here: www.ukip.org/join

And then please contact our campaign organiser: campaign@ukip.org

Steve Unwin

UK Independence Party Spokesman

Home Affairs, Voting Reform & Local Government

The wait and see mentality

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 08:41:22 GMT

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party – Immigration Spokeswoman

According to Migration Watch this week, our population increased by 8 million in 20 years with 85% nearly 7million due to migrants and children of migrants. Our population is expected to hit 75 million by 2050.

This increase in population has been ignored for 20 years. Lack of available housing means that the number of families sharing a privately rented house in England has trebled since 1991. It can only be that successive governments decided to just wait and see what happens, they certainly made no attempt to plan and address the growing requisite for more adequate housing. Why was there no monitoring of the backlog of need among people living in unsuitable accommodation?

I read today that the Home Secretary Suella Braverman has vowed to clamp down on “sex for rent” arrangements that exploit the vulnerable. The illegal practice involves tenants, often young women, accepting a free or discounted rent for sexual relations with a landlord. How widespread and for how long has this despicable practice been going on? I hope this government is not going to just wait and see.

According to the latest stats from Age UK there are now nearly 12million people aged over 65 in Briton and the state pension bill has risen rapidly. Growing numbers of elderly people will have an impact on the NHS and Care Provision. A decline in the working population means a drop in tax revenue to fund all this. What happened to contingency planning? This problem should have been anticipated. Again, a big fail in successive governments deciding to just wait and see.

The number of homeless on the streets including Veterans has not happened overnight again this shoddy government and local authorities adopted a wait and see mentality.

No action has been taken and no serious questions raised about capacity, reliability, and performance of our transport network, which brings misery every day to so many. They have known about such issues for years but decided to just wait and see. This country is in a pickle and the population is uneasy, people are in danger.

The increasing problem of uncontrolled immigration is probably the worst of the wait and see blunders. The UK has reached saturation point, we are full up! Uncontrolled and unmanageable immigration will be the final nail in the coffin.

Apparently, a bit late in the day, moves being made to toughen up the Illegal Migration Bill, include new powers to confiscate phones from illegal migrants. The government have been giving phones out to migrants like sweets! Where age is uncertain, they will be treated as adults unless they agree to a scientific age assessment. Well done, Sherlock, surely both of these practices should already be in place, it is just common sense.

The UK independence Party have solutions to solve this country’s problems and our new “stop the boats” policy proposal will be hitting the headlines soon.

We will not be a Party that just stands by waiting to see what happens. We will recognise any problem and in particular those in danger of escalating and take whatever steps needed to sort it pronto!

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party – Immigration Spokeswoman

National Executive Committee Update

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 13:35:24 GMT

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

Following Saturday's National Executive Meeting, members decided unanimously to update the Party's Rule Book, making changes to people who can apply to join the party.

Please see the change below:

I.6 Membership is not available to anyone who is or has previously been a member of Hope not Hate, Antifa, Communist League, Left Unity, Extinction Rebellion, Stop the Oil (or any other parties or organisations later added to the proscribed list).

Any applications made from people who are or have been members of these organisations will be refused, and any subscriptions collected will be refunded. By making an application for membership, the applicant certifies that he is not and has never been a member of either of these parties.

All other applications are welcomed from any person. Any previous political membership(s) or association(s) that an applicant is in doubt of should be listed on the application.

Applications are assessed without prejudice and on their own merit. The UK Independence Party reserves the right to reject applications or terminate memberships if these criteria are not met.

This move is a swing to now exclude the "Extreme Left" as opposed to like-minded, free-thinking people of the right.

UKIP welcomes applications from any individual to join the party as long as you aren't a "Left Winger" nutter!

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

Anne Marie Waters announces her return to politics & UKIP

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:56:26 GMT

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

I am really pleased to announce that Anne Marie Waters has returned to politics and as "Justice" spokes for the UK Independence Party.

This ground breaking move by Anne demonstrates her commitment to helping unite our fragmented side of the political argument, whilst also recognising that she is a political activist with so much more to give.

Please click the link below to watch her video.

https://youtu.be/X5eeT36K_04

Our party's work continues to re-build a tangible, "common-sense" alternative to the nonsense we are now forced to endure and live by on a daily basis at the hands of our globally controlled, self-serving politicians and woke-drunk establishments with their nutty agendas.

Join us, join Anne and be part of the fight back!

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK Independence Party

The Great Scottish Politicians of the past will NEVER be replaced

Tue, 04 Apr 2023 14:40:43 GMT

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Scotland

Now that Mr Yousaf has been elevated to the highest office in Scotland it’s time to take stock of the calibre of our politicians.

Mr Yousaf has never had a proper job or ran a business. He went from the world of student politics into the almost identical world of Scottish parliamentary politics.

He seems to have difficulty in riding a scooter and gives the impression that he believes there is something wrong with white people holding positions of authority.

By any standards he is a lightweight and it is rather sad that he is regarded by the SNP as their most capable candidate.

One thinks of Scottish politicians of the past- Donald Dewar, Robin Cook, Malcolm Rifkind, Jim Sillars- even Mr Salmond himself. One did not require to agree with these gentleman to concur that they were serious political players. Now apparently Mr Yousaf stands on the stage beside them.

In fairness his opponents at Holyrood are of similar stock.

Were you to walk through their deepest thoughts you wouldn’t get your feet wet.

Scotland has produced some great politicians on both sides of the ideological divide.

It would appear that it does so no longer.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Scotland

DUP and ERG reject Sunak’s ‘Windsor Framework’!

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 19:39:38 GMT

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Brexit & Northern Ireland

It comes as absolutely no surprise to members of the UK Independence Party, that both the DUP and the Tory members of the European Research Group have decided that Rishi Sunak’s Windsor Framework is a disaster for the union of the United Kingdom.

That Tory framework, supported by pro-EU types across Westminster, is mere window dressing to pull the wool over peoples’ eyes and mislead them into believing that all the Brexit problems relating to Northern Ireland are over.

They are not.

This framework is a waste of paper because the protocol remains completely unchanged and all the framework does is actually reinforce the power of Brussels within Northern Ireland - and worse, potentially over the rest of the UK.

Those that support the Windsor Framework, are those that see little or no value in the union of the United Kingdom.

They will call the Windsor Framework a ‘pragmatic’ solution, the UK Independence Party calls it a sell-out!

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Brexit & Northern Ireland

Dutch Pro-Farming Party scores major election victory over Green Anti-Farms Establishment

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 08:36:48 GMT

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Foreign Affairs Spokesman

Last Wednesday, after months of huge protests all over Holland, the angry Dutch public scored a major victory for people power over the globalist, WEF supporting Dutch establishment.

A pro-farming party Farmer-Citizen Movement (Dutch: Boer Burger Beweging,(BBB) beat the government in provincial elections, on a turnout of 57.5%. It finished well ahead of Prime Minister Rutte's centre-right party. The elections were a quasi-referendum on the Dutch government’s agenda, of which 46% of voters disapproved in an on-line poll.

The pro-farmers' BBB party formed just four years ago in response to the anti-farming, green agenda of the Dutch government and it is now the third largest political force in the country. It had no representation in the Dutch Senate before last Wednesday’s election, but it is now a major force in the upper chamber ahead of the governing party.

This is a serious setback for the Dutch government and its deplorable anti-farming green agenda, which it has been trying to impose on an unwilling public, without the consent of the people. It is a welcome development, and the BBB will now work in tandem with other parties opposed to the Dutch government to delay or complicate its attempts to close down farms.

This spectacular victory for the pro-farming anti-establishment party casts serious doubt over the Dutch government's policy of implementing its harsh programme designed to close down farms as part of its green agenda. This confirms that people really can take on the establishment and win if they stay united and organised. It should be a salutary lesson for the UK establishment as to what is in store for them if they continue to impose policies such as mass immigration, green taxes, the war on motorists, continual erosion of freedom, foreign aid, BRINO instead of genuine independence and unsustainable green policies, all of which are disreputable and not supported by the people.

The moral is that what the Dutch can do, the Brits can do better. It is time for people power. That is what the UK’s legacy establishment parties fear most. Nevertheless, nothing will improve in our own country until people stop voting for the Lib/Lab/Con/Green common purpose alliance.

UKIP is a strong, established, reputable and viable political party. We are ready, willing, and waiting to park our tanks on the lawns of Westminster and make establishment MPs lose their seats if they fail to respect the silent majority of British people. Send them a message. Make UKIP’s voice stronger by joining up with us and become a member.

Britain is broken. Taking back control for our own people is an unfinished job.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Foreign Affairs Spokesman

Will China be the negotiator for peace?

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 08:29:34 GMT

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson R’td

UK Independence party – Defence and Veterans Spokesman

One year ago, I predicted that President Putin would eventually try to open negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine once he had a solution he could sell to the Russian people. President Putin has now reached a point in this conflict that has secured a Russian held arc of approximately 25 miles deep, from the east of Kharkiv down to Kherson. This arc of captured territory is mainly Russian speaking and gives easy land access to Crimea.

The Ukrainian armed forces are holding positions along this front and in some areas pushing the invading Russian forces back. It is known that the Ukrainian’s will not easily give up any territory to Putin but will the pressure from the west force Zelensky to accept the current stale mate. Putin has declared he will not accept any demands, though this would obviously be his opening gambit. He is now wanted officially for war crimes, and he can see he has limited international credibility or future.

Putin’s meeting with President Xi of China will, I believe place China as the negotiator for peace. Afterall, it is China’s interest in global trade to find a solution agreeable to all sides.

As to the defence of our own shores, The Prime Minister has stated that stopping the cross-channel boat migrants, illegally entering the UK is one of his five priorities. He along with the Home Secretary believes that a change in the law denying illegal migrants asylum status and that deportation to Rwanda will break the criminal gang’s business model and the migrants will then stop coming.

This is pie in the sky thinking. These people know that the chances of being sent to Rwanda, or any other country is minimal. At best Rwanda can currently only take 1000 deportees, so with currently a one in four hundred and fifty chance of being deported from the UK, the odds are favourable to the migrants. Two years ago, a friend and colleague of mine devised a concept of operations that would stop at least 80% of the illegal migrants. This was fully drawn up, fully funded, legal and the humanitarian/safety aspects were catered for. This plan has been forwarded to the Government and successive Home Sectaries four times, with a request for a face-to-face meeting to discuss the plan as part of a range of options to dramatically reduce or indeed stop the boats from entering UK waters. Each time the plan was rejected out of hand, which I believe, shows the lack of intent by the Government.

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson R’td

UK Independence party – Defence and Veterans Spokesman

Crusty Wieners

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 15:33:49 GMT

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK independence Party

So, today we listened to Mr Tice from Reform UK excitingly announce that his party would be standing candidates in 630 parliamentary seats across the UK at the next General Election to the back-drop of a handful of former BREXIT Party MEP’s.

Yet only one of the former MEP’s openly committed to stand themselves.

We were told how Reform continue to grow and that they were the only party talking hard on immigration with the government stealing their policy ideas and slogans. It’s important to note that not long ago, Mr Tice referred to speaking about the hot topic of controlling immigration as being a “bit too UKIPey”.

We have tried endlessly in the interests of the UK to speak to Mr Tice and have been repeatedly ignored, except for an email from Mr Tice’s journo partner, Isabel Oakeshott who believed we were all racists for wanting to protect our borders and control immigration.

We should also not forget, Tice and his former MEP chums, are the very same people who believed BREXIT was done and changed the name of their party to Reform UK. Only our party and its members knew we had been sold a dud.

Today’s announcement is a reheated, best of British, Sausage & Mash Microwave Meal; lumpy wet mash, dried up wieners and a bitter salty aftertaste!

We must NEVER forget, that Reform UK are the party that stood candidates down for a Tory deal that never came, lapped up COVID restrictions and mandatory vaccinations and threw the kitchen sink at Andrew Bridgen MP for speaking out against the health risks from the vaccinations. They are certainly not a party of Free-Speech.

Despite the endless 6-point plans, ego-massaging and lack of answers on policy, we learned nothing new about the floppy-haired, London-centric grifter company that continues to fragment our side of the political fence by design.

For the UK Independence Party, it’s very much business as usual. Our work to bring like-minded political groups and parties together continues, and headway is being made.

We are not a party of big business, big money or Tory-lite policies and we are certainly NOT managed opposition which is essentially what Reform UK have morphed into.

UKIP will never allow itself to be sold out in favour of our leaderships personal ambitions, position or platform grab; it will always act in the interests of the United Kingdom and its people.

People not Politics.

Ben Walker

National Party Chairman - UK independence Party

‘A novel and robust approach’ The Tories claim!

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 10:17:35 GMT

Patricia Mountain

UK independence Party – Immigration Spokesman

The new immigration bill UK means that anyone who enters the UK illegally and has passed through a safe country will be legally required to be removed and the Home Secretary will have the power to enforce it. They say that by ending illegal immigration as a route to asylum the bill will ensure the UK can better support people coming through fair safe and legal routes.

So, we will wait to see if this novel and robust approach reduces the imbalances between areas and social groups across The United Kingdom and ensures that the bill can withstand all legal challenges from the migrant support industry.

If illegal immigration is controlled, we are still in trouble, the explosion in population growth is unsustainable and more and more migrants are being invited and welcomed here.

Ministers gave the green light for another five occupations to be added to the shortage list before the summer recess to fill gaps in the economy. The list includes bricklayers, roofers, carpenters, construction workers and plasterers and more are expected to be added at the end of the year.

We need our own skilled tradesmen, and we need to start training our home-grown work force now to support our communities. It is wrong to entice other countries skilled resources to come here. How arrogant is this Government?

Foreign students are bringing in 8 times the number of dependent relatives before BREXIT on non-work non-study visas, they will be claiming benefits. Has the Government given any thought to where all these relatives are living? Are they worried about providing the necesaary classroom places, GP appointments, or hospital capacity. No, these problems are ignored!

Immigration officers and The Home Secretary must exercise discretion to ensure that they grant only the most deserving and most useful people visas. The right to a family life must be limited to spouses and children only.

New £125m funding from Government will help deliver homes for refugees who have fled conflict, the Refugee Housing Programme (RHP) will run until March 2024, and it is stated that these homes will become social or affordable housing available for Londoners and those elsewhere on housing lists in the longer term.

Afghan refugees have ‘indefinite leave to remain’ and Ukrainian refugees have been issued with three-year visas, but most will not be returned to Ukraine against their will, visas issued to more than 80,000 Hongkongers allows them to live, study and work in Britain for 5 years. Once that time is up British National (overseas) visa holders can apply to stay here permanently.

Yes, we have to support our fair share of the world’s people who are fleeing conflict and persecution and seeking safety, but this housing stock is unlikely to ever be used to house those born and bred in the UK. It is a red herring; the mention of this housing being used in the long term for social housing distracts our attention.

Suella Braverman seems very happy with the newly built accommodation for illegals in Rwanda. She described the interior of the £25,000 properties as ‘beautiful’. Suggest she organises a tour of shop doorways in the UK, home to Veterans, young and old and disabled British citizens let’s see if she thinks these living conditions are beautiful. She should then adopt a novel and robust approach to addressing the national problem of the mouldy, damp, and broken houses in all parts of the UK.

Talk about rubbing salt into the wound!

Patricia Mountain

UK independence Party – Immigration Spokesman

Should Scotland be an independent sovereign state?

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 17:43:52 GMT

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Scotland

Some believe that Scotland should be an independent sovereign state.

Others that Scotland should be an integral part of the United Kingdom.

Both arguments have some merit.

The position which lacks satisfaction is the current halfway house whether Scottish politicians pretend that they are an independent nation state (even describing themselves as a Government) while at the same time complaining about Westminster interference.

We even currently have the prospective elevation of a new First Minister and a sorry bunch they are.

The UK Independence Party believes firmly in the abolition of the Scottish Parliament and a return to the pre 1999 position where Scotland retains its own identity within a strong United Kingdom but without the sixth form debating assembly which is costly and pointless.

We are the only mainstream party to hold this position.

Let us have a proper analysis of independence.

The Unionists should point out that there is no going back. No more subsidies. No more DWP payments. No defence structure. Stand on your own two feet and stop moaning.

The idea of Mr Yousaf leading our proud nation into an uncertain future is one that prompts even the most optimistic to be filled with foreboding.

Such a debate will never emerge from the sycophantic Scottish media.

Unionists ought not to be afraid of such a debate.

Perhaps the time has arrived to have it.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Scotland

The inconsistencies surrounding freedom of speech

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 17:37:31 GMT

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party - Culture and Woke Spokesman

The recent furore surrounding Gary Lineker’s comments draws into focus the ongoing inconsistencies surrounding freedom of speech.

The UK Independence Party firmly believe (as opposed to pretending to believe) that the law should protect all expressions of opinion however unpalatable they may be. That is a fundamental component of a society which is truly free.

The alternative is that someone will decide what is acceptable and what is not.

That someone could be Sadiq Khan, Angela Rayner, or Nicola Sturgeon.

The libel laws will take care of any assaults on reputation.

Otherwise, it would appear that freedom of speech only matters when highly paid sports presenters choose to draw attention to themselves by using their status to promote their political agenda.

Lesser-known teachers, doctors and police officers can be sacked or disciplined by the "cuddly" NHS or other public sector bodies for expressing conventional Christian viewpoints which until recently would be considered to be mainstream.

They don’t matter. They are on the "wrong" side of the argument.

It is difficult to believe that Mr Lineker is unaware of this.

Perhaps he might wish to express support for the notion that all of us can present our beliefs freely without fear of losing our employment or even our personal liberty.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party - Culture and Woke Spokesman

Unfinished Business!

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 12:21:43 GMT

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party – Brexit and Northern Ireland Spokesman

Now that the dust has settled on Rishi Sunak’s great pronouncement, that he has reached the deal of the century on the Northern Ireland Protocol and won great concessions from Brussels, we can now see the truth emerging.

The truth is that little, if anything, has changed and that the Protocol itself remains undisturbed. The Windsor Framework has not changed the protocol one iota. As Steven Barrett puts it in the Spectator: "It’s a wish list of vague commitments."

All we have is a series of small changes that ensures the primacy of EU law within NI and that keeps NI firmly within the jurisdiction of the ECJ.

As the EU Commission statement on this is at great pains to point out: “The Court of Justice of the European Union remains the sole and ultimate arbiter of EU law.”

In essence, the Sunak government has re-affirmed the protocol, much to the pleasure of Brussels. As evidenced by the glee that emanated from the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, at the joint press conference.

Brussels has given Rishi some limited political wiggle room while they need our support on the Russia/Ukraine issue. Rishi has borrowed the Boris bluster to cover up this woeful surrender, hoping that Brexit fatigue will do the job for him.

As the UK Independence Party leader, Neil Hamilton, has already said - this is unfinished business.

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party – Brexit and Northern Ireland Spokesman

Tories attempt to kick crab and lobster die-off into touch

Fri, 03 Mar 2023 21:03:27 GMT

John Gartside

UK Independence Party – Fishing Spokesman

In response to the mass mortality of crabs and lobsters in the Northeast reported between October 2021 and December 2022, the Department of the Environment was requested by the government to appoint a panel of academic experts under Sir Gideon Henderson, government Chief Scientific Advisor, to be known as the Crustacean Mortality Expert Panel (CMEP), to determine the cause. Their terms of reference included examining possible agents such as algal blooms or toxic chemicals such as pyridine disturbed by dredging of the river Tees or a pathogen yet to be identified.

The die-offs as reported appear to have come in three distinct waves so far, commencing in October 2021, May 2022, and October 2022. The waves appeared to commence in the sea from the east of Hartlepool and commensurate with the prevailing current reaching as far south as Scarborough.

When these die-offs were originally reported, the Department of the Environment was quick to ascribe the cause to an algal bloom which of course lets the deep dredging of the river Tees and the dumping of the resultant spoil in the sea, east of Hartlepool off the hook. However, our fishermen were not happy and did not accept the Department’s explanation, but it took the government a whole year to wake up and request a report on the mortalities.

The Department of the Environment is literally global in its reach and Byzantine in its complexity; The report produced for the government was under the auspices of Lord Benyon as the Minister of State for Biosecurity, Marine and Rural Affairs whose responsibilities include biosecurity and borders, Northern Ireland, animal welfare, marine and oceans, Defra delivery of Carbon Budgets and Net Zero, green finance, international nature and wildlife, rural affairs, lead for Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD), the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England (AHWBE) and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Therese Coffey is the Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.

The report of the expert panel cast doubt on an algal bloom. They did not find any evidence of a harmful algal bloom or a loss of oxygen in the water associated with it for the periods in question.

It is noteworthy that algae are responsible for fifty percent of the oxygen in the atmosphere through photosynthesis and without that there would be no marine animals. No doubt the government were keen to blame an algal bloom as ‘evidence’ of anthropogenic global warming.

The experts decided that pyridine or other toxic chemical released from dredging didn’t cause the mass die-offs. They did decide that a novel pathogen was probably responsible although they produced no histological evidence of its existence in the animals washed up. They also suggested that a combination of factors might be involved.

One of the many agencies of the Department of the Environment is the Centre for Environment, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS). Surely, CEFAS should have been busily examining and reporting its findings from the beginning of the die-offs and government ministers should have been demanding answers throughout?

The government have not produced a definitive explanation as to the cause of the die-offs and therefore can neither predict the likelihood of repetitions or mitigations for the cause. Our fishermen are faced with the loss of their livelihoods without any light at the end of the tunnel; the government has let them down once again because of its lax organisation and control of the resources that they and all taxpayers funds.

The UK Independence Party will abolish the Department of the Environment. It is very clear that this department lacks focus. We will ensure that there is a Minister and a Department with exclusive responsibility for the marine resources within our Exclusive Economic Zone.

John Gartside

UK Independence Party – Fishing Spokesman

Is UK Foreign Aid being put to good use?

Sun, 26 Feb 2023 16:44:57 GMT

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Foreign Affairs Spokesman

In 2021 (the latest figures available), the UK spent £11.4bn on Foreign Aid.

This is how our money was sent abroad in 2021:

· Africa received 50% (the most), £1,727m.

· Asia was the second most at £1,334m (or 39%).

· The Americas received £196m.

· Europe received £154m.

· The Pacific region received £10m.

In summary, Africa and Asia combined, received a massive 89% in UK Foreign Aid in 2021.

I do not have the latest figures but no doubt the UK public is still paying out at around the same level despite now suffering from a severe cost of living crisis.

The good news is that the government decided to reduce Foreign Aid from 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) to 0.5% from 2021. The bad news is that this reduction was only temporary and it plans to reinstate the original 0.7% target when finances permit.

Our party strongly disagrees with this and we believe the UK should scrap the Foreign Aid budget altogether.

Sadly, there is an institutional attachment to the concept of foreign aid amongst the globalist establishment, which includes the Civil Service, MPs and the House of Lords. Most of them did their best to stand in the way of the aid budget being cut from 0.7% to 0.5% in October 2021.

The UK Independence Party opposes granting foreign aid. We make an exception for emergency humanitarian aid so nobody in our party would object to aid being given, for example, to help the unfortunate people caught up in the tragic earthquake in Turkey. Apart from that, there is a history of poor value for money, the demands are never ending and our money never seems to solve the problems of the third world.

The UK general government debt deficit (or net borrowing) was £43.9 billion in Quarter 2 of 2022, equivalent to 7.2% of GDP. While there are homeless veterans, and huge NHS waiting lists in the UK we believe charity begins at home and that our money would be better spent in the UK.

Our party would completely cut Overseas Aid until such time as we might again run an annual surplus, and then we might re-introduce it in line with contributions being made by other countries. If Overseas Aid is re-introduced, it will be on a percentage of GNI and not as a percentage of GDP and with no contributions to countries with economies greater than one fifth of ours.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Foreign Affairs Spokesman

Energy Security & Net Zero

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 09:52:12 GMT

Antony Nailer

Energy Spokesman for the UK Independence Party

Grant Shapps has been in government quite a long time and as well as being Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party he has also had the following appointments.

1. Minister for state for International Development, May 2015 till November 2015.

This department finds ways to throw taxpayers money at foreign governments.

2. Secretary of State for Transport, July 2019 till September 2022.

He used the Covid period to have towns in his constituency and elsewhere block off through roads with planters making them into cul-de-sacs, to continue the war against the motorist.

The justification was to encourage people to walk or cycle or use public transport to reduce pollution from car use and ultimately save the planet. His action has just speeded up the use of on-line shopping the decline of the high street.

3. Secretary of State for the Home office under Liz Truss 19-25 October 2022.

4. Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, (BEIS).

This had an emphasis on building more wind farms which continued the decline in granting licences and planning permissions for mining of coal, drilling for oil, and included a moratorium for fracking for gas. Now we have to import these things at enormous expense, if they are available, and with the Russian gas turned off we will need to import enormous amounts of Liquefied Natural Gas from the USA to prevent gas rationing.

5. Rishi Sunak has done a mini reshuffle, a bit like tidying the deckchairs on Titanic after it hit the iceberg, and he has now put the fox into the chicken run. Grant Shapps has become Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. This is a classic oxymoron, where words have conflicting meaning, such as ‘Army Intelligence’.

The quest for Net Zero with more renewables and less fossil fuels will increase energy insecurity and unreliability and continue to drive up costs. The renewable industry can never get rid of fossil fuels because the latter are always fully available at maximum output 24/7/365. The renewable industry is in effect adding an additional unreliable energy infrastructure that is unable to replace the previous reliable one. All that does is waste taxpayers’ money, and it won’t save the planet.

Coal produces less CO ₂ than woodchip and is required for heavy industry and especially steel making, which is the most used metal for everything from tin cans, domestic appliances, cars, ships, bridges etc. It cannot be economically made using electricity at four times the real price. Why import coal when it is estimated we have enough under the UK to last until at least 2400, and possibly till 2600AD. Banning its use here just drives those industries overseas. The idiots have taken over the asylum!

The new department is supposed to bring together all that is necessary to implement the new drive towards Net Zero. Unfortunately, they have tied the hands of Grant Shapps by making all planning decisions subject to the approval of Michael Gove in the Levelling Up Department. You just couldn’t make this up!

Net Zero is not about the environment. It is about creating a world totalitarian communist state, with a relatively small group of incredibly wealthy oligarchs, while the rest of humanity has an equal share of the misery.

Antony Nailer

Energy Spokesman for the UK Independence Party

More Nonsense from Holyrood

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 12:19:15 GMT

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Scotland

The current pantomime enveloping the political scene at Holyrood revolves around the apparently challenging question of What is a Boy? and What is a Girl?

It seems that we ought to be deeply concerned about these individuals who think that they would like to alter their gender.

That of course is their business. Who cares? Who is interested?

Well apparently, the titanic political mind of wee Nic is.

When one ponders the great political philosophers of history - Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke et al surely wee Nic will take her place among them: her elevated thoughts bringing a puzzled frown to many a future intellectual.

Somehow, I don’t think so.

Why is that poor wee Scotland which has produced some of the finest minds and social pioneers in human history is reduced to the pathetic mediocrity of those who claim to be a "Government" and whose sole virtue is to survive as long as possible while collecting their six figure salaries.

The UK Independence Party is the only mainstream party committed to ending the failed devolution experiments in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and for good measure the London Assembly nonsense.

People in the media including the Scottish Daily Mail suggest that Holyrood may have run its course. Well, we agree.

The UK Independence Party promise to transform the beautiful building in an attractive part of Edinburgh into something useful and consign the Scottish Local Authority/Government/Executive/ “Stand Up Comedy Act” to the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Scotland

A simple wrist X-ray will determine your age

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 22:38:36 GMT

Dr. Steven B ick

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for NHS

This story has been reported in the Press after a recent trial at Salisbury Crown Court. In March 2022 a 21-year-old local man Thomas Roberts was on a night out with friends in Bournemouth and an argument about an e-scooter developed outside a Subways sandwich bar. An Afgan asylum seeker Lawangean Abdulrahimzai pulled out a large knife and fatally stabbed Thomas.

Abdulrahimzai then ran off, buried the knife, and burnt the clothes he was wearing, later he was tracked down, arrested, and convicted. He had previously posed on social media with a 10-inch blade. Why was this post not picked up by the monitors of social media?

Abdulrahimzai came to the UK in Dec 19 with no ID claiming to be under 16. He was placed with foster parents in Poole. We now know he lied about his age. It is worth noting that your true age can in fact be measured with a wrist X-ray. This doesn’t seem to me a difficult step to take with all unaccompanied arrivals who claim to be children.

It has now come to light that he had previously murdered 2 people in Serbia. I wrote to my MP expressing my concerns, about allowing people like this into the UK with no ID, men who are murderers trying to escape justice. This has to stop!

This is probably not the first case and sadly it won’t be the last . It is madness to house Asylum seekers in popular seaside towns. They are now occupying about 3 major hotels in Bournemouth, and there are plans afoot to rehouse them in the suburbs.

The Government are quite happy to foot the bill. The Hotel owners are making money hand over fist as the Hotels are fully occupied. Bournemouth is now looking like an open refugee camp with men wandering around in 2s and 3s, looking like they have won the lottery.

A simple wrist X-ray to confirm age is a procedure that should be implemented without delay!

Our thoughts go out to the family of Thomas Roberts.

Dr. Steven Bick

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for NHS

The administration of this country is a dollop of dodgy doodah on a doily

chairman@ukip.org (Ben Walker) — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 22:24:35 GMT

Patricia Mountain - Party Director

We are now suffering massive inflation and eye watering gas and electricity prices with huge numbers of people now struggling to pay for heating and cooking. Many are going into debt and it is unlikely this is going to improve while the UK does not allow licences to mine for coal, frack for gas and drill for oil. Energy prices are not coming back down anytime soon and fewer people will be travelling overseas.

Food prices are still spiralling upwards as processing costs continue to filter through. Mortgages are also rising and many are now struggling to pay the premiums because they thought interest rates would always stay low. The money is haemorrhaging away from the family income.

In fact, the UK is grinding to a halt. I doubt Rishi Sunak can win the next election next year. His replacement with Labour or a rainbow coalition will just increase our race towards the precipice. You cannot tax a country into prosperity. Nothing now works except the General Register Office for Birth, Death, and marriage they can still send out a certificate in 5 days. Can’t think of anything else that works.

Beverley Turner on GB News the other day had a chairman of a teaching mental support group putting the case for a teacher’s pay rise. Actually, the problem with the teaching profession is that it is totally micromanaged, and everyone has to conform to the National Curriculum. Teachers have to keep filling out a whole load of forms, so everything is monitored. They have to struggle with unruly children and children from homes that cannot feed them or clothe them properly before sending them to school.

During the term times the teachers have to work well into every evening to do the admin and marking of homework and preparation for the next day. Every year the Department of Education changes the curriculum so that the teachers have to rework all their previous class notes during the 'so called' summer holiday. The Department of Education runs the Continuing Professional Development programme forcing successful teachers to go on unnecessary courses that only cause them to question their teaching ability. It is brutal and no amount of money is going to solve it. The average working life of modern teachers is 3 years before they leave and get a job with less stress and more job satisfaction.

The real problems are not registering with this government.

Let’s look at the NHS, nearly all of us realise that a crisis point has been reached. The patient-to-staff ratios considered adequate in the past no longer work well. Even during non-peak times there are more patients than nurses can safely care for. The expectation seems to be that nurses will do double shifts when needed, adding exhaustion to the physical and mental challenges of the job. The NHS is in crisis, not just from a lack of adequate funding but because of the inefficient use of funds and ever-increasing demand from an aging population and foreign nationals. The NHS is a national health service not an international health service. It is open to widespread abuse by non-UK citizens. Open borders have had a major impact on existing NHS resources however, this just doesn’t seem to register with this government.

Estimates by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) indicates that household bills now exceed income in 60% of UK homes. And there we have it! This government is not doing its job, we see a complete failure to manage the economy and safeguard UK citizens. Sadly, the powers that be, show more concern for the welfare of illegal immigrants and we the taxpayers are footing the bill for this folly.

Lack of talent? Complete disregard for the general public? Or are they more concerned with showing off on the World stage pretending to have the answers to every problem in every other country while many of their own citizens freeze, go hungry, cannot access health and dental care, struggle to keep a roof over their head and some parents left in despair as their children cannot access appropriate education? There are many more problems too numerous to mention. A complete shambles all round!

If you believe charity begins at home, you should be voting for the UK Independence Party candidate at election time.

Patricia Mountain

Party Director

UK Independence Party

Pro-EU Opinion Polls? Why?

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 19:21:04 GMT

NEC member John Poynton discusses why opinions polls show a desire to rejoin the EU

We are now facing opinion polls showing a majority in favour of re-joining the European Union. How could this have happened?

Some Labour MPs, LibDems and Rejoiners think it is to do with labour shortages. They mistakenly associate tighter immigration with Brexit. But Brexit merely allows us to determine our own immigration policy, and that can be for more immigration if we so wish. So immigration now has nothing to do with Brexit. That shouldn't be too difficult to get across but we have to make the point.

More seriously they associate Britain's economic decline to Brexit. This is also nonsense as the attached two graphs illustrate.

The first graph shows our Balance of Payments (mostly trade) from the years 2000 to 2021, split between the EU (red line plummeting down through the floor) and the rest of the world (which I have split into three to show the US and China separately). Note that those other three lines taken together show a movement over that period into surplus. So at least until 2018 we have a divergence between the two areas – the EU and the Rest of the World.

How come? It can't be us because we are common to both. It has to be Brussels. My theory (in the absence of any other explanation) is that since 2000 Brussels has be deliberately though surreptitiously blocking our exports in revenge for our not joining the Euro. The thieving bastards have been stealing our trade, and our dozy officials in Whitehall haven't even noticed (or didn't want to, which is even worse).

Is this important? Well yes it is because an increasing deficit presents British business with a contracting market, and business will not invest into a contracting market. No investment, no growth. It is the greater efficiency of production resulting from investment that creates economic growth. Tax cuts may help, but the opportunities must be there in the first place.

This analysis is confirmed by the second graph which shows our growth rate plummeting alongside the EU trade deficit.

So the only way we can get growth going again is by ripping up the Tory deal and using tariffs to offset the EU barriers and bring the balance back into surplus. Only the UK Independence Party is saying this, so only we can get the economy going again. W orth a mention don't you think?

Now the deficit has already reversed over the past two years and it is tempting to say that is the Brexit Dividend! However It is much more likely to be due to Covid, but we will have to wait and see over the next couple of years. At least we can say it shows the current mess is NOT due to Brexit.

John Poynton – National Executive Committee Member

We the People - Want our Holiday Destinations Preserved!

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 19:07:01 GMT

Illegal immigrants don't belong in hotels...

The Home Office began housing asylum seekers in hotels in Brighton and Hove in July 2021 giving the local council just 24 hours’ notice.

One hotel is currently housing unaccompanied teenage boys 16 -17 years of age, 1,600 minors have moved through the hotel over the last 18months, with around thirty currently living there.

Today I observed the three hotels known to be used to house “asylum seekers”, from the array of bikes outside one of them and sighting two young people sitting on the wall having a smoke, I believe I have identified which one is being used to house minors.

It is reported that 137 minors have disappeared from the Hove Hotel with 76 still missing, most likely they have been kidnapped or coerced into crime, evidenced by the arrest of two of them on suspicion of possession with intent to supply drugs in Cambridgeshire and Gloucestershire and a third being arrested on suspicion of cultivation of cannabis in Tottenham.

A hotel is no place for “vulnerable children” if that is what the absent were/are, it is suspicious that original hotel staff were sacked, what were they not meant to see?

A hotel is no place for those arriving in dinghies or discovered in backs of commercial vehicles or picked up in the Channel Tunnel with no checks in place, to identify any criminal element or disease.

In 2006 the British Home Secretary John Reid serving under Tony Blair described the Immigration and Nationality Directorate system as “ not fit for purpose”.

Now, years on, this conservative government is proving they cannot control immigration either.

Spouting that the asylum system is facing “unprecedented pressures” does not solve the problem.

They took their eye off the ball and left the issue to fester for years and years.

Only the UK Independence Party has an immigration policy that can work. Our plans include a fast and efficient processing system, a plan to deal with women and children and those unaccompanied under 16 years of age and a plan to deal with any identified wanted criminal in the fastest possible time.

It is crucially important in order to stem the flow of illegals to totally change their expectations of how they will be treated when they arrive in the UK.

Our plans do not include a reservation in a 3-star hotel with freedom to come and go. We will not advertise or allow “all expenses paid holidays”.

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party – Immigration Spokesman

Who Upholds the Armed Forces' Rights?

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 19:01:01 GMT

Our armed forces need their own federation

In the current winter of discontent, with of strikes by Rail workers, Ambulance Drivers, Nurses, Physiotherapists, Teachers, Border Forces to name a few, our Armed Forces have stepped up to the plate when required to keep the basics of our country running. This, alongside the defence of the country, long deployments around the world and necessary training despite being undermanned and poorly equipped and tight budgets. However, our loyal members of the Armed Forces have little to no voice when it comes to employment rights and quite rightly are not allowed to strike, the same as our police force. However, back in 1919 after two major strikes by the police, and a subsequent act to prevent the police from striking, the Police Federation was created to give the police a voice. I believe it is time to allow the Armed Forces to have their own federation, taking members from across the rank structure to enable their issues to be raised and more importantly listened to.

At last, much needed modern tanks are being sent to Ukraine. The UK is sending 14 Challenger 2’s, Germany, Poland, and Finland are sending Leopard 2’s, The Netherland, Spain, and Norway are considering sending some of their Leopard 2’s. The US is poised to send dozens of its M1 Abrams battle tanks and the French are considering send a number of Leclerc tanks. All of this state-of-the-art armour is vital if Ukraine is to hold ground and then take back ground held by the Russians once the winter gives way to spring. Why battle tanks? Ukraine has vast swathes of flat plain that is ideally suited to the deployment of armoured vehicles, especially main battle tanks. The Russian T-14 Armata is no match for Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 and Russian forces are reluctant to accept the first tranche of T-14’s due to their poor condition.

Finally, in the last seven days over 1,000 illegal migrants that we know of, arrived in the UK. All of these migrants will be given warm, secure accommodation, food and drink, clothes, £40.85 per week and healthcare as a minimum. All of this given and paid for with your taxes, yet the homeless Armed Forces veterans get none of the above and whilst the Government bends over backwards to spend your taxes on illegal immigrants, it will not support the veterans who loyally served our country. It is a bare faced travesty and one that needs fixing as soon as possible.

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson R’td.

UK Independence Party - Defence and Veterans Spokesman.

Scrap the Online Safety Bill!

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 19:12:16 GMT

Steve Grimes explains why this pernicious bill should be stopped altogether.

Without free speech, we would live in a world under repression. Nevertheless, we are moving in this direction.

The UK Independence Party considers the Conservative government’s proposed Online Safety Bill to be extremely hazardous and a serious threat to freedom of speech. Strangely; this Bill closely resembles legislation under development in the undemocratic EU and it could become law as soon as spring 2023. The Bill started life as a way to protect children but it has mutated into a huge control machinery, which, in its current form, smacks of state sponsored surveillance and a serious constraint on the right to self-expression.

The Online Safety Bill will facilitate state-backed surveillance of all private communications on-line and it will include the widest and most powerful surveillance laws ever proposed in any Western democracy. No on-line communication in the UK would ever again be secure or private. This is hugely unacceptable to the UK Independence Party.

While there is much in the Bill that might be useful in confronting illegal and harmful on-line content, the UK Independence Party believes it goes too far. The bill would make end-to-end encrypted platforms like WhatsApp scan all photos against a database. This would mean de-facto government surveillance and a snooper’s charter, which would be no different to legalised telephone tapping affecting everyone (not just suspected criminals).

The UK Independence Party rejects the Online Safety Bill in its current form. We do not want our freedom of speech monitored by or controlled by big tech companies. This shocking Bill is not acceptable. Our party would scrap it and start again.

It is not just the Conservatives; Labour is in it too. They have made clear they would make things even worse if they get into government by banning VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), which would put the UK in the same bad company as China, North Korea and Russia.

Clearly voting for the legacy establishment parties is a way to place your freedoms at serious risk.

The UK Independence Party Digital Economy and Technology policy is very clear on our position:

An open internet is essential to encourage individualism. It must function as a free market of ideas, goods, and services, with minimal interference and unproductive regulation.

We aim to prevent social media providers restricting free expression or suspending people for “wrong-think”. This is a form of censorship, and we will direct such action (only if warranted) to be authorised exclusively by relevant lawful governmental authorities.
We oppose any ban on end-to-end encryption. We will make secure communications an inviolable right.

We strongly endorse social media as a huge driver of personal expression and a means to expand political participation for people who have had no voice in the past.

If you share our concerns, please consider supporting the UK Independence Party’s campaign to scrap the online safety bill.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Business, Trade and Foreign Affairs

Don't Believe the Remoaners!

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 22:24:36 GMT

Here's hoping things improve for 2023

As we begin another year, we can hope and pray that things will improve - or we can tell Rishi to get on with it. The UK has been hit hard by global events, such as the pandemic, the Russia Ukraine war and now we have the strikes. Add to that mix, the unwinding of the Bank of England’s Quantitative Easing (QE) response to the 2008 credit crunch.

Most other countries, especially the developed ones around the world, have also been hit just as hard as we have. But the usual suspect Remoaners are trying to convince you, that the UK is in an economic downturn bubble all of its own - and that it’s all down to Brexit!

All you have to do is use your favourite search engine to find out the real truth. When Remoaners say UK car production is down due to Brexit for example, just look at the drop in German and US car production in the last few years.

When they talk about shortages of healthcare professionals, just search and you will find it’s a global problem. Yes, there is global shortage of doctors and nurses. In fact, the NHS, in its quest to become the most ‘diverse’ organisation on the planet, leaves the elderly and vulnerable in other countries without access to healthcare professionals, as we use the UK cheque book to buy their doctors and nurses in, instead of training our own.

There are many reports from around the world that developed countries are finding it harder to obtain enough workers and those other countries, for the most part have higher unemployment levels than us, especially at the youth level.

Also other developed countries are now facing up to the need to reform their pension systems to account for an ageing population, it’s not just the UK.

Workers are striking around the world for better pay in the face of rising inflation. It’s not just the UK.

Now, what Brexit has given us, is the ability to forge our own way - but at present we are still hampered by the Northern Ireland Protocol and the inability or unwillingness of this Tory government and the wider establishment to grasp the nettle and do what is required to bring Northern Ireland back fully into the UK fold. The government also refuses to get on with reforms, that would free the City of London for example, to really make its mark on the international stage.

While Rishi Sunak does a go-slow over the clearing out of unnecessary retained EU law. It is clear that Westminster is doing all it can to keep a muzzle on the UK preventing it from exercising its freedoms and the only reason for that would be, if they intend to wind us back in, bit by bit, under EU control once more.

This we cannot allow!

Lester Taylor

UK independence Party – BREXIT & Northern Ireland Spokesman

NHS Inefficiencies

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 22:15:57 GMT

NHS managers are wasting huge sums on irrelevancies

In a recent letter in the Telegraph (22.12.22) a retired former Cardiac Surgeon explained how, during his career, the NHS became increasing inefficient. He said that in the 90s he was doing 350 major cases a year and by the time he retired it was down to 120.

He said there were many reasons for this, a New Contract was introduced for Consultants cutting their sessions by 30% while increasing pay by 20% and punitive changes to NHS Pensions, meaning that he would be losing money by continuing to work.

With the introduction of the European Working time Directive the number of Trainee Heart Surgeons reduced despite their wish to keep working, as a result, many Trusts began recruiting from abroad to fill vacant posts.

Very time-consuming revalidation was introduced and has become a massive industry, with no proven benefit. In addition, complicated, expensive, and time-consuming IT was also introduced. The result being reduced doctor patient interactions and reduced procedures.

I’ve had other Surgeons complain to me that they are only allowed to do 3 sessions in Theatre a week, when they could have done a lot more.

One was doing so well that he had no waiting list! A Manager told him ‘he was doing too well’ and instructed him to ‘take a day off, go home and dig his garden’.

In the 90s I sat down with Consultants who used to read all the GP referral letters. They would make a note of what was appropriate and hand to Secretaries who would act. All of this has been taken away and this administration is now undertaken by costly Managers.

Policy changes and decisions announced from Whitehall are hard to fathom they are ill thought-out ideas from a Minister with no health background, interpreted by rafts of Civil Servants who try to merge these initiatives with other laws like the Equality Act and EU regulations.

Is there an underlying agenda to ruin the NHS? Creating Inefficiency by increasing spending while at the same time causing huge patient dissatisfaction?

Every week I see unhappy patients who feel let down by the system. Magnify that by 36,000 GPs and you can see the scale of the problem. Patient satisfaction must be improved, and we must give a drive to doctors to do better. I would like to see each patient meeting the actual Surgeon or Clinician who will be doing their procedure and afterwards each patient to fill in a Satisfaction Survey and all this data analysed.

It would be effective in highlighting under-performing Doctors, then remedial action could be taken.

At the moment, NHS Managers carry on with this folly of wasting huge sums on Diversity, Mindfulness and Audit. Money that could be better spent on improving nurses’ wages.

Dr. Steven Bick

UK independence Party – Spokesman for Health

Andrew Tate

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 17:05:51 GMT

The most talked about man of 2022

Photo: See bottom of page

A year ago today, If I asked you ‘Who is Andrew Tate’ – you’d most likely have no clue who I’m talking about. But in 2022, Tate has evolved into a household name.

So why has Andrew Tate got so much of a following? The most obvious answer is click bait. Tate has a very smart way of gaining support – using short and sharp videos to invite his audience. These videos, no more than 10 seconds in length, are used to quickly give his opinion on a certain topic. Hundreds of these videos have been made and used effectively by Tate. He knows that social media users, especially the younger audience, have a small attention span when it comes to videos online. Gone are the days when a two-minute video would be watched from beginning to end. This strategy may seem lazy, but as you can see with Tate – it is very effective.

Tate also uses his biggest weapon to attract attention – his money. You can guarantee Tate is never seen without his signature Rolex, his expensive RayBan sunglasses, one of his many Bugatti’s. The envy of wealth is a tool used by so many to gain notoriety. Any man can be ignored, but a man on a million dollar yacht in the Panama sun now has our attention.

The kickboxer and ex-Big Brother star has gained a lot of traction with his comments and opinions. His outspoken attitude and ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality has been viewed millions of times on social media, with a primary following of young men. Tate insists his aim is to put masculinity back into modern men – however, is there more than meets the eye when it comes to Tate’s agenda?

The 36-year-old social media phenomenon based most of his videos on the problems men face within modern society, as well as debates around religion, politics and even chess. Tate has also stated that we live in a two-tier society, with our thoughts and actions controlled by ‘a matrix’. He says the only way to really be free is to exit that ‘matrix’, and fight against it.

In August of 2022, Andrew Tate was targeted by a number of social media platforms, with the likes of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube banning his account and censoring his content. Despite their efforts, Tate continued to film his videos and persevered against the attempted cancel culture against him.

More recently, Tate boasted about owning 33 cars (and their emissions) and directed the boast toward Greta Thunberg – the next day, Tate was arrested and taken into custody regarding an accusation made claiming he was heavily involved in human trafficking and organised crime. This is either a coincidence or a statement made by the globalist elite. Maybe a warning, attack Greta and face the consequences?

Let’s take a look at the bigger picture here. Andrew Tate is a popular figure, with a large following and strong opinions. Then, cancelled and persecuted by law enforcement.

Starting to sound familiar?

Donald Trump, former president of the USA, is a popular figure with a large following and strong opinions. Then, cancelled and persecuted by law enforcement.

UK Independence Party Member, Katie Hopkins is a popular figure with a large following and strong opinions. Then, cancelled and persecuted by law enforcement.

The pattern is as clear as day – if you question the establishment, you will be punished.

Operation Fear is in full effect.

Andrew Tate is a man of many words but be it you agree with his words or disagree – you have to admit that he has every right to say them, without fear of being cancelled, arrested or worse.

Jack Thomson

Spokesman for Young People

Anything Goes With James English - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhUi1htVeJc (~7:21) License shown in archived video. Archived 2022-07-30 at the Wayback Machine

Immigration Bribery!

Fri, 30 Dec 2022 13:40:25 GMT

We, the people, accuse the government of bribery...

Our generous asylum system is baiting people to try their luck in the UK.

In addition to the many goodies on offer, asylum seekers will now receive a 10% cost of living rise a “standard weekly allowance” of £45, increased from £40.85.

A report states that the cost of housing these opportunists/migrants has soared to £3.5 billion this year – up from £2.1 billion 12 months ago, this is a load of tosh. We have learned from a very reliable source (someone who would know) a source who has been proved correct many times previously, that the bill for housing them is actually £10.2 million a day a staggering £3.7 billion a year. This figure does not include profits to Serco, Clearsprings and Mears the three main mafia families to which the Government outsource asylum accommodation.

The Government recently considered buying Quatar’s “fan cabins” to house migrants but decided against it as they were of too low quality. Amazing that they were confident they would be able to find the land to accommodate these buildings. If the Government have earmarked land maybe, they should have a read of the UK Independence Party Manifesto and start to build holding facilities quickly in the countryside in the fashion of the Nightingale Hospitals?

So, in addition to the many hotels owned and managed by the French multinational hospitality company Accor, disused military bases,student accommodation, former university buildings, disused cruise ships and Butlins and Pontins holiday camps are all being considered to house these individuals. How many more of these “arriving passengers” (as we are supposed to call them) is this Government planning to accept? Foreign-born children will need education; people of all ages will get sick, and this will obviously mean another costly burden on the State.

We pay France tens of millions of pounds to stop the small boat crossings, but the problem continues. France is the winner here and the French shareholders of the French owned hotels being used to house these people here in the UK are coining it in. It’s a win win situation for the French.

The Government needs to get a grip and remember that an Illegal Immigrant is a person who enters the country without identification or a visa. They should look at the Immigration Act 1971 (section 24) and the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004 (section 2).

This Government needs to stop showing off and pretending it has matters in hand. Nothing is further from the truth when it comes to solving the migrant crisis which is affecting the whole population of the UK.

Patricia Mountain
UK Independence Party – Immigration Spokesman

Royal Mail - Corporate Suicide

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 10:41:06 GMT

The sheer economic madness of Royal Mail's electric van plans

In 2021 the Royal Mail had 300 electric vans and during 2022 has added a further 3000 mix of medium sized and smaller e-vans. These are funded by the Ofgem - Optimum Prime Project which in turn is funded by our taxes. It intends to replace all its 41,500 vans by 2030, that is in 8 years, to achieve Net Zero emissions.

The Dorchester Delivery Office now have a mix of Peugeot e-Expert, Mercedes Benz e-Vito, and Peugeot e-Partner vans. The Mercedes vans with limited range will likely be replaced with e-Experts.

These vans replace the Fiat Doblo petrol van with a range of 300 miles and was £5,000 to £8,000 cheaper than the e-vans. Doing 100 miles a day for 300 days a year (excluding Sundays) and achieving 33 miles to the gallon costs £7,200 a year, and refuelling takes 15 minutes. Road tax is £180 per year and servicing probably £600 a year.

The running cost is £7.980 per annum.

The Mercedes e-Vito can only do 80 miles maximum and less when the heater is used. Realistically the range is limited to a round trip of 60 miles. With this daily range the battery with a life of 100,000 miles will be 5 ½ years and cost about £12,000 to replace. This equates to £2,200 a year.

Recharging the 50kWh battery takes 8 hours and costs 70p/kWh at the Royal Mail business electric rate. For 300 days this is £10,500 a year. Servicing is assumed to be £600 a year.

T he running cost is £13,300 per annum.

The Peugeot e-Expert doing 100 miles a day and a battery with a 100,000-mile lifespan will need to be replaced every 3 years at a cost of in excess of £15,000, that is £5,000 a year. Recharging the 75kWh battery takes 13 hours and for 300 days this is £15,750 a year. Servicing is assumed to be £600 a year.

The running cost is £21,350 per annum.

The Peugeot e-Partner van can do up to 150 miles a day on a 50kWh battery. Doing 100 miles a day, recharging the battery will take 8 hours and for 300 days this is £10,500 a year.

The battery life of 100,000 miles will need replacing in 3 years at a cost of £12,000, that is £4,000 a year. Servicing is assumed to be £600 a year.

T he running cost is £20,500 per annum.

The running cost of having all Fiat Doblo’s would be £7,980 x 41,500 = £331.2m a year.

With an equal mix of e-Expert & e-Partner at say £21,000 x 41,500 = £871.5m a year.

That will increase the present company loss of £1m a day to £2.8m a day.

Royal Mail will reach zero emissions by 2030 because it will go bankrupt.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party - Energy & Transport Spokesman

Picture: Mtaylor848, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

GP Workload Strain

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 16:44:07 GMT

The strain of our GPs workload, affects the whole population.

GP services are currently under strain, and one in ten patients who called a GP practice were left unable to get an appointment. This amounted to 5 million people in October 22. This puts strain on A+Es, where people turn up with issues that could have been dealt with by the GP.

Likewise, this is putting strain on the Ambulance service, and response times are increased. Patients are waiting longer for the Ambulance to arrive, sometimes with fatal consequences.

Demand for GPs is very high, as they re-establish face to face Consulting and deal with the back log of problems not dealt with during the Covid lockdown. It’s not helped by high levels of immigration which have given them millions of extra people to treat. The GP service has suffered from lack of support from Government, the Integrated Care Board (ICBs) (previously known as the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and the Media over the last 10 years.

Requests for extra staffing and new premises have been refused.
GP practices have been allowed to close.
The number of full-time equivalent GPs is down.
CCGs seemed ‘against’ small practices and encouraged mergers, which left local people further to travel. In many cases the bigger practices can’t cope with the extra patients.

GPs feel stressed and more should be done to support them. We urgently need to train more Doctors, retain them in the NHS and make General practice an attractive option.

Hospitals need to be put back under the control of Doctors and Nurses, not controlled by an army of Administrators.

We should re-introduce the right for patients to be able to make future Routine appointments at a time that suits them . In many areas this is banned, and they are told ’It’s same day only’ .

We will retain more UK trained Doctors by waiving tuition fees for Doctors who continue to work in the NHS.

We also need to remove the cap on GP pensions and reward those who want to work harder and longer, not penalise them.

The BMA recently advised ‘all doctors to retire at 59 otherwise they would lose money’.

Older Doctors who want to continue working should be encouraged and supported.

Dr. Steven Bick

UK independence Party – Spokesman for Health

Is This Global Warning aka Climate Change?

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 10:08:20 GMT

Antony Nailer discusses the difference between climate and the weather

According to https://www.netweather.tv/weather-forecasts/uk/winter/winter-history the last two decades have been unpredictable during winter.

2000/1 Late December 4” snow in Glasgow and 8” in Belfast. January & February 12 to 24” of snow around the country.
2001/2 Virtually no snow at all.
2002/3 No snow in December. Some snow across the country in January and February. -15C with wind-chill in February.
2003/4 Snow in October and late December. Countrywide blizzard in late January. 10” snow in SW England and Wales in mid-March.
2004/5 Midlands snow mid-November. White Christmas in north and west. Well below average snow February & March.
2005/6 Snow in SW England 25 ^th November and in Midlands and northwest on 28 ^th November. Heavy snow on 12 ^th March in the west. Further snow in April.
2006/8 Virtually devoid of snow both winters.
2008/9 Coldest winter since 1995/6.
2009/10 Temperatures 2 to 3C below average. Coldest winter since 1978.
2010/11 Temperature 5C below normal for 100 years. Snow through December and Christmas countrywide.
2011/12 Some snow late October. Snow in north mid-December. Heavy snow across country in March. Localised snowfall in May.
2012/13 Long snowy winter starting in late October. Generally colder than average well into June.
2013/14 Wet with flooding. No snow except in Scottish Highlands.
2014/15 Little snow. Midlands and northern England wet snow on Christmas day.
2015/16 Mild and wet. Brief snowfalls in southeast in November and December. Snow also January through to April.
2016/17 Mild with relatively light snow in January.
2017/18 Cold and snowy December over most of the country. West country has 8-12” of snow in February.
2018/19 Mild and relatively snow free.
2019/20 Another mild winter. Some snowfalls on high ground November through to January in various parts of the country.
2020/21 Cold and snowy all winter. Minimum temperature -23C at Braemar 11 February. Lowest in UK since 1995.
2021/22 A mild winter again.
2022/23 Cold snap at -10C mid-December. Satellite images of northern hemisphere show highest snow cover for decades. Looks like being a cold one.

Is this Global Warming or Climate Change?

Unfortunately, the UK Meteorological Office doesn’t comprehend the difference between climate and weather. Even though as island nations our weather has high variability, which is why we are always talking about it, there is no trend towards warming and even some really deep snowfalls and low temperature events that haven’t been witnessed for 100 years. This is just typical UK weather.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for the Environment.

Fossil Fuels - Here to Stay

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 16:49:25 GMT

The figures tell the story...

On 29 ^th November 2022 the UK demand for electricity was 37.45GW.

Of that, Open Cycle and Closed Cycle Gas generation was 22.45GW, 59.95%. Coal was even brought on-line with 1GW, 2.67%. So, the fossil fuels were providing 62.62% of our generation.

Nuclear generation was 3.96GW, 10.57%, which is lower than normal.

Biomass replacing coal but NOT carbon neutral was 1.96GW, 5.23%.

Hydro and Pumped Hydro and Miscellaneous together were 1.62GW, 4.33%

Interconnects to France, Netherlands, East-West, Belgium, Norway, Elect-Link, & Ireland totalled 4.44GW, 11.86%.

Oh, I almost forgot, Wind & Solar together, with almost no wind and leaden skies totalled just 1.25GW, 3.34%.

This is mid-morning in November and the temperature was quite high for the time of year.

Even if this stupid government goes ahead and quadruples Onshore and Offshore Wind Farms, on days like this they might only be producing 2.5GW, so we still will need the Gas and the Nuclear and possibly Coal as well.

When the really cold weather arrives in Europe we can forget about the interconnects to Ireland and the continent. UK demand will rise to 45GW, and we will need to ramp up the gas to 34GW, Nuclear to 6GW, Coal & Biomass to 3GW, Hydro, Pumped Hydro and Miscellaneous to 2GW.

For the cost of a quadrupling of wind farms we could get at least 30 Nuclear Small Modular Reactors providing an additional 14GW 24x7x365hours a year. Electrical energy that is constantly available and not at the whim, availability, and eye watering cost of the global market. Then of course we have to hope that a hostile nation has not sabotaged the gas pipeline from Norway, otherwise the lights go out for 40% of the UK.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Energy Spokesman

Marlene Headley aka Ngozi Fulani - Where Is Your Agenda Really From?

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 16:44:50 GMT

Donald MacKay thinks woke rosebuds should perhaps stick to kindergarten!

The only regrettable aspect of the nonsense surrounding Lady Hussey’s comments is that someone is apparently traumatised by them.

That the Prince of Wales should exacerbate the issue by making any statement at all is equally lamentable.

When people in authority start telling us what thought processes are and are not acceptable in our Society we are in real trouble.

Perhaps private individuals can make such judgements for themselves?

Being asked where one comes from is part of everyday conversation and is hardly a cause for any distress.

Those delicate little rosebuds who find such conversation leads to a state of shellshock might be advised to take their considerable talents to a more suitable environment- a kindergarten perhaps.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party – Culture and Wokeness Spokesman

Why Are Veterans Placed Below Economic Migrants?

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 16:33:30 GMT

Why you should support a homeless veterans charity this XMAS

Winter has well and truly arrived, and my thoughts turn to the estimated 2,500 ex-service veterans who are living on the cold, damp streets of this country.

It is a disgrace that the government can accommodate economic migrants yet turn a cold shoulder to our homeless veterans. The veterans who loyally and selflessly served to keep this country of ours safe, many now with complex PTSD issues are being ignored.

The government to rub salt into the wound have stated they are now to take a spare 550 MOD houses on military bases to house Afghan refugees and have also indicated they are considering taking a further 500 MOD houses to accommodate economic migrants.

If the government can find empty MOD houses and flats for migrants, why can they not find empty MOD houses for the homeless veterans? Currently, our homeless veterans are mainly supported by charities, who with the current cost of living crisis are struggling to cope.

The cost of supporting our homeless veterans, finding them warm, dry accommodation and the support needed to get them back on the ladder of life and to be productive members of our society is miniscule compared to the cost of supporting the estimated 82,000 illegal migrants that have arrived on our shores since 2018.

The UK Independence Party have a stated policy of giving full support to our veterans, especially those struggling on the streets.

Finally, if you can find a little spare cash this festive season, please give to a charity that supports our homeless veterans.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson Ret’d

UK Independence Party Defence and Veterans Spokesman.

Another Tory British Farming Betrayal

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 21:50:11 GMT

Pat Bryant examines more "Election Talk" from Rishi Sunak...

During Leadership Campaigns Rishi Sunak claimed to want to champion British Farming and “Food Security” but it seems that like so much else this was just election talk.

Recently Mr Sunak and his Government has unveiled a couple of Christmas presents which they obviously believe will lift the mood in the industry - though which will not be of particular interest to the many pig farmers in Yorkshire, where lies Mr Sunak’s own constituency.

First a deal has been done for a Polish company to build and operate a pork processing plant in Lancashire, creating plenty of jobs for locals in the process. Good news all round then? Well, not exactly because the pork that will be being processed will be Polish pork.

Never mind there’s news of another significant inward investment in the UK: Danish company Danish Crown is a sinking £100 million into setting up a plant in Rochdale to produce 900 tons of bacon and gammon a week. With 300 jobs surely promised this, then, is going to gladden the hearts of local pig producers. Well not quite, yes, you’ve guessed, the pigs providing the raw materials will be Danish.

All this while the British Pig Industry is on its knees .

This Government has no interest in food Security or British Farming – only in big business.

The use of Sow Stalls was outlawed in the UK on animal welfare grounds, many years ago, but like some other EU countries Denmark and Poland still use them. They also operate under much less stringent welfare regulations making production cheaper than for pig farmers here in the UK.

I very much doubt that the Polish and Danish Farmers will be subject to the same inspection routine as British Farmers. So, the chances of their shocking farm welfare standards will be hidden from the consumer.

Pat Bryant

UK Independence Party - Food and Rural Affairs Spokeswoman

Rail Dispute Going Nowhere

Sun, 04 Dec 2022 13:38:27 GMT

The 17 train companies need a collective negotiating stance

The General Secretary of the RMT Union, Mick Lynch, has a mandate from the majority of members across all the regions for strike action.

There are 17 Train Operating Companies (TOC) of which InterCity East Coast, Northern, & South-eastern are run by the Department for Transport, ScotRail is as expected run by the Scottish Government, and Wales & Borders by the Welsh Government. The other 12 TOC are owned by 9 companies.

The individual Train Operators or their owners obviously want to bargain about conditions and wages independently but that is not going to work because the strike is national. The Department for Transport only operate 3 companies, and the Welsh and Scottish governments one each.

This dispute is only going to be negotiated to a settlement when there is a single voice representing the Operators collectively. The Secretary of State for the Department of Transport Grant Shapps says the Union has to obtain agreement from the employers, that is each or all of the Train Operators.

Clearly Mick Lynch is negotiating not only for his members but trying to score points against the government because the Union is a political body as well. He is of course trying to blame the Government for not negotiating on behalf of all the Train Operators. Grant Shapps though is not in a position to negotiate an agreement and impose it on the other Operators.

Obviously, the Secretary of State doesn’t want a quick solution because it will cost the Operators dearly and ticket charges are already eye watering. So, he wants to play for time, so the commuters and electors become angry with the Unions to shame them into accepting a more reasonable offer.

Each of the several Unions taking strike action across the public services are looking for one to make a significant pay settlement that can then be used as a reference to get the same or better for their members.

The UK Independence Party urges the 17 Train Operating Companies to quickly set up an Employers Negotiating Team to represent them collectively in negotiations of wages and conditions with any and all rail unions.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Transport Spokesman

Tilting at North Sea Windmills

Sun, 04 Dec 2022 13:08:42 GMT

Why DEFRA is betraying our fishermen

The Department for Saving the Planet from the natural phenomenon of Climate Change has caused to be put in place forests of windmills whose alleged purpose is to generate electricity whilst preventing the Earth planet from becoming overheated, but which are far more effective at preventing fishermen towing their trawls in a straight line. The energy which the windmills produce is heavily subsidised by consumers and is non-dispatchable and therefore inherently of low value.

Meanwhile another government department, Defra, the natural enemy of farming and fishing, allocates quotas to our fishermen but for specific species of fish only. Consequently, our fishermen can find themselves using very expensive diesel which the government has disallowed from receiving subsidies unlike for other constituencies, to sail to an area where their quota fish can be found having passed through seas teaming with fish, but the ‘wrong’ species. Were they to net wrong fish, they would be heavily fined if they tried to land them or even worse if they tipped them over the side.

Then there are the wildlife parks, the Serengeti of the North Sea or ‘Marine Protected Areas’ where fish can go about their daily lives being eaten by natural predators which obviously makes the fish very happy indeed and minded; to vote Tory, however, the fishermen whose livelihoods are seriously curtailed by Defra idiocy, less so.

Much of the fish which our fishermen catch are not landed here but are sold to continental trawlermen because the market for fish in the UK is comparatively poor. The supermarkets which forced the closure of most independent traders and are no friends of our primary food producers have decided to offer a plethora of produce as long as it can be packaged and stacked on shelves or put in freezer, with few offering fresh fish in contrast to the supermarkets on the continent.

We are constantly being hectored about eating less meat, but humankind is an omnivorous species, and we are told fish is good for our health: what are we waiting for? The government of course should be actively assisting our fishermen and actively dealing with the supermarkets who use an effective monopoly to sell what they want to sell not what people need or want to buy.

The UK Independence Party supports our fishermen and the consumers’ right to choose.

John Gartside

UK Independence Party- Fishing Spokesman

Scottish Tragedy

Sun, 04 Dec 2022 13:01:45 GMT

Forget Macbeth - Holyrood is the real Scottish tragedy

The stated policy of the UK Independence Party is to abolish the Scottish Parliament.

It is a second-rate institution populated by mediocrity- sociology students who have never had a real job trying to "run" a country.

They are supported by a sycophantic Scottish media recognizing the career opportunities by Scotland having some kind of artificial political theatre.

While we welcome the Supreme Court decision, we deplore the fact that the British Government finances the entire nonsense that is called devolution and that the true robust Unionist voice emanates from smaller parties like the UK Independence Party who would dismantle the whole Holyrood farce rather than allow the soft voice of Conservative unionism to make a decent living from this charade themselves.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party – Scotland

Who's Right? Sunk and Hunt or Truss and Kwarteng?

Sun, 27 Nov 2022 13:34:59 GMT

Why the Tory European Research Group (ERG) should defect to UKIP

Liz wanted to reduce the tax burden and to reduce regulation to stimulate growth and avoid a recession but did nothing to limit public expenditure. That was the part of the traditional conservative philosophy of low taxes and small state.

Rishi has returned to the global socialist/communist thinking of high tax which will accelerate our descent into recession. He is taking a hard line on public expenditure to reduce the deficit black hole.

Unfortunately, it has been demonstrated time and again without fail that high tax demand slows growth and quite quickly reduces the tax revenue collected. In popular terms it is an own goal.

Liz failed because she didn’t stand her ground when the markets deliberately flipped to devalue the pound and drive her out of office. Actually, the value of the pound hasn’t dropped significantly against the Euro because the main problem is cost of energy here and in the Eurozone, whereas presently in the USA (and until the Democrats put a stop to it) they are awash with oil and gas.

So, the Euro and the Pound have both fallen significantly against the Dollar.

The problem Liz also had was that the majority of the parliamentary party are Global Socialists and wanted Rishi, whereas the grassroots wanted a Conservative. Sacking her Chancellor and blaming him was the ultimate weakness and she shed herself of her greatest ally.

So what should the answer be? Each were only half right. What is required and what I as Treasury Spokesman would recommend is low taxes and a reduction in public expenditure. Then the recession will be minimised, the tax base will prosper, and the black hole will start to be refilled.

The European Research Group is traditionally Conservative and also against Net Zero but there are 60 MPs drowned out by the other 300 globalists. Kemi Badenoch and Suella Braverman are traditional Conservatives wanting to complete Brexit, wanting to stop the illegal migrants’ boats and limit legal migration and return to a low tax, high growth, low state economy.

They will achieve little while outnumbered by the globalists.

If they were to defect to the UK Independence Party the Conservatives would be forced into a coalition with us to remain in power. Then the tail can wag the dog and the UK can start to prosper again.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party – Treasury Spokesman

The Tories Are the High Business Tax Party

Sun, 27 Nov 2022 13:29:48 GMT

Why the UK Independence Party is the only realistic choice for businesses worries about high taxation

If you run a business in the UK, you now have conclusive proof that, to save their own skin, this Tory government has chosen to sacrifice your ability to compete on the altar of the global money markets.

So much for the so-called Tory pro-business, pro-growth tax agenda. Clearly, the Tories now view UK businesses as an easy target.

We know Jeremy Hunt’s decision to bow to market and political pressure, reverse the corporation tax cut and keep it at 25% from 1st April will have come as a shock and disappointment to businesses across the country. Although a 19% rate for smaller business will continue to apply in certain circumstances, this still puts all UK businesses at a competitive disadvantage when compared to the EU Republic of Ireland, which is likely to continue its highly competitive 12.5% Corporation Tax regime into 2023. If Ireland can do it, while in the EU, why can’t the Tories achieve the same an independent UK?

This Tory government could not have made their anti-business decision at a worse time. Inflation is roaring ahead; energy prices are at a record high and demand is down due to the cost-of-living crisis. Even though UK businesses (especially smaller businesses) have still not fully recovered from the effects of Covid, this government is increasing pressure on them all.

The good news is that the UK Independence Party does stand firmly with UK business.

We understand that, in particular, smaller businesses need help to encourage investment and growth. We are the party of low taxes, unlike the Tories. We therefore call on the Tories to reduce taxes on UK businesses, especially smaller businesses.

There are ways the Tory government could help small traders if they really care about them (which we doubt).

The UK Independence Party therefore calls on the government to adopt and implement our long-standing manifesto policy to abolish business rates. Business rates are a major cause of the loss of high street shops and industrial estate businesses. It is time to scrap them completely. The UK Independence Party would scrap them now, but will the Tories? Don’t hold your breath.

The Tories are no longer the party of business (large or small). Labour never has been, as they are the party of the heavily unionised public services.

I would therefore encourage small traders to join the UK Independence Party now; get involved with our campaign in their local area and help us to get a better deal for smaller businesses.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Business, Trade and Foreign Affairs

What EGGxactly is Going on Here???

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 14:18:49 GMT

Why are we short of eggs, and when will the ombudsman step in?

Is the Grocery Adjudicator working from home? Why no action on Egg prices?

This little-known Government Agency which also calls itself the Supermarket Ombudsman is responsible for enforcing the Groceries Supply Code of Practice and to regulate the relationship between supermarkets and their direct suppliers within the United Kingdom.

This past week has seen empty shelves where eggs should be, and the Supermarkets are telling us that this is down to Bird Flu, but the farmers tell a different story.

They say it is down to the fact that their costs have risen substantially, and they are losing approx. 26p on every dozen eggs the Supermarkets take from them.

This is unsustainable and will mean that the shortage will be ongoing because farmers will have no money to invest in replacement birds and feed stuff.

For over a week now The UK Independence Party Agricultural Spokesman has been tagging the Grocery Adjudicator on twitter asking when they are going to step in on this matter and do their job.

Not one such communication has been acknowledged and not one statement has been forthcoming from the Office of the Adjudicator.

Is it not time this bunch of people who live off our taxes got off their chairs and actually did the job they were set up to do?

Working from home is not an excuse anymore.

Pat Bryant

UK Independence Party - Agriculture Spokesman

Ship building returning to Harland and Wolff

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 14:15:33 GMT

Welcome back!

On the 13 ^{th of} November, I had the honour to commemorate and remember at the Cenotaph those that gave all so that we can be free in this great country of ours. The annual get together with former friends and colleagues was as always something special, especially as this occasion was the first with King Charles III leading the parade.

At last, a bit of good news on Defence, the Belfast ship builder Harland and Wolff are to build three support ships for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary in a £1.6bn deal. This will provide crucial jobs at four locations from Belfast to Devon. The building of the first ship is due to start in 2025 and the third completed by 2032.

Despite the good news above, our armed forces are still struggling for proper investment. I visited an aviation unit I served with last week and was briefed on the operations of the last year and future proposed training and operations. It is clear they are walking a very fine tight rope of the work v lifestyle balance due to the pace of operations and the limited personal available. It is clear that investment in retaining and boosting personnel numbers is desperately needed. The UK Independence Party would ensure our Armed Forces Personnel are given the funds, support, and a quality structured lifestyle these men and women deserve and is one of the mainstays of the UK Independence Parties Defence Policy.

Finally, an afternote on the £1.6bn for three new support ships for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. The latest estimated current spending on immigration in our country is £17bn. If this amount was spent on defence rather than economic migrants, our country would easily become a world leader in defence ensuring correct numbers of armed forces personnel and proving them with cutting-edge defence equipment.

Squadron Leader Peter Richardson R’td.

UK Independence Party – Defence and Veterans Spokesman

Pic Credit: Ross, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Mould Death Tragedy

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 14:08:58 GMT

How is death by mould possible in the UK today?

How is it possible for social housing landlords Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), to do nothing when warned of excessive mould and damp in a young boy’s home which many months later led to his tragic death?

2-year-old Awaab Ishak died, the coroner confirmed, due to official ignorance of the risks of mould and its spoors, poor communication due to language difficulties and slow legal procedures taking precedence over urgent practical action to fix the problem.

The father was fobbed off with inadequate instructions to paint over any mould himself. Unfortunately, we can be reasonably sure there are many more cases of mould and damp causing illness and suffering that do not come to light.

This is an example of bureaucratic betrayal of a precious young life, due to dreadful conditions in social housing that are all too common.

Those responsible are finally reacting with soothing words for Awaab’s family.

Some people are suggesting that there is a racial element to their poor response, but it seems likely that it was the family’s poverty and lack of English that led to such bureaucratic failure. It was simply too much trouble to respond properly in timely fashion.

We must have more transparency and timely information about social housing failures and powerful incentives for correction of disrepair including legal actions against inadequate performance by social housing landlords.

We are paying for high standards in social housing, and we are right to expect the best from all involved.

Nigel Carter

UK Independence Party

Pic Credit: Dr. David Midgley, CC BY-SA 2.5 , via Wikimedia Common s

We Have a Mental Health Emergency!

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 14:01:01 GMT

Jordan Gaskell discusses the increased demand for mental health support

The rising cost of living has resulted in an increase demand for mental health support.

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACAP) estimate 61% of therapists report a spike in the anxiety levels of their clients.

The Mental Health Foundation says 73% of UK adults cannot manage their finances and 59% say that the cost-of-living crisis has had a negative impact on their mental health, leaving them feeling anxious, depressed and with a sense of hopelessness.

The rising cost of essentials such as energy, food and housing brings with it rising levels of worry, stress, and anxiety.

The rise in the severity of those already suffering mentally, is astonishing. Thousands of new mental health sufferers are presenting across the nation every day.

The UK Independence Party want to offer practical solutions that will make an immediate difference to the pockets of the British Working Classes. We would scrap the TV Licence Fee, abolish prescription charges, and abandon net zero policies.

It's time for change, it's time for the UK Independence Party to be given a chance.

Jordan Gaskell

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Mental Health & Wellbeing

Illegal Immigration - What We'd Do

Thu, 24 Nov 2022 13:54:45 GMT

How would the UK Independence Party handle illegal immigration? Here's our 18 point plan...

Our priority is to put the rights of the settled population above the rights of illegal immigrants. Nothing else will work until we do.
Exit UN Refugee Convention and European Convention on Human Rights to ensure primacy of UK law over and above all undemocratic edicts of global institutions.
Legislate to ensure that our immigration policy can withstand all legal challenges from the migrant support industry.
Create post of Secretary of State for Migration and Population, removed from the post of Home Secretary.
Repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and support a UK Bill of Rights to make the UK Supreme Court final judicial arbiter on all immigration cases.
Set an immigration ceiling to include true refugees escaping oppression or war.
Adopt a no-nonsense policy when dealing with illegal immigrants. To stem the flow, we will change their expectations of what happens to them if they enter illegally.
Downgrade the existing Border Force and relieve it of all responsibility for guarding the borders. Set up a Border Guard with a fleet of in-shore vessels.
Build Secure Migrant Vessels to house illegals temporarily at sea. These will be container ships equipped with helicopter pads. Adapt containers as secure rooms with insulation, ventilation; barred windows and subject to all rules applying to high security prisons.
Wanted criminals identified during processing will be deported immediately.
Military planes to be on standby. Repatriation flights will start from secure UK military airport.
Border Guards or RNLI will escort dinghies or boats intercepted in Channel to a Secure Migrant Vessel and off load them at sea.
Border Guards will arrest illegal immigrants discovered in commercial vehicles or in the Channel Tunnel and transport them immediately to a Secure Migrant Vessel.
We will hold illegals on Secure Migrant Vessels for processing for a maximum of 3 days of their arrival, after which Border Guards will remove them to a Secure Migrant Camp.
We will build Secure Migrant Camps in the countryside quickly like nightingale hospitals. They will be subject to all rules applying to high security prisons with perimeter fencing and controlled by Border Guards or the Army. We will not allow inmates to leave, visit or mix with the settled population in nearby towns or villages.
We will limit detention in Secure Migrant Camps to three months maximum. Detaining them longer will risk them becoming a serious burden on the State. This is unacceptable as they will never have contributed to the UK economy, and we owe them nothing.
We will negotiate arrangements with any United Nations member state outside the UK that is willing to make adequate accommodation available to illegal immigrants and will accept those who we are unable to return to their own country. We will deport illegal immigrants from Secure Migrant Camps to one of these countries immediately after three months if we cannot return them to their own country.
After deportation back to their home country, illegals will have no route back to the UK.

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party – Party Director

The Fracking Ban

Sun, 20 Nov 2022 13:20:27 GMT

The fracking ban is an incredible act of self harm

It was agreed by various signatories to the COP26 accord that gas is to be used as a transition fuel while building renewables to end the use of fossil fuels, particularly coal, by 2050.

Since then, the war in Ukraine and the inevitable shutting down and subsequent damage to the Nord stream pipelines from Russia means our only reliable sources of natural gas in the short term is from existing UK oil and gas wells, from a pipeline from Norway, and from whatever amounts of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) that the USA under Democrat rule is willing to sell to the UK and Europe.

Gas is not a transition fuel it is a permanent fuel, because it will always be required. Like coal powered stations they are capable of being ramped up and down to cope with the 10GW variation of UK grid demand between summer day and night, and the 20GW variation between winter day and night. It can also compensate for the 10GW variation caused by the intermittency of wind and solar, neither of which are available on-demand.

There is no large-scale renewable energy technology that can cope with the demand variation, nor is it likely to exist in the foreseeable future. It is just the Magic Renewable Generator of the Net Zero Cult in the same way as Labour had a Magic Money Tree.

The more wind and solar farms installed reduces the overall use of gas but does nothing to overcome the demand variation. It just makes gas fuelled energy less efficient, because the generators are running below maximum for more of the time and costs a fortune in renewable infrastructure and subsidies forcing up consumer bills.

Our shiny new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, at his first PMQ’s on Wednesday 26 ^th October answered a question about the fracking moratorium put by Caroline Lucas, our one and only Green MP, by saying his government fully supports the manifesto pledge of Boris Johnson to maintain the fracking ban. This is the reverse of what he stated while campaigning against Liz Truss for the leadership of the party.

The UK Independence Party deplores this act of self-harm against the people of these nations and urges this government to start putting people before policy and stop pursuing a policy of Net Zero for which there is no mandate.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Energy

The Invisible Border

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 19:19:10 GMT

Lester Taylor discusses what to do about the Irish border.

Map: Ulamm, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

It’s being reported that a breakthrough is imminent regarding the Northern Ireland Protocol.

With talk that, by using technology and a reduction in checks, an invisible trade border can be put in place across the Irish Sea.

The thinking is, that this would replace the current onerous set-up and appease the Loyalist community.

So that after fresh, albeit delayed, Stormont elections in January, the Unionists would allow a power sharing executive to be formed.

But there is one simple truth that so many ignore. That being, if any sort of border across the Island of Ireland is a heinous crime, then under the Belfast Agreement any border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland must be as equally heinous.

And further, if an invisible border can be formed down the Irish Sea, then why can that invisible border not be applied between the North and South of Ireland?

It would, after all, only be adding to the already existing currency border, civil law border, tax border and criminal law border. So, another invisible border alongside those would make no difference. In fact, it would make total sense.

But the protocol enforced Irish Sea border has now become a symbol of the ‘defeat’ of the UK as ‘punishment’ for the temerity of the UK leaving the European Union. That sort of Brussels thinking requires the complexity and expense of two borders, not one simple border.

The UK government should not agree to a so-called invisible border being placed anywhere other than where it should be placed - and that is at the actual border between countries.

To accept anything else is providing our ‘friends and partners’, with a permanent confirmation of Northern Ireland’s diminished status within the UK, while also allowing them stored ammunition to use against us during any future disagreements.

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Brexit and Northern Ireland

No More VISAs for Foreign Workers

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 19:05:20 GMT

Why we now need to put our own workers first.

Sadly, the past two years have been unkind to business, especially small businesses. Many have been struggling to get through the Covid lock-down crisis, and latterly, suffering from crippling energy price hikes, rapidly increasing interest rates, corporation tax rises and general inflation. They can thank the Conservative government policy for much of it.

I take no pleasure in reporting this, but according to The Sunday Times of 6 ^th November, another shock is about to hit the economy. “In the face of mounting energy bills, demands for higher wages and falling demand for their products, bosses under pressure to reduce costs are reaching for the jobs axe”. Reportedly, discussions are yet to break into the open, but some executives privately confirm that redundancies are on the way.

The good news is that, at present, unemployment levels are at 3.5%, a historic low, with plenty of unfilled vacancies and employers have been routinely complaining that they need ever more migrant workers due to “staff shortages”.

However, the bad news is that this seems set to change. The Bank of England is forecasting that the unemployment rate will reach 6.4% in three years, meaning a million more people unemployed.

According to Migration Watch, of the 1.1 million entry clearance grants to individuals in the year to June 2022:

331,200 were for work.
486,900 were for study.
82,300 were for family.
230,000 were for resettlement.

Under this Conservative government, there has been a 72% increase in work visas and a 71% increase in study visas compared with 2019. There is no excuse for this. Our Party strongly believes that it would be unjust for the Conservative government to continue doling out work and study visas like confetti to large numbers of migrant workers if employers start to lay-off our own workers.

The UK Independence Party puts our own people and our own workers first. We believe that employers including commercial businesses and public services (NHS etc.) must employ British nationals first and bear the costs of re-retraining them if needed. In a period of declining employment prospects, it would be wholly inequitable for UK employers to use cheap foreign labour as a way of reducing their staffing costs to the detriment of our own national workforce. The UK Independence Party would strictly control work and study visas to ensure that the admission of foreign workers is strictly controlled. We call on the Conservative government to stop issuing work and study visas at once, and to match our commitment to the British people.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party Spokesman

Business, Trade and Foreign Affairs

Just Stop!

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 18:54:10 GMT

Why the police need to be more firm with eco-protesters...

The UK Independence Party has called upon Just Stop Oil to just STOP.

A collision on the M25, at a protest site in Essex, involving two lorries and a police motorcyclist has resulted in the police officer being injured. The Chief Constable of Essex Police is absolutely right: this is devastating news, but it is only a matter of time before someone is killed.

For far too long a small clique of interlinked hysterical activists - under titles such as Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain, and Just Stop Oil – have been seriously disrupting the lives of members of the public who have been blocked from going about their business by what are small groups of high-viz extremists.

This has included blocking major roads and motorways bringing them to a halt, sometimes for hours. Video and eyewitness evidence indicates the police have often not dealt with these lawbreakers as rigorously as should be done, sometimes resulting in frustrated members of the public being put in the position of feeling they have to deal with these idiots directly. This will not end well.

It is a fundamental duty of a police officer to take the necessary steps to keep the peace, prevent crime or protect people from criminal injury or their property from criminal damage. This has not always been happening in some of these incidents. This needs to change.

The UK Independence Party believes the police should be more assertive in enforcing the law, quickly arresting those blocking the highway and other public places. This will not only allow the public to get on with their work, or pick up their kids from school, or get to hospital – but will also render these protests ineffective.

It is also essential that the courts apply maximum fines so that the punishment fits this serious crime (that is costing others millions of pounds), as well as maximum prison sentences to prevent repeat offending, and act as a deterrent to others.

The UK Independence Party also supports a 20-year minimum sentence for those who kill police officers and other emergency workers while on duty. We rely on our emergency workers to run towards trouble to protect the rest of us, and this should apply to situations like this, where Just Stop Oil members are intentionally taking action that is putting lives at risk, even (as in this case) they are in breach of a court order that they feel they are entitled to ignore.

Steve Unwin

UK Independence Party-Spokesman for Home Affairs, Voting Reform and Local Government

What is the correct meaning of racism?

Fri, 11 Nov 2022 09:57:14 GMT

Donald MacKay explains why we need to be clear about what we mean by this term...

The words "racism" or "racist" are used in a casual everyday sense not only by sociology students but also by representatives of Government and other sources of authority such as the police.

Being accused of being a racist is to be avoided at all costs lest one’s career swiftly draws to a conclusion regardless of one’s capabilities or competence.

The words are rarely defined they are just used.

What exactly is a racist? Is it someone who regards one ethnic group as being inferior or superior to another? If that is so, then I suspect that racists are rather thin on the ground.

Actually,it is more likely to refer to someone who identifies with one ethnic group rather than others.

This then becomes a weapon to be used against you as if being "proud" of indigenous culture is unacceptable in a multicultural society.

Language is devalued as the word racist (rather like sexist or homophobic) is used to inhibit the expression of legitimately held points of view.

This is all unhelpful as dialogue becomes suppressed and meaning becomes blurred.

In the interests of free thought, discourse, and analysis we should react to any accusations of racism by requesting a proper definition of the term.

If we do I suspect that we shall win the argument.

Donald Mackay

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Culture and Wokeness

Arise, King Rishi!

Fri, 04 Nov 2022 09:31:30 GMT

Our leader's thoughts on "global puppet" Rishi...

So, it turned out to be a coronation after all. Arise King Rishi! His crown will be a crown of thorns, but it's the country which will be crucified - thanks to the policies he either formulated or enthusiastically endorsed.

First, there is the pointless but financially ruinous lockdowns, which have all-but bankrupted the country.

Then the pointless, irrational and ruinously expensive commitment to net-zero by 2050. This condemns us to shiver in the dark this winter. It also constitutes the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in my lifetime.

Next, not satisfied with presiding over the UK's highest tax burden since Attlee's Labour Government in 1950, Rishi wants to increase it still further. Jeremy Hunt has revived Rishi's hike in Corporation Tax from 19% to 25%, directly impacting 5.6 million small businesses which are the life-blood of our economy. Truss's 1p cut in income tax is scrapped and he threatens another £40 billion in tax increases in a few months time. Just as we tip into economic recession!

Then there's the migration crisis - entirely of the Tory Government's own making. They do nothing whatsoever to curb armadas of illegal migrants daily plying across the Channel. Instead of being carted back to France, they are settled in hotels and given mobile phones by the laughably-named Border Force.

Numerically much greater, the Government positively welcomes a massive increase in legal immigration - a record 1.1 million residence visas were granted to non-UK nationals in the year to mid-2022. The Tories have added 4 million to the UK population through migration alone since 2010 (and those are just the ones we know about).

And then there's the crisis over freedom of speech and the cancel culture, largely stemming from the Equality Act 2010, Harriet Harperson's last gasp as a Minister. The Tories have done absolutely nothing to amend this and combat the Reign of Terror unleashed in the name of 'wokeness'. Whether it's destroying people's lives and livelihoods for lawfully expressing their opinions or destroying statues and other vestiges of our history, the Tories have been too timid to stand up for freedom of speech and diversity of opinion which lie at the heart of a free Society.

I could go on and on but this litany of betrayal by successive Tory governments is already making me clinically depressed.

Sunak just offers more of the same. He is the continuity globalist candidate. Inevitably, he used to work for Goldman Sachs and is perfectly at home amongst the Davos jet-set.

The tragedy of the latest Tory leadership election was that no candidate stood for anything remotely Tory. In the previous election, at least Badenoch and Braverman pointed in a different direction. This time, they backed Sunak. It will be Business As Usual under the latest in an apostolic succession of globalist dupes - Major, Cameron, May, Johnson.

There must be a better way and there is. UKIP made Brexit possible, even though the Tories have done nothing with it. Nothing will change under The Old Gang. We need to clear them all out. The last thing we need is another globalist puppet like Sunak.

Neil Hamilton

Leader - UK Independence Party

Net Zero: Suicide Sunak

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 18:26:02 GMT

Decarbonisation=deindustrialisation

The sight of political elites posing for group photos and slapping each other on the back as they sign up to yet more unrealistic and stupidly expensive climate commitments was, for many, as good a reason as any to vote for Brexit. They serve as a reminder that our elites look more to each other for validation than they do their own electorates.

These tone-deaf, virtue signalling jamborees are a must for any politicians seeking status among the exclusive club of “world leaders”. We have a feral establishment that thinks nothing of signing away billions of our money on the say-so of an autistic teenager.

It was, then, somewhat surprising and encouraging to see that Rishi Sunak declined to attend COP27. But that didn’t last even a week. A few days of mewling from the left wing press and the BBC and Sunak has decided to appease them – even though those who made the most noise would never vote Tory in a billion years.

This morning, Sunak tweeted: “There is no long-term prosperity without action on climate change. There is no energy security without investing in renewables. That is why I will attend @COP27P next week: to deliver on Glasgow’s legacy of building a secure and sustainable future”.

It tells us everything we need to know about Sunak. Just another politicians who allows himself to be blown this way and that by any passing gust of media wind. But it also tells us that our political class has forgotten all the lessons of Brexit and has reverted to business as usual. They’re back to not giving a damn about their own voters. Not that they ever did. What did Johnson actually deliver apart from a dog’s dinner of Brexit deal?

This also tells us much about what we are to expect from a Sunak government. He’s sucked down deep on the renewable energy Kool-Aid, despite the growing mountain of evidence that intermittent energy is driving up bills and increasing our exposure to global energy shocks. Style over substance. This, combined with reinstating the ban on fracking, tells us Sunak has abandoned energy security in favour of eco-virtue signalling, and we’ll no doubt have more misery heaped upon us over the course of the COP27 conference.

In that respect, it’s as though we never left the EU. If there was any point in a “hard Brexit” it was to part ways with the EU’s insane climate and energy policies. The EU seems determined to deindustrialise and export every last manufacturing job to China – then subject Chinese imports of cement, iron and steel, aluminium and fertilisers to a carbon border tax . (all the elements, incidentally, necessary for the Net Zero transition). One could be forgiven for thinking that the EU intends to reach Net Zero by eliminating all commercial activity. Instead of parting ways, the UK remains in lockstep with the EU on this economic suicide trajectory.

The technocratic elites of Britain and Europe are pressing ahead with a fantasy, oblivious to the rampant inflation caused by lockdowns and the war in Ukraine. They remain dogged in their determination to make life harder and more expensive, pressing ahead with policies that cannot possibly work. After all, they’re quite nicely insulated from the consequences and they can keep blaming Putin.

Sunak asserts that “there is no long-term prosperity without action on climate change” – but with ill-conceived and punishing Net Zero policies, there is no prosperity at all – long term or otherwise. Decarbonisation has become a byword for deindustrialisation. Ultimately, there is no prosperity without secure and affordable energy. There is no prosperity without individual mobility. In one tweet, Sunak has made himself the leader of the “anti-growth coalition”.

Video: Treasure Says Hello!

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 20:37:18 GMT

Watch Treasure's introductory video...

Strategic Drift at Defra

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 18:29:50 GMT

Let's back British fish and chips!

A new broom sweeps clean, or does it? At Defra, Liz Truss has replaced George Eustace who grew up on a farm with Ranil Jayawardena, a man described by Farmers Weekly as “relatively unknown in agriculture but will now have oversight of farming, environment, water and nature policy” and of course which will also include fishing, an activity not considered important enough by this Tory government to warrant an explicit reference in the nomenclature of its lead department. Mr Jayawardena will therefore need to rely on advice from colleagues and experts including the Board of Defra, so with what expertise does this actually provide him? Apart from Mr Henry Dimbleby MBE who can give advice on cuisine, there is the Defra Chief Scientific Adviser, Dr Gideon Henderson FRS, Google Scholar, and Professor of Earth Sciences at Oxford who describes himself as a geochemist researching climate change and the carbon cycle. Saving the Planet is dandy but from where comes this Tory government’s advice on self-sufficiency in food supply from within our extensive Exclusive Economic Zone?

Whilst our own fishermen are starved of quota under this Tory government, our fish and chip shops are being supplied with ‘Norwegian’ Cod but where does some of this come from? It is being reboxed and rebadged from Russia trawlers, even sometimes caught in our poorly protected fishing grounds.

It is time to end the misery of our fishermen and our coastal communities, which has pertained ever since the Tories dragged us into the EU and allow our own fishermen to harvest our seas which are teaming with fish so that we the consumers can enjoy our fish and chips knowing we are supporting our own fishing communities.

John Gartside

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Fishing

Pic credit: Charles Haynes from Bangalore, India, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

An Electorate Addicted to Poison

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 18:17:37 GMT

The Party Leader explains why the Tories are poisonous, and the Lib-Dems and Labour even more so...

There’s plenty of competition for the title of 'Most Incompetent Government' but the current lot under Liz Truss is well up the list. The Tory Party is trussed up like a turkey and its goose looks well and truly cooked!

The tragedy is that the aim of KamiKwazi's mini budget was good. Taxes must be cut to kickstart growth and revive our economy. Sadly, his catastrophic failure to explain how this would work has set back this agenda for years.

Truss's incomprehensible decision to appoint Jeremy Hunt in Kwazi's place means we now have as effective Prime Minister a Remainiac, extreme pro-lockdown crank who came last in the recent Tory leadership contest! That's the last thing we need. It compounds the Tories' failure to deliver on Brexit and slash the stranglehold of EU regulations and red tape.

The tale of financial markets being spooked by 'unfunded tax cuts' is absurd. It's the scale of government borrowing to fund the lockdowns and now the unfunded energy package which did that. Indiscriminate fuel-bill payments will be made to every household regardless of income at a cost of up to £150 billion.

The total tax package in the mini-Budget was estimated to 'cost just £43 billion. Of that, £24 billion by two things both supported by the Labour Party - the cut in National Insurance Contributions (£19 billion) and 1p off the Basic Rate of Income Tax (£5 billion).

That leaves a mere £19 billion of extra 'unfunded' tax cuts, which is supposed to have caused financial panic. This is clearly nonsense, when set against total tax revenue of £915 billion last year and a projected government deficit of £165 billion next year.

Cuts in income tax and NICs incentivise work and enterprise. They tend to increase the size of the national income as it pays to work harder and invest more. It also makes tax avoidance less worthwhile. The 45p income tax rate raises a mere £2 billion and scrapping it would probably have led to more tax being paid - as happened when the 50p top rate was abolished. That led to an extra £8 billion in tax revenue. The paradox is that not cutting tax actually reduces the amount of cash which could be raised to spend on the NHS etc.

It's the same with the U-turn on Corporation Tax. Increasing it from 19% to 26% will be disastrous. This will move the UK from being one of the lower rates internationally into one of the higher. Companies in Northern Ireland will be taxed at 26% compared with only 12.5% in the Irish Republic - so expect a rash of companies to move from Belfast to Dublin. This will exacerbate the already disastrous economic effects of the Northern Ireland Protocol and lead to less tax revenue raised in the UK.

After 12 years of Tory government, UK taxes are higher as a proportion of national income than at any time since the Attlee Government in 1950.

Let's not also forget the role of the Bank of England in this mess. Andrew Bailey has been useless as Governor - asleep at the wheel while inflation has been careering out of control. He has a duty to keep it below 2% but it is currently 9%. It has been rising above 2% since April 2021. The Bank should have started raising rates over a year ago and should have kept in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve. Even last month, when the Fed increased rates by 0.75% the Bank dithered and raised UK rates by only 0.5%.

The dollar has soared on the back of the Fed's decisive actions whilst the pound has weakened, adding further to inflationary pressures as many products (including oil) are traded in dollars.

Add to that Bailey's idiotic announcement that last week he was going to sell £40 billion of gilt-edged stocks to start unwinding QE. With interest rates rising, the price of government bonds falls. Selling more bonds inevitably reduces bond prices further and sellers rush to sell asap - causing bond prices to fall even further. This causes market interest rates also to rise further, making the problem even worse. Last week’s crisis in the bond market was provoked by the Bank's foolish decisions more than the Chancellor's tax plans. Instead of promoting stability, the Bank did the opposite.

This then led to crisis with pension funds. Regulatory rules require them to hold large quantities of 'safe' securities like government bonds. When prices are set to fall, the funds must bolster their solvency by converting some bonds into cash. Last week's rapid rise in interest rates meant that pension funds had to off-load bonds into a falling market and the Bank had to step in as buyer of last resort. Idiotically, Bailey announced an end-date (last Friday) for his support scheme. This caused panic and a fire-sale of bonds, pushing up interest rates still further and endangering the solvency of some pension funds.

The reality of last week's crisis is that it was primarily caused by the failure of the Bank of England to do its job. The background is also a decade of Quantitative Easing and interest rates at virtually zero. Add to this the toxic effect of two years of lockdowns, in which the national debt was doubled to £2.3 trillion, and you have the perfect storm.

The lockdown was a draconian and unnecessary act of self-harm by a panicked Johnson government. It wrecked the economy and the government's finances. The mini-Budget was a start in getting us out of the mess, but it was so badly handled by Truss and Kwarteng that the real cause and cure of our problems were completely obscured.

The U-turns will make things worse, not better. Truss's feebleness has been a gift to the Remainiac, globalist Blob who want to undo Brexit and carry on with the same anti-growth policies which for a brief moment it seemed we were about to escape.

Once again, the Tories have betrayed Britain. Never has there been greater need to smash the Westminster-Whitehall-globalist Establishment consensus. If the country keeps voting for the parties which administer poison, the patient will never recover. Protesting against the Tories by voting Labour or Lib-Dem means voting for more poison, only ten times worse.

Only UKIP understands the true causes and has the cure for our ills.

Neil Hamilton

Leader - UK Independence Party

Net Zero: doubling down on stupid

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 16 Oct 2022 08:21:55 GMT

There is no growth without affordable energy

Most of my thinking lately dwells on the impossibility of Net Zero. Green energy lobbyists have ramped up the propaganda in recent months, doing all they can to obscure the reality of Net Zero. There are now endless debates as to the true cost of wind energy. Carbon Brief is pushing the line that wind energy is “nine times cheaper”.

Andrew Montford of Net Zero Watch has a crack at this dodgy number . Montford’s analysis is often quite good. Personally I think the argument needs to be reframed. Costing energy is an imprecise science because it's fraught with complexity. The slam dunk argument against wind energy is when we frame it as intermittent versus dispatchable energy.

I argue that the cost of building and operating windmills is not a standalone figure. We must also consider the cost of grid balancing and the various energy storage technologies. Energy storage is in its infancy. It is not cheap. It is not going to get cheaper any time soon. In all probability it’s going to remain a pricey affair for decades to come. There will be shortages of lithium and battery grade nickel in the next five to ten years, leading to production and supply chain problems.

In the interim gas power stations are doing the heavy lifting of grid balancing and wind backup. It wasn’t cheap before the war in Ukraine and it’s not cheap now. Moreover, as we’ve dismantled our conventional power generation, we’ve lost a great deal of spinning reserve for short term grid balancing so we’re now having to build standalone flywheels – simulating the spinning metal mass of a power station turbine. The demonstrator is set to cost £25m. The more intermittent energy we add the more it destabilises the grid so we could end up needing dozens of these contraptions.

Elsewhere the renewables sector is looking at conversion of surplus wind energy (at times of low demand) into hydrogen which would then be piped to gas stations and converted into methane. Again, this is not past the demonstrator phase , so we have no real world data on costs and conversion losses. One analysis has it that the technology to convert power to hydrogen and back to power has a round-trip efficiency of 18%-46%.

A more technical paper , assessing German research, concludes that the balancing of fluctuations of renewable energy though green hydrogen seems feasible only up to a level of several GWh per day. “However, the German government’s idea of replacing a significant share of conventionally produced electric energy in the order of TWh with hydrogen does not stand up to scientific analysis”. In short, there is no current cost effective technology capable of mitigating intermittency caused by wind and solar.

But then we are reminded that the big vision behind Net Zero is that the grid will be balanced by all the electric cars we’re going to buy. I need not list the many impracticalities of EVs, but the point stands that there simply isn’t enough generation and transmission capacity to sustain the current uptake of EVs, nor the street level power infrastructure to cope with them. V2G is decades away if it ever happens at all.

The debate, therefore, is less a matter of what each respective technology is likely to cost. It may well be that we’re throwing good money after bad, to the tune hundred of billions, perhaps even trillions, for a system that isn’t going to work. The grand Net Zero vision more resembles a Rube Goldberg machine . It is argued that this pioneering and innovative dash for green technologies will bring about a green revolution, creating millions of jobs. Only it will do no such thing. Wind, solar and battery makers are scaling back their production citing high energy costs, and this week we learn that BMW Mini is to shift its EV production to China, and Britishvolt, a major battery manufacturing startup, is on the brink of collapse.

Since battery storage, V2G and hydrogen are not going to make a meaningful impact, and will certainly never be able to plug the days and weeks of wind shortfalls, gas will be doing job of wind back up for as long as it takes for windmills to fall out of fashion. Net Zeroists will argue that wind reduces our dependency on gas, but however many GW of wind capacity we add, not a single CCGT station can be decommissioned. We’ll just be paying for them to stand idle for much of the year. An externality of wind which must be added to the cost of intermittent energy.

As it happens, the expansion of the wind fleet has stalled. As we noted recently, much of the existing fleet is quite old now, and the rate of decommissioning will outpace new installations. Meanwhile, some £54 billion has to be found to connect new capacity to the grid. Meanwhile the grid has to solve the more urgent problem of keeping the lights on in the decade to come. Policy makers will have to choose between Net Zero adventurism and reality. There isn’t enough investment capital to address both.

There is then the elephant in the room. As we’ve often noted, the transition to Net Zero is a transition to a mineral intensive energy system/. we’re looking at a sixfold increase in the consumption of rare earth minerals and metals. Environmentalists are starting to notice that this involves large scale open cast mining and increasing our dependency on China, just as Western politicians are deciding China is the new geopolitical bogeyman.

Net Zero fails when you problem it from any angle. It is not sustainable. It is not green. It is not cheap. It is not going to kickstart growth. It’s going to make energy more expensive, deindustrialise the West, and demote our energy system to third world levels of reliability. Even the Lords environment and climate change committee has said the government is relying too much on “yet to be proven technological fixes”. Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said: “Dreaming that something brand new will appear and save us by 2050 is not sensible”. We would be far less diplomatic. The word moronic leaps to mind.

Instead the Committee urges a focus on “behaviour change” which entails yet another layer of expensive gadgetry such as smart meters to tell us when we can use our washing machines or charge our cars. Not only are we to be priced ourt of our current lifestyles, we will in effect be living in a climate lockdown to flatten the energy demand curve. For this there is no mandate and we don’t get a say.

The debate over the last fortnight has been over whether tinkering with tax rates will grow the economy. We would suggest that it’s not going to make the slightest difference unless we get energy costs under control and stop wasting billions on green fantasies. The Wesminster cartel is in lockstep over this issue. Truss has climbed down from “Trussonomics” and will no doubt be bullied into doubling down on Net Zero. Thus, there is no salvation to be had. Regardless of the economic and practical realities of Net Zero, they’re steering the ship directly into the iceberg. If you’re daft enough to keep voting for them, you deserve what’s coming.

The Tory betrayal is complete

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sat, 15 Oct 2022 07:53:12 GMT

The party's over for the Tories

I could almost feel sorry for Liz Truss. These times would test even the ablest of politicians and there is so much going on which is simply beyond the control of any one prime minister. She’s be been dealt an unwinnable hand. Whether or not she made the right decision yesterday scarcely matters. She was going to be hammered either way. Moreover, she simply doesn’t have the gravitas to win the confidence of the markets, the nation, or even her party. She is only in post because the party could not agree on a more convincing leader.

It’s now doubtful as to whether she can remain in post. It’s hard to see how a PM can withstand the sacking of her own chancellor within weeks of taking office and it now looks like the Tory coalition is unleadable. The factions do not have enough politically in common to unite. Any decisive agenda was always going to alienate the other half of the party. They kept their mouths shut about Johnson because they at least owed him their seats. They owe Truss nothing.

The claim, though, that in u-turning on corporation tax, Truss has abandoned conservative principle sounds faintly ridiculous. Have conservative commentators been asleep for the last two years? For starters, Johnson's Net Zero represents the largest spending programme of all time, all planned centrally, to turn our energy grid into the biggest Rube Goldberg machine the world has ever seen.

In respect of that, it it unlikely that a freeze on corporation tax would make any difference to investor confidence – nor will it do much for competitiveness when the Tory party is absolutely determined to drive up energy costs. If Britain wants to seen as the place to do business then we need a clear plan to get energy costs under control. We simply cannot ask investors to set up shop in Britain when we’re pushing unproven "green" technologies that will destabilise the supply of electricity.

In any case, the betrayal of conservative voters happened under Johnson many moons ago. Those who voted for him thought they were getting a fresh start – but within weeks, Johnson’s government turned into a big spending, authoritarian party of mass immigration. Why it’s taken this long for Tory pundits to wake up beats the hell out of me. Still, better late than never.

It should now have dawned on even the thickest of the conservative commentariat that if you want anything approaching a conservative minded government then the Tory party is a lost cause. The party is determined to disappoint and alienate its core vote. Truss is just the final stop in the party’s long march into oblivion. It now seems like a Labour win by default is unavoidable.

If Labour does take power though, it won’t be because Labour has proven its worth. It will simply be because vast swathes of the nation stay at home, concluding that voting isn’t worth venturing out into the rain. The two party cartel is spent. We need both of these sclerotic parties to die. Neither is capable of of delivering what the country wants, and for as long as there exists a social democratic consensus, voters will continue to be denied a meaningful choice at the ballot box.

But then we know we won’t get that change. The mainstream parties only ever want democratic reform while in opposition. There is no way to break this cartel without an uprising. UKIP is the only party that came close, and only managed it, ironically, through participating in EU elections. Until we take to the streets we’ll continue to be ruled by a an immovable blob of technocrats and lobbyists. Democracy in the United Kingdom is dead.

In the meantime, all we can do is use our votes to punish the Tories for their betrayal. I’ll be voting UKIP because UKIP is the only party with a credible energy policy and a plan to fix immigration. No society can prosper without cheap abundant energy. No liberal democracy can survive without functioning borders. The mainstream parties cannot be trusted to deliver. UKIP will.

The Legal Let-Down for Rape Victims

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 09:14:53 GMT

Why the police approach to rape needs to urgently improve.

The way that crimes of rape and sexual abuse are handled by the police is not working.

Almost one-third (31%) of all rape victims develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and more than one in ten of these victims (11%) never get over the trauma.

1.6 million adults aged 16 to 74 years have experienced sexual assault by rape or penetration (including attempts). How dreadful that 38% (608,000) did not think the police could help!

Our police force have become too infatuated with investigating potentially mean or offensive tweets and defending paedophile rings, they seem not interested in seriously and thoroughly investigating rape and sexual assault complaints.

As a result of this dereliction of duty, the mental health of rape and sexual assault victims is irreparably damaged. Providing the necessary care and support for these victims adds to the already overstretched social services and health providers budget and workload.

The shortage of properly trained police officers, counsellors and other support staff has not helped, only 40% of police units in England and Wales have properly trained staff to cope with the increasing number of cases of rape and sexual assault being reported.

It is hard to blame the lack of trained staff on funding cuts when £1.8 million per year is spent on promoting anti racist idealism. A vast majority of the people in this country no longer care if your black, white, green, purple, yellow and so on.

We must move with the times and acknowledge that a high priority within Britain's internal problems must be the support of victims of rape and sexual abuse from the minute the complaint is made.

Jordan Gaskell

UK Independence Party - Wellbeing & Mental Health Spokesman

Starmer's Return to the Stone Age Pledge by 2030

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 09:10:50 GMT

Why Keir Starmer's fossil fuel plans are crazy...

In the parallel universe that Labour inhabits, at their national conference the Labour Leader Keir Starmer pledges to completely remove our dependence on fossil fuels by 2030.

So, can they point to an Einstein figure who has proposed a solution to this problem? Has there been a hypothesis of an energy or electricity generation system that can provide up to 45GW on demand for the UK through the winter of 2029 to 2030 or beyond without generating CO ₂ without the use of gas or coal or nuclear power or biomass to generate the electricity required?

If there is then I, and the rest of the world needs to know now. Please don’t keep it a secret because despite all the efforts of all the existing physicists and researchers and dreamers or environmentalists the world over there isn’t even a hint of such a solution.

All the other 195 signatories to the COP26 event have now decided that they need to invest in coal mining or coal burning as the cheapest and easiest form of electricity generation. We are the last member of the COP26 attendees who are in step with the army of decarbonisation warriors. All the rest have rushed off to wherever they can buy coal to fuel their domestic electricity generation needs.

We at the UK Independence Party on the other hand, after years of campaigning, know what must be done to keep the lights on. Now, at long last, desperation has proved we have been right all along, just like we were on the desire of the people of the UK to leave the clutches of the EU that was relentlessly asset stripping us.

If you want energy security and low energy bills, then voting Lib-Lab-con is not the solution. Repeating the same experiment repeatedly hoping for a different result, as Einstein stated is the definition of stupidity.

The UK Independence Party demands an end to subsidies for renewables and CO ₂ emission trading schemes and the levies on burning fossil fuels and the generation of CO ₂ , and the return to sanity.

There is no point in trying to save the planet at the cost of destruction of the UK. There is after all no scientific proof that rising CO ₂ levels will result in catastrophic global warming, only computer models, garbage in, garbage out.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Energy.

Borderless Britain - the Woke Joke!

Thu, 13 Oct 2022 08:59:06 GMT

Patrica Mountain explains our new immigration policy, launched at 10th October conference in Skegness

At the Annual Party Conference on Monday 10 ^th Oct 2022, The UK Independence Party launched its new immigration policy proposal.

The Party believe that immigration is too big to be covered by the Home Office and will create a post of Secretary of State for Migration and Population. This cabinet minister would oversee the balance of immigration and births with emigration and deaths to maintain a stable population. Only when the population is stable can we look after our citizens as we should.

The Party will set an immigration ceiling to neutralise population growth, this immigration ceiling will include, true refugees escaping oppression or war.

We can only stem the flow of illegals if we change their expectation of how they will be treated when they arrive.

The UK Independence Party policy on illegal immigration has been formulated with this in mind.

We will invest more at the front end of the asylum procedure, to make sure that all the relevant information is collected and properly considered – to eliminate the need for constant appeals. The asylum adjudication process must not be prolonged, those who are found not to need protection will be returned home.

Processing claims for international protection must be speeded up and spurious asylum claims must be identified quickly. The UK Independence Party illegal immigration policy proposal will do just that.

We will relieve the existing border force of all responsibility for guarding the national borders. A newly formed border guard will take on this job and patrol the English Channel in 5 new in-shore vessels. The existing border force will continue in roles such as passport control at ports and airports, the detection of ‘over-stayers’ and administration within a secure migrant vessel or secure migrant camp.

We will have secure migrant vessels active in the channel for temporary housing of illegals arriving by rubber dinghies, any illegal immigrants discovered in backs of commercial vehicles or those picked up in the channel tunnel. Any migrants picked up in the English Channel by the RNLI will be taken to the secure migrant vessel and offloaded at sea.

Secure migrant vessels will be container ships incorporating a helicopter pad. The containers will be adapted as secure rooms, will be well insulated, ventilated, and with barred windows. These vessels will be subject to all rules applying to high security prisons, a necessary security measure.

Processing illegals onboard the container ship will include compulsory DNA testing, eye scanning, and finger printing. If a criminal is identified during the processing procedure, they will be deported immediately. Military planes will be on standby. Repatriation flights will start from a secure UK military airport.

Within 3 days of their registration the illegals will be moved from the secure migrant vessel by border guard to an appropriate secure migrant camp

Secure migrant camps would be in the countryside, built quickly like the nightingale hospitals and with perimeter fencing and controlled by border guard or the army.

The inmates will not be allowed to leave the camp and visit or mix with the settled population in nearby towns or villages.

These camps will be subject to all rules applying to high security prisons. We know we will be criticised, and our proposals called extreme, but the situation is out of control and calls for extreme measures.

We will build camps to cater for the different categories of migrants who will have been classified following the processing procedure.

The UK Independence Party will adopt a no-nonsense policy when dealing with illegal immigrants.

While in the holding camp, foreign-born children will need education; people of all ages

will get sick, may suffer depression and (as we will not allow them to work or enter the

UK community), detaining them for too long will risk them becoming a serious burden

on the State.

This is unacceptable to us; illegal immigrants will never have contributed to the UK economy, and we owe these individuals nothing.

Holding in a secure migrant camp will be limited to three months maximum.

The party will negotiate arrangements with any UN member states outside the UK that are willing to make adequate accommodation available to illegal immigrants and will accept individuals who we are unable to return to their own country for whatever reason.

We will deport illegal immigrants from temporary holding centres to one of these countries immediately after three months if we cannot return them to their own country for whatever reason.

As a first job the UK must withdraw from all the international instruments that make borders porous and immigration control impossible.

Please refer to our manifesto ukip.org for further detail of our plan to deal with illegal immigration.

For more information and details on all our other policies, please visit UKIP Policies

Patricia Mountain

Party Director - UK Independence Party

Green energy fantasies will bankrupt Britain

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 09 Oct 2022 14:20:56 GMT

There is zero chance of making renewable energy work

Rachel Reeves of the Labour Party tweeted yesterday that “There is no reason that the UK shouldn’t be a world-leading clean energy superpower by 2030. But the Tories are holding us back. Labour will create jobs, slash energy bills for good, and make the UK energy independent, freeing us from the actions of dictators”.

We would like to know what on earth she is smoking. There are plenty of reasons why the UK cannot be a “clean energy superpower”. The establishment have been pushing this shtick for the last twenty years and if it was going to create all these jobs we’d have seen some evidence of it working. There has been no green industrial revolution. There has been no green growth. It has utterly failed to regenerate Hull, Grimsby, Hartlepool and Lowestoft. Renewable energy has only succeeded in making our energy supply more expensive and less reliable.

The wind energy lobby has relentlessly pushed the message that wind energy is nine times cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives, but that simply isn’t the case. They only refer to the strike price of wind without accounting for the costs of having to accommodate intermittent energy on the grid. The national grid was never designed to cope with intermittent diffuse energy. We spend a billion annually just trying to balance the grid. Wind farms are paid to shut down when it’s too windy and we pay conventional plant to power down when the wind is blowing.

Part of the problem is grid congestion for which there is no economical solution. An estimated £54bn is needed in grid upgrades is needed in order to add new wind capacity to the system – but the wind lobby excludes that from their quoted price per MWh. The “upgrades” will be funded by general network transmission charges. We will never see an honest cost assessment of wind from the green lobby.

Furthermore, to meet a target of 2030, we would need to see a four-fold increase in operational capacity. This simply isn’t going to happen. Even though new capacity is in the pipeline, many existing wind farms are approaching their end of their operational life. We can extend the lifespan of conventional plant, but wind turbines need complete replacement.

Offshore turbines, in the highly aggressive environment of our coastal waters, have a lifespan of 20-25 years, after which they are no longer safely functional – and even that lifespan estimate may be optimistic. Within each early-model turbine, there exist thousands of components and parts that have worn down, been replaced and fixed without estimates on their installation time frame. These are already nearing the end of their life expectancy.

From a study led by the University of Kent published in February of last year, it was estimated that the UK must decommission approximately 300 and 1600 early-model offshore wind turbines by 2025 and 2030, respectively. From the fleet of 2,292 turbines, therefore, the majority will need replacement by 2030.

Furthermore, as the turbines exceed their safety remit, the sector is also set to lose the unique skillset of engineers that originally installed and maintained these early models, as they are now approaching professional retirement. With a combination of these factors, it is anticipated that the additional requirement could significantly slow the growth of the renewable energy sector. And, of course, with each passing year, more turbines will need to be replaced – for which no provision seems to have been made.

Once operational, the problems don’t stop there. While the government’s projection for installed capacity might be set at 40GW by 2030, actual output varies considerably. The lower range resides at percentages in the high 30s, and only in one experimental unit is a figure close to 60 percent achieved – in the extreme north of Scotland, conditions which are unlikely to be replicated elsewhere. The average load factor for the entire offshore fleet is somewhat optimistically set at 40 percent which means that, even if the target of 40GW is reached, the actual availability will stand at 16GW.

Unsurprisingly, the onshore fleet delivers considerably less so that, in real world conditions, the 24.1GW of installed wind capacity only delivered 5.58GW in the last year – despite the National Grid giving preference to renewables production. Within the average figures, though, are concealed a multitude of sins. Normal operational fluctuations in power production range from 2-300 percent, requiring a massive balancing operation to ensure that supply matches demand. The greater the contribution of wind power, the harder (and more expensive) it is to keep the system balanced.

Net Zero advocates insist that these technological flaws can be overcome with energy storage solutions, but these solutions simply cannot plug the capacity gap created by wind intermittency. We would need vast battery capacity to keep the system running even for a few minutes. Thus, the Net Zero transition isn’t so much a transition away from fossil fuels rather it is a transition to a mineral intensive system – just when the global supply of rare earth minerals and metals is skyrocketing – and when China most of the world’s stockpiles.

Even if we could say that battery technology was viable, there is now massive global competition for resources as the world’s automotive manufacturers are switching to EV production. The battery industry simply cannot keep pace with demand nor can it count on stable supply chains. Meanwhile, rising energy costs have delayed major construction works at Britishvolt’s North East gigafactory. It may never start production.

Other solutions to the balancing problem include hydrogen, but the idea of replacing a significant share of conventional energy in the order of TWh with hydrogen does not stand up to scientific analysis. Hydrogen technology faces efficiency disadvantage in power storage race (with the usual caveat that it will work eventually if we throw countless billions at it) – but it will never get past loss-making demonstrator projects.

Nobody is able to tell us just how much the cost of mitigating renewable intermittency is likely to cost and when such technologies will be available at scale. The numbers looked sketchy even before Covid and the war in Ukraine. So we now have to ask if it’s just cynical political spin on the part of Labour, or whether Rachel Reeves genuinely believes what she’s saying? If so, then it suggests she hasn’t conducted even cursory research on the feasibility of this policy. The claim we can “slash bills” with renewable energy is beyond ridiculous.

The cold reality is that even if Net Zero were desirable, it’s not something that can be rushed, and any energy policy incorporating Net Zero ambitions needs a long term interim solution. New nuclear won’t come on stream for another decade. We need a policy for the here and now – and that means exploring every available option. Fracking is certainly part of the solution, but it may not yield results in time. We need to explore coal bed methane options and rethink our phobia of new coal power stations.

In essence there is no difference between Labour’s witless energy policy and that of the incumbent government. Each of the mainstream parties have played their part in bringing the British energy grid to its knees. The Tories are ultimately responsible for failing to renew gas storage and Labour wouldn’t have done anything differently. They allowed their climate virtue signalling to take precedence over the need to keep the lights on. Now they're doubling down on stupid.

Truss & 45p Rate

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 20:26:39 GMT

Why Liz was wrong on the politics and timing.

Truss was wrong on the politics and timing of scrapping the 45p tax rate - but right on the economics . A 45p marginal rate is uncompetitive internationally. Gordon Brown introduced the 50p and 45p rates one month before he was booted out of Government in 2010. It was a poison pill for the new Tory-LibDem coalition. Scrapping the 50p rate led to an £8 billion rise in tax revenue. What's not to like? Everybody wins.

The Tories should have scrapped the 45p rate long ago at a more opportune time - like when they were adding £895 billion to the national debt in 'unfunded borrowing' which, oddly, didn't spook the markets at all!

Truss should re-commit her Government to lower, flatter taxes, which incentivise enterprise and investment - and bring them in when the economy is on the way up, not down. Memo to the PM - politics is about politics and being is rational isn't always enough!

Neil Hamilton,
UKIP Leader

Scrap Elected Mayors!

Sun, 02 Oct 2022 15:39:17 GMT

Why we will scrap directly elected mayors to bring back local democracy

Historical Mayor:

Most of our hundreds of English “Mayors” and 23 “Lord Mayors” are historical ceremonial posts, acting as chairman at town/borough/city council meetings with little independent power (save a casting vote) and represent the town/city/area for civic and ceremonial events, perhaps wearing a chain (in some cases the full traditional outfit), performing a useful role of supporting local communities and businesses.

Directly Elected Mayors (with devolved powers):

The first of these, the Mayor of London with devolved powers was established in 1999. Then followed the Local Government Act 2000 (LG Act) introducing the option of local authorities having a directly elected Mayor, if approved through a local referendum. Whilst government was keen, this was not so popular with several local councils. Government pushed further, so under the ironically named Localism Act 2011 central government could trigger local referenda for an elected mayor. The following year, most of the referendums triggered by government voted “no” (including Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Nottingham etc).

Then, the Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016 (CLGD Act) came in to increase directly elected mayors to some combined local authorities (where “agreed”) and devolve powers to them (the bribe). Notably under this “agreed” is not by a referendum of the people (not so cheap to bribe), it simply required a majority on all councils in the area to “agree” for what is sometimes termed a Metro Mayor.

None of the ten current “Metro Mayor” posts have been approved in a referendum, yet the public had previously voted “no” to the creation of a directly elected Mayor within the catchment areas of these ten areas in: Leeds*, Bradford*, Kirklees, Birmingham*, Coventry*, Manchester*, Newcastle-upon-Tyne*, Sheffield* and Wakefield [* = already has a long-established traditional Lord Mayor.]

However, under the CLGD Act, the Government was pressing ahead (don’t forget Boris is a former Mayor of London, so is as “heart and soul” passionate about this as David Cameron was about the EU). They have forgotten about local referendums (they failed to give the “right” answer), all they need is to get the local councils to agree and the well-established “easy” way is to bribe them with power and/or money (call it “devolution”) so “devolution deals” have been negotiated across England, most already failing to get agreement in their unsmoked-filled rooms.

The above LG/CLGD acts allow referendums to abolish an elected mayor post.

Of the 54 referendums to change to a model of a directly elected mayor 17 resulted in the creation of a mayor and 37 voted “no” to the post. There have been eight referendums to scrap the post and three (Stoke-on-Trent, Hartlepool, and Torbay) already voted to scrap the post.

The legislation applies to Wales, but (the already devolved Welsh Assembly doubled the threshold to approve a local referendum and Ceredigion county council is the only one to hold a referendum - in 2005 with over 72% voting “no” to the new post.”

Directly elected mayors are an unnecessary and expensive extra tier of Government. They also put too much power in the hands of one person – good, bad or indifferent. We even have cases of two directly elected mayors, such as the directly elected Mayor for the West of England Combined Authority, which includes Bristol (as well as West Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset) plus a directly elected Mayor for Bristol, and a similar situation in four London boroughs.

The most democratic way to provide local council services is through our existing directly elected local councillors.

The UK Independence Party would scrap all directly elected mayoral posts, including ‘Metro Mayor’ and other forms of combined authority mayor, including for the Greater London Assembly, which would appoint its own chairman.

Steve Unwin

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Home Affairs, Political Reform & Local Government

We Should Maintain Support for Ukraine

Sun, 02 Oct 2022 15:25:22 GMT

This is a subtitle for your new post

The passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has affected all of us. I like all veterans have served under no other monarch. King Charles III is now our sovereign monarch and I’m positive our new king will lead our country into better and more peaceful times.

In early September the Ukrainian armed forces successfully struck back at the Russian invasion forces, re-taking Ukrainian sovereign territory, and holding it.

Putin has made a nationwide broadcast threatening the use of weapons of mass destruction, he has also put in place a call up for 300,000 troops. Here is a desperate despot whose allies are turning away from him and who’s military is losing ground daily. His troops are poorly trained, poorly equipped, and poorly re-supplied with food, water, and ammunition.

With continued support from the UK and the other NATO countries, Ukrainian troops will maintain their momentum and force Russian troops to withdraw beyond the Ukrainian border. It is imperative the UK maintains its logistic support for the Ukraine to ensure this war comes to an end sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile in the UK, an estimated 4,200 veterans are still homeless and with the coming cold winter, face increasingly difficult times.

The government should make the welfare and housing of these men and women a priority, a stated UK Independence Party policy.

I will follow with interest what the new Minister of State for the Armed Forces and Veterans, Conservative MP James Heappy, of eight years military service will do for these veterans and the armed forces as a whole but forgive me if I do not hold my breath.

Squadron Leader Peter Richardson Retd.

The UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Defence and Veterans Affairs

Image: RushDM, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Liz Truss Should Carry On Cutting Taxes...

Sun, 02 Oct 2022 15:13:57 GMT

... rather than cut and run, says UKIP's leader.

Truss should not be spooked by a sudden and temporary squall in financial markets. The Bank of England has the powers to restore order. The Government must stick to its announced tax plans. Thatcher would have approved.

The Bank of England has dismally failed to control inflation - it should have started raising interest rates last year. Now the Bank has screwed things up yet again. I t spooked the markets by announcing £40 billion of bond sales into a market already weakened by recent interest rate hikes across the world. If bond-holders see big price falls ahead, they will sell now. Hence the weekend's bond rout.

This turmoil has nothing to do with Kwasi's proposed tax cuts. Abolishing the 45p income tax 'costs' a mere £2,1bn - clearly irrelevant to the budget deficit.

We are now tipping into a sharp recession, after necessary tightening of the money supply in the last 12 months. It would be idiotic to make the recession deeper by raising taxes on jobs (NICs) and taxes on investment (Corporation Tax), as Sunak wanted. Doing that would cut tax revenue and raise benefit costs. Starmer's policy is economically illiterate and would be totally counter-productive.

UK tax rates are increasingly uncompetitive internationally. That's why we need to slash tax rates. As in the 1980s, this will boost growth, cut the deficit and boost the pound.

Image: Simon Dawson / No10 Downing Street, OGL 3 <http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3>, via Wikimedia Commons

The Rising Right in Europe

Sun, 02 Oct 2022 15:06:06 GMT

Steve Grimes discusses why right-wing parties are doing well across Europe in general.

Anyone observing foreign affairs cannot help but notice the wind of change in the air. In the wake of failed politicians who collectively let down Europe during the latter part of the 20 ^th century, and early 21 ^st , the forgotten majority is finally fighting back and saying enough is enough. Despite the efforts of the mainstream media and establishment to indoctrinate the masses to think of any party even slightly to the right of centre as the devil incarnate, Europeans are now rejecting the failed legacy parties in droves. They have collectively decided to try something new. So many Europeans are now voting for change that the parties of the patriotic right are forming governments or polling strongly all over Europe.

Ever since the rise of the UK Independence Party, which led to the UK regaining its sovereignty from the EU, we have seen a steady rise of populist, Eurosceptic governments across Europe. European voters have become increasingly Eurosceptic. Despite blatant attempts by EU commission president Von der Leyen to scare them, the fearless Italians have voted in favour of political change.

This week, Italian voters elected a new parliament. A right-wing coalition achieved about 44% of votes, which put them on course for a majority in both houses of parliament. Giorgia Meloni of Brothers of Italy is now in pole position to become Italy’s first female prime minister and she is now likely to lead Italy’s most truly right-wing government since the 1940s. Meloni has promised to defend and promote Europe’s “Judeo-Christian” roots. She has an anti-immigration stance, rejects progressive values, and embraces identity politics. She is quoted as saying “No to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration, yes to work for our people”. She defends national borders, national interests, and the traditional family. She questions LGBTQ+ and believes that traditional values and ways of life are under attack because of globalisation. She has called for a naval blockade to prevent migrant boats from leaving North Africa and she has proposed screening would-be asylum-seekers in Africa, not Europe. Like the UK Independence Party, a Meloni-led government would be pro-NATO. Interestingly, Meloni’s success is likely to put the Eurosceptic Brothers of Italy in charge of a founding member of the EU and of its third-largest economy.

The Italian success comes hard on the heels of other right-wing victories across Europe.

On 11 September, Sweden removed the left from government for the first time in modern times giving the populist, patriotic and anti-immigration Sweden Democrats Party the second largest share of seats at a general election on a manifesto of cracking down on crime and strictly limiting immigration. This put them in good stead to play a major role in Sweden’s new government.

In the June French General Election, the populist National Rally saw a meteoric rise, gaining an eleven-fold increase in seats. This gave them record influence in the new National Assembly. With 89 MPs, Le Pen’s growing party will become a parliamentary group for the first time since 1986.

The Alternative for Germany Party (AfD) (currently polling around 14%) made waves throughout Europe in 2017 after securing over 12% of the vote in Germany’s federal elections, making it the third largest party and official opposition.

Millions of Europeans are re-awakening and voting for the parties of common sense. The UK Independence Party welcomes the Italian result and congratulates Giorgia Meloni. The UK Independence Party has no direct affiliation with any European party, but we wish them all well. Like-minded parties need friends who share common values. We will work hard to have the best of relations with all of them.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party Spokesman - for Business, Trade and Foreign Affairs

Leicester Tribal Clashes

Sun, 02 Oct 2022 14:56:03 GMT

Assimilation into British culture is the key

The ugly tribal-hatred politics of the Indian sub-continent have no place in modern Britain.

Yet, in Leicester, we have seen exactly that with the recent clashes between masked and balaclava-clad Muslim and Hindu gangs, some who had even gathered for the purpose from other cities.

This has included outsider extremists stirring up this sectarian hatred, such as Mohammed Hijab (as reported by the Telegraph) a 30-year-old Islamist preacher who also previously had been involved in anti-Jewish demonstrations in London. He has now been accused of “stirring up hatred” in Leicester, where attacks on Hindu temples and shops led to dozens of arrests.

Now the Daily Mail report that Race-hate cleric Anjem Choudary, from East London, has called for ‘Muslim patrols’ to be organised in Leicester. Choudary was jailed in 2016 for inviting support for Islamic State, and the United States Department of State has declared him a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

There have been dozens of arrests and over two-dozen police officers have been injured.

Large groups of UK residents from another country engaging in violence on our streets motivated by events in their country of origin is unacceptable. Decades of multiculturalism, sometimes rebranded as diversity, has resulted in parallel communities, an increasingly segregated United Kingdom, and a failure to adopt British values, causing further division. This has played into the anti-British, divisive hands of the likes of Mohammed Hijab and Anjem Choudary.

The UK Independence Party would reform British law and policy to replace multiculturalism and instead make assimilation into British culture the key objective of race relations.

We would also scrap the various schemes introduced under the Conservatives, which have contributed to huge increases in recent net migration – to allow the UK breathing space, with a period of population stability or reduction, following years of virtually uncontrolled mass immigration.

Steve Unwin

UK Independence Party - Spokesman on Home Affairs, Voting Reform and Local Government

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/snapperjack/, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

What the Frack!

Sun, 02 Oct 2022 14:43:48 GMT

Sad news for energy bills

As we know, Prime Minister Liz Truss has appointed Kwazi Kwarteng the former Secretary of State for Business as the new Secretary of State for the Treasury, a.k.a. Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Kwazi Kwarteng is one of the high priests of the Climate Change dogma and the Net Zero Policy and was the leader of the UK group hosting COP26 in Glasgow last year.

Now when the money-go-round of musical chairs occurs at each budget and the music stops, he will make sure there is a seat for Climate Change spending to the detriment of other public services and to the energy bills of industry and the people.

This immediately tells us that Liz Truss will only be doing short term relief of the Climate Levy on bills and intends long term to continue spending on renewable infrastructure and subsidies.

On the international scene the Russian conglomerate Gazprom has now decided not to reactivate Nord Stream 1 Pipeline gas service to Europe after its recent technical problems.

Gazprom has for a while now been supplying Europe with gas and receiving no payment. This is because the West applied sanctions preventing payments to Russia in Dollars, and Russia has demanded instead to receive payment in Roubles, which the West refuse to do.

It is hardly surprising that Gazprom has stopped supplying the gas.

On the other side of the world China who is not applying sanctions to Russia is paying them quite happily in Dollars, of which it is overflowing, for all the gas it needs to import, and getting it at a preferential price. So, although Russia is not supplying so much gas to the West, China is the big winner. This is really a matter of heads they win and tail you lose.

The UK Independence Party requires the new Prime Minister to immediately overrule her newly appointed Chancellor and issue permits for fracking wherever in the UK there are suitable areas to start moving towards self-sufficiency in natural gas.

Image: Joshua Doubek, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Jeff Wyatt RIP

Sun, 02 Oct 2022 14:36:55 GMT

A true Englishman

I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Jeff Wyatt, who died suddenly on 16th September 2022. Jeff had been a stalwart in the UKIP Milton Keynes branch for many years and then along came Brexit. After that, Westminster was never the same because he was such a dominant and visible protester there. He was no doubt very active in the campaign up to the referendum but I first met him outside the Houses of Parliament, and elsewhere, in the years after the vote in 2016 when the Remainer establishment was trying to thwart Brexit.

I would turn up and there he was either at College Green by the temporary barriers or outside the entrance to the House of Commons, often in freezing weather. It was so entertaining to hear him castigate and mock – politely – those MPs coming and going who were in the plot to stop Brexit.

Quite often he’d be dressed up as St George, and he always had a hand-made placard on a pole with a hugely impactful message. He was completely dedicated to the cause and was often interviewed by independent media. I used to joke with him that he looked just like the guy from the Green Cross Code ads in the 70s, actor Dave Prowse, or Flash Gordon with his long shock of blond hair.

But Jeff was much more than presentation, he was action. He was totally devoted to the causes he espoused - Brexit, free speech, anti-vax and anti-lockdown, and anti-radical Islam. I didn't always agree with his views but I was in awe of his dedication and energy. Nothing would stop him from doing what he felt was right.

During t he COVID period, Jeff took his protesting to another level. Outraged by the trampling of civil rights that lockdowns brought about, he formed a very powerful bond with others such as Piers Corbyn. Together this group was a thorn in the side of the COVID Establishment and it was inevitable that it moved on them. Arrested at May gathering in 2020 at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park when restrictions were in force, he endured the weight and worry of arrest and court action with his usual strength and determination.

He seemed to bamboozle the justice system by fighting the charges against him using Common law. I never found out what happened to him but he carried on regardless. But I did worry for him as to how he made a living as he seemed to spend his whole time protesting. I remember meeting him in Milton Keynes and together placing an enormous anti-lockdown banner in full view of the traffic on the M1. Job done.

It is because of people like Jeff that we enjoy a freedom - of sorts - today. He was one of a few who showed that you can take on the Establishment and if not win, then stop it from totally taking over our lives. Britain is less safe without him. Shakespeare's phrase in his speech by Henry V could have been written for Jeff: "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; / Or close the wall up with our English dead.”

Jeff was a former motor racing driver and it was whilst attending a rally on the Isle of Man that he was taken from us. But it is a comfort that he died whilst close to his passion.

Jeff Wyatt was born on 7th May 1964. We offer our condolences to his daughter Lucy and his partner Sasha.

Tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Fri, 09 Sep 2022 13:03:17 GMT

UKIP Leader Neil Hamilton remembers the late Queen Elizabeth

We mourn the death of our beloved Queen. The inevitability of the event does not dim the sadness of the event. She symbolised the best of Britain - love of country, devo tion to duty, honour, decency, faith and the numinous historical continuity embodied in our monarchy.

I was a month short of my third birthday when Princess Elizabeth succeeded her father, King George VI. I have no memory of anything before she became Queen. Her coronation in June 1953 is my first memory of a public event. Looking at the film footage of that ceremony 69 years later, one cannot fail to be struck with awe at its majesty and the absolute commitment the Queen then made to the spiritual and temporal life of our nation.

She ruled with perfect dignity and inspired universal respect, not just in the United Kingdom and 'her other Realms and Territories,' but throughout the world. It is impossible to exaggerate the extent to which she enhanced respect for Britain and the Commonwealth. In an ocean of flux, she was a rock of stability.

As a constitutional monarch, she was above party politics and, by avoiding partisan controversy, she steered the monarchy safely into a very different world from the one into which she was born. By scarcely perceptible gradual changes, she preserved and enhanced an institution which has lasted for well over a thousand years, since King Athelstan was proclaimed King of All England in AD 927.

By dint of her longevity and her blameless service over seven decades, she became truly the Mother of the Nation. Let us mourn her passing but leaven our sadness with pride at her amazing achievement in preserving our monarchy by embracing imperceptible change - to the extent that republicanism in our country is the creed of cranks.

Living into extreme old age does accustom one to the inevitability of death. So today, as well as sharing the personal grief of the Royal Family, let us celebrate a life well-lived in the national interest and the example of selfless service she gave to us all.

God save the King.

Neil Hamilton
Leader - UK Independence Party

No off ramp for the Net Zero clown car

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 10:22:15 GMT

With its Net Zero fantasy, the establishment has brought the British economy to its knees

Back in the day UKIP was widely mocked for some of its policies – to such an extent that even Nigel Farage famously disowned the manifesto that suggested a dress code for taxi drivers and painting trains in traditional colours. In the past, UKIP has certainly had its share of eccentric policies that would make even the Monster Raving Loony Party think twice. But y’know, our combined efforts could never come up with anything quite so moronic as the collective energy policies of the mainstream parties since 1997.

As it happens, it was us who pointed out that adding millions to the population without a corresponding investment in energy infrastructure just might, putting it lightly, cause problems. We might also have mentioned once or twice that blowing up our power stations and decommissioning our nuclear fleet, replacing them with windmills (of all things), was certifiably insane.

It would seem that most of our politicians struggle with the concept of dispatchable energy. If windmills are producing bugger all in the dead of winter and you build ten times more windmills, you still have bugger all. It’s like that scene where Blackadder tries teaching Baldrick basic arithmetic.

This isn’t funny though. This winter we’re now staring down the barrel of a little thing called consequences. If we’d had a “madcap” UKIP manifesto in action we’d have had smart looking trains. Under the “serious” parties, we’re looking at energy rationing, a collapse of living standards and a funeral pyre for small businesses.

If we’re talking about profoundly unserious parties than it’s the Tories who must take centre stage. It was husky-hugging David Cameron who wholly embraced the green agenda, alienating the Tory right and swelling UKIP’s ranks, who ultimately ended up with a Lib-Dem coalition – which resulted in the closure and non-renewal of our gas storage facilities – which is partly why we’re at this point now.

The Tories, though, have had since 2015 to reverse that policy – but instead we got May’s Net Zero crusade, adopted in full by her successor as his flagship post-Brexit agenda. Certainly we can point to the failures of the Blair/Brown administration but the Tories have been in power for thirteen years.

But then Net Zero was also the root command of the EU before it was even called Net Zero. For a long time now our government has been working to implement the EU Renewables Directive, Carbon trading and the Large Combustion Plant Directive. On that basis, nobody on the remain side gets to complain about energy bills this winter. The Western elites had long since declared an all out war on affordable and reliable energy.

In truth, there is now little that can be done to save us from destitution. This winter is going to be hard and next winter could be a magnitude worse. We’ve missed the boat to fix it. The realisation in Wesminster has come far too late. The Tories have announced a new nuclear programme but the chosen reactor design is unproven, and is likely to cost three times as much as originally planned. It won’t be operational this side of 2035 – if it happens at all. We have no choice but to get hold of as much gas and coal as we can and commission new coal power stations.

For that, if the government is to persuade the energy sector to invest in new exploration, they must drop the ban on new gas boilers. The sector will not invest in new gas exploration if it doesn’t have a market beyond the immediate crisis. The new Tory leader has no choice but to drop Net Zero – not least because we don’t have the surplus energy to charge EVs.

Whether Truss will have the necessary political capital to do that remains to be seen. At least half of the parliamentary Tory party is fully on board with Net Zero stupidity and they can count on the support of Labour to prevent any modification or repeal of Net Zero. The green lobby is deeply embedded in the establishment and it will not let go without a fight to the death. Thus we are in a political deadlock and there is to be no political resolution. There is no off ramp for the Net Zero clown car.

Boris Johnson said yesterday that “Families up and down this country are going to face a very tough winter and we just have to accept that”. Sadly he’s right. We do have to accept that the establishment has screwed up so badly that there is no fixing it in the interim. But we do not have to accept rule by the perpetually inept. We do not have to accept a massive reduction in living standards because these imbeciles think you can power a first world economy with windmills. All you have to do is stop voting for them.

Don't Forget Brexit!

Fri, 02 Sep 2022 13:34:36 GMT

Our Severance from the EU is still unfinished business...

Although I don’t particularly like the word ‘Brexit’, because it can mean different things to different people, we must not forget our unfinished severance from the European Union.

Right now, we are still unwinding from the 2008 Credit Crunch, still on the ropes from the pandemic, heavily engaged in assisting Ukraine in its struggle with Russian aggression and now we’re facing a cost-of-living crisis and an energy crisis that will cost us dear in financial and societal terms and may well cost us many lives too.

All of which we’re now being told will stretch years into the future.

So, there will be a temptation in Westminster, especially amongst the Remainer/Rejoiner majority of them, to convince the new PM to put any Brexit issues on the back burner, in the hope they can keep those ties intact and start a Re-join process in the future.

The new PM would be making a mistake by going down that route because not following through hard on the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, even though the House of Lords intends to scupper it, risks badly upsetting the Northern Ireland unionist community - something that could endanger the Belfast Agreement and peace process.

Not following through hard with the Bill of Rights Bill, would ensure that the European Convention on Human Rights, through its courts, can continue to dictate who can come into the UK as well as stop us from removing criminals and the like.

The flow of rubber dinghies and lorries with unconventional passengers would continue unabated. And when the hotel space runs out, what then?

The people are quietly very angry about these issues, but will become very vociferous, if the new Prime Minister decides to use the Russia Ukraine war or the cost-of-living crisis as an excuse to play nice with the EU over Northern Ireland and not grasp the nettle with the ECHR where our borders are concerned.

We must all be alert to the calls by many inside and outside the UK for ‘Europe’ to pool all its money, resources, and defence assets in order to address these pressing Ukraine and cost- of- living crisis issues.

But that’s pure Rejoiner speak. So don’t fall for it!

Our answer must be, to point out that it was the last twenty plus years of pooling our resources that got us here in the first place.

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Brexit and Northern Ireland

Reducing Energy Bills

Fri, 02 Sep 2022 13:29:48 GMT

The government can and must reduce energy bills.

The above table shows costings f or every £100.00 of energy bills . Clearly with a mere £6.60 in every £100 of bills there is no scope to apply a windfall tax, all that will do is force the retail price even higher to protect the meagre profit.

Limiting the cap as Labour demands will only force energy companies to sell gas below cost price forcing more small ones out of business as happened last winter.

The cost of gas is out of our control because we are forced to purchase at least half our needs on the European open market. In the long term, a year or two, we could be fracking for gas and reducing our reliance on European supplies.

During the warmer months April to the end of September both electric and gas home usage is about 1/3rd of the months October to end of March.

So, if the annual energy cost is raised according to the energy cap to £3550 per annum then the bills for the warmer months will be about £148 a month. During the colder months the bills will be about £444 a month.

The obvious relief would be for Liz Truss to immediately remove both the Climate Levy and the VAT.

With removal of these taxes the bills will drop to £111 a month during the warmer

months and to £333 a month during the colder months. Overall, the annual bill would drop by around £887. That would be a welcome relief for everyone and not just those struggling to survive.

The UK Independence Party urges the new Prime Minister, probably Liz Truss, to

immediately remove the Climate Levy and VAT from fuels bills.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Energy

Tax Cuts in a Recession

Fri, 02 Sep 2022 13:15:49 GMT

NEC Member John Poynton discuses whether cutting taxes helps in a recession.

Depends how it is funded. If that is by corresponding cuts in government expenditure then the net effect will be zero. However if it is by increasing borrowing then net demand in the economy is increased. That is what we have seen since the banking crisis and to combat the ever-increasing trade deficit with the EU over the past twenty years which has destroyed jobs. The result is record levels of both national and personal debt. Indeed they have over-done it which is one of several reasons why we now have a shortage of labour.

It is worth noting at this point that increasing demand in the economy to reduce unemployment, sometimes referred to as Keynesian economics after the way the famous economist John Maynard Keynes advocated ending the depression of the 1930's, is not at all the same thing as economic growth in our standard of living (GDP per capita). "Treasury Orthodoxy", now being blamed by the Tory leadership candidates for the lack of growth, is to balance the books over the course of the economic cycle, not year by year. That allows for borrowing during a recession to reduce unemployment provided it is paid back during a boom so that debt as a percentage of GDP remains constant or falling. Whilst it has nothing directly to do with growth it does lead to a disposition in favour of inflation to reduce the debt rather than balancing the books with tax increases or expenditure reductions. Inflation reduces real interest rates and hence savings and investment thereby undermining growth.

Internationally there is much evidence to suggest that smaller government produces higher rates of economic growth, the logic being that high levels of government expenditure uses up finance available for investment and therefore 'crowds out' the private sector which produces most of that growth because it is subject to competition. In the UK however the electorate demands expensive public services (eg the NHS) and a reliable welfare state making that difficult to achieve. That means separate policies are required to make public services much more efficient (the potential is huge, not least from introducing some proper accountable top management for each service) as well as finding other sources of finance, such as a Sovereign Wealth Fund or optional means-tested access to the private sector for services, if we are to reduce tax levels permanently. This is the essence of a centrist, radical economic strategy.

Over the past twenty years we have seen very little growth in our standard of living, This "productivity gap" is in fact a direct result of our increasing trade deficit with the EU, which presents British business with a contracting market and thereby little incentive to invest, and of open borders causing increasing levels of structural unemployment (the mismatch between people and jobs by skills and location. Square pegs will not go into round holes). Interestingly record levels of immigration have not provided any boost to growth. Only a quota system for legal immigration will solve that. The points-based system, which Tony Blair introduced in 2006, is too easily gerrymandered in favour of Big Business, thereby creating a self-perpetuating immigration spiral. Unless business is forced to train up British workers by a quota system the levels of structural unemployment will just get higher. A Tory government will never do this as their donors in business will not allow it.

The main condition for growth is investment by British business which carries more efficient means of production (productivity). For that you need both an expanding market and available additional labour resources. If you try to increase demand when there is a shortage of labour the result will be a combination of increased inflation, immigration and imports, the last giving all the investment benefit to foreign business. Open borders also imports wage compression which offsets the inflation and so masks the alarm bells at the Bank of England, which uses inflation as an indicator of an over-heated economy and the need to increase interest rates to control it. Hence the immigration spiral.

Many of us remember the Boom and Bust at the end of the 1980’s when Nigel Lawson’s 1987 budget cut income taxes substantially just when the economy was expanding as a result of Geoffrey Howe’s earlier cuts in credit controls. The result was that people used the extra money in their pockets to jack up their mortgages and chase up house prices.

The only way now to present British business with a sustainable expanding market is to reduce and eventually eliminate that trade deficit with the EU. This has grown steadily over the past 22 years to over 6% GDP while our trade with the rest of the world has moved from deficit to a steady 1% surplus. This divergence demonstrates clearly how the EU acts surreptitiously and maliciously to block our exports, (probably in revenge for us not joining the Euro), and the Tory deal has just allowed them to keep on doing that. Only a full No Deal Brexit will give us legal protection from such practices under the WTO’s ‘most favoured nation’ principle which applies where no bilateral trade agreement is in place. Furthermore it would enable us to use tariffs to offset the EU non-tariff barriers and take back control of our economic sovereignty as well as our legal sovereignty. Free trade on top of a deficit only increases that deficit and makes matters worse – simple mathematics!

Furthermore recovering £120 billion of trade deficit improves total GDP by that amount which in turn improves the tax base which produces about one-third of GDP as tax revenues. That means an extra £40 billion of tax revenues without increasing tax rates one iota.

It is interesting that neither of the Tory leadership candidates has drawn a distinction between the cost-push inflation that is now being imported on oil and gas wholesale prices, and over which no amount of increased interest rates will have any effect at all, and the monetary inflation resulting from government mismanagement and over-heating of the internal economy. We have to address both types separately with separate policies. Cutting direct fuel and energy taxes makes a lot of sense to offset the imported inflation and keep domestic fuel and energy prices stable, thereby cutting off a wage/price spiral at the knees. Means-testing energy bills will also reduce the cost of this and ensure the poorest get the most help, at least pro-tem until the danger has passed. This will probably prevent most of the forecast recession.

However in parallel with this the Bank of England must get its act together on interest rates to get some flexibility back into the labour market. I should also like to see them given a quite separate target to stabilize house prices using credit controls, as house price inflation often leads general inflation. The former will be difficult as there are a number of other factors which have glued up the labour market. Incredibly we now have a record 8% of the working-age population who are classified as economically inactive. Whilst much of this is the result of many years of open borders, it is also due to the botched implementation of Universal Credits, IR35, the traditional poverty trap as well as hangover from the Covid restrictions.

Perhaps the silver lining is that 10% inflation on top of a £2 trillion national debt releases an extra £200 billion for government expenditure if the aim is to keep the debt at a constant percentage of GDP in line with treasury orthodoxy. My suggestion would be to save half and spend half, and allocate half the spending to tax cuts and half to budget increases. That should be sufficient to knee-cap energy prices and provide some protection from inflation for public-sector workers and those in need as well as fund essential public services acceptably.

Burning Biomass is NOT Carbon Neutral

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 12:26:38 GMT

Why the DRAX and similar wood-burning power stations are bad for the environment

On Thursday 25 ^th August 2022 at 7.00am, 2.5GW of energy was being produced by the burning of woodchips. This is used in place of coal and because it comes from trees that are being felled in north America it is claimed to be carbon neutral. The claim is based on the amount of CO ₂ that will be soaked up by new tree growth being equal to the amount being released.

An article by Kate Ravilious in Physics World and published online on https://physicsworld.com/a/biomass-energy-green-or-dirty/ includes studies by John Sterman of MIT and Mary Booth an Ecologist from Massachusetts about the rate of release and re-absorption of CO ₂ by burning and re-growing trees.

The Drax power station in north Yorkshire has a number of domes, each the size of the Albert Hall to store woodchip pellets. These pellets arrive at Hull, Newcastle, and Liverpool in a continuous stream of ships from north America. Each ship takes 3 days to unload into freight trucks and it takes 37 trains per ship to get the wood chips to Drax, which consumes them at a rate of 24,800 tons a day.

Now woodchip is possibly neutrally buoyant which means it has about the same density as water. Coal is typically 4 times denser than water, which means it only requires ¼ the volume to produce the same energy and ¼ the number of trains to deliver it to Drax. Also, the residue from coal is large quantities of gypsum used to make plasterboard.

Anyway, it has now been determined that burning woodchip produces 50% more CO ₂ than coal and the rate at which it is being liberated will take between 40 and 100 years of new tree growth to sequestrate. This means that biomass burning is not carbon neutral and is worse in the short term than burning coal.

Also, the CO ₂ being generated by the lorries, ships, and trains required to transport it from the forests of eastern USA and Canada is being dismissed as insignificant. It is another classic example of the science fiction and creative accounting of the climate lobby.

The UK Independence party would stop this farce and reconvert the Drax power station to burn coal mined in the north of England for which it has been variously estimated to be sufficient to generate the full UK electricity needs for between 300 and 600 years.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Energy

Does Rishi Understand Devolution?

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 18:42:44 GMT

Donald MacKay, our Scotland spokesman, thinks not...

Mr Sunak is currently seeking to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

He is also a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and would therefore be expected to know the internal political mechanics of his own country.

At the Scottish Conservative hustings Mr Sunak was asked by a party member whether it was possible for Westminster to legislate against Holyrood using UK taxpayer money for purposes that do not relate to devolved matters.

Mr Sunaks response to this highly perceptive comment was to laugh nervously as if the thought had never occurred to him.

The Holyrood pantomime is being used by the ruling SNP to finance their independence dream by employing civil servants with Westminster funds to pursue an SNP agenda.

This was never intended by original proponents of devolution when it was presented to the electorate of Scotland in 1997.

It should be illegal in the same way that any other misuse of taxpayer’s money should be.

Why does Mr Sunak not understand this?

As pointed out in an excellent article by Lord Frost this week the so called Scottish "government" is subordinate to the supremacy of the House of Commons and the devolution experiment can be rolled back rather than conceding the constant demand for "more powers".

The British Prime Minister whoever he or she might be should fully comprehend the nuances of the situation and act accordingly.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party - Scotland Spokesman

The Government, NOT Energy Companies is Raking It In!

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 18:37:32 GMT

Antony Nailer explains why the government should be blamed for excessive profiteering, rather than power companies

The headline claims of profiteering by the energy companies is stoked by the government hoping to impose a windfall tax, eagerly reported by the newspapers and left-wing TV as giving billions of pounds to greedy shareholders, instead of lowering bills.

They recently attacked the profit by Centrica, the owner of British Gas, of £1.2b in the year to April 2021 alone, since then energy prices have gone through the roof and future profit will be even higher.

Steady on now. Centrica has to import a huge amount of gas from Norway and Europe and pay wholesale price, which has jumped. So, they apparently have made a significant increase in profit to April 2022, and even more since then as gas prices keep rising.

This means a higher turnover, with higher costs, and higher net profit. If we now look at the turnover for the year to April 2021 it was £18,300 million, with a net profit of £1,210 million, so the profit on turnover was 1210 x 100 / 18300 = 6.6%. That is not an obscene amount of profit.

Shareholders are always blamed for profiteering at the expense of non-shareholding people.

Shareholders risk their money to earn income and it isn’t all sweetness and light. Share values go up and down and annual dividends vary enormously.

I bought over £7000 worth of Centrica shares in late 2015 and had dividends totalling £1370 over the next 5 years. During that time and with the constant negative press against electricity generation using gas, the share value fell sharply. When there was no first dividend in 2021, I sold the shares at a loss of over £4500. So much for greedy shareholders.

I have a number of shares in different companies, and some do well and others not and it is always a balance between share value and dividend. Overall, my dividends for the year to April 2021 averaged out at 3.55% of the value of the shares. That’s not greed it is however a lot better than below 1% interest offered on savings by the banks.

So don’t accept government and MSM blame on apparently huge profit numbers but calculate what that is in terms of turnover. If it is well under 10% of turnover, that is not excessive and out of that profit they have to pay a proportion in dividends.

Always remember that the government is getting 20% in Corporation Tax and that is linked to profit. It’s the government who is raking it in, not the companies.

UKIP supports free enterprise, regardless how the businesses have to raise money, either from the banks, or from share investors.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Energy, Environment, Transport, & Treasury

Housing and Mental Health

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 18:31:26 GMT

The state has failed to deal with the clear link between the housing and mental health

The state has failed miserably to protect adults, children, and families alike.

It’s wrong that adequate housing is denied to so many. It’s wrong that the basic needs of the population are not met. It’s wrong that schools are not doing enough to halt the mental health issues that are escalating throughout our educational institutions.

Children who have lived in temporary accommodation for over a year are three times more likely to develop mental health issues, including depression and anxiety.

Homeless suicides have risen by 30% as of 2020. The people homeless and living on the streets has risen by 32% in the last year. There has been 51% increase in homeless deaths with a high mortality rate of suicide.

3.9 million children are estimated to be living in poverty within the UK which is equivalent to 8 in a classroom of 30.

The UK Independence Party is appalled by the lack of safety and support for those who are suffering during the housing crisis.

The answer is simple, build more houses!

Give the population of the United Kingdom a chance of happiness, to live in suitable accommodation. have a place they can call home, enjoy the security that brings and remove the stress of not having a secure place to lay your head at night. This is a major cause of mental health problems.

Build more houses and we take a step forward to eliminate one of the biggest causes of stress leading to mental health problems…..homelessness.

The UK Independence Party will terminate the queue jumping of social housing lists by recent arrivals over those who have spent years on those lists.

Jordan Gaskell

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Wellbeing and Mental Health

A-Level Results Day 2022

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 18:20:32 GMT

Will the pandemic grade chaos be reversed this year?

Will high exam grades caused by the chaos of the pandemic over the last two years be reversed when A-level results come out this year?

If so, The UK Independence Party will be celebrating alongside those with stellar grades – that is, as long as each grade is limited to a fixed percentage of entrants and will not vary from year to year, to enable students to know the value of their grade, regardless of when it was taken.

However, that may be an unrealistic expectation and this year will likely be only the halfway mark between recovering those standards, with 2023 coming in line to pre pandemic standards, and meeting those as set out in The UK Independence Party manifesto.

Julie Carter

UK independence Party – Spokeswoman for Education

The new PM and Farming

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 18:13:41 GMT

An open letter about agriculture and farming to Rishi Sunk & Liz Truss

As one of you is about to become Prime Minister of this Country, I have been following your hustings and interviews with interest but am dismayed that neither of you appear to be grasping the dire situation many people are in with regard to the basic necessities of life.

Food
Water
Housing

Without these 3 essentials life itself is in peril – we are seeing this overseas now – Sri Lanka is a great example.

To date the Conservative Government has slavishly adopted Net Zero policies which are severely inhibiting the production of food in the UK.

DEFRA is diverting land use from food production to tree planting under the ELMs Scheme. Tenant Farmers are having their tenancies terminated because Landlords can get greater rents from Corporate Tree Planters.

The Environment Agencies discouragement of dredging rivers has lead to flooding in places where historically it has not been seen and their silly rewilding ideas have lead to a lack of management of heath and woodland making it more susceptible to wildfires.

Badly regulated Water Companies are punishing householders and Farmers for their lack of investment in Water storage – which again is impacting badly on food production.

Rural Housing is being taken up by folk fleeing the Cities making it ever more difficult to secure housing for Agricultural labour Farmers and Farm workers who need to live near their work to ensure animal welfare.

The Rural Economy is important, not because it earns foreign investment but because it feeds people .

If you cannot understand that you do not deserve to be in public office.

If you cannot or will not put in place policies which will promote British farming and food production, then the UK Independence Party can and will challenge your defeatist attitudes at every step.

P A Bryant

UK Independence Party – Spokesperson for Agricultural

Beating the Winter Blues!

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 18:34:44 GMT

Our stratagem for keeping the heating and lighting on this winter

It is 11th August 2022, and the sky is clear blue and good for solar. There is a high pressure over the North Sea that is really bad for wind. We have in excess of 7,000 wind turbines on and offshore. On a good day when a reasonable wind is blowing evenly across the country we can squeeze as much as 14GW from the wind farms for a short while. On a bad day they are rubbish.

On Monday at 14.45 hours the electricity generation was as follows;-

Demand 34.3G W

CCGT (Gas) 14.67GW 42.8%
Solar 8.14GW 28.73%
Nuclear 4.15GW 13.15%
Biomass 2.28GW 8.86%
Wind 1.7GW 4.95%.
Coal 0.38GW 1.06%

In the future the Tories and their successors are going to quadruple the number of wind turbines. That means for an enormous expense they could be achieving as little as 6.8GW on a day like this in future. That means they will still need 40GW of other continuously rated generation so where will they get it from?

As for the government hoping to be able to use the continental interconnects totalling 5.8GW this winter, it isn’t going to happen because all of Europe is now starved of energy.

That means this winter when it is an overcast sky, very cold and little wind, the demand could be in excess of 45GW, and we won't be able to achieve more than 40GW. So, there will be 10% of the country blacked out, unless of course they fire up all those diesel generators. There is just no logic to dogma.

The UK Independence Party action plan:

We would press for the Drax power station in Yorkshire to be reconverted from burning wood chips to burn coal again and could be producing 3.6GW within a year, provided UK mines or imports can provide the coal.

The demand the moratorium on fracking to be lifted as soon as the new PM is in post and could be producing industrial amounts of gas within 2 years from onshore wells, with offshore ones to follow a year or two later.

Hinkley point C will not be on-line until June 2027 and will provide continuous 3.26GW of electricity.

Small Modular Reactors are waiting for government approval expected in 2024 then 5 years to build and being brought on-line in 2029 generating 470MW each. We need 10 of them urgently.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Energy, Environment, Transport, & Treasury

Fair Treatment for Smaller Businesses

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 18:26:26 GMT

Steve Grimes explains how we would set about helping smaller businesses

The UK Independence Party is the party of smaller business. We want to help smaller business owners make money, keep costs down, minimise taxes, find business opportunities, and generate funds for growth.

According to a recent report by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), late payments from customers are still a big problem for about half of the UK’s smaller businesses.

The FSB surveyed 1,300 small business owners and sole traders. Figures show that between April and June half of those surveyed reported late payments, while one in five said the issue was getting worse as a result of the fall-out from the global pandemic and adverse economic conditions.

It is unfair when big businesses squeeze smaller businesses “for free credit”. Smaller businesses need to get their money in promptly. Late payments from customers create cash flow problems, which inhibit their ability to trade, leading to increasing debt, uncertainty, mental health problems for the owners or even business failure.

In 2019, the Tory government promised reforms to reduce late payments. In October 2020, the government proposed new powers for the Small Business Commissioner, (who mediates on payment disputes), including the ability to fine poor payers. However, these are just proposals. All talk no action.

The Commissioner is supposed to issue reports that “name and shame” businesses guilty of poor payment practices, but it has not done so since February 2020.

The focus of The UK Independence Party’s business policy is to help UK families clothe their children, put food on the table, pay the mortgage and pay university tuition fees rather than line the pockets of invisible big corporate shareholders in New York or Los Angeles.

Now that we are in the “new normal”, the Tory government should be making far better progress towards getting smaller businesses paid on time.

The UK Independence Party calls on the Tory government to take stronger action to clamp down on late payers.

The UK Independence Party will direct HMRC to conduct thorough investigations into big business and public sector bodies that repeatedly make late payments to SMEs.

The UK Independence Party will create an anonymous reporting system and we will levy fines proportionate to the amount of delayed payments, which will escalate for repeat offenders.

If you are a small business and affected by this article, please get in touch, or consider joining the UK Independence Party to help us to support smaller UK businesses.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Business, Trade and Foreign Affairs

Breaking Point Then - Broken Point Now

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 22:07:44 GMT

Ben Walker explains why we should start voting for what we actually want...

In 2016, we were lambasted for running the “Breaking Point” poster. Well look the UK now.

Last month, 3,683 Illegal Migrants made the dangerous journey by small boat across the English Channel from France. So far this year 17,000.00 have made the same journey. The Home Office now also admit that we could see anything up to 60,000.00 Illegal Migrants arrive by small boat this year. These numbers are based on the ones which we know of and shakey government record keeping.

We are no longer at Breaking Point; we have surpassed Broken Point!

An army of predominately young Middle Eastern men invade our country on a daily basis armed with absolutely nothing, yet given laptops, phones, money, and hotel accommodation at the direct expense of you – the taxpayer, with local charities falling over themselves to support them with the delivery of things such as Halal meat. All whilst families struggle to feed themselves and cover the basic cost of living, these people, who buck the official immigration process of the country just take. These people are not migrants fleeing war-torn countries, they are economic migrants who have passed through many safe countries to get here for one key reason. The UK Benefit System.

The very fabric of our society is no longer under threat, its being eroded for a culture that doesn’t assimilate, it conquers. A medieval way of life, which is unbelievably being enabled by champagne socialists and woke warriors desperate to gain some perverse moral high ground. And lets not forget the lives of young white girls, destroyed before they have even started as a direct result.

This simply can not continue, yet there is zero political will to end it from the established Westminster political parties who care more about nonsensical leadership campaigns, returning us to the greasy grip of the EU or dodging questions on whether it’s possible that only women have a cervix, a simple fact of science.

Our political class are destroying this once great United Kingdom. Their quest of political self-harm must be ended.

It doesn’t matter if you vote for the least bad option or the party you think will keep out the one you fear the most. Our political system is broken. Start voting for what you want, only then will things begin to change.

The Welfare of Armed Forces Veterans must have priority over Immigrants

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 22:07:19 GMT

Why/how we will help veterans proudly integrate into society

In August 2021 the USA pulled its troops out of Afghanistan, which in turn forced the UK to do the same.

Approximately seventeen thousand Afghan interpreters and other Afghan workers who helped the UK in theatre were evacuated to the UK. One year on and these Afghan immigrants are costing the country £1.2 million a day. Those immigrants that have crossed the English Channel from France cost a further £3.5 million a day.

The upkeep of the Afghan immigrants is fair considering the service they provided to the UK during our presence in Afghanistan. However, how can the current Government and major opposition parties accept these costs to the taxpayer, whilst many Armed Forces Veterans live homeless on the streets, struggle with PTSD, find it difficult to integrate and have no safety net other than charities.

Charities that receive no funding from the public purse. Veterans who have loyally served and put their country first find they are forgotten, their needs ignored, whilst immigrants are given free hotel accommodation, many given special halal food, access to medical services, mental health counselling and even paid mobile phones and a daily living allowance.

The Armed Forces Covenant was introduced to ensure those veterans in need would find the support they need. This, in reality has not come to fruition in a manner that those who need help the most, receive the support they need.

The UK Independence Party fully supports our Armed Forces and its veterans, we believe that veterans need’s come before those of immigrants, legal or otherwise.

The party will do whatever it takes to ensure that homeless veterans are placed into good quality accommodation and given the support they need to integrate proudly into society. Those veterans that have medical or mental needs should be given priority to these essential services.

We as a country owe a debt to those that selflessly served at home and in foreign lands, served to keep our country safe and secure, and we the UK Independence Party will repay that debt. Their loyalty and service demands this.

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson R’td

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Defence and Veterans

Cod and Tory Codswallop

Mon, 08 Aug 2022 21:24:52 GMT

Why the Faroe Islands have beaten us on fishing

In 1988 when we were in the EU, we were obliged by Denmark under the auspices of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to agree a common fishing area with the Faroe Islands.

When we left, we dutifully rolled over this Free Trade Agreement (FTA). This has proven more beneficial to the Faroese than the British, particularly the Shetland Islanders whose fishing grounds are most proximate.

The Faroese being a canny people have also negotiated a fishing agreement with Russia whereby the Faroese would have access to the Barents Sea and a plentiful supply of cod in exchange for access to their fishing grounds. Unremarkably, early in the Summer, Russian factory ships were sighted in our sector of the common fishing area.

Meanwhile back in England, we are buying supplies of Russian cod. Does this mean we haven’t enough fish in our Exclusive Economic Zone now that we have left the CAP? Absolutely not, we have seas teeming with fish including cod but unfortunately the Tory party have decided that our fishermen should not have enough quota to service our needs whilst foreign fishermen are invited in to take our fish without any supervision of their activities.

Furthermore, with the Tories ongoing conflict with Russia, our fishermen are further hammered by the failure of the Tories to compensate them as well as our farmers for the extortionate costs of diesel which they are now facing partly as a consequence of the Tories’ foreign policy decisions.

Under the Tories, the future of our indigenous fishing industry is grim. In Denmark the Fishermen and Farmers have combined in their protests at governmental ‘green’ policies.

What will it take for the Tories to wake up and see the damage they are causing to our primary producers by their policies?

John Gartside

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Fishing

The Benefits of Foreign Money Unions

Wed, 03 Aug 2022 22:04:59 GMT

Our Foreign Affairs spokesman explains why Scotland shouldn't join the Eurozone

As Foreign Affairs spokesman for UKIP I am increasingly alarmed by the politically naive and obsessed SNP who plan to turn Scotland into a foreign country. The SNP sees no irony in campaigning for Scotland to become ‘independent’ while at the same time joining the EU. This combination would place Scotland firmly under Brussels’ rule. I shudder to think of Scotland becoming a foreign vassal state.

The SNP fails to understand that, since the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, all new EU members are legally obliged to adopt the euro. Any EU accession treaty would make this requirement binding. Now that the UK has successfully won the fight to leave the EU, our former opt-out will not apply to Scotland. The SNP might not be compelled to join the Euro on day one after joining, but they would have to do so eventually. Moreover, the EU’s rules might change to force them to do so sooner. Under qualified majority voting, neither Scotland’s voters nor their so-called ‘independent’ government would have any choice.

There is no point in Scotland becoming ‘independent’ if joining the EU means it has to accept unquestioningly every directive issued by unelected Brussels bureaucrats, and be obliged to give up its traditional pounds, steeped in Scottish history, to join the Eurozone, and to switch to Euros. The pound was Scotland’s traditional currency, introduced as long ago as the 12th century prior to the 1707 Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Sterling pound replaced the Scottish pound in 1707, but the pound is part of Scotland’s heritage. The Scottish people have historically always used pounds. So, why would Sturgeon now abandon Scotland’s customs and traditions and abolish Scotland’s traditional currency in favour of a foreign currency? That would hardly liberate Scotland, would it?

Why would anyone with even half a brain even consider joining the Eurozone? The Euro is a construct made of straw and with foundations in a quicksand. The SNP would do well never to join this dodgy currency. Out of the frying pan and into the fire springs to mind. Better stick to Sterling pounds and the Barnett Formula they already know and love.

Life in the Eurozone is not all sweetness and light. The Euro has always been a basket case and the frailty of the Eurozone is once again becoming a serious issue. In 2008, the Eurozone suffered a sovereign debt and financial crisis when Greece went broke. The “PIGS” countries Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain (and Ireland) all experienced debt problems and imposed austerity packages. In 2022, it is all happening again. Due to years of mismanagement, the Eurozone is again under financial pressure and is now at risk of running out of gas. The Italian economy is in distress (as usual) and needs yet another rescue. The Germans are in intense trouble and no longer have deep pockets. Inflation is rearing its ugly head. Interest rates are under pressure. If borrowing costs increase too far,

and the European Central Bank (ECB) stops pumping money in to prop up risky EU economies, then things will start to kick off.

Italy is a huge economy. If it fails, the impact will be painful. Italian politics are in turmoil. Prime Minister, Draghi resigned in July 2022. He will remain as caretaker pending a general election, which a right-wing populist coalition is widely expected to win. Although it has so far not actively campaigned to leave the Eurozone, the coalition is Eurosceptic, and the situation may well change. Bringing back the lire may not be out of the question after all!

The Eurozone does not suit weaker economies like Scotland’s (which is heavily dependent on UK support). Nobody underwrites the debt of individual EU nations if they get into difficulty. There is no shared debt or fiscal policy. Historically, the ECB and other Eurozone nations might help, but they might not. Ultimately, in the past, in failed nations like Greece, the burden has fallen mainly on their own people. Some nations have had to endure a deep depression under the constraint of the single currency because they could not devalue their own national currencies. These nations have no genuine independence. Because they use the Euro, they must maintain parity within the entire Eurozone. In truth, the Euro is a veritable millstone around their necks.

The UK Independence Party has always known that the Eurozone can never work as a single currency. It is ill conceived. A workable monetary union necessitates a full political union. This does not exist, and in my opinion, it never will. No self-respecting European nation wants one and not one will ever relinquish its sovereignty and unite into a single super state with a single government and a single central bank. The Eurozone will only survive until a significant European nation finally gives up on it and jumps ship to revert to its own national currency.

The UK Independence Party believes Scotland must keep the pound and must never leave the Union. Since inception, the UK Independence Party has adamantly refused to abandon the pound sterling. We were unwavering that the UK must never join the Euro. That is why we retain the £ symbol in our logo even until this day to show our continued commitment to our traditional national currency.

The UK Independence Party is ideologically opposed to devolution. We believe in one law for all, and that our Westminster parliament should make all our laws, rather than so-called provincial ‘parliaments’ in Scotland and Wales. Similarly, as a party, the UK Independence Party stands firmly against anyone, (especially Ms. Sturgeon), who might actively plot to break-up the United Kingdom.

The UK Independence Party has always been on the right side of the debate.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Business, Trade and Foreign Affairs

Is the Lowering of Speed Limits a Sneaky Way to Raise Revenue?

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 13:10:09 GMT

Does lowering the speed limit really reduce road accidents?

Governments need revenue to pay for infrastructure and services to the nation. Many problems occur in nations that require solutions, and it has become the norm that every problem can only be solved by more tax.

Usually, the government chooses a reason to morally justify the tax, particularly if it will defer the population from doing damage to each other or themselves. A classic case is that vehicle speeds are typically 30 miles per hour (mph) on roads that have houses to reduce the likelihood of collisions between pedestrians and vehicles.

In recent years, places with lots of pedestrians, and in particular children, such as at schools have a short stretch of road set at 20 miles per hour, or even as low as 10mph. Elsewhere the default speed limit is 30mph across all the nations of the UK.

Statistics from the Department of Transport reveal that reducing speed limits from 30mph to 20mph in areas such as through roads in town centres does not reduce the number of accidents or injuries to people by vehicles.

Statistics from the ONS do show that when speed limits are unnecessarily low there is an increase in the number of motorists breaking the limit in the very low speed area and all the surrounding higher speed areas. Issuing more and more speeding fines, raising revenue!

Now Mark Drayford and his one-party state of Wales is introducing a default speed limit of 20mph across the whole of that country. It cannot be justified morally for safety reasons and therefore must be for the immoral reason of raising revenue for a country that already receives higher state spending per head of population than in England, and like Scotland provides abysmal services to its people.

It is a damning indictment of socialist devolved governments and further proof of the ongoing war against the motorist.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Transport

Everyone wants a slice of the misery cake

Wed, 27 Jul 2022 21:34:32 GMT

Patricia Mountain on the link between uncontrolled immigration and trespassing...

Some years ago, during a Brighton and Hove City Council meeting I asked the question, “how much does the council spend each year to safeguard empty properties from trespass?” No reply was ever received. With people living on the streets in all weathers I found it appalling to see empty properties boarded up.

Boarded up properties are now a thing of the past and the reason is the introduction of property guardians, used all over the country in properties that are in between uses, an alternative to 24/7 security which has high costs and to deter squatters.

A Property Guardian applicant must be in full-time employment, or self-employed, earning £18,000 or more annually and without dependents with whom they wish to reside (children or pets). The rents being on average 60% lower, compared to the local area, guardianship makes an attractive alternative living solution for working professionals but not an option for the neediest in society and you can be moved on with only 28 days’ notice.

A vacant commercial property is usually a dead loss to landowners. Unless they redevelop it, they continue to pay high business rates while receiving no rent. By installing property guardians - and basic facilities such as temporary showers and kitchens - owners can reclassify buildings as domestic, slashing their business rates. How does this help bankrupt councils?

The companies that operate these schemes are thriving, making profits by turning former public sector buildings into substandard accommodation.

It is wrong that these companies are profiting from the misery of homelessness and local councils taking the easy option.

Then there are the greed driven Airbnb property owners they could play a part in easing the misery of the homeless by offering accommodation at affordable rents.

Then we have Government issuing lucrative contracts to Hotels to house migrants and in the process turfing out homeless people who have been placed there by the authorities to provide them with a safe space.

Then we have the new student accommodation investment which has taken over from the buy-to-let market, many students are not taking them up because of pricing and rent inflated charges. The homeless, thousands of which are veterans, could be put in these properties on a temporary basis.

Too many people grabbing a slice of the misery cake AKA homelessness.

The UK will never ever get on top of the demand for housing if it continues with its present uncontrolled immigration policy. Immigration must be rigorously controlled to stabilise housing demand. Homelessness must become a thing of the past it is not too much to expect a roof over your head and a place to call your own in the twenty first century in this country.

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party – Spokeswoman for Housing

Street Theatre in Westminster

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 21:37:02 GMT

Our Culture and Wokeness spokesman offers his thoughts on the Tory leadership election

If ever there was a reason to question the ideological roots of the so-called Conservative Party, it is the continued existence of the Government Equalities Office which was founded in October 2007.

It claims to be the government department responsible for social equality and for good measure gender equality.

Why does any government have any responsibility for such matters?

What happened to the idea that we are primarily responsible for our own welfare with government only assisting those who cannot help themselves?

The current Minister is Leadership Candidate Liz Truss who manages to run this department in her spare time from being Foreign Secretary.

Not only that, but a Conservative Government is asking people to report their employers should there be any perception of a gender pay gap. Nice and friendly to small businesses that do not have HR Departments.

Costs of running this nonsense are a little difficult to gauge but they have a distinguished Director who in his spare time manages also to run the Race Disparity Unit. Presumably, he is not carrying out these gargantuan tasks for minimum wage.

All this futility might conceivably help the sales executive from Milton Keynes but is unlikely to benefit the dinner lady from Motherwell.

UK Independence Party has a role to play in challenging this pantomime.

Put the Government Equalities Office where it belongs - in the nearest dustbin!

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Culture and Wokeness

Labour can't be trusted with Brexit

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 15:54:16 GMT

Labour still wants to drag us backwards

Today I heard Wes Streeting making some superficially sensible remarks about Brexit on LBC. He came over as very sensible and pragmatic. I am a eurosceptic and a leave voter, and I think he's quite right in saying that leavers did not vote to end all cooperation with the EU, and the current trading relationship with the EU leaves a lot to be desired.

That said, while it's encouraging to hear Labour's rhetoric is moving on from Brexit, I still get a sense Labour is trying to put Humpty back together again without thinking about the possible opportunities.

Labour has floated the idea of a veterinary agreement with the EU to ease border friction, but that would entail the adoption of EU rules and a continuation of the EU veterinary system. This was never a particularly good system to start with but there are now questions over its sustainability. Across Europe there is a shortage of qualified vets, and new vets want to live in the cities and work with domestic animals. Nobody trains to become a vet to inspect dead pigs - and certainly not for the salaries on offer.

Vets have no place in a modern food safety system. Their main concern is keeping animals alive and well. When an animal has been slaughtered, the core skill set of vets is redundant. The ideal veterinary controls, therefore, would be no veterinary controls except for live animals. As it stands, we’re employing expensive and overqualified people to do a job they aren’t good at.

Being that they are a system cost, the commercial drive is to get them as cheaply as possible and that usually means newly qualified immigrants, with limited English language skills and no enforcement experience in British slaughterhouses. So acute is the shortage that we're actively recruiting vets from Nigeria and Ghana. Some with questionable qualifications.

Essential to any food safety system, is effective communication and local knowledge, and this function cannot be fulfilled by transient workers who will move on within three years. The system was, and is, a travesty. Having been detached from the local authority enforcement infrastructure, it lost vital local intelligence on how the trade was functioning, where the cheats were, and who was cutting corners.

When we joined the single market, many local slaughterhouses were forced to close because of compliance costs, and the rules favoured large centralised slaughterhouses which, as we learned during lockdown, are Covid incubators. Brexit is an opportunity to restore local meat production, reduce food miles and improve sustainability in the meat industry.

It's telling that the large food producers who protested our exit from the single market are those such as the 2 Sisters Food Group, which is infamous for serious food safety breaches and abuse of workers. The corporate model is contingent on low wage exploitation and was only too keen to have a ready supply of cheap immigrant labour. Smaller, family run slaughterhouses were safer and provided long term skilled jobs for locals and that meant a better quality product.

A veterinary agreement with the EU is really just a return to a the pre-Brexit status quo, continuing a system that was already crumbling. Moreover, our departure from the single market means that value chains have already been broken, and such an agreement does not automatically restore our trade.

The Tories have a fetish for free trade, believing British agriculture should not be protected from global market forces, but UK farming is essential to the economic and social fabric of the countryside, and an important part of British life. Brexit is an opportunity to completely rethink agriculture, of which meat production is an integral part. Britain may not be able to compete on price but we certainly can compete on animal welfare and quality standards. As such, we should be looking to move away from the centralised EU factory farming model and supporting local farming. Labour doesn't know an opportunity when it sees one.

A move to reintegrate Britain into the EU veterinary system will be seen as an attempt to re-join the single market by stealth and will suggest to leave voters that Labour cannot be trusted. It should also be noted that the EU model of food production is contingent on low wage labour and freedom of movement, so an EU veterinary agreement probably wouldn't solve the problems the industry is experiencing.

Perhaps it is their view that freedom of movement should be restored, but the high availability of exploitable foreign workers is the very thing that has allowed the big food production companies to cut every corner, and has saved them from having to rethink their business model. Brexit is a chance to restructure the food industry but a reversion to the EU model lets them off the hook. Labour seems to be taking it as a given that the EU model was inherently good, and shows no interest in exploring the alternatives.

Because the EU system favoured large scale centralised slaughterhouses and distribution centres, it also lengthened supply chains, placing more demands on our haulage sector and road network. That needs to change. There is still a HGV driver shortage, and that's a structural problem across Europe. We're now looking as far as the Philippines for drivers. Notwithstanding the implications for food safety, and the democratic imperative to control immigration, we ought to be reducing the number of HGV sorties, especially when you consider the skyrocketing cost of fuel.

An EU veterinary agreement could not be an off the shelf model. It would not be quick or easy to negotiate and Labour should not harbour any illusions about that. Switzerland's agreement is bespoke, as ours would have to be. It is not the quick fix Labour imagines it would be. It would also indicate to leave voters a willingness to surrender sovereignty over a vital area at a time when it has never been more important to have responsive food policy.

Whatever you can say about the EU regulatory system that was good, when something was broken it tended to stay broken because reaching agreement on reforms proved difficult and time consuming (up to a decade in some cases). Retaining control over our food laws matters now more than ever - as we may be heading towards a global food emergency, where exporting food will be the least of our worries.

Rishi's Madness

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 07:57:56 GMT

Steve Grimes discusses Rishi Sunak's Covid loan schemes

During the government’s first Covid-19 lock-down in 2020, Rishi Sunak with great flourish set up a huge £47 billion Covid-19 bounce-back loan scheme to help businesses to stay alive. This scheme offered government-backed loans of £2000 to £50,000 with a low interest rate to small businesses.

Although welcomed by some, by doing this in haste, he threw cheap taxpayers’ money at smallbusinesses and encouraged them to take on debt regardless of their means or their ability to repay.

We now learn that a huge number of small businesses have fallen into arrears on their bounce-back loan repayments. According to The Times, a Freedom of Information request reveals that 193,000 firms have failed to meet their repayments as at the end of June and 151,000 are behind by more than 90 days. This means that either about 12.5% of the 1.5 million small businesses the Tory government encouraged to take out bounce-back loans during Covid-19 are now struggling to repay or, alternatively, that the long-suffering taxpayer has fallen victim to a large-scale fraud.

If Covid loans turn into bad debts, the commercial banks safely get their money back from the UK taxpayer. Although the banks make the actual loans, they take no commercial risk themselves. They can carry out sloppy credit checks and do not need to take much trouble to recover their lost funds. They simply draw on the 100% government guarantee, which shifts responsibility to the taxpayer.

Inflation now places small businesses under intense pressure post- Covid and the arrears in loan repayments suggest that many small businesses encouraged to take-out these Covid loans are now in serious financial difficulty. In total, they owe £4.5 billion.

Under the Covid loan scheme, if a company fails to repay, the Insolvency Service may investigate it, even if dissolved. This puts undue pressure on small business owners who might have simply accepted a cheap loan, in haste, because they were encouraged to do so by the government.

The UK Independence Party stands with small businesses, and we call on lenders to treat all genuine cases sympathetically, and to work cooperatively with vulnerable small business owners to support the many struggling with repayments.

Many loans went to genuine and deserving cases, but many did not. Far too many applications were not genuine at all. There have been reports of loans used to pay for luxury watches, living costs, Range Rovers, jet-skis, buy-to-let properties, flying lessons, pornographic websites, gambling and to send cash to other people. In one case, a former pub landlord appeared in court accused of sending thousands of pounds in bounce back loans to fund the Islamic State in Syria.

The UK Independence Party says it is unacceptable to let fraudsters off the hook. We call on the Tory government to tighten its controls on potential commercial fraud, and to stop handing out taxpayers’ money negligently to line the pockets of fraudsters. We urge the acting or replacement Chancellor (whoever than might now be) to actively pursue and prosecute fraudsters and to recover all lost money.

Not only will strong action deter future commercial fraud, but also it will reduce the amount of lost money and lead to a welcome reduction in taxes for the rest of us. The abuse of bounce-back loans comes alongside an estimated £5.5bn of Covid supported taxpayer’s money lost to scams or errors, involving furlough, the self-employment income support scheme and Sunak’s “eat out to help-out” scheme for hospitality.

The UK Independence Party now awaits with interest, disclosure of final bad debt and fraud statistics arising from the Covid-19 loan scheme.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Business, Trade & Foreign Affairs

Illegal Immigration Impacting Defence

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 07:44:34 GMT

Peter Richardson explains the impact of illegal immigration on the country's defence industry

Whist illegal immigration continues at pace across the English Channel, I did not think that it would impact on the countries defence industry.

However, after reading an email from a defence contractor working in Barrow-in-Furnace for BAE Systems on the new nuclear submarine project ‘The Continuous At-Sea Deterrent’, it has been highlighted that many travelling contractors and locals working on this project are unable to find a good standard of accommodation, local to the site.

A couple of years ago an entire local hotel, the OYO Majestic was commandeered for illegal immigrant accommodation. In the last month, the regular clientele of contractors staying in the sister hotel, the OYO Imperial close by were told it was closing for maintenance.

It would appear that this hotel has also been commandeered to house illegal immigrants.

The housing of hundreds of illegal immigrants in this area, who are free to roam the local area, close to such an important defence site is of great concern. Most, if not all these illegal immigrants have not been vetted in any way. This news also follows today’s independent review into the failings of our Border Force and the large numbers of Illegal Immigrants who have disappeared from their hotels before biometric information is taken to use for their identities. We are funnelling in security risks and putting them up in sensitive areas like Barrow-in-Furness. Terror attacks waiting to happen??

These important contractors have now had to find alternative accommodation, further from the site and at a greater expense due to reduced accommodation availability.

The UK Independence Party finds this situation unacceptable and would not house unvetted illegal immigrants close to any defence site.

Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson Retired

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Defence and Veterans

The quiet death of British democracy

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 12:45:04 GMT

The vanity of our elites is destroying democracy

These days it’s becoming harder to dismiss conspiracy theorists as nutjobs and cranks because there’s definitely something going on. Whether or not there is a conspiracy in motion, it’s increasingly the case that our out of touch politicians are working their own agendas. The voting public is last in the pecking order.

Some people describe this as the “deep state” implementing the globalist World Economic Forum agenda. I can see why people believe that but I don’t find that explanation all that compelling. The WEF is really just a policy forum and a lobbying organisation where all the worst groupthinks of the political elites begin to merge. Take the WEF out of the equation and we still have exactly the same problem. Technocratic rule of the blobs.

Because our politicians can’t resist virtue signalling on the world stage we end up signing agreements such as the Paris Climate Accords, and we then end up with statutory targets embedded in laws. We’ve had this before with renewable energy quotas via the EU and now Net Zero. It is then left to the NGOcracy and think tanks to devise policy on how to meet those targets and they have a free pass to roam the corridors of power.

These types tend to be a class apart from the rest of us – along with top civil servants. They are all of one privileged Oxbridge/LSE set – the best jobs are usually reserved for the offspring of the influential – and they all subscribe to more or less the same ideas. Conformity is essential to career progression, thus the politico-media class is a monoculture. The system obsessives over diversity of gender and race but the one thing it will not tolerate is diversity of thought.

This is symptomatic of a sclerotic political establishment, where “civil society” (the merger of corporate lobbying and left wing activism) has displaced democratic inputs, and where state funded “charities” such as Hope Not Hate, Stonewall, the Refugee Council and Friends of the Earth have a direct line to the very top. They each push their agendas forward through legal activism. We’ve seen this lately as removal flights were grounded. The NGOs with the biggest war chest are calling the shots – in direct conflict with the majority will.

It is often asserted that the civil service is part of this nexus, acting to sabotage government, but I don't find this a particularly compelling argument. It’s true that most top civil servants are part of the establishment groupthink but this is a very convenient excuse for politicians who, if they got their act together, could revoke statutory targets and pull out of international treaties. But they don’t and they never will because it’s just too much like rocking the boat.

I’ve heard it said that the so-called “revolt on the right” was an alliance between conservative working classes and the Tory aristocracy against the bourgeois middle class. Superficially that sounds right, but the reason it failed is because the working class underestimated just how far the Tory aristocracy has gone native. That the closest we get to a true blue brexiteer in the final three leadership contenders is Lib Dem remainer, Liz Truss, says it all. They won’t take on the establishment because they are the establishment.

That’s why I’ve not been all that invested in the outcome of the Tory leadership contest. They’re all career politicians who will say whatever it takes to win, but they’ll go back to native mode within days. Being a proper conservative is just too socially inconvenient for Tories. You’d think people would've learned by now that you just can’t trust a Tory.

Though Boris Johnson has the left wetting themselves, he was not all that different. We’re still in the ECHR, we’re not leaving he Refugee Convention, we are fully signed up to Net Zero, and the NGOcracy will continue to dictate policy through the courts. Johnson could have slashed their funding at the very least, but he was never interested in taking the fight to the enemy. He squandered his term and there is no reason to expect his successor will be any different.

All this ensures that so long as we continue to vote for the LibLabCon, our votes will not influence the direction of government. They will continue to inflict the Net Zero agenda even if we end up with energy rationing. Britain is not a democracy and the system is rigged to ensure that outsiders remain on the outside. We hoped that Brexit might rock the boat but the establishment is geared for its own survival whatever happens.

In that respect, all the chatter about the WEF is a bit of a red herring. It certainly is an influential organisation, but it’s only one among many global forums (such as the WTO, WHO etc) where the global governance agenda set. That was always the problem with Brexit. The EU was only part of the problem and the EU itself was only a middleman. The fight for democratic independence is not over by a long shot – which is why there is is still a need for the UK Independence Party.

We are gradually watching former democratic states implementing the same types of laws because they all come from the same place, using the same intellectual inputs, and working towards UN global goals. Pandemics and climate change are the pretext by which they expand their power. We are witnessing the privatisation of regulation. The power flows away from the people and into the hands of international NGOs and their “philanthropic” corporate backers. Much of the energy inflation and price rises we are seeing right now is wholly intentional policy .

Ultimately our system is on autopilot and the NGOcracy exploits the supine, narcissistic tendencies of our politicians. Just as politicians were happy to let the EU do the job of governing for them, they’re happy to implement NGO agendas verbatim - which is why wokery spread through the institutions like wildfire. There is no debate or scrutiny. Politicians always prefer to take the path of least resistance. The fightback will have to come from the grassroots because our establishment doesn’t see anything wrong and doesn’t care either.

I suppose “deep state” is as good a name as any for this phenomenon, but naming it as such brings character to a deep malaise where politicians are not interested in doing their jobs, and are only really interested in the pay and status. The fault ultimately rests collectively with all of us because we keep voting for them. There will be no fightback until the British people vote back better.

Proper Brexit is on Hold!

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 21:28:16 GMT

Lester Taylor explains why a new PM must not be allowed to be a new opportunity for removers.

While the Tories fight out their internal leadership woes, the job of properly leaving the European Union the last vestige of ECJ jurisdiction stalls, and Brexit is delayed, Brexit is denied!

The Tories hope to have whittled their leadership candidates down to the final two by the end of next week, just in time for the start of the parliamentary summer recess that lasts until the 5th of September, when we are due to find out who the new Tory party leader and therefore new Prime Minister is.

It’s at that point that we will start to get a clear idea of what the new PM’s Brexit aims are.

At the very, very least those aims should be to follow through fully on the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill and the Bill of Rights Bill and make them law.

Although not ideal, at least the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, once through Royal Assent, will make it harder for the EU to weaponise the protocol against us. The best option however would be to scrap it in its entirety.

A new UK Bill of Rights, that removes the primacy of the European Convention on Human Rights over UK law, would allow us to have more control over our borders. Although leaving the Council of Europe and thereby leaving the convention would be the cleanest cut.

With a new PM will come a new chance for the Remainer establishment to try and block these bills going through. To use any delay they can, to try and keep the UK as closely aligned to EU law as possible, for as long as possible.

That must not be allowed to happen.

The new PM, whoever they are, needs to hit the ground sprinting on Brexit!

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Brexit and Northern Ireland

We Need to Save the High Street

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 16:35:14 GMT

Steve Grimes suggests solutions for reversing the decline of town centre shopping.

Across the UK, our High Streets are dying. Our struggling High Street shops have suffered a body blow. They not only lost valuable trade due to Covid restrictions but also encountered ever higher energy charges, higher borrowing costs and higher staff wages. Sales fell away also due to struggling customers suffering from inflationary pressures of their own, which meant they had less money to spend.

Major supermarkets, out-of-town shopping centres and online shopping combined to leave our High Streets in decay. Stores closed, banks became wine bars, shops have been boarded-up, there is violence and other crime on the streets, parking costs have soared and there is a lack of affordable parking.

All these factors have conspired to turn our once-flourishing town centres into a sorry state. Local councils have intentionally made it hard and costly to park in town centres. It therefore makes sense that people have deserted our High Streets for out-of-town centres where it is much easier and cheaper to park.

The deterioration is due in no small part to years of neglect and even deliberate

action by our local councils. Many councils imposed business rates that businesses could not afford and they hit shoppers with high car parking charges, low traffic neighbourhoods, clean air charging zones and other obstacles that made it economically unrealistic to drive to the shops and park.

The UK Independence Party knows that when overheads are low, and where parking is free, town centres will thrive. The UK Independence Party has a long-standing manifesto policy that would help local shops and traders, abolishing all business rates and bringing free parking back to town centres and local shopping parades.

To help people to easily travel into the High Street, the UK Independence Party would end the war on the motorist. We will scrap all bus and cycle lanes; remove low traffic zones and streets reduced to dead ends by bollards and planters. We would scrap congestion charges, clean air charging zones, punitive car park, and kerb-side parking fees.

In many towns, people stay away because they do not feel safe in the street due to beggars, drunks, fights in the street, gun, and knife crime. The UK Independence Party knows we need more police on the streets to crack down on crime and anti-social behaviour. Therefore, the UK Independence Party will invest in local policing to protect communities.

The UK Independence Party wants to save our High Streets and we will act now to reverse the decline because we are the party that is on the side of small business and working families.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Business, Trade and Foreign Affairs

Telford: the forgotten outrage

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 23:17:21 GMT

Don't expect the Tories to act on grooming

Obvious evidence of child sex crimes in Telford was ignored for generations leading to more than 1,000 girls being abused, an inquiry has found. Agencies blamed children for the abuse they suffered, not the perpetrators, and exploitation was not investigated because of “nervousness about race”. The inquiry was set up after the Sunday Mirror revealed gangs had been abusing girls in the town since the 1980s . Chairman Tom Crowther QC said the abuse had thrived unchecked for decades.

Other key report findings include:

Teachers and social workers being discouraged from reporting abuse
Offenders becoming “emboldened” by the absence of police action, with abuse continuing for years without concerted response
Exploitation was not investigated because of nervousness about race, that investigating concerns against Asian men, in particular, would inflame “racial tensions”
Even after an investigation leading to seven men being jailed for child sex crimes West Mercia Police and Telford & Wrekin Council scaled down their specialist teams “to virtual zero” in order to save money

I would dearly like to know what any of the Tory leadership candidates have to say about this. But it will likely fall through the cracks. When it comes down to it, the mass rape of teenage girls in forgotten places just doesn’t rate in establishment parties.

This is partly why I re-joined UKIP. The issue will prove “too Ukippy” for Tice’s Reform party. We have to speak out on it. I refuse to let the far right take ownership of this issue by being the only ones talking about it.

In just a few days we’ll probably have a decent idea who the Tory party is set to inflict on us as their next PM. The Tories are likely to stay the course on Net Zero, and Brexit will be swept under the rug. The parliamentary party wants to drag the party back to the centre ground and pretend the whole Johnson incident never happened. And if that happens, you can forget the Tories caring about grooming (aka child rape).

You can also forget about the Tories fixing immigration. They were never going to. Fraser Nelson of The Spectator is once again pushing the case for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, thereby incentivising more of the same, and the liberal wing of the Tory party has always preferred a steady supply of cheap exploitable labour to keep costs down and prop up ailing GDP.

Once the voting is over, if Tory members even get a vote, we’ll probably see an exodus of Tory members. Now is the time for them to come back to UKIP. UKIP has had its share of problems in recent years, but we’re still here, and the one thing we can say with confidence is that we have the best manifesto of all, and UKIP is the only party you can trust to implement it.

Conservative voters have been in an ages long abusive relationship with the Tory party where no matter how many times they get burned, they still go back to the abuser. There is only one home for real conservatives and that isn’t the Tory party. That Penny “trans-women are women” Mordaunt is a front runner in the parliamentary party ought to tell you everything you need to know. There is no place among conservatives for those who deny basic biology.

The best we can hope for from the Tory party is a continuation of the policies in play – which simply isn’t good enough. Raab’s marginal tinkering with the Bill of Rights does not remove the ECHR influence, and Patel’s Borders Act is already stillborn. Hundreds more migrants pour in through Dover every single day.

We won’t get radical reform form the Tory party because the Tory party, at its core, doesn’t want the hassle and its MPs don’t want the social inconvenience at dinner parties. Waiting around for the right Tory leader is a strategy that has failed the right time and again. Johnson was their one chance at redemption and look how that turned out.

Meanwhile, the Tory party preens about the ethnic diversity of the candidates on offer. UKIP isn’t an ethno-nationalist party, but we object to the mindset of the Tory party that still seeks to placate the left by parading its diversity credentials. It tells us that the party is still running scared of the left wing agenda which is why we can’t believe they will make any serious reforms to human rights or immigration law.

If we are to fulfil the promise of Brexit, it should be viewed in terms of a constitutional revolution, dismantling the baked in political correctness that goes with Blair’s human rights regime. That means removing the influence of foreign judges and courts and restoring the primacy of national laws made by elected bodies.

Thanks to Tory betrayal, we now have a long and hard road to rebuilding a movement capable of putting our demands front and centre. The so-called “revolt on the right” made the foolish error of trusting the Tories to take us over the finish line. We won’t make that mistake again. UKIP has experience in building a movement, and with your help we can do it again. Join UKIP today.

Tory leadership: damned either way

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 16:45:43 GMT

No dog in the fight

People were keen to show their support for Ukraine - but how does that hold up when they start to notice the consequences of food inflation, energy rationing and another wave of mass immigration from the global south. And since the global south is not interested in abiding by the West's sanctions, the longer this goes on, the more it looks like we're putting sanctions on ourselves. India, China and Brazil are more than happy to buy Russian gas and oil.

Moreover, by flooding Ukraine with weapons, we've turned it into a long war, and our enemies have now decided to do the same, with Iran now sending weapons to Russia. A long war, combined with suicidal Net Zero energy policies is sure to cause the greatest collapse of living standards for the better part of a century.

There is also another dynamic which could affect public support even more severely. European competition for LNG is causing blackouts in developing countries as supplies are diverted to wealthier countries. Pakistan, for instance, has been suffering badly because of insufficient LNG supplies that the country needs to keep its power plants going. This could further destabilise Pakistan and if there is civil strife we will no doubt see it played out on the streets of British cities.

Thus, if you want to evaluate the Tory leadership candidates, you have to look at them on the basis of their position on Net Zero and the war in Ukraine. A warmonger like Tom Tugendhat will likely follow Johnson in pushing Ukraine to fight to the last Ukrainian. We can expect much the same from Sunak. The national interest, though, is for this war to end as soon as possible.

Moreover, we must drop the pretence that he are helping Ukraine. Britain has mainly sent over obsolete weapons, too few in number to make a real difference. We're leading Ukraine up the garden path. With friends like us, who needs enemies? All of Europe is going to have to decide if it's really worth plunging Europe's economy into depression to save a scrap of Russian speaking rust belt. It looks as if Zelensky is living off borrowed time, in a race to achieve tangible results against the Russians before the strains become too much for his supporters and the bulk of the support evaporates.

As to Net Zero, It looks as though all but three of the Tory contenders are committed to maintaining it. With runaway inflation, putting arbitrary limits on productivity and further driving up the cost of energy simply isn't a viable proposition. But then if the crown falls to Braverman then you have an ERG mouthpiece, who will further isolate us from our closest markets and embark on an issue illiterate trade policy that didn't even stack up before Covid and the war in Ukraine.

As it happens, I think the Tories will chicken out of electing a right wing radical and go with a safer bet like Truss, but Truss is an idiotic warmonger and she'll keep Net Zero too. She appeals to the Spectator reading atlanticist set who are not in the least affected by rising energy costs.

I don't trust any of these blowhards to get us out of this mess. They can only make it worse. Now would be a good time to look at a change of government, but Starmer's Labour promises to have identical policies on Ukraine and Net Zero. On that basis, Starmer is even worse than Jeremy Corbyn.

Tory Twitter is looking at the candidates on the basis of their culture war credentials such as gender and free speech, and though neither of these issues are trivial - especially where women's rights are concerned, unless the Ukraine war is brought to a conclusion and the priority is placed on secure and affordable energy, then it won't matter what gender signs are on the bog doors because nobody will be able to afford to leave the house anyway.

Thus far I have yet to identify a reason why I don't like Kemi Badenoch, but it's all going to rest on her approach to Ukraine. If she's the same as the rest of the Westminster groupthink then it scarcely matters who leads the party.

But in any case, I should heed my own advice. The cardinal rule in politics is to never trust a Tory - and there's no reason to believe that any of the candidates will make good on their word - not least because the Tories have already squandered their political capital and the party is so split it won't be passing any new legislation for a while - let alone anything radical.

I am often castigated for being too negative, but I find the smart money is always to assume the worst where British politicians are concerned. I think we're pretty much damned either way.

A self-inflicted downfall

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 12:56:24 GMT

This is what you get for trusting a Tory

It didn’t take a genius to predict we would end up here. In December 2019, I was writing that Johnson wouldn’t see out a full term and the Tories would be back to fighting like rats in a sack. I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did. I didn’t anticipate a global pandemic, and I thought it would be the unholy mess of Johnson’s Brexit deal would bring him down. But if it wasn’t going to be that then it was going to be sleaze, and there was no reason to expect different from a man so lacking in ability and integrity.

I also wrote that if the Tories fudged the Brexit deal, Brexiteers risked handing the game to Labour and Starmer would be the one to decide the final shape of Brexit. Arron Banks mocked me for saying this, but I wasn’t far off.

The other day I wrote an article explaining why Labour won’t win the next general election, but the recent polling suggests the Tories are on track to lose working majority. There is still a chance a leadership misstep could result in a Labour led coalition. All it takes is for Brexit voting Tories to stay at home on polling day.

Lately I’ve been saying that Brexit is a dead issue, with no enthusiasm to go over old ground, but a leadership contest might well drag it out into the open. There is a great deal of resentment on the leave side that Brexit has failed to live up to its promise under Johnson, and will be eyeing up candidates with a view to pressing that agenda. This is another fight for the soul of the Tory party. Will Brexit be reclaimed for the “Brexit voting masses” or will the party be dragged back to the centrist consensus?

I think the latter. I don’t see an ERG candidate taking the top job so they’ll have to back a compromise candidate they can put up with like Truss just to prevent someone worse from choosing the curtains in Number Ten. And from there, give or take a bit of tinkering with the NI Protocol, the “Brexit revolution” is pushing daisies. The ERG has used up all of its political power. The window for their version of Brexit is long gone and soon they’ll be back on the fringes.

They’ll bitch and moan about it, but Johnson was their man. They brought down May to install him, They knew what he was, just as they knew what he was when the crowned him as spokesman for Vote Leave. A means to an end. That he ditched Brexit so quickly when the going got tough shouldn’t have surprised them. A man so fundamentally duplicitous was never to be trusted.

But then the ERG played their own part in what Brexit has become. They were all for rushing it to “get Brexit done” even if rushing it left endless loose ends. Moreover, Vote Leave never set out a plan or a list of demands, so the definition of Brexit was always in the hands of others. The writing was already on the wall. In November 2019 I wrote:

“Let’s call this what it is. Crap. This is a crap Brexit. It is without vision, without ambition and lacking any serious purpose. We’re doing Brexit for its own sake – to say that we’ve left – not to actually do anything. This is not a stepping stone. It’s an administrative chore. There is no thought to our place in the world, how we will usefully exercise sovereignty or how we will make our democracy mean something. What could and should have been a transformative event in our history will end up an electoral exercise carried out by the uninterested for short term political gain resulting in a recession and decade of stagnation. We’re going to be a sad, broken little country with asinine politics incapable of delivering for the people it serves.”

Here I can’t exactly congratulate myself for my prescience. Assuming the worst in any given circumstances in politics is my default position, and assuming the worst when you have Boris Johnson at the helm is the safest bet you can make.

It’s not even as though Brexiteers weren’t warned about this. I was far from alone in saying it, though I was in the minority on the leave side. But now they’re in denial. Johnson, we are told, was brought down by the establishment media.

Political culture in Britain is such that the media exists to topple Prime Ministers. Tory leadership contests are the thing that brings them most to life. They love it. They live for it. That’s the game. We rack ’em up, they knock ’em down. Our job is to make it hard for them to do, which is why it’s not a good idea to appoint a sexually incontinent sociopath who couldn’t tell a truth to save his life.

Johnson was always going to spend more of his runtime having to deflect and evade questions about his conduct and integrity. That should have disqualified him from the outset. If he wasn’t going to be brought down on the basis of his manifest incompetence then it would be death by a thousand cuts - as each skeleton fell out of the closet.

Ultimately Johnson was never going to satisfy Brexiteers. Brexitism was an anti-establishment movement, but Vote Leave Ltd was an establishment vehicle and Boris Johnson is the very personification of the corrupt Westminster establishment. It’s like appointing Nick Griffin as editor of the Jewish Chronicle. Brexit always demanded a leader of intellect and vision. Johnson only had personal ambition. He was always going to drop Brexit the moment something else came along and Covid produced the perfect opportunity to brush it all under the rug.

Johnson was ultimately chosen because he was available and because he could beat Corbyn when one of the ERG zealots cold not. And that actually says more about the Brexit prospectus. Brexit secured a marginal majority, but there was no outright mandate for the slash and burn year zero Brexit envisaged by the likes of Steve Baker. Opposition to Brexit was as much about stopping a radical libertarian “free trade” agenda. There’s good reason to fear what these people could do unrestrained.

That the tide of public opinion is turning against Brexit is not surprising. The ERG took ownership of Brexit, pushing it as an economic venture, rather than a constitutional revolution. But it never was going to deliver “bumper deals” and rapid growth. The central ERG Brexit thesis was built on a delusion. I warned at the time that if you promote it as an economic venture then that is the basis on which it will be judged – and it would be judged a failure.

That the Brexit revolution has lost the initiative is entirely on its architects. They pushed for the hardest, most economically unsound version of Brexit, which now leaves a gaping hole in our regulatory controls, while placing massive restrictions on our exports. Many could live with that if we could at least say immigration was back under control, but when you appoint a PM who favours amnesties for illegal immigrants, you can’t be surprised that we’re still a borderless country. Another metric by which Brexit fails.

I take the view than none of Johnson’s successors will deliver the kind of changes demanded by Brexit. Even if they want to, the Tories have burned through their political capital and squandered their mandate. If we are to take back our democracy for ourselves then it will require a new movement and one that doesn’t roll over to let the Tories take it over the line. The “revolt on the right” broke the cardinal rule of politics. Never trust a Tory.

It's time to abandon the deadbeat Tory party

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 20:08:58 GMT

Tories are only ever conservatives when they want our votes

Have you noticed how all of a sudden the Tory party has some conservatives? Now they suddenly think it’s time to scrap Net Zero, cut taxes, fix immigration and go to war on wokery. Funny that. Where have they been all this time? The same people who told us Boris Johnson was a real conservative are now queuing up to tell us who’s really the real deal now. And we’re supposed to believe them.

There was no real desire to quit the ECHR until about a week ago, no ministers were suggesting scrapping Net Zero, and we’ve escorted eight hundred new migrants ashore just in the last two days. All of a sudden there’s a sense of urgency.

This is all fake. As soon as someone is in place they go back to being New Labour. Tories are only ever conservatives when they smell power.

It’s too early to call it but there’s a strong showing for the distinctly Milibandian Rishi Sunak and warmongering Tom Tugendhat. The one-nation centrists are on manoeuvres, hoping to take the party back for the establishment. Heading up the pack we have Penny “trans women are women” Mordaunt, while on the right, Priti Patel fancies her chances when she can’t even stop a rubber dinghy with an entire navy at her disposal.

There is no reason to take any of these frauds seriously. The party is mired in sleaze, and there’s more skeletons in the Tory closet than there are in the ossuary at Verdun. The Tories preen about the diversity of the candidates but I don’t see diversity at all. They’re all wealthy, privileged members of a self-serving parasite class and wildly out of touch with the political aspirations of the country. They are not to be trusted.

Worse still, the Tories can’t even get through parliamentary term without descending into civil war. We are sick of their interminable squabbles. We have an energy, housing and cost of living crises and all this shower of mediocrities can do is look inwards to indulge in court gossip and advance up the greasy pole. They had the majority and the mandate to affect real and lasting change in this country - but they’ve pissed it up the wall, and they’ve left the economy a smouldering wreck.

A change of leadership is not going to fix what’s wrong with that party either. The Tories have squandered their political capital, and now the party is split once again – and no new leader is in a position to push through anything radical even if they wanted to. Whatever the contenders are offering is too little and too late.

There is only one party with a serious agenda for change and that’s UKIP. UKIP has the only fully developed manifesto to put things right in Britain - and fully deliver on the promise of Brexit. Any chance of a meaningful Brexit under the Tories died the moment Boris Johnson was appointed spokesman of Vote Leave. Only a party dedicated to the underlying ideals of Brexit can bring it about – and that’s not the Tory party. They only ever wanted it to temporarily end their internal squabbles.

The Tories have had their chance. Leave voters owe them nothing and we’re just counting down to the next betrayal. The Tories don’t deserve power and we are as well rid of them for all the difference it makes. As we have proved, the only time Tories come to heel is when they’re in fear of their jobs. That’s why it’s time to come back to UKIP.

York immigration demo round-up

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sat, 02 Jul 2022 19:45:45 GMT

Online or in the streets, the left just wants your silence

This afternoon was out in York at a generic anti-immigration demonstration. I would say about seventy people (at a guess) turned out, but there were many more counter-protestors.

Speaking at the event was one Anne Marie Waters of the For Britain party. She stood up on a bench and faced the counter-protestors who chanted slogans to drown us out. From what I gather, Waters was mainly speaking about grooming gangs but I’d be surprised if anyone heard anything, particularly since the PA was malfunctioning.

Among the protestors was a contingent of Patriotic Alternative activists who stood in a row waving flags like a sectarian paramilitary outfit. In other circumstances I’d cross the street to avoid them.

Mainly though, the protestors were Yorkshire locals who seemed to all know each other quite well. They are protest veterans. I met them in the pub beforehand for a chat. They’re basically ordinary working class people with typically unpolitically-correct working class views. I quite like them. Notably absent was anyone from Linton-on-Ouse.

On the whole I was left wondering what the point of it all was. Turning up to have a few beers and a square off with the lefties doesn’t seem like a valuable use of time. and I can’t see what it accomplished. I almost didn’t give my speech but was handed a megaphone and so I made the best of it by turning my back to the lefty mob and spoke in the direction of passers by. For what that was worth. I think I’ve found the one political activity that’s even more futile than blogging.

The counter-demonstration was far better organised, not least because it was sponsored by York Central’s Labour MP under the banner of Stand up To Racism (with all the identical pre-printed placards). Rent-a-mob. Evidently the Rachael Maskell never matured beyond student politics, and being that her voter base is likely the university payroll, she has no cause to listen to York’s working class. They certainly weren’t there to listen anyway. Their sole intent was to ensure nobody got a hearing – and I’d say they succeeded.

As you might expect, the lefty mob was the stereotypical middle class liberal set peppered with a few self-righteous crusties, and a brief showing from the local Antifa children, who (I’m told) were dispersed by the police.

The take-home point for me is that Labour will throw considerable resources at ensuring York’s working class community don’t get to speak. They themselves had no speakers and nothing to say for themselves. Anyone who disagrees with their basic premise that “refugees are welcome here” is a neo-nazi and that’s the most sophisticated argument they’ve got.

I’m not actually surprised they’d rather not let people speak. I’m categorically not a supporter of Patriotic Alternative but Sam Melia is more than capable of articulating his arguments which is more than the brain-dead Rachael Maskell can without resorting to juvenile slogans and sixth-form sentiments.

The event passed relatively trouble free. I’m told there was one arrest for alleged threatening behaviour. The police are to be commended for policing it with fairness and professionalism – which is more than I was expecting. I expect this demo won’t be the last of its kind and the current underperformance of this government on immigration will likely see a resurgence of a weekend protest movement in the style of the EDL.

If anything, it only paraded the weakness of the anti-immigration sentiment at the street level, and if that’s the level of organisation then such a movement will accomplish nothing. But at the same time, is rather bins the notion that the far right is the “greatest threat” to our democracy. In recent weeks we’ve seen far larger crowds of sectarian Islamists.

As to my speech, I spoke nominally under a UKIP banner but I was really there to voice my own point of view in my own capacity, independent of any organisation. Because of the banners on display, it will no doubt be recorded as a far right demonstration, and I will be associated with it by way of sharing a platform with them. People can think what they like. I don’t really care. What I’ll remember from today is that I had something to say, and when the PA was malfunctioning, Patriotic Alternative handed me a megaphone, while the left attempted to silence me. That’s all I need to know.

My speech was as follows:

I never imagined myself turning up to an event like this, let alone speaking at one. But when speaking out on this issue gets you labelled racist and “far right”, there’s really nowhere left for the left to go – and I have nothing left to lose. You can’t cancel the already cancelled.

To be considered far right these days is to merely venture an opinion that doesn’t conform with the left-wing orthodoxy.

Ultimately, I felt obliged to speak. It would be far less bother for me not to – and to simply keep quiet to avoid public criticism. That’s what they want me to do – so that’s what I shan’t do. The only way to preserve free speech is to use it without fear. I will not give way to those who demand our silence.

This issue isn’t just about immigration and it’s not about race. This, for me, is about fairness. On this you have to start from first principles. If you believe in borders then it follows that borders must be enforced. I know some would happily close the borders, but that’s a different debate.

As it stands, we as a country believe in borders. We recognise that not all who wish to come here can come here. We have an immigration system. It’s more generous than I would like – but that’s the rule of law – decided by a flawed but legitimately elected government.

The weakness in that system is an antiquated asylum regime which is wide open to abuse. Not only is it being abused, it is weaponised by an army of human rights lawyers and NGOcrats to subvert our entire immigration system.

This powerful lobby wants to bring about the open borders their liberal ideology demands. The majority – our democracy – is subordinate to the rich few: The self-declared citizens of nowhere and their mindless drones who come here today to shout slogans.

What makes this such a flashpoint issue is the essential dishonesty of the progressive left. Most of us can agree that we can and should help genuine refugees. But there are many ways to do that. It does not follow that we can or should open our borders to all comers.

Moreover, the status of refugee implies an eventual return to their country of origin, but we all know that those who pay smugglers to cross the channel do so to start a new life here regardless of whether they have any right to do so.

We are persistently fed the lie that dinghy arrivals are desperate and destitute when most are economic migrants who have chosen Britain and see it as their right to be here.

That right, though, is being decided one court case at a time, in defiance of the majority public will. It is for the people and their political apparatus to decide who has a right to be here, not out of touch judges. The bloated dysfunctional system of human rights and international treaties is now in direct conflict with democracy.

The subsequent row over human rights is not about human rights at all. The NGOcracy and the liberal elites know that reform of human rights is an attack on their power to dictate to the rest of us.

These are people imbued with the notion that they are more enlightened than the rest of us, and use their influence to stifle debate and strangle democracy. They believe liberal democracy means getting their own way every single time – and that decisions they perceive to be wrong should be corrected by the courts.

When the democratic process is then side-lined in favour of rule by legal and judicial elites then consent to be governed begins to evaporate. That’s what’s happening here. We voted for an end to mass immigration, but it’s activist judges who have the final say. This cannot be sustained.

Ultimately the current regime does more to protect the rights of foreign gang rapists, murderers and paedophiles than the rights of British citizens who are increasingly told what they can’t think or say.

What’s worse is the hypocrisy. The liberal chatterati pretend to speak of the poorest but when it comes to bogus asylum seekers, they’re all too happy to dump unlimited numbers on the places already struggling with problems of their own. Rotherham, Bradford, Rochdale. You know the list.

When challenged on how many should be allowed to come, and where we’re going to put them, they have no answers. The only time you’ll see an honest answer is on the far left – where York’s MP says that it doesn’t matter if you have to wait longer for a doctor’s appointment or if class sizes grow. She thinks it doesn’t matter if your neighbourhood is turned into a lawless slum. She is at least to be commended for her honesty, if not her intelligence.

Rachael Maskell relies on the university payroll and student vote so the working class of York doesn’t have a voice.

–

They certainly don’t believe in freedom of speech, and though they notionally think we should be allowed to vote, they prefer it if votes don’t influence anything. Their version of democracy is a sham.

Illegal immigrants still have good odds on evading deportation, and the Home Office won’t keep pace with the levels of new arrivals. The Nationality and Borders Act is not likely to improve matters when the Home Office is deeply dysfunctional and when the Tories are reluctant to make any radical reforms to the Human Rights Act.

All the while, we see a torrent of daily crime reports that expose the hollowness of the “diversity makes us stronger” mantra. The streets are increasingly lawless yet we’re supposed to pretend we’re enriched by diversity. Over the last decade machete attacks and acid attacks have become regular fare in local news. Child grooming and terrorism fester in our city suburbs but we’re not meant to talk about it. The police and the local media brush it under the carpet. The left makes excuses for it.

If we carry on as we are, we will lose our towns and cities to violent gangs. Islamic extremists will be calling the shots in local government. The police will cower behind political correctness and the rule of law, and respect for the law, will disintegrate. We risk living under a two-tier police regime and we’ll become an ungovernable country. We’re halfway there already.

Unless we restore control over our borders, we will see the cultural balkanisation of the UK. England itself is no longer a coherent, contiguous culture. Brexit exposed the massive gulf between London and the rest of the country, but there is further fragmentation between county and conurb – as cities become ethnic minority ghettos. Britain’s open borders are only going to increase the divisions. If they thought Brexit was toxic and divisive, they ain’t seen nothing yet.

–

It is the majority view that immigration should be controlled but the latest census data shows some towns growing by more than 117% in size. Yet there is an acute housing shortage in places close to centres of employment. It also explains why schools are oversubscribed and access to timely healthcare is collapsing.

The glib answer is always to build more houses, but if demand created by mass immigration keeps piling up then demand will always outstrip supply.

If we want a society that is fair to all then that starts with managed borders and controlled immigration. If we wish to remain a liberal and tolerant society then we must be able to remove those who cannot and will not integrate. If we want safe streets and trust in the community then we cannot afford a constant churn of foreign nationals from places where women and girls are tradable and disposable commodities.

When our infrastructure is creaking, the national grid can’t cope with existing demand, and the NHS is imploding, we’re not in a position to invite half the world to our shores. Especially not if we want to preserve the unique character of this beautiful country. We inherited something special and it is our duty to preserve it for the next generation. As the custodians of that inheritance, we are failing badly. We must unite to tell our political masters that enough is enough. Our patience is not infinite.

The Government Has Been Caught ‘Sleeping on the Job’ Again!

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 10:27:40 GMT

An election manifesto promise to del iver 6,000 additional GPs and 26,000 extra members of the wider practice team has been broken.

In Feb 2020 in a bid to reverse the stasis in GP workforce numbers the Government announced a drive to recruit an additional 6,000 General Practitioners by 2024.

The Government is failing to deliver on promised recruitment. As of April 2022, we now actually have the equivalent of 1,622 fewer qualified full time GPs compared to 2015.

The growing number of doctors wanting to work part-time has led to huge staff shortages, over 50% are working from home at least some of the time. This trend is set to continue as doctors say working from home has improved their work/life balance. As GPs are responsible for 90% of patient consultations it is no wonder that surgeries burdened with piles of admin and bureaucracy are seeing more GPs burning out and leaving the profession.

Add to this problem more than a quarter of senior consultant physicians are expected to retire in the next three years (many within 18 months) while the majority of trainees entering the NHS (56%), are interested in working part-time. It would seem that part-time and flexible working for GPs will be a necessity in the future to improve both recruitment and retention of staff.

Practices unable to recruit sufficient staff has resulted in an increase in the number of locum GPs and resulted in a reduction in continuity of care and often quality of care. Patient dissatisfaction is high when a patient rarely gets to see the same GP twice.

Navigating online appointments can be hard and many are abandoning plans to ask the GPs advice and either living with the problem or self-medicating. Failure of GPs to see patients in a timely fashion means A & E departments being overloaded. Doctors should see patients and request admissions where necessary. Patients should not be forced to admit themselves to A & E. It is appalling that people are having to take this risk. GPs not seeing patients has led to both misdiagnosis and failure to spot signs of serious illness.

The chronic shortage of GPs is the reason patients are facing long waiting times for appointments.

This problem has not occurred overnight, the Government has been caught ‘sleeping on the job’

The Government has to expand medical school places now to train more doctors, invest in social care and address the inequalities that create and worsen ill-health.

Feb 2015 the UK population was reported to be 65.12 million it is expected to reach 67.44 million by the end of 2022. Unless action is taken to stop the increase in population from illegal immigration, this crisis will go from bad to worse.

For pity’s sake and the sake of the health of every member of the population in the UK will you please, Boris Johnson get your act together and stop breaking election manifesto promises!

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party – Spokeswoman for Health, Social Care and Housing

Big Businesses and Invading Illegal Immigrants

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 10:23:09 GMT

The UK Independence Party opposes global big business supporting the illegal migrant invasion

According to Amazon.com, since October, they have supported @Care4Calais by transporting more than 33,500 donations to help illegal immigrants feel welcome and comfortable as they "start a new life in the UK".

This is unforgiveable interference in our national affairs. The illegal immigrants are “starting a new life” in our country after breaking the law to enter without permission. UK taxpayers are being forced to subsidise their lifestyle in luxury hotels whilst they wait for deportation day, which will probably never come.

Amazon is a foreign owned multinational company, which is making huge tax efficient profits from its sales into the UK. It is utterly unacceptable that it is using those profits made from an unsuspecting UK public, to actively undermine our nation's borders.

This globalist inspired meddling must stop. #DefundAmazon

Steve Grimes

UK independence Party – Spokesman for Business, Trade & Foreign Affairs

Is Our Schooling Failing Our Children & Young People?

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 10:18:06 GMT

The Times Education Commission survey and the education plans of the UK Independence Party.

A Times Education Commission set up in 2021 ‘to examine the future of education in light of the Covid-19 crisis, declining social mobility, new technology and the changing nature of work,’ published the results of its yearlong study this June. Examining reform in ten areas - the Commission was fuelled by an increase of students starting school lacking basic skills. The ten areas under review are as follows alongside t he UK Independence Party manifesto for Education .

1. The purpose of education. The UK Independence Party will reorient the school curriculum around subjects and lessons that will enable students to leave school with the ability to think for themselves and to have a sound understanding of English, maths, science, and British history.

2. Social mobility (to include the attainment gap, early-years).

3. What children learn (the curriculum). The UK Independence Party requires primary schools to focus on developing literacy and numeracy and to develop intellectual skills

4. How children learn (teaching and pedagogy).

5. Assessment. The UK Independence Party believes that traditional exams are usually the fairest and best way of assessing academic standards and it will encourage exam boards to adopt this method as the norm and address grade inflation to make a particular grade meaningful UKIP will require each grade to be limited to a fixed percentage of entrants that will not vary from year to year. This will enable students and employers to know the value of their grade, regardless of when it was taken.

6. Education in the community (to include family, lifelong learning, classroom of the future, faith schools and the environment). The UK Independence Party will not allow schools to undermine parental rights and will repeal the Equality Act provisions that make race, sex, sexuality, and gender protected characteristics as part of a drive to stop the left-wing indoctrination of young minds.

7. Mental health and wellbeing (to include character, brain development, food, and fitness). The UK Independence Party requires primary schools to have adequate and easy to access playing fields so that school children can readily engage in and enjoy competitive sport. In addition, the U.K. Independence Party encourages competition in schools, particularly in sport, to reverse the practice of recent years which has viewed competition as inherently bad.

8. The role of AI and technology. The UK Independence Party will promote a local approach for the integration of skills with economic growth strategies, adapted to the needs of each individual community across the country and will encourage students to choose courses and careers that will help to fill the current skills gap, to benefit the UK and to give young people the best career opportunities.

9. Exclusion, alternative provision, and special educational needs. The UK Independence Party will introduce special educational needs modules in all teacher training courses and make it easier for teaching staff to access specialists who can assess special needs. In addition, The U.K. Independence Party will reverse the policy of closing schools for special needs children because some children with special needs need to be in special schools. There must be no stigma attached to these schools and will tackle the unacceptable waiting times for diagnostic assessment.

10. Further education and higher education(including skills, employment needs and apprenticeships). The UK Independence Party supports part-time provision of courses to widen access to higher education and to help up- skill the British workforce and protect the future further education budget in real terms. In addition, T\the UK Independence Party will end the target of 50% of young people going to higher education.

The review includes evaluations by ‘leading figures from business, science, culture and the arts as well as politics and education,’ the UK Independence Party, always ahead of the curve has addressed these pressing education concerns in its full manifesto. It is interesting to see how The Times Education Commission survey lines up with the long-established education plans of the UK Independence Party.

Julie Carter

UK Independence Party – Spokeswoman for Education

Sturgeon's Failures Domestically Force a Return to Her Bread & Butter

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 07:24:56 GMT

Nicola's at it again!

It would be our contention that the politicians who represent the Unionist parties in Scotland exhibit remarkably feeble qualities in challenging the narrative of the SNP.

The devolved Holyrood parliament has simply become a forum and device to promote a separatist position out of proportion to the actual support for the Nationalist argument.

The constant use of the terminology "Scottish Government" even by Unionist politicians gives an added and unnecessary credence to the notion that Scotland is already an independent state.

UKIP’s policy has consistently been that the Holyrood parliament is nothing more than an expensive and glorified form of local government which serves, on close inspection, no serious purpose other than to pay inflated salaries to second rate politicians, journalists, and hangers on.

Our robust true Unionist position is that Scotland is an integral part of the United Kingdom with its own specific identity. The Holyrood parliament should be abolished, and the term "Scottish Government" consigned to the nearest recycling receptacle.

We are the only mainstream party which offers this option in contrast to the insipid and ineffectual whining of the so called "Unionists" who forge careers for themselves by adding MSP to their name.

Donald MacKay

Scotland Leader - UK Independence Party

Raab's bill of rights is not enough

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 02:31:00 GMT

Britain must quit the ECHR

My writing these days is quite different to the Article 50 era. Post-Brexit, I’m of a far less compromising nature. Since we’ve gone to the trouble of leaving the EU, on the hardest of terms short of leaving on “WTO terms”, sacrificing considerable trade to do it, we might as well get on with it and go the whole hog. And that includes exit from the ECHR.

I’m told that abandonment of international law reduces our moral authority, but I can’t think of any recent example where dogmatic adherence to international law has bought us any leverage. It’s not like we can talk to Putin with a straight face about international law given our last few military adventures.

For all our high minded internationalist values, they tend not to make an appearance when signing an arms agreement with Saudi Arabia, and the EU doesn’t let things like human rights abuses interfere with trade deals – or influence where it bought gas from. We’re entirely selective about when we invoke international law.

Chiefly, though, the ECHR should be offensive to any democrat. The framework has spawned endless extensions of rights and has eroded the very concept of citizenship. Anyone who rocks up in a dinghy without invitation can claim the same rights as British born citizens. It undermines the notion that laws should be by the people for the people, and rights and entitlements are extended to undeserving foreigners by an activist judiciary that doesn’t even believe in borders.

Consequently the law is constantly being written and rewritten by the courts, evolving into a body of law that has zero democratic legitimacy, mandating social policies that never appeared on any manifesto. On matters such as immigration, the rule of the ECHR brings human rights into direct conflict with the majority will to limit immigration.

A significant fraction of the inflow is driven by the family reunification entitlement, where migrants who acquire residential status are able to bring in spouses and close relatives, including parents, grandparents and siblings. The flow under this provision is substantial, accounting for 17 percent of UK totals. That’s what makes the dinghy invasion even more troubling.

There’s another reason I dislike the notion of imposed extended rights. It stems from the same problem I have with international development bodies seeking to impose LGBT and women’s rights on the developing world. These are freedoms they have to fight for in their own time. Nations have to evolve at their own pace and laws must be derived from a common, organic set of values. Values based rules must enjoy a majority consensus. For rights to have legitimacy, rights have to be established from the bottom up, not imposed by foreign elites.

That much is also true of Europe. The ECHR presupposes all of Europe shares the same intrinsic liberal values, when a quick glance at Poland, Hungary and Ukraine suggests otherwise. The rule of law dispute within the EU is partly centred around a clash of values on LGBT laws. This is an area where the liberal elites believe the science is settled. It most certainly isn’t, especially as the transgender lobby flexes its muscles. The Hungarian parliament has voted through laws banning the dissemination of content in schools deemed to promote homosexuality and gender change. EU leaders have asserted that the law is not compatible with “EU values”.

It is galactic hubris to assume there is any such thing as EU values or even European values beyond basic tenets of democracy – and even than, that’s stretching it. We can’t even say for certain that there is such a thing as British values after half a century of human rights based social engineering. To assert that the rulings of foreign judges are superior to the laws passed by elected bodies is to say that democracy is subordinate to liberal technocracy.

The presumption that without the ECHR Britain would immediately turn down the road of fascism is similar rhetoric to that employed by the remain campaign, but nobody is looking to roll back fundamental rights commensurate with being a democracy. It’s just that there is an urgent need to correct a systemic imbalance that prevents Britain from controlling its borders. The ECHR grants protections to criminals with no moral right to be here. If the ECHR allows activist lawyers to undermine our system of immigration then it simply has to go.

Time and again we have seen how the ECHR the first port of call for tyrants seeking to overturn laws and policies they don’t like. The courts have replaced parliament as the venue for opposition and that opposition is accountable to nobody. This is the means by which transgender activists hope to win the right to take puberty blockers without parental consent. This is far beyond the scope of courts. This is a political issue that must be settled by politics.

But then that’s the thing with the entire human rights industry. It exists to abolish politics, and to take it out of the hands of ordinary people. It is partly why our democracy has stagnated.

Withdrawing from the ECHR, though, is likely to be a major undertaking and those advocating withdrawal need to start thinking about what replaces it. Some see withdrawal as a restoration of British common law, but that only goes so far. Withdrawing from the ECHR is a major constitutional upheaval, and an opportunity to reinvigorate politics. Why settle for restoration to a decrepit model when just about everyone can agree our model of for politics is in need of modernisation?

Having read further on Dominic Raab’s Bill of Rights, I’m now convinced it’s more of the same timid tinkering that will make very little difference either way. Raab is hoping his bill will have the same effect as leaving the ECHR without having to take in the human rights blob, doing it in a more low key way. I don’t think it’s going to be enough, and wouldn’t take much amending by any future government to restore the ECHR to full effect.

Critics of the bill overstate its impact. As ever we get the more shrill catastrophising from the left. More measured analysis suggests the bill does downgrade ECHR jurisprudence but doesn’t change the legal reality.

Professor Mark Elliot has it that this bill appears to be an attempt to preclude domestic courts from favouring creative or generous interpretations of rights under the ECHR ‘living instrument’ doctrine, whereby the Convention is viewed as a dynamic rather than a static human rights instrument, instead requiring UK courts to focus on the ‘original’ meaning of the text. He thinks that’s a bad thing. I don’t.

The ultimate issue here, says Elliot, is the notion enshrined in clause 3 that the UK Supreme Court is the ‘ultimate judicial authority’ when it comes to the interpretation of Convention rights as a matter of domestic law. “That is all well and good — but it cannot change the fact that, a matter of international law, the ECtHR is the ultimate judicial authority on such matters, and will continue to determine the scope of the UK’s binding treaty obligations”.

That is precisely why we have to leave the ECHR. Any ruling made under this adaptation could end up facing a challenge in Strasbourg and then we’re back at square one.

But then Raab’s Bill seems to be facing a mauling from all sides. An article on the “far right” British Democrats website makes roughly the same points as Mark Elliot. “This is completely contradictory and an example of how the government is tying itself in knots in its pretence to be whittling back the powers of the ECtHR while also remaining bound to its every tenet. So not only do the changes in the Bill have little merit, but even those that make sense are unlikely to succeed”.

The other problem, they note, is cultural. “The first problem is that British judges are pro-European and in favour of a maximalist interpretation of the ECHR. As I said earlier, British judges are not currently obliged to follow the ECtHR – but they always do, through choice. Most of our judges are just social-marxist political activists disguised in a wig, and they are likely to continue to rule against the government no matter what the legislation is trying to encourage them to do”.

Although ministers have complained loudly that the recent flight of illegal migrants to Rwanda was blocked by the ECtHR – something the new Bill seeks to prevent happening in future by stipulating that “no account is to be taken of any interim measure issued by the European Court of Human Rights” – we should remember that by the time the Home Office had gone through the British courts there were only seven passengers left on board anyway! British judges cannot be trusted. Another problem is that the British government is so pathetically submissive to ECtHR rulings; of the 47 countries signed up to the ECHR only two (the Czech republic and Austria) implement the court’s rulings more promptly than Britain. We are ruled by weak, cowardly and treacherous politicians, and the Bill of Rights will not change that.

I would add also that withdrawal from the ECHR doesn’t prevent judges referring to ECHR cases in their decision making even if rulings have no formal authority.

Mark Elliot has it that “the legal problem, is that the Bill rests on a false premise — namely, that it is possible to legislate domestically in order somehow to manipulate or magic away treaty obligations that are binding upon the UK as a matter of international law. The reality is that that is simply impossible. Even if individuals are less able to bring human rights claims in domestic courts, and even if those courts are less able to hold that Convention rights have been breached, the legal reality — that the UK is bound by the ECHR for as long as it remains a State Party — will not change as a result of the Bill. If the Government’s view is that the ECHR is a bad system, or that involving judges in the protection of human rights is inherently objectionable, it should have the courage of its convictions and say so”.

Again, he doesn’t agree it is. but I do. The generous consensus, though, is that the Tories need to either shit or get off the pot. That, sadly, is what they won’t do. There needs to be renewed pressure from the right to bring Tory policy back into focus. Now that we’ve left the EU, there can be no doubt as to the culprit when the next paedophile is granted permission to remain and these such examples will keep mounting. Like the campaign to leave the EU, the campaign to quit the ECHR could span decades, and like Brexit, it has that same feeling of inevitability about it as the population of the UK keeps rising and measures to remove illegal immigrants continue to be thwarted in the courts.

For as long as we are still bound by foreign laws, courts and judges, the ECHR will be a running sore in the Tory party much like EU membership was. It won’t take very long for Raab’s tinkering to be exposed as ineffectual and it’s only a matter of time before Patel’s borders Act is overturned in the courts. If the government is unable to bring a very visible problem under control then it becomes an other existential issue for the Conservative Party.

As with Brexit though, for such a seismic move to make a real impact, we first need a government that knows what needs to be done next. However much of the European legal order we remove, we’re still lumbered with a feral establishment and ineffectual politicians who are too lazy to take on the human right blob, and continue to benefit politically from left wing legal activism. Quitting the ECHR won’t solve that and I’m not sure what will. But I do know we haven’t seen the last of the “revolt on the right”.

Are we heading for a totalitarian state?

Tue, 28 Jun 2022 21:14:51 GMT

What's the difference between a welfare and a totalitarian state?

Are we heading for a totalitarian state?

We may choose to place great weight on the liberty of the individual believing it to be a good thing that people choose to live their lives as they see fit within the law.

You may order as you please from the menu as long as you are willing to settle the bill.

Individual liberty also serves as an effective barrier against any prospective state tyranny.

It stands to reason therefore that the more the state demands from us the less liberty we have.

So, when the state tells us what to think we are potentially in real trouble.

A healthy academic environment allows us to think whatever we like and await a critique from those who disagree.

We can worship any god, follow any religion, choose whom we wish to mix with and whom we wish to avoid, belong to any group with whom we wish to identify and stay away from those we do not.

It is called freedom.

Yet the current Conservative Government in no sense supports the above. Strangely many of their supporters think that they do.

The state "educates" our children, looks after us when we are sick, employs about one person in six, provides income to about one third of the population (excluding state pensions) and if you pay attention to the mainstream media is responsible for solving every social problem in existence.

No wonder we do as we are told and think as the state demands.

The original intentions may have been honourable, but the outcome is profoundly sinister.

UK Independence Party has always believed that nobody knows our interests better than ourselves and that the state should only, therefore, do those things which individuals cannot or must not do.

The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state? It is just a matter of time!

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party-Spokesman for Culture and Wokeness

Rail Strike – just the tip of the iceberg

Tue, 28 Jun 2022 20:47:33 GMT

Antony Nailer on why we need another Maggie!

With the inflationary spiral ramping up fast and with interest rates predicted to hit 10% by the end of the year the unions are now flexing their muscles, starting with a most devastating of transport services and a national rail strike. This will have an immediate affect on those who have to commute to work by train. Businesses will become short-staffed and cities in particular will have less tourists and shoppers. The economy will nosedive again.

Boris is not Maggie, and he is now politically wounded. The strike is between the rail workers and their employers, not with the government but the unions are going to use it as the tip of the iceberg for all other public service employees. Then we get the parity argument where they want a raise based on how important they are in respect of rail workers. There will be no zero settlements, they will all get something, and more than the government can afford.

Boris is not likely to last another year anyway, but Labour would be unable to hold back the unions who are their paymasters. A rainbow coalition would be even worse with the smallest party wielding the greatest power because of its threat to bring down the coalition.

What we need now is a right-wing government to give us energy security, enforced borders, stop decarbonisation and allow us to make steel again and make cost effective fertilizer for farms being encouraged to become more productive. Stop the land set-aside and re-wilding nonsense and return to 3 or 4 field crop and livestock rotation.

What we need now is another Maggie.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Transport

Police “Blind-Eye” To Sexual Exploitation of Children Must End

Tue, 28 Jun 2022 20:41:27 GMT

Culturally correct policing and the ignoring of Pakistani grooming gang abuse of underage girls must stop

The latest eight-year-long, £6 million investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) into the South Yorkshire Police “looking the other way” whilst 1,400 white girls were groomed, trafficked and sexual abused by Pakistani men, has resulted in… nothing.

And I mean virtually nothing, save a few slapped wrists and (at the most) the odd “final warning”.

In spite of a clear, institutionalised, failure by South Yorkshire police to protect children from sexual abuse.

In spite of the recorded abuse of the 1,400 children, in this case, taking place over a period of some 16 years.

In spite of 260 complaints.

In spite of 47 officers being investigated.

In spite of the IOPC upholding 43 of these complaints.

In spite of the IOPC finding that officers were specifically told to prioritise other crimes (over the sexual abuse of children as young as 12). In spite of the IOPC finding that officers in South Yorkshire ‘failed to protect vulnerable children’.

How clear does it need to be for serious remedial action to be taken?

No-one has been held accountable at any level of the South Yorkshire police hierarchy, and all involved have kept their jobs. Remember: this is about 1,400 known child victims.

The current system of police complaints has provided zero accountability.

The UK Independence Party has long been committed to holding an independent national inquiry into the political correctness that treats some minority communities preferentially.

The widespread sexual abuse of vulnerable girls by majority Pakistani grooming and rape gangs is a scandal covered up for many years – not only in this current case of 1,400 girls in Rotherham – but similar gangs in Rochdale, Oxford, Oldham, Derby, Telford, Peterborough, Newcastle, Aylesbury, Keighley, Halifax, Banbury, Huddersfield, and other towns, as well as by a Somali grooming gang in Bristol. Those in local government and the police who fail to protect children from rape gangs must be brought to account.

The UK Independence Party will end the culture of politically correct policing. The UK is policed by the consent of the people and the UK Independence Party will ensure that this remains so. The UK Independence Party is a great supporter of the police and believe they should be adequately funded and paid. But our police forces, to earn the consent of the people, must apply one rule for all.

An institutionalised police disregard to young and child female victims of sexual exploitation is thoroughly unacceptable. Police forces must be required to prioritise and investigate real crimes against the person and property.

Steve Unwin

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Home Affairs, Political Reform and Local Government

New census data shows immigration is still out of control

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 15:48:44 GMT

The UK has abandoned control of immigration

The population of England and Wales has risen to 59,597,300, results of the 2021 census show. It grew by more than 3.5 million (6.3%) since the last census in 2011 and there are more people over 65 than ever. When added to published census figures for Northern Ireland and official estimate of the Scottish population for 2020, the UK population now stands at 66,966,400. The rise is one of the biggest since the census began in 1801. The figures, we assume, do not include the >1m illegal immigrants. Data from the 2021 census for England and Wales will be published in stages over the next two years, the ONS said.

Some areas have seen a staggering population growth of 117% while remote towns have seen their populations decline considerably. So much for levelling up.

The broader trends, though, don’t tell us anything we didn’t know already. There is an acute housing shortage in places close to centres of employment. It also explains why schools are oversubscribed and access to timely healthcare is collapsing. Alarmingly the data also shows an ageing population suggesting our social care problems are only going to get worse.

The data also shows a decline in births, which is more than likely a consequence of increased competition for resources. When starter homes cost in excess of £200k, which aren’t even large enough to bring up a family, we’re making it harder and harder for young people to set down roots. The glib answer is always to build more houses, but if demand created by mass immigration keeps piling up then demand will always outstrip supply.

Of equal concern is that according to analysis carried out by campaign group Generation Rent, the number of private renter households in England headed by someone aged 65 or older is set to increase from 370,000 in 2015-16 to 995,000 by 2035-36. The rise will come as the result of more people reaching their forties without having made their first step onto the housing ladder, at which point it becomes increasingly difficult to get a mortgage, the report said.

We were told that increased immigration would pay for our pensions and elderly care, but that’s increasingly looking unlikely. Meanwhile immigration is adding to energy demand, and putting massive pressure on roads, water and basic infrastructure which is already at breaking point. Our villages are becoming towns and our towns are becoming cities, eating away at precious countryside, and everywhere becomes characterless urban sprawl. All must be sacrificed on the altar of GDP even if our cities turn into ungovernable multicultural slums.

Chiefly, the ONS data tells us that the UK has all but abandoned control of immigration. The prevailing mentality among policy makers and think thanks is that more immigration is the solution to structural problems and a means to mask anaemic economic growth.

We now know that the Tories have no intention of getting to grips with immigration. Boris Johnson intends to offer more visas to India in exchange for a trade deal, while non-EU immigration has skyrocketed since Brexit. Time and again the British public votes to control immigration, but the message just isn’t getting through. The Tories are only ever conservatives in opposition. There is only one party with a serious manifesto and a plan to control immigration , and that’s UKIP.

If Britain is to survive as a coherent, governable country, then immigration control has to be at the forefront of policy. The Tories will the issue into the long grass every time, always stopping short of making meaningful policy reforms. As for the other establishment parties, they simply don’t care how much misery they heap on the working classes of Britain, just so long as they get to parade their progressive credentials to each other. We’re running out of time to save Britain, and the only way to do that is to join UKIP.

Getting Brexit done

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 11:35:13 GMT

Britain still hasn't taken back control

“I do not welcome this bill,” says former prime minister Theresa May on the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. She says the bill is not “legal under international law”. This is a common view among the Very Serious People ™. International law is sacrosanct and no government must act in contravention of it. To exercise national sovereignty it is to be a rogue state. We also get the customary bleating about the Good Friday Agreement.

On this, the EU has two options. Either it agrees to reopen the protocol or it learns to live with whatever the Tories unilaterally implement. Since Sefcovic is adamant they won’t do the former, that as they say, is that.

That the Tories are making a giant mess is a separate issue. The EU has previously made a number of concessions in order for the Protocol to work better, but the Tories have seemingly decided that national sovereignty takes precedence, and all thigs considered, I don’t really really disagree with them. NI is part of the UK and if there is to be a regulatory border then the proper place for it is between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

If the Tories stick to that line then the conversation becomes one of how to facilitate the maximum frictionless trade, which, as I’ve postulated before, could then be used to address friction on the Dover-Calais route. This is something the EU is most concerned about in that it would restore a degree of single market functionality without the UK being a fully signed up member. The EU is hiding behind the GFA, but really this is about maintaining the integrity of their regulatory borders. I don’t blame them but they should at least be honest about it.

Something else we all need to be honest about is that the GFA in its current form is dead. It was at death’s door before Brexit and Brexit gave it that last little shove, and Ireland has used the situation to advance its own agenda. Again, I can’t say I blame them for trying, but they can’t be surprised it resulted in Tory unilateralism.

In any case it’s hard to see a future for the GFA being that it locks in the ECHR. Along with reaffirming a commitment to human rights in the Good Friday Agreement, parties agreed to change legislation in the UK to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) of the Northern Ireland Act (1998). The Northern Ireland Act of 1998 also provided for the establishment of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission which observed ECHR precedent. After the approval of the agreement in the referendum, The Northern Ireland Act (1998) guaranteed the establishment of the ECHR in Northern Ireland.

The Tories have not yet committed to quitting the ECHR but the writing is on the wall. Dominic Raab’s Bill of Rights Bill, as I understand it, partially disapplies the ECHR. Exactly how this would operate in practice is unclear, but unless there is a specific provision for the continued operation of the GFA, it’s as good as dead. I suspect the Bill of Rights will end up being an incoherent mess much like Patel’s borders bill, and wide open to legal challenges that brings us back to square one.

In my view, the ECHR has to go in its entirety and it can’t be fudged. That, though, is a battle the Tories arent; keen on. They’re hoping it can be fudged. They don’t want to confront the Left, and the huge human rights industry, but it’s also a matter of laziness. Without the act/convention, they will have to think in terms of replacement legislation and codes – which is no small undertaking, and will eventually point in the direction of a written constitution. That is a can of worms, I suspect, they don’t want to open. Sorting it is too much like hard work, and also could diminish executive powers. They like the fudge the way it is and the Tories have squandered the last of their political capital. This should have been the first order of business after Brexit.

We will no doubt hear more squealing about breaking international law, but the concept is ultimately meaningless. It implies a sort of simplistic, back and white lawbreaking, with the boys in blue ready to pounce with handcuffs at the ready. It doesn’t work like that any more than the WTO has black helicopters ready to swoop in if we put tariffs on steel.

International law is a vast canvass, and most of the treaties have more the aspect of contract law (in some languages, “treaty” and “contract” are the same word). Thus, in effect, we will be in breach of contract – a civil matter to be resolved in the first instance between the parties without the involvement of any outside agencies. And often the main way to resolve a dispute is to rewrite or modify the contract, whence life goes on. Invoking the term “illegal” is just drama queen stuff, overheated rhetoric by people who don’t really understand what they are dealing with. In this instance, the EU and the UK can do a ritual dance and then sit down and sort something out. That’s what they do.

Ultimately the job of reordering the British constitution is too big and too complex, and too contentious for a lame duck PM like Boris Johnson. The most we can expect from this administration is a series of fudges that point in the right direction, but it’s going to take a committed and serious government to hammer it all the way home. If it’s not going to happen under Johnson then it’s unlikely his immediate successor will either. Unpicking Blair’s human rights regime is a long term project and we shall likely suffer a Labour government in the interim.

In any case, removing the legal impediments to implementing a functioning borders policy is only half of the job. We still need a coherent enforcement regime and for the Home Office to stop dragging its heels. That will require a change of culture within the department and internal resistance suggests the Home Office should be broken up and a new department for deportations established, staffed by carefully vetted people who actually want to do the job.

Ultimately Brexit demanded a revolution in terms of the British constitutional make up. Remainers squeal that the ECHR is separate to the EU, but it was part of the Europeanisation of our constitution, and is still an intolerable impediment to national sovereignty. Brexit alone wasn’t going to undo the constitutional damage of the last half century.

This should be viewed as an opportunity to renew British democracy. As much much as we need to remove the bloated and creaking ECHR regime, we need to modernise our constitution in recognition of the fact that the two party Wesminster carousel is no longer an adequate basis for our front line politics. At its core, this is what Brexit was supposed to be about, and Brexit won’t be “done” until there’s a government willing to recognise it.

Asylum: sham democracy

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 01:51:49 GMT

The dinghy issue is really about fairness

The dinghy issue, for me, isn’t about immigration at all. It’s about fairness. On this you have to start from first principles. If you believe in borders then it follows that borders must be enforced. I know some would happily close the borders, but that’s a different debate. As it stands, because we, as a country, believe in borders, and we recognise that not all who wish to come here can come here. We have an immigration system. It’s more generous than I would like. But that’s the rule of law decided by a flawed but legitimately elected government.

The weakness in that system is antiquated asylum regime which is wide open to abuse – and not only is it being abused, it is weaponised by an army of human rights lawyers and NGOcrats to subvert our entire immigration system to bring about the open borders their liberal ideology demands. The majority – democracy – is subordinate to the rich few. The self-declared citizens of nowhere.

That makes this bigger than the immigration debate. This exposes who really has the power. Those who have it do not wield it legitimately. The daily flotilla of dinghies is just a symptom of that. One of many symptoms of a decaying and moribund democracy. Though there is disagreement in the debate on the Linton on Ouse facility, even refugee advocacy groups agree it’s the wrong place. But it won’t be the people who live there who make the final decision. Local democracy is already dead.

What makes this such a flashpoint issue is the essential dishonesty of of the progressive left. Most of us can agree that we can and should help genuine refugees. Though there are many ways to do that. It does not follow that we can or should open our borders to all comers. Moreover, the status of refugee implies an eventual return to their country of origin, but we all know that those who pay smugglers to cross the channel do so to start a new life here regardless of whether they have any right to do so.

We are persistently fed the lie that dinghy arrivals are desperate and destitute when most are economic migrants who have chosen Britain and see it as their right to be here. That right, though, is being decided one court case at a time, in defiance of the majority public will. It is for the people and their political apparatus to decide who has a right to be here, not out of touch judges. The bloated dysfunctional system of human rights and international treaties is now in direct conflict with democracy.

The subsequent row over human rights is not about human rights at all. The NGOcracy and the liberal elites know that reform of human rights is an attack on their power to dictate to the rest of us. These are people imbued with the notion that they are more enlightened than the rest of us, who have used their influence to stifle debate and strangle democracy, believing liberal democracy means getting their own way every single time and that decisions they perceive to be wrong should be corrected by the courts.

To a very large extent, democracy is all about messy and unsatisfying compromises, and the democratic process is about managing consensus. Nobody gets it all their own way. But on fundamental issues, borders especially, there is very often no compromise to be had. Either you believe in borders or you don’t.

When challenged on how many should be allowed to come, and where we’re going to put them, they have no answers. The only time you’ll see an honest answer is on the far left – where York’s MP says that it doesn’t matter if you have to wait longer for a doctor’s appointment or class sizes grow. It doesn’t matter if your neighbourhood is turned into a lawless slum. She is at least to be commended for her honesty, if not her intelligence. Rachael Maskell relies on the university payroll and student vote so the working class of York doesn’t have a voice.

Ultimately these people don’t believe in democracy or the nation state as you or I understand it. They believe in the cult of human rights where the citizen has no more rights than anyone who rocks up in a dinghy, and that public funds exist only to massage their already overinflated egos. They certainly don’t believe in freedom of speech, and though they notionally think we should be allowed to vote, they prefer it if votes don’t influence anything. Their version of democracy is a sham.

This last week, Dominic Raab has announced a series of reforms to the human rights apparatus, and on face value, they look like they may help to unpick the current mess, but one can’t help but notice that we are always one new law away from solving the problem. It might piss off all the right people, but nobody believes the Tories will go the whole hog and actually start deporting those with no right to be here. That’s the real test of whether this government wants to see another term. Unless voters can see that their votes can change things we will see this issue take to the streets.

The EU Is Not Bound by the ECHR, So Why Should the UK Be?

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 15:50:16 GMT

Did you know that the EU is not compliant with its own 2009 Treaty of Lisbon regarding ECHR membership?

Why is it that nobody realises that the European Union (EU), as an entity, is not a member of the 46-member state Council of Europe.

That means the EU as an institution is not bound by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), so individuals cannot put the EU before the European Court of Human Rights for any violations by the EU as a body.

It also means that the EU Court of Justice, the (ECJ), is not bound by rulings from the European Court of Human Rights.

This is despite all EU member states being required to join the Council of Europe in order to be a member state of the EU.

The EU’s own 2009 Treaty of Lisbon requires the EU as a body, to be a member of the Council of Europe and to be bound by the ECHR.

But, well over a decade later, the EU is still not a member of the Council of Europe.

With the reason being, that back in 2014, the EU Court of Justice ruled that the EU joining the Council would not be compatible with EU law.

That can be construed as, the EU will not agree to any challenge to its own supremacy.

The UK now needs to follow suit and declare that membership of the Council of Europe is no longer compatible with UK law.

Especially as Russia has withdrawn and been ejected from the council, but still technically remains a member until September 16 - meaning that the Russian judge stays in place, actively involved in deciding human rights cases. And that may have included the Rwanda flight ruling.

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Brexit and Northern Ireland

A Mental Health Crisis is Looming

Tue, 21 Jun 2022 18:32:42 GMT

Jordan Gaskell discusses the relationship between the cost-of-living crisis and mental health...

If you experience another mental health problem, it is common to also experience depression.

Depressive and anxiety disorders are increasing rapidly, and the COVID-19 pandemic is largely responsible. It induced a considerable degree of fear, worry and concern in the population at large.

The fear of relatives dying, impacted on children and adults alike, rich, and poor alike.

Depression can occur for a variety of reasons, an upsetting or stressful life event, such as bereavement, divorce, illness, redundancy and job or money worries. We have to add to this list the cost-of-living crisis. It is indeed a crisis!

There is arguably no disputing that the cost-of-living crisis has negatively impacted the mental health of a large proportion of the nation.

After months of on and off lockdowns and pandemic stress we now must face the cost-of-living crisis making it even harder on an already struggling populous.

There is a huge lack of empathetic understanding of how the economic hardships impact on people's mental wellbeing.

The link between mental health and poverty is one of the best researched areas and strongest correlations.

This additional stress can increase the risk of physical health issues such as heart disease or even cancer.

The UK Independence Party openly calls upon the government to do more to tackle this looming crisis and to start taking mental health problems caused by the cost- of- living crisis, very seriously, before the situation is completely out of control and we are beyond the point of no return!

Jordan Gaskell

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Wellbeing & Mental Health

The Enemy Online

Mon, 20 Jun 2022 21:15:32 GMT

Why we need to ward against online radicalisation

Extremism is arguably the biggest threat to modern day Britain and the online presence of groups such as ISIS and other anglophobic organisations make it much easier for the younger generation to become targets of these terrorist groups. In the year ending 31st March 2021, there were 4,915 referrals to Prevent according to Gov.uk, with people aged between 15-20 years old making up 29% of the above statistic. It is quite evident to say that the Covid-19 lockdowns played a big part into this, with youngsters trapped indoors with virtually no other option than to be online.

Large corporations such as Twitter and Facebook have done nothing to tackle online radicalisation, accounts spreading hate to the Western countries are freely allowed to publicise and indoctrinate whilst Donald Trump and Katie Hopkins are banned from these networks. It’s almost like social media are aiding and abetting the destruction of our great country. Police and Crime Commissioners across the nation also do next to nothing to combat online hate, with their constant investments into removing free speech from these platforms and wanting to hand criminal convictions to those who have an opinion that differs from the perceived ‘norm’ of society.

The most notable example of radicalisation is Shamima Begum. Her story shows us all that Islamic Extremism can dig its venomous teeth into anyone, even people thousands of miles away. Now, do I believe Shamima knew what she was doing and what she was getting herself into? Yes, I do. As soon as she stepped foot into Syria, she became an enemy of our country, and her excuses cannot excuse her values at the time of becoming an ISIS bride. Nobody forced her to leave home and become a terrorist. That decision lies with her, and her alone. The government’s decision to revoke her citizenship is a necessary one to keep our nation secure.

It’s a fact that Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones would still be alive if we policed the internet correctly. The 22 at Manchester Arena would still be here if online surveillance of suspected terrorists were taken more seriously. Lee Rigby would still be with us if police budgets were used to combat online hate preaching instead of used to fund LGBTQ+ police uniforms and pursue so-called ‘hate crimes.’

It is our duty as a country to protect our children, and that includes from the clutches of terrorism. In the past 20 years, north of 100 people have been killed in Islamic terror attacks, with over 3 times that amount being injured.

The United Kingdom Party is the only party that vows to invest more into online policing against radicalisation and extreme political grooming. The future of this country needs protection and security, and the events of the past twenty years show that Labour and the Conservatives show no care nor remorse and have no backbone to fight against the ‘invisible threat’ lurking in our phones, laptops, tablets etc.

What we need to do is target the problem directly and cut the heads off the Hydra. This means more online surveillance, more raids by the National Crime Agency (NCA)and most definitely more deportations.

UKIP is the only viable option to Save Britain before it’s too late.

Jack Thomson

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Young People

Politics: last chance saloon

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 09:42:06 GMT

Brexit wasn't enough to fix Britain

I don’t get on particularly well with hardcore Brexiteers because I’m not going to say it’s a roaring success and I won’t play rhetorical games to gloss over the economic damage Johnson's deal has caused.

But then the one thing I was consistent about in my campaign writing was Brexit would come at a cost in terms of trade and the best case scenario was that it would make little overall difference to trade. Towards the end of the Article 50 era, I’d lowered my expectations of Brexit. I was so disillusioned with politics and the ability of our politics to deliver change for the better that I considered Brexit more of a moonshot.

I would, however, qualify that by saying that Brexit was never an economic venture. It was for the “free trade” ERG but its origins are rooted in the constitutional question of who governs us – and that questions is not yet full resolved.

Since Brexit, the groupthink in the Westminster bubble is that Brexit has divided the country. To be more precise, it has clarified and exposed existing social divisions. That, I think, needed to happen. At least now we all know where we stand. It’s exposed the Labour party in full and we can now drop any pretence that it represents the working class. Labour’s problems were not solved by ousting Jeremey Corbyn. It has more fundamental problems.

As to the Tories, Brexit only momentarily gave the party a sense of purpose but when it comes to delivering for the people, the cupboard is bare. They have only gimmicks and slogans. Levelling up was a ticket to nowhere, and Net Zero stands to do more harm to the economy than even the hardest of Brexits. All those coal-fired power stations we blew up… it turns out they were quite important.

In order for Brexit to mean anything Britain needs to shake off EU/Blair inspired social democracy. Brexit makes that easier to do, but we first need a government and a PM that wants to do it. And that isn’t Boris Johnson – who has cemented his reputation as Fat Blair. But Boris Johnson isn’t really the problem. Johnson is just the figurehead for a failing and decrepit political establishment. Economic revival isn’t possible without major political renewal. There was a slim chance that Brexit might achieve that had there been any sort of plan, but hopes are now fading.

As to uniting the country, this is all but impossible. The latest groupthink in Wesminster has it that, thanks to Brexit, Britain is more at ease with high levels of immigration now we’ve supposedly taken control of it. That’s not what I’m seeing and I don’t trust the polling. We clearly haven’t got grip on illegal immigration and the latest ruling from the ECHR is a reminder that the British government refuses to assert its sovereignty.

Dominic Cummings congratulates himself and Brexit for having lanced the boil of the “revolt on the right” but it’s still early days. Brexit has deprived UKIP and the Brexit Party offshoot of their primary grievance and their main platform, but immigration is coming back to the fore. There are half a dozen small anti-immigration parties and sooner or later one of them is going to get organised. I’d doesn’t manifest on Twitter or Facebook due to censorship, but the sentiment on the right is now darker than it was before Brexit. Patience is running out.

Perhaps the most malign aspect of the EU was the single market and freedom of movement which basically allowed business to run on a JIT basis, treating workers as an infinitely replaceable commodity. That model is the EU’s lasting legacy in Britain. Even now the prevailing mindset looks to immigration to full labour and skills gaps. The NHS, better than anything else, illustrates this. About 40 percent of the NHS’s 123,000 doctors are from minority backgrounds, compared with approximately 13.8 percent of the general population. We continue to use immigration as a sticking plaster for structural problems in the economy. That isn’t going to be solved without a fundamental shake up of higher education and the welfare state. Something else the Tories have failed to deliver.

Fundamentally, Britain is held hostage to its intellectually exhausted establishment and its sclerotic politics. Brexit wasn’t enough to change that. Respective left wing blobs have a strangle hold over the institutions and our politicians don’t disagree with them sufficiently to do anything about it. Eco activists are calling the shots on energy policy, education is a lost cause, the NHS unreformable and foreign judges have more power over immigration policy than the voters. “Civil society” in Westminster is made up of identikit drones marinated in diversity and inclusion dogma, eco-fanaticism, human rights (for criminals and immigrant only), and open borders ideology. Voters don’t get a look in.

This is partly to do with a demoralised and supine electoral who generally can’t be arsed to do politics and will do anything for an easy life. I sometimes wish I could join them because most of the time the hassle isn’t worth it. Perhaps this winter when voters are going without heating and can’t afford to get to work they might start paying attention. Political gimmicks and handouts aren’t going to fix Britain. The people have to take back control because politicians aren’t going to.

Immigration: digging our own graves

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 19 Jun 2022 18:43:41 GMT

Mass immigration hits the working class the hardest

The other day I visited my parents. Upon leaving, I struggled to make a right turn, because the take-away delivery drivers park right on the corner. I asked the driver to shift his car explaining that nobody could can see oncoming tragic. He didn’t speak English well enough to comprehend what I was saying. He made a threatening gesture. I thought best to leave it. This has been brought to the attention of the council and the police but nothing is ever done about it.

This is one of the many subtle ways that immigration erodes quality of life, and in the main, predominantly affects working class communities. It’s what causes “white flight” which is why we’re gradually seeing our cities becoming ethnic enclaves. I’ve seen this happening over the last twenty years or so, where friends have basically had enough. One friend couldn’t even walk the dog without being spat at by Pakistani youths and had to pack tracksuit bottoms to go out clubbing so she could get home unmolested.

In both instances, as average house prices were skyrocketing, both of my friends made a loss on their investments. Whatever you might asset about the economic benefits of immigration, it’s the working classes who pay the most while the affluent middle classes get the benefits.

You can argue that this is as much a consequence of local council and police inaction, and if they acted it would be far less of an issue, but in the predominantly Muslim areas, the writ of law barely runs and locals daren’t complain in case of repercussions. The one time I did involve the police after an assault, the assailant appealed and got off with a warning. He and his gang then set about a campaign of terror forcing me to leave my flat. This is how the Pakistanis end up colonising entire areas, buying up properties for cash at rock bottom prices.

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of the “Pakistani community”. My views are shaped by my experiences. We’ve imported an alien culture that doesn’t integrate. Pakistan itself is a vile backwards country and we are not enriched by bringing in more of them. As to the dinghy migrants, we’re laying the foundation for more inter-ethnic rivalry between Afghans and Pakistanis, and it’s going to get violent, and the police won’t be able to patrol without armoured landrovers. Britain is going to get more dangerous for women, Jews and gays.

This is what the embedded left wing establishment doesn’t want to acknowledge. As far as they’re concerned, immigration means their academic and professional colleagues. Cup cakes and rainbows. According to York Central MP, Rachael Maskell, the influx of migrants should be limitless .

She says it doesn’t matter if it means larger class sizes and longer NHS waiting lists. She says it doesn’t matter if things are “slightly more challenging”. She doesn’t care if the working class bears the brunt. She doesn’t care if our cities turn into lawless shit tips. There’s no imminent danger of that happening to York. Being from Winchester, raised in the whitest, wealthiest part of the country, she has no idea what she’s inflicting on the rest of us. Nor have her dim-witted supporters given it any thought by the looks . Maskell favours a “homes for refugees scheme” but not one of the open borders brigade is willing to give houseroom to a refugee.

The modern left exists in a completely detatched bubble. I keep asking what the befit of mass immigration is but I never get a coherent or honest answer. What did it continue that make it worth the Islamic terrorism, the grooming gangs, the machete weilding psychopaths , the daily stabbings and the de-facto blasphemy laws? Who exactly has been enriched by it? Because it certainly wasn’t my friends in Bradford who invested in their homes. It certainly wasn’t teenage girls in Rotherham. It wasn’t the rural working classes who’ve been priced out of their villages. As to the effect of poaching doctors, nurses, vets and skilled labourers from the third world, it has only served to keep Africa down – causing more displacement of people.

The long term effect is far more corrosive. When there is a massive cultural and political gulf between city and county, there is no possibility of national consensus, and one half is always subdued by the other. Meanwhile, politicians who won’t face reality increasingly represent nobody but their own little confirmation bubbles. A feral elite imposes its own brand of tyranny. Mass immigration is a threat to what’s left of our liberal democracy.

The politicians don’t care what’s happening, while the police and local media attempt to suppress what’s happening in fear of a “far right backlash”, but as with everything else, won’t actually do anything. They keep us in the dark and feed us shit, while acute problems continue to fester and they keep pouring more petrol on the bonfire.

Asylum: the lies of the left

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 19 Jun 2022 18:40:42 GMT

If the left had better arguments, they'd be using them by now

A “journalist” by the name of Harry Shukman has written an article to imply I attended a demonstration organised by Patriotic Alternative – a group with BNP origins (as I understand it). The demonstration, if we can call it that, to the best of my knowledge, was organised by a Linton resident and I had no prior knowledge of PA’s attendance. But as a blogger with an innate sense of curiosity I would have gone anyway because unlike Shukman, I actually talk to the people with whom I disagree.

I did speak on camera with prolific video blogger, alias Active Patriot. I am not aware of any of his affiliations, though his stated views on the dinghy crisis differ little from my own. Shukman also asserts that I’ve been “stirring up tensions”. By this, he means I expressed my opinion on a blog. He further claims that I am “in communication” with Sam Melia of Patriotic Alternative, “feeding him blogs about villagers he dislikes”.

This is a lie. I replied to a comment by Sam with a link to my blog which was about the chair of the Ripon City of Sanctuary charity; a woman who has inserted herself into the Linton Action Group despite not living in or near Linton. Every claim made about her, to the best of my knowledge, is true.

Shukman also writes that I “fantasised about lefty QCs “swinging from lampposts”. That much is true. I still do. But the actual context was a Twitter reply to Jessica Simor QC, in which I remarked that if the establishment succeeded in overthrowing the 2016 referendum then we would see a low grade civil war and that it would be “lefty QCs” swinging from lampposts. I was convinced of that at the time, and I remain convinced that vexatious legal activism is likely to provoke civil disorder. Simor claims to her Twitter followers that my remarks amounted to a death threat because she’s a liar.

Shukman also mentions that I accused the Remain-voting philosopher AC Grayling of paedophilia and was successfully sued for libel, having to pay £20,000 in damages. That much is not strictly true. I jokingly remarked that he had a hard drive full of “underage botty sex videos” – to a small twitter audience and the tweet could not be considered a serious allegation.

I would have apologised and retracted had he approached me privately but he immediately initiated legal action, knowing I couldn’t afford a legal defence. This was a politically motivated act of spite because I'm a brexiteer. As far as I’m concerned, that says more about him and the content of his character. He never received a penny. He continues to harass me with bailiffs, but they leave empty-handed. It has not gone unnoticed that Carole Cadwalladr can defame Arron Banks with serious intent and get away with it, but I was to be ruined for an irreverent tweet.

Harry Shukman has attempted to smear me as far right by association, by way of simply participating in a local debate. I am not a member of any far right organisation. I don’t know of any that would even have me as a member being that I do not subscribe to ethno-nationalism and find the anti-Semitic conspiracies of far right groups absolutely abhorrent.

All the same, my reputation as a Brexit blogger was one of objectivity in that I managed to offend and annoy both sides. I continue to walk that line on other issues. I do have members of far right and far left groups as Facebook friends because I do believe in diversity of opinion, and I don’t want to live in an echo chamber. Harry Shukman is a liar and his “journalism” is gossip and innuendo.

This is very much standard fair for the far left. Guilt by association padded out with gossip. He selectively quotes me but doesn’t address the arguments, and if he did I’d take him to pieces. But then I’ve had near ten years of this on Twitter. It goes with the territory.

I’ve talked to a few of these “far right” types, and most of them are just ordinary working class people from the area. James Goddard has made an appearance at the second demonstration organised by the Linton Action Group. A number of right wing activists showed up along with most TV media. I spoke to Goddard on camera, not actually knowing who he was. I don’t know much about him other than his harassment of Anna Soubry. Patriotic Alternative have been active in the area. They’re not my cup of tea. Mark Collett is a close to Nazi as Nazi gets in Britain.

The problem for the left is that the far right have better, more persuasive, and more accurate arguments. That’s why the likes of Shukman resort to smear. There are gaping holes in the “destitute refugees” narrative that they’d rather not address. The far right will talk about grooming gangs, Islamic extremism and violent crime while the left sweep it under the rug. The speak to people’s legitimate fears.

Where the actual far right is concerned, though, it’s not what they say in public when they’re on good behaviour. It’s what they’re saying in their Telegram channels and Whatsapp. There you’ll find unguarded racism and antisemitic conspiracy theories. I have nothing to do with that and I never will.

But then, by the same token, the left have their own antisemitic conspiracy theories based on ancient fictions. The right talks about “Jewish lobbying” – which is just an offshoot of the oligarchy (Gates/Soros/WEF etc) that meddles in top level western politics – and much of it is actually true. It’s a matter of what weighting you put on it. But that’s another debate the left doesn’t want to have.

When it comes to the likes of Hope Not Hate etc, they talk up the terror threat of the far right, completely ignoring Islamic extremism, because their game is to manufacture a dangerous threat in the public eye, and associate political opponents with it so they’re pre-cancelled – which is a great way of completely silencing the working class. A number of Linton residents have told me that they’re afraid to speak up because of the professional consequences.

As it happens, I concur that there is a growing far right movement. The Telegram channels and Whatsapp groups are useful indicators. They tend to be the canary down the mine in certain circumstances. But these subterranean chat bubbles only exist because of Facebook and Twitter censorship. Some activists have thousands of followers, competing with many of the lefty Twitter bubbles in size.

Ultimately people just want to feel heard. The Linton issue has become a microcosm of national politics, where polite society with access to the institutions has moved in, supplanting genuine democratic sentiment and has jealously guarded their position, smearing anyone who’s off message. When people aren’t listened to they will turn to those who do listen. And in this case, it’ll be Patriotic Alternative and Britain First. York Central MP, Rachael Maskell has made it abundantly clear that she equates opposition to the Dover invasion with racism, and Kevin Hollinrake has made similarly mealy mouthed remarks about the “far right”.

The politicians aren’t listening, the local media is completely biased, Facebook is heavily censoring debate on the issue, and Twitter is policed by far left activists who take great pride in having opposing voices suspended. Consequently dissent finds its way to Telegram and gaming channels. You don’t kill an idea by stifling it. Censorship doesn’t work. All the left is succeeding in doing is swelling the ranks of the alienated and disenfranchised, many of whom will turn further to the right. When you’ve already smeared and silenced a person, they have nothing left to lose. The antidote to the growing far right is open and frank debate and effective border controls but these are the two things the left refuses to entertain.

Asylum: Labour is still on another planet

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 23:15:12 GMT

York Central MP is away with the fairies

Last night I attended a public meeting in York. I wasn’t expecting much being that it was hosted by Stand Up To Racism, featuring York Central MP, Rachael Maskell. I almost didn’t make it because I arrived a little early and called into the pub on the corner for a quick pint, and in the beer garden there was a merry Geordie fellow who started telling me about his time in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary which was a billion times more entertaining and interesting than anything a dimwit lefty MP has to say. Frankly, I wish I’d stayed where I was – and I’m sure Rachel Maskell does as well.

The meeting was pretty much as predicted, complete with an effeminate transvestite with a five o’clock shadow on the door clutching a bale full of Social Worker newspapers. The first speaker was a Covid-masked Rachael Maskell (nominative determinism?). Her speech was pretty much a recital of all the dim-witted leftist tropes about vulnerable and desperate refugees – along with the “ safe and legal routes ” drivel. She described the Rwanda policy as “fascism” and went on to compare recent events with the beginnings of Nazi Germany. She’s seriously is thick as a box of hammers.

She is opposed to the migrant reception facility at Linton-on-Ouse, likening it to an “open prison”, but argued that we should be looking to house them in “our communities” (where she doesn’t live). She remarked that she had other engagements that evening (hoping to slink off without being questioned), so naturally I didn’t wait until the end to ask her where all this surplus housing was. She didn’t have an answer and I didn’t expect her to.

Her idiocy stems from the central self-deceit that the dinghy arrivals are genuine refugees and trotted out some flimsy statistics to support her assertion. If you can convince yourself of that much, then all the rest of the idiocy flows naturally. That the dinghy arrivals are predominantly Muslim men of fighting age seems to have escaped her, along with all the reports of rape and child grooming.

As it happens, only nineteen affordable homes were built in York last year and there is no surplus of social housing, so ultimately she means “refugees” should be dumped on Bradford and Leeds, and we should house as many as want to come. That, essentially, is Labour’s policy.

This was met with nodding approval from the dozen or so white haired middle class retiree liberals but not so much the very working class people on the back row who stormed out with me after about twenty minutes. Maskell is no doubt telling her colleagues the meeting was gate-crashed by the “far right”.

But then Maskell has no reason to care what her working class constituents think. There can’t be many of those in central York. She can adopt juvenile open borders dogma and it’ll be well received by her student voter base. They who will leave York as soon as they graduate.

Frankly I’m surprised I even lasted twenty minutes before losing my rag. I certainly wasn’t going to make it through the full two hours of speakers. The look on Maskell’s face was quite entertaining though. I don’t think she’s used to oiks speaking out of turn in her presence. If, though, she thinks she can spout this airheaded dogma without being challenged then she’s in for a shock. Outside the cosy little left wing confirmation bubble, the anger is rising. Mine especially.

It has long been observed that the Labour party no longer represents the working class, and last night’s meeting was a perfect example of why. Maskell couldn’t be more out of touch and tone deaf, and exists in a fantasy world of her own making. That she’s in bed with Stand Up To Racism suggests she’s barely evolved from her sixth-form politics, like many of her Labour colleagues. If tonight convinced me of anything, it’s that the Tories, even on recent from, have a long way to go before they’re they’re as contemptible as Labour.

Petrol Price Crisis & the Blame Game

Fri, 17 Jun 2022 13:12:59 GMT

The government needs to reduce fuel duty now!

The price of petrol at the pump on 15th June 2022 was on average 186p per litre.

Petrol is made up of octane, heptane, and 7% bioethanol. Fuel duty was reduced earlier this month from 57.95p per litre to 52.95per litre, just 5p.

Petrol price per litre 186p
Petrol wholesale cost 96p
Petrol & bioethanol duty 53p
Retailer profit 4p
Delivery 2p
Net price 155p
VAT @ 20% 31p
RETAIL PRICE 186p

The UK fuel duty is 20% higher than 35 other major economies and steadily crippling

domestic customers.

Retailer profit is below the recent 5p government discount but with prices rising almost every day the retailer has to keep paying more for supplies, which uses all the profit and more and creating a cash flow problem.

The government blaming the retailer for not passing on the fuel duty reduction is a blatant attempt to avoid the focus of greed on itself.

Fuel wholesale cost 52%
Government tax 45%
Retail profit 2%
Delivery cost 1%

UKIP demands the government starts to show some compassion for the people of this nation and reduce fuel duty by 10p per litre to bring it in line with 35 other leading nations.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party - Spokesman for Transport

Out of the EU and Into the World

Fri, 17 Jun 2022 13:00:04 GMT

Why Brussels border checks on UK imports are not cricket

According to a recent report by the Food and Drink Federation, UK food and drink exports to non-EU countries have risen strongly since the pandemic. The UK Independence Party welcomes this excellent news and applauds UK businesses for achieving export growth in much of the world.

UK exports to non-EU countries were up 16.2%, a record £2.3bn in Q1 2022, 10.7% higher than in the same period of 2019. Australia, Canada, India, Japan, and the US all saw trade from the UK above pre-pandemic levels. During Q1 2022, exports rose in 16 of the UK’s top 20 markets for food and drink exports. Overall, food and drink exports in Q1 2022 totalled £5.3bn, 7% down on the same period in 2019. Exports of beef were up 80% year on year, and those of whisky, the UK’s single-biggest food and drink export, were up almost 40% on 2019 to £1.2bn. Exports of chocolate (£201.5m) and gin (£164.1m) were the next biggest export categories.

For over 40 years, membership of the EU meant that the UK had to put all its eggs in one basket. Having now regained its freedom from the corset of Brussels, UK exporters are no longer constrained by the EU’s trade agreements. Just as predicted by the UK Independence Party our businesses are now, at last, free to take advantage of our renewed ability to make our own global free trade agreements.

As always, the dead hand of Brussels still weighs heavily on UK businesses. UK exports to the EU do remain larger at £3bn but they lag below pre-Brexit and pre-pandemic levels. A huge contributory factor is that Brussels’ bureaucrats have imposed border checks on UK exports post-Brexit. The UK’s seafood and meat sectors additionally complain of reduced trade due to the lack of a veterinary deal between the EU and UK. The Conservative Government has failed in its duty to impose reciprocal import controls on EU goods. Although originally planned for 1 July 2022, the Tory government is now dragging its feet and delaying implementation of border checks until at least the end of 2023 (which is 7 years after we voted to leave the EU).

The UK Independence Party deplores this delay as unacceptable and does not see the result as creating a level playing field. The UK Independence Party believes it is unfair to UK businesses and that the government must immediately impose controls on EU imports until Brussels lifts all its own border checks on UK exports.

Steve Grimes
UK Independence Party Spokesman for Business, Trade and Foreign Affairs

The cynical nonsense of “safe and legal routes”

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 12:24:07 GMT

Yvette Cooper thinks we were born yesterday

Addressing the Commons, Yvette Cooper once again trotted out the mantra that the answer to the dinghy crisis is to open up more “safe and legal routes”. It’s a plausible soundbite but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

I’m still not sure what it even means. For sure, we could set up reception camps in countries neighbouring war zones and then select on a lottery basis who gets to come to the UK, but quite obviously not everyone who wants to come can come so we’d need to put a number on how many can come – and nobody who advocates “safe and legal rotes” will venture a number.

But what then? What about those who won’t take no for an answer? They’re going to come to Calais anyway. Before the ports was secured in 2016 they’d mob lorries and attempt to board them, or cling on to the underside of HGV trailers. Now that’s impossible, they turn to smugglers. So then do we send three coaches a day out to camps in Calais? How will that deter those with no legitimate claim? All you’ll do then is incentivise more to come, exacerbating the problems in Northern France.

The thing about migrants who pay smugglers is that they don’t respect our borders at all. If they’re told they can’t come in, they’re still going to try and find a way, They’ll keep trying it on for as long as there is no real danger of being deported. In continuing to accept those who pay smugglers, we are in fact discriminating against the genuinely vulnerable in that the system favours those with the means to pay the many thousands of Euros to smugglers.

The only way to disincentivise the crossings is to make it absolutely clear that it will not be rewarded. I personally do not favour dangerous pushback tactics but I do think once escorted ashore they should be bussed to the nearest airport to board an RAF transport aircraft. If not to Rwanda, then a facility in the Falklands.

If there is a case to be made for more safe and legal routes, then the focus should be on taking the most vulnerable from the more dangerous refugee camps, which suggests women and unaccompanied children, not feral males. It would certainly strengthen the moral case for defending our border at Dover. Not that we need a stronger case. Defence of our borders is a sovereign right.

The view of the NGOcracy is that migrants should not be housed in hotels, barracks or reception facilities at all, citing poor conditions. I personally don’t subscribe to the view that migrants make the trip because we put them up in “four star hotels”. It’s a bit of a right wing trope. The NGOcracy is right that months and years in limbo in a grubby hotel is catastrophic for mental health, especially when the Home Office is dragging its heels on asylum decisions.

But then then refugee groups won’t explicitly say what should happen instead. We can deduce that for ourselves. We get the message. We’re supposed to set them up in social housing distributed throughout the country with no limits on who can come, and no grounds for claiming asylum is too spurious. They won’t say that outright because they know what the majority of taxpayers will say about it.

I get the feeling that the Home Office is quite deliberately slowing down the process of asylum decisions as a deterrent, but it’s clearly not working. All we’re doing is storing up a battery of problems as the creaking asylum system is completely overwhelmed.

Ultimately the system will only work if it actually removes those with no right to be here, but that’s the one thing the Home Office doesn’t seem to be able to get a grip on. Some countries have refused to take back their illegals and landing rights for deportation flights have been refused. This is where Britain needs to get tough and start sanctioning the likes of Pakistan unless they take their illegals back. We can easily cut off financial transactions, depriving Pakistan of the remittances it relies on. We should also explore trade tariffs.

The government blames lefty lawyers and the ECHR, and though it’s true that the NGOcracy are wreckers, driven by an ideological zeal for open borders, a government with a near eighty seat majority shouldn’t have any problems clipping their wings. The real question is why doesn’t act? How long is it going to allow itself to be held hostage? Run of the mill Tory incompetence alone does not explain it.

Leaving aside the dinghy issue, illegal immigration seems to the the hot potato that no government seems to want to touch. There are more than a million illegals in the UK, and this government is massively expanding non-EU immigration. I don’t think this can be sustained without dangerous consequences.

Regulatory Capture?

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 08:36:25 GMT

The relationship between Lloyds and the Financial Conduct Authority raises eyebrows!

Here we go again!

The new interim chair of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is Richard Lloyd OBE founding trustee of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute and awarded an OBE in 2019 for services to the economy.

A quick check on his background shows who the very first recipient of their accreditation was ...Lloyds Bank!

So, Mr Lloyd and Lloyds bank have a previous association which is quite in depth by the look of it. What does Nikhil Rathi CEO of the FCA have to say about this?

Does this mean that Lloyds Bank has, yet again, got another "insider" in the FCA to smooth things over? Certainly, there is a huge conflict of interest there if all associations are honestly declared!

Nigel Harper

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Banking and Fraud

Is Boris Showing Leadership on Ukraine?

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 08:27:15 GMT

Steve Grimes explains why, in the matter of Ukraine, Boris is right and UKIP back him

Well, he is showing leadership, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the UK Independence Party would have done exactly the same.

The UK Independence Party has a policy of not getting involved in international conflicts unless they are clearly shown to be in the national interest or are required under treaty obligations or the international laws governing the protection of civilians.

In this case there was no treaty obligation. There was no international law governing the protection of civilians either. But the situation does meet the UK Independence Party’s third scenario of getting involved if clearly shown to be in our national interests.

Not getting involved in Ukraine could be even more dangerous to the UK. Consider the scenario if Russia were able to take the whole of Ukraine unopposed. That would embolden Russia and make them stronger. Russia would then control a huge area right next to NATO’s border. That would not be in the UK’s long-term national interests.

As with German aggression in the 1930s Russia could and probably would then walk into other European countries. NATO would then get involved. That would be a treaty obligation on the UK, which the UK Independence Party would gladly accept.

Russia would then have to be defeated, or else Russia could win more western European territory. If not stopped, Russia would eventually come for us and defeat our own nation too.

The UK Independence Party is not an apologist for Russia. We stand for an independent UK, and we will always defend our national freedom. Russia is authoritarian.

The UK Independence Party are libertarians, and we value our freedom, our freedom of speech and our freedom of expression. Ultimately, our party firmly supports NATO, and we would ultimately have had to join the fight to defend our own sovereignty. The only question is whether to resist Russia now or to fight them later.

On this point, the UK Independence Party has, for once, given Boris Johnson the benefit of the doubt.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Business, Trade and Foreign Affairs

Patel still has no plan

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 13:44:26 GMT

More dithering and delay from the Tories

I’ve just watched a rather tedious parliamentary questions session with Priti Patel fending off accusations of incompetence. The debate, if we can call it that, centres around the Rwanda plan, but it was in answer to a question from Kevin Hollinrake about the Linton on Ouse reception facility where she gave the game away.

“Reception centres are the way forward” she remarked, before offering vague assurances that she continues to work with Hollinrake (but not actually committing to answering his question). Regardless of the Rwanda plan, if it even gets off the ground, the plan is still to escort migrants ashore and file them away in reception facilities. There is still no plan for removing asylum cheats.

In all probability the Linton on Ouse facility will go ahead because the government is running out of places to put new arrivals and hundreds more are arriving every day. We’re running out of hotels. The pressure will continue to build. The NGOcracy will continue to close down means of removal and the issue will continue to fester. There is no plan to stop the boats.

But then there is no incentive to solve the issue for the Tories. For as long as this remains an active concern, the Labour party continues to reveal its motives. The director of one of the main groups involved in preventing the Rwanda flight taking off is standing to be a Labour candidate at the next general election. Labour remains an open borders party, and their idea of a solution is to create more “safe and legal routes”. The Labour view is that hotels and reception facilities are unacceptable and that migrants should be housed in the community. Labour doesn’t have a problem with flooding our towns with Somali gang rapists and child groomers and giving them a free house.

Being that the right are absolutely terrified of a Labour government, they will tolerate endless incompetence from this government, and the longer it goes on, the more Labour reveals itself to be unelectable. It’s a win win for the Tories.

In the Commons today we saw renewed calls to exit the ECHR, which brings the issue back into Brexit territory, opening up the usual debates about national sovereingty, but again this is a red herring. We do need to rethink human rights, but one thing Labour is right about is that the Home Office is underperforming by every single measure, and the number of asylum decisions under Patel has collapsed.

One wonders if the long delays are part of the deterrence strategy, but if it is, it’s not working. Economic migrants have sussed that the system will eventually reach saturation point and if removals are effectively outlawed, we may well see a change of government and an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Mass detention in Britain is not a long term solution.

Personally I don’t see why we don’t just fly them out to a camp in the Falklands. As it’s a British territory, it removes any legal basis for challenging removals. But that won’t happen either. This has got to go one of two ways. Either we effectively abandon border control of any kind, as preferred by Labour, or we start acting unilaterally and scrap the entire human rights framework. Since the Tories won’t do the latter, the issue will fester in its current state until the Tories lose an election. Ultimately this is only going to get solved if a UKIP type party is capable of threatening the Tories.

The bottom line, as Priti Patel notes, is that Britain’s capacity to help refugees is not infinite, not is Britain able to cope with a perpetual stream of incomers from alien cultures. We still haven’t properly integrated the first waves of mass immigration and our northern towns are still reeling form it even today. Pouring more petrol on the bonfire will further contribute to the ghettoisation of Britain and the disintegration of law and order. As cities become multicultural and ethnic Brits leave for the boondocks, we then become a two tier country of county and conurb, where any kind of national consensus based on shared values is impossible.

This week we’ll be bombarded with sob stories, but Britain, a small insignificant island (so we were told), cannot provide for anyone who rocks up, and certainly not without doing an injustice to Britain’s own needy. It comes down to one basic assessment. Either we believe in borders or we don’t. If we do them immigration must be controlled, and any system of asylum has to be proportionate and fair. If we don’t believe in borders then we can no longer sustain a welfare state or an NHS, and we become a low trust society where equal enforcement of the law is impossible. This is a wedge issue because you can’t have it both ways – and now is the time to pick a side.

Asylum: taking back control?

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 10:11:20 GMT

The human rights blob is the enemy of democracy

Steve Laws, veteran reporter on the dinghy crisis, observes that our own laws blocked the majority of illegals from leaving. The ECHR blocked only seven. “The headlines will be on the ECHR but let’s not forget our legal system is to blame as well”.

I very much doubt Johnson will pull out of the ECHR but if he does, like Brexit, it’s not going to be enough to get a grip on the problem. And, like Brexit, if we do quit the ECHR, the government can then pretend they’ve got the job done and continue to neglect the issue.

What’s needed is a fundamental reform of the system. The Nationality and Borders Act was never going to solve the problem without a rethink of the entire human rights apparatus. Dominic Raab has floated the idea of a British bill of rights, but it’s not on this government’s legislative agenda.

The one thing they could do, virtually overnight, is cut off funding the the NGOcracy. Most of the refugee advocacy groups rely almost entirely on grants and state funding. It’s not right that illegal immigrants get Rolls Royce representation when most citizens would struggle to get legal aid. But again, it’s too much to expect from this government.

As to the furore over the Rwanda deal, this is something of a red herring. The deal was never designed to remove large numbers of illegals. They have only ever talked about hundred, and Britain could end up a net recipient of refugees under the deal. It is therefore unlikely the plan was ever going to act as a deterrent. Between the NGOcracy and the human rights lawyers, the chances of being deported are still slim. The Rwanda plan is really just an expensive decoy.

The anger, though, is very real. Though the number of passengers on last night’s flight was whittled down to single digits, this was a test of wills, and once again the government finds itself hobbled. This problem is no closer to a solution. Yesterday, a further 444 migrants on 11 boats reached the UK. A plane load. And we’re not even at peak summer yet.

At the core of all this, though, is the prevailing mentality at the heart of the establishment. You can take the technocrat out of Brussels but you can’t take the Brussels out of the technocrat. The doctrine of human rights is deeply embedded and courts have subordinated the ballot box – which is just how they like it.

The whole conception of “human” rights is the problem. Rights are civic, not human. Without a liberal democracy to underwrite rights, human rights aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Plenty of countries are fully signed up to human rights conventions but very few of observe them to the fullest. Pakistan is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The notion that rights are universal is a sick joke.

“Human rights” are an arbitrary list of lofty goals for humanity but unless rights are built into law and are actionable – in other words, civic – they’re just noise. But for those rights to enjoy legitimacy, they have to reflect the values of the people who live under them. That is not the case with human rights as we now know them, as legal activism has expanded them beyond their original intent. The machinery of human rights has been weaponised to undermine the laws derived from the values of the majority.

In this instance, we have a class of wealthy liberals, citizens of nowhere, who essentially don’t believe in borders or nationality, believing themselves to be more enlightened, with the right to issue moral correction to the public will. They’re accountable to nobody and their power is unchecked. The transgender lobby is one such example, pushing for the “right” of minors to take puberty blockers without parental knowledge or consent. They might actually win.

You can bleat about human rights til the cows come home, but if they subordinate the fundamental right to self-determination, they are self-cancelling. For civic rights to be upheld, the power must be legitimate. Moreover, there is no civic contract if citizenship itself is meaningless. If Britain is to be a borderless landing strip where citizenship infers no more rights than someone who rocks up on a dinghy, there is no coherent national demos, no legitimate power, and consequently, no civic rights.

It’s going to take more than just tinkering with immigration rules. Britain has forgotten what it means to be a democracy. Arguably it has never been a democracy. Those with the fattest wallets are still calling the shots, but they make the laws through the courts instead of buying off politicians. Pulling out of the ECHR would only be a token gesture without fundamental constitutional reform.

Fundamentally, Brexit was a question of where the power resides. We repatriated powers from Brussels, but the real power is still in the hands of the few, and in the democracy stakes Brexit has made very little difference. The British establishment has been reborn in the image of Brussels where “civil society” lobbying and the rule of human rights has displaced democratic power. Until we “take back control”, the dinghy crisis, along with much else, will go unresolved.

Asylum: the gloves are coming off

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 22:42:39 GMT

The NGOcracy has just bitten off more than it can chew

Following last minute appeals, the deportation flight to Rwanda was grounded by European judges. An out-of-hours European Court of Human Rights judge made the dramatic 11th hour intervention, informing the crew that the Boeing 767 could not take off as scheduled.

The ECHR has not ruled that the policy is unlawful, rather it has decided no-one should be deported before the lawfulness of the policy has been decided. The details, though, will fall through the cracks. After much fanfare and repeated promises that economic migrants would be removed, voters will see that our borders are still porous and foreign judges are calling the shots. We will no doubt see demands to quit the ECHR.

Naturally, the NGOcracy and the Twitterati are cock-a-hoop tonight, but they’ve gone too far this time. There will be repercussions. It’s giving Johnson exactly the cause he needs to recover the Tory Party. Boris Johnson has hinted that the UK could withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.

But then anyone could have anticipated this sort of challenge. We saw it coming a mile off. It’s likely that the Tories have deliberately engineered this situation for political advantage. For starters, the reaction from Labour MPs is a stark reminder of their attitudes to immigration. The Tories can once again position themselves as the anti-establishment party keeping the far left Labour at bay.

Of course, you’d have to be born yesterday to believe that the Tories will quit the ECHR or the Refugee Convention. If they were sincere they’d have done it already. Now we’ll see a policy review tabling more timid tinkering for some time in the future, for after the next election so they have a platform to run on. Meanwhile, the government is tripling non-EU immigration under their points based immigration system. The Rwanda policy always was a decoy.

In any case it’s as well that the flight was grounded. The number of passengers before this intervention was already down to single digits – which is hardly good value for taxpayers. For context, 138 illegals were brought into our country yesterday. The Rwanda policy was never going to make a meaningful impact. The fine print of the Rwanda agreement suggests the UK may even be a net recipient of refugees from Rwanda.

Everything about this is a massive con. The NGOcracy is playing cynical games and the Tories are no better. The first order of business for this government should have been to junk the Refugee Convention and put the NGOcracy out of business – but the NGOcracy is too politically useful. The balance of sympathy is now back with the Tories against an unaccountable blob blocking the very immigration controls the Tories were elected to implement.

But then there’s a certain familiarity about all this. We’ve been here before with Brexit. Rather than accepting that Britain had voted to leave the EU and attempting to shape Brexit, the remainers played double or quits, snubbed the Norway compromise option and ended up with Brexit far harder than they wished for. A similar dynamic is playing out here.

The smarter ones among the human rights law fraternity will no doubt realise their victory this evening will come at a cost. They’ve now cemented the view that this isn’t really about the human rights of refugees. It is a legal jihad to bring about open borders. They’ve been seen and even if the Tories won’t act, forces on the right will no doubt begin to mobilise. There is already a demonstration set to take place in York in July to protest the asylum facility at Linton on Ouse. This latest outrage may well resurrect the EDL or groups like it. When politics is this dysfunctional, real politics will take to the streets.

What’s clear now is that the question of who governs us was not decided once and for all by Brexit. Unaccountable technocrats and lawyers are still dictating policy and British sovereignty, as most understand it, is still compromised. Vast sums of public money are being channelled into the coffers of millionaire QCs and the will of the people is still subordinate to a feral elite. This has become a festering sore and this latest episode will not go unanswered. The NGOcracy has started a war they won’t win – and they’re too stupid to realise it.

NI Protocol Bill

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 22:04:25 GMT

Lester Taylor wonders if the government has the cojones for this fight...

Northern Ireland Protocol is published.

The much-awaited Northern Ireland protocol Bill has just commenced its passage through parliament.

After a delayed start it was eventually published this evening, but at least it’s now here.

The Bill, if it is enacted, will give ministers sweeping powers to dis-apply parts or just about all of the Protocol, that is if Brussels does not agree to negotiate the problems away first.

It even gives the government power to remove ECJ jurisdiction over Northern Ireland.

This Bill will face heavy resistance across both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, with the most obvious but incorrect criticism being that it ‘breaks international law’.

However, the government is using the defence of ‘necessity’, a legal doctrine that allows one party not to perform treaty terms in certain exceptional and limited circumstances. With the Protocol basically trashing the Belfast Agreement it is easy to see that this doctrine applies.

Now, the Bill will face strong headwinds and could be tied up in the House of Lords for months - or even stopped there. Something that would then require a 12 month wait and a prorogation of parliament before it could be forced through.

Let’s see if the government has the vitamins to push it through.

And then use the powers it gives ministers as required to put the UK back together again!

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Brexit and Northern Ireland

Picture courtesy Whiteabbey, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

THE GREAT RESET AND BUILD BACK BETTER. WHO VOTED FOR THEM?

Tue, 14 Jun 2022 21:54:04 GMT

What is UKIP's position on the WEF? Steve Grimes explains...

I often receive questions about UKIP's position on the World Economic Forum (“WEF”) and they deserve an answer but firstly, let me explain exactly what it is.

Professor Klaus Schwab is its self-appointed owner. His remarkably inoffensively

named organisation has set itself an objective. He aims to “improve” the "state of the world" and shape it in his chosen fashion. That is despite the WEF having no official or democratic legitimacy. This is a blatant attempt to control our lives by stealth.

According to Wiki, its funding is by private and governmental donors. It received an initial investment of US$460m from the governments of Germany, Japan and Norway, plus the globalist Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. It allegedly brings together “decision-makers from across society” to work on projects and initiatives that (in its sole wisdom) it thinks will make a “real difference”.

One of those projects is the “Great Reset” initiative.

Who actually asked for the “Great Reset” initiative? Who actually voted for it to make a “real difference”? The answer, of course, is nobody!

The fact is the WEF is "unofficial". It has no authority to make any rules, globally or nationally nor to enter into any international treaties, but it can still covertly influence our own lawmakers and big business. To my mind, the WEF is a shadowy Bilderberg style organisation, elected by no one, yet set on a self-proclaimed mission to change the world.

Really? So, who gave the WEF the right to change the world? Did it ask the voters of the United Kingdom if they wanted any change?

How do we know what undue influence this organisation exerts on our own politicians behind closed doors? Maybe the WEF is the reason for some of the more bizarre political decisions coming from Boris Johnson and his team. It is clear to me that the blatantly globalist WEF is manipulating many international governments and leaders. Biden and Johnson both openly support Build Back Better, which conveniently includes the unpopular and exorbitant net zero agenda.

So, how do we make sure that our elected lawmakers do not fall under the influence of the WEF by making decisions that are not in the best interests of the UK population, which they will never disclose in their manifestos and about which no UK voter ever has a say?

The UK Independence Party believes that only our own citizens must govern the UK. We believe that the elected UK government at all times must put the interests of the UK and our own people first. We believe that the only laws that should apply within the UK must be those wholly made by our elected UK Parliament.

Most importantly, the UK Independence Party will never make any Treaty or join any international organisation, such as the WEF, which could involve in any way surrendering any sovereignty. It follows; therefore, that the UK Independence Party will oppose the WEF, whose values undermine competition, democracy and our national sovereignty.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Business, Trade and Foreign Affairs

Davos pic courtesy MadGeographer, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Ukraine: at the limits

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 12:54:18 GMT

The war in Ukraine must end now

There is a well founded fear that Ukraine faces defeat in the East. The war has turned into a grinding artillery contest where Russia is steadily gaining ground thanks to its overwhelming advantage in firepower. As the US and allies gather Wednesday to discuss fresh military aid to Kyiv, Ukraine’s fate will largely depend on how fast and in what quantities these heavy weapons arrive.

The problem is that the equipment that Ukraine needs doesn't actually exist. The UK policy of cutting back the armed forces and disposing of surplus equipment means we have very little to offer. The cupboard is bare. Eventually, even the Ukrainians will realise that Johnson is an empty vessel - all mouth and no trousers.

In any event, integrating large amounts of sophisticated equipment into the military is no easy job. The training requirement is huge, and there are all sorts of infrastructure and integration issues. To absorb and exploit that equipment might take several years, and the supporting nations don't have the patience to wait that long as the war takes its toll on western economies - and starts influencing elections.

Since EU states are hesitant to provoke any action which may exacerbate the already acute energy crisis, it is unlikely that anyone will come forward with the weapons Ukraine needs to do the job. In encouraging Ukraine to fight to the last Ukrainian for every inch of lost territory, the West has led Ukraine up the garden path. If Zelensky is banking on Western arms, he may well be leading Ukrainians into a slaughter.

Ultimately Russia's advances in the first days failed due to Russian incompetence. The Russian army isn't trained or equipped for headlong armoured advances and Ukraine enjoyed the home advantage. But the war is now moving to a different kind of fighting which could turn into months long slogs, destroying everything in its wake, killing thousands more, only for the strategic situation to end up back where it started with low intensity warfare on the borders.

If that is the inevitable outcome, the West should be looking to end the conflict before it escalates further, pushing Ukraine to consolidate its wins and secure it borders as they now stand. It is not in Europe's interests to sustain a war that will up-end every major economy, provoke a food crisis and another wave of mass migration. Nor is it fair or right to deceive Ukraine into believing the West will underwrite the war in perpetuity.

An outright victory for Ukraine would require more weaponry and resources than the West is willing to commit, and risks a more dangerous confrontation with Russia. Since we're not going to "stand with Ukraine", it's time to drop the pretence and admit this has gone as far as it can go.

Asylum: the end of tolerance

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 23:15:28 GMT

The NGOcracy is pushing its luck

The dinghy issue is very much subject to a class divide. It does tend to be middle class polite society who buys into the narrative that dinghy arrivals are desperate and vulnerable refugees. Some genuinely believe this because they’re quite stupid, while the open borders activists know demand well these are economic migrants but are all too happy to use them as pawns in their culture war.

Here in York, opposition to the Linton on Ouse migrant processing facility has been hijacked by local branches of the NGOcracy and the well-to-do socialites who are happy to brand anyone off-message as “far right”. The Linton Action Group has dropped any pretence of being an inclusive campaign and is now retweeting open borders activists and liaises with Hope Not Hate. When it comes down to it, they’d rather make room for itinerant males of fighting age than allow the Brexit voting oiks a say in the matter. Locally as well as nationally, the term “far right” has come to mean working class people whose opinions differ from their polite society betters – they who must be denied a voice at all costs.

Having monitored this issue for some time now, I do not believe for a nanosecond that the majority of those crossing the channel by dinghy are legitimate refugees. Most of them will say without prompting that they came to Britain to start a new life. Paying smugglers to gain entry is their best bet to circumvent our system of immigration laws. Anyone who destroys their ID and cooks up a sob story can easily evade deportation. The bigger game in play is to saturate the system until such a point when weak politicians will cave in and grant amnesty and the right to work. It’s a waiting game.

This is very possibly a safe bet on their part in that if Labour wins the next election, Labour MPs will push for such an amnesty. York Central MP, Rachael Maskell, has said “segregating asylum seekers in large centres such as that proposed at Linton-on-Ouse was not the right way to go. Instead, efforts should be made to integrate refugees and asylum seekers within communities”. That basically means a free house for anyone who rocks up. This is also the view of the self-appointed Linton Action Group, which is ok with flooding the UK with fighting age men just so long as it’s not in the leafy villages. They don’t care if it’s working class communities who have to live with the fallout and the inherent risks.

These are the same people who trot out the line about there being no safe and legal routes so migrants are “forced” to make the voyage by dinghy. There is no safe and legal route for illegal immigrants and there’s no reason why there should be. British taxpayers are not obliged to roll out the red carpet for third word adventurers, many of whom have already has asylum applications rejected by EU states. We have even identified some refugees who make regular trips to their country of origin. This is a systematic abuse of Britain’s asylum system which ought to be helping vulnerable women and children. Ukrainian men are out on the front lines. Why aren’t the dinghy migrants?

It is not surprising that the issue splits along familiar Brexit lines. The NGOcray and open borders activists are all die hard remainers who, ironically, bewailed the loss of EU citizenship while attacking the very concept of citizenship. But it also transcends the issue of immigration. We’re back to the essential Brexit question. Who really governs us? In this instance the NGOcracy is asserting its power through the courts, each time thwarting a government that was explicitly elected to take control of our borders. Democracy once again loses to established technocratic power – pointing to the urgent need for major constitutional reform and the rollback of Blair’s human rights empire.

The liberal left believe Britain is an inherently racist and intolerant country and sees immigration as a means to punish those with whom they disagree. They really don’t care if illegal immigrants are rapists and paedophiles because in their eyes neither is a sin worse than being working class, white and conservative. We’re all meant to conform to the “diversity makes us stronger” dogma, despite a torrent of daily evidence pointing to the contrary.

The dinghy migrant issue is set to be a festering sore in British politics for the long run. It’s looking like Patel’s Rwanda plan will be ineffectual as a deterrent and that the numbers removed will be so low it won’t make any meaningful impact on the numbers presently in the system. Migrants still have good odds on evading deportation, and the Home Office won’t keep pace with the levels of new arrivals. The Nationality and Borders is not likely to improve matters when the Home Office is deeply dysfunctional and when the Tories are reluctant to make any radical reforms to the Human Rights Act.

On present trajectory we are set to use up all vacant hotels and barracks until the backlog is unsustainable. If then we see moves to place migrants into communities, we’ll see a surge of support for far right parties and a new wave of vigilantism. The NGOcracy is laying midwife to a new anti-immigration movement. We’ll see EDL style groups mobilising in the cities and clashes between extremist groups. We’re building up a powder keg.

Ultimately, the problem is a lack of leadership. The Tories don’t have it in them to do anything radical even if it would be wildly popular with the Tory base. They’re just going to let the situation coast along until it explodes. Perhaps more dangerous, though, is the growing divide in the country as voters watch a feral elite shredding the civic contract and making Britain a free for all. MPs are presently drafting the Online Safety Bill to protect themselves from hurty tweets, but if they keep this up, they’ll have much more to worry about. Tolerance has a breaking point.

Britain is approaching the boiling point

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 11:03:17 GMT

Britain is falling apart and the Tories sit on their hands

To our surprise, the courts did not block Priti Patel’s plan to remove illegal immigrants. But as it now stands, fewer than ten migrants are due to be on the inaugural flight to Rwanda after dozens of individuals lodged last-minute legal challenges. And we don’t need any reminding that hundreds more rock up on our shores by the day. 111 migrants reached the UK yesterday on three boats. Patel is fiddling around the edges.

The Tories are nowhere close to getting a grip on the situation. Patel could and should have anticipated this kind of action when the new borders bill was drafted. We remain convinced that the Tories aren’t entirely serious about tackling this invasion of undesirables. Meanwhile, in defiance of convention, we have Prince Charles sticking his oar in, branding the Rwanda plan as “appalling” and various celebs are now bankrolling legal appeals for refugees. This is now the front line in the culture war between a population who wants controlled borders and a liberal elite who want open borders.

This week we also see yet another mob obstructing justice and preventing the police from removing an illegal immigrant. It has now become a regular occurrence to see the police backing down before left wing mobs. The same week in which Muslim extremists protested outside cinemas to demand the cancellation of a film. As with the BLM mobs, it’s becoming apparent that the police will cave in to every mob for any reason. It’s beyond the joke. British taxpayers are being held hostage by minorities and affluent elites.

I don’t know about you but my patience is wearing thin. This government was elected to get a grip on immigration yet we’re still subject to the moral blackmail of leftists. One starts to wonder if it’s time to form mobs of our own. The precedent set over the last couple of years is that mob action works whereas legitimate democratic particpation does not. Since the police will always take the path of least resistance and our politicians are too gutless to enact the majority will, maybe it’s time to stop playing nice.

Elsewhere in the news we learn that UK farmers are turning to Nepal and Tajikistan for fruit pickers. Before EU freedom of movement we had a perfectly good system for temporary agricultural workers, but now we have the worst of all possible worlds, recruiting from further away, bringing in people who will stay forever, and in all likelihood won’t see out a full season in the agriculture sector. They’ll disappear into the woodwork. Meanwhile non-EU immigration is at record levels.

Immigration is a complex issue and Brexit alone certainly wasn’t going to fix it, but a message was sent that the people demand properly enforced borders. This isn’t happening under the Tories. They didn’t get the message. Yet again voters have been ignored. The Home Office is failing on every score while its senior civil servants are doing all they can to frustrate government policy. The Home Office needs to be dismantled and replaced with a dedicated office for the removal of illegals with better vetting of staff.

In 2019, Priti Patel promised to halve the number of channel crossings, but we’re set to see another record year and nobody will be surprised of the Rwanda plan falls apart. In any case, irrespective of the dinghy crisis, there are over a million illegals in the UK and we need to see at least one full plane load a week before we can say this government is remotely serious. But we all know the open borders blob is calling the shots.

This is in danger of causing a constitutional crisis. A country without borders isn’t a country. A government which cannot make and implement laws and refuses to take on the establishment is one that will allow itself to be pushed around by anyone and is therefore incapable of asserting its authority. It is then open to challenges on every front bringing us closer to anarchy. Meanwhile the civic contract evaporates.

We have previously remarked that this Tory government more closely resembles the Blair administration than that of Mrs Thatcher, but it’s becoming clearer that it’s even worse than that. Reading policy speeches over the last couple of years we know that the Tories know what needs to be done and why, but they just don’t want to take on the fight or assert their authority even with an eighty seat majority. The shrieking of the left wing press terrifies them. The Tories are dancing to the tune of the establishment.

Both Blair and Thatcher had no qualms about using power and asserting their authority. The Tory party that exists today is unwilling to use the power it has. We need radical policy changes but this isn’t a radical Tory government. They are tax and spend administrators who don’t want to rock the boat. Brexit promised to be a radical agenda but we’ve seen the Tories shunt it into a siding where they’ve quietly abandoned it. The latest noise about the NI protocol is just a smokescreen. On everything else, the Tories are content to maintain the pre-Brexit status quo.

A coherent conservative government would recognise that Britain needs to go much further than fixing immigration. For decades immigration has been used as a sticking plaster to mask a sclerotic economy and to plug skills gaps. We need a major overhaul of higher education, restoring the polytechnics, gearing more toward vocational subjects. We need radical welfare reform and skills training to tackle inactivity and we need urgent tax cuts to stop the economy grinding to a halt. But that’s what we’re not getting. The Tories are still pressing ahead with the suicidal Net Zero agenda in the absence of a plan.

Beyond the economic, Britain is a fragmented country where social mobility is collapsing and beyond the cosmetic Jubilee celebrations, there is no national unity or sense of national purpose. The devolution dunghills are ripping at the fabric of the nation, while the collapse of local democracy leaves people powerless in their own communities. Our decaying and corrupt institutions no longer serve us, our democracy is a joke and we’re losing our cities to barbarians.

Boris Johnson has squandered every day of his term so far, and done all he can to alienate his core supporters. He’s lost what little moral authority he had, and barely commands the support of his own backbenchers. He’ll be gone sooner or later and replaced with yet another pretender who’ll talk the talk but won’t walk the walk. Who leads the Tory party is a matter of supreme indifference. The party is rotten. It serves the interests of its donors and the financial interests of its MPs. Every principle is expendable in order to stay in power even if that means achieving nothing while in power. There is no point in voting for the Conservatives.

We are told that Labour would be worse, and that is certainly true, but a general election now is really just a referendum on the pace of decline unless the people abandon the establishment parties. Sadly that isn’t going to happen. Reform, Reclaim and UKIP aren’t cutting through, the half dozen far right parties are dead in the water, and there’s nothing fresh emerging from the left either. Internet activism has replaced movement building but online influence doesn’t translate into political power. UKIP was probably the last genuine grassroots movement in British politics. Democracy as we knew it is now dead and buried though we still go through the motions. But that won’t last.

Britain is a sharply divided country and there is no likelihood of reconciliation any time soon. Economic stresses will exacerbate the tensions and we’ll see them spilling out into the streets. It will make Brexit look like a tea party. We’re in for the most turbulent decade since the seventies and we’ll no doubt see riots. Britain can’t keep limping on without radical reform. The policies and politics of the globalisation era cannot survive into this decade. There’s a fight to be had for the soul of the nation and it won’t wait for politicians to catch up. When voting no longer has meaning, the centre cannot hold.

Enact Emergency Legislation to Mitigate the Transport Strike Impact

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 21:50:52 GMT

Why the government should legislate to require a minimum of 15% public transport operates during strikes

As a result of the Covid lockdown and people being encouraged to work from home, the bus, tube, and train, ran reduced services with hardly any passengers at all. The current numbers using public transport are still down as much as 10-20% from pre-covid levels.

Inflation is now rampant again and with less commuters using the bus, tube and train there is an argument for reducing services and making some redundancies, so the rail unions are fighting back with a demand for an 11.1% pay rise, protection of pensions, and no redundancies.

A ballot by the RMT Union, supported, by Unite of course, have 40,000 staff ready to stop work on Tuesday 23 June, Thursday 25 June, and Saturday 25 June. The effect of this will be rolling stock deliberately left idle in the wrong places so bringing the tube and train services to an almost complete stop from Tuesday 21 June through to Monday 27 June.

Even if a settlement with the government is achieved to avert the strike it will only be with a considerable pay rise, which in turn will be passed on to the commuters who have already suffered massive ticket price increases in recent years.

The UK Independence Party urges the government to enact emergency legislation requiring a statutory minimum of 15% of public transport during strike action, as is the norm in a number of other countries.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Transport

The Mass Mortality of Crabs and Lobsters…. The Truth

Wed, 08 Jun 2022 21:17:01 GMT

Why DEFRA is blaming crab and lobster deaths on 'algal bloom' rather than Pyridine

The fishermen of Whitby and along the Northeast coast are very concerned with the die off (Mass Mortality) of marine species including Crabs and Lobsters on which their livelihoods depend. DEFRA has ruled out chemical pollution as a causative agent but speculate that it has been caused by an ‘algal bloom’. However, the fishermen were not happy with this explanation and commissioned a report from Marine Pollution Research and Consultancy to investigate the veracity of DEFRA’s explanation and examine other more probable causative agents.

The results of this investigation are damning, as DEFRA and its associated agencies were sitting on evidence leading to the inference that their explanation was knowingly false and intended to hide the true cause of the Mass Mortality of marine species; this evidence was not voluntarily forthcoming but had been extracted by means of Freedom of Information requests.

So, what is the basis of DEFRA’s claim of an algal bloom as the causative agent? Have water temperatures been unduly high, encouraging such growth? No, they have not. Has DEFRA obtained water samples which substantiate their claim? No, they have not. No, DEFRA has produced an evidence free explanation for the Mass Mortality intended to mislead as to the true cause.

The government as part of their levelling up agenda decided to create Freeports including the Teesside port of Middlesborough, an old industrial town. These Freeports will require harbour access for deep draught vessels, the government fondly hopes; hence the river Tees has been dredged of millions of tonnes of spoil accumulated over very many years. Unfortunately, this spoil once dredged and dumped at sea exposed the marine life to highly toxic chemicals including Pyridine which had been sequestered in the riverbed from industrial outflows.

The government and DEFRA have tried to hide the truth which is that Pyridine concentrations in some marine species in the Northeast are 80 times higher than in Penzance. However, democracy cannot truly function if the people are kept in ignorance and decisions are taken behind closed doors by people who may not be best qualified to reach them.

The UK Independence Party would abolish DEFRA and ensure that our native Fishing industry was very substantially revitalised.

John Gartside,

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Fishing

Bungling Boris!

Wed, 08 Jun 2022 06:25:47 GMT

Our leader offers his thoughts on Boris...

Boris has spent his life flying by the seat of his pants with his brain between his legs. He has no political strategy or sense of direction. He is an opportunist who flipped a coin to decide between Remain and Leave. His government has betrayed us on mass immigration, tax increases and 'green' lunacy. He put the country under unnecessary house arrest over Covid and wrecked the country's finances. Partygate was trivial but Boris made the rules and always believed rules don't apply to him. He has squandered Brexit and done nothing to unshackle us from costly and damaging EU restrictions. Apart from showing leadership on Ukraine, he is the Pointless Prime Minister.

He deserved to be dumped but the alternatives look no better. The Tory Party needs spiritual renewal on the basis of UKIP policies - real immigration control, tax-cuts to foster economic growth, scrap ruinous energy taxes which soak the poor, undermine industry and export jobs to China, use the foreign aid budget to relieve poverty at home, get rid of the army of bureaucrats and parasite organisations imposing 'woke' culture. People not Politics.

Neil Hamilton

Leader - UK Independence Party

Picture courtesy DonkeyHotey, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Time for Real, Genuine, Radical Reform

Wed, 08 Jun 2022 06:18:08 GMT

First Past the Post (FPTP) for elections to the House of Commons is not fit for purpose in 21st century Britain

FPTP has led to a narrow, and unrepresentative politics, poorly conducted elections with low voter participation, and increasingly poor decision making.

Currently hundreds of constituencies, and even vast regions of the country are dominated by one party, despite their opponents recording substantial numbers of votes. FPTP is a major factor in making people remote from politics and less and less participating in our broken electoral system.

Despite a decline in the combined vote-share of Labour and the Conservatives, the results of our General Elections have become even more unrepresentative. In 2015 the UK Independence Party national vote-share was up by 10 percentage points to a total of 3.9 million votes but resulted in just holding one seat. The greens won more than a million votes but also held one seat.

The SNP, on the other hand, won less than 1.5 million votes winning 56 seats – so their impressive 50% of the votes won them an unjustifiable 90% of the seats in Scotland. In Southwest England the result was even more unrepresentative. The Conservatives, with 46.5% vote-share won almost 93% of the seats. In Northeast England Labour, with a 46.9% vote-share won 90% of the seats.

Our system of elections to the House of Commons is so broken it cares little about proportions and even less about representation.

The time has come for real, genuine, radical reform for elections to the House of Commons. The UK Independence Party agrees with the cross-party campaigns for Proportional Representation (PR) in the House of Commons – including by Makes Votes Matter and the Electoral Reform Society. Only if votes are made to count will people to be incentivised to take elections seriously and actually bother to vote.

Steve Unwin

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Home Affairs, Political Reform and Local Government

VONC: Who honestly cares?

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 16:35:17 GMT

The days of even marginally competent government are long over

So we’re back to that tedious question of who should lead the Conservative Party. The real question, though, is what does it matter? If you’re in the lower income brackets then next winter you’re looking at crippling home heating bills and you’re probably wondering if you can afford heating at all. A government grant to insulate your home isn’t going to change that. And with petrol prices creeping towards two quid a litre, the daily commute is looking like a non-option. With household incomes being completely absorbed by energy and fuel costs, there is no disposable income and families will have to cut back on what they spend, be it subscriptions, gym memberships, recreational activities, cars, holidays, day trips and takeaway food. This is seriously bad news for the wider economy.

The question then is who will bring remedy to any of this? It’s certainly not going to be Boris “Net Zero” Johnson then it’s not going to be anyone in the Conservative Party. And if it’s not going to be the Conservative Party then it definitely isn’t going to be Labour of the Liberal Democrats. The policies that contribute to massive inflation and energy poverty are all baked into the Westminster consensus. Democracy doesn’t get a look in. The green blob is calling the shots. They’re going to make you colder and poorer for your own good. They’re coming for your car, and they’re going to bleed you dry with more taxes. This has already been decided. You don’t get a choice in the matter.

They’ve fixed it so your vote won’t make a difference. The people who pledged to “build back better” are going to strip you of your wealth and take everything you have.

Pretty soon they’re going to fix it so you can’t even speak out about it. They’re not going to outright ban freedom of speech but they’ll fix it so that activists can cleanse the internet of speech they disagree with – from climate change to immigration.

It is also unlikely that the cost of living crisis will end this decade. The Conservative Party s dedicated to prolonging the West’s proxy war with Russia to the last Ukrainian. That war will in turn cause new conflicts in Africa as it becomes a full blown food crisis, which will see yet another wave of immigration, and the legacy parties won’t lift a finger to prevent it. There will be no serious effort to tackle illegal immigration. Meanwhile, wokery will continue to rampage through our institutions, and the civil service will fall further down the gender voodoo rabbit hole.

This is pretty much all I write about these days because the standard daily fare of politics is all noise unless there’s a government willing to take back control of the agenda from the respective blobs opening at the highest levels of government. We have Hope Not Hate consulting on the new Online Safety Bill, Friends of the Earth consulting on energy policy and predatory Stonewall activists injecting their poison into the education system. Cranks and weirdos are setting the agenda and our lazy, braindead MPs just go along with it because they always take the path of least resistance.

As far as mainstream politics goes I don’t really have a dog in the fight. I couldn’t care less who replaces Boris Johnson. It’s not even though what was won in the 2016 referendum is at stake. We have left the EU but but the prevailing mindset hasn’t changed nor has the power dynamic. Unless there is a sea change in politics, I’d go as far as saying Brexit is neither here nor there. And there won’t be a sea change because the system is rigged against it. All we can look forward to is a growing culture gulf between the rulers and the ruled.

At this point it’s going to take something quite radical to get Britain back on track our political class simply hasn’t grasped that we are drifting towards a wider economic emergency. They’re running 2012 policy agendas without acknowledging a decade of seismic geopolitical events. They’re in a world of their own. They’re having a vote of confidence in the PM but we need a vote of confidence in the entire Westminster system.

I no longer have any faith in the British political process. The so-called revolt on the right is atomised to the point of uselessness. Reform and Reclaim are useless and I’m under no illusions about what Ukip can achive. Meanwhile there is a sense of resignation and apathy in the voting public who seem to have tuned out. And I don’t blame them. If you can’t influence politics, you simply do what you can to survive it as best you can.

In all probability Fat Blair’s administration will limp on and will probably scrape the next election by the skin of its teeth, largely because Labour has done nothing to deserve power. It will stumble from crisis to crisis, unwilling and unable to assert conservative ideas, pinching a penny here, splurging there, promising everything while delivering nothing, and never taking responsibility for its own failings. Eventually the Oaf will be forced from office, only to be replaced by an equally talentless nonentity. The days of even marginally competent government are long over.

Much has been said of Boris Johnson’s unsuitability but he is the exemplar of modern politics in Britain. He’s the perfect figurehead for what the Wesminster establishment has become. The Conservative Party keeps him because they readily admit, they really don’t have anything better, and we keep the Conservative Party because the public knows that it can’t dredge up anything better. This is it folks. This is the best we can do. It’s the most we can hope for. For as long as Brits wait around for a new messiah they’ll continue to get deadbeat politicians. Our leaders will continue to disappoint and the centre will concede further to the degeneracy of the left until nothing works at all. If the lesson hasn’t been learned from the Johnson experience, we are condemned to repeat it.

Northern Ireland Protocol Pressure

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 19:47:07 GMT

Lester Taylor explains why the UK must not bow to pressure over the Northern Ireland protocol

After seeming eons, the Tory government has at last emerged from its torpor and fear of offending the EU, to start addressing the shortcomings of the Northern Ireland Protocol in some concrete manner.

The Foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has made a statement to the Commons outlining her plans - and the only feedback she got from the pro-EU opposition, and that includes some MPs on her own backbenches, was that she must not ‘break international law’.

Triggering Article 16 to address the problems that the EU’s over-zealous approach to enforcing the protocol, is not breaking international law.

Article 16 is one of the clauses within the Withdrawal Agreement, so is part of the protocol procedures. And just like every other clause in the Withdrawal Agreement it can be used when the circumstances that allow its use are met.

And those circumstances have been met!

In fact, they were met months ago, but the UK government has been slow to act. Too slow. Societal and economic damage has already been done in Northern Ireland and trade diverted long ago.

Businesses in the Republic of Ireland have benefited greatly from this one-sided application of the Protocol by Brussels. To the point now, that when the UK applies Article 16, if trade resets itself with UK businesses once again providing the lion’s share of goods into Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland will claim the new trade they’ve wrongly acquired in the last few months has been lost - and that the UK will have to pay a price for it.

We have to be ready for that claim and firmly rebut it!

And the Republic of Ireland will not just have the EU behind them, they will also have the US political machine at their beck and call. Not just from the Democrat Party, whose Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, very recently gave the UK government a dressing down over the protocol and threatened to veto any UK-US trade deal. No, all US parties are out for every vote they can get, and that includes votes from the Irish American community.

So, with the US mid-term elections coming up in November, we can expect to see both Democrats and Republicans loudly touting their Irish credentials in cross party support for the Republic of Ireland’s flawed position. And this, sadly, will be for their US domestic politics. Their thoughts will not be with the Unionist Community, as they push their one-sided views on the Belfast Agreement and the Protocol while grubbing for votes.

The UK government must not be cowed by any outside pressure like this.

The promise was made to take back control of our borders, not have one imposed within the UK down the Irish Sea. The EU was given a chance to play nicely, but they blew it from day one!

The UK government must now do whatever it takes to get that Irish Sea border and any ECJ jurisdiction in Northern Ireland totally removed.

Lester Taylor

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Brexit and Northern Ireland

Brexit: Ellwood’s sloppy thinking

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 13:16:15 GMT

Tory remainers want to wind back the clock

A senior Conservative backbencher has suggested Britain should rejoin the single market to ease the cost of living crisis. Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the Commons defence select committee, said that “radical thinking” was required to tackle rising inflation, even if it meant accepting EU regulations and freedom of movement.

The MP said politicians “must dare to assess how Brexit, the biggest geopolitical decision in a generation, is faring”. In an article published by the PoliticsHome website, Mr Ellwood said that the decision to leave the single market, which was “not on the ballot paper” in the 2016 Brexit referendum, has had adverse consequences, including a £20 billion fall in exports and difficulty on the Irish border. “In a nutshell, all these challenges would disappear if we dare to advance our Brexit model by rejoining the EU single market [the Norway model],” he wrote.

Mr Ellwood said that the plan would “require acceptance of some EU regulations”, which he believed would be popular with businesses which would be “better off working with one common standard rather than having to follow two”. “There remain understandable reservations about the free movement of people in relation to benefit claims which would need addressing, but this is not insurmountable,” he said.

There certainly was an argument for remaining in the single market as an interim measure to avoid disrupting trade but it’s a little late to be making that case now. What’s done is done. We should recall that when parliament was given the opportunity to vote for the EEA Efta Option, they rejected it by a massive margin. Remainers played double or quits and lost.

It tells you a lot, though, that Ellwood airily asserts that “all these challenges would disappear”. It’s not that simple. Trade does not fall back into place automatically and Britain would still need a new customs cooperation agreement to fully restore frictionless trade. It is no longer an “off the shelf” option. We’d be starting more or less from scratch. It makes more sense to build on the TCA framework.

It’s certainly true that divergence for its own sake reduces Britain’s export potential but if Ellwood had read the TCA, he would see that for the most part, Britain continues to use global standards as the basis of its technical regulations, as per the WTO agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. Rejoining the single market is not necessary to eliminate the most common border friction. We’d certainly need to go further than the current provisions in the TCA, adopting a common model for electronic customs declarations along with a bespoke SPS framework, but rejoining the single market is now a step backwards.

Leaving the single market has impacted our trade with the EU, but the single market is not without its problems. Primarily, the model underpins a low wage economy, allowing business to treat workers as a commodity, and as a result industry refuses to invest in welfare and training. That’s why we ended up with a HGV driver shortage and it’s why there is an EU-wide shortage of vets to run the EU’s food safety system. Europe has exhausted its own qualified recruitment pool and is now looking to recruit from Ghana and the Philippines.

Restoring freedom of movement doesn’t solve the current labour shortages and in any case we should not default to immigration to paper over the cracks. Shortages are indicative of a broader labour market dysfunction and Brexit is our opportunity to address it. Ellwood is only thinking in terms of what exploitative businesses need rather than what the country needs.

It should also be noted that the cost of living crisis is not caused by Brexit. The main driver is the cost of energy, and the EU has played a major role in bringing us to the brink of energy rationing. The EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive and the Renewables Directive have been a disaster for Britain. We’ve now demolished our baseload generation and expanded the fleet of expensive and unreliable wind turbines. Brexit ought to be the turning point where we reconsider three decades of failed energy policies.

You can argue that Brexit has failed to deliver, but that’s largely down to Tory timidity. Our energy policy remains in lockstep with the EU and it is still the consensus in Westminster that immigration is the only answer to skills shortages. For Brexit to work it requires bolder thinking than is presently on offer. Leaving the single market allows us to rethink agricultural and food production policy, moving away from the EU’s wasteful veterinary system. We can drop the infatuation with renewable energy and go all in on small modular reactors. The Tories are just too set in their ways to imagine that anything could be done differently.

Mr Ellwood is right to note that the current trading relationship with the EU is wholly inadequate. The threadbare TCA is hurting small businesses who have more export red tape to worry about. The issue of how we trade with the EU is not yet resolved and Johnson’s rushed deal ducked all the difficult questions. We’ve afforded ourselves the freedom to diverge but Johnson’s talentless cabinet has no clear idea of how to diverge or where it would be beneficial to do so. All we’ve seen thus far is deregulation gimmicks from Jacob Rees-Mogg and witless prattle about freeports.

It is still the case that trade works better with a high degree of regulatory cooperation and there are areas where continued harmonisation makes sense. The problem was that harmonisation within the EU always came with unacceptable compromises of national sovereignty – going further than trade facilitation, to the point where social and economic policy were beyond the reach of democratic inputs. Brexit sought to correct this. Broken EU policies stay broken. Even marginal reforms take years to accomplish. Remaining was not a realistic option for Britain.

What’s needed is a renewed dialogue as to how sovereign entities trade freely with each other without compromising their exclusive right to rule their own territories. Rejoining the single market doesn’t address that dilemma. It could, temporarily ease a few headaches but does nothing to address the long standing economic imbalances that caused Brexit to begin with.

In this, the EU is the central problem. Its systems are inflexible and place regulatory purity over and above democracy. From a technocrat’s perspective you can see why, but the sentiment behind Brexit was that Britain must have the exclusive right to make its own laws and decide who and what comes into the country. The single market system is incapable of respecting that principle. The Article 50 process ended up an ultimatum: No free trade without freedom of movement.

Now that we’re free and clear of the Article 50 era, along with all the political and emotional baggage, the decks are clear for a new conversation on how we reconcile the desire for free trade and the demand for sovereignty. That, though, must begin with the assertion that Britain is sovereign – and cooperation on regulation requiries a process for co-decision. Britain as a nation of 65m people could not live long term under a system designed for minnows like Norway and Iceland.

Being that the EU itself is a rule taker, adopting global standards and regulations from diverse global bodies (mainly UN based standards organisations) Britain must turn to Geneva with a view to expanding free trade among like minded nations. Recent geopolitical events have shown that we cannot depend on China and efforts to normalise relations through trade have failed. They have only made our enemies bolder. The world still needs a community of free trading democracies, but it cannot be a regional fiefdom dominated by the dead hand of the European Commission.

Seeking to partially reverse Brexit and restoring the old order speaks to a lack of ambition and vision, and a refusal to acknowledge the radical shifts of geopolitical tides since 2016. The cost of living crisis is set to be a long term issue, and isn’t solved by aligning our aubergine marketing standards with the EU, and we can’t keep raiding the qualified workforce of developing countries to solve our labour problems.

Tobias Ellwood wants to duck all of the difficult questions, and revert to the previous economic configuration out of political convenience and laziness. Once again, our political class wants to shirk its duty to grapple with the issues and outsource its thinking to Brussels. That’s how we ended up in this mess.

The Lack of Social Housing is a National Scandal

Wed, 01 Jun 2022 09:47:14 GMT

Patricia Mountain discusses the failings in current British housing policy

The chronic shortage of social homes has not happened overnight. Over the past three decades, the Right to Buy has contributed to a major decline in the number of social housing properties, with many of these homes ending up in the private rented sector.

One hundred percent of all revenue from Right to Buy sales, after essential costs have been paid, should have been paid back, into new community housing. Why was this not done?

The policy has created a short- term gain for individual households but a long-term problem for the nation in terms of the supply of affordable homes.

The current population of the UK is 68,560.862 as of Thursday, May 26 ^th , 2022, according to UN data.

More than 274,000 people including 126,000 children, according to research published by Shelter on 9 ^th of December 2021, do not have a place to call home.

The charity, Crisis, estimate that around 227,000 people were experiencing the worst form of homelessness rough sleeping, sleeping in vans and sheds, and stuck in B&Bs across England Scotland and Wales in 2021. In 2021/22 approximately 2.17million people used a food bank in the United Kingdom.

So, the Government of the 6 ^th largest national economy in the World cannot house or feed its population! This is a national scandal.

The problem with affordable homes for private rental is that no one can afford them.

Local Housing Allowance ( LHA) for private renters has been frozen at March 2020 levels while rents around the country have risen rapidly.

As a result of the freeze, housing benefit support is no longer linked to current rents.

This means the number of properties that private renters in receipt of universal credit can afford will steadily decline.

All the freeze is doing is exacerbating the already serious cost of living crisis.

The government has absolutely no idea just how modest most people’s incomes are, and they are very far removed from the housing shortage. They have no appreciation of the size of the demand problem largely being fuelled by uncontrolled immigration and a failing immigration system.

The UK Independence Party is proud of our nations long history of welcoming and protecting refugees and this must continue. However, we know that our housing problems cannot be solved without the Government calling a halt to large scale immigration.

Time for the Government to get their act together.

Patricia Mountain

UK Independence Party Spokeswoman for Housing

Queen Elizabeth II’s record-breaking 70-year reign

Wed, 01 Jun 2022 09:40:30 GMT

Julie Carter explains the origins of Jubilee street parties

Are you having a street party to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee this week, and if so, do you know it’s origins?

Street parties as we now know them began in 1919 - residents organised the event as a treat for children who had suffered hardship from the first world war, and they were then known as ‘Peace Teas’.

If you didn’t know this, it’s probably because you were not taught it in school. The UK Independence Party hopes to change all that.

Within the UK Independence Party’s full manifesto , we aim to promote a unifying British culture, open to anyone who wishes to identify with Britain and its values and culture, regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity.

Celebrating the ‘Best of Being of British’ is what we all will be doing this week, as we celebrate The Queen’s 70th year on the throne. The UK Independence Party prioritises teaching the history of the British Isles to all children in all UK schools, and respect for our national flag and institutions.

The UK Independence Party will promote English as a common ingredient that binds our society together. We are concerned at the staggeringly high number of foreign languages now spoken in some UK schools. Failing to communicate in English cannot be good for social cohesion.

Wishing you all a wonderful time at your street party this week, and when you have a chance, please peruse this site to read more and join our party!

Julie Carter

UK Independence Party spokeswoman for Education

The slow death of Brexit

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 01:37:30 GMT

Boris Johnson has buried Brexit

When I started writing seriously about Brexit, I said, in the best case scenario, that very little would change in the short-term. My worst case scenario was far more pessimistic. Everyone was hoping for their day of vindication but Covid and Ukraine have managed to scramble everything to such a degree that it’s next to impossible to weigh any single influence on where we are today.

Trade hasn’t quite imploded, but doing business with the EU is much harder and agriculture is not having an easy time of it thanks to Johnson’s dog’s dinner of a trade deal. Fishing is in a similar mess. There is no free trade bonanza nor is a there bonfire of regulations to speak of. The most we can say of Brexit, for the moment, is that it hasn’t been nearly as bad as it could have been given all the circumstances.

But then Brexit is very far from resolved. We have yet to implement checks on incoming goods, and it would appear the British government is incapable of managing any kind of border for goods or people. EU goods freely enter the UK, including counterfeit goods and contraband, while outgoing goods face delays – exacerbated by labour disputes at the ports and more general lack of cooperation from the French.

We’ve broken up frictionless trade in order to diverge, but as yet the government has no clue where it can sensibly diverge or where it would even be worth the bother. Just because we can diverge doesn’t mean we should – but while the Tories dither on what to do about trade policy, British businesses gradually see their European customer bases peeling away.

Since our departure, though, most of the Brexit discourse has centred on the dysfunctional Northern Ireland Protocol which now means our relationship with the EU is bogged down in a diplomatic quagmire. Meanwhile, the stale old Brexit divisions are still there, and Brexit’s political casualties are still haunting Twitter looking to blame everything that’s happened since 2019 on Brexit. The Brexit debate is now a leper colony and anyone sane steers well clear of it. There is nothing new to say.

In any case, Britain has bigger problems. Rampant inflation caused by energy insecurity and fuel spikes has eclipsed any Brexit fallout, and the Ukraine war is far more likely to dominate European economies and politics for the foreseeable future. Brexit will fade in relevance and its transformative potential will evaporate. The Tories never did quite know what to do with Brexit and unless there’s a sea change in British politics, we’re unlikely to see politicians with the imagination and talent to do anything with it.

At the very least one hoped that Brexit would be the shock to the system our political class needed but its effects were short-lived. The supposedly “most right wing government of all time” very rapidly wobbled back to its comfortable legacy Blairism as though Brexit never happened. Everything since has been red meat gesture politics that doesn’t translate into anything meaningful. We certainly can’t say the establishment got the message on immigration. If I’d been in a coma for the last few years I would be hard pressed to say that anything had changed – and certainly not for the better.

Ultimately if Britain is going to get fixed then it needs something bigger an more profound even than Brexit. Brexit could have been a catalyst but when it’s in the hands of empty vessels like Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tories will continue to miss the point of the entire exercise and tinker around the edges. A free port in Hartlepool isn’t going to reignite the fires of British enterprise.

Brexit, though, is not the defining policy of this administration. Net Zero is. And it tells us more about contemporary toryism than Brexit. It’s ultimately a quasi-socialist stimulus package because the Tories don’t even believe in their own core ideologies. They’ve reached for Net Zero because when it comes to big reform ideas, the cupboard is bare. There’s no thinking going on as to how to reform our “democracy” because from their point of view, it’s working exactly as intended.

In terms of forging a role for Britain, Boris Johnson believes fire-hosing cash and heavy weapons at Ukraine represents Britain standing up for democratic values and leading in Europe, despite the fact that Ukraine is a kleptocratic basketcase closer to Russian values than the permissive liberalism of the modern Tory party. Ukraine is just a aeons old border spat which temporarily suits Britain’s PR purposes.

Britain may have left the EU but our ruling establishment never departed from the technocratic Brussels mindset and the policy agenda is still devoted to elite concerns such as climate change. The so-called revolt on the right is now dead in the water and so there’s nothing to hold Tory feet to the fire. Our prosperity was already standing on a foundation of sand, with private savings and pensions in terminal decline, but the tax burden of Net Zero, coupled with energy shocks may just be enough to push us over the edge, leaving the electorate with nowhere to go.

Were the Tories bold enough to grasp Brexit with both hands, they’d be looking at revitalising domestic fishing and food production, but also dumping the failed energy and climate policies of the EU which increased fossil fuel dependency.

Britain’s bounceback is contingent on cheap energy yet the Tories are doing all the can to make matters worse while remaining in lockstep with the EU. They could do no worse than bet on the failure of the EU’s EV revolution and position the UK to advance more efficient ICE designs and micro nuclear technology. But no, the Tories can only think in terms of windmills and solar panels. Somebody may make good of Brexit, but it won’t be Boris Johnson, and it won’t be soon – and not until we’re all a lot poorer.

Veteran's Charities

Tue, 31 May 2022 21:44:57 GMT

UK Independence Party adds its voice to the support of Veterans’ Charities

In these current uncertain times of conflict with President Putin’s war in Ukraine, it is imperative that our country not only maintains our current level of defence, but substantially increase our capability. For too long successive governments have reduced the numbers of our armed forces and our capability of force projection. The current war in continental Europe has highlighted the need for a strong defence in our country and the need to take back control of our strategic resources such as oil, gas, electricity generation, iron, and steel production to name just a few.

The UK Independence Party is committed to ensuring the defence of this country and all the threats posed to it, be that conventional, nuclear, chemical, biological, cyber or terrorism. Whilst we do our bit as a country for the Ukraine, we must not take our eye of the ball for the internal threats our country faces. The threat of terrorism against our country and its people is real and presents a clear and present danger. The influx of unvetted illegal immigrants across the English Channel increases the risk of acts of terrorism and these people should be returned to the coasts of continental Europe, where they can apply via the appropriate legal system of asylum to the UK.

The cost-of-living crisis is impacting many, if not the vast majority of UK citizens. Many of our veterans on leaving the armed forces face challenges such as:

Unemployment. Many find it difficult to find suitable jobs.
Relationships. With themselves and their families.
Homelessness.
Physical handicaps.
Mental Health issues such as PTSD.

The UK independence Party is committed to ensuring our veterans get the help so many need. These men and women have served our country in a noble manner, defending our way of life and ensuring the safety of our country. The housing of those veterans who are homeless is a priority we must give them the help and support they need. Those veterans who have suffered disabilities whilst defending the country deserve our support and help to give them their independence and dignity back. There are many worthy veteran’s charities currently working tirelessly to provide these needs and UK Independence Party applaud their hard work and endeavour.

From our Manifesto: Veterans Administration Department (VAD)

Those who have served in the armed forces need to have their needs and interests met. Staff at the VAD will be responsible for upholding the Armed Forces Covenant in co-operation with local government and charities. The minister will promote and protect the interests of veterans in a variety of fields including housing, healthcare (including mental health), resettlement, education, and training.

Squadron Leader Peter Richardson

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Defence and Veterans

We support Business!

Tue, 31 May 2022 21:27:20 GMT

The UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY is the ONLY party which truly supports business

With elections you don’t have a statutory "cooling-off" period. You can’t demand your money back if you are disappointed with your purchase.

Therefore, when you go to the ballot box, it is critical you understand exactly what you are voting for and exactly what you are going to get if the party you vote for actually wins. In truth, most people know where UK Independence Party stands on a range of issues, such as independence, free-speech, and border controls, but, for whatever reason, their business ideas may not be so well known. I hope this introduction will demonstrate that there is still a world of difference between UK Independence Party and the vested interests that the establishment parties stand for.

Constitutionally, UK Independence Party is a democratic, libertarian Party. categorically not a socialist party. We oppose State control and public ownership, nationalisation, high taxes, redistribution of wealth and collectivism through all-powerful trade unions. By the same token, UK Independence Party is definitely not a Tory doppelganger either. The Tories were once the party of UK business but now they have fallen under the thumb of global big-business and the finance industry. The small man no longer matters to them (except – of course - at election times).

UK Independence Party is different from the Lab/Cons. The focus of our business policy is to help UK families clothe their children, put food on the table, pay the mortgage and pay university tuition fees rather than line the pockets of invisible big corporate shareholders in New York or Los Angeles or fund the large pension pots of cossetted public service workers.

We take pride in standing as the party of small and medium sized businesses (SMEs). SMEs are independent UK owned firms employing fewer than 250 employees. SMEs are the lifeblood and backbone of the UK economy. There were 6.0 million of them in 2020. Many young people started their working life with a small or medium-sized business and around 25 per cent of white van owners are self-employed. They include small manufacturers, small processing plants, small traders, fishermen, small export-import companies, small distributors, shops, pubs, restaurants, renters, service companies, plumbers, carpenters, financial advisers, delivery firms, gas fitters, many self-employed, many family partnerships and many more. We salute them all.

The UK Independence Party philosophy is to diminish the role of the State and to lower the burden of tax on individuals and businesses. We support and encourage people who make decisions in respect of themselves, who seek to be self-reliant and who aspire to improve their own situation. We believe that advancing freedom, liberty and self-reliance creates far more wealth for the UK population, than the dead-hand of the State (or what Labour laughingly calls "common endeavour", which basically involves levelling people down rather than up).

It is important to stress that UK Independence Party is not against the welfare state, or the National Health Service and remains firmly committed to the NHS as a service ‘free at the point of delivery’, we would not consider privatisation. However, unlike the Labour Party and some other socialist style parties, we are not ideologically opposed to the use of some private enterprise either within the NHS or to complement it where this can improve cost effectiveness or efficiency.

We know it takes willpower, stamina, and determination to run an SME and want to help small business owners make money, keep costs down, minimise taxes, find business opportunities, and generate funds for growth.

Now that the UK is free from the apron-strings of Brussels, (with the regrettable exception of Northern Ireland), our business and industry can become far more self-sufficient. We believe there is a world of opportunity for UK SMEs to trade globally now that we are free of EU rules.

We strongly support the free market and private enterprise and aim to reduce or eliminate unnecessary taxes and keep government out of the way of innovation and job creation.

Steve Grimes

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Business, Trade and Foreign Affairs

This lame duck Tory government is at the end of the road

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 31 May 2022 14:08:06 GMT

Fat Blair has shown us he doesn't have what it takes

Britain has shut down, and failed to adequately replace, essential energy infrastructure. Our moronic politicians have placed eco vanity ahead of energy security and affordability. Parliament still has the wrong priorities. MPs are more worried about emissions than solving the energy supply crisis and cost of living crisis that they have caused.

Our dysfunctional Home Office is nowhere close to getting a grip on illegal immigration and is failing to deport in anything like the necessary numbers to get on top of the backlog. This morning MPs are sparring with academics on whether women can have a penis.

Fuel and energy costs are skyrocketing. Poorer households are facing the greatest cost pressures since the nineties. The Home Offices is requisitioning thousands more hotel rooms for illegal immigrants every day. It’s the same thing – week in, week out, while the political class and the media fixate on their own inanities, oblivious to the real world.

It’s now looking like we will face a serious energy crunch in the winter, and if Putin turns off Europe’s gas supply then we are looking at some form of energy rationing. The government is scrambling to reopen gas storage facilities and extend the life of existing plant, but it looks like they’ve left it far too late.

Meanwhile, it looks like the war in Ukraine is set in for the long haul. We are getting to the situation where, from initial pessimism about the capability and endurance of Ukraine, we see a growing belief that it can win this war. That view is over optimistic. For sure, Ukraine can beat off the attackers in time, but when it comes to recovering ground, they face exactly the same problems the Russians faced.

This presents a different and stressful dynamic on western nations, including the EU. Until this war is resolved, normal politics and economics will not be resumed. This is driving foreign, defence and economic policy, which cannot revert to normal as long as we are, in effect, in an undeclared war with Russia.

The EU’s response to this has been to wean itself off Russian gas at the earliest opportunity, but this can’t happen fast, and the like the UK, the EU has placed its faith in unreliable intermittent renewable energy which is exacerbating grid stability problems. Critics of renewable energy, wind especially, have long warned that it could lead to blackouts. System warnings have become more frequent and this year we’ve seen long spells with no wind at all.

The British response is arguably worse. Not only has the British government doubled down on Net Zero, Boris Johnson has committed Britain to underwriting Zelensky’s war machine, asset stripping our own armed forces to do it. Britain is no longer capable of mobilising a brigade at short notice. We’re fuelling a long war over eastern European rust belt which is likely to be a bloody stalemate for years, impoverishing the whole continent. By the time they’re done, Eastern Ukraine will be flattened by artillery and there’ll be nothing left to reclaim.

This is where we need a functioning politics most of all, but we don't have anything close. We have a dilapidated Tory party robbing from Peter to pay Paul, trapped in socialist cycle of tax and spend, expecting different results. There’s no vision, no clarity of purpose, and no hint of a clue. Boris Johnson is a lame duck, mired in sleaze and is still the best the Tories have to offer. There is no glimmer of hope on the opposition benches either. The Labour party has done nothing to deserve power and is as morally and intellectually bankrupt as it was under Corbyn. In any case, with three years til the next voting ritual, we don’t get a say in it either way. We’re helpless spectators. All we can do is sit back and watch it burn.

Life in Britain is going to get harder and more expensive. The establishment parties offer no solutions to the problem because they are the problem. The central problem being a lack of willingness to take on the respective blobs within the apparatus of state. Not least because our braindead politicians agree with them. Gender voodoo and pronoun idiocy, green zealotry and open borders dogma is calling the shots at the highest levels of government. Our democracy has been replaced with a network of think tanks and advocacy groups masquerading as civil society – who are accountable to nobody and represent nobody but themselves.

Our model of government now closely resembles the Brussels apparatus where genuine democratic sentiment doesn't get anywhere close to power. We are nothing even close to a democracy. They’ve decided what they’re going to do, and they don’t care how much misery they inflict on us. They’ll do it without consultation or consent and they’ll use every crisis they create to advance their own powers and hit us with more of the same. They’re coming for our cars and our home heating, and soon enough they’ll outlaw all the opinions they disagree with. Freedom of speech online is dying. They’re taxing us back to the stone age.

It should be clear now that the establishment is at war with the people. Our freedoms don’t factor into their technocratic green utopian templates. We have nobody representing our interests in government. The Tory party is an empty husk and the PM is asleep at the wheel. Industry after industry is feeling the strain of crippling taxes and energy costs and the productive economy is seizing up. The Tory green revolution is stalling and Johnson’s EV rollout is stillborn. The days of Britain as a functioning country are coming to a close. Chaos, poverty and decline will be Johnson’s legacy.

Dinghy invasion: enough is enough

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Fri, 27 May 2022 13:20:37 GMT

It's time for fence-sitters to make a choice

I've had a lot of conflicting views over the last few years, and sometimes end up doing a complete 180. I think that's ok so long as you can show your working. Because I'm a blogger I can pinpoint all the breadcrumbs that brought me to where I am today. On immigration, I no longer consider myself a liberal.

Back in 2015, I ran a small independent Brexit campaign, but I argued we should keep freedom of movement because on balance it was beneficial, and I believed we should stay in the single market in order to maintain our trade, and FoM would be an inevitable consequence of that. I resigned myself to that.

It's only when I started looking in detail how the system was abused did I see how it created more problems than it solved. We can tally up the net GDP gains but nothing is said of the unintended consequences - such as unregulated low wage exploitation, organised crime and downward pressure on wages. FoM was devastating for the bottom decile and ultimately entrenched welfare dependency in a large section of the workforce.

But I was also of the view that EU immigration wasn't really the main problem. Let's face it, it isn't Polish plumbers loitering outside school gates on Oldham. Thus, I was of the view that immigration was a separate debate that wouldn't be resolved by Brexit. The central problem is a dysfunctional Home Office and an elaborate system of unbalanced human rights law and international law that, in effect, made us a borderless country.

It's only in the last two years that I've really made immigration my central focus. The dinghy invasion certainly caught my attention but news during lockdown and the BLM hysteria really brought home just how lawless our cities have become. Just last year in June, a large fight broke out in Hyde Park in London, with several youths armed with knives seen stabbing the man as he fell to the ground. One of them was hacking with a machete. The only time I've seen similar footage is from Soweto in South Africa. Around that time, a convoy of cars draped in Palestinian flags with a megaphone was seen blaring antisemitic abuse while touring Jewish areas of north London. One man shouted "F**k the Jews, rape their daughters". Closer to home, a Batley teacher was forced into hiding by Pakistani Islamists.

There's no moderate line on this. What more evidence do you need that these people aren't going to integrate, aren't capable of integrating, and wouldn't even if were demanded of them? I don't profess to have all the answers on how to fix this, but the very first priority should be to, at least, stop making it worse. We need a system of immigration that discriminates on the basis of culture. We've seen from the way that dinghy migrants treat women that every time we grant their "right to asylum" we are subtracting from women's basic right to safely walk down the street. If you want to argue that Britain should be taking a “fair share” of refugees, then let’s take vulnerable women and children from camps where they face sexual exploitation and violence.

What further angers me is the network of state subsidies Refugee charities, none of which could survive without state handouts. They are all predominantly run by well-to-do virtue signallers who believe in open borders because they’ve never had to live with the everyday consequences of open borders. (Does Zara Poshbrid from RefugeesRUs have to pack tracksuit bottoms when she goes out clubbing so she can get back to her house unmolested?). It’s all about their need to be seen to be compassionate and caring – and fuck everybody else.

These organisations have campaigned against the use of hotels and barracks, and have gone through the courts to close down deportation options, forcing the government to a point where anyone who rocks up in a dinghy with a sob story is given indefinite permission to remain, the right to work and place to live. This basically upends the civic contract, especially when our own young struggle to get a foot on the housing ladder and even struggle to find private lets they can afford even on a half decent salary.

There comes a point where even the most tolerant have to decide which side they’re on. In August last year, a young woman by the name of Sarah Hussein was “found on fire” in a street in Bury. No witnesses came forward and two men were released without charge. That story got memory holed because unlike Sarah Everard, she was an inconvenient victim and the media just didn’t care. Nothing about it has been reported since, and our useless MP had nothing to say about it. Her body was shipped back to Pakistan and I suspect that’s the end of the matter. Just another statistic. Just another “honour” slaying.

I’ve seen enough basically. To still bleat slogans like “diversity makes us stronger” in the face of machete attacks, acid attacks, honour killings, electoral fraud and child grooming suggests to me that our ruling class simply don’t care that they’re turning Britain’s cities into third world shitholes where the writ of British law simply doesn’t run. On a long enough timeline we’ll drift toward low level civil wars in our cities. Hardly “cultural enrichment” is it?

It’s not even as though we need more people. We don’t have a labour shortage. We have skills gaps and an unbalanced economy, but the last thing we need is more feral men roaming our streets. Thus, while I once considered myself a liberal, I now believe that if Britain is to remain a peaceful and prosperous country, we simply can’t afford our cowardly political class and we can’t afford to mince our words about immigration.

Enough is enough. We’ve got more problems than we currently know how to solve with the current influx without pouring more petrol on the bonfire. We have thousands Islamist terror suspects on the watchlist and the grooming issue isn’t going away either.

The question for Brits is whether you’re willing to make a stand, or whether you’re just going to let your country slide into the abyss in the fear that some limp-wristed liberal soy boy will brand you far right? What’s it going to be? It’s decision time.

Intended consequences: energy price rises & inflation

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 26 May 2022 17:19:13 GMT

How the green agenda is bankrupting Britain

Watch this excellent film by Ben Pile of Climate Resistance . Ben highlights how the green agenda, deeply embedded in government, has sent energy prices skyrocketing, dismantling democracy in the process.

Immigration: drawing a line

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 26 May 2022 15:00:11 GMT

A duty to speak

I’ve been asked to speak at a protest in York in July which looks to be more of a generic protest about immigration. I’ve seen the promo artwork which features lions and Unions Jacks which is a bit cringey for my tastes and suggests the demo will be attended by those we can fairly describe as far right – or getting on that way.

But I’m going to do it anyway. Why? Because I don’t care, and because they’re going to call me far right anyway, and in the local context, that just means anyone not conforming to the sanitised line that the Linton asylum facility is just inappropriate for the village and the migrants themselves. The local NIMBYs have a distaste for grubby working class views about immigration, because they’re not couched in mealy-mouthed obfuscation (and the graphic design is in poor taste).

I also get the sense that Linton’s NIMBY curtain twitchers basically hate anyone poorer than them, unless they’re an exotic migrant they can use to parade their right-on credentials. If anyone wants to call me far right then so be it but I’m not an ethno-nationalist, nor an antisemite, nor am I a holocaust denier and the only conspiracy theories I’ve ever subscribed to have turned out to be more or less true. I’m not even anti-immigration or asylum provided its proportionate, fair and controlled.

I have never been a member of a far right organisation or party and if I joined one they’d throw me out for being too left wing.

The question we need to ask is why so many people are drifting to the far right. And I can tell you why. The establishment and its media stooges do all they can to sweep the negative consequences of uncontrolled migration under the carpet and smears anyone who does speak out. To speak out about the festering Islamism in our cities, or the grooming of young girls, or the “cultural enrichment” that sees Muslim women set on fire or beaten, is career suicide for any writer or pundit.

As to the invasion of dinghies at Dover, it’s the majority view that this is a massive pisstake, and the government is unwilling to take any radical measures to address it. They fiddle around the edges and mop up the symptoms, while the local press and police do all they can to stifle news about serious sexual assaults in fear of a “far right backlash”. They think people talking about it is more of a danger than the people actually doing it.

As a long time blogger and “citizen journalist” I’ve always considered it an obligation to speak about that which politicians would rather ignore. They want to talk about partygate. I want to talk about the lawlessness on our streets that has seen machete attacks become almost normalised. Somali gang rapists and machete gangs have turned London into Mogadishu on Thames. We’re still told by Sadiq Khan, with a straight face, that diversity makes us stronger. Tell that to the families of the victims of the Manchester bombing. Tell that to Rochdale and Rotherham. Meanwhile, even here in York we have “diversity barriers”, a ring of steel erected around our Christmas markets, and now even Leeds has armed police patrols.

I’m not a blood and soil nationalist, but we did inherit a great country, where people could be free to live out their lives in peace, but the more savages we import, the less safe women, Jews and gays are even to walk the streets. The utopia liberals dream of is dying because of mass uncontrolled immigration. We are squandering and destroying our inheritance. One we have a moral obligation to defend.

Moreover, we have every right to be angry. This government was elected to get a grip on immigration but every single promise has been broken. We’re not deporting those with no right to be here, long term visas are up 40% since Brexit, the NGOcracy is calling the shots, and any chancer with the right money to pay smugglers can subvert our asylum system. If the mainstream parties won’t entertain immigration control, the far right parties are in waiting. The antidote to far right movements is effective immigration control but our politicians are too gutless to confront the radical left. They’re making it worse by the day.

I have nothing much to lose by speaking out and will continue to do so. We have more to lose by remaining silent. On that basis, I will speak, anytime, anywhere, to anyone who will listen. Smearing and censorship will only strengthen my resolve.

Boris Johnson: the greatest wastrel of all time

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 26 May 2022 13:08:20 GMT

Every promise broken

Writing in The Telegraph , Allister Heath predicts extinction for the Tories at the next general election.

Wake up, Tory loyalists, for time has almost run out to save the Conservative Party from its drift into incompetent, unprincipled oblivion, and prevent the nightmare of a hard-left Government. If a general election were held tomorrow, Boris Johnson’s Tories would be toast , the thrashing more severe even than that meted out to their Australian counterparts last weekend.

In candid, private moments, Conservative MPs, in northern as well as southern seats, will admit to being shaken at the scale of their constituents’ fury, even before the cost of living crisis runs its course. By 2024, in the absence of a seismic change to the Government’s performance and style, impoverished swing voters will surely find a “time for change after 14 years in office” message all too irresistible.

Partygate and sleaze are more a symptom than a cause of the implosion: Johnson’s 2019 voters would find the gross violations of the lockdown rules detailed in Sue Gray’s report easier to forgive if this Government were doing what it was elected to do in the manner it pledged to do it. It is because they are so bitterly disappointed with Johnson’s overall performance that his popularity has plummeted.

Gray’s report describes a delusional, arrogant elite who thought the stringent rules they had imposed on the public didn’t apply to them, a politically toxic state of affairs in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Johnson’s Conservatives were meant to be different, humble servants of the public, implementers of the general will; instead, they have turned out to be just as bad as other ruling castes, breaking manifesto promises with as much abandon as they ignored the Covid rules, convinced that they could get away with everything. It is the gulf between what was promised and what has actually happened – in terms of substance as well as of style – that has hurt Johnson (or “our Boris”, as voters once saw him) so much.

My question is is why did Heath, or anyone else, expect any different? When you put that man in charge, what else could have happened? And if you didn’t see that coming, having recommended the man on the pages of your Tory vessel, are you not complicit, Mr Heath?

Nothing is more emblematic of this government’s philosophical, moral and intellectual collapse than the announcement today that all households will receive a £400 handout to help take the sting out of rising energy bills. The latest spending spree will cost £15 billion, taking the total value of Government cost of living support to £37 billion. Mr Sunak announced a windfall tax will be imposed on oil and gas giants to help fund the moves.

This is exactly the robbing Peter to pay Paul we might expect from a Corbyn government, blaming the energy companies for structural policy failings from the last two decades. It could abandon its absurd Net Zero agenda, it could scrap VAT on home energy and the myriad of green taxes. But then a remotely intelligent government would never have embarked on such a anti-democratic, quasi socialist agenda like Net Zero in the first place. Nor would it be doing everything possible to prolong an expensive and disruptive proxy war on Russia.

This government lacks a principled conservative agenda because its leader is similarly lacking in principle and intelligence. Tax and spend is the only tool in their box, attempting to rebalance the economy with ever more elaborate subsidies. Johnson is sealing his legacy as “Fat Blair”.

By every measure, this government has failed and has failed to deliver on everything it was elected to do. Brexit was supposed to be transformative but our energy policies remain in lockstep with the EU climate agenda, and Britain is to follow the the EU in implementing a carbon border tax that will only make it more expensive to to rebuild our creaking energy grid. So much for “free trade”. Meanwhile, Britain is still a borderless country, while this government negotiates more visas for Indians. Long-term visas for foreign nationals are up 40pc since Brexit.

By the time this government leaves office, the economy will be a smouldering wreck, our energy and food costs through the roof, our cities completely lawless and migration completely out of control, and the keys to Number Ten will be gift-wrapped for Labour who would now struggle to make things worse. But will try all the same.

Boris Johnson has wasted every single day of his term, broken every promise and all but abandoned Brexit. This government was gifted a once in a lifetime opportunity to change the way we are governed for the better, but Johnson pissed it away, squandered our money and spat in the face of those who voted for him. His administration limps form one farce to the next. He’s going to lose – and he deserves to lose. Too bad he’s going to take us all down with him.

Rwanda

Thu, 26 May 2022 11:04:09 GMT

Rwanda is not and has never been a deterrent.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said on the 18th of April 2022 "We're taking action to control our borders and deter illegal entry with our new partnership with Rwanda”.

Conservative MPs and political commentators alike took credit for the brief two-week gap in illegal arrivals, but this was due to weather conditions, in particular the North Easterly wind, nothing at all to do with the so-called Rwanda Deterrent.

Long before the media started celebrating the Rwanda deal as a success story, UK Independence Party consistently pointed out that to call this a deterrent is simply a lie, there being no evidence whatsoever to suggest it is or will ever be a deterrent.

As I and many others suspected, the premature trumpeting of this false claim of success was just an attempt to gain some credibility before the local elections.

The UK has now had more illegal immigrants arrive so far in 2022 than arrived in the entire year of 2020.

In 2020 it was 8,466 and last year we had a total of 28,526 arriving by boat. This year, we are already close to 9,000 illegal immigrants arriving by boat (that we know about) and of course, we can’t know how many overstay their visas and arrive stowed away and undetected in vehicles.

It has been reported by numerous sources that only 50 illegal immigrants will be sent to Rwanda next month. The deal will at best see a couple of hundred flown to Rwanda each year rather than the tens of thousands that are needed, to create any form of successful deterrent. However, I very much doubt any will leave via this route.

The Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab, says he won’t say how many removals will be expected to leave each year, but he made it abundantly clear that ‘it’s not going to deal with the whole problem’.

The Home Office struggle to deport people to their nation of origin, so to suggest sending people to a nation they don't belong to, will have very obvious and difficult stumbling blocks, not to mention the sheer expense of sending people to Rwanda.

I've been banging this drum since it was first announced but people refused to acknowledge what I was saying.

Only the UK Independence Party will put in place a successful deterrent and it doesn't involve Rwanda in any way, shape, or form.

Steve Laws

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Immigration

Thought Control

Thu, 26 May 2022 10:59:55 GMT

UKIP is the only party believing in freedom of expression.

We live in a world where there are relentless moves by those in authority to control rather than influence the way we think.

By any standards this is dangerous.

It is a good thing when people freely express opinions about any matter of their choice even if these thoughts appear to be eccentric or illogical.

Such is the fuel for healthy academic debate and discussion.

Alternatively, when one is informed that such and such a point of view has no place in a modern Scotland ( or wherever) we are in the realms of mind control comparable to nightmare scenarios envisaged by Orwell and Koestler where we are told how to behave and think.

A brief search of the internet will reveal that a wide range of points of view are out of place.

They include slavery, smacking your children, transphobia, sectarianism, greyhound racing, bigotry, racism, homophobia, blasphemy etc.

Now in some instances these are straightforward enough.

Not many people think that slavery is a splendid concept but all too often whatever viewpoint is dismissed is done so in a manner which avoids any serious analysis or intellectual unpacking.

Racism, homophobia, or bigotry are never properly defined and become essentially a series of vacuous terms of abuse.

What if people have genuine beliefs that certain forms of human behaviour are wrong and not in accordance with traditional Christian teaching?

Are they not entitled to hold such views?

And ultimately what if they refuse to back down?

Prison?

No access to NHS?

Woe betide you if you work in the public sector ( and increasingly the private sector too) and strongly object to the whole equality/diversity nonsense.

All the mainstream parties have signed up to this.

UK Independence Party, for all its faults and failings, is the only home for those who cherish freedom of expression.

The more votes we get the more the enemies of free speech will pause and take stock.

Donald MacKay

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Culture and Wokeness

Energy Prices

Thu, 26 May 2022 10:39:16 GMT

Why Boris & Carrie are wrong, and the climate levy should be removed.

Boris Johnson on a recent overseas trip was ambushed by a reporter who wanted to know what he was going to do about energy prices, and if he was going to scrap the climate levy and renewable subsidies.

He replied that the answer to reducing energy prices was to increase the amount generated by renewables. Either this is a religion with him, his wife, and Kwasi Kwarteng, or he is knowingly deceiving the people.

The cheapest source of heat and electricity worldwide is coal. That is why all the rest of the world is rushing to increase mining it and using it for high heat energy industry and for electricity generation. The next cheapest source of energy is gas, but not if you import the bulk of it. We have lots of coal and gas under the north of England and under the North Sea.

Wind turbines and solar arrays are not financially viable without subsidies, and on land they incur feed-in tariff payments to the landowner. They also are intermittent and even if the number of wind turbines was quadrupled as is Boris & Carrie Johnson’s intent, they would provide no more than a sixth of our demand when there is a high pressure over the UK and North Sea. So, you still need nuclear, gas and coal and they cannot be replaced.

Domestic and commercial Energy bills could be reduced instantly by 20% if the climate levy was removed. The Climate Change Act 2008 and subsequent acts relating to the use burning of coal for electricity generation need to be repealed now and carbon taxes stopped. Reducing our 1% contribution to world emissions of CO ₂ is not going the save the planet. It will make industry uncompetitive and drive the people of the UK into fuel poverty.

Antony Nailer

UK Independence Party Spokesman for Energy

Tory MP sells out Linton on Ouse

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 25 May 2022 16:44:56 GMT

Kevin Hollinrake has abandoned his constituents

Via the BBC , Kevin Hollinrake, MP for Thirsk and Malton, has said activists opposing all immigration who had attended meetings in the village “should stay away”. “Far-right activists” are “not welcome” in the campaign against plans to open a centre for asylum seekers in a North Yorkshire village, he said.

The Home Office intends to house up to 1,500 men at a former RAF station at Linton-on-Ouse, near York.

Residents’ concerns were over the suitability of the location, he said. He confirmed some far-right activists had attended meetings held in the village about the intended centre for asylum seekers. “This is about the scale of the problem. I think the far-right activists don’t want to see asylum seekers in the UK at all and I don’t support that view.”

The Tory MP said local residents were instead concerned about housing a large number of men in a small rural community, not about immigration.

We would note that the facility very recently housed a large number of men when it was an active RAF station. It wasn’t a problem then. The concern is that the Home Office is dumping 1500 itinerant single men who have paid smugglers to gain entry into the UK with a view to exploiting our joke of an asylum system. They can’t even admit that.

As a nearby resident, I can also confirm that a handful of far right activists, mostly well behaved, have made an appearance, but they’re not saying anything that locals aren’t saying privately. There are very real concerns about safety and there is precedent enough to say that these are not unfounded concerns. These men have no right to be here. They are jurisdiction shoppers and they weren’t forced to hop into a dinghy from a safe country. This asylum facility is symptomatic of a massive Tory policy failure and now they’re dumping them on us.

In reality, the Linton Action Group, does not speak for the whole village, nor does it own the issue. Those of us who are outraged at the massive and systematic breach of our borders have every right to protest peacefully and doing so does not make you far right or anti-immigration. There is even a case for rescuing some of the most vulnerable refugees from camps but these would be women and children who are prey to violence and sexual exploitation. The army of invaders arriving in dinghies are predominantly men.

Hollinrake is essentially maintaining the fiction that these men are genuine refugees and not economic migrants who are cheating the system – and in taking the line that it’s just the unsuitability of the site, he aligns himself with the NGOcracy and the false flag “Linton Action Group”, who are saying these migrants “should be housed in major conurbations, not small villages”. Essentially, their line is that anyone who rocks up with their hand out should be given a free house. – (just so long as it’s nowhere near us). Social dumping on the working class.

Elsewhere, Hollinrake seeks to allay fears by saying “most will be law abiding”, but the very act of paying criminal gangs to gain entry to the UK tells us how much respect they have for our immigration laws. Why would we expect them to be law abiding at any other time?

The Linton Action Group reeks of NIMBYism but there is also a thick strain of snobbery. Wanting control over our borders is very much a low status working class concern, and too grubby for the precious darlings of local politics to be associated with. It is precisely that refusal to listen to warnings that will see someone’s daughter dragged off and raped. We’re supposed to stand aside and let our betters do our politics for us, and trust in them to act in our interests.

But as we reported yesterday, there is an inherent conflict of interest. Refugee advocacy groups associated with the “official” campaign want to protect their business model of keeping asylum seekers in communities, which in terms of local authority grants, is highly lucrative and very rewarding in terms of community gongs and high society dinners. It’s fashionable to pretend you care about refugees but there’s no mileage in standing up for the working class. Hollinrake has picked his side.

The Government's Failure For Young People Continues

Mon, 23 May 2022 19:30:19 GMT

Students need to be educated about m ental health

I am open about my story I have suffered many mental health issues from a young age. such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism, depression, and anxiety. I’ve had issues with self-harming and after years of isolation can now admit, I am a survivor of attempted suicide. I have spent years feeling no one could help me.

Waiting times for referrals are beyond preposterous. Even with a past emergency referral for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) I waited 3 months just to get a telephone call confirming that I was on the waiting list, and could they complete a quick assessment over the phone!

CBT is a good tool you can apply to yourself to understand why you feel how you do.

According to MIND the use of CBT is statistically proven to help people mentally stabilise and understand their problems and the vicious cycle they are mentally going through.

Young Minds claim to have evidence that mental health initiatives in schools can lead to significant improvements in children’s mental health, social and emotional skills, and reductions in classroom misbehaviour, anxiety, depression, and bullying. I strongly believe tackling mental health from the grassroots at younger ages will help all young people support each other and help decrease mental health suffrage.

The failure to tackle mental health issues within the education system is massive, it is not enough for a school to hold an occasional assembly with a few good words.

According to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) they are struggling to meet demand despite government commitments to improving services and funding. 1 in 10 children aged 5–16 years have a diagnosable mental health problem, typically 3 children in every classroom.

There is a huge discrepancy between the funding of children’s and adult’s mental health services. In 2017–18, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) spent £640 million on children and young people’s mental health services representing 6.3 per cent of the mental health budget. This is despite children making up around 20 per cent of the population. This didn’t include learning disabilities and eating disorders.

Therapists, councillors, and other mental health professionals are in short supply and the problem is getting worse. Suffering mental health or traumatic events can take a long time for recovery. Some such as those with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder never recover and spend the remainder of their lives needing continued support.

To help those who have lost, or nearly lost all hope, urgent action is needed.

UK IP will promote GCSE mental health courses as an option for high school that would help people help themselves and others. GCSE mental health will help young people see how they can help each other, and the effects certain things could have on others mental health.

Jordan Gaskell

UKIP Wellbeing & Mental Health Spokesman

OFQUAL playing catch-up with UKIP

Mon, 23 May 2022 19:19:41 GMT

Ofqual’s plan to return to “meaningful exam grades”

Overgenerous exam grades caused by the chaos of the pandemic over the past two years is about to be reversed by school watchdog OFQUAL next year.

This reversal mirrors the longstanding policy of The UK Independence Party.

UKIP's policy goes even further, to create grade equality.

To overcome grade inflation and make a particular grade meaningful, the UK Independence Party will require each grade to be limited to a fixed percentage of entrants that will not vary from year to year.

This will enable students and employers to know the value of their grade, regardless of when it was taken.

You can find our full education policy here .

Julie Carter

UKIP Education Spokeswoman

Asylum: Linton Action Group is a false flag operation

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 23 May 2022 16:05:12 GMT

March of the do-gooder hypocrites

I wasn’t going to post this article here but since Facebook is heavily censoring me today I don’t really have a choice.

In response to the Home Office’s intention to use Linton-on-Ouse RAF base as an asylum camp, dumping 1500 migrants on the village, the village has mobilised in protest. Very quickly, a formal action group was set up, which has taken on itself the role of representing the villagers. However, not is all it seems.

One of the leading lights is Nicola David, a long-term campaigner for … refugee rights, and chair of a refugee support organisation called Ripon City of Sanctuary, located some 20 miles away, close to where she lives. Nicola David has appointed herself to play a prominent role in the campaign. Her organisation opposed the Borders Bill and opposes measures to end the the invasion of dinghies at Dover. Her website links to freemovement.org.uk and is part of the open borders NGOcracy that seeks to dismantle Britain’s system of border controls.

NGOcracy and legal activism is the very reason we can’t rapidly deport, and is the reason the hotels are filling up and overspill sites are needed. Being that “refugee” charities are awarded considerable grants and government funding, they have a vested interest in frustrating attempts to control the borders. Is she just drumming up business for herself? Either way, she can’t be considered sincere and for as long as she is involved, the Linton Action Group must be considered a false flag operation.

I’m given to wondering why Nicola David is involved at all. She doesn’t live in or near Linton, and in fact lives in massive mansion the other side of the A1M. Perhaps that’s why she says migrants “should be housed in major conurbations, not small villages”. Refugees welcome (just not here!). She’s a hypocrite. She’s seems mainly interested in self promotion, using any opportunity she can to get her own face and name in the media.

In a Yorkshire Live article , Nicola claims to have “opened her doors to a refugee several years ago and knows what it is like to welcome a stranger into her home”. “Najem arrived on Nicola’s doorstep from Syria. He initially came for a trial weekend, but ended up staying for seven months. “He was brilliant,” said Nicola. “We’d sit and watch The Apprentice together and Masterchef and he was always right. He would always call who would win. “Najem had done a degree in English in Damascus and then had been teaching English in Kuwait for three years before he came here, so his English was really good. He was really into linguistics and prided himself on his language, so it was really easy to communicate with him.”

This woman is clearly away with the fairies. It is usually the case that the first to escape any war zone are the affluent middle classes, of which there have been many Syrians claiming to be refugees – but somehow manage to post pictures of their exotic holidays on Instagram. If Najem had been teaching English in Kuwait for three years before he came here then there is no possible way he qualifies as a refugee unless he lied to the authorities. Either Nicola David was born yesterday or she thinks we were. She has a very high opinion of herself so we assume the latter.

The reality of these “adopt a pet refugee” is somewhat different. Not everyone is vetted beforehand. Growing numbers of refugees are being made homeless, and in many cases destitute, after relationship breakdowns with their Homes for Ukraine hosts in the UK, community organisations have said.

Some predict the system could crash entirely after reports of Ukrainian refugees being asked to leave the homes of their sponsors with only one day’s notice. This has left them with no option but to be referred to local authorities as homeless or, if they can afford to, to seek last-minute rented accommodation. Elsewhere we learn that Ukrainians themselves are exploiting the scheme. The government have made an active loophole that Ukrainians are using to get to the UK and jump the housing queue.

In purporting to represent the interests of Linton, Nicola David projects a toxic blend of virtue signalling narcissism and naivety. She should hardly be surprised if some Linton residents think she believes herself to be more enlightened, caring, courageous and generous than those who do not live in a grand mansion miles away from the proposed camp, immune from the plummeting property prices that the proposal has brought.

Certainly, the PR shots tell their own story. They portray a woman keen to be in the spotlight. What she does not seem to have grasped is that the Dover dinghy arrivals are, in the main, economic migrants abusing and defrauding the system, who could have made an asylum claim before reaching the UK but instead paid people smugglers. They’re jurisdiction shoppers. Moreover, few will be English-speaking graduate class refugees, of the type with whom David so happily bonded. As likely, they could be itinerant criminals from Eritrea, Somalia, Iran and Albania.

Despite that, Nicola David seems to be more interested in promoting the cause of refugees than she does the residents of Linton. To that effect, she has co-opted the Linton Action Group for what seem to be her own objectives, alienating many of the villagers and would-be supporters in the process. This is reinforced by Stalinesque censorship imposed by the Action Group, which has turned the campaign into a private fiefdom for the greater glory of David and her friends.

The Group is behaving more like an ego-affirming echo chamber. If the residents of Linton and the surrounding area continue to accept that this woman has any right to represent them, they must expect that their cause will be poorly served.

Asylum: a village betrayed

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 22 May 2022 01:11:13 GMT

Direct action may soon be the only option left

Unusually for me I’ve been preoccupied with local politics lately. The Dover dinghy crisis has reached my doorstep. The Home Office wants to warehouse 1500 illegal immigrants in my neighbourhood. I’ve been following the campaign to stop it from happening, and attending the protests, but it looks like the facility will go ahead. The Home Office has completely disregarded the feelings of local residents. Though the parish council is notionally running a campaign against it, they have all but admitted defeat and are now in talks with local police and “partner agencies” as to how the fallout will be mitigated. There is to be a near permanent police presence in the village.

But then the official action group doesn’t really represent the local sentiment at all. It’s been appropriated as the exclusive property of local do-gooders of the liberal middle class NIMBY persuasion, one of whom is a signed up member of the open borders NGOcracy. We suspect that the woman in question has eyes on a very large support grant for her “City of Sanctuary” charity in nearby Ripon. She may oppose the camp but will do quite well out of it if it happens. She may not gain financially but it gets her all kinds of high society praise and dinner invites. Just what our local Margo Leadbetter dreams of.

Opposition to the camp has been couched in terms of “wrong plan, wrong place”. They say the “refugees” should be housed in major conurbations, not small villages. Basically, they’re saying dump the darkies on Bradford. Bump them up the housing list! The campaign is “liaising” with Hope Not Hate and pruning any off message comments from their Facebook group. Several locals have been banned without notice for merely liking a comment. I’m now of the view that if the people of Linton allow these people to do their politics for them then they deserve everything they get.

What’s interesting, though, is that this is very much a class divide. The village is outwardly middle class but there are plenty of working class people around. One notices the how the “refugees welcome” idiots in Linton tend to be well-to-do women and soy boys who won’t have to compete with migrants for work and healthcare. As with the metropolitan “Labour” party, the needs of working class people are way down the list after illegal immigrants.

The excuse they’re hiding behind is that they don’t want to be seen as racist, or allow the campaign to be hijacked by the “far right”, and though I understand their caution, the definition of far right seems to extend to anyone not going along with the “poor helpless refugee” narrative. Some in the area are still unaware that the vast majority of “service users” will be lone men of fighting age who paid large sums to smugglers in order to gain access to the asylum system and defraud it.

In that respect, the local politics is a microcosm of the national debate, where much of the same dynamics apply. Steve Laws tells me much the same happened in the row over Napier Barracks, with do-gooders and NGOcrats absorbing local opposition and turning it to their own purposes. The NGOcray is opposed to the use of barracks and hotels and won’t be happy until anyone who rocks up is given a free house that meets their criteria of what is suitable, and all avenues of removal have been shut down. They are, in effect, aiding and abetting illegal immigration, often financed by central and local government grants. Refugee Action York just bagged £180k from the National Lottery Community fund – yet this facility is set to shatter this community.

And, of course, when these illegal immigrants are caught by local paedophile hunter vigilantes, or found loitering around school gates, or arrested for sexual assault, not one of these preening do-gooders will take responsibility for rolling out the red carpet. The local MP, Kevin Hollinrake, is making a token effort to oppose the facility, but is largely falling in with the sanitised narrative and will pin the blame on the Home Office, washing his hands of it.

We are told that initially only sixty migrants will be moved into Linton, and numbers may be capped at 500 for a short time, before expanding to the rated capacity and beyond. Being that the Home Office has broken every one of its promises, there is no reason to believe them. Migrants are arriving thick and fast down at Dover and we’re running our of places to put them. Unless we see significant action to slow the flow and remove those already here, we can expect to see Linton fill up fast, and then other communities will be in the crosshairs. Safe and quiet communities across the nation are to have their lives turned upside down.

The local curtain twitchers can squeal all they like about the far right but the one thing that’s guaranteed to bring the far right roaring back into British politics is the abject failure of this government to control our borders and stop what amounts to an invasion of illegal immigrants. Direct action may soon be the only option left.

This government was given a thumping mandate to fix immigration yet it has allowed itself to be pushed around by activist lawyers and NGOs. Each new dinghy the RNLI escorts ashore is further proof that voting doesn’t work – and eventually, when it’s fully understood how our own politicians at the local and national level are selling us out, and young women and girls are again being thrown under the bus, it’ll be more than just a few lads from Wakefield waving placards and taking photos at the gates.

I’m hoping Linton residents wake up to the fact that the “action group” is gradually becoming a false flag operation and hope to see more robust protest but I fear it’s already too late. The national media, especially the BBC, has worked hard to obstruct the truth, and the kind hearted public have been fed a constant stream of NGO disinformation. Even the RNLI is serving the propaganda agenda of open borders extremists. It seems the public is going to have to learn the hard way.

Immigration: drifting to the extremes

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Fri, 20 May 2022 00:52:08 GMT

Tory indifference on immigration is creating a dangerous void in British politics

I will talk to virtually anyone about politics. If someone tells me I shouldn’t talk to a person because of their politics, I usually take that as a recommendation rather than a warning. Yesterday, though, at the Linton on Ouse protest, I chatted with a man from Patriotic Alternative. I wanted to understand the difference between my opinion and theirs.

PA, as I understand it, are explicitly ethno-nationalist. Being that they are a successor movement to the BNP, comprising of many of the same people, and seeking to become a registered political party, they're filling the far right void in British politics. Their view is that mass immigration can and should be reversed. It was put to me that we should offer a sum of £10k to encourage non-British born people to leave.

I think that’s unworkable. I asked what happens when they simply take the money then show up again a few months later, to which the reply was to simply “close the borders”. This is not intelligent policy. Moreover, such a radical policy would result in leftist and popular resistance, similar to what we’ve already seen with mobs blocking deportation vans, but on a far larger scale, to the point where we’d have open insurrection in our cities – which could start a low level civil war. Such a policy is never going to enjoy majority consent either. It’s a pipedream.

If I had a time machine or a magic wand I would undo mass immigration in a heartbeat. European immigration has made a valuable contribution but the same cannot be said of Pakistanis and many Arab Africans who, after decades, are still not integrated, have no intention of doing so, and have brought all the vileness of tribal culture to the UK. FGM, blasphemy codes, grooming gangs, sex selective abortions, and honour killings etc. are not what I call “enriching diversity”.

Fixing this mess is going to take time and political resilience. I want to see a slowdown of immigration, and policies designed to promote and encourage integration, along with and uncompromising and hostile environment for illegal immigrants. That much is possible, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable – and very necessary if we are to avert the cultural balkanisation of Britain and the subsequent ethnic conflict.

I appreciate that makes me very very right wing by British standards, but I still reject any notion of ethnic purity and all that nonsense. I do wish though, not unreasonably, to see some ethnic and cultural continuity on these islands to preserve our lands, customs, accomplishments and architecture, and don’t think a transient population of immigrants with no ancestral links to the nation and its story will care for it in the same way. Or at all.

Thus any policy that sees ethnic Brits becoming a minority is something I oppose. If then that makes me a racist then, then try persuading me otherwise. I am receptive to argument. I just don’t see why we should blithely accept our cultural extinction, handing over all that’s been built over the last thousand years to itinerants from all over the world with no accomplishments of their own to grace these lands.

Britain can be a successful multi-ethnic society if there is a coherent and unified sense of identity, living as equals under the same law, but mass immigration increasingly makes that virtually impossible – and gradually, our cities become ungovernable – ruled by the mob in the street as the police cower behind political correctness. Ultimately if Britain wants to remain a liberal democracy and tolerant in the sense that everyone can live freely and safely, then it cannot tolerate the cultural and legal demands of backward savages from the back hills of Kashmir.

I don’t think we should close the borders, but I do think we should, to a point, discriminate on the basis of culture, and if we are going to have immigration laws then they must be fully and fairly enforced. If we allow immigration cheats arriving in dinghies to circumvent our laws, then we’re effectively a borderless country. What we’re witnessing in Dover is a slow motion invasion.

The left still maintains the fiction that economic migrants are refugees and the definition of refugees is forever stretched to the point of meaninglessness. Our system of human rights laws and international treaties have become a golden ticket for freeloading chancers and a goldmine for parasitic NGOs and activist lawyers. It undermines any sense of fairness and confidence in the system, and when we have a Home Office that sits on its hands and allows over a million illegal immigrants to live and work in Britain, I won’t be remotely surprised if we do see a revival of the far right. If people can’t get what they want from mainstream parties they will look to the extremes.

We’re about to see that theory tested in the near future. Control of immigration was implied by the vote to leave the EU yet we see weaker work permit rules, lower salary and skill thresholds for entry, and a completely dysfunctional border force. Long-term visas for foreign nationals up 40pc since Brexit. The Tories have told endless lies and do nothing with their eighty seat majority to secure Britain’s borders. They hide behind legal challenges and “activist lawyers” but they could change the law overnight if they wanted to. They didn’t let a thing like parliamentary process stop them from enacting emergency Covid laws. It’s not like they don’t have a mandate to fix the borders.

I used to make more nuanced arguments than this about immigration, as my long history of blogging will show, but I’m tired of all the equivocation and couching language in careful terms to avoid setting off offendatrons. All my social media accounts are subject to censorship anyway, for even mildly conservative views, so there’s nothing to lose by saying it how I feel it. They’re going to silence us all one way or another.

Successive administrations have used immigration to prop up GDP and to fill skills gaps for their party donors, while each party panders to their minority bloc votes in urban marginals. The natives have been abandoned by their traditional parties. And we really do have to ask what the hell is wrong with this country that we can’t train our own people, instead of raiding other health services for staff? Half of new midwives and nurses now come from abroad . We’ve made our country a free for all, but Brits are destined to become basketcases and second class citizens in their own country, and are expected to sit back and watch as cities turn into lawless violent slums.

As I’ve argued elsewhere, the best antidote to the far right is effective and fair border controls, but for as long as this useless, idle government sits on its hands, presiding over an invasion by criminals and vagrants, and while the Home Office allows itself to be chased off by “no nations, no borders” anarchist mobs, we will see a new BNP, and a rise of racist vigilantism. That’s exactly what I don’t want to see.

I’ve spent some time with “far right” activists around Linton on Ouse just to see what they’re about. They don’t live up to their media reputations. Every single one of them has cogently argued their point of view, and engaged in free and frank discussions. That they tend to provoke the plod and harangue legacy media journalists doesn’t do them any favours nor is it productive, but when see just how the media frames these issues, I start to understand why they do it.

The fact is, the legacy media prefers to sanitise the issue but also sanitise the representation of public sentiment. The depth of anger over the Linton asylum camp is glossed over and the unvarnished, uncensored opinions of working class plebs are brushed under the carpet, in collusion with local officialdom. There is the licenced line about “local safety concerns” but it’s always carried alongside obligatory nods to “refugee welfare”. Nothing that might spook the horses. But it’s the “far right” presenting the ugly truth about this issue. The migrants the RNLI escorts ashore are a danger to public safety and they just not refugees. I ain’t buying it.

It is also the case that were it not for the presence of “far right” citizen journalists embarrassing the local media into covering stories, they wouldn’t bother to cover the issue at all, and the warehousing of migrants in hotels and barracks would be done under a shroud of “operational security”. Thanks to the likes of Steve Laws, Active Patriot and Yorkshire Rose, we know more about what is happening and where than we could ever discern from the legacy media. I don’t get any real far right vibes from any of them. Just working class people who don’t mince their words and don’t care what middle class prudes say about them.

In that sense, I don’t really give a toss if they are far right. Look who’s doing the finger pointing. According to the elites of Twitter I’m literally the worst person ever – and deserving of multiple pile-ons. But in the time since my first suspension, one of them has gone into hiding following claims of sexual assault, another insists there is no biological difference between men and women, transvestite fox clubber Jolyon Maugham is pushing puberty blockers on kids and wants to remove parental consent, Frances Coppola claims that women going through the menopause are, in effect, changing sex, Owen Jones is celebrating “chest feeding” as “beautiful”, while a think tanker obfuscates about Pakistani rape gangs and denounces criticism of grooming as “racist”. If that’s what it takes to be one of the “good and decent” set then I’m glad to be known as anything but. But I’m the one who can’t use his own name on Twitter in fear of being immediately banned. That’s Twitter for you.

As with LGBTQ+ perversity (anything to the right of the B is a narcissistic personality disorder or sexual fetish), the pretence economic migrants are refugees is a high status opinion, and it goes and in hand with the woke notion that “whiteness” is inherently evil, and somehow our self-annihilation is the only way to atone for the distant crimes of the British Empire. A sickness has absorbed our elites while our cowardly political class refuses to confront them, allowing them to capture every public institution up to and including the police and the border force. The public institutions we pay for are working against us, as are our politicians. It may reach a point where we need the far right more than we need the police. Our elites don’t care about our safety, they’ve turned their backs on freedom of speech, and the police will kneel before the mob. They’ve created a dangerous void, and something soon will come along and fill it.

Asylum: Fury at Linton

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 19 May 2022 19:06:05 GMT

Linton asylum camp: a casual contempt for local democracy

This evening I attended what was a fairly large protest against the migrant camp the Home Office is installing at the RAF base at Linton on Ouse. Home Office officials were to speak at a village hall meeting later. They were loudly booed as they arrived in a black goon car.

In attendance was most of the mainstream media, seemingly half the village, and a number of activists from outside the area – described as “far right”. There’s been a concerted effort to exclude them from the Facebook group and the “official” action group is censoring “prickly” opinions from locals. What’s amusing, though, is they’re not saying anything that local residents weren’t saying at the meeting tonight. The mood inside was hostile, and the general consensus is that the village has been treated with contempt, and residents fears dismissed as irrational.

As the penny drops that the camp will go ahead, and that local objections, and local democracy have no bearing on the decision, the self-appointed official action group is finding it harder and harder to maintain their control over the message. Especially now it’s fully understood that the migrants will be men of fighting age. The villagers know damn well the implications for their safety, the value of their homes and the cost of home and business insurance.

Being that I’m often smeared as far right myself I made a point of talking to some of the activists. Say what you like about “far right” people but you always get a coherent discussion out of them as opposed to mealy-mouthed screeching leftists. Two of them were from Patriotic Alternative, who were perfectly civil, and though I disagree with policy position, their view on the dinghy issue does not differ from my own (or those of many locals I’ve spoken to). I also spoke at length (on camera) with “Brexit activist” James Goddard, whom I’m only dimly aware of. Again, nothing he said was anything particularly “far right”.

Though I live locally, I didn’t make any special effort to gain entry to the meeting, not least because it’s being recorded, and if spaces were limited then it is right they were reserved for Linton residents who are most affected. In any case, the local dimension is playing out exactly as I anticipated. The action group thought that if they played nice and kept the message sanitised then they’d be listened to. Their concerns have been brushed aside, and as you can see from the recording, their safety concerns have been fobbed off with bland managerialism. It’s clear that the government is not listening and was never going to.

For me, though, the issue is much, much bigger than the impact on the Vale of York. The very existence of this facility is symptomatic of a total failure of this government to control our borders on any level. The dinghy crisis is just the more visible aspect of illegal immigration, but there are over a million illegals in the UK and the Home Office is not making sincere or credible effort to remove them. Dinghy migrants should be removed immediately, but this facility tells us that the Home Office doesn’t believe its own removal policy will work.

The other aspect is the absolute contempt for local democracy. The news was dropped on residents out of the blue and many only found out via television news. The whole community has mobilised against it, including the local Green Party, and refugee group “Ripon City of Sanctuary” – which still maintains the fiction that the dinghy migrants are refugees. Nobody wants this facility, but the official response from the government and Home Office officials has been a two fingered salute.

The parish council, though, is just as guilty, and in some respects deserve what they’re getting, because they themselves have taken action to alienate locals who just wanted their voices heard. They’ve selectively deleted comments from Facebook and banned locals, displaying a snobbish nimbyism in the belief they have the exclusive right to speak for everyone.

Perhaps it’s the case that they want this viewed exclusively as a local issue, but it isn’t. This is only the beginning. The Linton facility will grow and it will be replicated across the country and still nothing will be done about the influx at Dover. Meanwhile, those of us who bother to speak out continue to be smeared. They’ve got some hard lessons coming their way.

The Balkanisation of Borderless Britain

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 16 May 2022 15:36:47 GMT

Liberal hypocrisy is a threat to British democracy

They say we have a moral obligation to take in refugees. I'm not sure that we do. We may have a basic humanitarian obligation as a wealthy country to ensure the safety of refugees but that doesn't necessarily mean importing them. Britain does contribute financially to the upkeep of refugee facilities around the world. But the often overlooked point is that refugee status is temporary. Refugees are supposed to return.

That the dinghy influx freely admit they are "seeking a new life" in Britain tells us they have no intention to return thus cannot be considered refugees. They are economic migrants. They are economic migrants who would not be admitted under existing immigration rules so they pay smugglers in order to game the asylum system. We are under no obligation to show favour to them.

There are then those who say "It is only right that we should take our fair share". To which I ask, what is a fair share of illegal immigrants? To what extent is the UK liable for the failure of EU states to control their own borders? But let's entertain that for a moment. The system is already at capacity. There is no room for the current number in asylum system. So in order to accommodate more, who is bumped from the housing list? To whom is that fair?

I could be persuaded to take in more refugees were it the case that we were helping the most vulnerable. If that were the case we'd, primarily, be admitting women and children. Dinghy occupants would be women. They have more to fear than men. Women in refugee camps the world over are subject to rape, forced sex work, FGM and beatings.

The UN says that female refugees are "highly vulnerable to all forms of sexual and physical violence. In addition to the dangers women face from contesting armed groups, once on the move from the conflict zone, they are also at risk of being brutalised by human traffickers or even border security forces. Even after exiting the conflict zone, safety can be elusive. Staying in a refugee camp within the country of origin or seeking protection elsewhere brings serious threats to women’s security, freedom and health". Female refugees need protection from the very men the RNLI is escorting ashore by the thousands.

We are urged to "show compassion" by left wing NGOs and charities, but I don't understand why we are supposed to be compassionate toward those who are cheating a system designed to help vulnerable refugees. Strip away all the self-serving talk about compassion and moral obligation, and what you tend to find is a profoundly ignorant virtue signaller who has never examined the issue in any detail - and is usually of the ilk who will face no material consequences for their fashionable attitudes. They're often the first to accuse others of racism but one can only imagine how royally pissed off I would be as an immigrant who had followed the rules and gone through the expensive processes to comply with British law, to then see wave after wave of chancers who abuse the system. This abuse is the least fair on them.

When it comes down to it, those who seek to enable the mass invasion of dinghy migrants are ideological opposed to borders, for whom citizenship is a tradable commodity and national identity just equates to living somewhere regardless of where you were born. Often the most shallow and narcissistic views are held aloft as the most virtuous - especially by our media class. Citizenship and identity mean nothing to them.

But borders exist for a reason. They allow peoples to define their own laws within their own territories according to their own values. Values which are not universal. That means we have a continuous culture and system of national norms, upon which trust is built in our communities. When that starts to break down, when virtually anyone is allowed to settle, with licence to ignore our laws from the get go, and special dispensations made for them, we gradually become a low trust society beset by tribal rivalries and ethno-identity politics. Our cities are halfway there already.

The same people who wave "refugees welcome" placards are the same people who cheer when mobs prevent the Home Office from deporting illegal immigrants. There exists a privileged class of well-to-do leftists who lobby for open borders, and have successfully weaponised asylum law to erode our immigration system to the point of uselessness. If the Home Office can't or won't deport illegal immigrants then we are, in effect, a borderless country. They know this which is why they campaign through the courts and not through normal channels of politics.

The danger in this is that a small but powerful elite is imposing its flawed moral construct on the majority who are increasingly marginalised at the ballot box, not least since the main parties have long since abandoned ordinary Brits. Eventually these tactics erode the legitimacy of law and we then see a breakdown of law and order. When the police won't enforce moral norms of the country enshrined in law then vigilantes will.

Liberal think tanks are presently manufacturing the narrative that Britain is at ease with the rate of migration since the issue has dropped down the list of current concerns since Brexit. They're only fooling themselves. The cost of living crisis and related issues have certainly displaced immigration as a concern, but we're only at the beginning of the food and energy crisis, and we're heading into a recession that will have lasting ramifications for living standards in the UK. With any recession goes crime and drugs and inter-ethnic violence.

We are soon going to see just how ungovernable our cities have become, and voters will rightly be asking why we have a supposedly conservative government sitting on its hands over what amounts to an invasion of illegal immigrants. When people can't get what they want from mainstream political parties, they will turn to the extremes.

I believe a reckoning is coming. I don't believe in the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory, but it is observable that native Brits are being displaced from their own politics as minority ethnic bloc votes turn elections. The Tories pander to Indians while Labour panders to Muslims, and the disputes over Kashmir and "Palestine" are, bizarrely, just as influential in elections as the state of local health and education. Brits are not yet a minority in terms of demographics, but as mainstream political parties abandon them, they will be the minority at the ballot box. Labour and the Tories will each abuse the immigration system to gerrymander the outcome of elections. The SNP has already given refugees the right to vote in local elections. Labour will do likewise.

I've always found "land and peoples, blood and soil" nationalism to be rather grubby and though not actually Nazi, it's in the same ballpark. But I do see a revival of it in the future when it becomes clear that our own politicians put us last in the pecking order. When there isn't a moderate alternative, the extremes will prosper. You then start to see vigilante groups enjoying more legitimacy and public consent than the police. It won't happen soon, but we are drifting into a point where our lawless cities will reach a tipping point that could be called a low-level civil war - but nobody will actually call it that. The establishment will simply pretend it isn't happening. But it won't be contained forever. We're already witnessing the cultural Balkanisation of Britain, and if immigration isn't controlled then it will become deadly.

Britain can be a successful multi-ethnic country but only if the rate of influx is in harmony with the inherent absorptive capacity and minorities are compelled to integrate. If it isn't, you end up with a transient society with values constantly in flux and then there is nothing left for immigrants to integrate with. Just a morass of competing ethnic lobbies and gated communities.

To avoid this fate we need to ensure we have a functioning system of border control and one that deters the mass abuse we're presently seeing. The Linton on Ouse facility is a signal that our government isn't even managing the basics and lacks the political will to do what is necessary. Nobody wants it, it is fair to nobody, and is symptomatic of a collapse of local democracy - but our political class doesn't care. On that basis, the fight is only just beginning.

Fat Blair is asleep at the wheel

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sat, 14 May 2022 11:36:22 GMT

A deadbeat Tory government sits on its hands while Britain quietly burns

We are getting to the situation where, from initial pessimism about the capability and endurance of Ukraine, we see a growing belief that it can win this war. That view is incautious. For sure, Ukraine can beat off the attackers, but when it comes to recovering ground, they face exactly the same problems confronting the Russians.

Thus, we’re in it for the long haul, which presents a different and stressful dynamic on western nations, including the EU. Until this war is resolved, normal politics and economics will not be resumed. This is driving foreign, defence and economic policy, which cannot revert to normal as long as we are, in effect, in an undeclared war with Russia. The shadow of Ukraine hangs over the nation and affects every aspect of policy and the way we live.

The media is now bored of the Ukraine war and has compartmentalised it as a running concern but the headlines in the coming weeks and months will very much be symptoms of that conflict be it food or energy poverty. There is no solution to the cost of living crisis without an end to fighting in Ukraine. The worst of it is that we are not in control. Effectively, Zelensky and Putin are driving our politics. We’re just the spectators.

That has the Tories worried. There are things they could do to bring down living costs such as axing green taxes on energy and slashing fuel duty, but the ideological bent of the Westminster bubble forbids it. It may happen, but only after all other options have been exhausted. Consequently, we’re in for a decade of crippling energy costs and the ill health and poverty that goes with it.

In the background, though, the wheels are quietly falling off the Net Zero bandwagon. Capital costs increases, shortages and supply chain disruptions will stall the rollout of EVs, and we can expect the government to quietly drop its ban on the sale of ICE vehicles. The rest of the world is ramping up its use of coal and soon even Boris will notice that Britain is alone in its desire to commit economic suicide. The wind industry will also hit the buffers as older wind farms reach decommissioning age and new developments face long delays for connection to the grid. This parasitic industry will go on stealing our wealth but its days are numbered. Too bad we have to reach an energy emergency before Kwasi Kwarteng wakes up.

Of equal concern is the emerging food crisis that goes hand in hand with war and an energy crunch. You would think the Tories would take this opportunity to rethink and revitalise British agriculture, capitalising on Brexit, instead of paving over the countryside with solar panels to meet arbitrary climate targets, But again, they’ll let the poor starve before they reconsider subsidies to developers and Tory donors.

We also note that if the Ukraine conflict causes wider global food shortages, then we can also expect to see yet another wave of economic migrants when the Johnson administration doesn’t have a handle on present levels of illegal immigration.

On Thursday the Home Office took to Twitter to inform us that “we removed 23 dangerous foreign criminals on charter flights with combined sentences of over 46 years. We also removed 3 individuals who had entered the UK illegally. We are committed to ending the abuse of our asylum system and removing those with no right to be here”. That’s three – of over one million illegal immigrants in the UK. Elsewhere we learn that just fifty migrants have been told they be to Rwanda as part of the government’s resettlement policy. More than 8,000 people have made the crossing so far this year – and summer isn’t here yet.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Boris Johnson revealed the figure, saying he expected a lot of legal opposition but insisted the government would “dig in”. Mr Johnson told the Mail: “There’s going to be a lot of legal opposition from the types of firms that for a long time have been taking taxpayers’ money to mount these sort of cases, and to thwart the will of the people, the will of Parliament. We’re ready for that. “We will dig in for the fight and we will make it work,” he added. “We’ve got a huge flowchart of things we have to do to deal with it, with the leftie lawyers.”

Does Boris realise he is the prime minster and has an eighty seat majority sitting idle? He could end taxpayer funding of the NGOcracy this week if he wanted to. He could withdraw from the Refugee Convention and scrap the Human Rights Act. With his majority, and our departure from the EU it has never been easier for a PM to pass legislation to kill off legal activism. As ever, the man takes us for fools. The Tories are asleep at the wheel.

We have already seen that the Tories have abandoned Brexit, having no idea what to usefully do with it, and Johnson’s legacy is increasing summarised as “Fat Blair”. A slovenly, disjointed and incompetent administration that squandered the biggest electoral opportunity of all time. One that sat on its hands and watched inflation ravage the economy and erode the wealth of Britons while fire-hosing Ukraine with taxpayer’s cash to pursue a vanity proxy war. One that needs to end now.

We’ve long since given up any hope that this government will do anything useful with its time in office, and it seems the most we can hope is that it might stop making everything worse, but even that seems to be asking too much of the Tories. We are left to wonder just how much more of a battering the UK can take before we start to see deadly serious consequences.

Brexit: decoy politics

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Fri, 13 May 2022 11:10:14 GMT

The "red meat" has started to decompose

Writing in today’s Telegraph, David Frost asserts that “We could endlessly go over the circumstances that produced the Protocol in 2019, as many seem to want – preferring that to dealing with today’s problems. We knew the deal was far from perfect. We never wanted the arrangements that limited trade into Northern Ireland. But our Protocol got rid of the hated “backstop” that would have left us stuck in the EU customs union and unable to run a trade or economic policy of our own”.

He continues “Moreover, we had no walk away option, thanks to Messrs Benn and Burt, and their Surrender Act in Parliament, which made “no deal” impossible. If we had not signed up in October 2019, we would have faced endless further prevarication, the unravelling of the Brexit vote, and the complete disintegration of our constitutional process and confidence in our Westminster system. That’s why we did the deal. It was the right thing to do. If we hadn’t, I think we would still be in the EU now”.

This is something of a rewriting of history. That “hated backstop” was, as its name implies, a backstop, only to be activated in the event that post Article 50 trade talks failed. Had the deal been signed, there was all the time in the world to negotiate a replacement instrument within the transition period. But there were other games in play.

The ERG used objections to the backstop as a device with which to oust May and install Johnson as their man. Everything that followed was political theatre. Johnson claimed he was the man who could re-open talks and get rid of the backstop, but did so by reverting to a previous version of May’s deal, in which the backstop became the front stop. Johnson and Frost are responsible for the protocol as it exists now. They negotiated it, they recommended it – as did the Vote Leave clan.

It was clear at the time that the Tories had no intention of implementing it and to date the issue is unresolved. They now argue that the Protocol does not enjoy the necessary consent. Frost asserts that unionists and Unionist parties have withdrawn consent for the Protocol arrangements, and Northern Ireland can’t be governed properly until this situation changes. That much is probably true – but because that’s the result they’ve engineered.

In fairness to the EU, it has demonstrated a willingness to stretch its own rules to breaking point, but it’s politically useful for the Tories to maintain the dispute as a wedge issue; to maintain the pretence that this is still a Brexit government. Every now and then the Tories hint they will scrap the Protocol in the same way they keep saying they’ll stop the dinghy invasion. There is no basis on which to trust this government.

Frost asserts “The Government has no option now other than to act unilaterally to disapply part or all of the Protocol. The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, which the Protocol is supposed to protect, is on life support. There is an imminent threat to our ability to govern Northern Ireland and protect its people’s economic, trading and security interests. It is obviously essential for the UK Government to be able to govern the whole country properly. That is why it needs to act – and has the absolute right and duty to do so”.

When it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter how technically elegant a solution may be, if it does not enjoy democratic consent then it has to go. This is where the EU appears disingenuous. It will says it not countenance any measures that would exacerbate tensions but it doesn’t seem to care so long as its regulatory territory is not compromised. You could be forgiven for thinking that the EU’s position isn’t really about the “peace process”.

If, though, the Tories end up pressing the nuclear button, it will likely collapse the TCA and all further trade cooperation with the EU, putting us back to square one. The question of what relationship should replace EU membership remains unanswered. Thus we cannot say by any measure that Brexit is “done”. We have yet to find a new normal in our relations with the EU, and bilateral trade will continue to suffer. The Tories have made a royal mess of Brexit.

There was a way to avoid this mess but none of the players chose to take it. Had we remained in the EEA (and gradually rolled it back) there would have been no need for any protocols or backstops but remainers (hand in hand with Brexit hard liners) forcefully campaigned against this option, and when given the option to vote on Brexit outcomes, parliament slapped away the hand of compromise. They voted 377 against the Efta based option. When both sides had resolved against any kind of compromise, all they were left with was variations on what exists now. They all “own it”.

Since all parties have now ruled out every option there’s nothing any normal person can do but watch from the side-lines and despair. It’s up to the people who got us into this mess to get us out of it. Chances are, they won’t. They’ll make it worse. It will not be resolved without a decisive change of approach – which won’t happen under this government or its immediate successor. The most we can hope for is for the current dysfunctional relationship to limp along in the background. Putting the Protocol out of its misery might well be a welcome development, but it’s hard to see that being the end of the matter.

Ultimately it is for EU wonks to go back to the drawing board. The UK is acting to preserve the integrity of its own internal market over and above that of the EU – as any sovereign country should do. That is a reality the EU must come to terms with and modify its own approach. The inherent conflict here is that the EU offers nothing in between a threadbare FTA or full alignment thus any “relationship” is an ultimatum. By definition that is not a “partnership”.

Being that the point of dispute is the role of the ECJ, one way forward would be to collapse the Protocol into the TCA using the TCA’s internal systems for dispute resolution, but with a view to building an “EEA lite” covering only the sectors where there is significant material impact. That, after all, is the only logical direction of travel for the TCA. The EU can be steadfast in its approach to minnows like Switzerland and Norway, but it can’t play those games with a powerhouse. The EU must decide if it exists to advance the interests of Europe or whether it serves only the existential foibles of the EU corporate entity.

We should, however, not get carried away with the idea that the Tories are sincere about fixing their Brexit mess. By every other measure they've abandoned Brexit. In policy terms, Not Zero puts us in lockstep with the EU regulatory agenda, economic policy is still in the hands of remainer technocrats and we’re going backwards in terms of controlling our borders. The NI issue serves as a Tory decoy to distract Brexiteers from the fact that nothing whatsoever is being done to capitalise on our departure from the EU.

And there’s a reason for that. The Tories don’t have the first idea what to do with Brexit. they have neither the talent or the imagination and, more crucially, have nothing close to an accurate diagnosis as to what ails Britain. Torygraph columnists bleat about the need for deregulation but have no idea what or where to deregulate. In its approach to EU trade, the Tories are succeeding in piling on the red tape.

The obvious starting points being agriculture, energy and digital policy require a total departure from the EU acquis, forging our own strategy for national independence, but when it comes to ideas, the Tory cupboard is bare. Boris Johnson tells us we have a skills gap requiring yet more immigration from India – which tells us that the mentality has not changed since Brexit. Instead of addressing skills and training, they still see the mass import of people as the answer. Almost as though Brexit never happened. They learned nothing.

Nothing about the NI Protocol discourse has changed since 2019, but it’s always useful to drag it back to the fore when Tory popularity is flagging because they want us to forget that this government doesn’t really believe in Brexit – and it never did.

Review: Dispatches -The Enemy Within

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 10 May 2022 12:38:25 GMT

Manufactured fear of the far right is entirely self-serving

I just watched a Channel 4 Dispatches entitled “The Enemy Within: The Far Right”. It follows a group called Patriotic Alternative (PA). It appears to be a reunion of the weird ethno-nationalist cult that last manifested in the form of the British National Party. They are anti-Semitic, they are Holocaust deniers and they racist. Channel 4 would like us to believe that this is a rapidly growing and influential movement, inviting the likes of Hope Not Hate to opine on it.

What they don’t say is that PA follows a model established in the EU, which was a far larger movement under the name Generation Identity. PA is pretty tame by contrast. Channel 4, however, doesn’t ask why their message finds such resonance, particularly with impressionable youth.

The thing about far-rightism, is that it taps into a few hard truths. They say whites are set to be a minority in Britain. That much looks to be true. They say the LGBT movement is a danger to children. It is. It’s not the far right seeking to normalise chest binders and feed puberty blockers to kids. The transgender agenda is predatory. As to PA’s stated position on Black Lives Matter, it’s hard to disagree with them. Moreover, far left “antifa activists” are more likely to engage in violence. The undercover reporter in the programme was set upon by an Antifa thug.

I’m not surprised that PA found a new audience in the wake of the BLM fad. When you set up “black” as a generic identity, it follows that a white identity will begin to demand the same recognition. And you can see why they feel aggrieved. Ethnic minority inclusion in public life, academia and media increasingly excludes working class whites. State and corporate entities wishing to meet their diversity window-dressing quotas have a preference for anyone of darker skin to demonstrate their right-on credentials. It is routinely observed that a normal white heterosexual couples no longer feature in television adverts.

Dispatches has it that the Great Replacement theory is central to PA’s ideas, citing a cartoon showing an abortion clinic waiting room full of white women, and below showing a maternity clinic waiting room full of ethnic minorities. Again this has a ring of truth to it. Western hyper-individualism has, to a point, normalised abortion, while planned pregnancy within marriage is declining.

This in my view is a consequence of the welfare state replacing the family, freeing individuals form the obligations of family, particularly among the white working class, leading to societal atomisation. Other factors such as house prices and sky high rents act as a deterrent to starting a family, and immigration certainly contributes to that pressure.

I don't personally believe in replacement theory, but the death of white Britain is assured when the traditional family unit is eroded and the pressures of globalisation and technological advancement make breadwinner men redundant. In that respect, the far right view on the LGBT agenda is not that far removed from ordinary conservatism – and is something, ironically, they share with Muslims and blacks.

Typically, Dispatches enlists an “expert” academic to call for stronger laws to ban the likes of PA, which they very well could do, but this movement organises on less visible platforms and private internet channels and will always find a way. Generation Identity was banned in Europe but the sentiment hasn’t gone away, and mainstream politicians in France, Italy and Spain have found the need to embrace right wing policies to stay in power. What British liberals would consider grubby far right discourse is mainstream politics in France.

Channel 4 has always had a voyeuristic fascination with British far right groups despite them never having managed to meaningfully influence British politics. Ukip successfully neutralised the BNP vote and the BNP was largely brought down by way of its own corruption. But the left needs the establishment to always believe that the “far right” is a real and present danger, and growing to crisis point in order to advance their own censorship agenda.

If it can be argued there is a resurgent far right, the answer is to neutralise it by addressing the economic and social problems that create the conditions for it to thrive. The failure to tackle grooming gangs, the failure to clamp down on Islamism, the failure to secure our borders and the failure to address the housing crisis all contribute to a sense that Britons are becoming second class citizens in their own country. This is set to worsen as the cost of living crisis sets in for the long haul. Up to a thousand illegal immigrants a day crossing the Channel at peak Summer is not, as they say, good optics.

UKIP does not sympathise with PA. We share many of the same concerns, which are after all majority concerns, but the ethno-nationalist rabbit hole is a dead end. Mass immigration is irreversible and what’s done is done. All we ask is that the establishment stops making it worse. Britain has long reached its absorptive capacity for immigrants and unless something is done to slow the influx then Britain cannot survive as a coherent and contiguous society. We have already entered a process of cultural Balkanisation that won’t be repaired until measures are taken to properly integrate migrant communities already here.

Ultimately Channel Four wants us to believe the far right is greatest threat the country faces, because it’s the ideal pretext to clamp down on any political expressions that contradict the liberal dogmas of our time such as “diversity makes us stronger” and “trans women are women”. These people don't want debate and they especially fear grass roots politics they can’t control which is why they smear any organised opposition to mass immigration as far right.

Modern liberalism (if we can call it that) has given up on persuasion. Everything has to be truth boards, online safety commissions and official “fact checkers” and politics by judicial fiat – all the while screeching about threats to “our democracy”. When they say x is a threat to our democracy, they mean it’s a threat to their dominance over the narrative.

The Tories are dimly aware that something must be done to placate the plebs in the North, and they thought the election of Boris Johnson’s and some muttering about Levelling up would do the job. It’s the same shallow thinking that spawned Net Zero – a quasi-socialist agenda they think will create jobs for the northern slums. All they’ll succeed in doing is ramping up the cost of energy, making us all poorer, which all but guarantees a resurgent far right because recession and inter-ethnic rivalry always goes hand in hand.

When it comes down to it, people will turn to the far right if they can’t get what they want from mainstream politics. Labour has long given up on the working class, and has any number of priorities over and above secure jobs, decent homes and secure borders, and the Tories have gone the same way. Establishment politics is retreating into green-tinged fantasy politics that distance them from the real world. It has nothing to offer ordinary people.

I re-joined UKIP because at long last it has a credible manifesto and the best one currently on offer that does most of the things I hope to see. But now, it looks like UKIP is the only manifesto that can avert a more radical swing to the right among the working class. UKIP will bin the green agenda, fix our broken borders and focus on affordable energy and decent homes. That will do more to crush the far right than a technologically illiterate Online Safety Bill and more big tech censorship. You can chase ideas you don't like off the town square, but it will find expression in the dark alleys.

The wind industry is ripping us off

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 10 May 2022 09:41:34 GMT

Net Zero is making us all poorer

According to an FT report , renewable energy developers are facing delays of up to a decade to connect new capacity to the electricity grid, threatening the government’s pledge to shift away from fossil fuels and meet net zero targets.

The UK recently set out ambitious new goals to more than double existing renewable generation capacity, adding 50 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030, 70GW of solar by 2035 and 24GW of nuclear by 2050. But developers say they are being told that they will have to wait six to 10 years to connect to the regional distribution networks because of constraints on National Grid’s network. The majority of large developers are now seeing construction-ready projects being delayed as a result of long queues and excessive charges to get access to the transmission system.

The issue of who pays for improvements to the electricity distribution network is crucial given that it’s privatised, with the National Grid providing the bulk of the central transmission network across Great Britain and supplying the six regional monopolies whose pylons, poles, wires and cables carry electricity to end users. How much they charge consumers are regulated via price controls set by watchdog Ofgem, which has been under pressure to get tough after being accused of allowing the companies to make excess profits.

The regional distributors earn their revenues from a surcharge on customer bills, with up to a fifth of the typical household energy bill — or roughly £371 a year — going towards the cost of the distribution network. National Grid says it has historically had 40-50 applications for connections a year but that this has risen to about 400 as renewables suppliers have proliferated.

The National Grid, said it was working with Ofgem and the industry to address the long queues, including by changing processes so that developers can no longer take network capacity before they have planning permission or have even started construction. The company is proposing to upgrade the network on a project-by-project basis, building bigger substations and more overhead lines but the industry is concerned over the cost of improvements to the network which are needed to shift from a system designed to serve large coal-powered plants close to urban centres to more dispersed renewables developments such as solar and wind farms.

Burdening smaller-scale projects with these transmission upgrade costs, which can be in the region of £12mn per substation, renders many projects unviable. It’s also a postcode lottery as to how much they are charged. If renewable energy developers do not pay the costs of upgrades they could be passed to consumers through bills or taxes.

This comes as no surprise. We noted back in March that there is an inherent conflict between the idea of diffuse, local generation and the national grid as currently constituted. It was set up to take a few, large generators from a limited number of locations, and distribute power nationally. Now it’s being asked to take small packages of power distributed over a vast range of sites, and still perform the function of ensuring equal distribution of power throughout the nation. This is something for which the grid was not designed to do, and to make it fit for purpose would require tens of billions of pounds.

This money is simply not available and, if it was factored in, it would be seen as part of the cost of renewables provision, pricing it out of the market. The Renewables sector is keen to ensure somebody else picks up the tab so as to continue claiming that renewable energy is “the cheapest source of energy”. But as we know, it isn’t. All other forms of energy have been taxed to make wind energy look competitive but in a free and fair market, nobody would be building windmills.

Worse still, The Times reports that Britons face paying tens of millions of pounds more than expected for electricity from offshore wind farms after developers used a contract loophole to cash in on the energy crisis. At least two newly constructed offshore wind farm projects have delayed activating their contracts to supply power to consumers at a fixed price, enabling them to sell it at higher prices in the market instead.

To encourage investment in offshore wind farms, the government awards developers contracts guaranteeing that consumers will pay a fixed price for every unit of electricity they generate. When the prices wind farms get in the market are below that level, consumers pay them subsidies; when market prices are above that level, the wind farms pay back to consumers.

The gas crisis has driven up the market price of electricity so that it is higher than the fixed price in most recent wind farm contracts. This is expected to result in wind farms under contract paying back hundreds of millions of pounds to consumers over the coming year. However, wind farm owners that are just completing construction are opting to delay the start date of their contracts so that they can avoid making these payments back to consumers.

It has long been the case that the industry has misled the consumer. In the days of the Renewables Obligation Certificates subsidy scheme they claimed that wind wasn’t subsidised, and lied to consumers by saying the installed capacity of wind farms is what they would produce in reality. If any other industry lied they way the wind lobby lies they’d be looking at lengthy court cases and massive fines.

Despite massive subsidies and a market heavily stacked in their favour, the wind industry still can’t make itself viable. Today’s Times has the wind industry calling for yet more cash help. Rising prices for steel and other materials have driven up the cost of wind turbines by a fifth in two years and risks increasing the cost of electricity from new projects, the industry has warned. Offshore wind power developers are calling on the government to raise the budget of an auction to support new projects this month otherwise it may not be feasible to invest in UK factories.

Many families are already at breaking point with current pressures on the household budget. The first obligation of any government is to bring energy costs under control. It’s ideological drive to decarbonise our electricity supply is incompatible with that aim. Wind energy is only adding to the overheads of energy supply while destabilising the national grid. Wind energy creates more problems than it solves and diverts much needed energy investment away from reliable, instantly dispatchable sources of power. The more the Tories double down on windmills, the longer we’ll be paying eyewatering prices for our energy. It has to stop.

Britain's drift into anarchy

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 08 May 2022 15:17:09 GMT

The Tories preside over the cultural Balkanisation of Britain

The never-over-it remainers of Twitter would have it that Brexit is causing the breakup of the UK. Whatever is going on, be it the fallout of Covid or the energy crisis or the war in Ukraine, there will always be a shrill cohort ever ready to blame it all on Brexit. But they are right about one thing. The UK as we know it is disintegrating.

Scotland’s divergence was all but guaranteed the moment we set up a Scottish parliament. We created parallel political bubbles to Westminster in Cardiff and Edinburgh, allowing rent seeking parasites to set up their own respective dunghills – and have soiled their own nests ever since. You could even be forgiven for thinking that the SNPs strategy is to make Scottish politics so repellent that England would be glad to see the back of Scotland.

As to Northern Ireland, Boris Johnson’s Brexit protocol certainly hasn’t improved matters but really it’s only pushed an already fragile political settlement over the edge, The “peace process” running out of steam is part of the overall disaffection and stagnation that caused Brexit. We’re seeing the atomisation of politics throughout the UK.

What the remainers haven’t noticed, though, is that the cultural balkanisation of the UK is not limited to the Celtic provinces. England itself is no longer a coherent, contiguous culture. Brexit exposed the massive gulf between London and the rest of the country, but there is further fragmentation between county and conurb as cities become ethnic minority ghettos.

In this we no longer have parties that reflect the politics of the nation. There is no national consensus. The Labour Party is a London party supported by various ethnic tribes who have nothing in common with English culture, thus have more in common with metropolitan London élites. It says everything that in the local elections Labour managed to lose Hull but gained Mayfair.

Britain’s open borders are only going to increase the number of areas in which there are single group minority majorities leaving millions without meaningful representation. While middle class liberals fret about the breakup of the UK, (something which, in effect, has already happened), they cheer on the destruction of England.

This is why the the Tories managed to sweep the boards at the last general election but now we’re starting to see that the Tories don’t have the stones to fight for the people they notionally represent. Tory policy is to import millions of people from all over the world while building no new housing or infrastructure, while destroying our ability to generate electricity.

It comes as no surprised that the Tories don’t have the energy or the ideas to turn things around because they are an establishment party and they were never going to do much with Brexit because they never really wanted it to begin with. It was just something they hijacked to preserved their own incumbency. You might hope, though, that they would at least stop making things worse – but they can’t even manage that. That makes them no better than Labour. If the choice is between Labour and Tories then its really just a referendum on the pace of our self-annihilation.

When it comes down to it, the relationship between Scotland, England and Wales waxes and wanes over time, but there is still a shared cultural experience, so the Union can be repaired, but not if England is abandoned to become a multicultural zoo without an overarching and binding sense of national values and purpose.

We could could perhaps better withstand the rapid influx of people were it that we encouraged integration into our own culture but but the custodians of our culture seem to actively despise it and wish to dismantle it. Everywhere we look, the busybodies in academia and quangocracy are busy rewriting and editing our history. Our ruling class is ashamed to be British and has more sympathies with Scottish and Irish separatists, even if that means rubbing shoulders with Sinn Fein and the SNP.

Our universities now churn out braindead automatons – fresh meat for the public sector and the quangocracy, trained to vomit out American inspired woke HR managerialism on cue and be handsomely rewarded for it. The taxes we pay are financing our own cultural deletion. There’ll be nothing left for sincere immigrants to integrate into.

It is now unlikely that anything can arrest the decline. The Tories may be dimly aware of the problems but have no sense of urgency. When it comes down to it, establishment Tories feel uncomfortable doing anything about it because it would put them out of step with their London socialite “citizen of nowhere” friends. To them, British culture is drab, hokey and provincial and not worth preserving. Something to be subordinated to “vibrant” multiculturalism (ie. machete attacks and child rape gangs). It’s all fine so long as there’s diversity high street takeaways in Islington.

Depressingly there is no mobilisation against this. The “revolt on the right” is dead. Reform and Reclaim speak to a tiny “very online” community centred around radio talk show hosts and GB News, and Boris Johnson still enjoys more support than he deserves because his supporters fear the alternatives. UKIP couldn’t muster more than a handful of candidates for the locals, and struggles to overcome its image problem. The independent blogosphere is dead.

Meanwhile, middle England has chosen to stick its head in the sand and debates virtually anything but contentious and urgent issues. They don’t see because they don’t want to see. There is no appetite for disagreements and confrontations. They’ve had their fill and just want a quiet life. But then as I keep saying, we can’t run away from these problems. There is no quiet life to be had if we keep surrendering to apathy. The consequences will visit us all soon enough. There is no hiding place.

The British establishment always saw Britain’s role as “leading in Europe” but now the voters have robbed them of that, they’ve degenerated to “climate leadership” and quasi-socialist Net Zeroism because it has no idea what else to do. Fighting the weather is to be our shared national endeavour. They have no idea how to unite the country or how to restore its sense of national purpose. They can’t revive a country they don’t relate to, and their sole metric of their own performance is GDP. We are ruled by soulless ghouls.

Our moribund and creaking democracy no longer meets people’s needs. As the national fabric erodes we become a low trust society where nowhere is safe. Yesterday Priti Patel boasted on Twitter that she visited Worksop “to see how our Safer Streets funding from the Home Office is making visible improvements in the town, including new CCTV Refuge Points, so that local people – particularly women and girls – can feel safer out in their neighbourhood”. That’s her solution to the dinghy migrant crisis. We are to become a surveilled and gated society. Yet they still tell us that immigration makes us an “open society”. Whatever that means.

When you have a largely voiceless society with no means to hold politicians meaningfully to account, and local politics dominated by corrupt ethnic minority fiefdoms, rampant crime and a growing sense of displacement, government by technocratic elites who hate their fellow countrymen, the centre cannot hold. The civic contract evaporates. Disorder and mistrust takes its place. The rule of law breaks down, along with the notion of equality under the law. We then see inter-ethnic rivalry, tribalism and third world levels of political corruption. We’re halfway there already.

The remainer preoccupation with the state of the Union is really crocodile tears. They’d be happy to see the UK break up just to punish those who voted for Brexit, But the real threat to the integrity of the UK is a band of feckless and cowardly Tories who preside over a fragmenting England, having abandoned our cities and used poorer towns as social dumping grounds. The north is diverging from the south, and the gulf between the haves and have-nots grows ever wider. Working class Brits are becoming the new underclass, shunned even by the state broadcaster. Not even permitted to see their own culture represented on our screens.

I have always shunned ethno-nationalism because that particular rabbit hole leads to a hateful destination, but that is the inevitable consequence when a people feels under siege by its own government and institutions, where not even the education system can be trusted. Such disaffection may not manifest anywhere in the polls but it’s there and it’s growing. In the near future, when heating and food are out of reach, savings collapse and people face an uncertain future with no assets or pensions, you’ll have an electorate with nothing left to lose. That’s when things get dangerous.

A broken country with broken politics

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Fri, 06 May 2022 15:26:51 GMT

British democracy is dying

Reform, Reclaim and UKIP made zero impact in the local elections. UKIP was not able to field many candidates. There just isn’t much enthusiasm for local politics and this is reflected in voter turnouts. The majority of people don’t even bother to vote.

Worryingly for us, the momentum of the so-called “revolt on the right” has collapsed.

But then I would venture that politics as a whole has collapsed and what we see in its place is ritualistic zombie politics, going through the motions as though we were still a democracy. Politics is realigning, largely on ethnic and regional lines, with the middle class retreating into green-tinged fantasy politics, that distance them from the real world.

In some cases, the voter turnout has increased, especially when the locals have grouped together to elect a Green. They are happy to fret about the "environment" and climate change, but don't want to deal with real life issues such as immigration. Not being able to cope with real life, they are retreating into a fantasy world of their own making. The middle class/millennials are entering a second childhood.

Personally, I have never been less invested in who came out on top in a local election. I don’t see that it matters. The moribund Conservative Party is failing on every count to tackle the concerns of ordinary people. They can perhaps claim to be marginally less dire than Labour, but that’s no comfort to those who see their country swamped by unwanted illegal immigration and worry that they can’t afford to heat their homes next winter.

Energy and food prices are rising, creating a financial crisis and the government’s response is to commit 30% of the UK’s land to “nature”, rewilding, etc., ban agricultural diesel. install eco-millionaires and their cronies into regulatory agencies and authorities, borrow more and more to pay for more green crap, and bring forward the ban ICE car sales. On top of that, Tory foreign policy is to escalate and prolong the war in Ukraine.

This starts to remind me of those Vietnam film where the firebase is overrun on all sides and the only choice is to call in an airstrike on your own position. I start to wonder if one of Putin’s small tactical nuclear bomb dropped on Westminster might be for the best after all. It is unfixable.

By the looks of it we might well be heading for a hung parliament at the next election because none of the parties present themselves as something to enthusiastically embrace. Boris Johnson is a lame duck, maintaining power because neither to the Tories or Labour have anything better to offer. We’ve reached systemic political stagnation in a system that does not allow for new entrants. Since the main parties have a vested interest in maintaining that status quo, things can only decline further.

With politics in a dire state it would be tempting to resign from it entirely and abandon the country to its fate. UKIP won’t do that. We still have an influential online presence and we’ll be keeping the pilot light on for the future. We hope that one day there will be a mass realisation that the nation can no longer keep voting for the zombie establishment parties.

I take the view that it has to get worse before it gets better. Brits will do anything for an easy life and will tune out of politics just to stay sane – but where getting to a point where such disengagement is not consequence free. The consequences are no longer abstract. Hiding from the the reality of how badly we are governed now means hard choices between heating and eating. Residents of leafy Linton-on-Ouse will find it’s no longer safe to leave the house alone. Our streets increasingly lawless.

If there is any take home point from the local elections, it is that we are losing the national political consensus. In the past, when there tended to be a swing for or against one of the two main parties, it would be reflected more or less uniformly throughout the country. Now, there are significant regional differences just within England. Never mind the Union – England is breaking up.

The most notable disparity being between the large cities (London particularly, but also Birmingham) and the rest of the country. The very idea of national (much less UK) parties is becoming obsolete, with the vote fragmenting along ethnic and tribal lines. This not only has serious implications for the forthcoming general election but for the very nature of our governance. If there is no political consensus, consent to be governed by the (barely) majority party must be at risk.

It has long been the case that London is no longer and English city, and its culture is about as relevant to English life as any other global mega city. Our political system needs to change to reflect the reality that Britain has undergone a cultural balkanisation. There are city suburbs where the writ of British law does not run unless the police turn up in riot gear, and soon the armoured police land rovers, only routinely seen in Belfast, will be seen in every large city.

I’m known for my gloomy outlook and have been predicting doom and gloom for years. Things never quite turn out to be as bad as I expect. We weathered our botched exit from the single market reasonably well, and we bounced back from Covid lockdowns but each of these events has has legacy consequences which are snowballing by the day, and made immeasurably worse by Ukraine and Net Zero. I don’t know how much resilience is left in the economy but we’re already looking at a collapse in living standards and we’re only at the beginning of this downturn.

The reason I feel gloomier than usual is because there is no longer any hope. Brexit is dead and buried and the Tories aren’t going to do anything radical with it. The media and the Westminster establishment have reverted to business as usual, and change doesn’t seem likely.

There doesn’t seem to be any energy in the national debate and a sense of resignation and fatigue has set in. We’ve all been lied to once too often. The public still cares but our way of doing politics has lost its potency. If Brexit didn’t deliver change then what the hell will? If voting doesn’t work, what terror will take its place? It’s starting to feel like even a Labour government would be better than the Tories if only to accelerate us to the point where the public wakes up. All we can do in the meantime is chart the decline of a once great country.

A country falling apart

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 05 May 2022 14:07:08 GMT

We are running out of time to save Britain from oblivion

The Bank of England has warned that the UK now heading for a recession, with GDP forecast to contract at the end of this year. Double digit inflation of just over 10% is forecast later this year, the highest since 1982. The Bank has raised interest rates to 1%, the highest level since 2009, Basically, the economy under the Tories is in the toilet.

Four factors have caused it. The shambolic lockdowns, a rushed and threadbare EU trade deal, the war in Ukraine and Net Zero. This is wholly self-inflicted. There’s not now much we can do about the first two, and the die is cast, but the national interest is for the war in Ukraine to end as soon as possible. Yet the British policy is to escalate the war and drag it out to the last Ukrainian.

Worst of all is Net Zero. Nobody is forcing us to make our energy more expensive. Nobody is forcing us to erect useless windmills and nobody is forcing us to switch to electric cars. But nothing will deter this government from inflicting further misery on hard pressed households.

The only way things are going to get better is if the Tories are no longer in power. But on the substantive points of Ukraine and Net Zero, the main parties are identical and wouldn’t do anything differently. Their virtue signalling narcissism and their hobby horse agendas will take precedence over cost of living. Most of our politicians have no concept of hardship or what it means to struggle. MPs will be billing the taxpayer to heat their second homes.

Life is about to become harder than it has been for a generation. Thanks to a lazy and bloated NHS, still reeling from Covid lockdowns, GP services have all but collapsed and NHS dentistry is vanishing. Other branches of the state are in similar chaos. The justice system is collapsing.

In the not too distant future we are to have a massive crime wave. Crime and recession go hand in hand, but this time around it will be especially severe. Since the beginnings of EU freedom of movement and the subsequent abandonment of immigration control. the economy has been geared around cheap consumer services, particularly in London. Services such as Deliveroo and Amazon are contingent on the public having disposable income – and thanks to Net Zero, that’s now a thing of the past. Energy costs will see takeaways shutting up shop as their food will be unaffordable.

That means jobs are going to dry up for immigrants and those working in the informal sectors, which in all probability means an explosion of gang related crime as more turn to selling drugs. This at a time when London is already plagued by machete attacks in broad daylight and record numbers of stabbings. It is unlikely the police will be able to restore order being that they’re hamstrung by political correctness and wokery. Inner suburbs of London will become demilitarised zones.

My feeling is that the riots we saw during the BLM histrionics are going to look tame by comparison. There are up to two million illegal immigrants with no right to be here, no recourse to public funds and no means of employment. That means crime and intra ethnic violence on our streets.

Recession, though, is not limited to the UK. The BBC reports that Turkey’s cost of living has risen by nearly 70 percent. The war in Ukraine is set to create a global food crisis – acutely affecting Africa. That means yet another summer of death in the Mediterranean and more illegal crossings in the Channel. Britain’s asylum system is already saturated but the Tories apparently have no interest in defending our borders so it’s going to get worse.

We’ve been predicting a breakdown of law and order for some time. The system is already creaking and it certainly cannot withstand what is set to be a long term recession. Successive governments have failed to fix the roof when the sun was shining and following Covid lockdowns there is no resilience left in the system. We could be looking at a broader societal breakdown. Community has been replaced with the welfare state but the welfare state is no longer able to do the heavy lifting and keep people in the lifestyles to which they have become accustomed. A generation that has never known a serious recession is going to have a rude awakening.

Many of us thought that Brexit would lead to a political renewal and for a time it looked like it would have an impact, but it’s been quite astounding how in just two years the establishment has reverted to its habitual indolence, and any hopes that Brexit would be transformative are now dead. The establishment parties are locked into a pattern of behaviour and a mindset that simply doesn’t acknowledge the real world.

They’re not morally or intellectually equipped to solve any of the problems we face, nor is our political system capable of delivering the talented politicians. Britain is now on an inexorable decline trajectory, and all we can do is watch as out political class dithers and the media fixates on trivia. The only thing we expect them to do is to pour petrol an on already raging bin fire.

Whether the public realises it or not, Britain is not just heading for a recession. We are looking at a more existential emergency. Our political system is immune to demands for change, nor do the public have the means to force change. But without radical change, and without a meaningful democracy, the well of resentment will find other channels and will manifest in dangerous ways. We have few opportunities left to avert a major disaster for our country.

The rotting corpse of British democracy

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 04 May 2022 10:28:56 GMT

Britain is on a slow burn to a low grade civil war

If there is a big story from the local elections, it will be a collapse of turnout. With councils having been amalgamated into regional authorities, and councillors having no real powers to speak of, democracy at local level has ceased to be. Most people are fully aware that it is a waste of time, especially if you live in a “multicultural” area, where in all likelihood you get an ethnic minority candidate who will only serve the commercial interests of their tribe. Diversity and inclusion doesn’t extend to white working class people.

In that respect there you can see why central government has dismantled local democracy. If it only works in the interests of ethnic “minority” property cartels then it can’t be trusted with power – and if the public can’t be bothered to shape local politics by way of their own participation, then the model is obsolete.

That, though, is a backwards step. Local engagement has declined over decades precisely because local governments have been robbed of their powers. The position of councillor carriers no real gravitas or influence and local government is closer to a regional development quango with strict controls on how they can spend their own money. It’s barely worth anyone’s time to become a councillor. Overpaid council CEOs are making the big decisions.

If our democracy were functioning as it should the real power in politics would be local. Turnouts would be lower for national elections. But Britain has long since stopped being a democracy. We go through the motions of our legacy voting rituals but it doesn’t mean anything. This is especially true of general elections where Brexit has been the only issue in forty years the public have been allowed to influence. Now that Brexit is notionally “done”, politics is back to being a closed shop.

Above all the immigration issue demonstrates the futility of democratic participation. This government was elected with an unequivocal mandate to act on immigration yet it refuses to do so. The Home Office is a dysfunctional mess and the numbers of illegal immigrants removed are falling each year. Immigration is out of control and we are losing our cities to alien cultures.

We were told that mass immigration would make a for a “melting pot” of different cultures and ideas. But that hasn’t happened. Local urban politics is ethnic tribes competing for dominance over state handouts and subsidies. It’s already the case in Labour areas that a parliamentary candidate’s views on “Palestine” and Kashmir are more likely to swing a vote than their views on local health, education or policing.

The Tories are no better on that score. Having seen how effective ethnic minority pandering is for urban marginal seats, the Tories are now increasing immigration from India to tip the balance back in their favour. The Tory party is more answerable to Indian businessmen than it is to its own members.

When it comes to matters of major local concern, nothing better illustrates the total absence of democracy than the proposed asylum reception centre at Linton on Ouse. Absolutely nobody wants it and parents are frightened for their children, for whom it will no longer be safe even to walk home from school. Local residents were the last to find out about the facility and have been told that the site will go a

head despite local objections. Our voices don’t matter. Our votes are useless.

The same is true of Net Zero, where the government intends to force us to abandon our petrol cars and gas boilers at our own expense. Households that refuse to install heat pumps could see their properties fall in value under a Government review. A “root and branch” review of how Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) are calculated will boost the scores of households that use heat pumps, remote-controlled thermostats and other eco inventions backed by ministers. Those who do not adopt “green” technology in their homes will receive a lower score, which can reduce the value of a property or make it more difficult to rent out – further exacerbating the housing crisis.

This, in effect, is an administrative fine, without going through due process, the “penalty” being imposed for non-compliance with government policy.

The real question is how long this country can withstand the absence of democracy. For the moment there is a high level of tolerance, though god knows why. But people’s tolerance will be replaced by apathy and anger, and slowly there’ll be an incremental increase in violence and civil disobedience.

This will be largely ignored by the media, and completely by the political classes, except where it directly impinges on their personal safety. Hence, nothing will change in the short-to medium-term. But years down the line we will drift into a low-grade civil war than no-one admits to existing. Rival ethnic gangs will openly fight each other in the streets and the police, hamstrung by political agendas and wokery, will be unable to restore order. This is already the case in Sweden.

In recent years the brakes have been taken off and all of our immigration controls have gradually been dismantled. Integration isn’t happening and we already have two tier policing. One law for the natives, another for immigrant communities. The notion that we are all equal in the eyes of the law has been replaced by an hierarchy of identities – and one that is intrinsically racist as migrants are held to a lower standard.

I don’t know if Britain can be saved from its fate. With a demoralised and disengaged electorate and a voting system that stacks the deck in favour of the establishment, and personal consequences for speaking frankly, it looks like things have to get far worse before they get better. Brits will do anything for a quiet life, and don’t want the hassle of confrontation and arguments. It’s why we put up with more than we should. But a time is coming when silence and inaction isn’t an option. But will it be too late?

Just lately, in the wake of David Amess’s murder, politicians have climbed aboard the online safety bandwagon. They concluded that the threat to their safety comes from hurty tweets and not feral Islamist immigrants. When it comes to it, politicians think the problem is people talking about the problem. They don’t have the guts to take on the central problem so they instead look to insulate themselves from the consequences of mass immigration, and distance themselves from their constituents who might have something to say about it.

Consequently politicians are even less likely to understand what is happening on their own patch. They don’t know what’s going on and they don’t want to – thus parliament spends more time talking about itself than the issues that matter to the public. This week the newspapers have had more to say about Angela Rayner’s minge than the looming threat of nuclear war. The lecherous and drunken behaviour of our politicians takes precedence over a mass invasion of illegal immigrants, while the PM diverts attention by fire-hosing Ukraine with our money.

Now that summer is setting in, we have a short reprieve from skyrocketing energy bills, but the calmer weather will expose the Tory asylum plan for the utter fraud it is and by winter, the mood of the country will darken. The Tories can no longer shrug and say “at least we’re not Labour” because there is no longer any meaningful difference. If you thought Brexit was divisive, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Politics is going to get nasty.

Tory immigration plans flop again

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 04 May 2022 00:39:25 GMT

Patel’s plan is going to fail – and she knows it

Boris Johnson’s flagship plan to send economic migrants to Rwanda may not start for months in the face of legal action by human rights groups, Downing Street indicated today. The Government had wanted flights to Kigali to start by the end of May under the £120million deal it secured with the Kagame government last month.

Under the partnership agreement, people arriving in the UK, including by crossing the Channel in small boats, will be flown 4,000 miles to East Africa if they are deemed to have travelled illegally for economic reasons rather than asylum. But No10 yesterday said it could not put a timescale on when the scheme will begin. Last week two asylum seekers who came to Britain in the backs of lorries this year instructed lawyers to bring a legal challenge against the policy.

Around 550 people have crossed from France in small boats in the last two days following an 11-day pause, casting doubts over claims by some Conservative MPs that the Rwanda threat is already acting as a deterrent. The Border Force union has suggested that criminal gangs are using the policy to extort more money from migrants “before things change”.

Nobody here will be the least bit surprised if the legal bid to block the scheme succeeds. The rights of immigration cheats always trump the majority interest in the courts. Very soon we’ll be back to square one.

You could be forgiven for thinking the Tories have no intention of tackling this issue and that there’s a secret agreement with France to take a quota of itinerant scroungers. Either that or the issue is of no importance to anyone in the Cabinet. Either way, there is no sense of urgency. If the last two days set the precedent for the coming week then the new reception facility at Linton on Ouse will be at capacity days after opening.

This is no longer a matter of stretched resources. This is rapidly becoming a national security issue. The system was already saturated over a year ago, and now every town and city will have loitering migrants causing disturbances. Allowing more fighting age men to make the Channel crossing only throws more petrol on the bonfire. It’s only a matter of time before we see an explosion of violence.

Thanks to Tony Blair, the Human Rights Act turned into a lawyers’ get rich quick scheme. By failing to repeal or modify the Act, and by not dealing with the international Conventions on human rights and refugees, the government is caught in a legal trap, potentially having to pay millions in compensation if the court case(s) go against it. Removing these legal instruments should have been the first order of business for any government calling itself conservative.

Arguably it falls under the Brexit mandate and is unfinished business. Still, though, we only get vague promises of action in the next parliament. The government is pegging its hopes on the Nationality and Borders Act but will do nothing to prevent it being shot down in the courts by activist NGOs. Patel’s plan is going to fail – and she knows it. Every single assurance or promise from this government has been a lie. The situation is deteriorating by the day. The Tories have lost control of our borders.

This issue undermines the basic civic contract and makes a joke of our entire immigration system. Until we have a government willing to completely overhaul the human rights apparatus there will be no end to this invasion and we can expect to see a surge of political extremism. Anti-immigration sentiment is already coming back with a vengeance and if people feel their government has abandoned border control then we will see vigilante groups and a surge of racism. Effective border controls are essential to keeping the peace, and by failing in their most basic obligations, the Tories are putting the entire nation in danger.

We know where this goes now. Sweden has failed to integrate the vast numbers of immigrants it has taken in over the past two decades, leading to parallel societies and gang violence. Many Swedes were shocked earlier this month after violent riots left more than 100 police injured. The violence erupted after a Swedish-Danish politician burned the Quran at a rally and sought to hold more in several immigrant-dominated neighbourhoods.

Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson blamed criminals and said both Islamism and right-wing extremism had been allowed to fester in Sweden, in unusually frank and self-critical comments. “Segregation has been allowed to go so far that we have parallel societies in Sweden. We live in the same country but in completely different realities,” Andersson told a news conference. “Integration has been too poor at the same time as we have had a large immigration. Society has been too weak, resources for the police and social services have been too weak,” she said.

So there you have it. Rapid influxes of immigrants from the third world causes crime, civil unrest and pushes public services to breaking point. Nobody is surprised but still we are to ignore the elephant in the room. The media will keep brushing the consequences under the carpet, anyone speaking about it on Twitter will be shadow-banned and politicians will keep ignoring it. Of the mainstream parties, not one of them has a plan to address immigration, not least because they don’t want to. This can only end in fire.

Linton asylum camp: media lies

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 01 May 2022 19:29:56 GMT

The same old smears

This Sunday there was a small protest at Linton on Ouse village hall following the bombshell that Priti Patel intends to offload 1500 immigration cheats to the former RAF base.

As expected, the local rag chose to paint it in a negative light . Reporting for The Press, Mike Laycock relies entirely on one interview. Megan Remmer, clerk to Linton on Ouse Parish Council said:

The demonstration was not affiliated in any way with the council and nor did it support it. “It is also, as far as we aware, not affiliated with anyone from the village,” she said. “While we obviously cannot speak on behalf of every resident of Linton, those we have spoken to do not feel this is the appropriate manner to oppose the proposed siting of the Asylum Seekers Centre. “We have removed mentions of it on social media where we can in the hope that it can be kept to a minimum.” Representatives of a village group campaigning against the air base plans have issued a statement this evening claiming that today’s protest was organised by people who were not residents of Linton.

They claimed several ‘far-right groups’ had been invited to the protest, members of which made up the majority of the small number of protestors present, having travelled to Linton from the wider region. It said: “The gathering was not obviously a protest and was not directed at anyone. There was no message: there were no speeches, no placards, no banners. “For under an hour, protestors chatted to one another and filmed each other on their mobile phones. They then dispersed.”

It claimed only one resident of Linton was present at the protest and the remainder of the village rejected it and refused to participate. The village also objects, in the strongest possible terms, to the presence of far-right groups on their streets.”

If the Press reporter had bothered to stick around and talk to anyone at length, he would have known that the protesters were from the area. I don’t live in Linton on Ouse but I do live at the opposite end of the airfield and the people I spoke to had a local connection to the area. I only learned of it from a Linton resident. We all have skin in the game. We are not far right.

In this context “far right” means working class people who won’t censor their opinions. The people I spoke to were entirely civil and better informed than most about the threat that dinghy migrants pose to the peace and safety of the area.

It appears that those who have taken “official” ownership of the campaign against the asylum centre are of the liberal NIMBY persuasion. They’re fine with economic migrants cheating the asylum system just so long as they’re dumped on somebody else.

Moreover, it is something of an insult for a self-appointed Linton spokesperson to decree that Linton residents have exclusive ownership of the issue. The diversion of police resources affects the entire district as far north as Thirsk and Northallerton. Feral male migrants with nothing to do will disrupt community life in nearby Easingwold, and young women can now forget about using local bus services.

The Press reporter wrote “A North Yorkshire Police spokesperson said before the demonstration that the force was aware of the planned activity and its officers would be in the area to provide reassurance to the local community, but The Press saw no officers today”. But then he wouldn’t have seen any police because he turned up for less than two minutes, didn’t spend any real time talking to us, and if he had, he would have seen the police drive-by. Not that they needed to be there. This was a very peaceful, civil gathering of likeminded people who were a real pleasure to meet – and I hope to meet them again.

The local media is all too happy to indirectly smear demonstrators as “far right”, but this is the same local media that will refer to male rapists as “she/her” if they claim to be trans. This is the same local media who will report any criminal activity carried out by migrants as that of a “Linton resident” – and will never publish a description of an assailant unless they happen to be white. You can tell what their editorial guidelines are by what they don’t say.

Meanwhile, now that the weather has improved, the RNLI is back at it, escorting more illegal immigrants ashore. Tory activists have told us that the absence of crossings in the last few days are a result of Johnson’s Rwanda plan, but the weather seems to have been the primary deterrent until today. There is no reason to believe the Rwanda offshore processing deal will come to anything and if the government gets to set up its shanti town in Linton on Ouse, it will expand in size and every former airfield in the region (of which there are many) may host a new camp.

The Tories have repeatedly lied to us about illegal immigration and they’re treating local democracy with contempt. This site has been chosen on the basis of availability rather than suitability, with no consultation and no warning. After decades of establishment political correctness, locals now live in fear of speaking openly about their concerns so any “official” opposition campaign is likely to be mealy mouthed and timid.

When it comes down to it, only “far right” bloggers will take any real interest in the issue and tell the truth about what’s really going on. The York Press has demonstrated today that it is no ally of local residents. UKIP will be monitoring the situation carefully and I hope to see more of you the next time we hold a demonstration. Follow the Facebook group for news.

Tory immigration plan: free homes for asylum scammers

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 14:54:02 GMT

Adding insult to injury

Despite inspections that demonstrate the unsuitability of accommodation such as Napier, the Home Office recently extended the contract to 2025. In the nationality and borders bill currently going through parliament, the Home Office described the former military barracks as a “prototype” for how reception centres may operate in the future. Under plans by the home secretary, Priti Patel, to change the asylum system, the Home Office says it will develop more large-scale asylum accommodation in remote areas, including the former RAF airbase at Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire.

It’s becoming clearer by the day that the government has no intention of ramping up removals – and the Rwanda agreement is a cynical piece of electioneering. The Linton-on-Ouse facility is intended as a permanent facility. One of many. Local residents might as well have an open prison on their doorstep.

Everything about this stinks. Decent homes, of the kind that young British families could never afford at Linton, are being refurbished to house illegal immigrants - when they could be given to those who will contribute to the community.

Private homes on nearby streets will now lose much of their value, and will be impossible to sell. We’re putting out the welcome mat, at the taxpayers’ expense, while destroying private equity – with zero public consultation. Local democracy is overridden every time.

Everything about this is utterly foul. We have a government that cannot even function at the most basic level of controlling our borders, spending taxpayers’ money to cover up its own incompetence, while wrecking decent people’s lives without so much as a second glance – and is persistently lying to us about it.

Instead of heeding the public demand for controlled immigration, the Tories preside over record levels. Meanwhile Labour calls for more “safe and legal routes” for itinerant scroungers.

The bottom line is that these are mostly men of fighting age, of limited skills, many of whom have already had asylum claims rejected because they are economic migrants, not refugees. They pay substantial sums to smugglers (more than many Brits have in savings), with the intention of circumventing our immigration rules and abusing the asylum system. Our compassion is our weakness. This is moral blackmail.

There is seemingly no end to this. The Tories are unwilling to do what is necessary to stop this invasion. These new asylum centres will fill up in no time, and we will see them expanded, to the point where we have tens of thousands in long term incarceration. This will end up with explosive and bloody consequences.

Meanwhile we see a relentless campaign by activist lawyers, NGOs and unelected lords to disarm the state of any defences against illegal immigration. Virtually anyone who rocks up, having greased the palms of people smugglers in France, can expect to evade deportation. They know that Patel isn't serious and that the Tories won’t take on the open borders blob. The British public are being cheated and taken for fools, and it’s only going to get worse. Only UKIP will put an end to it.

Asylum camp: a contempt for local democracy

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 26 Apr 2022 21:15:20 GMT

Linton-on-Ouse residents completely ignored

Priti Patel’s refugee pushback policy has been officially withdrawn by the government days before a judicial review of the tactic was due to be heard in the high court. The government’s legal department acknowledged in a letter on Sunday that the plan to try to force people in dinghies back to France has been abandoned after Boris Johnson’s announcement that the Royal Navy would take over operations in the Channel.

We can reasonably assume that there was never any serious intention of deploying pushback tactics. This government operates mainly out of fear of bad press from left wing media outlets. Every couple of months the Tories announce new policy initiatives but nothing ever comes of it. The most effective deterrent thus far is the English weather which has caused a drop off in Channel crossings over the last few days.

Meanwhile, new “analysis” by the so-called Refugee Council (a far left open borders NGO) claims that the Tory plan to send immigration cheats to Rwanda will see only 200 removed. The government disputes this claim but we won’t be surprised if the numbers are not impressive. Despite what the government claims, and its repeated policy announcements, the money is still going into new reception facilities.

On that score we see the real intentions of this government. It is to press ahead with the new facility at Linton on Ouse despite passionate local objections. Local Tory MP Kevin Hollinrake seems to have changed his tune (presumably after seeing his overflowing mailbag), and is now opposing the facility but is set to be overruled unless court action is brought against the government. The government has chosen the site on the basis of its availability rather than its suitability and is set to bring misery to local residents as well as unwelcome attention. Linton on Ouse is already a media circus.

As much as this facility demonstrates the complete failure of Priti Patel to bring illegal immigration under control, it also demonstrates Tory contempt for local democracy. Nobody has anything good to say about this development. Even the the NGOs have said the site is unsuitable.

Such centres have been heavily criticised in the past, with courts ruling the site at Napier Barracks and Pennaly Barracks not fit for purpose, resulting in arson, violence, poor mental health, suicide attempts, COVID outbreaks and anti-social behaviour. It says everything about the impotence of local democracy that it has to be fought through the courts.

The very real fear in Linton is that villagers will be rapidly outnumbered by migrant men with little to do - who will cause trouble. There also is no reason to believe the government will not expand the site further, possibly even adding containerised accommodation to the site, with some suggesting ten thousand migrants warehoused on the former airfield.

UKIP has been to visit the village today and will be keeping a close eye on developments. We will post regular updates. It is our view that it’s only a matter of time before someone’s daughter is raped, beaten and dumped in a ditch. We also believe a tame local media will do everything possible to conceal antisocial behaviour (up to and including assisting the police in hushing up negative stories). We will expose them. At the general election there will be a UKIP candidate.

There is no basis on which to trust a word this government says on immigration. Every single one of Patel’s promises has been broken. This government has an eighty seat majority and has no excuses. They can only blame activist lawyers for so much. When it comes down to it they could change the law with ease, but instead they allow unelected lords to meddle with the borders bill and will meekly shrug their shoulders when the courts hobble it. The bottom line is that the Tories don’t have the political will to take on the blob.

We might venture that one of the reasons for choosing Linton on Ouse is because it’s in one of the safest Tory seats in the country. But Tories should take note that if they can lose North Shropshire and Amersham, they can also lose Thirsk and Malton. We’ll be doing our bit to make that happen.

More treachery from Johnson

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 00:37:07 GMT

Asylum: another Tory con job

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 17:47:58 GMT

The Tories have no intention of reducing immigration

More details have emerged about the Tory plan to offshore illegal immigrants in Rwanda. It looks similar to the Dublin system whereby the UK could end up being a net recipient of migrant. The Times carries a unusually decent analysis by Clare Foges. She notes that the more you look at this policy, the more flaws appear. The first step is to transport migrants to a North Yorkshire processing centre where there is “nothing” the government can do to stop them absconding and disappearing into the black economy. Do we really think many will stick around for a one-way ticket to Kigali?

For those that do not abscond, she asks, what criteria will be used to decide who is sent to Rwanda? Apparently the government won’t break up families, so those with children will stay on UK soil; won’t this just create an incentive for people to risk the lives of more children on pathetic dinghies? Won’t those single people who are threatened with deportation just pull any number of levers offered by human rights legislation?

It is pretty much as we have repeatedly pointed out. Unless the Tories are willing to attack the problem of our outdated system of human rights and close down the loopholes illegals can easily exploit, the problem is not going away. And even if Patel sends a few hundred a week to Rwanda (which is highly unlikely), more than six hundred can arrive in a single day. The stated capacity for the transit facility at Linton-on-Ouse is set to be 1200 but will very rapidly grow beyond that.

Foges says the solution is to address the “pull” factor of Britain’s black economy with a national ID card system. Informal work is far more easy to find in the UK than in France. As long as people can work without documents, the UK will remain a magnet for illegal immigration. The old objections about civil liberties, she says, are out of date at a time when we volunteer our data online to whoever wants it. ID cards are practical, popular and essential to securing our borders. “Their introduction is long overdue”.

She is certainly right that we volunteer our official ID for all manner of purposes. You even have to have ID to book a B&B in Bridlington. But it is already the case that employers have to verify the right to work. An ID card system won’t make very much difference if an unscrupulous employer is determined to break the rules. What we need is effective enforcement – of which there is presently very little. But again, even if there were enforcement, the Home Office still struggles to remove those with no right to be here and is subject to the same human rights challenges.

The Rwanda policy has gone down well with the Tory faithful, just in time for the local elections, but it won’t take long for the wheels to fall off. Pretty soon we’ll be back where we started. New reception facilities will fill up fast and hotels will still be used as overspill.

Foges has it that we must turn back the boats, citing Australia’s success, but there is huge difference between turning back an ocean-going craft and a flimsy “half inflated” dinghy. Pushback tactics are dangerous, and even the Royal Navy would hesitate to put civilian live in danger at sea. The real issue here is French intransigence. Any policy requires the cooperation of France.

On that score, the French are unlikely to cooperate because they’re French. We could suspend all fishing rights for French boats but they would no doubt retaliate by blocking the ports, and then we have a full blown trade war on our hands. Nobody wins from that. Service interruptions over the channel are already impacting British trade.

Ultimately the Tory plan is not going to work (and they know it). It will work insofar as it allows Johnson and Patel to shift the blame to the “woke” human rights/open borders blob, but we are still no closer to a solution. Patel’s borders bill is still choked up in parliamentary process and probably won’t survive legal challenges unless the government is willing to quite the Refugee Convention or suspend elements of it. Which it isn’t.

Elsewhere in The Times we learn that the number of non-EU migrants coming to the UK to work and study soared in the first year of Britain’s post-Brexit immigration system. Home Office immigration figures for the whole of last year revealed there were 239,987 work-related visas granted, 25 per cent higher than in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. Less than a tenth were EU migrants, who had to obtain a visa from January last year after the end of freedom of movement.

The main driver of the sharp increase in work-related immigration since 2019 came from migrants from outside the EU. Indian, Pakistani, Nigerian and Filipino workers accounted for most of the increase. Rather than attempting to restructure the economy from low wage exploitation, the government is looking further afield for a supply of exploitable labour. This is not the “brightest and best” Patel promised.

It should be clear now to all but the dimmest that the Tories have no intention of getting a grip on immigration, nor have they learned any lessons from Brexit. We are replacing EU workers with settlers who are the least likely to integrate, creating more economic and social pressures.

There are already a million or more illegal immigrants working off the books in the UK economy, and there is nothing to suggest the Tories are getting their act together. The Tories are too afraid of the wailing from the liberal establishment to do what is necessary to secure Britain’s borders. The Tories are trying to con us with the Rwanda agreement and Patel’s borders bill, but it’s all smoke and mirrors.

The immigration issue was not settled by Brexit. Managing our borders is only part of what needs to be done, but more must be done to ensure a hostile environment for those with no right to be here. That requires regular inspections of factories, farms and local businesses and a Home Office that doesn’t flinch from deporting thousands every week. That demands more resources for local enforcement and the removal of civil servants if they frustrate the process.

At the very least Britain should be filling a up a large passenger aircraft every single. If India and Pakistan refuse to take their illegals back then we must close down all visas and flight from there and channels for aid remittances should be shut down the same way we’ve closed down payments to Russia. A failure to get serious about immigration will result in more crime and civil unrest later down the line, and a bigger right wing backlash. The way to avoid a far right government in the future is to elect one that is serious about immigration now. Enforcing borders is not a far right proposition. It is one of the most basic obligations of any government.

Tories plan migrant seed colonies in the British countryside

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Fri, 15 Apr 2022 15:04:06 GMT

UKIP says no to Patel's shanti towns

This government has repeatedly whinged about the activities of human rights lawyers as deportation flights were prevented from taking off. You would therefore expect any government that was serious about controlling immigration to use its substantial majority to review and reform the system as a matter of urgency. That isn’t happening. The government likes having that scapegoat because it allows them to do what they prefer to do (ie. Nothing at all).

The government knows that nothing within the realms of what it is willing to do will stop the flow of illegal immigrants which is why it intends to build a new migrant seed colony at the former air base at Linton on Ouse. One of many. The facility is to house 1200 immigration cheats but there is space for substantially more and we can expect to see that number double – or perhaps even triple inside the space of a year. The numbers escorted ashore by our so-called border force are set to smash last year’s records.

Initially, it will house migrants who arrive in the UK on boats, although Thirsk and Malton’ Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake has also proposed that the site is also opened to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war with Russia. This has not played out well in Germany where there are violent clashes between ethnic and religious groups. One incident saw fourteen people injured when Pakistani and Albanian refugees attacked each other with clubs.

At another an asylum centre near Leipzig, 200 Syrian and Afghan migrants attacked each other with table legs, bed frames and sticks after a dispute about who should be allowed to use lavatories provided in the accommodation first. No formal segregation has been introduced so far, although in the states of Thuringia and Bavaria refugees from similar ethnic backgrounds tend to be housed together.

The recent influx of mostly young, male migrants into Germany has led to an increase in violent crime in the country, according to a government-funded study. The study used figures from the northern state of Lower Saxony to examine the impact of refugee arrivals on crime in 2015 and 2016, a period when the number of violent crimes reported increased by 10.4 percent. The authors concluded that 92 percent of the additional crimes recorded could be attributed to the increase in refugee numbers.

It is only a matter of time before someone’s daughter is snatched from the streets of Easingwold, raped and dumped in a ditch. That’s what you get for voting Tory. Migrants will be free to come and go as they please. There will be a roll call and if anyone has not returned by 10pm, a “safeguarding” call will be made to them but Home Office officials stressed there would not be curfews as happens in Greece. They are free to disappear into the woodwork, or head into nearby York to commit crime and cause disturbances.

In Hollinrake’s defence, the migrant colony is not likely to harm the rural character of the area since his party is already intent on paving over the local farmland with solar panels. They have long since decided to abandon food production. The only surprise here is that they haven’t combined their two flagship policies (mass immigration and energy rationing) by using solar panels as roofing for Hollinrake’s shanti town.

We are told that the government plans, within the next few months, to offshore migrants in Rwanda, but we have heard all this before, and unless it amounts to at least two widebody aircraft every week, then it simply isn’t going to keep pace with the invasion, and air bases across the country will be turned into internment centres until it is no longer financially or morally sustainable. Mass incarceration isn’t going to work.

We are therefore going to have to end our squeamishness about pushbacks. No boat must be allowed to land and the RNLI escort services must end. We must treat this as an invasion. It is now a matter of national defence. In that regard, the we must now consider NGOs as hostile actors, and take steps to ensure no public funds find their way into the hands of the enemy. Only Ukip will do this. The Tories have shown a repeated unwillingness to tackle the issues at source. They simply don’t care.

Asylum plan: smoke and mirrors

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 12:37:18 GMT

Don't believe the Tories on immigration

The government has today (Thursday 14 April) set out new plans to tackle illegal migration and crack down on the criminal gangs exploiting this international crisis. Central to this is a world-first Migration and Economic Development Partnership signed by the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, and Rwandan Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Co-Operation, Vincent Biruta.

This, says Priti Patel , will see migrants who make dangerous or illegal journeys, such as by small boat or hidden in lorries, have their asylum claim processed in Rwanda. “Those whose claims are accepted will then be supported to build a new and prosperous life in one of the fastest-growing economies, recognised globally for its record on welcoming and integrating migrants”.

Under this Partnership the UK is investing £120 million into the economic development and growth of Rwanda. Funding will also be provided to support the delivery of asylum operations, accommodation and integration, similar to the costs incurred in the UK for these services.

This is essentially a rehash of plans already mooted by the government, though the official statement does not link to the full text of any agreement so this could easily be yet another work of fiction. The government is still “investing” substantial sums on upgrading migrant reception facilities, which tells us this is a long term fixture. The government plans to house migrants on the site of RAF Linton on Ouse, ignoring the objections of residents. Consequently UKIP will stand against Kevin Hollinrake at the next election.

In addition to a statement by Priti Patel, the prime minister has also made an announcement in which he says:

“There are currently 80 million displaced people in the world, many in failed States where governments can’t meet their aspirations. In an era of mobile connectivity they are a call or a text away from potentially being swept up in the tide of people smuggling. The answer cannot be for the UK to become the haven for all of them. That is a call for open borders by the back door, a political argument masquerading as a humanitarian policy. Those in favour of this approach should be honest about it and argue for it openly. We reject it, as the British people have consistently rejected it at the ballot box – in favour of controlled immigration. We simply cannot have a policy of saying anyone who wants to live here can do so. We’ve got to be able to control who comes into this country and the terms on which they remain”.

We have said as much, countless times over the last two years. The PM seems to understand that they are undermining the “natural compassion and goodwill” that people have towards refugees in this country. But we have heard it all before. With another 600 arrivals just yesterday, unless this plan fills at least two plane loads every week then it’s just window dressing.

The real test of the government’s sincerity is whether it will take on the open borders blob and the NGOcracy who will attempt to defeat this agreement on human rights grounds. Presently the government is financing its own opposition, Like environmentalist groups, the open borders NGOs such as the Refugee Council take a large part of their funding from government funded grants and direct payments. This funding must be withdrawn. If NGOs want to play in politics then let them raise their own funds.

In all probability the numbers we will see moved overseas will be small, and not nearly enough to make a difference, and probably not enough to serve as any kind of deterrence. Without a withdrawal from the Refugee Convention, and a radical overhaul of human rights laws, this plan will be stillborn.

We’d like to believe the government, but there is no basis on which to take this announcement seriously. The timing suggests it’s a ploy to provide ground cover as the PM faces negative press over his Covid fines.

Worse still, Johnson’s proxy war on Russia is set to create a global food crisis, hitting Africa especially hard, resulting in yet another wave of migration. Unless new measures can outstrip the current pace of invasion then the plan will make no difference whatsoever. Unless the government is prepared to make the fundamental reforms to the legal framework of asylum now, Johnson may never be able to do it. Current polling suggests, at the very least, he will lose a working majority at the next election. He’ll have squandered the opportunity.

We have no faith in this government. There is no reason to believe this latest move is sincere. Boris Johnson doesn’t have the grit or the stamina to take on the open borders blob and he will cave in every single time. Only UKIP will deliver on their promise to bring immigration down.

The death of British politics

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 12:14:04 GMT

The fabric of society is crumbling - and the Tories simply don't care

The conduct of the Johnson regime during Covid matters. If any of us had done the same we’d be hit with a fixed penalty notice – and those of us who couldn’t afford it would have unregulated bailiffs hammering on our doors. That further illustrates how unjust the rules were. Fixed penalty notices mean something is legal for a price – if you can afford it. If you can’t you face endless harassment by arms of the state.

One can understand, however, the sense of indifference to the media’s relentless campaign to remove Johnson – not least since their own conduct fell far short of the standards demanded of everyone else. Kay Burley of Sky News was not forced to resign for breaking the rules. The media can’t have it both ways. They just want Boris Johnson gone and any reason will do – and voters know it.

It would seem, though, that the standard in politics is not going to be upheld for its own sake. Breaking the rules is evidently within tolerance for the Tory party, even though public opinion polling suggests it is a resigning matter. Voices in the Conservative Party hath decreed that it would be wrong to change the leader in the middle of a war.

Except, of course, Britain is not at war. The establishment has chosen to embroil us in the Ukraine-Russia war, not least because it distracts the media from the relative trivia of Partygate and all of Johnson’s other shortcomings.

This, though, is only to provide him with temporary relief. Johnson wants to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, ensuring prolonged economic harm in the form of massive fuel, energy and food inflation. UK household incomes are set to be obliterated. Home heating bills will go on the back burner as we head into summer, but then summer will see what is now a grim fixture in British public life. Stabbing season – against a backdrop of massive unchecked illegal immigration, further exposing the establishment’s total indifference to the plight of ordinary Brits.

In place of anger, though, I anticipate a growing sense of apathy. The turnaround that many hoped a Johnson led government would usher in just isn’t going to happen. Johnson has traded Brexit for Net Zero, while everything else quietly falls apart. The whole fabric of society is crumbling.

This is certainly the case with the NHS, where the waiting lists are at record levels, patients are dying because of ambulance delays and congestion in A&E departments. But now we are also told that up to a third of cancers are being diagnosed in A&E departments, where patients present with acute symptoms, with their cancers at an advanced state where the prognoses are poor.

At the other end of the scale, babies’ lives are still at risk because maternity units continue to be unsafe, years after concerns had been aired about preventable deaths resulting from poor care. Of the 193 NHS maternity services in England, we are told, 80 are rated as “inadequate” or “requires improvement”, signifying that they do not meet basic safety standards.

Meanwhile, those who are trying to get away from it all though are not having any luck. In the wake of the P&O debacle, ferries are still being disrupted, for holiday-makers and commercial traffic alike, with 20 mile truck queues reported at Dover. Airports are similarly mayhem, the problem apparently being that services have failed to hire enough staff after traffic picked up once Covid restrictions had been lifted. Now, multiple flights are being cancelled and people are missing their flights because of the queues.

And just to add insult to injury, climate change activists are blockading petrol stations and storage depots, causing local shortages of fuel. Police, apparently, have made 338 arrests since 1 April. Whether they get dealt with expeditiously is anyone’s guess as barristers are going on strike in protest at cut-backs in the legal aid system, which are heavily impacting on their fees. This, however, is the tip of the iceberg where the criminal justice system is in terminal decay, in what amounts to another great failure of the Johnson administration.

Further afield, we have the political turmoil in Pakistan, where prime minister Imran Khan has been ousted after a court-mandated vote of no confidence, followed by massive street protests in several cities as the opposition takes over the reins of power until the next election is due in October 2023. What happens in Pakistan, at this level, is always important to the UK, not least because of its impact on our domestic politics and life on the street. But any additional instability in the region is bad news, where war between Pakistan and India – two nuclear-tipped adversaries – is always on the cards.

That the world is going to hell in a handcart, and that our political class doesn’t seem to notice or care, only feeds the public exasperation with politics the media which fixates on just about anything but the important things, while largely supporting Net Zero and mass immigration. There is nobody speaking for us. Our politics has collapsed.

Insofar as there is a battle of ideas in our politics, it consists of privately funded think tanks and special interest groups while the parties themselves are ideas free husks with nothing radical or useful to say for themselves. It scarcely matters who resides at Number Ten. It makes no difference. Whatever cheer ousting Johnson might bring, it forces us to endure yet another Tory leadership whereupon the party parades its mediocrities to choose from. A further reminder that our politics is beyond hope.

By next winter the consequences of this deep rooted dysfunction may explode. Immediate living costs can be absorbed and managed but this is only the beginning and further rises cannot be sustained, If democracy doesn’t work, a frustrated public will start to explore other means beyond mere hurty tweets. We shall have to force our useless freeloading MPs to earn their keep - by any means at our disposal.

Net Zero: a spectacular act of stupidity and malice

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 12:09:43 GMT

Net Zero: the silent war waged on the British people

Grant Shapps is looking to set legally binding targets to speed up the shift away from petrol and diesel, and towards the mass adoption of electric vehicles. In its new report, the Department for Transport proposed legally binding annual targets that car manufacturers will be forced to meet before 2035. In less than eight years, the Government will ban the sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles in the UK.

Just five years later, a similar ban will be introduced to restrict sales of hybrid vehicles. The proposed scheme would start in 2024, when manufacturers would have to sell all-electric cars, which account for 22 percent of their total sales. The Government document added: “There is a level of uncertainty based on the form of wider policy measures and future demand, but this modelling assumes that by 2030 a minimum of 80 percent of all new UK car sales are zero emission. It assumes a 22 percent mandate in 2024 and 52 percent in 2028.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said that new rules “must encourage consumers to purchase, not just compel manufacturers to produce”. SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said: “The danger is that consumers will lack the incentive to purchase these new vehicles in the quantities needed, keeping their older, more polluting vehicles for even longer thereby undermining the carbon savings this regulation seeks to deliver.”

He is almost certainly right. It has seemingly escaped the government’s attention that household budgets at somewhat strained at the moment. Then as blogger, Paul Homewood, observes :

“It also raises the question of how these quotas will be enforced. After all, car manufacturers cannot force people to buy EVs. And we already know that huge discounts don’t make any difference, because the government has already tried them. I have read rumours that manufacturers will be fined if they don’t hit the targets, which simply means that these will be added to the price of conventional cars, to the detriment of drivers. If that is the case, people will simply tend to buy imported cars instead, who presumably won’t be affected by the quota. This whole business is an example of how we are all gradually losing our freedom of choice”.

The more obvious point is that if EVs really were the life changing, money saving innovation the Tories think they are, they wouldn’t need to force the issue. Once the iPhone was established it took less than three years for smartphones to dominate the market. Successive governments have been trying to foist EVs on us for years and still there isn’t the level of uptake they wish to see. Moreover, Britain does not have the spare energy capacity to charge a mass uptake of electric vehicles. This is pure fantasy.

Meanwhile, Kwasi Kwarteng, the business minister, has endorsed plans to charge households higher energy bills if they charge their phone or boil the kettle on a Friday evening, in a scramble to prepare Britain’s creaking power network for the end of fossil fuels. He said that it “totally makes sense” for consumers to face higher costs at the busiest times of the week in the strongest sign yet that a radical shake-up is being considered by ministers.

Under the new billing system, households would be charged less when not many people are using energy, such as in the middle of the night. They would pay more at times – like Friday evenings – when lots of people are cooking, watching television or making a cup of tea. The plans, says The Telegraph, have already won support from energy companies but are likely to prove controversial with customers.

This is looking more and more like a climate lockdown where we have to rearrange our lives to suit the needs of the national grid. This is “Stay home to save the NHS” all over again. Only this time, they have a means to financially penalise those who don’t or can’t comply.

We’ve been saying for some time now that Boris Johnson has abandoned any pretence of being a conservative government, and this latest round of measures rivals Labour for being aloof, out of touch and seeing the public as subjects to be bent to their will. This will hit the working class the hardest – they who are too busy working to rearrange their lives. This is major regression for living standards. A nation that can no longer supply energy on demand can no longer consider itself a first world country.

The establishment is now waging two wars. One is a proxy war against Russia, fighting to the last Ukrainian, no matter the economic cost to Europe and the world , and the other is a quiet war against the British people under the guise of saving the planet. There is no question of them seeking consent. Despite the obvious technical and financial obstacles, reality does not intrude even for a moment.

There is no meaningful difference between Labour and the Tories. The only discernible difference of late is that the Tories would not make female changing rooms available to flashers and other sex offenders. The bar is set as low as it will go. They have declared war on us, and it’s time for the British public to fight back.

Britain's self-inflicted energy disaster

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 01:30:47 GMT

How the establishment brought Britain to its knees

The EU’s Large Combustion Plant Directive imposed limits on sulphur dioxide. Before they were obsessed with global warming, they were obsessed with acid rain. Climate change, though, was the primary pretext given for the destruction of our coal burning electricity plants under the Directive. At the time it pointed to the need for 33GW of new generation to replace lost capacity.

The then Labour government, with Ed Miliband as energy minister, handed Ofgem the task of replacing that capacity with renewables – mostly with offshore wind power. It was widely known at the time that wind energy couldn’t possibly plug that gap. It wasn’t technically feasible and in the wake of the financial crisis, wasn’t financially feasible either. The financial environment was not conducive to incentivising investors to cough up with the £200 billion needed.

Ignoring the technical obstacles entirely, Ofgem thus focussed on financial incentives which it deems necessary to “unlock” the necessary investment, coming up with a package of measures. First amongst these is imposing a minimum carbon price (level unspecified) to “encourage investment in low carbon technologies”. This mechanism was designed to increase the costs of conventional power generation to the point where the vastly more expensive renewable energy becomes “competitive” and thereby promotes investment in it.

Totally missing was any indication of who would pay for the increased carbon price, and/or the vastly increased cost of power generation. Somehow, Ofgem believed it was a no-cost option. Its next brainchild called “Enhanced Obligations and Renewables Tenders” was a plan to increase the subsidies (although it does not call them that) to renewable energy providers, and giving them a guaranteed return.

Thus the scene was set. Investment was artificially diverted toward unreliable intermittent energy, at enormous cost to the bill payer, while neglecting baseload generation entirely. As wind capacity has increased, gas plant, which should have served as baseload became backup provision, running idle when the wind was blowing, and running full blast when it wasn’t.

It was well understood by wind sceptics at the time that this would result in local gas shortages during peak demand, requiring emergency purchases of gas on the spot market, at highly inflated prices. This was then exacerbated by David Cameron’s coalition government when the then energy minister, Ed Davey, thought better of renewing Britain’s gas storage infrastructure. The consequences of which we are now experiencing.

Having made energy from gas artificially expensive by a substantial margin, and having caused a gas drought, the wind industry is now legally able to claim that wind energy is cheaper. That, however, is an accountancy trick, being that the method they use to calculate costs ignores the whole system costs; the cost of transmission, grid balancing and the capital costs therein.

Being that the media, and politics in general has little in the way of collective memory, especially when it comes to their own errors the assertion that wind energy is cheaper often goes unchallenged, especially by the BBC whose energy and environment correspondents barely conceal their eco-activism. It is widely believed that wind is cheap and the wind is always blowing somewhere. Neither of these things are true.

The war in Ukraine among other external factors are being blamed for our current energy predicament, but the seeds of this energy emergency were sown almost over a decade ago, and successive administrations have ignored the warnings as they favoured climate virtue signalling on the world stage. The system was already precarious, having engineered a capacity gap resulting in more frequent National Grid system alerts. On a long enough timeline, a geopolitical event such as the Ukraine invasion was guaranteed to come along and push us over the brink. Our energy planning should have accounted for it.

Though this all began with an EU directive, this is very much a home grown disaster, by all of the usual suspects. This is why Brexit of itself is of very little use to us unless it also includes a draining of the swamp. Many leave voters thought that’s what they were getting by voting for Boris Johnson, but his enthusiastic adoption of Net Zero (more of the same insanity) should disabuse voters of any such notion.

It is now too late to avoid a crippling energy crunch. We could and should have set about nuclear renewal more than a decade ago, with new builds happening concurrently with old nuclear decommissioning. The fools we elect, however, informed largely by the green blob that dominates the energy sector, genuinely believed the gaps could be plugged with windmills and solar panels – and that it would be cheaper. The delay on new nuclear builds means it will cost us substantially more than it ever needed to. There is now little chance that energy prices will ever return to what we considered normal – and certainly in the next two decades. We’ve blown it.

The government’s latest energy announcement is a rehash of much of the same muddled messaging we’ve been getting for the last year or so, which is rooted in the same thinking that created this disaster to being with. Boris Johnson’s “low-carbon transition plan” is indistinguishable from Miliband’s fantasy thus prices will continue to skyrocket and our energy system will continue to deteriorate.

Worse still, the rising price of commodities and labour costs mean that much of the government’s plans will never come to fruition and new capacity will not outstrip the rate of decommissioning. Probably within the next parliamentary term the wheels will start to fall off and the government will need yet another emergency plan to keep the lights on. Being that they still won’t abandon their Net Zero delusions, we’ll be paying for two energy systems. The one our political class wants, and the one we need to keep the lights on.

This, though, is not sustainable. The British economy is already creaking, and households are having to tighten their belts like never before. The low grumblings will soon become shrieks of pain, as the entire post-war economic order collapses. That the the Tories won’t survive it is perhaps the only silver lining.

The further danger is that this leads to civil unrest and Labour inherits power by default, having done nothing to deserve it. That could then lead to a constitutional crisis, as the public withdraws their consent to be governed by Westminster.

If the Labour Party intends to use its power to install its toxic identity politics and its gender voodoo, then Britain could follow America down its path of societal disintegration. The violence and disorder in the USA was contained because the basics continued to work, but when Brits face energy rationing, power cuts, and involuntary supply termination, the fallout could make the Poll Tax riots look like a teddy bear’s picnic and the Croydon riots look like a family barbecue.

The Tories have set us on a course to oblivion

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 19:57:57 GMT

Britain no longer has a serious politics capable of resolving our problems

There is nothing in the government’s announcement on energy that persuades me that energy prices will be brought under control soon or even in the far future. The rehashed announcement on new nuclear plants is wishful thinking. We simply don’t have the skill sets or the capacity to build eight new plants, even if we had a successful design – which we don’t. This isn’t going to happen because it can’t happen. There is no reason to believe new builds won’t be plagued by the same technical and contractual problems experienced by Hinkley Point.

As regards offshore wind, the industry is going to be hard put simply replacing the existing capacity which is dropping out due to old age. Then, since most of the best sites have been taken, they are mostly reliant for new capacity on floating wind turbines – untried technology with no data at all on durability and lifetime costs. The floating area “resource” is some of the roughest water on the planet. This is a leap in the dark, and not something on which anyone rational could base a substantial part of our energy policy.

As to the boost for solar, it’s hard to fathom why such a low yield technology was even considered. Solar in the UK has an output of only 11 percent of installed capacity while taking up vast tracts of land that would be better used as farmland.

Business and Energy Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said: “The simple truth is that the more cheap, clean power we generate within our borders, the less exposed we will be to eye-watering fossil fuel prices set by global markets we can’t control”. But the boost in renewables will not lead to the decommissioning of a single gas power station. Last December saw the UK going weeks without much usable wind forcing us to fire up old coal power plants that were scheduled for closure. Every GW of renewable capacity must have backup. Because of wind energy we are more dependent on fossil fuels (even if we use less gas) – and forced to buy wholesale gas at peak prices.

This is essentially like buying a car that only starts on three days of the week, but you don’t even know which days so you have to keep an additional normal car that starts any day. Remembering, of course, that because you have two cars, you have two lots of insurance, two lots of depreciation and two lots of maintenance.

If the Tories were serious about securing our future energy supply, they would ditch renewables entirely. We need new gas plant and gas storage to serve in the interim until new nuclear comes on line. Renewables only divert investment away from more viable generation while creating major grid stability problems that cost billions to mitigate.

It is now a certainty that Britain’s energy crisis will deepen. There are no energy storage solutions on the horizon that can take the place of gas, and no sign that energy storage would be cost effective if it could. Minerals required for batteries are skyrocketing in price. If there are even two of the eight new generation nuclear plants in operation within a decade it will be something of a small miracle – and that won’t be nearly enough. We have missed the boat for affordable energy. We may need to explore new coal burning plant.

You would think this might inform our current foreign policy but on that score, Boris Johnson seems determined to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. NATO shills seem convinced that Ukraine can win outright and even retake disputed eastern territories. They’re hoping a defeat triggers regime change, making the rather large assumption that whoever follows Putin will be an improvement. It is also a mistake to think Putin will go quietly. A Ukrainian defeat of Russian conventional forces will see Putin escalate further, doing all he can to inflict maximum damage on Western interests.

With that sees prices of everything skyrocketing across the board – which, more than any other factor, will pour cold water on Johnson’s Net Zero ambitions. Net Zero is a transition to a mineral intensive energy grid. The subsequent global food crisis could provoke another wave of mass immigration that could further destabilise European politics. Marine Le Pen may not win this time around, but after four years of rampant inflation and a massive decline in living standards, anything could happen.

The first item on any energy security agenda should be to end the war as quickly as possible, even if that means forcing Zelensky into negotiations. Johnson’s witless embrace of Zelensky is the height of irresponsibility.

Nobody serious thinks Net Zero is a workable timeline or even a realistic policy. It was ludicrous before but especially so now as the geopolitical tides are shifting. Today Russia is suspended from the UN Human Rights Council, thereby effectively ending the post-WW2 peace architecture. For what that was worth. We are now set to see a decline of Western influence through one of its main instrument of influence. A shift away from Russia means creating new dependencies on China for rare earth minerals and metals. We have outsourced and dismantled much of our own domestic production capabilities by pretending China was a market economy.

By way of two decade of green energy policy which has been hostile to most viable forms of energy, Britain and Europe are dangerously exposed and scrambling for resources to maintain even a basic standard of living. We are about to see thirty years of economic progress across Europe completely wiped out. We’ve left it too late to act and our political class still hasn’t grasped the urgency of our predicament. Johnson is playing fantasy politics. He is setting us up for a fall, but on the presumption that he won’t be PM by the time the system goes belly-up.

When Net Zero collides with reality there will be massive implications. Our past prosperity has all been built on relatively affordable energy and fuels but with that gone, we will see a jobs crisis not seen for decades. Our derelict towns will becomes war zones and crime will explode. The poorest can forget about home heating and even middle class households will have to scale back their car use. That may be what the green lunatics wanted all along, but with that goes grinding poverty, ill health and a collapse of public services.

Sadly, our fate is all but sealed. The public has yet to realise the danger, while the opposition does not seek to oppose at all. Labour promises to implement the same suicidal policies while doubling onshore wind. Meanwhile, former energy minister Ed Miliband has appeared on Sky News today to argue than men should be allowed to compete in women’s sports. Britain no longer has a serious politics capable of resolving our problems – and in fact is the root cause of most of them. Unless something fundamental changes, our days as a free and prosperous country are numbered.

Johnson's energy plan is total madness

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 13:25:46 GMT

Vote Tory for a colder, darker, poorer future

Boris Johnson has announced his full energy strategy to tackle soaring gas prices and increase the UK’s independence from international suppliers. The plan includes building up to eight new nuclear reactors by 2050, as well as speeding up approvals for new offshore wind farms and boosting North Sea oil and gas production.

The good news is that the Tories appear to have kicked onshore wind into the long grass. Kwasi Kwarteng, the Energy Secretary, said the UK can’t impose infrastructure on people like other countries so local consent is an ‘important principle’ needed for onshore wind. The bad news is that they’re still dragging their heels on fracking.

The core of the plan is to increase Britain’s offshore wind power capacity fivefold by the end of the decade as part of a push to make 95 per cent of the country’s electricity “low carbon” by 2030. Putting it bluntly, this is high fantasy. It’s typical Johnsonian pie-in-the-sky much like his bridge to Northern Ireland. There is zero likelihood of meeting such a target, and rapid expansion of offshore wind simply isn’t going to happen.

The wind industry has warned that raw material and logistics inflation have led to an unsustainable situation where wind manufacturers are selling at a loss. The state of the supply chain is unhealthy right now. GE Renewable Energy chief executive for onshore wind, Sheri Hickok, told a panel at the WindEurope 2022 conference. “It is unhealthy because we have an inflationary market that is beyond what anybody anticipated even last year. Steel is going up three times.” “It is really ridiculous to think how we can sustain a supply chain in a growing industry with these kind of pressures”.

The energy transition requires enormous quantities of special raw materials. Some of these are already in short supply, and individual countries have near-monopolies on others. Traders are already warning of the next dependencies. This flies in the face of the green blob’s repeated assertion that wind energy is cheap and getting cheaper all the time. They’re lying.

Kwasi Kwarteng boasts that the focus on renewable energy will create 250,000 jobs but job creation shouldn’t be the aim of an energy policy. The aim should be to reduce manpower overheads. Energy costs will destroy more jobs than Net Zero boondoggles create. Kwasi Kwarteng has admitted it will not reduce energy bills for up to half a decade but it’s hard to see how this plan addresses energy prices at all.

Supposing there were a realistic chance of a five fold increase in offshore wind, it is still the case that Britain can experience days and weeks at a time with no wind. Every GW of installed wind capacity needs equivalent backup. The government intends for new nuclear plant to fulfil this role, meaning the plant is sitting idle or running below optimal thermal efficiency (at considerable cost) for much of the time. Plugging that capacity gap in the meantime means up to ten years of running old coal and gas plant long past their original retirement date.

It should also be noted that many of the older offshore wind farms are also reaching retirement age and will require a life extension retrofit or replacement just to maintain current capacity. With material and labour costs going up, it’s hard to see how the industry can keep pace with the government’s high fantasy ambitions.

The plan to build eight new nuclear reactors is welcome news, insofar as it is news, but it’s far to little, and far too late. This plan does nothing whatsoever to address the affordability emergency in the near to mid term, and precious little in the long term. Thanks to decades of policy neglect and climate virtue signalling, crippling energy costs are here to stay – even if we had a remotely sane energy policy.

What we needed to see was a recognition that action is needed now to bring down costs, but this plan is more of the same incoherence and “jam tomorrow”. The government is in complete denial of the severity of the energy cost crisis and this plan is really just a wish list that won’t survive first contact with reality. In reality we’re going to see more delays to both nuclear and wind developments as costs rise, and as more wind capacity is added, the more we’ll require emergency reserve capacity which means even higher wholesale energy prices at peak demand.

An intelligent energy policy would recognise that renewables are an expensive distraction. There are two main priorities. Firstly to bring down energy costs by any means necessary, and secondly, to ensure our long term energy security. Wind can’t do this. Even if we could say that wind turbines were “cheap”, mitigating the intermittency and connecting them to the gird via long distance cables isn’t cheap at all. The system was never designed to cope with intermittent diffuse energy. Moreover, gas remains the only viable backup source which means we still need gas, often at times of peak demand.

The focus on wind energy is primarily to satisfy the environmentalist ideology rather than meet our energy needs. This was never a credible basis for energy policy but especially not now as households face next winter with no heating at all. Johnson has put us on a dangerous path.

Hungary: the hypocrisy of Europe's elites

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 05 Apr 2022 14:46:40 GMT

Yet again, Europe's elites show their contempt for democracy

Viktor Orban, the Hungarian PM, has just won a fourth term, apparently by a landslide. In 2010, Orban won 52 percent of the vote and got 68 percent of the seats. He’s just won 54 percent of the vote and got 68 percent of the seats. Even allowing for some malpractice, this means the majority of Hungarians agree with his vision for Hungary.

This sees Tim Garton Ash in The Guardian openly calling on the EU to penalise Hungary as the “enemy within”, for the government its people elected. “Orbán’s victory in Hungary adds to the darkness engulfing Europe” he shrieks. He asserts that Orbán won by “telling Hungarians that he would keep them out of this war – and that their heating bills would stay low due to his sweet gas deals with Putin”.

Gosh, just imagine that. A PM who doesn’t drag his country into every war and wants to ensure his own people can heat their homes. What a bastard!

This sees the Euro luvvies weeping and baying for the triggering of Rule of Law mechanism against Hungary. “High time to ensure that Orban’s government is held to account for its erosion of EU values”. The voters have stepped out of line once more. Orban won on a platform that was conservative, nationalist, anti-immigration, pro-traditional family, and firmly against military intervention in Ukraine. This cannot go unpunished!

In his victory speech, the Orban listed the “opponents” he had defeated. They included the international media, Brussels bureaucrats and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has criticised him fiercely for his opposition to the weapon supplies and further sanctions. After Putin, that makes him public enemy number one among European elites. All the people who’ve been telling us that Ukraine is a battle for democracy, national sovereignty and the “right to choose” are having a Brexit style meltdown.

What’s bizarre about this is that these are the same people courting Ukrainian membership of the EU, as though Ukraine was some kind of liberal democracy. Ukraine has gone further than Hungary on “anti LGBT” measures, absorbed neo-Nazis into it security apparatus, and not by any measure is it less corrupt than Hungary. Were Ukraine a member of the EU it would likely be subject to the same Rule of Law sanctions – and subject to the same “economic reforms” as Greece.

They claim (with a straight face) that Orban exploited a rigged political system, such as gerrymandered constituencies and overwhelming media dominance. Self-awareness has never been their strong point. But the final straw for the progressive left, though, is that Orban refuses to back the West’s proxy war on Russia.

There is nothing new about Orban’s cool-headed view of the EU. He has opposed the insidious march of the Western NGOcracy in Eastern Europe. He knows that Zelensky is their puppet, and doesn’t see why Hungarians should sacrifice their living standards in order to do their bidding. As soon as they’re done with Zelensky they’ll set about dismantling Ukrainian sovereignty and self-determination just as they’re attempting to do to Poland and Hungary.

When they say Orban’s victory is a “dark day for democracy”, they mean it’s a dark day for their version of democracy – which means submitting to their “liberal” values whether you want them or not. That also means adopting disastrous EU climate policies which have sent home heating bills into the stratosphere. Orban’s greatest crime is to put his own people first. He is unashamed about securing Hungary’s borders.

But Orban’s stance on immigration also falls foul of the European elite consensus. As Central and Western Europe have flung open their borders, they have invited wave after wave of crime and terrorism, while making natives second class citizens in their own countries. That’s the ultimate outcome of identity politics. Why should any nation consent to its own eradication? That Orban won’t is what makes him so intolerable.

That Russian forces have committed war crimes in occupied Ukraine could be considered a game changer, to a point where it really is time to take sides, but why should a small country like Hungary subject itself to economic harms while Germany and others are still, in effect, financing Putin’s war by the purchase of Russia gas? The EU is not in a position to be wagging the finger at Orban. In any case, when it comes to war crimes, Ukraine’s hands are also blooded. For some reason it's news to Western pundits that war isn’t very nice .

Meanwhile, NATO is just itching to get further involved in the war, while our own media doubles down on the the warmongering. They seem not to care if further escalation will plunge all of Europe into economic hardship or risk wider conflict. Hungary seems to understand the stakes. They have skin in the game while we rattle sabres from the side-lines.

In this we should recall that Ukraine is not a NATO member – and for a very good reason, and we are not obliged to wreck our own living standards for a disputed scrap of border land on the far fringes of the continent. The national interest is for this war to end. If we wish to stop war crimes then we need to stop the war. Prolonging it will only see more of the same. We should not be blackmailed and guilt-tripped into feeding more weapons into the meat grinder. How about, just for once, we put our own interests first?

Net Zero: Draining our energy

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 03 Apr 2022 16:05:43 GMT

The parasite class is bleeding us dry

Net Campaigning for Brexit made me something of a monomaniac, and a party full of monomaniacs like UKIP was often accused of being a single issue party. But that was always a misreading because the EU was every issue. It was a question of trade, energy, immigration and democracy itself – from the technical to the philosophical. Energy is is much the same which is why I am in danger of becoming a monomaniac yet again. Secure, affordable energy is the most important issue and the lack of it endangers everything. It threatens the very stability of the nation.

Thus, I make no apology whatsoever for banging on about Net Zero and disastrous green energy polices. As such, this is a continuation of Brexit politics, because breaking away from EU energy stupidity was one of the many compelling reasons to vote leave. We are now seeing the culmination of two decades of climate virtue signalling which has left Europe massively vulnerable to energy shocks.

I’ve written plenty in recent weeks on why renewable energy is a terrible idea and I will not rehash those arguments here. Instead we need to ask why our politicians believe it presents an answer to our energy woes, contrary to any grown up assessment of the facts.

For starters, mainstream politicians are sheep. They are led by focus groups and polls rather than principle. And sadly, wind energy does, superficially, enjoy public support in the polls. This is because wind turbines have been sold to the public as cheap, clean energy on the completely, demonstrably wrong assertion that the wind is always blowing somewhere. This propaganda is pumped into our homes from an early age. It starts with BBC children’s television, and wind turbines are often used as a visual backdrop for any discussion about climate change. The idea has been successfully lodged that we need to move away from fossil fuels.

This has created a generation of policy wonks who all believe in roughly the same ideas, believing that climate change presents a greater danger to our health, wealth and prosperity, and believe we need to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible – by any means necessary – and being from middle class comfortable backgrounds, they are usually insulated from the consequences of the policies they advocate.

These wonks tend to be of the spreadsheet sociopath persuasion, where the arms of government exist not to serve the public, but to shape public behaviour and public opinion. In essence, public opinion is an output, not an input. The other thing is that these people are actually quite stupid. They rise seamlessly through the ranks of political nonjobs in policy and think tankery, with no real idea of how policy plays out in practice, and young enough not to know anything about what came before. They have zero background in engineering or even the private sector, and the seniors tend to be English Lit graduates.

There is then the groupthink dimension. If you are at all sceptical about climate science, or hold any views counter to the prevailing orthodoxy, you don’t even get your foot in the door, let alone climb the ladder. It comes as no surprise to see that Net Zero policy wonks have gender pronouns in their twitter bios. These witless creatures occupy positions in all manner of lobby groups and global NGOs funded by “philanthropic organisations”. It is a domain where independent thought goes to die. It also comes as no surprise that were all remainers to the last man and woman and get most of their personal politics from The Guardian.

These gifted young things spend their days producing glossy propaganda brochures for NGOs and think tanks, which are dutifully picked up by BBC News and Radio and given a full uncontested airing. They then become our “expert class” who have led the nation into so many dead ends. This drivel usually works its way into the newspapers, and it is still the case that MPs get most of their information from the legacy media, which is also run by clueless middle class children.

Worse still, MPs do very little reading of their own. They have their advisers but in the main go along with the groupthink which is transmitted orally. We saw this during Brexit as a succession of Labour MPs demanded we stay in the customs union, failing to understand that the majority of border formalities for trade pertain to single market regulation. Once they get the wrong end of the stick it is impossible for them to unlearn their misconceptions – not least because breaking ranks is career suicide. It doesn’t help either that dissenting voices are increasingly censored on social media.

It’s not called the Westminster bubble for nothing. This is why our system of representative democracy is so bad. You have to be a certain type of snake to become an MP. For starters, to have any chance of winning a seat you have to join a mainstream party and conform to its absurdities, which always results in people who will subordinate their own thinking in order to climb the greasy pole. You then have over six hundred self-serving virtue signalling narcissists all in the same room, living and working side by side, with very little integration with the real world, and we foolishly give them the power to make decisions for us.

Over time the respective groupthinks of the media and politicians begin to merge, which is why there is such a massive culture gulf between our metropolitan elites and the broader public who just want reliable and affordable electricity so they can go about their business. That is why every issue is now a culture war issue. It’s not John Smith of Grimsby who thinks there are thirty seven genders. It isn’t Susan Brown of Doncaster who wants to feed puberty blockers to kids. It’s London QCs, politicians and Oxbridge academics. Once a terrible idea has wormed its way into the establishment, it’s next to impossible to dislodge it before it does untold damage. Westminster is the last hiding place for horrible ideas.

When it comes to energy policy, it’s leaden with technical jargon and it is generally assumed that anyone with a command of the jargon knows what they’re talking about. MPs are easily dazzled with bullshit. Very few of them are capable of independent thinking, and even if they were, they wouldn’t. The higher up they go the less they know and the more likely they are to accept whatever they are told by their advisers. That was partly what caused Theresa May’s downfall. Her Brexit gurus had a feeble grasp of the issues.

Superficially you can see why they get carried away with big ideas like Net Zero. Who, in principle, doesn’t want a modern, clean and efficient grid? They get carried away by talk of new and unproven technologies, and the lack of urgency in the past has allowed them to focus on the high fantasy rather than immediate needs. Any technical problems, we are told, will be overcome by some or other market innovation or gizmo. They don’t ask when it will come into being or how much it will cost. Why would you when you can charge your heating bill to expenses?

We are also very much the victim of fad politics where the issue of the moment dictates all other policy. The rush to divest from Russia sees us charging headlong into a mineral intensive energy system. Being that they don’t think about (or have any notion of) unintended consequences, it hasn’t occurred to them. Thus we switch from Russia for fossil fuels to Communist china for metals, microchips and minerals, just as global competition for them is driving up prices.

As we are about to discover, though, everything around us is built on readily available and affordable energy. Once you interfere with that, everything starts falling apart. And they most certainly have interfered. They’re the ones who cancelled new gas storage facilities. They’re the ones who blew up our coal plants without like for like capacity replacement. They’re the ones who forced us to rely on gas to provide energy when the wind doesn’t blow. They’re the ones who piled on massive carbon taxes on our energy. They’re the ones who inflicted massive damage in order to gain affirmation from their peers.

It is this same cretinous herd like behaviour that railroaded us deeper into the EU without a referendum. It is these same people who flung open the borders without consultation or consent, believing there would be no consequences. The lose sight of what they were elected to do, believing their role to be one of imposing their superior values on the rest of us. The core problem in British politics is arrogance untempered by democracy. In those stakes they despise democracy. It’s why they sneered at the Brexit referendum and refuse to put Net Zero to the vote. They don’t like plebs having a say and they most certainly don’t want a debate about any of it.

The same democratic deficit that existed in the EU continues to plague our politics. We have brought decision making closer to home, but it might as well be on mars for all that our feral ruling class is interested in things like public consent. There was headroom for us to grumble along with the status quo while our politics was still capable of managing the basics, but as energy bills skyrocket and continuous electricity supply is looking precarious, we can no longer afford to cut them any slack. The primary threat to our health, wealth and prosperity are the imbeciles we continue to elect. If this latest episode hasn’t persuaded you to vote differently, you deserve what you get. Meanwhile, if we’re facing winters without heating, it seems like we need a bit of global warming.

Green policies are leaving Britain out in the cold

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 03 Apr 2022 07:21:31 GMT

The coming months could see everything fall apart

Over the years we have all lamented the decline of our local high streets, noting that the only remaining viable businesses are takeaways, betting shops and charity shops. The energy crisis is set to make things worse unless Britain develops a taste for takeaway salads. High street takeaways are set to see their energy costs go up by as much as 250% which will result in price hikes.

If the aim of any business is to stay in business then this simply isn’t manageable – especially when their customer base is seeing a major hit to their disposable income. This is just one of the many examples we will see more of, with effects rippling throughout the whole economy. Pubs, taxi firms, and all manner of local businesses are looking at a grim future. Internet retail isn’t going to fare much better either. Even if the price of goods stays the same (which it won’t) shipping and packing costs are set to skyrocket.

For poorer households, we’ll see young mums having to think twice about putting the heating or the washing machine on. Life is going to be colder, darker, and dirtier. Politically, this cannot be sustained. Small businesses provide essential flexible employment for mums and young people, The welfare state can’t do all the heavy lifting, nor can the police be expected to keep on top of the crime that goes with times of deep recession.

We also note that services jobs have provided the main supply of jobs for immigrant labour. From car washes to takeaways and delivery drivers, but as household tighten their belts, we can expect immigrants to turn to organised crime within their own ethnic cohorts. That means drugs. At this rate the only people who’ll be able to afford an electric car are the drug dealers.

On that score, we will find the police more ineffectual than ever as local police stations have gradually closed to make way for KFC drive thrus (which will be closing). Police facilities have all be centralised to remote locations leaving coppers spending half their shifts driving to and from their respective bases. Councils will also want to stick their boot in. Last year Bailiffs called in to at least 280,000 homes over council tax debt. We can expect that figure to grow considerably.

Essentially, if welfare organisations and financial planners though Covid was a crisis, they ain’t seen nothing yet. Of all the major crises over the last twenty years, this is the one that will have the most severe and tangible consequences. This is the big one that many of us have anticipated for years, In the wake of Covid lockdowns and twenty years of energy policy neglect, the UK is dangerously exposed. We can also expect a rise in debt defaults, and poorer household forced to install electricity token meters. Some homes will simply spend at least a week of the month without power at all, incurring penalty fees.

It is not yet fully understood how this crisis will affect food prices, but there is set to be a major shortage of sunflower oils used in most food production, and a much bigger food crisis in Africa, resulting in another wave of mass migration. Britain has already filled its hotels and temporary lodgings while the underlying housing crisis continues to bite. This could further contribute to political instability. From the local to the national picture, there is no area of life that won’t feel the impact.

For this, the establishment parties have no answers. Labour wants a “one-off” windfall tax but this can only be done once, and it should be noted we are only at the beginning of a crisis of indeterminate length. Once you’ve hit that nuclear button, you don’t get to do it again and expect those same energy companies to invest in your energy infrastructure. Moreover, a windfall tax is aimed at treating the symptoms. We need a fundamental policy rethink.

These circumstances tend to be the natural feeding grounds for Labour as they pitch their ever more generous welfare offer against greedy and miserly Tories who “don’t care about the poor”. But again, beefing up welfare, necessitating more tax rises, doesn’t make the problem go away. Nor does nationalisation of energy. Regardless of who owns the energy companies, socialism can’t make the wind blow. Paving farmland with solar panels isn’t going to do much for food prices either.

Whether the establishment likes it or not, it is going to have to end its war on fossil fuels. If that means building new coal stations and reopening coal mines then that is what must be done. If that means fracking then so be it. Every aspect of our lives is underpinned by energy, and it must be stable, secure and affordable. There is no room for environmentalist ideology.

On that score, there is no choice to be had among the mainstream parties. There is no fundamental difference between the Tories and Labour. The Tories appear to have declared all out war on the their voter base by reintroducing expensive and useless offshore wind, despite the “green crap” having cost them an outright majority in 2010. Ukip was the main beneficiary of husky-hugging Cameron. The mainstream parties are determined to stick the knife in and twist it.

More disturbingly the Westminster bubble seems to be salivating for more war with Russia. The national interest, and in fact the global interest, is for this war to end as soon as possible. More sanctions will further escalate the conflict, and will result in unanticipated blowback that will only exacerbate the cost of living crisis. The EU may cool off sanctions as it realises its economic fate is tired to Russian gas, but the British establishment wants Ukraine as its proxy to fight to the last Ukrainian. I have never seen the “progressives” this bloodthirsty before. Remainers complained that Britain wouldn’t be “at the top table” but I’m quite glad we aren’t.

Though multiple reports are emerging of the barbaric conduct of the invaders, this is not grounds for escalation. Prolonging the war will only see more of the same. Moreover, worse stories came out of Libya and Syria and nobody gave a tinker’s toss. Are we really willing to plunge all of Europe into darkness and poverty so Ukraine can hang on the the Eastern European equivalent of Doncaster? Putin has proved that he couldn’t blitzkrieg across Europe if he wanted to so talk of stopping Putin “at all costs” is dangerous, thoughtless and stupid rhetoric.

This latest crisis, among many, highlights just how feral our ruling class has gone. There is no end to the misery they will inflict on the British public to serve their own narcissism. Be it saving the planet, welcoming “refugees” or “supporting” Ukraine, no thought whatsoever is given to the everyday needs of the British people who are to endure a virtually unprecedented collapse in living standards.

The danger ahead is that we have no real power in the vote. The system is rigged to ensure our votes do not threaten the incumbents, thus the establishment has no incentive to change course. The social democrat consensus will win out. As bad as that is, it offers no resistance to the the capture of the state by the forces of wokery and environmentalism. Middle class fad politics takes precedence over urgent material needs.

Britain only narrowly avoided widespread civil unrest during lockdown by easing Covid controls. The government had lost its moral authority, and the incoherence of Covid measures led to the public ignoring them. Unlike mainland Europe, we did not see running battles with militarised riot police. Protests were large but generally peaceful, with only a few troublemakers. But that was a situation over which the government had some control. It was in its gift to lift restrictions.

But what happens after a year of mass energy and food poverty, and a winter of no heating? What happens when half a million homes are are keeping an eye out for council bailiffs? What happens when a million or more people slip into serious rent arrears? What happens when we see wave after wave of redundancies and bankruptcies? What happens while crime explodes and the police are too busy pushing diversity agendas? What happens when people have to give up their jobs because they can’t even afford to get to work? We could well be looking at major civil unrest. The anger has to find an outlet if our votes are meaningless. The coming months could see everything fall apart.

Britain weathered the initial departure from the EU far better than most anticipated, and though Covid certainly had a massively disruptive influence, there were winners and losers, and we weathered that storm too. This time, though, there is no relief on the horizon, and few levers the government can pull. They could axe the green taxes and wind subsidies, but if we are to avert a long term depression we need a total change of direction. The green blob must be banished from the Westminster apparatus before they do any more damage. We can’t afford them.

Britain's cost of living emergency

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 14:28:53 GMT

Our energy emergency will eclipse Brexit and Covid

I don’t normally pay any attention to David Gauke. I once took him for a bright man with a worthwhile contribution to make, but ever since Brexit he’s been the stereotypical bitter remoaner fighting old battles for which I have no time. But he right to say that there is unfinished Brexit business.

Writing in the New Statesman he says:

The mounting evidence of the economic damage caused by Brexit ought to be a worrying vulnerability for the government, with Labour pushing the line that the reason taxes are having to go up is because economic growth is so weak. It is a very good point.

Pointing out that growth is low is one thing but setting out a convincing explanation that growth would be higher with a change of government is another. There is, of course, an oven-ready solution to low growth, which would be to repair our economic relationship with the EU. Some of the 4 per cent hit to GDP caused by us leaving the single market and customs union could be recovered if we were to move closer to these institutions.

Labour, however, is reluctant to reopen the issue for much the same reason that the Conservatives are keen to talk about Brexit. Both parties assume that if our relationship with the EU is a prominent issue at the next general election, this will favour the Conservatives.

It is a curious state of affairs. The government wants to boast about a policy that is damaging growth; the opposition is keen to show that we are growing slowly but is frightened to explain why. Both parties are being evasive.

We are starting to see a debate about how we restore strong economic growth but both main parties want to discuss anything but the inadequacy of our trading relationship with the EU. This does the country no favours. If we want a stronger economy, this has to be addressed.

On this I do not disagree. The trade deal we have with the EU is threadbare, and cannot be considered a viable basis for long term trade relations. It was rushed and left a great many gaps which will need to be addressed.

One can understand, though, why Labour is reluctant to address this. Broaching the subject reopens the same old battle lines being that Labour privately believes we should re-join the single market and the customs union with a view to eventually re-joining the EU. To discuss it would demonstrate that Labour has not accepted Brexit and is unwilling to move past it. Starmer thinks, with some justification, that he has no hope of retaking “red wall” seats if they say the quiet part out loud.

It’s also problematic for Labour being that its die hard remainer MPs did everything in their power to sabotage any mode of Brexit, and comprehensively voted against EEA Efta when they had the chance. The only modes of soft Brexit they voted in favour of were those designed to shackle us to the customs union – not even knowing its function.

Now that we have left the customs union we have established our own bilateral trading relationships the world over, and while you can argue that those deals are not as comprehensive as those we had via the EU, they can and will be developed over time, but more importantly, especially now, we are able to modify them without grovelling to Brussels for permission and having to seek a common position with 27 other members. That gives us an agility that the EU simply cannot match. The EU is still wedded to big ticket FTAs which take several years to develop, while the UK is able to develop its own sector specific instruments.

We have already seen that outside of the EU we are able to act faster in response to geopolitical events, and we retain much of our soft power. Brexit has not been the blow to Britain’s global standing that remainers thought (and hoped) it would be.

Though David Gauke says Brexit has caused a 4 percent hit to GDP, in macroeconomic terms, Brexit has been something of a non-event. The real world impact has been far less severe than that of the energy crunch, the global shipping crisis and Covid lockdowns. Brexit has caused a choking of trade with the EU, which will have longer term implications which need to be addressed, but Gauke is ignoring the elephant in the room. Energy.

Britain, it is said, is to endure a the largest drop in living standards for seventy years because energy prices. Britain is not dependent on Russian gas to the same extent as mainland Europe but we are vulnerable because we’ve closed down many of our conventional power stations in order to comply with the EU Large Combustion Plant Directive, and to comply with the Renewables Directive. This set a binding target for the overall share of energy from renewable sources. This, more than any other factor has made us reliant on gas. EU energy policy has been a disaster for Britain and the EU.

Now that we are experiencing low growth, both the EU and the British government believes the answer is to double down on our insane war on fossil fuels, believing it will reindustrialise Europe as we retool for Net Zero. This is essentially socialist central economic planning.

This as we frequently note, is not a new idea. The green revolution was pushed by Gordon Brown and David Cameron. It didn’t make economic sense back then then and it certainly doesn’t now as the coast of rare earth minerals, microchips and metals is skyrocketing. We’re now having to pay for an emergency interim energy policy while also paying for the high fantasy Net Zero grid concept. That, in all likelihood, means home heating and energy bills will continue to rise for the foreseeable future, with no relief on the horizon.

Already this is making impossible demands on the household budget for the less well off but in the near future it will absorb most of the disposable income for middle income families, which will be a hammer blow to consumer spending – having a disastrous impact on Britain’s services economy. We have now eliminated any chance of a consumer led recovery. Our wealth is now going into the coffers of green subsidy harvesters. If consumers are robbed of their spending power and individual mobility then cross border trade becomes something of a moot point.

If Britain is to return to growth then action is needed now. We need a complete departure from EU energy policy and to scrap the Net Zero target. We need to upgrade our gas generation plant and to massively ramp up our nuclear programme. We cannot afford the renewable energy white elephant. No one wants a climate ‘agenda’. We just want reliable and secure energy for all of our daily needs.

We must also scrap the upcoming ban on the sale of petrol cars. I’d jokingly said on these pages that the EV rollout was basically the government coercing you into using your own money to buy a back up battery for windmills – but that’s exactly what it is. The National Grid admits as much on its own website. It says “The rise of Battery Electric Vehicles means Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) will become important. V2G is essentially creating a battery on wheels that we can utilise”. They don’t care if it a step backwards for living standards.

The upcoming cost-of-living crisis will eclipse both Brexit and Covid at the next election, where the difference of opinion between Labour and Tories is minimal. As with lockdown measures, Labour agrees with the government but wants it to go harder and faster on Net Zero no matter how much damage it does. Labour, though, would like to see a windfall tax on energy companies. In principle, retrospective taxes are bad policy which can only deter investment, but it’s also a band aid measure – hitting the symptoms rather than the cause of the problems. It can only be done once – and then you’re back where you started.

By the time the full impact of our self-inflicted energy crisis is felt, nobody will be talking about food safety rules, customs or queues at airports (not least since nobody will going on holiday). The next election will once again be about material matters as families weigh up how they can afford to live. The die hard remainer-rejoiners will be lining up to blame Brexit, but all of Europe will be squeezed thanks to EU green policies. They will make an irrelevance of themselves if they drag Brexit back into the fray.

The outrage at the next election is that the establishment parties have all closed ranks on us to inflict Net Zero in us whether we want it or not. The Tories have given a stay of execution for shale wells and given the green light for more North Sea extraction, largely in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but is still intent on quadrupling offshore wind. More than half of the Tory party now supports the green agenda, having turned their backs on Brexit and Brexit voters, hell bent on making us colder and poorer.

Though Net Zero is still seen as a peripheral issue, it could just as easily become a an issue as divisive as Brexit, because it mirrors the issue of EU membership. There is a gulf between what the public wants and what the establishment has conspired to do to us without consultation or consent. Thus, this very well could morph into a constitutional crisis. It shows that Britain is not a democracy and nothing at all was learned from Brexit. We are still ruled by a feral, out of touch establishment, and politicians who are insulated from the consequences of their dangerous stupidity. We voted for Brexit to change things, but Net Zero tells us that nothing has changed, and nothing will change until we stop voting for them.

Net Zero: wasting Brexit opportunities

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 11:26:31 GMT

Boris Johnson has turned his back on Brexit

The more you scrutinise Net Zero, the dafter it looks, and the more the green blob will call you a climate denier – just as opposition to the EU makes you “thick and racist”. This is why the green blob doesn’t want a Net Zero referendum. They know they’d lose again – and for the same reasons.

My experience of the Brexit referendum was that the EU most ardent proponents knew very little about it or how it functions. I had a number of clashes with Brexiteers who have a blind spot when it comes to trade policy, but on balance, remainers were generally more ignorant.

The remainer blind spot was a failure to understand just how much was under the control of the EU. To the average remainer, the EU was just a “trade bloc” that allowed them perks such as freedom of movement and shorter queues at the airport. Few understood that the EU regulated all of our utilities to one extent or another and governed the parameters of markets. Much like an iceberg, the bit you see above water is only a fraction of the overall size.

As the EU grew in size and scope, it would gradually take on more competences, seeking to harmonise regulation to create EU wide markets. There is a certain logic to doing this in some sectors, but if you have pooled regulation you accept that you necessarily have fewer powers to reform them unilaterally, which means any attempt at reform is usually a long and often fruitless enterprise, where often the best you can secure is marginal tinkering rather than a market restructure. Things that are broken tend to stay broken.

The problem with the EU was that the harmonised regulation would often be worse than what it replaced in the UK. Prior to EU membership, if an industry identified a problem with bad regulation, there was a process through which change could be secured. Inside the EU, a minister would have to go off to Brussels to seek permission or initiate the change process, which can take a decade or more. A lot of damage can be done in that time. Fisheries discard rules is one such example.

In order for any system of laws to be democratic it has to be responsive to the demands of those living under them. This is why the EU could never be considered a democracy. Once a minister goes to Brussels they’re up against the inherent red tape of the process and a massive circuit of lobbyists – to the point where it wasn’t even worth asking for reforms because we knew what the answer would be. Securing agreement between 27 members each with their own domestic agendas is never straightforward.

A recent example of this is the haulage industry. Freedom of movement and single market cabotage rules allowed eastern European drivers, working on a pittance, to undercut the entire sector across the whole of Europe. This has long created disquiet in the industry as it drove down wages and deterred new drivers from entering the sector – culminating in the very driver shortage we see today as older drivers retire.

Reforms to the rules were eventually secured ( making it worse ) to level out the market, but those reforms now face challenges from nine member states in the ECJ and may yet be reversed. Therein lies the most obvious case for Brexit. Recent events have highlighted the need for a major restructuring of energy markets, which could not be done unilaterally or quickly while inside the EU.

Arguably it makes sense for the mainland of Europe to develop a common energy strategy and a common energy market, but the UK, having its own reserves, and far less dependent on Russian gas, never needed to be part of it. Now that we’re out of the EU we have a freer hand than before to design our own energy markets accordingly.

The need for this responsiveness has not gone unnoticed by EU member states. Once again , EU leaders have dismissed Spain’s impassioned pleas for market reform to curb the dramatic rise of electricity prices across the continent. The politically explosive issue has been on the agenda for the past six months and took a turn for the worse after Russia, the bloc’s main gas supplier, invaded Ukraine, sending markets trembling and inflation soaring. The vastly different energy mixes of each member state and clashing views about market intervention put the brakes on Madrid’s vigorous reforming campaign.

At the end of talks this week, the 27 agreed to allow Spain and Portugal to introduce exceptional and temporary measures in the Iberian market, such as price caps, an instrument that, while extraordinary, falls short of the market reforms that Madrid had been pleading for. Spain’s agenda is adamantly opposed by countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Austria, who defend the current system because it guarantees transparency and “promotes investment in the cleaner resources” (for what that’s worth).

There is a clear need for Spain to develop its own policies being that Spain is an “energy island”, not dependent on Russian gas, with a higher-than-average share of renewables but scarce interconnections with the rest of mainland Europe. This makes it easier to implement exceptional measures without endangering the rest of the European market. All the same, Brussels says no because the ideological demands for homogeneity trump pragmatism every time, even in an energy emergency. Brussels fears that any divergence or special dispensation for member could bring about an unravelling as other members demand their own exemptions.

The test of Boris Johnson’s government is whether they have the wits to do anything useful with Brexit now that they can act without seeking permission. Clearly things cannot continue as they are.

To date, nobody in the green blob is able to articulate how we are supposed to accommodate a massive increase in renewable generation capacity. Further expansion of renewables will make our gas dependency worse. Only gas can now support renewables. Battery storage technology at scale is a long way off and raw material costs rising means we may never have the battery capacity we need. High tech, high fantasy solutions, and tinkering with the energy market around the edges does not address the energy emergency we’re experiencing today.

In this, the Tories seem intent on making the problem worse. Expanding the fleet of offshore wind turbines increases the volatility margins when we don’t have enough conventional gas plant for when the wind does not blow. We are therefore running two concurrent energy policies. One for the Net Zero future, and an expensive interim policy to mitigate the problems it creates.

The absolute priority for this government is to recognise that gas and fossil fuels will continue to play a significant role in our energy mix for a long time to come, and must bring down the cost of gas by any means necessary. Circumstances cannot wait. We must also look at what we can do to increase the efficiency of existing plant. Modern CCGT plant has made considerable leaps but there is always room for improvement.

Now that we are outside of the EU, we have the freedom to think differently and act faster. The problem is that the modern Tory party does not think any differently from the Brussels establishment, and Westminster is just as much in the grip of the green blob as Brussels. The pragmatism and energy we thought we might get from a Brexit government has evaporated and the establishment is reverting to its habitual virtue signalling. Johnson’s green Tories are squandering Brexit and leading us towards an economic catastrophe. Unless the government can find the political will to do anything differently, we are no better off for having left the EU.

With the government having signed contracts with service providers dealing with the dinghy invasion going all the way up to 2030, it is clear that there will be no major overhaul of immigration and asylum rules, just as Net Zero tells us that we are to remain in lockstep with suicidal EU energy policies. Boris Johnson has turned his back on Brexit and doesn’t have the guts or the brains to do anything with it. Thus, we are back to square one, where only UKIP is offering an alternative.

Renewable energy: the new big lie

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 14:53:42 GMT

The green blob is lying through its teeth

In 2020, 75% of all imports of panels into the EU came from China, according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency. If you were to decide in February 2022 that you want to suddenly buy from crystalline solar companies that have nothing to do with Xinjiang you would have almost no choice. That makes Net Zero advocates complicit in massive abuses of human rights. If they weren’t hypocrites they'd be protesting solar farms.

The US has already imposed an effective ban on Chinese solar panels, and the EU, last time I looked, was also leaning in that direction. The EU rarely revokes trade preferences for human rights abusers, but even the EU can’t sit on its hands on this matter. For now it has settled upon supply chain transparency measures under the corporate governance directive, but corporates know how to get around such measures with plausible deniability.

But if you think that reducing food miles is a necessary step to achieving zero emissions, where is the sense in paving over our farmland with black rectangles filled with silicon? It would appear the main attraction for solar developers is that planning permission for solar changes the land use classification, which allows them to build on the land later down the line. They’re greenwashing a form of land banking.

Green activists on Twitter have gone into overdrive following seven days of next to zero output from renewable sources. They’re still claiming that renewables are cheap and getting cheaper. They seem not to have noticed that the price of raw materials and shipping has gone into orbit. They’re working from completely obsolete narratives, having assumed trends over the last decade would continue on the same trajectory.

They are wrong. Not only are they wrong, prices were already turning upward before anyone had ever heard of Covid 19, and global shipping was in crisis. Following two years of lockdowns and now Ukraine, there is zero likelihood of returning to pre-Covid norms. An era in geopolitics has come to an end and globalisation is quietly imploding.

To talk of renewables being cheap was a lie before and it’s an even bigger lie now.

Decades of policy neglect now means there is no cheap option. If we wanted to escape sky high food and energy prices then we needed action at least a decade ago. Had we invested in nuclear instead of windmills we would not now bee needing to buy gas at peak prices when the wind isn’t blowing. The green agenda has increased our dependency on gas and energy imports, it has dangerously exposed Britain to price volatility and is set to make life considerably harder even for the comfortably off.

It was obvious to energy watchers that the obsession with wind turbines would lead to this point. Christopher Booker in The Sunday Telegraph was writing about it as far back as 2005, saying that wind would cause massive grid instability and bring us to the brink of rolling blackouts. We got lucky this year with a mild winter, but if we’d had sustained low temperatures over December and January, we might very well have seen all energy intensive industries ordered to power down. The national grid is already exploring this option for the near future.

But then green energy wonks always knew this was an inherent risk, but assured us then as they do now, that intermittency could be mitigated by smart grids, metering and battery storage. None of this has yet materialised at scale, and is unlikely to. Grid scale battery storage is nowhere close to plugging the capacity gaps when the wind does not blow and the cost of manufacturing batteries is only going to skyrocket. China has spent the last twenty years cornering the global market in rare earth minerals and metals while there is major global competition for them for all manner of uses. A pivot away from Russia means a pivot towards Communist China and slave labour .

Net Zero is not a transition to clean energy. It is (notionally) a shift away from fossil fuels, but more accurately, it's a transition to a mineral intensive energy system. A typical electric car uses six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car, and an offshore wind farm uses thirteen times more mineral resources than a similarly sized gas powered plant – according to the International Energy Agency. I have yet to see a single renewables evangelist grapple with this reality. We get plenty of obfuscation and misdirection, but no acknowledgment that the costs of renewables could never stabilise.

Alarmingly, these green blob activists are in influential positions, dominating the flow of information in the media and politics, ensuring our politicians are misinformed and misled about costs. The metric of energy costs (Levelised Cost) is deeply misleading in that it does not account for the massive system externalities created by wind (ie. the need for grid balancing and transmission costs) while ignoring that wind is heavily subsidised and gas is subject to massive carbon taxes. The renewables lobby makes Boris Johnson look like a pillar of truth and integrity.

The national grid was never designed to cope with a wide array of intermittent sources, requiring hundreds of billions of investment to solve a problem the green lobby created. Society is being redesigned to meet the needs of the Net Zero ideology rather than the needs of the people. We’re going from relatively affordable energy when we want it, to unaffordable rationed energy.

The green lobby is turning the clock back on human progress. We could not afford this at the best of times, but to double down on it now, as the Tories are intent upon, is not only economic suicide, it is profoundly sinister. It will exacerbate hunger and extreme poverty, cause a jobs emergency and plunge the country into darkness – while refusing the public a meaningful say in it. We could be heading for a constitutional crisis as well as an economic one.

More Net Zero insanity

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 12:24:31 GMT

The Green capture of the Tory party is complete

The Times reports that the power market is facing its biggest overhaul in decades after National Grid said that wholesale electricity should be traded at local prices that vary from town to town. The company responsible for keeping the lights on said that the radical change was needed because Britain’s national electricity market was “not designed for net zero and if left unchanged will impose excessive costs to consumers”.

At present, power plant owners can sell their electricity on the national market, even if there are not enough cables to take that power to where there is consumer demand. That is forcing National Grid’s control room to pay wind and solar farms in remote locations to switch off at times when the network cannot cope and to pay expensive gas plants closer to consumers to switch on and replace them. These “constraint” costs, which are passed on to consumers via their energy bills, have risen sevenfold since 2010 as more renewables have been built, hitting £1.2 billion in 2021.

The National Grid ESO, or Electricity System Operator, warned industry last week that keeping supply and demand in balance nationwide was “becoming more challenging” and was resulting in “dramatic and rising costs for consumers”, even with plans to build lots of expensive new transmission cables. Constraint costs could hit £2.3 billion a year by 2026 without market reform.

Wind energy has already created massive problems for the grid and expanding capacity only exacerbates those balancing problems. This latest proposal is an attempt to disguise the problems wind energy creates.

There is an inherent conflict between the idea of diffuse, local generation and the national grid as currently constituted. It was set up to take a few, large generators from a limited number of locations, and distribute power nationally. Now it is being asked to take small packages of power distributed over a vast range of sites, and still perform the function of ensuring equal distribution of power throughout the nation.

This is something for which the grid was not designed to do, and to make it fit for purpose would require tens of billions of pounds. This money is simply not available and, if it was factored in, it would be seen as part of the cost of renewables provision, pricing it out of the market.

Therefore, National Grid is trying to find solutions on the cheap, without admitting that the system is fundamentally incapable of handling a diffuse, renewables-based generation system. As always, our entire generation system is being built on the basis of dishonesty, pretending the system can do something which it cannot. Local pricing is just dumping because they’ve built energy generation where it cannot be usefully utilised.

The Times has it that a new system would encourage energy-intensive industries to be located near wind farms around the coast or in Scotland to take advantage of cheap wholesale prices for electricity that might otherwise be wasted. That assumes they can afford the inherent transport costs that go with being in a remote location. But it’s quite telling that the economy is being geared around the needs of the Net Zero ideology rather than building a grid to meet the needs of the economy. Moreover, this is in direct conflict with the government’s free ports programme.

In reality, this will create an energy price postcode lottery, which energy retailers will spin to incentivise residents in more remote locations to consent to more useless windmills the rest of us will have to pay for.

For the last seven days now wind energy has barely mustered 1GW, supplying a mere 2% of demand, with nuclear and gas doing all the heavy lifting. The cold reality is that wind cannot be relied upon, nor can it be economically integrated into the grid, and Net Zero ambitions simply will not come to pass. Quadrupling wind capacity means quadrupling the amount of dispatchable back up (gas) to cover these long wind outages, or battery storage for something in the range of 24 – 30 days of average usage.

Since battery storage is in its infancy, and prices of materials skyrocketing, as technically unfeasible it is, it is not going to come in any cheaper. Far from it. We’re already set to spend billions on batteries, but this capacity will cover only hours, not days.

Green blob energy wonks are insisting that wind energy is the cheapest form of generation, but only by ignoring the fact that the cost of gas generation is increased by a third due to carbon taxes, ignoring the subsidy bill for renewables, and by lying about the cost of grid “upgrades”. They won’t say how much storage is actually needed or what it is likely to cost, and most of the industry figures are deliberately massaged to mislead politicians. When green wonks talk about “grid upgrades” they mean expensive mitigation of problems they created .

Depressingly, there is no hope of sanity prevailing in the near future. Boris Johnson is pressing ahead with plans to quadruple wind energy, while we learn today from Conservative Environment Network that half of the Conservative Party’s backbenchers support the green agenda. This is very far from the Brexit government elected in 2019. The mask has slipped and the establishment is reverting to business as usual. That can only mean disaster.

Real Refugees

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 19:17:50 GMT

Neil Hamilton, UKIP's leader discusses the refugee situation

Net Zero and immigration: the strangulation of Britain

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 14:43:20 GMT

Mass immigration and Net Zero is choking Britain to death

I am generally opposed to the war on motorists and the way in which greedy councils persecute drivers, often to their own detriment, is something that needs reining in. But the flip side of that is that divers are also lazy and selfish sods who behave appallingly. There is also an inherent good in reducing the use of cars and dissuading people from making unnecessary car journeys. There are too many cars on our roads and too many parked cars clogging our streets.

In that, there are some lessons to be learned from Covid lockdowns. A great many of us have a largely pointless commute for the sake of presenteeism. We have turned a corner on home working, and I think this is one of the good things to come of Covid. Moreover, with energy and fuel costs rising, businesses will be looking to keep their overheads low, and home working is one way to do that.

There is also the question of congestion, which is a thief of our time, space and energy. We’re constantly having to expand road capacity at enormous cost so more of us can embark upon miserable daily commutes. Why in god’s name do we wish to perpetuate this depressing existence?

The main reason we’re so hooked on our cars is because outside of London, public transport sucks. It’s expensive and time consuming, and it’s unreliable. The only thing worse than sitting in a traffic jam in the cold, dark winter months is standing at a bus stop in the freezing rain for a bus that may not even show up, using up two hours for a trip that shouldn’t even take one. Then, when a bus does show up, it’s usually crowded, damp, dirty and with insufficient leg room.

Commuter trains aren’t much better either. If you miss one you can have anywhere up to an hour’s wait for the next one and getting a seat is not guaranteed. Life is too short for that kind of drudgery. Commuting is grim. It chokes our towns and cities, it makes us fat and unhealthy and influences poor diets. We should, where possible, be looking to put commuting in Room 101.

The war on on motorists, though, has failed time and again. My home town made itself a hostile environment for cars and removed virtually all of the convenient parking, which then saw an out of town retail park pop up which pretty much killed the town centre. Greenie liberal councils have adopted similarly hostile policies, which have only succeeded in diverting the traffic to other places. I’ve lived in York for two years now and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been into Town. There is a pretty decent park and ride system, but it rules out any notion of popping in and out. It’s costly in time.

Ultimately, to get people out of their cars, you need to offer a cost effective and time effective alternative – but all we get is stick and no carrot. Drivers then simply absorb the punishment and living standards suffer. In that regard, what we really need is real investment in local public transport. Instead of HS2, the money ought to be directed into local train services, and where possible, undoing the Beeching closures.

This is where there is a difference between environmentalists and global warmists. The former is a sincere care for the environment, while the latter is a deeply political agenda rooted in a desire to control and micro manage people – which is why there’s much commonality between warmists, Europhiles and lockdowners. The global warmist want to perpetuate the car because the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) concept is an essential crutch for Net Zero. Real environmentalists observe that an electric car, with all its polluting rare earth minerals, is still a car, and demands the same space and infrastructure as ICE vehicles.

Their answer to that is to get us all on bicycles, but what works for provincial towns in the orbit of London does not work elsewhere. Cycling in Bradford certainly wasn’t an option for a busy adult. There are these things unknown to southern planners called “hills”. I could cycle downhill to work in about twenty minutes. It would take an hour and a half to get back up the hill, only to arrive home an exhausted, sweaty mess, unable to do anything productive with the rest of my evening.

When it comes to the war on the motorist, we are told that the alternatives are cheaper, but it’s instructive that they place no premium on our time. Cycling takes longer than a car. Sitting by a charging point for an hour or more is not a sensible use of time. They have a vested interest in blocking fast chargers because fast charging goes against the purpose of electric cars – which is primarily to balance the grid and back up useless windmills. If then, the anti-car lobby wins out, there are insufficient electric vehicles around for the V2G system to work.

But then the great EV revolution isn’t going to happen anyway. Current geopolitical events have seen the price of rare earth minerals, metals and microchips soaring, while the 90’s era model of globalisation is quietly imploding. The assumption was that EVs were going to fall in price, and that we would see faster adoption. Presently the prospectus doesn;t look good. A half decent EV is set to cost considerably more and will be no cheaper to run. The government somehow has to recover the same levels of revenue it currently extracts from sales of petrol and diesel. In terms of cost and convenience, the EV revolution is a step backwards.

One partial solution is to admit that demand for road space is exceeding supply and institute demand side management. The green blob is a huge fan of demand side management when it comes to rationing electricity, so shouldn’t that also inform our immigration policy? There are more people than our infrastructure can sustain, and the influx outpaces any new infrastructure. The only war the London tube can manage demand is to use price as a deterrent. Mass immigration is making life more expensive and less convenient.

It should also be noted that it’s only by way of luck that this winter we did not see rolling blackouts across the national grid. Our disastrous focus on renewable energy has left the nation’s electricity supply dangerously vulnerable. New generation is falling behind the rate of decommissioning of conventional plant. This, though, doesn’t stop Net Zero cultists calling for the electrification of home heating and EVs. They may be able to use EVs for grid balancing but they still need to be charged with something. If we’re going to throttle new gas exploration then we urgently need to reduce the influx of immigrant settlers. That shouldn’t be logistically difficult for any government. There are well over a million illegals in the UK, and the Home Office knows where to find them.

More to the point, it is difficult to see how the economy can sustain the same level of unskilled and semi-skilled labour. The senseless commute we subjected ourselves to provided all manner of job opportunities for migrants working in coffee shops and fast food venues, among other commuter services, but if we’re doing away with it, and at a time when ordinarily disposable income is going on heating bills, we could soon have too many migrants chasing too few jobs, leading to an explosion in organised crime and inter-ethnic rivalry on our streets.

Any way you look at it, the government is dithering on every major area of policy, attempting to ride two horses. It wants us to switch to EVs while punishing motorists. It wants us to use less energy while importing more people. It wants to build more windmills knowing that only coal and gas can plug the gaps when the wind doesn’t blow for weeks on end. Battery storage isn’t going to cut it. You can either run the economy in the best interests of the people or you can have Net Zero. You can have a coherent, functioning society or you can have open borders. You can’t have both. It’s time for the Tories to decide.

Labour's problem with women

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 12:58:36 GMT

Starmer fails the basic biology test

In an interview on LBC , Keir Starmer refused to say whether a woman can have a penis. On the brink of a global famine, a dangerously escalating proxy war between east and west, and an energy emergency, the leader of Her Majesty’s opposition is unable and unwilling to answer a basic question of biology in fear of exploding his own party. Labour is in the grip of trans activists (or at least Starmer seems to think so), which ought to disqualify any party from serious consideration.

This is not an abstract issue. It is fundamentally a question of whether women are entitled to female only spaces. It is a question of women’s safety, but also an indication that Labour has adopted the full construct of divisive identity politics. Left unchecked, it sees women having to share female only spaces with perverts. It’s predicated on the notion that wearing a dress and feeling like a woman is all it takes to be considered a woman.

We have a word for this. Sexism. Not one activist is able to describe what it means to feel like a woman without calling up on sexist stereotypes. That such misogyny finds its natural home in the Labour party comes as no surprise. Labour has as much of a problem with women as it does Jews.

Every cloud, though, has a silver lining. Women everywhere are waking up to the threat this ideology poses. They are now realising that the fight for women’s rights, even the basic right to protected private spaces for women, is never over. Feminism has been complacent but now women are back on the agenda.

For the establishment parties, though, this is only skin deep. We saw the candlelit vigils for Sarah Everard (a pretty white girl) but that doesn’t go as far as protecting the thousands of teenage girls exploited on our city streets. A decade on from the Rotherham scandal, crimes against girls are still not properly recorded and there’s no reason to believe the practice of grooming has been brought under control.

As with Black Lives Matter, the virtue signalling doesn’t translate into action. We supposedly care about black lives but still a dozen black teenagers bleed to death in the gutter every month. Sarah Everard gets her vigil, but the victims of “honour offences” (male violence against women) are largely ignored because it’s inconvenient to the “diversity makes us stronger” narrative. We’ve had endless commentary on Sarah Everard, but only a re-tread of a police press release regarding the apparent murder of Sarah Hussein, a young Muslim woman who was “found on fire” in Bury.

We would posit that our largely open borders contribute to this hostile environment for women. It may not be politically correct to say so, but south asian men come from remote places where rape culture is the norm. Places where women are property to be used, abused and disposed of how men see fit. Our view is that men who commit these atrocities against women should be on the first plane out of Britain, but even Somali gang rapists get a free pass from human rights lawyers.

To address these issues we have to be candid and admit that ethnicity and culture is a factor in the epidemic of sexual violence against women. You can’t even begin to fix a problem unless you are able to precisely diagnose it, but our establishment is squeamish about offending sensibilities. Tangentially, if we are serious about helping the most vulnerable refugees, we should seek to safeguard women and children from sexual violence, but instead the RNLI goes out fishing for Muslim men of fighting age.

When it comes to it, liberal feminists have a blind spot for violence visited on ethnic minority women, choosing to ignore FGM, forced marriage and honour killings. Teenage girls of Rotherham and Rochdale are too poor to matter. Stella Creasy is supposedly the champion of feminism on the left, but she’s preoccupied with her childcare problems (despite taking home an £80k salary). Ultimately, Keir Starmer will throw women under the bus every single time. His party demands it of him. His process of decorbynisation has stalled.

As much as anything this speaks volumes about Labour’s priorities. Labour still fancies itself as the party of the workers, so one might expect that issues such as food prices and energy costs wold be their central preoccupation. As with Covid, Labour is not only content to go along with whatever the Tories propose, they want them to go harder and faster on their disastrous Net Zero agenda. Another agenda which will disproportionately harm the lives of women.

It would be easy to dismiss LBC’s goading of Starmer as culture war fluff, distracting us from more important issues but this above all tells us where the Labour Party is intellectually – and where its hypocrisies lie. Labour will go to bat for illegal immigrants and wealthy middle class activists, and will enable the greatest assault on women’s rights for a century. Labour has given up on the British people.

The establishment is closing ranks on Net Zero

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 21:18:38 GMT

Labour and Tories are two sides of the same anti-democratic coin

I used to write quite a lot about the state of the Labour Party. There was plenty to write about and it was at least entertaining. That dropped off for me under Tory party’s transformation into a social democratic green party has made it as much of a threat as Labour. I need not worry about the dangers of letting Labour in when the actual difference is minimal. This is partly what prompted my association with Ukip.

There was a time when it was worth watching Labour to see how it would shape up under new management not least least because the country still needs an opposition party. To Starmer’s credit he as done what he can with the limited authority he has to decorbynise Labour, but he’s still left with the rump of momentum for a membership and is lumbered with a pack of deadbeats and crooks for MPs. A man twice his ability could not make Labour electable. The only thing that could project Labour into power is a total collapse of support for Boris Johnson.

But then is Labour any better off for decorbynising? It would appear not. The fabian progressives have reasserted their dominance, but that still makes it the party of middle class concerns, wedded to remoanerism, gender wokery, climate dogma and a propensity to treat the working class like pets. I have no love of Corbyn, but Starmer somehow managed to position the party even further out of touch.

Today the Labour Party tweets “The Tories have had 12 years to end the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels. They have failed. Labour would turbocharge the shift to cheap, clean, home-grown renewables and nuclear energy and secure our future”. The graphic says they will increase UK renewable and nuclear energy production, insulate 19m homes, double onshore wind energy capacity, increase offshore wind production, triple solar power, and cut imports and energy bills”.

In other words, an identical policy to the Tories. The establishment is closing ranks on Net Zero. I can and have written at length as to why all of this is bunkum (and will again). Fossil fuels are going to be with us for a long time to come and the transition to “clean energy” is not going to happen in my lifetime – though they’ll do an inordinate amount of damage attempting to do so.

But I’m left to wonder, why on earth do they think this is what people want? I wouldn’t say I belong in the financially vulnerable bracket by any means, but even I’m wondering if I can afford to have the heating on next winter. I’m already tightening the belt when out food shopping, and limiting car journeys (not seeing family and friends). But for those with young kids and commutes, this may not be an option. The public is not as preoccupied with carbon emissions as the Labour party is. Most are wondering if they can maintain their basic standard of living.

Neither the Tory party or Labour realises that we are amidst an energy emergency. They are both committed to the Net Zero ideology first and foremost – even if voters have to go cold and hungry. If there is a difference between the tory and Labour approach it is that Labour will make available more public funds to compensate the poorest for disastrous policies, but won’t actually change those policies thereby digging an even bigger hole in public finances.

A week or so ago, The Daily Express was shrieking about a secret Labour plot to re-join the EU, and I was going to write about it, but thought better of it – not least because they’ll publish pretty much the same story at least once a month. But I take the view that Brexit has already been defeated. On paper we have left the EU, but the Tory party is in lockstep with the EU on climate energy and foreign policy as though we never left, and it’s beginning to look like the suspension of freedom of movement is only temporary. The borders are still wide open and I do not anticipate Patel’s borders bill making the slightest difference.

It will, at best, remove some of the more egregious abusers, but unless we’re willing to withdraw from the refugee Convention, and the human rights apparatus that goes with it, will can expect the legislation to be gradually undermined through the courts in its first year. Back to square one – and all under the Tories. Brexit has served its purpose for the Tory party, but now it’s ancient history. Labour could take steps to re-attach us to the EU, which would be a step backwards for sure, but under the Tories, Brexit has gone as far as it will ever go.

And therein lies the essential problem with entrusting the delivery of Brexit to a party than never truly desired it, and has no idea what to do with it. When it comes down to it, the Tory party is just as bereft of reform ideas as Labour, and are equally out of touch. We are to be governed by slogans forevermore – be it “levelling up” or building back better. There has been no serious attempt to diagnose what ails Britain, and all we get from Johnson is more of the same generic redistributive policies under the guise of saving the planet (while China builds a new coal station every other week).

If anything, Brexit is something of a political setback for the “revolt on the right”. Our once influential movement is now broken into pieces and unable to bring to bear any real influence, and the Reform Party under Tice is playing establishment games by establishment rules. The absence of a post-Brexit agenda has allowed the Tories to bury it.

Ultimately nothing is going to get better until we give the establishment parties their marching orders. The corrupt and obsolete Wesminster model is not democracy, does not represent us, and is not working in the national interest. It is actively working against us .

I’m not even convinced that change can any longer be secured by the vote alone. We tried that but the establishment has rendered our votes worthless. The system is rigged for the favour of the incumbent parties, and following Brexit, they will gradually remove the online tools available for us to organise. We are headed towards a major constitutional crisis because the establishment is acting in open defiance of the people. We’re going to see massive disengagement from politics, while respect for the authority and legitimacy of the state collapses, leading to widespread civil disorder – especially when ordinary people are thinking twice about heating their homes and going short of food.

I don’t know for sure how this is going to play out, but the narrow obsessions of our self-indulgent political class are set to leave Britain in ruins. We couldn’t afford them at the best of times, but now we have to consider them as hostiles – and more of a danger to us than any external aggressor. All of us now face a bleaker, poorer future thanks to the virtue signalling stupidity of our political class, and they won’t go without a fight. But that fight is coming. In these times of uncertainty, it’s the only thing I’m certain of. That’s why it’s time to come back to Ukip.

Demands for Democracy: it's time for meaningful change

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 15:28:12 GMT

A proposal for democratic reform

The post-Brexit political landscape is beginning to resemble a reversion to the norm – where mainstream parties have a complete stranglehold on our politics, resulting in political suffocation and stagnation. The so-called “revolt on the right” has stalled and has since fragmented, unable to wield the power it once did. The momentum of Brexit is fading, and reform is sliding down the agenda as Covid and Russia have displaced our political energies.

All the same, there is still a role for the dissident movement on the right. We believe that, though we cannot attract the majority of votes, we speak for the majority of people. Controlling borders and bringing immigration down is a majority concern. Energy costs must be brought down. We also agree that critical race theory and gender theory has no place in our institutions. We can all agree that our votes are increasingly meaningless, and the real influence in the UK, on energy to immigration, is held by a minority of radical activists in the NGOcracy and the civil service.

All these issues, when examined, revolve around one issue. Power; who has access to it, who it belongs to, and to whom are they accountable? With closer examination, we conclude that Britain is not a democracy. Our focus, therefore, must be on identifying and removing the barriers to meaningful and responsive democracy.

The premise upon which Brexit was fought for and won was faulty. Though Brexit was a necessary precursor to becoming a democracy, the democratisation process has stalled because of that faulty premise. The leave campaign fought for the doctrine of “Parliamentary sovereignty” – and though that brings power closer to the people geographically, it remains out of reach of the people. Our politicians once elected can do to us as they please. Net Zero being the latest manifestation of that “democratic deficit”.

Parliament is the supreme legal authority in the UK, which can create or end any law. Generally, the courts cannot overrule its legislation and no Parliament can pass laws that future Parliaments cannot change. Parliamentary sovereignty, says the Parliamentary website, is the most important part of the UK constitution.

We believe this should change, not least because, in the name of parliamentary sovereignty, our MPs have a licence to ignore the wishes of the people and to hand power to bodies such as the European Union. This led to a situation where UK courts recognised the supremacy of EU law in preference to our own, and can strike down laws made by Parliament.

To a large extent Brexit has not remedied this dynamic. Successive attempts to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and ramp up their removal have been stymied by the courts under “international law” despite the elected executive having a huge mandate to act. Our post-Brexit constitution still recognises international treaties and conventions as the last word. We hold that it is insufficient to simply withdraw from such treaties being that they can always be replaced. There needs to be a constitutional overhaul before we can say, with any sincerity, that we are a democracy.

That begins with one small but massively significant act; a formal recognition that the people are sovereign. This signifies that the fount of all political power stems from the people – and that sovereignty is regarded as inalienable. Because of that, it cannot be taken away by any body, governmental or otherwise.

Real democratic reform comes not with tinkering with the voting system. It must begin with the declaration that we, the Sovereign Citizens of the United Kingdom do hereby redeem and declare our Sovereignty. We assert our right, jointly and severally, to the ownership of the United Kingdom, and to the unfettered control thereof. As a sovereign people, owing no allegiance or duty to any other government or state beyond these shores, we are not bound by any statutes or laws other than those, which we ourselves approve.

The essential effect of a declaration of sovereignty and its formal recognition is the recognition that power resides with us, the people, making government in all its manifestations subordinate to us. Government must be the servant of the people, not their master. It is there to do our bidding, in a manner of our choosing. The word democracy stems from the Greek word, dēmokratía, comprising two parts: dêmos “people” and kratos “power”. Without a demos, there is no democracy. But people without power is not democracy either. Recognition of our sovereignty is an essential precursor to any constitutional reform for the purposes of democratising Britain.

Taking the power back

Since the 2016 referendum there has been a recognition that Britain is in need of democratic reform. Little thought was given as to what form that should take. Opinion tends to gravitate towards proportional representation in the absence of bigger and more ambitious ideas. Proportional Representation, however, does not address the fundamental absurdity and anti-democratic nature of our current constitution.

True reform must take into account that representative democracy is not democracy.

An individual selected on the basis of a fraction of the votes, often on in turnouts under fifty percent, cannot claim to speak for the people or claim legitimacy for assertions of power over us – including decisions made in our names. Moreover, the congregation of a political class in London (or anywhere else), financially insulated from the consequences of their decisions, will never properly reflect the wishes of the people.

The power to make law, and especially to reject it, is a measure of sovereignty. By that measure, the only true from of democracy is direct democracy – when the people have the power to demand that specific laws be made, or can refuse to accept proposals for new laws. The most obvious and common mechanism for expressing such true democracy is the referendum.

Essential to any democracy is the people’s consent. No treaty, trade deal or government decision with constitutional implications should take effect without the consent of the majority of the people, by positive vote if so demanded, and none should continue to have effect when that consent is withdrawn by the majority of the people. This, particularly, pertains to abridgements of freedoms imposed by Covid legislation. Clearly, there could not be a referendum for every one of the hundreds of thousands of decisions made each year, so the type of decision amenable to public voting would have to be restricted according to a constitutional framework to be confirmed by a referendum.

A parliament that works

It ought to be the case that the public vote for their local candidate by name. Our voting system is based on that assumption. In reality, though, people vote for party brands and party leaders. The local connection is then lost – leading to the kind of hat-standism that debases our parliament and the quality of decisions. Our system must change to reflect the reality of how the public votes.

The concern is that there should be a clear distinction between the legislature (Parliament) and the executive (Government). Should the executive thus be separated, the obvious and logical outcome is that the prime minister and his ministerial team would no longer be Members of Parliament. Prime ministers would have to be elected in their own right, a process which would reflect the increasingly presidential nature of general election contests. The selection of an MP is then exclusively a local decision.

Presently, members of the ministerial team (including the prime minister) – the core of the executive – are appointed either from MPs in the House of Commons, from the Lords, or – not uncommonly – are appointed to the Lords for the purpose of making them ministers.

The use of the Commons as the recruitment pool for most of the ministers (and the prime minister) has a highly corrosive effect on the institution. Although the main functions of parliament should be scrutiny of the executive, and as a check on its power, all MPs who have ministerial or secretarial positions hold dual roles as members of the executive and the legislature. Inevitably, there is a conflict of interest.

Typically, there are around 140 ministers, whips and other office-holders in the Commons. Collectively, they are known as the “payroll vote”, people who may be assumed to vote with the government, and to defend it policies and actions. But the problem is far worse than this basic arithmetic would suggest. Add the Parliamentary Private Secretaries (PPS) and the “greasy pole climbers” who have hopes of preferment but have not yet been promoted, and the number climbs to 200 or so on the government benches. When it comes to holding the government to account, all these people are compromised.

Even then, this is by no means the full extent of the distortion. The fact that the Commons is the main pool for recruiting ministers – and the only prime ministerial pool – also changes the dynamics of the institution. A goodly number of people who enter parliament have no intention of remaining MPs for their entire careers. They want to join the government. For them, parliament is not an end in itself, but a means to a different end, the first step on a career path which ends up in ministerial office.

This should not be the case. We thus concede the obvious: ministers and other office holders cannot be members of parliament. If members become ministers, they must resign as MPs. As a consequence, prime ministers must appoint their own ministers – from whatever source they choose – subject to parliamentary confirmation and dismissal. This has the added advantage of widening the recruitment pool, leading to a higher calibre of ministers.

Real local democracy

In Britain, the idea that we have local democracy is a fiction. We have a system of local authorities which function mainly as central government agencies. Their main task is to administer centrally-defined law at a local level.

Local government units, whether counties, second-tier districts or unitary authorities, have no independent existence or powers. They are defined through Acts of Parliament and owe their existence, their boundaries and their powers to the diktats of central government. They are funded primarily from the centre and the nature of monies which can be collected locally is directed by the centre, as well as the amounts and terms of collection.

This, by any definition, is a top-down society. But it is also one which has become increasingly so over time. As a result, local elections are little more than opinion polls on the performance of central government, without even the benefit of random sampling techniques. There is no point in getting excited over the election of local officials when almost the entire extent of their powers is determined by national law.

To revitalise local democracy, the fundamental building blocks of our democracy should become independent local units which owe their existence to the people who live within their boundaries.

Instead of being statutory bodies – i.e., defined by statute, from which they derive their powers, under the control of central government – they become constitutional entities. Their existence, powers and revenue-raising capabilities are defined by the people via the medium of constitutions, approved by local referendums.

These local authorities – which could be counties, cities or the former county boroughs – become independent legislatures is their own right. Whereas local authorities were once permitted to make by-laws, defined and permitted by central government, true local government makes its own laws in its own name. Each district makes all the laws for matters exclusive to its area, using powers defined by its own constitution, applicable within its own boundary.

A consequence of this would be that the functions of central government would be drastically reduced. Mainly, the centre would concern itself with foreign policy and relations, including the framing of international law and making treaties. We would see central government take a hand in making maritime law, controlling deep water fisheries, and dealing with matters of national security and defence. In what would effectively become a federal-style body, central government would also concern itself with cross-border crime (where the perpetrators operate in two or more police districts), and serious, organised crime.

By localising politics and government, we dismantle the centralised state thereby reduce the opportunities for NGOs and activist groups to capture it for their own ideological ends.

Constitutional Safeguards

Britain has left the EU, and though we may never be able to fully explain why the public voted the way they did, we can say that the arrogance of the British establishment was a major factor. Opening up the borders to all EU citizens without consultation or consent, coupled with the decision to railroad a major constitutional modifier such as Lisbon through without a referendum, made Brexit a question of when rather than if.

Brexit was a necessary yank on the leash to remind the establishment who they work for – but there’s no reason to believe they will heed the message for long, or that it ever sank in, and there’s nothing at all stopping them from doing it to us again. They may not take us back into the EU, but they will happily sign away powers which aren’t theirs to give.

As much as we must make democratic consent a cornerstone of our democracy through the use of referendums, we need a codified constitution flowing from the declaration that the people are sovereign, which forbids, in all circumstances, the surrender of sovereignty and decision-making authority, underpinned by a renewed offence of treason for leaders who, in full knowledge, subvert that constitutional principle.

Politics: knowing thine enemy

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 14:31:41 GMT

Our ruling class has declared war on Britain

I’ve been quite surprised by my own emerging views on Ukraine. I’m closer to Jeremy Corbyn, George Galloway and Spiked than I have ever been comfortable with. But sometimes you just have to follow your own nose. I’m sure it’s only temporary. Throughout my life I have usually regarded myself as right wing, largely in opposition to pretty much everything that comes out of the modern left.

In this I’m subject to considerable censorship. I’m not shy about voicing my views that our borders should be enforced, illegals should be deported, and the fact that Pakistan is a backwards, racist, corrupt genocidal terror state should inform our immigration preferences. I don’t think I qualify as far right because I’m not an ethno-nationalist, nor do I subscribe to any supremacist ideologies. Growing up in West Yorkshire, it’s rather difficult to view my own stock as as the master race.

I can see why some would gravitate towards ethno-nationalism being that identity politics racialises every issue and minority groups claim preference and favour on account of skin colour and ethnicity alone, then it follows that everyone will want in on the act. Thus I view the left’s distorted notion of racial justice to be divisive and counter productive.

When it comes to immigration, I do feel that the rate of influx is unsustainable and public services and housing cannot keep pace, nor can our already strained transport infrastructure. Managing immigration is just intelligent statecraft. There must be an immigration criteria, we do need rules and for those rules to be properly and fairly enforced. Asylum must not be abused by immigration cheats. In terms of skills and employment, it is not fair to replace British workers with cheap exploitable foreign labour.

On LGBT matters, I’m largely indifferent as to who people choose to sleep with or marry, but sexual fetishes should be kept away from children. Children should not be exposed to the warped gender bending theology of the modern left. Children should not be used as political propaganda weapons.

When it comes to crime and justice, there does need to be a recognition of ethnicity of perpetrators. You cannot solve a problem if you can’t adequately diagnose it – and yes, the state must discriminate in the interest of public safety.

As far as Twitter and Facebook is concerned, this does make me “far right”, but the term has been abused to the point of meaninglessness. My views are fairly pedestrian and shared by most moderate adults, but the game is to coerce people into silence and self censorship. If you want to know what a real far right looks like, you could do no worse than to investigate the far right movements in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.

My position is also informed by who my political enemies are. I view most MPs and mainstream journalists with more or less the same level of contempt. We have never been more poorly served by our politics and media. The latest intake of MPs are among the stupidest creatures ever to set foot in parliament, while the lobby hacks are lazy, excitable and obsessed with trivia. They are incapable of informing us.

One tier behind them is a vast blob of civil service organisations, think tanks, philanthropic foundations, bogus charities and state funded QUANGOs, who all belong to the same groupthink, who think of the poorest more as pets or livestock, and the rest of us mere subjects to be coerced, nudged and bullied into being more like them.

These are the people who are in lockstep on matters ranging from Brexit through to climate change and immigration. they have the power and they abuse it. Their contempt for democracy is absolute. Their chief complaint about the Brexit vote was that any of us got a say at all.

In that regard, I find myself unable to support their warmongering over Ukraine, because these people are a greater threat to my wealth, heath and future prosperity than the likes of Putin. This liberal cosmopolitan ruling class, pig ignorant, selfish and trivial, do not represent me, do not act in my interests, and probably loathe my country as much as our enemies do.

In the traditional sense, then, the right is the new left in its opposition to an unaccountable self-serving and feral ruling class. There was a time with the Labour party would object to British workers being replaced by cheap foreign labour, but now it’s their ambition to restore freedom of movement as soon as possible, largely because it provides the liberal middle class with all the perks and convenience they’ve become accustomed to. They would readily give amnesty to immigration cheats for those purposes if they could.

Our ruling class has been so deeply marinated in globalist dogma for so long, they are no longer capable of calculating the national interest. They even view acting in the national interest as somehow grubby, unless somehow the national interest coincides with their own prejudices.

The establishment has done pretty much all it can to disenfranchise and marginalise us. We still have the empty rituals of elections but they don’t mean anything. Whoever wins, the agenda is the same. The Tories have done next to nothing with their eighty seat majority to undo Blair’s revolution, and none of the disturbing trends ripping at the fabric of our society have been reversed. There just isn’t sufficient political will to take on the blob, largely because the Tory party itself is part of it.

During their reign, they’ve presided over a huge decline, pissing away our wealth and power on wars of choice, debased the arms of the state, politicised the police and education, and taught successive generations to hate themselves for being white and British – to the point of selectively editing and dismantling our own history and allowing a slow motion replacement. They dare not stand up or speak for what’s theirs.

This same group of “adults in the room” have delivered a massive decline in living standards, undermined our energy security, dismantled anything approaching local democracy, and handed our geopolitical leverage to China. Their fashionable virtue signalling political agendas have left Britain weak and broken. They handed our sovereignty over to the EU, WTO and UN, and left our own democracy a hollowed out shell. We’ve had only one meaningful vote in the last forty years, and they tried their very best to reverse it, but having failed, learned nothing from it, and now the ruling class is back to business as usual, subverting democracy and imposing their agendas on us without consultation or consent.

Meanwhile the Labour party is a dinosaur. It is instructive that they regard Tories as “scum” because they still harbour the infantile notion that greedy Tory capitalists in pinstripe suits are the ones waging the war on the workers. It certainly is the case that corporate parasites are bleeding us dry and crushing our freedoms, but they are all absolutely on board with the green agenda, LGBT wokery and supposedly liberal ideology. The greedy Tories in pinstripe suits don’t work for big oil. They work for big green, because carbon trading and green subsidies is where the big money is at these days.

But I do understand the “scum” sentiment. I know who my enemies are – and who the establishment is, and they are scum. Them and their mouthpieces in the BBC. The same people who would readily put violent sex offenders into women’s prisons. The same people who think grown men exposing their sexual fetishes to children is “stunning and brave”. The same people would would let the poor go hungry and cold over middle class anxieties about the weather, despite not a single headline climate prediction coming true. The same people who flood our streets with machete weilding psychopaths and say we’re being strengthened by diversity.

In this, they have us all nicely boxed in, having rendered our votes meaningless. In conjunction with big tech, these views are only allowed to be aired on license, but if your voice is heard above a certain threshold, your accounts will be suspended. That’s where it started but it culminates in a social credit system where jobs and banking privileges are only afforded to those with the correct political views.

Like it or not we are at war with our rulers. A silent war they started – and they won’t be satisfied until they’ve eliminated all of our basic freedoms. Covid lockdowns were just the dress rehearsal. They’re coming for your car, your home, and your assets. If they don't have a pretext they will invent one, but the days of private individual wealth are coming to an end and we’re entering a new age of technocratic globo-homo-eco communism. As such I am not minded to support the West’s economic war on Putin, not least since we’re ultimately sanctioning ourselves, and we should not allow the establishment to blame Putin for the consequences of their decades long arrogance and ineptitude.

Ukraine: Europe's deathwish

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 12:50:59 GMT

Why is Europe sanctioning itself?

Twitter is of diminishing returns these days as it increasingly censors anyone interesting or informative. Still, though, there are occasional glimmers of intelligence . One might usually be hesitant about taking economic insight from a mere Twitter account named “Professional hog groomer”, but the argument seems to stand in its own merit.

Russia announced today that starting immediately, they will begin selling natural gas to ‘unfriendly countries’ in Roubles. This is a far bigger development than is being reported. Russia currently supplies about 40% of Europe’s natural gas, which is used to heat homes and power their grid. Current EU sanctions against Russia have conveniently excluded gas for this reason.

There is no way for Europe to cut off such a significant portion of their own gas supply and not cause complete chaos. Even if the US and other countries swoop in to frantically try and make up the shortfall, the infrastructure to switch to LNG isn’t yet built. The EU could maybe limp their way through the rest of this cold season, but by next fall they’ll be unable to heat their homes or power their grid. So they need Russian gas for the foreseeable future. But given that the EU’s sanctions place them firmly within the ‘unfriendly’ camp, they are now faced with needing to procure Roubles to be able to purchase Russian gas. But how do they procure Roubles? The EU have 4 options:

1. exchange gold for Roubles with Russia.
2. sell goods to Russia.
3. exchange Euros for Roubles on forex market
4. buy Roubles from Russia’s central bank with Euros/USD.

But there are consequences…

1. gold is sanction proof.
2. is impossible without lifting sanctions.
3. will cause the Ruble to appreciate against the €, something the US is vehemently fighting against.
4. Russia may not accept USD/€ given the ways their holdings could (and would) be weaponized against them.

If 4 occurs, this will force unfriendly countries to first purchase an intermediary currency, like the Yuan. The prospect of being forced into purchasing Yuan is something the west has been anticipating but has little defence against. And this is the reason behind the recent barely veiled threats and gunboat style diplomacy from the US toward China for helping Russia skirt their unilateral sanctions.

This bifurcation of the world into “with us or against us” is setting the stage for renewed sanctions on China. The resulting prices on not just gas, but on all imported commodities in the EU are set to skyrocket. This is going to cause massive instability, which the US eagerly hopes to exploit. Thus, we see that this entire conflict is arguably less about the west isolating Russia and more about cleaving a receding Europe off of Asia and forcing it back into dependency on the US.

The EU now has a choice to make: if they continue down the path of subordinating to US aggression against Russia, Europe will be plunged into chaos. But if they break from the US, they have a chance at a soft landing. So far, they seem to be veering decisively toward the former.

We would venture that this is a disaster of the EU’s own making. Nobody forced Germany to unplug its nuclear power stations or shut down coal. The EU of its own volition elected to shut down its own energy infrastructure, pivoting to renewables which necessarily requires gas backup. They knew it would increase reliance of Russian gas but this did not in any way deter them. The green agenda has done this to Europe, not Putin.

Now that it has made itself dependent on Russia, there are considerable limits to EU leverage, to the point where the EU is essentially financing Putin’s war on Ukraine. It can push harder on sanctions but if that leads to price rises of all commodities then the great EV revolution is dead in the water, as is grid scale battery storage – without which wind turbines are next to useless.

This seems to be echoed by a report in The Telegraph , Rising energy costs affect the manufacture of EVs, and the cost of charging them. Raw material costs and chronic shortages of parts mean the forecourt prices are set to be astronomical while supply crunches will seriously impact the government’s intention to level up by building gigafactories.

Ultimately Europe cannot wage tis economic war on Russia and still transition to Net Zero. This somewhat torpedoes Boris Johnson’s “energy independence plan”. Europe is either on the hook to Russia for gas or on the hook to Communist China for rare earth minerals, microchips and metals. This tends to suggest that sanctions against Russia are an act of self-harm – that will be a hammer blow to the European economy (from which we are not separate, despite Brexit).

This is where the virtue signalling elites need to ask themselves a few hard questions. Are they really willing to plunge all of Europe into poverty and chaos, perhaps even leading to the breakup of their beloved EU just to prop up Biden’s puppet regime in Ukraine and to save a scrap of Russian speaking rust belt? How much love for their Zelensky crook do they really have?

The national, nay continental, interest is for this war to end, and if Europe can’t unplug from Russian gas, then it has to press for a ceasefire. Instead, Europe’s foolish leaders are still flooding Ukraine with weapons (that will fall into the hands of terrorists) and further antagonise Putin. His forces may be losing the ground offensive, but he can still flatten Ukraine, bring Europe to its knees, and initiate another wave of mass migration from Africa by cutting off grain supplies.

Militarily, Russia is weak, and Putin couldn’t blitzkrieg across Europe even if he wanted to. There is no wider risk to NATO countries unless Putin is further provoked. But Putin does have considerable leverage and is willing to inflict suffering on his own people in order to hurt the West. By responding in kind with sanctions and military aid, our own rulers are set to inflict massive economic pain on us.

Ultimately, the Europe’s ham-fisted approach to Russia and Ukraine is acting in support of American corporate agendas and the Biden oligarchy. We are entitled to ask what’s in it for us? It’s not even as though we are coming to the rescue of a Western style liberal democracy. Ukraine is nothing of the sort, and and Zelensky is as much of a criminal as Putin. Corruption is endemic to the culture.

In this, the USA is not a good actor, and the EU’s embrace of Russophobic foreign policy is the strategic blunder of the century. The relative power of the Europe stems from its wealth and buying power, but by crippling our own economies with sanctions and the idiotic Net Zero agenda, we are making an irrelevance of ourselves and shifting the balance of power towards our enemies: China, Russia, India and Pakistan. We couldn’t be making a bigger mess if we were trying.

Energy: Johnson has run out of excuses

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 11:28:18 GMT

The Tories could act. They just don't want to.

You all remember the fiasco over the mass procurement of ventilators. On that I’m prepared to cut the government some slack. At the time we didn’t really know what Covid was or what to make of it, and we only had dodgy data from China and the WHO to go on. In any case, It’s good to know that we have that procurement capacity when we need it. The government can act on an emergency footing when it wants to.

But why does it not see the same urgency as living standards are collapsing? Instead of ramping up nuclear builds, the government is doubling down on its luxury Net Zero ideology, leaving many of us wondering if we can heat our homes at all next winter.

With any energy energy goes a food and jobs emergency, placing massive pressures on the welfare system. In his budget, Sunak may have doubled local support for the very poorest to ten billion, but that ten billion is going to be soaked up in no time because this government is failing to treat the energy crisis with the due seriousness. The only way to reduce pressures on the welfare system is to bring energy costs down.

Then as much as energy costs have an impact for households, the outlook is bleak for manufacturers still reeling from Covid lockdowns and Johnson’s bungled trade deal. As it happens, Britain has fared better than I anticipated, but mounting energy bills will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

From the signal’s we’re getting from Sunak, who says we should prepare for difficult times, the Tories must know they’re going to be facing serious problems on all fronts, building on long standing problems such as rental costs and the unaffordability of houses. Yet still the Tories dither while a thousand illegal immigrants arrive every day by dinghy. Worse still, the Tories are giving thought to an amnesty, allowing illegal immigrants to work, creating yet more competition for scarce jobs. Whose side are they on?

Not only did Covid demonstrate that the government can act on procurement when it wants to, it can also fast track emergency legislation. It could legislate for faster nuclear procurement, it could scrap green taxes at the stroke of a pen, and there’s no good reason for further delays to border reforms. With an eighty seat majority, this government has no excuses. But instead they put Net Zero and illegal immigrants first. They could act but they just don’t want to. Remember that next time you walk into a polling station.

Johnson’s suicidal green agenda will ruin Britain

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 01:32:15 GMT

Until we have removed the establishment parties, we must consider ourselves an occupied country

Boris Johnson is expected to open the door to more onshore wind at next week’s energy strategy, despite some cabinet ministers lobbying against relaxing planning laws to allow more turbines. The business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, has made clear publicly that he would like to see planning rules relaxed in order to facilitate the building of more onshore windfarms. Michael Gove, who oversees the planning system, has also spoken in favour . If you were harbouring any illusions that this is the Brexit government many of you voted for then this ought to be your wake up call.

Kwarteng has suggested the public’s opposition to windfarms has fallen away, given the push for net zero and the renewed interest in energy self-sufficiency since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. he said “There were quite understandable political reasons that people didn’t want to see large-scale, onshore winds in their vicinity. I think that’s changed,” he told the i newspaper earlier this week. “I think the prime minister has been very clear that onshore wind has got to be part of the mix and we’ve got to look at planning.”

This is the height of self-delusion. The reason why there’s an effective onshore wind ban in the first place was due to a massive campaing against them, as much for their local environmental impact as the fact they’re expensive and useless – with load factors less than a third of installed capacity. Remote locations also means long and expensive transmission lines, comprising rare and expensive metals. Cameron put the ban in place because he knew it was costing him votes. It’s part of the reason why he didn’t win an outright majority in 2010, having lost votes to Ukip. Ukip was staunchly opposed to wind energy and still is.

Johnson’s new energy independence plan was announced after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Set to be published next week after some delays, it is expected to propose a rapid expansion of nuclear power and accelerated targets for renewables – but it is unclear whether a relaxation of planning rules around onshore wind will be included.

Presently the rules require a level of local consultation and consent. Thus, this is not a debate about onshore wind as such, rather it is a debate about democracy itself. One of the many reasons I voted to leave the EU was to decouple from top down policy agendas, but this flies in the face of everything Brexit was about. Not only is it a broad continuation of disastrous EU energy policy, they are removing the people’s local veto.

Moreover, Johnson has some nerve calling it an energy independence plan. Russia is not to blame. for our predicament. We don’t use all that much Russian gas. Our current energy emergency is one entirely of our own making. France invested heavily in nuclear energy some forty years ago and is now reaping the benefits. The UK, though, is having to buy gas off the global market at peak prices because we chose windmills instead. In any case, ramping up Net Zero merely switches the dependency to rare earth minerals in global markets currently cornered by Communist China. Just as the price of nickel is skyrocketing.

Expanding wind will only introduce more grid instability, and even if it can be argued that we’ll use less gas, we’ll end up paying more for the gas we use. Net Zero advocates, increasingly taking on the characteristics of Jehovah’s witnesses (though nowhere near as polite) argue that gas can be replaces with battery storage. This simply isn’t going to happen. There is massive global competition to acquire the necessary metals and minerals, for nascent and unproven technologies.

Worse still, any renewables will require more than one hundred percent back up for when the wind drops off and for occasions when interconnectors and other power sources have unplanned outages. Thus there are no realistic figures for how much capacity is needed, or how much it’s going to cost. But you can be assured that the costs will be astronomical.

The cost of battery back up, when added to wind makes wind among the most expensive forms of energy, and even at today’s gas prices, could end up being more expensive than gas when you consider the capital costs of grid balancing and subsidies. For systemic grid-scale storage to be affordable we need to see nearly 100-fold cost reductions, which are nowhere on the horizon.

Not only is lithium-ion technology too expensive for this role, but limited battery life means it’s not well suited to filling gaps during the days, weeks, and even months when wind and solar generation flags. It should also be noted that the extraction of rare earth minerals is by no means a clean or green activity.

Though we are pleased to a see a renewed interest in nuclear, but it’s too little and too late. We should have take action at least a decade ago, but the green blob holds all of the power over energy policy and they steered us toward wind, which is why we’re now seeing a collapse in living standards. Allegedly set to be the worst single year drop since rationing.

Many people complain that wind turbines are ugly. That much is a subjective debate, and I can think of isolated turbines in the Pennines which do have a certain charm, but to me they represent the victory of the green blob over democracy. They are a reminder to us that the people have no power. Environmentalism has replaced the state religion, where state-funded institutions, private trusts and charities are calling the shots, while our braindead MPs congratulate themselves for saving the planet.

The decision to massively expand offshore wind is quite possibly the greatest strategic blunder of all time. If the PM now goes ahead with relaxations to planning rules for onshore wind (while throttling the use of domestic reserves of gas and coal) then we can be sure he has gone native.

Yesterday’s budget scrapped VAT for heat pumps, solar panels and commercial turbines, all in service of the Net Zero religion. Sunak clearly failed to notice that there is to be a global grain crisis and the UK is a net importer of grain. Every scrap of viable agricultural land must be preserved for food production. Plastering the countryside with solar panels (with a feeble load factor of 10 percent) is beyond crass.

Similarly, the case for heat pumps is not made. A typical installation costs thousands of pounds – just as the notion of disposable income is becoming a thing of the past. Public subsidies mean the very poorest are paying for upgrades for homeowners while not being able to heat their own homes. Meanwhile, there is no reduction of carbon taxes on gas, which adds thirty percent to the cost of producing energy.

The latest budget is closer to Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband than anything we might consider conservative, Even in the midst of a cost of living crisis, and and energy emergency, the lunatic fantasies of greens have been put ahead of the wealth and welfare of the British people. To the extent that we must essentially consider ourselves an occupied country until we have removed the establishment parties.

We have been warning for more than a decade that wind energy and the eco-cult would ultimately result in energy shortages and sky high bills. Miliband’s Climate Change Act laid the foundation for Net Zero and every administration since has made matters worse, not least with Ed Davey’s decision not to build more gas storage which has seen a collapse of the gas retail sector. Boris Johnson is just another in a long line of insipid eco-meddlers who have driven this country into the floor.

Budget: Sunak is tinkering around the edges

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 14:21:20 GMT

Lower income families have already reached their breaking point

Budgets are always a game of giving with one hand and taking with the other. So much so that I long since gave up paying them any attention. The first quest question is whether any of Sunak’s measures provide any meaningful relief for hard pressed families. Tinkering with National Insurance thresholds perhaps has some merit, but the 5p cut in duty fuel will only result in a £3.30 saving on an average 55 litre tank of unleaded. This is hard to take seriously.

Elsewhere in the budget, perhaps more tellingly, Mr Sunak says he is doubling the household support fund for the UK’s poorest to £10bn with £5bn of new funding. Local councils will receive this funding from April.

This is actually no different from the Labour approach – using public funds to ease the symptoms of dysfunctional economic policies rather than addressing the central problems. Even if you could say that, on balance, most are marginally better off for this array of measures, it’s not going to last. Food costs are going up and up and so is the cost of home heating and power. The former consequence of the latter.

Here is should not be forgotten that a third of the cost of gas power generation is carbon taxes, and we’re paying massive subsidies to wind energy companies. Further incentives to build wind turbines shows that there has been no shift in policy despite skyrocketing bills. This is the rather large elephant in the in the room.

The Tory policy of massively expanding wind energy will only introduce yet more grid instability, forcing us to buy gas at peak prices at short notice, and puts us on the hook for battery storage, for which we need massive capacity if the Net Zero system is to work.

That puts us in a position of competing for Lithium on global markets at a time when prices are only going upwards. In the rush to dump Russian gas, we’re betting the farm on a commodity dominated by Communist China.

This is largely experimental technology, which is likely to see major delays, technical problems and massive cost overruns. If you thought HS2 was a white elephant, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Essentially, the green ideology has been put before the welfare of the British public, and we’re supposed to be grateful for the scraps from Sunak’s table.

This budget is more of the same meagre accountancy we have seen over the years, offering no real change in approach, oblivious to what is already a national energy emergency. As much as rising prices are biting hard, it’s only through luck, having a mild winter, that the light stayed on at all. Lower income families have already reached their breaking point.

As with so much else, our political class resides in its insular little bubble, able to blithely throw hundreds of billions at their hobby horse policies, knowing they can put home heating and fuel costs on expenses. The rest of us can go hang.

Energy is the number one priority for any government seeking to avoid a cataclysmic collapse in living standards. Absolutely everything is pegged to affordable energy. The first concern of this government should be to undo thirty years of policy neglect and get drilling, fracking and building nuclear power on a war footing – and while they’re at it, they should be seeking the quickest end to hostilities in Ukraine.

UKIP is the only party dedicated to scrapping the green crap. We will end subsidies and incentives for useless windmills. We will go hard on small modular reactors. We will abolish green taxes. We will sack overpaid diversity officers and council CEOs that drive up our council taxes. We will put people first and bin the fashionable cosmopolitan ideologies of our infantile establishment.

Ukraine: the West has been ambushed by simplistic narratives

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:14:07 GMT

Don't fall for Zelensky's propaganda

My analysis of the geopolitical situation around Ukraine has been somewhat timid. I think to be fully informed, you have to have been following events closely since at least 2013, and I can’t say I have. I was somewhat preoccupied with Brexit. What I can say, while attempting to bring myself up to speed, is that our wholehearted solidarity with Ukraine is misplaced. This is a multidimensional conflict.

As far as the British liberal establishment is concerned, this all began in February with no prior context where the evil Putin invaded the plucky and innocent underdog, and the West is coming to the rescue. But what did we know of him? Most had never heard of him. And how much is really known about Ukraine? Say what you like about Putin’s pretext for his invasion, but Zelensky has played his part in provoking it.

But even if you dispute that, you have to acknowledge that Ukraine is not liberal European democracy. It is a dysfunctional corrupt basket case. When Zelensky came to office, he was popular in Western Ukraine but had only a marginal win in the East. He promised he would resolve the war, he promised he would sort out corruption and he promised he would break the power of oligarchs.

In more recent times, his popularity had been dropping fast and he had achieved nothing. From packing his first cabinet with family and cronies (some “suggested” by Washington), his government went from disaster to disaster until he was forced to bring back the very oligarchs that he promised to get rid off. Essentially, Ukraine is a post-Soviet kleptocracy – exactly like Russia – and Zelensky has his fingers in the till the same way Putin does.

As to the conduct of Kiev, there are all manner of accusations levelled at it over its actions against Donbass, which could be described, in the technical sense, as genocide. Or at the very least active repression. I am told that Russian language and culture was being suppressed, “internally displaced persons” were disenfranchised and no longer permitted to vote, and Donbass industries were placed under economic sanctions that forced a lot of them out of business -a disaster for an aging population with few other sources of income – and the Kiev government refused to pay old age pensions to people in Donbass. The people of Donbass have been ostracised, abused and assaulted almost continuously since 2013 and bombed and shelled since 2014.

This isn’t the kind of thing that can be readily verified by the casual observer, not least since any search terms in Google tend to bring up present day events. The past is lost in the present. But you know, there’s more than a germ of truth to it. Reaching a conclusion, though, is all about weighting of disparate facts.

I have hinted at a large contingent of neo-nazi activity in Ukraine, which gives some small weight to Putin’s claim to be denazifying Ukraine. Bandera’s nazi (“nationalist”) movement has strong roots. Raised as privately funded militia, after Maidan the Azov and Donbass brigades were merged into the National Guard. Their ideology and the reign of terror in Donbass are matters of record. You can discount them, but even the Israeli press noted with some concern that since 2016 a new monument was being raised or a street renamed to commemorate one of the “nationalist” heroes nearly every week. They even raised a monument to a Nazi supporter in Babi Yar, the site of one of the worst Nazi atrocities.

We also learn that amidst the ongoing military confrontation Zelensky is seeking to appoint the far-right murdering criminal Serhiy Sternenko as head of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) in Odessa, in an attempt to further his alliance with neo-Nazi forces. This isn’t to say that Ukraine is Nazi, but they do have a serious problem with their right wing extremists. You have to wonder then why the EU is so enthusiastic to have Ukraine as a member.

I don’t claim to be an expert in this, but it’s far murkier than the simplistic narratives we are spoonfed by the legacy media, much of which is just victim porn, providing us with no real insight as to what is happening. They’re more interested in human interest stories about refugees than reporting the complex politics and the highly fluid tactical situation.

When you take into account the grime and corruption in Ukraine, and its long standing dispute with Russia, it begins to look like a regional cauldron, of a wholly separate culture, in which we have no business meddling. The West by its use of sanctions and military aid is stirring the pot as Zelenski goes crybullying to the NATO dinner lady. It is certain that Putin’s deeds are malevolent, but Russia is responding to what it sees as existential threats, and in the abstract, not without provocation.

It has to be understood that Ukraine is a badly divided country, politically and ethnically. Since its liberation from Soviet rule, Ukraine has had a lot of problems uniting as a single country. You have a very pro-Western, Christian central and western section and a pro-Russian, Russian Orthodox eastern section, and the situation can be as fractious as Northern Ireland -and its borders unstable – which is why it was never a viable candidate for NATO membership. Russia, therefore, always had a vested interest in promoting instability for as long as NATO membership was dangled in front of Ukraine.

In this regard, EU membership is similarly a red flag to the Russian bull. The Ukraine EU association agreement does not go as far as single market membership but it certainly lays the foundations, which as it matures (all EU trade deals are a continuum) eventually puts a trade and governance border through Russian speaking territories. If you understand how contentious the Northern Ireland Protocol is, then imagine how Russia feels about the EU cleaving off part of what Russia considers part of its own ethnic territory.

When you then consider that the USA has had successive administrations with outwardly hostile attitudes to Russia, and has played its own role in installing a western friendly puppet government, aided by the EU, it’s no surprise that Putin takes the view that if he cannot take and hold Ukraine then he will flatten it. But then we are assuming Putin seeks to annexe all of Ukraine. The military offensive around Kiev is looking more and more like a distraction as Russia concentrates its efforts on securing its grip on eastern and southern territories – that Putin views as essential to the defence of Russia.

The gullible liberals in the West have fallen head over heels with Zelensky, largely out of their own conditioned hostility to Putin. Certainly there is good reason for such hostility given Putin’s thuggish behaviour over the years, but that does not make Zelensky a hero nor does it make Ukraine an innocent. Our knee-jerk fawning over Ukraine is born of a total ignorance, and a willingness to throw our weight around because we’re used to doing it without domestic consequences.

This time, though, there are to be consequences, both in terms of global power realignment (away from the west). sky high energy bills and food prices, and another wave of mass migration. Had we a political class capable of calculating the national interest we’d be leaving this hot mess well alone. But instead, we have virtue signalling morons who can’t see geopolitical events without superimposing half understood WW2 narratives, and equally juvenile notions of good versus evil, freedom versus tyranny. They will eventually learn, but it is we who will pay their price for their very very expensive education.

Escalating sanctions will be an own goal for Europe

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 12:00:48 GMT

The Ukraine war will throw all of Europe into chaos

President Zelensky, speaking to the Italian Parliament has said “The Russians destroying our fuel depots, and preventing us from exporting wheat. It will lead to a food crisis in North Africa, sending thousands and thousands of migrants toward your shores unless this war is stopped. We need sanctions”.

Zelensky is running a diplomatic campaign all around Europe and the West, tapping into national security fears to spur more intensive action against Russia. The way he’s going about it you could be forgiven for thinking he wants to start World War Three. He’s hoping that his emotional blackmail will work on the virtue signalling simpletons in Europe’s ruling class. That’s actually a safe bet.

But he’s not wrong about an emerging food crisis. Russia and Ukraine supply thirty percent of the world’s wheat, and it is not beyond Putin to deliberately cause an African famine with a view to flooding Europe with migrants, It’s the one issue that could destabilise European politics, to the point where Italy or even France could quit the EU.

That is precisely why it is not in the Europe’s interests to ramp up sanctions.

We often roll out the word “sanctions”, believing it means dry non-violent technocratic measures in place of armed conflict. But let us not beat about the bush. In joining in sanctions we have declared an economic war on Russia, which could be every bit as deadly as a shooting war in the long run. Sanctions are certainly hurting Russia, but Putin does have cards to play. If he’s going down he can take all of Europe down with him by cutting off the gas and causing a another migrant crisis. This doesn’t end well for anybody.

In that respect, it could be the EU’s rogue members that save it. Hungary has said it will veto any sanctions, and will not support a no-fly zone or an EU peacekeeping force. Hungary most definitely has skin in the game, and will be the loser in any economic war whoever wins. All the same, that won’t stop the EU ramping up the rhetoric and stoking Putin’s paranoia. Von der Leyen continues to make noises about fast-tracking Ukrainian EU membership.

It’s interesting that British FBPE remainers see that as a wholly positive thing, affirming Ukraine’s identity as a Western European democracy (and their own narcissism), but if you’ve been paying attention, Ukraine is very far from an EU type social democracy, with a large contingent of actual Nazis. If remainers thought Brexiteers were fascists, they’re in for a blood chilling shock.

On the ground, the the war in Ukraine is entering a new phase. The ground offensive has seemingly come to a standstill, but with the West intent on crippling Russia economically, Putin has resorted to indiscriminate bombardment. If he can’t take Ukraine, he will leave it in ruins – and cause a massive displacement of people. This has become a proxy war between Russia and the West, and the West seems intent on fuelling it.

We are already feeling the pinch of Covid and climate policies, and even comfortably off households are wondering if they’ll be able to afford heating at all next winter. The price of fuel means that working from home may yet become the new normal. The economy may never bounce back to pre-Covid levels. We’re all in it for the long haul and the very last thing we need is additional pressures on the household budget. The national interest is for this war to end as soon as possible.

Then as much as the EU seems to have a deathwish, Boris Johnson seems to forget that just last year he was losing ground over the wave of dinghy migrants. We were told the boats would be turned back. We were told the abuse would end. But that was a lie. The Tories are openly discussing the use of asylum seekers as replacement workers, with the nodding approval of Labour and the NGOcracy, while Johnson fuels the war in Ukraine with more weapons and sanctions.

As much as we already have nowhere to put dinghy scroungers, Johnson is ensuring there will be many more of them. We are sympathetic to the plight of displaced Ukrainians, but Ukrainians will be used as a trojan horse for economic migrants, effectively abandoning any notion of border control – not all that long after a referendum in which bringing immigration under control was a central issue. At a time when competition for jobs is the last thing hard pressed Brits need.

It’s clear now that there is no thinking going on in Number Ten. Johnson is buffeted from crisis to crisis, where emergent needs erase all other concerns, and promises become meaningless. He came into office promising a new Britain. What we’re getting is more of the same – open borders, rampant wokery, Net Zero, public finances in a hole and more war. Everything we feared about a Labour government is happening under the Tories.

As we have remarked before, we are used to starting wars with no real domestic consequences, to the point where we even forget that we are militarily involved. But this war on our doorstep has real and lasting consequences for all of us. It is not in our interests to prolong it or escalate it. The economic fallout, coupled with Johnson’s suicidal Net Zero agenda will destroy our wealth and wellbeing. Why are we having to sacrifice our prosperity over a scrap of eastern European rust belt and middle class anxieties about the weather? And how can we “stand up for democracy” if we don’t even get a say in it?

Vote the same, get the same

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 01:46:44 GMT

Everything you fear about a Labour government is happening under the Tories

Two stories caught my eye this week. The first tells of a rape in an NHS ward. When police were called to the unnamed hospital in England, they were allegedly told by staff that ‘there was no male’ on the single-sex ward, ‘therefore the rape could not have happened’. Twelve months later, they revealed one of the patients had been transgender. It has taken nearly a year for the hospital to agree that there was a male on the ward and, yes, this rape happened. We learn this in the same week we are expected to believe that a strapping six foot bloke is a women’s swimming champion.

The other story, though was the revelation that there are now 5,500 children on NHS waiting list for gender swap treatment after post-lockdown surge in demand. It comes as the CQC found numerous failings at the Tavistock Clinic, after a string of whistleblowers raised concerns that the Gender Identify Development Service fails to properly support vulnerable children and has pushed them towards life-changing sex-change treatments.

The short of it is that the gender bending fad is a social contagion. A human being cannot change sex. A surgically mutilated man pumped with hormones remains a man. Further, there is no such thing as gender dysphoria in children. What we see is a consequence of parents projecting their trendy anxieties and sexist stereotypes on to their kids. If the health system was functioning, these parents would be told to leave their kids alone.

As far as the arms of state are concerned, though – including the police – pretending you’re a member of the opposite sex is not just a kink, it’s something we’re all supposed to take seriously as a legitimate identity – or else. All must kneel before the flag of the Rainbow Reich. That’s why men are now raping women in female only spaces.

The other side of this is that young women are also falling prey to the gender bending ideology, going overseas to have their breasts surgically removed without first seeking psychotherapy. Some who have detransitioned now report all manner of health problems, and alarmingly report that they were encouraged down he path of hormones and surgery with next to no clinical vetting.

There is a wealth of analysis on this subject, which I do not intend to replicate here. The point for me is that this has happened under the radar, where the medical profession has fallen for a political ideology – hook, line and sinker. Qualified medical professionals who ought to know better.

This didn’t happen overnight. This has been building for more than a decade, and gender dysphoria is the new anorexia. The difference being that we don’t tell anorexics they look great and should continue starving themselves. This is what happens when democratic oversight is removed from the system, Academics and activists in positions of influence have quietly installed woke gender theories in university curriculums and civil service training programmes and there are no adults in the room with the guts to call it out. There are professional consequences for those who do.

As to the wider consequences of allowing fetishists and perverts to call themselves women, nothing we’re seeing in the news of late is anything surprising. We are not surprised to see men raping women in women’s prisons and hospital wards. But when you can end up with your name on a hate crime list, a cowardly silence falls over the public sector.

And we’ve seen this before. Nobody was ever supposed to question the mantra that diversity makes us stronger and that multiculturalism was an unalloyed good. Anyone expressing doubts would be marked as a racist, and consequently thousands of girls were allowed to be raped and violated by Pakistani men – all in the name diversity.

And so it is with Net Zero. The entire energy sector is in the grip of radical environmentalist dogma at the highest levels, and though they know they can’t keep the lights on with just windmills, they’ll push is as far as they can. Meanwhile, the same institutional capture is happening in immigration policy, where open borders fanatics masquerading as refugee charities are quietly dismantling our border controls.

The point you should keep in mind is that this has all been happening under a Conservative government, and it will keep happening because this Conservative government, supposedly the most right wing government ever, has done precisely nothing with its enormous majority to prevent any of it.

Worse still, they are on board for the most part. The latest surge in energy bills has done little to dampen their Net zero ambitions. It’s not just a passing political slogan. It’s enshrined in law, and they intend to follow it. They don’t care if you have to choose between eating and heating.

We are told by Boris fanboys that voting for anyone but the Tories is a wasted vote, and to vote for anyone else will let Labour in. That logic held up (to a point) in 2017 and 2019, but not now. The police still feel within their rights to ride around in rainbow cars, they have no intention of deporting illegal immigrants, and are again looking to use migrants as a cheap and exploitable labour force. The NHS will continue feeding hormones to kids, Your children will be taught they are guilty for being white and your daughters will be told to share changing rooms with boys.

Ultimately if you vote the same, you get the same. You now know that Boris Johnson is an empty vessel. You need no reminding that the Tories are the same old establishment party, and if you’re still voting for them then all of the above is on you. You don’t get to blame “the woke left” or the civil service or the NGOcracy. You are getting precisely what you voted for.

The P&O Staffing Debacle

Sun, 20 Mar 2022 13:02:14 GMT

Neil Hamilton explains why UKIP is totally supporting the P&O ferry employees.

Net Zero Tories are robbing us blind

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 20 Mar 2022 01:56:40 GMT

Net Zero Tories are pushing the nation into poverty

On these pages I have previously remarked that the green energy lobby is not being entirely honest when they say that wind energy is the cheapest source. Their figures don’t include the cost of grid balancing or the billions we pay in subsidies. But then it struck me that there’s a massive extra cost staring us in the face.

The concept of a zero emissions grid is contingent on battery backup. The grid scale battery projects in the works come nowhere close to plugging the gaps and will only provide enough juice for a day or two at best, which is no good when the wind doesn’t blow much for weeks.

This is the reason they want us all in electric vehicles; so they can suck juice from car batteries to help balance the grid. Essentially, they want us to ditch our freedom of mobility and instead spend our money on an expensive mobile back up battery. That they perform a limited function as a short distance runabout is a secondary concern.

That means the rollout of EVs is very much an externality of wind energy. The vehicles, and the infrastructure to cope with EVs (and the inherent time costs to us) should be tallied as a cost of wind energy. They say EV’s are cheaper to run but they place no value on our time as we have to wait around at charging points.

As ever, the preening ideologues of Westminster and Whitehall don’t really care if Net Zero piles on costs for ordinary people and they have their Ukraine crisis to blame (for their decades of lamentable decisions). But there will be larger consequences.

Already some households are seeing energy bills eating up every spare penny of household income, forcing some difficult decisions. It will come to the point where poorer households simply won’t be able to keep pace with every demand on their budget. The price of food and energy is going up but greedy councils are grasping more money all the time in fines, levies and council tax. Council tax is creeping ever closer toward the £2000 mark – while councils maintain their grossly overpaid CEOs and diversity officers.

With that goes a rise in council tax arrears seeing the poorest and most vulnerable harassed by lawless bailiffs. It also sees poorer households turning to unregulated loan sharks. This is already happening, and councils do nothing. When bailiffs employ illegal practices councils turn a blind eye, as do the police, A substantial part of their income is pegged on hitting people with penalties. We’re going to see a massive uptick in Magistrates Liability Orders and advice services choked with complaints about bandit bailiffs. In all likelihood we will see young mothers turning to shoplifting and prostitution.

It is incumbent on any government to reduce its own financial footprint on the household budget, but instead greedy councils see the public as cash cows to prop up their grubby little fiefdoms, and like their Westminster counterparts, they don’t think twice about how much misery they subject the taxpayer to. As usual you pay more but get less.

Net Zero was a terrible, unworkable idea at the best of times, but following two years of calamitous Covid policy and decades of policy neglect in energy (exacerbated by Ukraine), we simply cannot afford to entertain the adolescent delusions of green policy wonks and faux Conservative MPs. Now more than ever we need local government focussing on the essentials, and central government should be looking to any and all source of fossil fuels which underpin our economy.

When ideologies born of middle class anxieties about the weather start interfering with even basic living standards, demoting us to serfs while robbing us blind, we are turning a dark corner. We cannot afford the narcissism of our political class, and the longer this goes on, the more we will start to see society fraying at the edges. Unless the nation wakes up to this peril and votes UKIP, MPs will soon have more than just mean tweets to contend with.

Yes, Net Zero is a culture war issue

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 12:29:44 GMT

Net Zero exposes the absence of democracy

I am sorry to keep banging on about Net Zero. I would like to cover more subjects but Net Zero is turning into the defining issue of our times whether the wider public realises it or not.

In fairness I can see why it’s attractive. One enormous harmonic integrated system is an exciting idea (just as the EU is to many). The point of dispute is the government wants to fast track it on a completely unrealistic and arbitrary timetable and with a blank cheque, failing to appreciate the technology just isn’t there yet, just like their push to make self-driving cars happen.

It involves enormous behaviour change, and the political class is completely oblivious to, and hopelessly naïve about, the kind of sacrifices it demands. They’re doing it with no regard to things like public consent, which is what makes this a culture war issue.

Primarily the agenda is a revivalist desire for a grand economic plan (build back better), and they don’t care if it works or not just so long as it creates pork barrel jobs in the marginal areas like Hull and Middlesbrough. Meanwhile the money men cream off billions in risk free subsidy. Personally I don’t want them to build back better. I just want to be able to affordably heat my home, yet this is a distant secondary concern to the people inflicting this on us.

The realities of people’s lives just doesn’t seem to permeate into the bubble of policy wonks and activists. Even if you could say that heat pumps and electric vehicles were cheaper to run, that’s not use to people with no disposable income or a poor credit rating (which is one in five of us).

The proposition just don’t match the real world experience of most people. I recall vesting friends in Reading a little while back, where the streets are so rammed full of cars, sometimes you’ll be look to park within half a mile of the terraced house you’re visiting – and you’re not even guaranteed to be able to park outside your own house. There is no way these houses can accommodate charging infrastructure, nor is there the free space to take all the internal apparatus that goes with a heat pump.

The assumption that everyone has a driveway and free space available comes from the same “I’m alright Jack” trait found in remainerism. That’s why the battle lines over Net Zero are forming up along the same lines as Brexit. Again it’s those who have the power doing something to us without us having a say in it. And they’ll deploy the same tactics too. In the same way they called leavers racist, they’ll call Net Zero sceptics climate deniers. Just like anyone who questioned the government’s Covid strategy became an anti-vaxxer overnight.

And of course, we have been here before. When the EU launched the Euro (the last big transformative idea) they knew they didn’t have the necessary powers to make it work, and they knew exactly what sort of problems it would create, and then used the Euro crisis to push for more powers. Net Zero is the same.

Wind power without massive grid redesign doesn’t work, They know it doesn’t work. But they introduced it anyway, and now they argue more capital is required to stabilise the grid. Similarly, the crisis we’re now in is a direct result of the very deliberate decision not to build gas storage, exposing us to global gas shocks, and now they argue for more wind power to notionally fix a problem they created.

There is no end to their galactic arrogance, and just as with Brexit, they are appalled by the very idea than any of us should get a say in it. There are no checks and balances on it, and our political class is in full agreement that this is something that must be done. The only opposition comes from political outsiders.

As it happens, the wheels are already falling off as decades of policy neglect means the government can’t afford not to explore any and all fossil fuel options, and so because we made wind central to our energy policy instead of nuclear, we’re now going backwards in terms of carbon emissions, while having to pay for both concurrently. The green agenda has been an absolute disaster and takes the lion’s share of the blame for the biggest drop in living standards since the outbreak of World War Two.

Fundamentally, the primary obligation of government is ensure abundant affordable energy. Everything in the economy rests on that. Without it, none of our other ambitions can come to fruition – but our political class sees the national grid as their own private trainset and something by which they can impose their own ideologies, toward a future where we have to modify our lives around the needs of the grid rather than the grid serving us. This is “stay home, save the NHS” all over again.

That we have no say in it again underscores that our democracy is broken, and our ruling class prefers it that way. They dishonestly imply that because Net Zero was on the Tory manifesto that it has a mandate and there is consent for it, but most people have no real idea what is meant by Net Zero. There most certainly isn’t informed consent, and when the realities of the boiler ban and the phase out of ICE cars begins to bite, we are going to see a major pushback. But in the meantime, there is no telling how much damage the Net Zero fanatics could do.

Ignoring the real threats

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 16:09:35 GMT

China and Whitehall are a greater threat than Russia

I’m not that keen on the idea of sanctions as they tend to backfire, but all of this over Ukraine has been instructive as to who our friends really are. India may may bail out Russia by taking up an offer to buy crude oil and other commodities at a discount despite Western attempts to isolate Moscow through sanctions.

India, which imports 80 per cent of its oil needs, usually buys only about 1 per cent from Russia, but with oil prices up 40 per cent so far this year, the government is looking at increasing this if it can help reduce its rising energy bill. Meanwhile Pakistan sits on the fence and China mulls supplying weapons to Russia.

One of the reasons I’m not so keen to alienate Russia is because the real external threat to the West comes from China. This isn’t 1940, Putin isn’t Hitler, he’s not blitzkrieging across Europe and couldn’t if he wanted to. But in the last three decades China has been waging a silent economic war on the West, and we foolishly allowed the communist regime to asset strip us.

Europe may have made itself dependent on Russian gas, but perhaps the greater sin is our reliance on China for manufactured goods and electronics. We’ve offshored manufacturing to China and services to India – our two greatest economic enemies. If anything, we’ve needed Russia on side or at least as a neutral broker but the West’s policy of hostility to Russia has only made our enemies more powerful.

Though it’s suddenly the “right thing to do” to cut off energy suppliers on democracy and human rights grounds, this doesn’t extend to suppliers of solar panels, rare earth minerals and the electronics we need to transition to a Net Zero grid. It’s also something of a moral sidestep to cut off Putin but then ask Qatar and Saudi Arabia to ramp up production.

I have no sympathies with the Kremlin. I’m just not that interested in Russia’s border spats with its immediate neighbours and I don’t think it’s worth wrecking our own economy over something that has little to do with us. Ukraine is a dysfunctional corrupt mess, riddled with cronyism and corruption, and there’s as many American oligarchs stirring the pot as there are Russian. I can’t help thinking that once again, Britain is witlessly doing the bidding of corporate America and the Biden regime.

We may well be witnessing the global realignment of powers, and perhaps a new cold war, and if national security matters at all it’s Chinese and Indian influence we need to ringfence and isolate – and that must also extend to our immigration policy. But no, we’re cancelling Russian orchestras while Whitehall is riddled with Chinese money and influence.

Being that Britain has chosen to exist independently of the EU, we must ask why the UK isn’t positioning itself as a neutral broker with Russia. The UK is not dependent on Russian gas and any shortfall can be replaced with British shale gas. Instead Britain is in lockstep with the EU in escalating the Ukraine conflict, pumping in weapons that will fall into the hands of terrorists. This is not in the national interest nor is it doing much for national security.

Globalisation has been a disaster for national security and trade/food security – much of it premised on the flawed logic underpinning the EU – that countries economically dependent on each other won’t go to war. The EU itself is undermining that notion by making overtures to Ukrainian EU membership – escalating the tension – having shut down its nuclear power in favour of Russian gas.

Brexit has given us an opportunity to rethink our trade relationships, and if we are at all serious about national security then we need to think long and hard about our relationships with China, India and Pakistan. We must also ask why we are imposing economic sanctions on ourselves by committing to climate agreements that China has no intention of abiding by.

The national interest is for the Ukraine conflict to end as soon as possible. Right now we have two choices. We can continue to humiliate and alienate Russia through our Ukrainian proxy, thereby lengthening the war, exacerbating economic stresses at home, causing countless more deaths, or we can withdraw our support for Ukraine and demand Zelensky finds a settlement with Russia. If that means Ukraine loses its Russian speaking eastern rust belt, who cares? Nobody cared before. This has been going on for years.

When it comes down to it, Russia isn’t a threat to us so long as we don’t park our tanks on their back lawn. We have next to zero strategic interest in Ukraine, and the greater danger to our health, wealth and freedom sits in Whitehall, Westminster and Number Ten. Politically, we have better things to do. Why should we back the elite’s campaign against Russia (at enormous cost to ourselves) when our elites are waging war on us?

Johnson's Net Zero kamikaze raid

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 03:05:47 GMT

Johnson's suicidal energy policy

Boris Johnson has taken to the pages of The Telegraph to argue the case for ending dependency on Russian gas. Or at least that’s the case he’d like you to think he’s making. As it happens, only four percent of UK gas consumption is of Russian origin. Johnson is just using this opportunity to double down on Net Zero.

Invoking the Vote Leave slogan he asserts “We need to take back control. Later this month, I will set out a British Energy Security Strategy – how the UK will become more self-sufficient and no longer at the mercy of bullies like Putin. He continues:

At the heart of the strategy is green energy of all kinds. Green electricity isn’t just better for the environment, it’s better for your bank balance. A kilowatt from a North Sea wind turbine costs less than one produced by a power station running on gas shipped to the UK from overseas. And if a quarter of our power wasn’t already coming from renewables, your bills today would be even higher than they already are.

Renewables are the quickest and cheapest route to greater energy independence. They are invulnerable to Putin’s manipulations. He may have his hand on the taps for oil and gas. But there is nothing he can do to stop the North Sea wind.

That’s why our ambition to go for net zero is not the problem. Renewable power – which is getting more efficient the whole time – is a crucial part of the solution. We are going to double down on new wind power and greatly accelerate the rollout of new offshore farms.

We will do more to exploit the potential of solar power. Even in this country, solar power is remarkably cheap and effective. We will modernise our grid and our distribution networks.

This is typical Johnsonian fact free bloviation. It cannot be said that wind is cheaper. About a third of the levelised cost of a gas power station is carbon taxes. Subtract that, and add the billions in ROC subsidies to the cost of wind and the picture is very different. If his assertion is true, that’s something that happened in the last month as gas prices have skyrocketed. Moreover, the focus on wind energy, creating massive grid instability, we have no other readily available backup option than gas. Wind energy (and the failure to renew gas storage facilities) has exposed us to the volatility of gas prices.

As yet there is no mature energy storage technology that could come anywhere close to replacing gas backup. Theoretically the system could work on renewables, but only if if there were a complete switch to EVs to provide an alternative to spinning reserve, thereby reducing the need to call on large scale batteries. But it’s all highly theoretical, coupled with smart metering and other demand side management policies. Or as rationing as it’s better known. A switch to EVs and heat pumps piles on yet more electricity demand when renewables are not keeping pace with conventional power station retirement. Thus, Johnson has set about making the energy crunch worse.

In all likelihood this increases our exposure to high gas prices. The system envisaged can’t be delivered in this decade and probably not the next when we need action now. Nuclear power is our best bet but even nuclear takes a minimum of a decade to come on stream. We need action now – and that would suggest gas being that a CCGT station can go from brownfield to operational in about four years. (Probably quicker if we clone existing designs such as Marchwood). It’s either that or extend the life of remaining coal stations. We’ll probably need to do both.

Since this Net Zero government is dragging its heels on fracking, we are set to maintain our dependency on foreign imports and because we’re turning away from Putin (for reasons of democracy and human rights), we instead turn to… um… Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Go figure.

As to talk of expanding solar, Solar energy in the UK has a pitiful output (a mere ten percent of installed capacity) just at a time when we’re looking at a global grain shortage. Instead of using land for wheat, we’re going to plaster them with useless and ugly black rectangles.

Johnson has also indicated his plan will include further support to replace gas boilers with heat pumps, a package for home insulation and further emergency support for bill payers. In other words, the exact same policy agenda as before the Ukraine crisis kicked off. The war in Ukraine hasn’t influenced policy even remotely. Johnson is taking his brief directly from the green blob. There is not an ounce of sincerity to this claim we are acting to break our dependency.

Now that Johnson’s reputational troubles and questions over his competence are buried by the war in Ukraine, he believes he is politically safe enough to dump the Tory right, just as Cameron did. That’s what this policy statement amounts to. He’s giving his own voters the two fingered salute. Leave voters have served their purpose (putting Johnson into office) and now he’s restoring the establishment policy agenda. He seems to have forgotten that such treachery is exactly what cost Cameron an outright majority in 2010.

If it wasn’t already abundantly obvious, Johnson is a puppet PM. He’s not steering the ship of state. He may as well be the janitor in Number Ten for all the influence he has on energy policy – or is willing to exert. There has been a complete failure among our political class to recognise that we are amidst an energy emergency – and Johnson is prepared to let the British people go cold and hungry in order to parade his eco credentials on the world stage, as though anybody actually cares.

Britain is about to commit economic suicide and Johnson is pulling the trigger.

Ukraine: what's in it for us?

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 13:40:49 GMT

Zelensky's posturing is underwritten by the West - but what's in it for us?

One thing that’s been missing from our politics for a very very long time is any estimation of the national interest. Ukraine is no different. Decisions are driven by empty virtue signalling with no thought to the strategic outcomes. With virtue signalling, it’s easy for politicians to strike a pose because it carries no cost to them, and the costs of their choices can be passed on to others. So here I have to ask, what’s in it for us to keep fuelling this war?

Politicians get to sing their “standing up for freedom and democracy” shtick, but 30 percent of the world’s grain shoots up in price or vanishes altogether – and that means African famine – and that means more mass migration. If you think we have a dinghy problem now then we’re busy making it immeasurably worse, possibly even destabilising the politics of Europe. We then have more competition for jobs, a bigger housing crisis, and energy bills that will erode our savings and make us all poor.

So what’s the alternative? Well, we could stop flooding Ukraine with advanced weapons (many of which will fall into the hands of terrorists), and push Biden’s puppet regime in Ukraine to do a deal with Russia. Every country has to find a way to co-exist with its neighbours. Only the West underwriting this war allows Zelensky to posture the way he does.

If he is pressed to to settle, he loses Crimea and a strip of disputed rust belt most people couldn’t find on a map. Though that’s bruising for Ukraine, it’s the best outcome for the rest of us. And here’s the thing. Nobody would care. Nobody cared about the low grade war in East Ukraine for the last seven years, so why do we suddenly care now? These territories were already lost.

“But somebody needs to stop this madman!”, we are told. Really? The halt of Putin’s armoured advance shows that the Russian army doesn’t have the manpower, equipment or leadership to take and hold even Ukraine. This conflict has already seriously degraded Putin’s military capabilities. Starting a conventional war with NATO would see his armies wiped out. In any case, this isn’t 1940, Putin isn’t Hitler, and this is exclusively about Ukraine.

So what about regime change and bringing the Russian economy to its knees? Well, are we so certain that whoever replaces Putin would be an improvement? Since when did bankrupting and humiliating a country improve matters? We toppled regimes in Iran, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere – and that gave us Jihadi terrorism and a massive hole in our public accounts. Putin himself is a lesson in why we shouldn’t meddle.

This war is a win win win for our establishment, but it offers us nothing. Our politicians can claim to stand up for liberal democracy and “the rules based order”, they get a pretext to push Net Zero on us, and they get to blame Russia for all the structural economic problems that were emerging long before anyone changed their profile pictures to a Ukrainian flag. Putin didn’t shut down our coal and nuclear plants. Our gifted “civil society” did that. Environmentalism is the chief weapon of war that Western elites deploy against their own people.

In the desolate empty minds of Western leaders, we are “rallying behind our democratic partner”, but Ukraine is no such thing. It isn’t in the EU, it isn’t in NATO, it’s barely a democracy, and it’s riddled with corruption, organised crime and political extremism. If Ukraine were in the EU it would be treated as a leper – subject to sanctions for its treatment of gays, and embroiled in the same rule of law disputes as Poland and Hungary. Meanwhile, the Brussels technocrats would move into do to Ukraine what they did to Greece.

Culturally, economically, politically, Ukraine is not in the European sphere. It exists as a frontier flashpoint, neither fish nor fowl. Attempts to peel Ukraine out of the Russian sphere is a long standing Western policy born of persistently hostile attitude to Russia, in place of attempting to build a functioning relationship with it, but we’ve never been willing to go the whole hog.

EU and NATO membership have been dangled in front of Ukraine, but NATO expansion has been dead in the water for some time, and the EU association agreement was in place of a formal accession consideration. We were always going to hang Ukraine out to dry, and we still will, only for the time being we’re going to keep up the pretence, further antagonising Russia, feeding a proxy war that serves only our elites – until there’s nothing left of Ukraine but rubble. Why not cut to the chase before Putin flattens Kiev?

Ukraine: still making it worse

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 00:11:49 GMT

The British government has lost sight of the national interest

We were among those who said Russia probably wouldn’t invade – and that was a reasonable assumption looking at the state of Russian armed forces and the conditions in which they would have to fight. You’d have to be seriously misguided to attempt it.

The invasion, predictably, is beset with the very problems we outlined, not least resupply, and is met with considerable resistance. It risks truning into a quagmire. In light of this Putin has ramped up the aggression, resorting to bombardment of civilian areas which will exacerbate the humanitarian crisis.

Were the British government at all serious they’d be looking to incentivise a climbdown by Putin, allowing him to save face. Instead, by lionising Zelensky and giving Ukraine a free pass for its own escalation, we are taking sides rather too firmly and promoting a proxy war with Russia which could drag on and on.

While sympathising with Ukraine and offering aid, we should be doing our best to broker a cease fire and negotiate a long-term diplomatic solution. We are ruling ourselves out as mediators and, aggressor though Putin might be, Russia had issues with Ukraine which need to be resolved. If Putin doesn’t come away with something out of a peace package, he has no incentive to stop fighting, the result being untold misery and suffering by ordinary people.

Though it’s good PR for Zelensky to parade his Churchill credentials on the word stage, the West’s open embrace of it will only feed into Putin’s rampant paranoia. The EU’s braindead overtures to Ukraine being accepted into the EU do nothing at all to cool the situation.

Moreover, there is no fast-tracking of Ukraine. The accession process exists for a reason, and were Ukraine a current member it would be facing the same sanctions as Poland and Hungary, and hit with Greece style economic reforms. The EU would be taking on an economic and political basketcase. More cautious observes have realised by now that Ukraine is not part of the “family of liberal European democracies” and its politics are deeply entangled with its Eastern neighbour. A failure to appreciate Ukraine’s distinct status is driving the West to make some serious diplomatic miscalculations.

In that, the West has done more or less everything but commit forces and declare war. We are waging an economic war on Russia, which is proving to have serious blowback for Europe, while running the risk of destabilising Russia – on the assumption that whoever follows Putin will be an improvement. That’s a very big and careless gamble.

Depending on which reports you read, Russia is taking considerable losses and its armed forces seem unlikely to make a breakthrough. The Russian army lacks the equipment, tactics and leadership. This could be a major humiliation for Putin, who, if he was crazed enough to launch an invasion against the advice of military strategists, could opt for bigger, more devastating weapons - possibly even low yield tactical nukes. Russia may fail in its objectives, but the escalation will leave Ukraine in ruins.

On the home front, we have now entered a virtue auction over refugees where politicians are falling over themselves to invite displaced Ukrainians, overriding all current refugee rules. It seems they know a real refugee when they see one. It is likely that most displaced persons will want to stay on the continent, but then if the British government extends an open invite, it effectively restores EU freedom of movement. This government is more than happy to exploit them as a labour pool rather than address structural industrial imbalances.

Then there is that small matter of how people can afford to live. Petrol prices may stabilise but gas prices remain high. This in all probability means hard working families will have to use up their savings to heat their homes, adding to an already acute pensions timebomb. Only a third of Brits have any private pension provision, and of those who do, the returns are diminishing. Their pensions may be worthless by the time they retire – especially if food inflation is here to stay.

Absolutely nobody gains by a prolonged war in Europe. We cannot afford for it to become Europe’s Vietnam. The national interest is for the conflict to end as soon as possible. The outcome of which is a secondary concern.

We can’t afford our political class anymore

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 10:34:11 GMT

Virtue signalling is killing our economy

I still think rushing Brexit was a mistake, and the inadequacy of our trade deal with the EU has yet to be fully realised. It is little wonder now that farmers would so readily give up farming to plaster the countryside with solar panels. They can make more out of subsidies than producing food. That said, I still have no regrets about leaving the EU, save for one. That we didn’t leave ten years sooner.

I’ve said it before but it’s only in recent days has the enormity of it sunk in: The legacy costs of EU energy policy will dwarf the losses of Brexit. The damage is already done and soon ordinary people will have to make hard choices. Many households have just enjoyed their last winter in a properly heated home. The focus on renewable energy instead of nuclear has left us dangerously exposed, and even if you could say wind energy was cheaper than gas, we’re now having to buy it at peak demand at peak prices.

Meanwhile, all the clever little boys and girls in the green blob think that rising gas prices makes the case for Net Zero. There’s one small problem though. If the price of gas is going up then the price of everything is going up. There is no longer a cheap option. Moreover, if the switch to renewables is going to work then they need their switch to EV’s which has just been made even less viable by the price of nickel skyrocketing to an all time high.

That said, it’s a stretch to blame all of this on the EU. The Conservatives went green under David Cameron in 2005 and was the most active advocate for carbon policies in Europe and sought ‘greater ambition’ at COP26 once we’d left the EU. One is then not terribly sympathetic to Iain Duncan Smith taking to Twitter to complain that we have “moved from a country which only a few years ago was a net exporter of gas with large strategic storage, to a net importer with next to no storage at all. This wasn’t an accident, it was government policy”.

More specifically, it was Conservative Party policy, ramped up by the very man IDS and his ERG comrades installed as leader. This is why Brexit of itself, was never going to achieve very much. The problem is, and always was, the British establishment. EU membership was a symptom of our non-democracy.

If I could point a single dysfunction in our politics it is that when politicians and activists find a hobby horse they’re comfortable with, they’ll keep pushing it regardless of the circumstances. The cumulative effects of Brexit, Covid and Ukraine, haven’t influenced their thinking even slightly. They’re still determined to inflict their green ideology on us and damn the costs.

Boris Johnson has announced he’s going to be “setting out at new energy supply strategy” in coming days but it won’t meaningfully deviate from the Net Zero script. Ministers are looking to relax rules on onshore wind turbines which were effectively outlawed by Cameron after a massive public campaign against them. Democracy seemingly has an expiry date.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, bills going up by hundreds of pounds is not just another crisis. It’s a national energy *emergency* and politicians need to be speaking and thinking in those terms.

Of late we’ve heard a great deal from politicians about our “moral responsibility” to refugees and our moral responsibility to intervene in wars that aren’t anything to do with us. Never though does it register with them that they have a moral duty to us as our servants – and that their first priority is maintaining our basic standard of living. Instead they’ve picked the worst time imaginable to put the pedal to the metal on a reckless energy policy that will see the biggest drop in living standards since the Second World War.

Britons will pay a heavy price for eco-virtue signalling, only now it’s going to get worse. Virtue signalling is now the basis of all policy including foreign policy. Britain and the EU have brainlessly escalated tensions with Russia by adopting Ukraine as their proxy. Consequently the price of oil is skyrocketing too. For reasons best known to our political class, we are terminating purchases of of oil and gas from Russia in the name of democracy and human rights, but not Saudi Arabia. All of a sudden we have a conscience.

Prolonging conflict with Russia is in the interests of nobody. It is possible that forecourt petrol prices could double, with knock-on effects throughout the whole economy, pushing the price of commuting high enough to make jobs unviable. The effect on food and fuel prices will be as though we’d placed sanctions on ourselves. But it suits the narcissism of Europe’s political class to believe that Ukraine is and wants to be a western style democracy, and even more useful to them to cast Russia as the cause of our economic decline. It is certainly true that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has broken the camel’s back, but we’ve been beating and overloading the camel for the last twenty years.

By pumping Ukraine full of weapons so that Zelensky can prolong this war, will only cause Putin to intensify his bombardments, causing amore displacement of people, and will push the economies of Europe to the brink. It looks like Putin is looking or a way to back down, and the West could facilitate that by committing to Ukrainian neutrality. Instead the NATO option is left dangling in ambiguity and the EU is making positive noises about accelerating Ukrainian membership. In all probability that will ensure this turns into a long and bloody conflict, sucking in fighters from every trouble spot in the northern hemisphere. So much for keeping the peace in Europe.

Zelensky has has lodged himself in the eyes of our media as Ukraine’s Churchill, and our political class are swooning over him. This is the best political PR campaign of modern times. In their rush to show solidarity with a man they know nothing about, over a country they know even less about, in what is a murky political landscape, they have again shown scant regard for our wealth and prosperity, all so that they can parade credentials as righteous warriors of democracy (despite having spent the last few years trying to overturn it).

The one thing our political class will never do is act in accordance with the needs and wishes of the public. They could scrap green taxes that add a third to our energy bills – but they won’t. They could get a grip on immigration and deport illegals – but they won’t. They could throw everything at new nuclear power stations, but they’ll build subsidy harvesting windmills. It’s not going to change until there is a broader realisation that our political class simply doesn’t care about us, and for as long as they are politically and financially insulated from the consequences of their choices, they will continue to fleece us and run the country into the ground.

Why Net Zero must be scrapped

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 11:54:26 GMT

We face a national energy emergency. Net Zero is making it worse.

Net Zero is not really a new thing. It started with the 2008 Climate Change Act. Net Zero is the same policy with a tighter deadline. Therein lies the problem with a Net Zero referendum. Winning it does not do away with the policy, only the deadline.

If anything, doing away with the policy is still within the remit of the Brexit vote. The vote, after all, was an instruction to break away from Brussels to pursue policy in the direct national interest. EU policies such as the Large Combustion Plant Directive and the Renewables Directive (setting a statutory quota for renewables) were never in our interests.

If bringing down emissions was out goal then we could have replaced older coal burners with modern ones and still reduced our emissions by 70%. Had Britain, in 2008, set upon a major renewal of nuclear capability instead of wind energy, we would not now be having a major panic about gas prices and we wouldn’t be arguing over whether to frack. Gas would still play a role, but with adequate storage facilities we would be far less vulnerable to geopolitical turbulence.

Many of us said so at the time, but wind turbines were in fashion, being the epitome of eco-virtue signalling, and a pillar of the green revolution. Again, not a new concept at all.

They have always known that wind energy of itself was no solution. They knew it would require a complete change to the way the grid functions, at enormous expense. Intermittent energy causes grid instability, and they had to create subsidy mechanisms to stimulate an entire grid balancing sector using everything from gas plant to diesel generators in shipping containers.

Give or take, wind energy needs one hundred percent conventional backup, and that could only mean gas plant as nothing else can respond at short notice. That meant using baseload plants at lower than peak thermal efficiency (one of the many hidden costs of wind.

This, of course flew in the face of their claims to be green, which is what promotes the push for smart metering and EVs. They want to use car batteries as grid backup as part of a smart grid. They know that large scale battery storage probably won’t work, and only covers them for a matter of hours when sometimes the wind doesn’t blow for days and weeks at a time.

Knowing that this still creates capacity shortfalls, they turn their attention to demand side management. Which is basically a fancy term for rationing. There’s certainly no harm in better scheduling and greater efficiency, but in all probability will mean the poorest have to fit their schedule around the needs of the grid. This is the energy equivalent of “stay home, save the NHS”.

The smart grid concept is really quite visionary and ambitious, and perhaps something we could evolve into when the technology is there, but across the board the technology simply isn’t there. EVs do not meet the needs of busy productive people. Battery storage at scale is pipe dream, and the transition is totally uncosted

Proponents of Net Zero argue that skyrocketing gas prices now means the case for transitioning has never been stronger. But even with current stresses, there’s no reason to believe it’s any cheaper. They say wind energy is cheaper but not when you take into account that a third of the levelised cost of gas is carbon taxes. Nor do the figures they give for wind account for backup costs and whole system upgrade costs to cope with intermittency.

The sums perhaps look a little different following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but we cannot simply assume the costs of renewables and accompanying paraphernalia will stay static. Russia has the gas but China has the rare earth minerals. And then when you look at the pollution involved the manufacture of batteries, and the energy involved in recycling them, their claims of being green are very much in doubt.

In any case, nobody seriously thinks the government will meet its 2050 target. The EV transition is sluggish, and has yet to overcome practical barriers. The grid cannot cope with the mass rollout of fast charging points, nor do we have the surplus capacity to be adding more demand such as EVs and heat pumps.

But even if any of this were realistic and achievable, the facts remains that we are amidst an energy crisis that will eliminate any notion of disposable income for millions, and drive millions into poverty. We have to pull out all the stops to acquire whatever gas we can, and an arbitrary emissions target in the distant future should not be a consideration. Those who say otherwise are placing their ideological policy over an above the welfare and the immediate needs of people.

The talking point of the moment is that fracking will not noticeably impact gas wholesale prices, but domestic reserves tend to be sold on the domestic market, and even if it provides only temporary relief, can we really afford not to? We’ve left it too late to avoid an energy crunch and consequently, a deep recession. We didn’t fix the roof when the sub was shining.

Green energy policies caused this crisis. Putin didn’t force Germany to shut down its coal and nuclear plants. Britain wasn’t forced to abandon conventional and nuclear energy. This is something we did to ourselves because the green blob has a strangle hold over energy policy. They are now the same people pushing Net Zero as the solution to the problem they created.

What you notice about Net Zero evangelists is that they tend to be think tank non-jobbers or industry wonks whose livelihoods depend on the subsidy frenzy that goes with Net Zero. The wildest claims of all about renewable energy comes form the energy companies themselves who rake in billions in subsidy with minimal risk to them. Wind turbines are primarily subsidy harvesting devices to steal your family wealth.

Were the government serious about tackling the energy crisis it would suspend carbon taxes on gas generation and remove wind websites – if only as an interim measure. It would rethink its effective ban on coal, and do all it can to get our shale reserves out of the ground. This is an emergency and we do not have choices. Net Zero is an expensive luxury we simply cannot afford. Obviously we need to rebuild our nuclear capability, going all in on small modular reactors, but we need energy now, not ten years down the line.

Instead the Tories are doubling down on windmills, plastering prime agricultural land with solar panels and have no intention of removing carbon taxes. They could substantially ease the tax burden on our energy bills overnight if they wanted to. They just don’t want to. The green ideology comes first. The seriousness of our predicament has not sunk in for them or the green blob who are comfortably insulated from the consequences of their decisions. MPs can simply claim heating bills on their expenses.

Net Zero is a wholly flawed and mind-blowingly expensive policy, and one that makes a umber of naïve assumptions about how well the technology will work. Early adopters of heat pumps tend to be wealthier people with plenty of space and enough money to mitigate the complications, but mass rollout will encounter a whole range of unanticipated problems - as will EVs, and when the entire policy is contingent on everything going to their hopelessly optimistic plans, it is for us to pour a bucket of cold water on it.

More crucially, this is a matter requiring public consent. Again we have a feral establishment in hock to a particular ideology, and the influence to push it on us by the back door. It’s telling that the usual suspects are outright hostile to the idea of a Net Zero referendum. Again, their problem less to do with the substance of the issue, rather that we should have a say at all. When their policy demands a major reduction in living standards, using unspecified sums of our money, deliberately imposing fuel poverty on millions to meet a target, we really ought to get a say in it.

Remainers still blame everyone but themselves

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 13:22:02 GMT

"Brexit did it" is the latest in a long line of crackpot remainer conspiracies

There’s an entertaining narrative over on Remainer Street that the Ukraine invasion started with Brexit. Quite a lot of people believe this nonsense. They need to believe it because they need to believe that Brexit happened because of “dark money” from Russia. The basis of these claims stems from the wild conspiracy theories of the Guardian’s Carole Cadwalladr.

Such claims have never been proven. The most they can come up with is allegations of accounting irregularities within Vole Leave which amounted to very little in the grand scheme of things, and if memory serves those involved were subsequently cleared by the largely remain leaning Electoral Commission.

The idea that Russia has only invaded Ukraine because of Brexit is part of a long established pattern of western establishments blaming Russia for everything, especially when it saves them having to confront their own failings. The truth, however, is that the EU was an irrelevance to Putin’s calculations on Ukraine. That’s the one thing remainers can’t cope with. It bruises their ego to think that their beloved project is of little geopolitical importance.

Then as now, the EU was never able to arrive at a common position on foreign policy from Libya to Russia, being that member states have divergent regional interests. France is still meddling in its former colonies, and Germany has long made itself dependent on Russian gas which was always going hobble the EU’s leverage. And for all that the EU is supposedly united in common endeavours, the same old imperial suspicions and rivalries are as strong as every Italy refused to partake in the Libya campaign if France had any part in the command functions, thus the campaing became a NATO operation.

Had Britain remained in the EU it is unlikely anything would have played out differently. Putin would have counted on non-intervention and only mealy mouthed condemnation. The only difference being that Britain’s own response would be delayed until EU meetings concluded. Even now, the unity is only skin deep and sanctions have been carefully crafted so as not to impact on Germany’s energy supply.

In any case, the assertion that Ukraine began with Brexit is wholly self-serving. Russian fear of Ukraine breaking out of Russia’s sphere of economic and political influence go back more than a decade, and a series of events have built up to what we see today. There is an unhealthy compulsion to find ways to blame Brexit for everything bad that happens.

Ultimately the West had more than enough warning that something like this would happen. We had the option of either expediting Ukraine’s absorption into the west, or bolstering Ukraine’s armed neutrality, but instead we strung Ukraine along with false promises, leaving the situation in a state of ambiguity which only fuelled Putin’s paranoia.

If Russian money has influenced current events it is the funding of green anti-fracking groups who’ve increased EU dependency on Russian gas. But then that is much the same kind of baseless “Russia did it” speculation. If Russian money was involved then it was dwarfed by the amount of EU money involved which has long laundered taxpayer’s money into green groups and NGOs to manufacture consent for its own policy agendas.

In fact, the EU was fighting the 2016 referendum for about as long as UKIP has existed. By funding NGOs, think tanks and academia, it has bought off most of civil society whose collective output is unquestioningly adopted by the BBC. It’s a wonder that Leave ever managed to compete with it at all.

Whether Russia did support anti-fracking groups is neither here nor there. The fact is that the entire EU machinery has opposed fracking, as has the British government. It is their collective stupidity that has undermined our energy independence. Nobody forced us to close our coal and nuclear power stations. The policy was enthusiastically adopted by leading member states.

It was a given that EU member states would independently assess their response to an attack on a non-EU, non-NATO member and nobody should be at all surprised that Poland and the UK were first to step up to the plate while Germany dithered. Putin has always been able to safely gamble on non-intervention from the West, not least because he is armed with nuclear weapons. Why that fact doesn’t feature in the tiny minds of FBPE remainers is something of a mystery.

Russia has long been the favoured scapegoat for the failures of Western progressives, which is why there has never been a serious attempt to build a functioning relationship with Russia. Antagonism suited them then as now. Now the EU gets to reassert its image as a defender of freedom and democracy despite having spend the last few years dismantling it.

The one thing remainers can’t cope with, that offends their very being, is that Brexit, in the broader geopolitical perspective, just isn't all that important. Britain is still a leading voice in the EU/US/NATO axis, and still (for good or bad) influential in its own right. Ultimately, what kept the peace in Europe was Britain’s nuclear deterrent, not harmonised food safety standards. Remainers need the Russia conspiracy theories because their fragile egos can’t handle the idea that Brexit happened for a multitude of reasons, and the world is not as black and white as they believe it is.

New World Disorder

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 20:38:03 GMT

Dangerous times: Now is the time to rebuild Britain

My gut said that sanctions would exacerbate the conflict in Ukraine, giving Putin all the excuse he needs to ramp up missile attacks on cities. They also send the wrong message. That we have placed sanctions on a great deal but not Russian gas says we are dependent and we are vulnerable, and Putin calls the shots.

Furthermore, the removal of Russia from SWIFT has caused a pivot to the Chinese system, helping China in its aims to establish its own financial systems as the global standard. It could prove to be one of many suicidal moves on the part of the West.

Meanwhile, the United States is contemplating whether it should impose or waive sanctions on India over its relationship with Russia through the “countering America’s adversaries through sanctions act”. Britain has similar decisions to make over Pakistan.

This crisis is causing an almost overnight global re-ordering, and the balance of power is not in our favour. Still, though, we at least know who our real allies are. We need no longer pretend that India or Pakistan is an ally or even a desirable trade partner.

This should again bring trade policy into sharp focus. With Ukraine being a major exporter of grain and food oils, food prices will skyrocket along with energy. We could be looking at the largest wheat shortage in history. We must rethink our agriculture and trade policy as a matter of urgency. It was already apparent that we needed to promote greater self-sufficiency, and that should have informed our new trade agreements. We might also ask where the wisdom is in paving over our countryside in favour of useless solar panels. Net Zero is not compatible with feeding the nation.

Decades of deindustrialisation and specialisation have left the UK uniquely vulnerable to global shocks, where we rely on China for electronics and consumables, and supply chains spanning the globe. The era of globalisation was based on a relative global stability, but that now ends, and so must all of our working assumptions about trade.

This now demands some grown up choices. We must do away with EU notions of “exporting our values” through trade. Similarly, middle class liberal foibles about the weather will have to go on the back burner. Many households have just enjoyed their last winter in a heated home for the foreseeable future. We must urgently pursue all energy sources available to us, placing the priority on domestic sources.

The policy hobby horses of the “adults in the room” were costly and damaging at the best of times, but now we face an uncertain future, we cannot afford the expensive luxury of a progressive ruling class who think we can run a modern economy on solar panels and windmills. Those “adults” have given us lockdowns, an energy crisis and now the threat of World War Three.

But then we have to be pragmatic about our own sacred cows. The the power plate tectonics shifting and the world becoming more dangerous, it is essential that firm up a functioning trade relationship with the EU. Johnson’s threadbare FTA was suboptimal even before the world turned upside down, but post-Covid, and in what looks to be a new cold war, we cannot afford petty bickering over sausages and customs forms with our nearest markets. We all have bigger concerns. Though it’s bleakly ironic that the EU will allow Russian gas to flow into the EU but not British pork.

Perhaps most importantly, Britain can no longer afford its broken immigration system. In light of multiple security threats, we are not an open port for all comers. Moreover, It’s decision time for Patel. It’s either Ukrainians or the dinghy scum. She can’t have both. She’s used up the tolerance budget. Times are going to get hard. Food, fuel and energy prices are going to shoot up while wages will be depressed. Unless we have a fair immigration system reflecting the wishes of the people, we will see more racial friction on our streets, leading to low level civil unrest.

Though what’s happening is both dangerous and terrifying, it is also an opportunity to rethink and reverse globalisation, and rebuild our domestic food and manufacturing capacity. It’s time to put an end to the hypocrisy of pretending our enemies are our “partners”, and bring our allies closer. If we scrap Net Zero and build nuclear on a war footing, then we secure our energy future and our prosperity for decades to come. These are times of necessity, and we need to break with the thinking that got us into this mess to begin with.

Ukraine: the wages of vanity

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 18:39:41 GMT

The West never learns from its failures

In my youth I was much more of an idealist. I believed that as liberal democracies we had not only the right, but also the duty to free oppressed peoples. On that basis I was in favour of the Iraq war. I never believed the tripe about weapons of mass destruction, and thought the War on Terror was tenuous, but getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a laudable goal in its own right.

Adding to my naivety, I believed we had the military supremacy to take and hold the country, and by doing things like providing clean water and a stable supply of electricity, Iraqis would support our efforts and would even thank us for it.

I wasn’t alone in thinking that. Everyone now says they were against the war, but if memory serves, opinion was split down the middle, and the war had a small majority in its favour in polls leading up to Shock and Awe.

Had we attempted such a venture ten years earlier, things might have been different, but somewhere along the way, the West lost its military instincts, and most of our assumptions folded on first contacts with the enemy. We got just about every major decision wrong. We weren’t prepared or equipped for it, we underestimated the levels of resistance, and we managed to turn Iraq into the jihadi battleground for the entire world. If there was anything to be said for that war it is that we killed a great many jihadis, but only ended up recruiting more.

Consequently we destabilised the middle east, and exacerbated the domestic terror threat, and irrevocably damaged our diplomatic and military reputation. It is now hard to point the finger at Putin for invading a sovereign country on a flimsy justification, flying in the face of the “rules based order” – and we are still dealing with the fallout of that war.

Much the same can be said of Afghanistan, in which we squandered billions, wrecked our armed forces, lost a lot of good people, and left the country in a bigger mess than before. Having learned nothing in subsequent years we went on to meddle in Libya, again on a self-righteous crusade, and we made it worse. It seems we are not capable of learning.

These days, I’m not so keen on interventions. Even if we have the moral justification, it is unlikely we have the capability, not least since we’ve pruned our armed forces to a fraction of their prime, and couldn’t operate independently if we wanted to. In Afghanistan we were largely dependent on the USA for air support and heavy lift helicopters. We simply aren’t good at nation building. We let our victory in WW2 go to our heads and we’ve been dining out on it ever since.

But then something else has changed. Something more fundamental. The Western powers are run by psychopathic elite who have as much contempt for democracy as the tinpot dictators we once sought to remove. They speak of exporting “our values” but I’m increasingly unsure what they are. We apparently don’t stand for freedom of speech. We have only a sham democracy, and the social values they seek to export, born of critical race theory and gender theory, aren’t even wanted in their own countries.

I know that I would still die in a ditch for my country and my freedom if invaded, but I would not put my life at risk to serve the narcissism and arrogance of our rulers abroad – not least when every one of their military adventures ends up with Britain having to absorb tens of thousands of immigrants who contribute little and have no intention of integrating. I will not participate in my own destruction.

It is from this arc of experience I base my assessment of the Ukraine situation. The West has sought to expand its trade and defence empire, again with no regard for the consequences, and no regard for the security concerns of a major power. At every turn the West has sought to alienate Russia, carelessly provoking it, while stringing Ukraine along with promises we never intended to fulfil.

It’s not even as though we weren’t warned. This has been building for years, and we should have known NATO expansion was a serious provocation. Had an independent Ireland attempted to join the Soviet Union, British tanks would be driving down O’Connell Street by lunchtime. You might ask why shouldn’t Ukraine get to join NATO if that’s what it wants but the reason is that Russia is a nuclear power, and nuclear powers get to make demands of their neighbours when it comes to matters of national security. It is that simple.

To then say that Putin must be stopped, you are in fact demanding World War Three out of a fear that something worse may come if we don’t. There’s a word for that. Stupidity. There is no situation worse than a third world war. A war where even if we win, we still lose. Russia loses a few dilapidated cities, the names of which nobody can even pronounce. We lose Paris, Berlin, London, Manchester. Civilisation itself.

The question for the West, therefore, was one of how we de-escalate and reset relations with Russia. There was a window for that, in which we could have backed down from NATO expansion, and cultivated armed neutrality within Ukraine. Instead, the EU has dangled Ukrainian EU membership, and the option of NATO is still on the table. We’ve flooded the country with weapons, thereby escalating the tension.

The consequence of that is that Ukraine has been able to hold its own against the ground offensive for now, but having faced a series of propaganda defeats, Putin has instead launched an all out bombardment, putting Ukrainian cities under siege. Putin has decided that if Russia is to have a direct border with NATO on its western flank, then Ukraine will be on the Russian side of it. In all probability, Ukraine will be either split down the middle or destroyed completely.

If there was a way to dial it back, we have missed the opportunity. I don't think Putin has a way out any more. This is now ego-driven and he will see it to the bitter end. Meanwhile the West seems to have convinced itself that Ukraine is winning. Nobody can deny they have fought bravely, but it’s a forlorn hope. The west has ramped up the sanctions, which have only galvanised Putin’s resolve, and the harder we push, the more savage his campaign against Ukraine will be.

More intelligent foreign policy could have saved Ukraine but in all probability it’s too late now. Our vanity and arrogance have sealed Ukraine’s fate – and more people will die because of it. Millions will be displaced from their homes, and the whole of Europe now faces a decade of deep recession – not least because of our bone headed energy policies. You’ll forgive me then, if I’m not so keen to wave the NATO flag.

Asylum: the insult resumes

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 00:33:05 GMT

Patel must show zero tolerance for asylum cheats

As we draw down the last days of a long winter, the dinghies are starting up again, despite repeated promises that the situation would be brought under control. Priti Patel’s “solution” has been to stop releasing daily numbers, doing her best to keep it out of the news – and with Ukraine occupying our attentions, it will become background noise as far as the media is concerned.

The Ukraine crisis, though, is a timely reminder of what actual refugees look like. The people of Ukraine are putting up an impressive fight against Putin’s botched invasion, and evacuations are mainly the elderly, women and children. This is a sharp contrast to the economic migrants entering at Dover, most of whom are men of fighting age.

It is then interesting to note that the British establishment will divert all of its runtime to the invasion of Ukraine, but has no intention of preventing an invasion of Britain that sees tens of thousands of settler colonisers abusing our asylum system.

The Ukraine situation should end the ambiguity as to what Dover invaders are in reality. We are no longer legally to call them “illegal immigrants” now that the courts have adjusted the definition, but calling them asylum seekers is to validate their dishonest claims. I will simply call them scrounging dinghy scum. Every single one of them is stealing resources we would otherwise devote to real refugees escaping a real war.

It should also be noted that the term refugee implies an eventual return. It is quite obvious now that those arriving by dinghy have every intention of remaining, legally or not, to then bring in their extended families. The Ukraine crisis underscores how abhorrent this is.

Predictably, the NGOcracy and opponents of Patel’s Borders Bill have spotted an opportunity in the Ukraine crisis to defeat the provisions in the Bill to deal with the dinghy cheats, again asserting the primacy of obsolete international conventions.

That we have already admitted tens of thousands over the last twelve months alone is creating considerable problems. Housing them in hotels was never a viable solution and now they’re being moved to student halls. If there is a repeat of last year’s influx, the hotels will again fill up, diminishing our capacity to help Ukrainians.

We are not hostile to the concept of refuge but we are outright hostile to abusers of our generosity. Britons show a great willingness to extend every welcome to those displaced by war, but any system that fails to effectively deal with abuses will erode that generosity.

To that end, Patel must ramp up the deportations, and remove to detention centres in the Falklands if needs be. We must signal clearly to abusers that they will not succeed. They will not make Britain their home.

We must also look very carefully at refugee advocacy NGOs and charities, many of whom are funded by meddling "philanthropic foundations", arms of the government and local councils. Their concern for refugees is a distant second to promoting their open borders agenda. They must be defunded.

The Dover invasion is already well beyond the joke, but there is now a new urgency as Putin steps up his offensive. This systemic abuse is damaging the very idea of refuge at a time when it's more relevant to Europe than any time since the Second World War. This government likes to speak of moral obligations. Ensuring a fair and functioning system of refuge is one of them. Rolling out the red carpet for cheats is not commensurate with that.

Ukraine: the West is playing with fire

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 04:47:09 GMT

The EU needs to back off

It’s difficult to tell with any certainty what the tactical situation in Ukraine looks like. The best bet right now is to read all but trust nothing. We have seen more use of indiscriminate weapons but not quite the intensification we might have expected. It may be that the Russians are holding off while there are talks in progress.

What we can say is that Putin is losing the propaganda war and is increasingly isolated internationally. Sanctions are already causing economic disturbances within Russia. This action will make Russians poorer. It is not by any means assured that these sanctions will influence Putin’s actions, and when you consider the real world implications, they may even provoke him.

Quite dangerously, Putin this week has lowered the bar for deploying atomic weapons, allowing them to be used against non-nuclear strikes. Superficially this seems disproportionate but banking sanctions and cyber attacks combined could bring Russia to a standstill. Frustrating the normal functioning of Russia on the domestic front will be seen as a direct attack. Economic warfare is still warfare.

What’s certainly not helping is the EU’s determination to ramp up the tension by sending more combat aircraft into Ukraine. This is fast becoming a proxy war and Zelensky is doing his own bit to provoke by applying to join the European Union. It is highly provocative and he damn well knows it, and it all but guarantees that captured eastern territories will never be returned. Though that is already a working assumption.

Much now rests on how serious Putin is, and how far he is likely to go. Russian forces thus far have been inordinately incompetent. Much more and Putin might give up with conventional warfare and lob a few low yield tactical nukes within Ukraine. At that point it’s all over. The West knows if it retaliates then it’s going to be a full scale nuclear war – which is something we should seek to avoid. You would think that would go without saying but not if you’re listening to Western liberal politicians. They’re a bloodthirsty bunch.

What isn’t helping the domestic debate is the superimposition of WW2 on to current events. This isn’t 1939 and Putin isn’t Hitler. All the macho talk of stopping him now before he comes knocking on our door is deeply juvenile stuff. This conflict pertains exclusively to Ukraine and its position between the great powers. This is unfinished business from 2014. Peace can still be bought at a low price by abandoning NATO and EU expansion. The main barrier is western arrogance.

A negotiated settlement, however, has been described as “appeasing Putin” and worse. There is a knee-jerk impulse against the notion of appeasement - which means simply to accede to a demand for the sake of peace. If backing off from expanding a semi-redundant defence alliance and giving up a scrap of rust belt in order to avoid a long and bitter civil war that will destabilise the region – or even trigger a low level nuclear war, then it’s the right call.

Moreover, the longer term consequences of isolating and humiliating Russia could be devastating. There is open talk about decapitating the regime from within, and as usual, on the optimistic assumption that whatever follows will be an improvement. It is not a given that any successor to Putin would be western friendly or any less corrupt or militaristic.

But even if Putin backs down, we’ve now created a very serious problem within Ukraine. The weapons the Ukrainian government has been dispensing on behalf of the EU will more than likely not find their way home, and we could see yet more rogue militias and separatist groups destabilising the country.

If the EU is stupid enough to accelerate accession then they’ll have opened the floodgates to corruption, organised crime and far right politics that makes Viktor Orbán look like Ed Miliband. In addition to the centuries old ethnic tensions in Ukraine, there is a convoluted sectarian situation which makes Irish or Scottish sectarianism seem straightforward and cordial.

Were the EU not so careless it could have approached Ukraine and Russia in 2014 with an NI backstop sort of deal instead of the association agreement that could have prevented all of this, but now we’re almost certainly looking at a permanent split of Ukraine – if it survives at all.

As it happens, Ukrainian EU accession will end up being a long limbo much like the Turkish accession process. Essentially Schrodinger’s membership. The original association agreement was in place of a formal accession process – and for good reason. The EU has never been serious about Ukraine, and there’s no reason to believe recent events have changed matters. Right now it needs another recipient state like a hole in the head – especially following the departure of the UK.

In just a week all the remaining certainties of the era have been upended, taking us into more uncertain and more dangerous times. Western leaders are foolish to believe that sanctions and international isolation of Russia won’t also have repercussions for the West. If they had any sense they would realise, especially in the wake of Covid, that we simply cannot afford further economic instability, and would seek peace at almost any price. That window is closing by the day, yet the EU seems determined to slam it closed and lock it.

Ukraine: von der Leyen is making it worse

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 15:33:38 GMT

More clueless warmongering from the EU

The EU adopting Ukraine openly as its proxy, and flooding it with weapons a special kind of madness. Especially when von der Leyen has about as much direct democratic legitimacy as Putin.

I for one do not think Putin is kidding around about nuclear war, and if he’s as insane as *they* say he is, we ought to be thinking about how to de-escalate. He’s already rolling out the big bombs. We’re now seeing unguided missiles and indiscriminate terror bombing – and we’re making it worse. We need a negotiated settlement – and if that means appeasing Putin then so be it.

Frankly, a scrap of eastern European rust belt is not worth nuclear Armageddon nor am I in a rush to die for Ukranians of all people. Ukraine is not a newly Europeanised “emerging social democracy”, and even if it was, I don’t care. This is not your chance to wave your defiant little fists in the air and “stand up to the bully”. This isn’t a schoolyard. There are real stakes.

Nor is this a simple case of nasty man invades small innocent country. This is ages old ethno-nationalist friction – of which we want no part, crossed with a regional civil war. It’s just not the West’s business. For von der Leyen to be courting Ukrainian EU membership and for Zelensky to be flirting with it, is exactly the kind of inflammation that will supercharge Russian aggression. An entity that fancies itself as a keeper of the European peace should have that basic level of self-awareness.

Sun Tzu counseled military leaders to build a “golden bridge” for an opponent to retreat across. Without an escape route to retreat, your opponent will engage in battle and fight like a caged and cornered tiger. With Putin’s first advances having met considerable problems and serious resistance, the smart move is to find a way for him to back off without losing face. But the EU doesn’t want this, and nor does Zelensky. They want anything but an agreement with Russia.

Zelensky has knowingly been pulling Ukraine westward, fully aware of what Russia could do, banking on the West to underwrite his posturing. Being the virtue signalling idiots they are, the “colleagues” have imposed their simplistic binary WW2 narratives on to the situations and offered up every kind of support short of NATO membership and an outright declaration of war. We ramped it up, we pushed Putin to go further than he intended.

But therein lies the hypocrisy. The is no fast track to EU membership, and there’s no intention of going the full hog and going to war with Russia on a NATO Article 5 basis. At some point, having strung Ukraine along, the West will throw it to the wolves, having escalated and prolonged a conflict that Ukraine was never going to win alone.

Ultimately, if western progressives want to meddle in other people’s wars they should go and do it in person and not enlist the rest of us. It is fashionable to say that this is about Ukraine’s right to choose, but where is our right to choose whether we get dragged into a war on Europe’s eastern flank?

The problem with the progressive left’s “everyone I don’t like is Hitler” mentality is that there’s no war they won’t gleefully want a part of – just so long as it’s packaged neatly into a binary narrative with good guys and bad guys, and nothing to complicate the narrative – and no contextual history going back further than a fortnight. Nice and simple, that’s how they like it.

It is true that Putin is an aggressor here, but Putin was a danger to be analysed, anticipated and managed rather than cornered and confronted in the most careless manner imaginable. If there was a role for the West then it was careful diplomacy, recognising the historical sensitivities of the region.

Instead, progressives have made Zelensky their new Nelson Mandela, and for British remainer progressives, the EU’s warmongering is a vindication of their view that we’d be missing out on the action if we left. For people who claim to be the adults in the room, when it comes to geopolitics, there is nobody worse for behaving like children.

Ukraine: dangerous times

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 03:35:26 GMT

No room for complacency

There was good reason to doubt whether Putin would invade Ukraine. The invasion thus far is turning into the very shambles many anticipated. A rational actor wouldn’t have done it. It would seem, though, that Putin is not the rational actor many took him for.

So far Ukrainian forces appear to be holding their own and they’re not going to run short of anything. Meanwhile the Russian army is having serious problems. Away from its elite units, it’s a ramshackle organisation, poorly equipped, badly trained and badly led, and with low morale. This is now becoming very apparent.

A larger ground offensive has by now lost any element of surprise. Ukraine now has prepared defensive positions and stockpiles of anti-tank munitions, having destroyed all the main bridges. It’s hard to see how an armoured thrust can succeed – and certainly not without air superiority. Ukrainian air defences have not yet been overwhelmed or defeated.

That said, having now established that Putin is not acting rationally, and having to save face, he could very well launch an all out assault, of an intensity we have not yet seen. We haven’t yet seen a “full scale invasion” that matches the hyperbole. Though Twitter pundits are convinced Ukraine is holding its own, it cannot withstand the full weight of Putin’s arsenal, and it could come down to close quarters street battles in Kiev by the end of the week.

In a fluid situation such as this, confident predictions last only a matter of hours. The trouble is we don’t know what Putin was thinking at the beginning, and how many times he changed his mind since.

This is where the West ought to be thinking about de-escalation and creating a diplomatic off ramp for Putin, instead of pumping in more weapons and openly contemplating “regime change” (thereby feeding Russian paranoia). But the EU appears to be using Ukraine as its proxy.

Ukraine has been selected to play the role of the plucky underdog and we are to believe it is a newly emerging liberal democracy because it turns towards NATO and the EU in a crisis it helped to foment. That Ukraine is a corrupt basketcase riddled with fascism (the real kind) and organised crime at the highest levels is conveniently forgotten. This evening, with all the diplomatic finesse of a Sherman tank, Ursula von der Leyen said “Ukraine is “one of us” and we want it to join the EU”. If she’s trying to provoke Putin, that’s the way to go about it.

It is the Western consensus view that Putin has failed in all of his objectives, and his underlying assumptions about the strength of resistance were wrong, thus the West can ramp up provocations and the flow of weapons, and the fact that Putin is apparently acting irrationally while in command of a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons need not distract us.

It certainly would have made sense to have cultivated Ukrainian armed neutrality before reaching this point, but to broadcast our direct involvement turns this from regional ethno-nationalist friction into a war that could potentially engulf the whole of Europe – or result in another cold war, pushing Russia into the arms of China. We couldn’t have made a bigger mess of it. As much as anything, flooding Ukraine with weapons, up to and including anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles will have consequences later down the line, The threat to civil airlines from terrorist groups is considerable.

The one thing that is clear is that this war has redefined European politics. It’s clear that energy security must take precedence over green fantasies and Germany cannot outsource its security to the USA. Closer to home, now that we know what real refugees look like (ie. women and children escaping an actual war) there’s likely to be far less tolerance for the cheats who arrive in dinghies. We can also put to bed any notion that Britain has no role in Europe outside of the EU. For what that’s worth.

Hopefully this won’t escalate into something far bigger and more dangerous but the era that began when the Berlin wall came down is now well and truly over. All of the assumptions of that era, from energy to defence and trade must now be rethought. We’ve run down our army, outsourced our production and allowed our enemies to weaken us through trade. This may be a turning point in which the West can no longer afford its self-indulgence and virtue signalling. The world just got serious – and the West has been asleep.

Brexit: time to get on with it

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 10:59:19 GMT

Labour must stop dragging us back in time

Simon Jenkins, writing in the Guardian, says “The evidence is all around us: life outside the single market is an utter disaster”. He goes on to cite a number of examples but opens with the following:

A massacre is occurring. More than 35,000 healthy British pigs have been slaughtered and buried on farms since September, with an estimated 200,000 languishing in a backlog. The reason is that abattoirs lack the staff to process them, largely due to Britain’s exit from the pan-European labour market. In October, the environment department offered 800 six-month visas for foreign butchers. But it insisted they go through its laborious scheme for seasonal workers: barely 100 turned up. Whitehall also refuses to curb imports of European pork – which now makes up 60% of the UK market and rising. To the National Pig Association, Brexit means buy from Europe .

This is not evidence that life outside the single market is a disaster. It’s evidence that trying to maintain a food production system along he lines of the single market model having left it is a disaster. Part of the reason slaughterhouses can’t find the staff is because highly centralised slaughterhouses (themselves a product of the single market) have been found to be Covid incubators nobody wants to work in, with poor pay and conditions for what is a skilled trade. The industry failed to adapt, and the government failed to prepare for the fallout of leaving the single market.

Though I was opposed leaving European Economic Area, largely anticipating a giant mess like this, leaving the single market allowed us to leave the EU food production system and restore localised smaller scale slaughterhouses which not only reduce stress for animals, but results in fewer food miles and a better quality product. There is a major opportunity here, not least dumping the EU’s insane and wasteful veterinary system . That the industry has sat on its hands and expected to be bailed out by government is not the fault of Brexit.

Jenkins goes on to say “For pig farmers, we can read apple growers, flower producers, fishing fleets, road hauliers, house builders, medicine suppliers, care home managers – a whole range of workers on the frontline of Britain’s economy. All have benefited in the past from the open market in European labour. All must now lobby Whitehall for permits, visas, waivers and, if not, compensation. Hundred-page documents must accompany every food convoy to and from Dover and Belfast, where hours of tailbacks quietly rot produce”.

What he fails to note is that a number of sectors were already turning to third countries for their supply of exploitable labour. Poles in particular were turning down low pay work in food and hospitality. So the question is how much immigration is Jenkins prepared to stomach to prop up his consumption habits? And why should that override the majority demand to get a grip on immigration?

Businesses have been quick to complain about labour shortages, but a cursory glance shows that the farming sector has done little to up its recruitment game or improve pay. The haulage sector has improved pay and training and it comes as no surprise that the situation is, albeit slowly, improving.

Jenkins concludes by saying “Britain’s position as an island has to be one that trades openly with the mainland. Sooner or later, the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour will have to be restored, however painfully. It would greatly help if Labour’s Keir Starmer stopped vacillating and committed himself to that objective, as should candidates for Johnson’s succession. No, this is not revoking Brexit or rejoining the EU. It is just embracing sanity.”

He forgets, though, that the point of Brexit was to take back control of our own laws. Nobody is particularly against the free movement of goods and services, but there is no middle way between an FTA and full blown single market membership, which involves the adoption of whole swathes of the EU body of law.

It made sense to retain much of it for the purposes of transitioning out of the EU, but now we’re out, we have a real opportunity to rethink everything from government procurement through to labour rights, to bring about a more responsive state, reversing some of the centralising trends Jenkins himself famously rails about.

It’s certainly true that Lord Frost was not forced to cut short the transition and we could have arrived at a more comprehensive trade deal, but it would have fallen well short of the levels of cooperation required for a seamless Brexit as imagined by Jenkins. At the time, the EU was resolute in its insistence that further cooperation could not happen without free movement of people, and for many, that was a significant motivator for voting to leave.

Guardian columnists and Labour centrists are presently infatuated with the idea of re-joining the single market and Rachel Reeves has called for a new veterinary agreement. They speak as though these are ready made options we can put in our shopping trolley and take to the checkout. That might have been true during the Article 50 era, but not it’s not so simple for a third country outside the EEA. It would involve lengthy technical negotiations and it is not a given it would restore trade. Once supply chains are broken, they don’t automatically reconnect. All this mealy-mouthed jargon is precisely what it looks like. It’s re-join by stealth campaign.

There is certainly a case for further developing the TCA, filling in the gaps left by a rushed negotiation, but the EU does not have a ready made solution for the UK. Ultimately it is for the EU to realise it cannot treat the UK as one of its satellite states. An island of 65m people simply cannot offshore its regulatory functions the way small states do. Meanwhile it says everything about the state of our political class that they’re in such a rush to hand it all back over, showing no interest whatsoever in governing, not even slightly inspired by what could be achieved. Britain voted for change yet nobody seems interested in delivering it.

That Brexit thus far is failing to yield significant returns (not that it ever was an economic venture) is less to do with Brexit as it is the lame duck PM in charge of delivering it. Instead of diverging we’re locked into EU climate policies as the basis for all future endeavours, and the nexus of international treaties stands in the way of fundamental reform. To get the best from Brexit we need a government with the political will to reinvent the state, and rethink our democracy. Until then, there is no way we can say that Brexit is done.

Instead of trying to drag us back a piece at a time, the establishment parties need to accept that what is done is done. They had ample opportunity to shape Brexit but at every turn they were more interested in stopping Brexit than shaping it. They are as much responsible for the the current shape of UK-EU relations as the ERG. It is for them to take responsibility and live with their choices, and start delivering what the public demanded.

Net Zero isn't levelling up

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Sun, 20 Feb 2022 16:50:14 GMT

Brexit demands real change

Writing in the Guardian , Will Hutton says “This may come as a surprise, but I think the Tories’ levelling-up policy has got it right”. “It is a new transformative moment” he says.

The news last week that January inflation hit a 30-year high of 5.5% to produce the biggest cost of living squeeze for 60 years is the backdrop to a mounting social crisis. The pressure is reflected in a falling birth rate and stagnating, even declining life expectancy, desperately unfair life chances, disempowerment, justified post-Brexit economic pessimism and social neglect, all alongside phenomenal private wealth. Labour, for the first time in 15 years, has the chance to command the agenda and do to its opponents what was once done to it.

“Levelling up” is the talismanic policy that brings all this together. Boris Johnson, for all his glaring deficiencies, had the wit to see that. It was not his alleged campaigning genius or what the deluded Europhobes think is the compelling case for Brexit that won the 2016 referendum and 2019 general election. Rather, it was the massive disaffection of millions of working-class voters with the status quo. There had to be change and levelling up, whose need is reinforced by the lethal unfairness of Covid, represents his personal commitment to deliver the change.

There’s quite a bit to unpack there. As it happens, I don’t think he is far off the mark in saying that Brexit was not won on the back of a compelling case for it. Though the debate leading up to the vote was wide ranging, it was incoherent and confused and I don’t think either official campaign managed to get their message over. It was always going to come down to which camp was the least repellent. When the remain side ended up a rabble of celebs fronted by Eddie Izzard and Bob Geldof, and the worst of parliament’s virtue signalling oafs, the remain campaign sealed its own fate.

Since then, there has been a concerted effort in think tankery and academia to blame Brexit on austerity rather than their own failings and the many failings of the EU. But if we did throw them that bone and it really was “massive disaffection with the status quo” then the EU still takes the lion’s share of the blame. If not a lion then a large creature of the panthera genus. After all, the EU underpinned that economic status quo. The single market brought with it unending low wage competition and round the clock shift patterns, while the EU energy policy drove up energy bills (LCPD). We did not get to to this point by accident.

The EU also brought more subtle changes to the structure and functioning of government, all of which have contributed to the quangofication of the state (that Hutton complains of) – and subjected to EU competition and procurement policies, and environmental policies that delay or prevent renewal of infrastructure. Hutton should count his blessings that a compelling case for Brexit was never heard or we’d have left by a far larger margin.

In any case, the vote most certainly did call for a major overhaul to the functioning of the state and the economy. Nobody is disputing that the vote to leave was a demand to depart from that dysfunctional status quo. This, says Hutton, is where Labour could pick up the thread.

The country is ready to rally behind genuine levelling up. Money? Issue 100-year or even perpetual bonds to finance the vital capital spending. Create the institutions that will work with newly empowered mayors to revitalise our economy and society. Around the drive to net-zero, England from the Tyne to the Humber could reindustrialise around manufacturing windfarms, turbines, electric cars and batteries.

Get back into the single market and export those green manufactures into the EU. Economic prospects for the next few years are dire: a shrinking working population, diminished trade, squeezed demand and stagnating investment together with the risk of falling house prices as interest rates rise. Against that outlook, Britain cannot let that potential £2.5tn of extra output go begging. The narrative, the foundational framework and the prize are there for the taking. All that is required is the chutzpah and vision to go for it.

And there you have it. The “solution” to that “massive disaffection of millions of working-class voters” is to put things back more or less exactly as they were before Brexit with the same spending priorities, only with metro mayors that nobody wants and nobody voted for, and they were foisting on us anyway. Genius!

There’s more than a few problems with Hutton’s vision. The UK’s waters are home to more offshore wind farms than anywhere else in the world but this concentration has not translated into the jobs and manufacturing boom envisaged in the years since the first one came on stream 20 years ago.

In his last year in office in 2010, then Labour prime minister Gordon Brown said the UK’s leading position in offshore wind meant the sector could support up to 70,000 jobs by 2020. But in reality , direct employment and supply chain jobs stand at an estimated 11,000, according to RenewableUK, the industry lobby group. “It’s a con,” said Gary Smith, secretary of the GMB union in Scotland, which includes BiFab workers among its members. “What the UK is, is the biggest offshore wind sector in the world and the only expertise is about how we offshore jobs.

Oxford-based consultancy Aurora Energy Research has said Boris Johnson’s vision for offshore wind to power every home in the UK by 2030 would require almost £50bn in investment and the equivalent of one turbine to be installed every weekday for the whole of the next decade. But there’s a rather large problem. Wind energy is a wholly unworkable means of generating power for a modern grid (unless you’re prepared to throw billions on mitigating the problems it creates). The grid is being redesigned around the inadequacies of wind power rather than reliable baseload technology.

But aside from the absurdity of Net Zero (killing more jobs than it creates through rising energy costs) the way in which remainers casually bleat about re-joining the single market betrays a galactic ignorance. The single market is largely contingent on low wage exploitation. From food and manufacturing to hospitality, it simply wouldn’t be a viable model without an endless supply of cheap labour. Britain and the EU realised this during Covid. Having exhausted the supply of cheap workers within its own borders, it now looks to Ukraine for farm labour, the Philippines for truck drivers and trawlermen, and Ghana for vets to plug holes in its creaking veterinary system.

The EU was already facing a skills shortage in the meat industry and the shortage of truck drivers is a problem of its own making. Ultimately there can be no conversation about the sustainability of supply chains without first addressing the labour issue, where even Eastern Europeans won’t work for the rates on offer.

Even without Covid, the single market was eventually going to have to address its structural imbalances. It can only be sustained for as long immigration from the developing world can be politically sustained – and after that, you’re looking at a surge of inflation as markets play catch up.

Any new deal, be it levelling up or Net Zero has to take into account the inherent stresses that brought us to this point to begin with. Mass immigration isn’t politically sustainable, and is causing the “liberal order” to collapse. Eric Zemmour won’t win in France but sooner or later a man like him will. The failure to address the invasion of illegal immigrants at Dover will again bring immigration to the fore in Britain. Put simply, Europe has to wean itself off the cheap goods its become accustomed to. Business cannot look to immigration to solve its problems. It will have to improve pay and conditions and start training the people it needs.

Further to this, we can kill two birds with one stone. Western politics is in the grip of rampant wokery by way of its overproduction of elites. We need to completely reverse Blair’s revolution in the university system and restore the polytechnics. We then equip our economy with the skills it needs, while dramatically reducing the number of social sciences grads with a head full of Critical Race Theory.

Ultimately there is no levelling up and no jobs bonanza unless we get to grips with energy costs. Net Zero, as envisaged by Hutton, is a massive programme of state directed capitalism (eco-fascism), betting the farm on high fantasy green technologies. Building back worse. There certainly is a case for investing in green technologies with a view to exporting them, but that focus should be on small modular reactors coupled with nuclear desalination plants, with a view to providing clean water for people and agriculture – not least as a means to curb global migration.

Instead of seizing the opportunity that Brexit offers, Hutton and his fellow travellers want to restore a collapsing order to its former glory, without acknowledging the need for change. Free of the EU we are now free to redesign our competition, environment and procurement policies, all of which can bring about balanced and fairer trade, white taking expensive statutory obligations off local authorities, freeing them up to source infrastructure projects locally.

It is now generally understood that levelling up requires more devolution of powers to local authorities, but if we are again to be enmeshed in the legal frameworks of the single market then there is no devolution of power. The single market isn’t just product standards and food safety rules. It’s an entire system of governance, more or less set in stone, and anything broken stays broken – which is a big part of why we ended up leaving.

The key to unlocking economic potential in Britain is to free people economcially and give them the skills to exploit that freedom. Consequently, any levelling up starts with an overhaul of our embarrassing university system, driving down taxes and a drive to make energy too cheap to meter. Old fashioned ideas about reindustrialisation simply haven’t panned out. Net Zero boondoggles won’t do it.

The EU already had a target to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050 when we were in the single market – and successive governments have doubled down on windmills and EVs, yet this failed to prevent Brexit, failed to create jobs, and it certainly didn’t bring down our utility bills. The public voted for change, but Net Zero is same old failed agenda repackaged as the next big idea. Time after time, they take us all for fools.

The New Highway Code

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 15:16:06 GMT

UKIP opposes the relentless war on motorists

The new issue of the Highway Code prioritises cyclists in most situations and pedestrians at junctions. UKIP does not believe such measures will improve road safety and it will not improve traffic flow including that of buses on which some pedestrians depend for their transport.

Motorists pay heavily through vehicle excise duty, petrol duty, MOT, and vehicle maintenance for the use of the roads. The car is registered to them and there is a visible number plate so it can be monitored, and the motorist contacted if they disobey the rules of the road including speeding.

Cyclists and pedestrians are pretty much anonymous and except if they are also motorists, they do not pay the costs of maintaining the roads. Both pedestrians and cyclists regularly ignore the highway code and cyclists are renowned for undertaking and overtaking very close to vehicles and ignoring junctions and traffic lights and generally causing motorists to take action to avoid hitting them or knocking them down.

Now at junctions pedestrians and cyclists have the right of way before motorists, so there could be a steady stream of pedestrians just keep walking across a road junction halting traffic wishing to turn into or out of a side road, causing cars to back up and unnecessary annoyance to the motorists. Guaranteed gridlock!

A car overtaking a bicycle now must give 1.5 metres minimum clearance; cyclists are also encouraged to ride in the centre of the lane 'on quiet roads' without a clear definition of ‘quiet’; this means that wherever a cyclist is in the lane there may be insufficient clearance while cars are traveling in the opposite lane. Cyclists can and will clog up the lane and define its speed to as little as 4 mph. Guaranteed gridlock!

Cyclists represent 2% of road uses. So instead of a tiny minority group being allowed to change the rules of the road in their favour it would have been more reasonable for a group of 50 motorists and 1 cyclist to have worked on the new highway code.

It is ludicrous for laws and rules for society to be dominated by tiny minority groups.

The new highway code is not fit for purpose and the Department of Transport should be ashamed of its continued war on the motorist.

Antony Nailer,

UKIP Policy Team, Transport advisor.

The Hidden Truth

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 15:07:47 GMT

Who is guilty of turning a blind eye? The whole lot of them!

The latest report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) reveals that Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales, is rampant.

As a Political Party, UKIP is very concerned that the police, local authorities, and other child protection services do not seem to have an accurate understanding of networks of sexual exploitation of children in their own areas. Profiling has not been a priority.

Children as young as 10 being labelled as only, ‘at risk’, despite clear evidence they were contracting sexually – transmitted diseases, is abhorrent! Babies and infants have also been targeted. Victims of sexual abuse have not been treated with compassion, sympathy, or tenderness; this is not acceptable in the 21st Century! Survivors of sexual abuse have been ‘hung out to dry’. UKIP will not tolerate this.

Some local authorities downplay the scale of abuse over concerns about negative publicity, shocking practices and acts have been ‘swept under the carpet’.

The state has failed miserably allowing abusers into children’s homes and the foster system.

UK religious groups and sporting clubs are still discouraging the reporting of abuse to protect reputations - blaming victims for their abuse.

Recording data such as ethnicity of abusers and victims has not been a priority making it impossible to identify local patterns and trends of Child Sexual Abuse. A clear pattern has emerged in which groups of adult men befriend children plying them with drinks and drugs before sexually abusing them over months.

These crimes involve the sexual abuse of children in the most degrading and destructive ways by multiple perpetrators. The abuse is prolonged, and survivors are let down.

We all know the script and the information contained in the next report from the IISCA will contain more of the same.

The state has failed miserably to protect children from:

Child on Child abuse which can include harmful sexual behaviour as well as bullying.
Child abduction in the context of exploitation and grooming.
Online abuse sexual exploitation. In many cases the offending remains online such as deceiving children into producing indecent images of themselves, participating in sexual chat, or engaging in sexual activity over a webcam. However online activity can also lead to offline offending.
The state has failed to keep teenagers safe from harm from criminal gangs and trafficking.
UKIP will reverse the disgraceful cuts to childcare services. The police, local authorities, and all child protection agencies WILL be held to account for their wicked failings and their clear lack of compassion. The I’m alright Jack brigade will not prosper under UKIP.
The need to achieve significant improvements in outcomes for the children and families who are the foundation of our communities, and our shared future will be high on UKIP’s agenda.

Patricia Mountain

UKIP Spokeswoman Abuse and Exploitation 3rd Feb 2022

Boris Johnson is squandering Brexit

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 16:26:47 GMT

Net Zero is the ultimate betrayal of Brexit

I spent much of the Article 50 era at odds with the majority of Brexiteers. I was no fan of the so-called WTO option and to some extent I consider the WTO to be part of the problem. Though it does not have the same supranational authority as the EU, it does have considerable coercive influence, underpinning a global “rules based order”. At one time I would have argued that a basic framework of rules is a necessity for free and fair trade, but increasingly the WTO is becoming part of a global nexus of captured institutions which now exist primarily to advance climate policy agendas.

As such, Brexit of itself was never going to resolve very much, and the scope for divergence was limited. I therefore took the view that divergence was a question of picking our battles carefully. I saw Brexit as a longer term process rather than an event and one which should not be rushed. To that end I campaigned for the EEA Efta option as a longer term “departure lounge”.

That option, though, was politically untenable. Successive attempts to sabotage and derail Brexit soured any compromise options and had we gone down the EEA route it would have been hijacked by remainers and turned into a BRINO, probably with the addition of a customs union.

I can accept that I lost that argument. Opponents of the EEA option rightly point out that we wouldn’t have reclaimed the powers to diverge that we have now. I was aware of this at the time and always remarked that it was suboptimal, but necessary to safeguard our EU trade.

But now that we have quit the Single Market, it is incumbent on this government to make full use of our reclaimed sovereingty. We have sacrificed considerable trade with the EU, which in my view will not be recouped through agreements like CPTPP. If the costs of our Single Market departure are to be offset, then it is through a radical programme of deregulation and renewal.

The problem here is that the Tories have absolutely no plan, no ideas what to deregulate or where the major problems lie. Prior to Covid and the global energy crunch there was already a case for dumping the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS), which is a massively bureaucratic and ineffectual system. The ETS remains susceptible to fraud and gaming, has subsidised polluters at taxpayer’s expense, and hasn’t substantially reduced emissions. Both greenies and sceptics alike can agree on that.

Brexit was an opportunity to replace or remove ETS, yet we’ve adopted more or less exactly the same system only it’s a bit more expensive for business. Hardly a Brexit win.

The system as it stands now, is complex, convoluted and time consuming, and really only serves to make energy more expensive without a corresponding reduction in emissions. Worse still, the costs are incurred by those industries working to decarbonise our grid. It makes very little sense. It’s wholly self-defeating.

Then as much as nobody wants to see a repeal of laws that protect habitats and the environment, the EU rules we inherited which place environmental burdens on business accomplish very little and in the main serve only to create compliance jobs and parasitic statutory reporting requirements which soak up vast sums of money and add costly delays to infrastructure projects.

In the absence of any kind of Brexit plan, Johnson has pegged us to his Net Zero agenda, which is a gold plating of the EU’s own agenda to eliminate emissions by eighty percent by 2050. Climate virtue signalling on steroids – but still bound to the morass of EU red tape.

UKIP does not support Net Zero. This is not “climate denial”. Our view is that there is no climate emergency, but that’s neither here nor there. There is still room for debate on whether such an aggressive and expensive policy is in the national interest and whether the strategy for achieving it is likely to succeed.

There are obvious logical flaws to the current strategy. When the grid is already struggling to meet electricity demand in the UK, where is the sense on pushing us toward electric home heating? Where is the sense in pushing for electric cars? We still have no coherent answers as to what will provide the baseload generation for the next twenty years, while all the incentives are handed to intermittent renewable developers. Johnson hopes to create jobs by way of a green revolution, but how many jobs will be lost over the next decade as energy prices for industry become unsustainable?

We take the view that renewable energy is a gigantic white elephant. It has its evangelical advocates, but they all tend to be wonks and green blobbers or energy execs who rake in handsome volumes of subsidy. But wind energy is a wholly unworkable means of generating power for a modern grid (unless you’re prepared to throw billions upon billions on mitigating the problems it creates). The grid is being redesigned around the inadequacies of wind power rather than choosing reliable baseload technology.

Supposing we supported the view that we are amidst a climate emergency, we might venture that Brexit has allowed us to go greener faster, but that means dumping all the make-work non-jobbery of renewable energy, to go all in on small modular reactors and CHP on a war footing. In the interim we we should use whatever fossil fuels are available to us (including coal), to ensure cheap and abundant energy, if only to speed up the delivery of new technologies and reduce the costs of developing them. Doing so will put the UK ahead of the game, giving us first mover advantage in terms of intellectual property and standards setting.

As such, there is a very clear case for going all in on nuclear irrespective of the climate, but there is no case for whacking an unsuspecting public with Net Zero. There is no mandate for it nor is there informed consent. Moreover, the push for renewables increases the risks of grid instability leading to rolling blackouts. That cannot be the basis of any prosperous low carbon future.

It is Boris Johnson who insisted on a hard Brexit and a lightweight FTA specifically so we would have regulatory sovereignty and the freedom to diverge. That came at considerable cost to the economy, particularly British food producers, who are now being incentivised to pave over our countryside with useless solar panels, all because this government doesn’t have the imagination or the political will to do anything differently to the EU.

The 2050 Net Zero target is a wholly arbitrary piece of virtue signalling, committing vast resource to a highly questionable agenda, but it also kicks Brexit into the long grass. As much as Brexit was a demand to curb immigration, it was also to put an end to top down meddlesome technocratic agendas over which we have no say. Johnsons’ Net Zero has rendered his “hard Brexit” inert, while betraying the founding principles of it.

Yesterday I promised the party chairman, Ben Walker, I would change the subject for today’s piece, but Net Zero is the flagship policy of what is supposed to be a Brexit government, and it embodies the ultimate betrayal of it. Combined with its abject failure to get a grip on immigration – thereby adding further pressure to our acute housing and energy problems, this government has reverted to the pre-referendum stupor, carried along by fad and fantasy, oblivious to the urgent needs of voters and adrift from any notion of conservatism. Net Zero isn’t merely a topic heading. It’s the root command of this government – and basis on which it must be held to account. By that measure, it is selling Britain down the river.

Tory energy policy is strangling British industry

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 23:28:45 GMT

Britain's energy woes are wholly self-inflicted

I’m sorry, but I have to bore you all about Net Zero again. But then this isn’t strictly about Net Zero. It’s about the whole economy, Brexit and the total inadequacy of this government.

Industry groups have issued a warning to government that it is potentially sleepwalking into disaster with soaring gas prices putting factories at risk of being shut down. The Chemical Industries Association (CIA) this week said that rising energy costs, which saw gas prices grow by a whopping 500 percent for their members from January 2021 to January 2022, meant companies would be forced to decide whether to continue running their UK factories at all.

While soaring gas prices are a major contributor to a cost of living crisis for households, they have also created what industry groups describe as a cost of working crisis, in which it is now far more expensive for gas-reliant factories to operate and could soon become too costly. But even if factories are not brought to a standstill, there is concern that the high costs of operating in the UK will make energy-reliant industries in this country increasingly uncompetitive compared with European counterparts, which currently pay less for carbon.

Britain’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) Authority again decided in January that it will not intervene in the country’s carbon market, even though prices were high enough to trigger a so-called cost containment mechanism (CCM).

British businesses are paying substantially more to produce carbon dioxide than their EU rivals because of the government’s refusal to link the UK carbon market to the bigger European market after Brexit. The difference is putting UK industry at a significant competitive disadvantage to European rivals, at a time of soaring energy prices, but does not result in any additional benefit to the environment.

UK companies are paying more than £75 (€90) a tonne for the carbon they emit, while similar industries in the EU are paying up to about €85 a tonne. Britain’s carbon price is higher because the UK carbon market, set up last year with the first permit auctions taking place last May, is much smaller and lacks the liquidity of the larger EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) that has been operating since 2005 and covers all of the EU’s heavy industries.

Under both schemes, companies buy tradeable permits to cover the carbon dioxide they produce, with cleaner companies able to sell spares to laggards. The price acts as an incentive to companies to clean up their operations, and is seen by some as an economically efficient way to help meet the net zero emissions target.

The risk of factories being closed down first surfaced in October, when Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng handed Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a series of proposals designed to protect energy-intensive industries (EEIs) from rising prices. Government sources at the time said there was a risk of gas becoming too costly for sectors like chemicals, paper, and ceramics to continue with production in the UK — an outcome that would not only spell more disruption for supply chains, but also likely result in significant job losses.

The Treasury and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) are yet to put those proposals into action, however, to the frustration of affected groups. This scheme, though, amounts to a corporate welfare scheme to cope with a wholly artificial cost – a cost which already adds a third to the cost of gas. Since we have left the single market, thereby reclaiming our regulatory sovereignty to the fullest, we really ought to do away with this punitive tax.

Unfortunately though, the UK agreed in the TCA that “both parties will have their own effective systems of carbon pricing in place to help fulfil our respective climate goals”. That said, there is nothing especially preventing us from suspending the system at least temporarily in light of the global pandemic. We won’t do that that though. The Tories are wedded to Net Zero and there’s too much big money involved in carbon trading. All the same, it must be made known that it is within the power of the British state to substantially reduce the cost of energy at the stroke of a pen.

From whichever angle you examine the energy crisis, it’s clear that the system is choked with taxes, regulation and make-work schemes, the costs of which are greater than the annual fuel used by gas power stations. This crisis is wholly self inflicted, and both the UK and EU could very well see their energy intensive industries moving to countries where there are few emissions controls and little enforcement of pollution rules.

As we have noted on many occasions lately, this government is squandering the opportunities afforded by Brexit by way of doing things broadly the same way as before, subjecting us to a major drop in living standards because it doesn’t have the guts or the imagination to do anything else. We’ve lost the trade that goes with the Single Market but we’re doing nothing with our new freedoms to make UK PLC more competitive.

If ever there were a time for a radical rethink of energy and tax policy it is now. There is both the need and the opportunity, yet the Tories remain steadfastly committed to keeping everything the same, even if it leads to the loss of countless high value jobs – all in the name of an agenda for which there is no mandate.

Moreover, the move to Net Zero is likely to make things much worse. Take the push for heat pumps. Peak home heat demand is several times larger than the current electricity grid capacity of the UK. The electrification of heating shifts gas demand to the grid in the coldest spells, often when wind isn’t blowing. Heat pump advocates need to tell us what happens when our smart meters up the tariff to shave peaks at minus six degrees when there’s no wind and we’re buying energy gas off the spot market to keep the CCGT plant running. How much will we save then? However much they obfuscate, we know what it means. It means that poorer households will have to switch off their heating. That’s the reality of NetZero.

For Britain and Europe, the future is looking colder, darker and poorer. Worse still, it’s starting to look like our votes are completely meaningless. We voted to break with the dead hand of top down technocracy, but that’s what we’re getting anyway – as though we never left the EU. This has dangerous ramifications for our democracy – and Johnson is playing a dangerous game by ignoring the message of 2016.

Net Zero: sleepwalking to disaster

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 02:11:41 GMT

Net Zero is pushing us towards a national energy emergency

I almost feel like I have to apologise for banging on about Net Zero but it has far reaching consequences that will soon eclipse most other issues as householders have to make tough choices to make ends meet.

Yesterday the FT reported that the price of securing crucial standby electricity generation for next winter has soared to record levels, reflecting Britain’s tighter supplies as more ageing nuclear power stations close and the few remaining coal-fired plants are phased out.

The bids in Tuesday’s “capacity market” auction hit their highest levels since the process was introduced by the UK government in 2014. The auctions award contracts to generators to be available to meet demand if it unexpectedly spikes in the colder months. The standby capacity process was introduced because of Britain’s increasing reliance on weather-dependent renewable sources of energy. There are several types of auctions, with most back-up generation secured several years in advance.

All capacity in the auction for the winter of 2022-23 will be contracted at £75 per kilowatt, a record level. Energy consultancy Cornwall Insight said the highest price in previous comparable auctions was £45.

Because of the unreliability of wind power, energy consumers face paying more than £30 million to keep Britain’s last coal-fired power plant open next winter as the government seeks to bolster electricity supplies. The expected subsidy is to be paid by households and businesses on their energy bills despite a looming ban on the dirtiest form of power generation from October 2024. Britain’s other coal plants are both due to shut before next winter.

The cost of balancing the grid is now astronomical. The top ten most expensive days ever have occurred in the last three months, as costs soar to £967 million. This is up significantly from £337 million for the same period – September to November – in 2020, representing a jump of 294 percent.

Much of this can be attributed to Ed Davey’s insane decision not to build more new gas storage which serves as a price regulator, and the EU Large Combustion Plant Directive taking coal out of the mix, but ultimately our obsession with wind turbines is why we’re reliant on gas generation to begin with. Most conventional plant is designed to run at a steady state for optimal thermal efficiency, and only gas stations have the inherent flexibility to cope with variability at short notice. When the wind drops and the sun goes in, operators need to find tens of gigawatts quickly.

That means that when the wind is blowing gas stations are running below their optimal efficiency. The grid is obliged by law to prioritise renewable energy. The system is inherently inefficient and as renewable generation capacity grows, it creates more periods of low wholesale electricity prices that force coal and gas generation to either shut down or operate at a loss. This underutilisation of conventional generation adds to the capital costs of any new plant, which in part, allows the renewable energy companies to claim their energy is cheaper.

But this claim is a lie any which way you look at it. The “levelised cost” tells another story. Levelised cost is (the average cost of the lifetime of the plant per MWh of electricity generated. It reflects the cost of building, operating and decommissioning a generic plant for each technology. Wind energy only looks cheaper by way of the carbon taxes added to gas plant.

Were it not for the capital costs wind adds to gas plant and carbon taxes, gas plant would be considerably cheaper than offshore wind. And that’s only half the picture, Levelised cost does not account for the vast subsidies paid to wind generators. It’s difficult to establish the overall impact, but even as gas prices soar, wind can only be considered cheaper by tricks of accountancy. Or as we call it, lying. Thanks to Net Zero policies, gas generation is set to become more expensive as requirements to install carbon capture are introduced,

The inherent assumption is that wind will continue to improve in terms of capacity and availability, and capital costs will come down but estimated economic working lives of turbines are turning out to be much shorter than predicted, which will have a massive effect on capital cost apportionments. Moreover, we now have problems with grid congestion, and as old plant is taken off line we have far less “spinning reserve” to call upon, necessitating expensive battery back-up and diesel generators. Older gas plant also requires extensive retrofitting to cope with wind intermittency.

Essentially, wind energy is a wholly unworkable means of generating power for a modern grid (unless you’re prepared to throw billions upon billions on mitigating the problems it creates). The grid is being redesigned around the inadequacies of wind power rather than choosing reliable baseload technology. They knew this from the outset, but it’s only other people’s money. They got drunk on the idea of a zero carbon future with zero regard for how it would affect our lives, or whether the economy could sustain it.

There is now no way back. The decisions needed to head off this crisis should have been made about ten years ago, and even a major policy shift now would take years to come into effect. Since there is no sign of a fundamental shift – and only delays in implementation – it is almost certain that things can only get worse. The question isn’t whether Rushi Sunak’s bung to help with energy bills is enough (we know it isn’t). It’s whether he can repeat it and increase it year after year. And we know he can’t.

We are creeping up on what is set to be a national emergency, where there is now a high probability of mandatory energy rationing through smart meters in order to stave off rolling blackouts. The poorest will be punished with predatory surge pricing.

This has reignited the old arguments over fracking, and there are signs that Net Zero is set to be as divisive as Brexit in the Tory party, as much of the parliamentary party takes its lead from the green blob. The government has ordered the sealing of shale wells in Lancashire in a move reminiscent with Labour’s scrapping of TSR-2. There is no hint of realisation how serious our predicament is. Boris Johnson has locked us into a disastrous policy that will destroy more jobs than Net Zero hopes to create.

It’s certainly true that fracking is no silver bullet but no government can afford to take any options of the table, particularly when we’re buying gas off the spot market (when it’s the most expensive) to plug the gaps in the dead of winter. You would think this would be an open goal for any serious opposition, but Labour’s policy is to rob Peter to pay Paul rather than addressing the systemic dysfunction in our energy policy.

Ultimately we should have replaced our nuclear stations at least a decade ago, but inflation of safety requirements have increased costs and created considerable technical problems and delays. We could still replace our lost nuclear capacity, but we’d need to be on a war footing to accomplish it any time before 2032, which isn’t going to be in time. Arguably we are better placed to cut through the red tape now that we are out of the EU. It’s starting to look like the culmination of EU and member states green energy policies will dwarf the cost of Brexit. It’s a shame we couldn’t get out twenty years sooner.

For the interim there is no cheap option for energy. Exorbitant bills are here to stay thanks to two decades of intensified climate virtue signalling. Those chickens are coming home to roost just as the world economy is reeling from the shock of Covid, and when China has cornered the market on critical minerals. For most life is going to get harder and it’s hard to overstate just how big of a mess we’re in. If you thought Brexit was was politically turbulent, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The Great Net Zero Deception

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 14:37:47 GMT

Net Zero is a dangerous fantasy

Across the nation, developers are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of receiving vast subsidies for plastering the countryside with useless solar panels . Nobody wins from this policy except for the already rich. If you own the land and have sufficient capital to turn good farm land over to black rectangles then you’re quids in.

It says a lot about our current trade and agriculture policy that there’s little money to be made by using the land to produce food. We’re instead looking at plastering our green and pleasant land with hectares of panels to produce very little energy.

UKIP opposes the development of solar farms. To begin with the UK is not known to be the sunniest of places and solar will mainly produce energy when we need it the least. The only way this could work (in theory) is by storing the energy in batteries. Battery storage at scale, however, simply isn’t a viable proposition. Stored energy rapidly degrades and to cope with the intermittency of renewables, we’d need enough to last weeks and months. Battery storage has only limited use as as short term compensator, taking the place of system inertia that came with more conventional generation.

From whichever angle you examine Net Zero, the transition to “green energy” is underpinned by some childishly optimistic assumptions, with no regard to the astronomical costs involved – which are only going to rise. A new analysis shows that even with three times the installed renewable capacity, we have little hope of meeting the Net Zero target, and it’s all on the faulty presumption that battery storage can plug the gaps. We’d need 100,000 times the Minety battery, Europe’s largest operating battery – and for everything to be performing in optimal conditions.

Renewable energy companies claim that their “green energy” is cheaper, quoting the price they sell to the grid, but that doesn't take into account the costs of batteries and the complete re-engineering of the grid to cope with intermittent supplies. We are told this must work in conjunction with demand side management, but it’s hard to establish how they will bring down energy demand when they’re presently driving us all towards heat pumps and electric cars. Not only are we having to pay through our bills for the complete transformation of the energy grid, we have to fork out for more expensive cars and new heating systems – whether we can afford it or not.

The green lobby has gone into overdrive to stop any new fracking, claiming that it won’t bring down our bills. They may be right, but to say that their Net Zero transition is in any way the cheaper option, or even technically viable is a flat lie. Moreover, solar requires forty times the area of a fracking site to produce 1/20 of the energy. There’s nothing green about solar, particularly when you consider the minerals they’re made of, where they come from and how they’re extracted.

The green energy transition is a techno-utopian fantasy, and though it sounds superficially plausible, it fails any reality test you want to throw at it. It may be a desirable model for the distant future, but in all likelihood a better idea will arrive in the meantime. Net Zero, though, means ramming through half baked ideas at enormous cost, at a time when we can least afford it.

It’s all very well quoting the factory gate efficiency stats for heat pumps and and the installed capacity of wind turbines, but it’s how it all plays out in the real world that matters. Will a heat pump withstand a salty north sea gale or wet Pennine fog for months on end? What happens when the wind doesn’t blow? How do the costs stack up when there’s a global rush for minerals and industrial transmission cables? There are too many technical questions to which all we get is obfuscation and more fantasising.

The reality of renewables means we’re paying substantially more for grid balancing in the dead of winter. The UK has very limited coal flexibility to call on when the wind drops, making the system reliant on gas-fired units, for which spot prices rose from 126 pence per therm Sept. 1 to 200 p/therm on Sept. 30. Meanwhile, subsidies for offshore wind continue to ri se. Ramping gas plant up and down to support wind means we're paying top dollar for gas to burn it in the least efficient way.

Elsewhere, we see reality intruding on the rollout of EVs. An automotive journalist describing his recent experience notes that a trip that should take about an hour and a half took him the better part of five hours in an EV. When they say electric cars are cheaper to run, they place no value on your time. Moreover, there’s an inherent sexism to it in that nobody has thought about the potential danger to women as they’re forced to stand around at night waiting for their car to charge.

The danger here is that without a reality check on Net Zero, we’ll build all that extra renewable infrastructure but still face exactly the same energy crunch only to find we’ve maxed the national credit card and the public simply doesn’t have the spare cash to pay more taxes. We’re then looking at energy and fuel rationing. We are told that Net Zero means cheaper, greener electricity but what it means in practice is a more austere lifestyle with less freedom to travel. This is not human progress.

With geopolitical stresses rising, food and fuel prices going up, and wages stagnating, it is the duty of any government to prioritise the cheapest energy it can. Successive administrations have dropped the ball, largely outsourcing energy policy to the EU, meaning there is now no quick fix, and nothing that will make a dent in under a decade. Consequently all options must be on the table even if that means fracking, new north sea exploration and re-opening coal mines. The delusions of eco-fanatics will have to wait.

Net Zero: the rise of eco-fascism

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 13:28:49 GMT

Ukip will end the renewable energy rip-off

Most Tory MPs support Net Zero. They’re doubling down on it. They’ve convinced themselves that Net Zero is not only kinder to the environment, it will also bring down our energy bills. For that to happen we all have to insulate our homes, install a heat pump, switch to electric vehicles and install an energy rationing meter. You’re paying for it, naturally.

The theory is that we’ll be using the energy we don’t use to heat our homes to charge electric cars instead. You plug in your car at 6pm after work (for those lucky enough not to be still stuck in traffic), tell your charging app you need it at 80 percent charge by 8am in the morning and the car gets charged in cheapest possible way, and the grid will tank off your battery if it needs to during demand surges.

This is not by any means a new concept. They were talking about this back in 2007 in the belief that by now the EV revolution would be well underway. Still though, the case for electric cars is not made, thus the case for the smart grid is not made.

The immediate barrier is the impact for poorer households. The useful life of an EV battery degrades over time. It’s improving but it’s still the case that a new EV battery installation will set you back the better part of £10k. This mattered less when the average age of cars on British roads was quite young, but with the pandemic putting the brakes on new vehicle uptake in 2020, the average car on our roads is now the oldest since records began some 20 years ago. That is set to continue. As living costs rise, disposable income declines and car purchases are delayed – and consequently, so is the EV revolution. EV’s are not set to get any cheaper either. Lithium prices rose 478.3% between January 2021 and January 2022.

We are told that battery life is far less of an issue now, but the data doesn’t give us real world scenarios for an average car in its second decade of life. It is then when most of the problems will occur. Nor is there any data on what smart grid draining does to battery life.

Moreover, smart grid ideology (for that’s what it is) is contingent on everyone living to a statistically average routine which works on spreadsheets just fine, but it doesn’t account for how life throws curveballs at us all the time. Surge pricing will ultimately means the rich get to cook their dinner when they want it, the poor sit in their coats and wait to eat later. They haven’t factored in the effect of predatory surge pricing on shift workers either.

Net Zero, at its heart, is not about saving the planet or more efficient use of energy. It’s about changing your behaviour – moving us from a model where we cook dinner and use the washing machine when we want, to doing it when we can afford to. This is not progress.

Through subsidies they’ve incentivised the building of intermittent energy and penalised baseload by way of the CfD scheme, driving us towards a capacity shortage when the wind doesn’t blow, creating a whole new rush for short term top up generation which attracts an eyewatering price per MWh. This cost must be added to the cost of wind in order to fully appreciate how much wind energy really costs us. Green activists often quote the price per Mwh, but that’s not the price you pay.

It is this system that baked in a permanent capacity shortage. Demand management is sensible to shave unexpected peaks, but is not supposed to be a tool to manage structural, deliberately imposed shortage.

Green activists say that battery storage can plug the gap, but this is a fantasy. The majority of large-scale batteries are be able to provide power for 30-90 minutes. Several gigawatts of capacity can act as a buffer in the same way conventional power station inertia does, but it cannot keep the grid running over sustained periods when then the wind doesn’t blow and demand is high. As much as wind substantially contributes to rising bills, plugging the shortfall means relying on coal and biomass, and fossil fuels which are penalised with carbon taxes.

No amount of green NGO obfuscation changes the fact that every MW of a installed renewable energy capacity must have equivalent conventional backup. Intermittent energy cannot serve as baseload. The only way renewable energy can be considered baseload is when it’s predictable, thus the only viable renewable energy (ie not requiring subsidy) is imported wind and solar from Morocco, but this is transmitted over long distances and carried inherent security risks equal to that of oil and gas.

The fact of the matter is that there isn’t a cheap option – and perhaps there never was, but if there was, that window is now firmly closed thanks to three decades of policy neglect, where politicians favoured the eco-virtue signalling over the real world needs of the economy. We must now explore every possible option to bring down energy costs. UK gas fields could be supplying us on a long-term, fixed price contract. It probably won’t be enough to bring down our bills but may be enough prevent them rising further. We also need to rethink carbon taxes and our attitudes to coal. Modern coal burners are several times more efficient than the old stations we demolished. We should have replaced them on a one for one basis.

The Tories can bleat about “levelling up” but there is no chance of that without first getting serious about energy costs – and that means getting real about fossil fuels. We are not going to reach the Net Zero target and fossil fuels will be with us for a long time yet. The race to abolish them is an act of self-sabotage and nobody is following our “climate leadership”.

The renewable energy sector have always had very powerful lobby, and they’ve manipulated the discourse for years. Like the claim that Brexit was funded by shadowy Russian influences, they claim renewable energy sceptics are funded by “big oil”. They talk as though there weren’t big money backing the renewable industry, largely because of the generous subsidies and the elimination of risk. They’ve consistently lied about how much energy wind turbines actually produce, they lie about the service life of turbines and they lie about the cost to the consumer. They have well remunerated activists and advocates, and gullible MPs work directly off their briefings. It’s a constant game of misdirection and they’ll equivocate like a Rotherham social worker.

Net Zero advocates push for a whole range of sub optimal technologies which cannot survive without subsidy, that few would choose were there not deliberate market distortions in their favour. All of it is predicated on the assumption that government can subside heat pumps, insulation and electric vehicles, and that consumers can be endlessly milked – without ever adjusting their assumptions to take into account the effects of Brexit, Covid and global supply shocks.

The more you examine Net Zero, the more it looks to be a blend of middle class utopian high fantasy and eco-fascism, as the entire economy is deliberately steered toward the green industrial policy. You could be forgiven for thinking it was little to do with curbing emissions and is more likely the spasm of a shell-shocked establishment that believes it must do something in response to Brexit. To this day they still believe Brexit was caused by austerity, thus a redistributive industrial policy ensures we won’t vote the wrong way again. This is ultimately a form of socialism, and will have roughly the same consequences – power cuts, stagnation, mass unemployment and civil unrest.

It’s true that there was a policy vacuum in the wake of Brexit. The Brexit vote demanded a national stock take and a change of direction, but Net Zero has filled that void being that the Brexiteer cupboard was bare. The Tories don’t know what they stand for or how to deliver it, and in the absence of any big ideas, they’ve gone with the globalist meme of Net Zero. In that regard, Net Zero is not a departure from stultifying EU policy agendas. It’s an acceleration of policies that began with the Large Combustion Plant Directive and the Renewables Directive.

Though Boris Johnson has appointed Jacob Rees-Mogg as a Brexit opportunities minister, this is merely throwing a bone to the Boris fanboys who still think Johnson is getting Brexit done. Rees-Mogg himself is appealing for the public to write in with suggestions as to which EU regulations should be struck out . Were there coherent Brexit agenda he wouldn’t need to ask. Moreover, this is a non-job. Mr Rees-Mogg can sit there with his red pen and strike out piffling regulations, but nothing he does will be allowed to interfere with the flagship Net Zero policy. Yet again we’re being taken for fools by Johnson.

As Aris Roussinos writes in Unherd , in an article not dissimilar to those found on the UKIP website recently, “it will be necessary for the Conservatives to have some time on the Opposition benches to determine what they stand for, and what their vision of the Britain of the near future is”. Net Zero isn’t going to cut it and until the Tories have a notion of what Brexit is supposed to be for, it’s not going to translate into the revolution many of us hoped it would be. Boris Johnson has gone native.

Net Zero: ours is not to reason why...

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 15:28:50 GMT

Net Zero: the agenda is set and we don't get a say

Remainers, lockdowners and greenies are all basically the same people. They all have the same basic demand… that we all unquestioningly go along with whatever’s been decided for us without our input or consent.

Veterans of the culture wars will know this all too well. Every issue is split right down the middle where there’s no room for nuance where even the slightest scepticism has you branded a “denier/racist”. There is no point is entering any debate because those who’ve decided which trench they live in are not going to be persuaded of anything.

In every case the demand from the left is not that we consider a body of evidence. Rather, any disagreement or refusal to go along with what we are told is somehow a moral failing. The agenda has already been decided, you don’t get a say, and to take issue with any of it is career suicide if you want to climb the greasy pole in media and politics. This is ultimately why everything has to crash and burn before anything improves. Nobody in the establishment dare go against the grain. Not even the PM.

We don’t yet know what Johnson’s shuffling of deckchairs will do policy wise but if you were hoping the man might take a hint and maybe try some conservative policies, the signs are not good. The PM has just appointed Andrew Griffith as his new policy chief. His previous role? The UK’s official Net Zero Business Champion.

All the same, the green lobby on Twitter has convinced itself that Johnson may row back on Net Zero. They’re worried. It’s amazing how a government subsidy scheme creates evangelical advocates.

One thing you notice about these green NGOs and lobby groups on Twitter is they’re all fronted by telegenic PR girlies (of both sexes) who have no idea of the practical realities of what they propose – and never bother to check how their ideas panned out in the past. They propose heat pumps as though it’s grand solution that will revitalise the economy and create jobs. But they said that about rooftop solar panels – which turned out to be a giant expensive failure – and twenty years later, nobody bothered to replace the subsidised ones.

Heat pumps will play out just the same. Middle class property millionaires will take the bung from the government to install a heat pump but that’s as far as proliferation will get when they’re badly installed and home owners are bogged down in legal action against installers. The government will want to expand the programme for houses that really aren’t designed for them, don’t have the space, and then less well off people will be lumbered with a box of mechanical problems and a cold house. They’ll end up using expensive electric radiators from B&Q.

Then the green lobby will say they don’t work because we haven’t spent enough on insulation, where again their solution is simply not appropriate for UK housing stock – ie terraces designed around a chimney. That will then cause major damp problems .

One by one the practical difficulties will mount up, saddling people with debts to sort it all out – only they can’t get a new gas boiler so their only option will be electric storage heaters they can’t afford to run. The only people who will do well out of it are cowboy builders who don’t know how to properly site or install heat pumps, who will then vanish into the woodwork, leaving homeowners high and dry. Them and the ambulance chasing lawyers.

The transition to electric vehicles looks like a similar disaster in the making. Nobody serious thinks there is a realistic chance of transitioning in time to meet the 2050 target, and unless the public sees a real benefit in them, it won’t happen at all. EV’s have a projected life of only eight years and are typically about 20 to 30 per cent heavier than their petrol or diesel counterparts. When you add in the costs of infrastructure, the numbers don’t add up. A petrol Mondeo run for twenty years will have a lower carbon footprint.

Similarly, the Daily Mail recalls the dash for diesel. It began more than 20 years ago when the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, announced a new car tax system favouring vehicles with lower emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Diesel cars tend to be more fuel-efficient with lower emissions, and Mr Brown hailed them as the greener and cheaper option. Over a decade and a half, the number of such vehicles on British roads quadrupled. What didn’t emerge until much later — although it was no secret in the motor industry or among government officials — was that diesel cars also emitted greater quantities of other pollutants, nitrogen oxides and particulates that damage air quality and human health. But that, at the time, was considered “climate leadership”.

The Mail also notes that a study by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that almost all electric car subsidies go to the wealthiest 20 per cent, for whom the purchase of an extra car is no great sacrifice. In addition, 90 per cent of electric car owners also have a fossil-fuel vehicle they use for longer journeys.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that new greenfield housing developments are locking residents into car dependency, making everyday journeys impossible without a vehicle. The group Transport for New Homes (TfNH) visited 20 new housing developments in England, finding that while those on urban brownfield sites generally lived up to sustainable transport pledges, greenfield sites were often far from shops and amenities, without public transport, cycling links or even pavements, and the homes themselves were seemingly designed around car parking.

We might venture there would be less demand to move away from cities were they not turning into overcrowded multicultural slums with bad schools, grooming gangs, drugs and crime. It’s as though the government should focus on doing what people actually do want, and get a grip on immigration.

And that really is the thing isn’t it? Nobody asked for a Net Zero green energy transition. Nobody is asking for heat pumps or electric cars. If there were an organic demand they won’t need subsidies amounting to tens of billions. What people actually want is an affordable decent sized home in an area that isn’t derelict, a job that pays enough to raise a family, a commute that doesn’t suck up every free hour and every penny of disposable income, and a half way functioning healthcare system. Net Zero is very much the preoccupation of the politico-media class based on their naïve utopian fantasies.

But like the EU project, Net Zero is their agenda, their grand plan, and their gravy train. What the public wants or needs doesn’t come into it. They’ll do it to us whether we want it or not, even if it means driving us into poverty.

Boris Johnson shouldn’t need advisers in Number 10. His advice should be from the electorate. Deport illegals, secure the borders and scrap Net Zero is all the advice he should need. That could very well save his ailing premiership – but he’s not the one in control. The green blob and the NGOcracy are calling the shots and the people have no champion.

The establishment is taking back control

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 11:44:31 GMT

While Johnson is asleep at the wheel democracy is being erased

Should he stay or should he go? That is the question. We don’t care. It makes not one jot of difference. Boris Johnson has proved one thing beyond all doubt. The PM isn’t in control. The bureaucrats are. They will see to it that their agenda is pressed home regardless of who you vote for. You’re getting a Net Zero non-Brexit whether you want it or not. They aren’t going to stop the Dover invasion. Britain is headed for the doldrums as taxes spiral and energy costs price the poorest out of heating. You voted Johnson but you got Ed Miliband.

There was a window for a Brexit revolution but is has now slammed shut under Johnson. The NGOcrats and wonks have moved in and taken over to put things back how they were. We won’t re-join the EU but they’ll do their damndest to make it like we never left. Johnson is asleep at the wheel. He won’t lift a finger.

Meanwhile, we’re expected to swallow the giant con that is “levelling up”. Levelling up was supposed to be a replacement for the EU’s regional policy, introduced by Heath. The fact that there is no money attached to this policy initiative means that Johnson is short-changing us on the Brexit cash dividend, not returning the savings from not paying the UK contribution. More to the point, there is no economic bounce-back without resolving energy costs. Instead, they’re pressing ahead with a policy agenda which is of zero benefit to ordinary people. Presumably that’s why it’s called Net Zero.

But this isn’t just a matter of piling on costs for hard working families. This is also a moral issue. Johnson has no mandate to do this. Nobody voted for a massive programme of meddling in our lives. Johnson was elected to get Brexit done, not to drive up our heating bills and restrict our movement.

It’s not even as though it will contribute to a reduction in emissions. All it’s likely to do is drive manufacturing overseas to places where there are no emissions or pollution controls. They know this which is why they’re mulling a carbon border taxes, essentially winding back on three decades of trade liberalisation under the WTO regime, making everything more expensive. So much for “free trade”.

Moreover, it stands to be more polluting. Lithium-ion batteries needed for EVs depend on the extraction of minerals in South America. Lithium extraction inevitably harms the soil and causes air contamination. As demand rises, the mining impacts are increasingly affecting communities where this harmful extraction takes place, jeopardising their access to water. This is anything but green.

They claim it will create jobs, but every pound spent on Net Zero is a pound taken out of our pockets. This the same old central economic planning that has failed everywhere it’s been tried. It will create jobs for ambulance chasing legal firms as they dole out compensation for the misselling of heat pumps and insulation, but that’s about it.

Whether Johnson stays or goes is neither here nor there. This is what we’re getting either way. This isn’t a democracy. You don’t get a say. The 2016 referendum was the first and only meaningful vote for decades – and the powers that be will make sure it’s the last. If then Johnson must be forced out of office, then let it be for his massive betrayal of the British people rather than his lockdown shindigs.

There is only one party that is sincere about taking back control – and that’s UKIP. We’re now running out of time to save Britain before the NGOcrats and “experts” run it into the floor and before our cities become third world colonies. If you’re voting Tory to keep Labour out you need to wake up and start voting for the one party that will do what it’s elected to do.

This Tory government doesn’t care what you think. It won’t deport foreign criminals and it will hide behind “activist lawyers”, they couldn’t care less about the endemic grooming of girls in our towns and cities, and they couldn’t care less about driving you into poverty. You’re just a pawn in their game. They treat Britain like their own private trainset to do with as they please.

The next election could prove to be the most important of all. A silent clock is ticking for Britain. Each election becomes that little bit more meaningless as the establishment tightens is stranglehold on the apparatus of government. They won’t stop us having elections so as to keep up the outward appearance of democracy, but they will move to ensure their incumbency is never threatened again.

For the time being our votes still have some residual power, but don’t bet on that lasting into the next decade. Across the world, the iron curtains are going up around public buildings and security beefed up for politicians. They’re afraid – and they have reason to be. They know what they’re doing is not what any of us wants. They’re preparing to go to war with the people. We must vote to ensure we don’t have to reciprocate.

The next few years will see a ramping up of climate histrionics. They’re already bleating about the “climate emergency” because the more severe the threat, the greater the justification for grabbing powers that aren’t theirs. This is a coup by the global elites and Net Zero is their trojan horse. Vote no while you still can. Join UKIP today.

Boris Johnson has abandoned Brexit

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 15:06:28 GMT

Johnson will choose Net Zero over Brexit

‘Twere only yesterday we remarked that “Many of the reforms we need not only means going up against the green blob, it flies in the face of Johnson’s flagship Net Zero policy. At some point he is going to have to choose between Brexit and Net Zero. He cannot fudge the issue”.

Writing in a similar vein, Ben Marlow in the Telegraph writes “the sad reality is that because of Boris’s own searing incompetence, at the heart of a government that is now hopelessly adrift, this country has resolutely failed to take advantage of any of the major benefits that were to be had, or at least we were repeatedly told were to be had, from casting ourselves adrift from the European Union.”

Elsewhere the Telegraph reports that a plan devised by Lord Frost, the UK’s former Brexit negotiator, to cut two retained EU regulations for every one written has been dropped. It was said not to fit in with Mr Johnson’s ambitions to cut Britain’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.

The news that Mr Johnson had spared EU rules from the chop in favour of his green agenda emerged just a day after he promised to cut a billion pounds’ worth of regulation carried over into UK law and published a document called “The Benefits of Brexit: How the UK is taking advantage of leaving the EU”.

In the paper, the Government argued the “one-in-two-out rule” was not “consistent with delivering world-class regulation to support the economy in adapting to a new wave of technological revolution or to achieving net zero”.

We would point out that the “one-in-two-out rule” is not a coherent basis on which to deregulate, and any approach to deregulation must be with a view to systemic reform rather than timid pruning here and there to suit the demands of Tory donors. The very concept of “one-in-two-out rule” is a gimmick that’s been doing the rounds since before David Cameron.

What is clear, however, is that when push comes to shove, Johnson will choose Net Zero over Brexit. We didn’t have to wait long to see which way he would swing.

The one thing we’re not getting from this government is any detail as to what the Brexit Freedoms Bill does entail, though it appears to be an executive freedoms bill, giving ministers power to revise regulation without the input of parliament.

Precisely what value parliament can add, being that half of them think men have a cervix, and get their information from select committees stuffed with NGOcrats and green think tanks, is debatable – but cutting parliament out of the loop on regulation surely flies in the face of Brexit’s aim to democratise the process. Though one cannot help but enjoy the irony of po-faced remainers now demanding parliament has a say in which EU rules are on the statute book. There’s a first time for everything!

That said, it scarcely matters either way now. Boris Johnson has abandoned Brexit, and anything he presents to parliament will only be criticised insofar as it doesn’t go far enough or fast enough to meet the Net Zero target. We cannot rely on our so-called representatives to question measures that will restrict our mobility or drive up our heating bills. We are effectively without democratic representation. Thus, Net Zero is as big an affront to democracy as the European Union. This is the politics of the establishment at its worst.

The upshot is that our regulatory regime will remain in lockstep with that of the EU, meaning that by leaving the EU, we'll have sacrificed considerable volumes in EU trade to carry on as though we were still a member. The sole gain of Brexit thus far has been to end freedom of movement, but Patel is quietly reversing that decision by way of stealth amnesties for illegal immigrants, while the trade minister mulls visa liberalisation for Indians.

Though we never had any faith in Johnson’s deregulation agenda, it now looks like the Tories are sweeping Brexit under the rug, and doing all they can to pretend it never happened. Instead we’re getting heat pumps, windmills and electric cars that won’t make it as far as Luton from London in a light snow shower. Bills are going up, our savings will be eaten away, and the Tories couldn’t care less.

If you were hoping for a conservative turnaround after the partygate fiasco, you’ve had your answer. It’s “f*ck you” – as usual.

Be part of the solution - Join UKIP

mrnorth303@gmail.com (Pete North) — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 12:12:18 GMT

UKIP proved that change is possible

It was pretty much a given that standards in pubic life would take a hiatus when Boris Johnson took office. But when that building has hosted Tony Blair and John Major, it’s a little bit precious to be speaking as though any of this was unprecedented. Hypocrisy goes with the territory.

But those who are bleating on about it should probably take a time out to consider why they’ve failed to depose the PM. For a time, just before Christmas, it looked like they might succeed, but every day they push it now, the more it begins to irritate and bore the general public to the point where the balance of sympathy ends up on Johnson’s side.

There’s also that small matter of what they seek to replace him with. Johnson isn’t the crisis. The deeper political crisis is that we have the likes of Boris Johnson and Priti Patel and no matter how bad they get, no matter how useless they are, they are always preferable to the available alternatives.

We seem somehow to have drifted into the politics of extreme oppositism. The Tories (notionally) want to secure the borders, thus Labour wants open borders. The Tories want to end lockdowns so Labour wants to double down. Labour have a talent for positioning themselves in the least popular position on everything from Covid to transgender rights. When it comes to Net Zero, Labour would go harder and faster on all the worst aspects of this Tory flagship policy. Everything is performative, nothing is evaluated.

For a long time now the Tories have been able to get away with saying “at least we’re not Labour”, and though in recent months that has been far less persuasive, it will still be a deciding factor at the next election. And it’s why the Tories will win – albeit with a reduced majority. By all rights they should lose on the basis of their performance, but Labour will save their bacon. Labour manages a unique blend of gormlessness, obnoxiousness and grubbiness that the Tories at their worst could never match.

Moreover, there aren’t any alternatives to Boris Johnson in the Tory party either. There are certainly less frivolous and outwardly more sensible people, but one notices the centrist tendency is even worse than Johnson on Net Zero, more inclined to slavishly do the bidding of spreadsheet pushers, and apparently very eager to have us back at war with someone. None of which is better than the shambles we presently endure.

At this point, we might as well accept that this carnival of sub-mediocrity is the best our system, as is presently constituted, can produce. This is as good as it gets without a major overhaul – which we won’t get, not least because the people who propose systemic reform are among the worst people in politics. See Lucas, Caroline. The supposedly good and decent people (as opposed to Boris Johnson) are the narcissistic virtue signallers who scramble on to every passing bandwagon – whose politics are closer to Stroud than Doncaster.

As is so often the case the real opposition can be found on the Tory benches. If the insanity of Net Zero is to be brought down, then it will be the usual bunch of backstabbing bastards , but as with Brexit, the majority of parliament is out of synch with the public. That’s why we sill need a UKIP to make them afraid for their jobs and remind them who they work for. They didn’t get the message last time, and we have to keep reminding them.

When it comes to it, these people aren’t capable of thinking outside their own dismal little boxes. The push for electric cars says everything about how they think. It never occurs to them that productive people need readily available long distance mobility, and perhaps don’t have a drive way or private charging station. Nor do homeowners have the spare cash to downgrade to a heat pump or subsidise windmills. MPs just charge the heating bills for their second homes to their expenses.

Their attitudes to immigration are similar in that the immigrants they know are all from well-to-do internationalist families, and not the machete weilding child groomers they witlessly unleash on Wigan and Leicester – maintaining the fiction that Dover invaders are refugees. In their eyes the problem isn’t that we’re importing scroungers and rapists – it’s that we’re allowed to talk about it – which they will soon fix with their Online Safety Bill.

On that score there isn’t much of a difference between Labour and the Tories. We can be reasonably assured that the deadbeat middle class Tory clone hoping to replace David Amess will adopt socially convenient positions on everything from Net Zero to immigration. It says a lot that MPs these days are so politically similar that there is no ideological barrier to crossing the floor.

Like it or not, this is the system we’re stuck with until the public breaks from traditional voting habits, and that may never happen. But UKIP proved that change is possible through small and persistent actions. We don’t have to win seats to call the shots. We just have to make a decent dent. And that is possible if you decide to be part of the solution.