If UKIP is the answer then the question must be something like ‘what would be the daftest vote I could make on May 22nd?’. This week has seen the tables turning on the Far Right UK Independence Party who were showing 44% in the opinion polls at the beginning of the month and now appear to have plummeted to 15% after a concerted campaign exposing their real policies from people all across the country shocked and alarmed by the parties apparent popularity built on a platform of No to Europe, No to Immigration and , hysterically, No to the ‘Establishment’.
In Bridgwater this week dozens of people sick to death of UKIP were out delivering 1,000’s of leaflets produced by the Hope Not Hate group entitled ‘Choose Hope Over Fear-Why UKIP is NOT the party for you’.
This week Somerset Labour Web itself made the Sunday Politics show on the BBC as web editor Cllr Brian Smedley was filmed defending his anti-UKIP feature provocatively entitled ‘Invasion of the Brain Snatchers’.
Cllr Smedley said “ The programme tried to portray the piece as us calling UKIP voters brain dead zombies, but in fact it was a plea to people to see through that party’s own populist gloss and try to question them to find out what they were really about. They use emotive slogans to wind people up and then simply don’t care what havoc they unleash in their wake. The country temporarily became a nastier place when the BNP did this last time round and the same thing is happening again with UKIP. Migrant workers are being targeted yet people are not told the simple fact that while 2 million European workers are in the UK 2 million Brits are working abroad.”
“UKIP say they’re anti establishment yet Farage –a Millionaire public school educated former Thatcherite Tory Banker is the most classic example of the Establishment you could get! They’re trying to fool people with simplistic slogans and the real message of our article is that people should challenge them for what they’re really about. They’re a bunch of shady right wing Tories who want to take this country back to the 1980’s. Of course, if that’s what people want then they should vote for them, but I think people are in danger of being taken in. Farage, is presented as an ordinary bloke in a pub – but in truth he’s the classic pub bore which you can find scores of all over the country, most of whom you can forget about at closing time – but most of who don’t have his money, financial backers and friends in the media.”
UKIP: ‘no friend to British workers’
Another angry criticism of UKIP this week came from the Bridgwater Trades Council whose Secretary Dave Chapple said “ Workers considering voting for UKIP in the forthcoming European elections would be voting against their own interests, Workers should think very hard, and read the small print on UKIP’s manifesto, before giving UKIP their vote. Workers voting for UKIP would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. Apart from their offensive and racist scapegoating of foreign workers – as if migrant workers, instead of bankers and corporate tax dodgers, are to blame for our economic problems – UKIP have said they want to abolish all workers’ rights, including maternity pay and maternity rights. They want to privatise the NHS and scrap state pensions. Their proposal to introduce a flat rate of tax would mean that the rich would pay the same as those on lower incomes. They also want to scrap rules to curb tax avoidance by big companies. UKIP and its policies are dangerous for British workers! UKIP and its backers are friends of big business and opposed to the interests of working people.Zero hours, part-time contracts and low pay, combined with attacks on benefits in the name of “austerity” are the evils which are destroying the standard of living of British workers. To combat these attacks, we need more workers’ rights and strong unions. UKIP is no friend to workers in Britain”.
‘Racist Populism’
As leaflets spread across Bridgwater, delivered by volunteers from across the Political spectrum angry at UKIP’s negative campaign, the National Media also seemed to develop a conscience. Gone were the days of ‘Asylum seekers eat our donkeys’ and ‘Migrants take ALL new jobs in Britain’ (these are 2 genuine headlines) and in come daily revelations about cracks in the UKIP façade. Today it’s UKIP’s ethnic minority poster girl Sanya-Jeet Thandi sensationally quitting the party, slamming them for “descending into a form of racist populism”. The 21 year old LSE student claims that: “This anti-immigrant campaign undermines Ukip’s claim not to be a racist party. They are turning the election into a game of “us” and “them”. Well, I am with “them””:
And then came Magnus Nielsen, who is standing for the party in West Hampstead suggesting that the decision to extend the vote to middle class people and women in the nineteenth century was a mistake which should be reversed, “I sometimes think the people who fought for the vote in 1832 and 1888 and so forth, trying to extend the franchise were probably doing the wrong thing . I think perhaps we should start reducing the franchise.”….so much for UKIP accusing others of thinking voters are stupid!
Brian Smedley said “UKIP are not being honest about what their real policies are. If you vote for UKIP in the EU elections on May 22nd, the main result will be to strengthen the Far Right in Europe. It’s fair to say you can judge a Party by the friends it keeps.”