Toby on Tuesday
“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!”
Last week I wrote about UKIP’s one MP in the House of Commons,
Douglas Carswell. Today, I want to write about our one Scottish Member
of the European Parliament, David Coburn. But first, let me tell you
what he is up against – the SNP and its mercurial leader, Nicola
Sturgeon. To illustrate this, last week she was in the United States
where she was a guest of the Daily Show’s arch-interrogator, Jon
Stewart. Their conversation went like this:
Jon Stewart: “The SNP won 56 out of 59 seats…it was unprecedented.”
Nicola Sturgeon: “ I’ve ordered an enquiry into how come we didn’t win those other three. It reports directly to me.”
Jon Stewart: “Those other three? You think you’re Saddam Hussein? You want 99%? 56 out of 59 is pretty good.”
Nicola Sturgeon: “Well you know, I always think you should aim for more.”
Last week too, the EU Referendum Bill passed its next stage in the
House of Commons. The House was virtually united on this, with even the
Labour Party now supporting the Bill, and the voting was 544 for the
measure with only 53 against. And you can guess where those 53 votes
came from – of course, from the SNP. They never stop demanding another
Referendum on Scottish independence, but when the whole of the British
people ask for a vote for the first time in 40 years on our EU
relationship, democracy for them stops there. Together, these two
episodes sum up the SNP’s unique combination of thuggish totalitarianism
and brazen hypocrisy.
UKIP’s response also has two strands, both typically sensible. The
first is financial, as set out in our General Election manifesto. This
recommends the end of the Barnet Formula for Scotland, where public
spending runs at some £1,400 head more annually than the UK average, and
calls for “substantial reductions in funding for Scotland, but, as the
Scottish government is to have significant further powers over taxation,
borrowing and spending in due course, it can make its own decision as
to whether to raise taxes or cut public spending to balance the books.”
The second response, which our Scots MEP David Coburn deploys with great
skill, is humour. He has already riled his opponents with his somewhat
politically incorrect jibes, comparing Nicola Sturgeon to Lady Macbeth
and Green Party leader Natalie Bennett to Dame Edna Everage. And he says
that Nicola Sturgeon’s “national socialism” is “killing Scotland” –
“The SNP are worthy of the Stasi in East Germany” he says, “I find it
terrifying.”
But there is serious purpose behind the humour and when the
other day the SNP argued for a “double lock” on the EU Referendum, with
a “No” vote” required in Scotland as well as in the whole of the UK
before a “Brexit”, he declared, “We came into the EU as one United
Kingdom, we came into the EU together, so we will leave together. The
Scottish people clearly decided that they wanted to remain as part of
the United Kingdom so any talk of the double lock mechanism makes a
mockery of the Scottish people’s decision. We respected the result, now
they must too.”
Of course, the one good thing that the SNP have done is to have swept
away Labour’s rotten boroughs across Scotland. This is exactly what
UKIP must do across the North of England, but all that’s for another
day!
Until next Tuesday!
Toby
Toby on Tuesday
‘Glass half full…’
I am a glass half-full man. Every situation presents
challenges and it’s easy to take too bleak a view of events. Of course
it’s outrageous that, under First Past the Post, it took UKIP 3.8
million votes to gain one MP. By contrast, it took the SNP only 25,970
votes for each MP and, in England, the Conservative Party needed just
32,900 votes and the Labour Party just 39,300 for each MP. Under PR we
would have won over 80 seats but the upside of events is that our one
MP is the formidable Douglas Carswell, who is really worth over 80 MP’s
on his own. So in many ways our glass is indeed half-full, as one
really good MP is worth 80 of the mindless hacks who fill up so much of
the other parties’ benches.
And to prove this, you only have to read Douglas’ 2012 masterpiece,
“The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy”. Despite its bleak
analysis this is an optimistic book declaring, “The West is in crisis.
Governments have grown too big, living beyond their means – and ours.
The true costs of extra officialdom have been concealed. Parasitical
politicians have been hopeless at holding to account the elites who now
preside over us. As a result, Western nations are mired in debt and
chronically misgoverned. Should we despair? Actually, no.”
And the same positive spirit was behind Douglas’ response last week
to the Queen’s Speech when he said, “I may be my party’s only voice in
the House of Commons, but I shall speak on behalf of not only my
constituents, but the millions who voted for my party. I may have only
one vote in the Division Lobby, but I shall use it to support Ministers
when they do sensible things, to oppose the Government when they are
being daft, and, when I think it is possible to improve things, to try
to amend things to make them better. I imagine that I will oppose much
of what this Government do. I regret what is not in the Queen’s
Speech as much as I support what is in it. There is a failure to
introduce meaningful political reform. There is nothing in it that
will make the Government more properly accountable to Parliament and
Parliament more properly answerable to the people. There is little in
it to disperse power outward and downward, or to personalise public
services in the way I think they need to be. When I challenge the
Government’s shortcomings, however, I will do so cheerfully and in the
belief that, yes, things are not good enough, but that is because they
could and should be better. I will be optimistic and cheerful in
opposing the Government when I need to do so, and I will support them
when I think they are doing the right thing.”
The months leading up to the EU referendum will be exciting, even
turbulent. But the informed optimism of Douglas Carswell will be a
vital element in the “Out” campaign. And I recommend regular visits to
his own blog, TalkCarswell.com, for wise, intelligent insights into
UKIP’s one voice in the House of Commons, but a golden voice
nonetheless. In the words of the old song, it is the voice of “One
Good Man”!
Until next Tuesday!
Toby
Toby on Tuesday
'Modest Concessions'
So the great prize has been won! Before the end of 2017 we
shall all be asked, “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the
European Union?” The existential political question of our time, which
leaders of the three old parties have resisted for 40 years, will
finally be put. That this has been achieved is due above all else to
the persistence of UKIP and in particular of one man, Nigel Farage, for
whom it has been a lifelong obsession. Without UKIP, David Cameron
would never have made the commitment and, whatever lies ahead, the fact
that we now have this opportunity will always remain our party’s
greatest achievement. Clearly, the question is designed to elicit a
“Yes” vote, but the British people are far too shrewd to be deceived by
this.
Of course, Britain has been here before. In 1975 Harold Wilson,
like David Cameron driven by reasons of party management rather than any
strongly-held belief, likewise gave our country a referendum. Like
David Cameron now, he dressed up a series of modest concessions as major
reform of the then EEC. The usual suspects, the Foreign Office, the
CBI, the BBC, the CIA and Brussels itself weighed in with immense
financial and other pressure, just as they will over the next two years.
All the usual scare tactics were employed to maintain the status quo
and Wilson was rewarded with a resounding “Yes” vote when the result was
announced. So Harold Wilson’s 1975 renegotiation is plainly the
template for David Cameron’s coming “renegotiation” and the identical
allies are already being lined up to ensure the same outcome.
But somehow I think that this time the result will be different.
Although the opinion pollsters are already proclaiming a “Yes” outcome,
despite being left with so much egg on their collective faces after
failing to predict the result of the General Election, I believe that
Britain will vote “No”. What drives our pragmatic electorate is the
impact of any policy on their collective pockets. Over the coming two
years, public spending will face an unprecedented squeeze. The £13
billion plus net contribution to the EU’s budget, alongside a similar
sum spent on so-called Overseas Aid, will prompt voters to ask why so
much money is going abroad, often lost to crime and corruption, when we
have such great needs at home? And the rise of Syriza in Greece,
Podemos in Spain, the Left Bloc in Portugal and, rather differently, the
Front National in France, will drive home the truth that the effect of
Euro membership on those countries has been an unqualified disaster.
When Britain voted “Yes” in 1975, it was a response to the post-war
economic miracles of Germany and France, with a wish to share in them.
When Britain votes “No” in 2016/7, it will be a similar response to the
abyss into which Southern Europe is staring as a result of Euro
membership and the need to avoid its contagion.
Of course, when we do ultimately withdraw from the EU, it won’t be
plain sailing at all. As a country, we shall have to learn to shift
for ourselves again, to take responsibility for our country rather than
leave everything to unaccountable civil servants. We may just have
forgotten how to do this and need to relearn the lessons. Yes, there
will be disruption, but the disruption of staying inside this unworkable
project will be far greater. If we succeed, the reward will be
immense – nothing less than the recovery of our long-term self-respect
and renewed pride in our nation!
Until next Tuesday!
Toby
Toby on Tuesday
‘Less European?…’
There have been some wonderful lies cooked up by the
Eurofanatics who have caused such havoc to our country during the past
generation. The most lurid of course is the old threat that, if
Britain left the EU, somehow 3 million jobs would instantly disappear.
This presumes that all trade with the EU would cease overnight, even
though we import infinitely more from the rest of the EU than they buy
from us and they would be desperate for a trade agreement. Of course
this was the mantra of the late Nick Clegg and his now departed, if not
regretted, LibDem friends. But perhaps the most colourful is the claim
that Britain would, after Brexit, somehow cease to be European and
therefore could no longer take part in the high camp annual ritual of
the Eurovision Song Contest.
I chuckled over this to myself last week when I read through the list
of Eurovision contestants. 40 nations entered of which only 28 were
actual EU members and just 19 were trapped in the downward spiral of the
doomed Euro currency. So over half the nations entering Eurovision do
not actually use the Euro and they are the ones likely to survive the
existential crisis caused by this doomed project. Iceland, Norway,
Switzerland, which wisely stayed outside the EU in the 1970’s, do not
see themselves as any less “European” for having escaped its clutches,
while the entries also included Armenia, from where Kim Kardashian’s
family come and whose genocide at the hands of the Turks in the 1920’s
is only now being acknowledged, Israel, Russia and even Australia! In
fact of the first five winning entries, only three (Sweden, Italy and
Belgium) are even in the EU and only two (Italy and Belgium) actually
use the Euro currency. So UKIP’s claim to love Europe and European
culture while detesting the EU and all its works is well-founded when
you see the Eurovision line-up.
And for those trapped inside the prison of the Euro currency, with
all its dreadful consequences, their songs sounded like cries for help.
The beautiful Maria Elena Kyriakou stunned us all with her voice and
the words of her song,
“I’m begging you take me
out of this firing hell
Come back and save me -
What happened wasn’t fair.
Nothing left. All that I have
is one last breath.
Only one last breath!”
If that isn’t a cry for help from a suffering country martyred by
Euro membership, I don’t know what is. In truth, Eurovision is a
wonderful image of what the future of the Continent could look like. A
shared civilisation, stretching (in David Cameron’s words) from the
Atlantic to the Urals, without the failing grip of the so-called
“European Union”, but including Russia, even Israel and with strong ties
to Britain’s own Commonwealth – Australia and the rest – on which Ted
Heath so foolishly turned his back in 1972. This is the great prize
that UKIP is seeking as work starts on our In/Out referendum. On
Saturday, the UK’s entry finished 24th. Who knows, if we ultimately
left the EU we might even, like Russia and Australia, find ourselves in
the top five!
Until next Tuesday!
Toby
Toby on Tuesday
'And the dust settles…'
If, as they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity, then
UKIP has had a truly wonderful ten days since the General Election.
With nearly 4 million votes in the bag, the commitment to an in/out EU
referendum from the Government, the most professional of all the
parties’ manifestos, 120 second places and an outstanding elected MP in
Douglas Carswell, there is much to celebrate. There is also much to
build on if wise heads are allowed to prevail. As William Hague’s
Constituency Chairman in Richmond during his leadership of the
Conservative Party, I well remember turmoil and in-fighting in a
disappointed party. Yet the Conservative Party in 1997 had suffered a
devastating setback from which it has only just recovered 18 years
later. UKIP in 2015 has enjoyed an astonishing advance and, when the
dust settles, its full extent will become clear.
What is also clear is that the Government is now determined to rush
through the EU referendum with no Treaty amendments and only cosmetic
changes to certain welfare and other benefits. The existential
questions of border controls, the security implications of Turkish
accession, the Common Fisheries Policy (once a Conservative priority),
financial contagion as the Eurozone plunges into recession, will simply
not get a mention. No doubt the EU itself will help fund the “In”
campaign and every trick in the book will be used to ensure its success.
It is to these great issues that all UKIP’s energies must be focussed
in the coming months.
And the reality is that in Nigel Farage we have most effective
Eurorealist campaigner of our time and in Douglas Carswell the most
original and creative Parliamentarian. As well as these two, we have
outstanding MEP’s in our own Jane Collins and Mike Hookem, in Paul
Nuttall our Deputy Leader, in Stephen Woolfe, in William Dartmouth and
many more, and we have the truly excellent Suzanne Evans, who did such a
superb job with our manifesto, and many others. The simple
frustration of finding ourselves under first-past-the-post with so many
votes for just one MP is understandable, but once the dust settles the
sheer scale of our achievement on 7th May will become clear. We can
then regroup and go forward to fight a staged referendum on EU
membership, led by Nigel and our MEP’s across the country and, in
Parliament itself, by Douglas Carswell, on whom great responsibility now
rests. They will have the support of all our members in this, the
country’s greatest challenge of our time!
Until next Tuesday!
Toby
Toby on Tuesday
Thank you, 7805 times.
First the numbers. In Britain as a whole, UKIP won nearly 4
million votes, around 13% of the total share. In England alone, the
percentage was nearer 17%. Here in Thirsk and Malton, our vote soared
from 2,502 in 2010 to 7,805 (15%), against 27,545 votes (53%) for the
Conservatives and 8,089 (15.5%) for Labour. We also had fine results
for our excellent local candidates, Janine Robinson, Kevin Anderson,
Peter Ash, Chris Cooper, Trevor Golding, Philip Mooring and Barry Waite.
In terms of votes, UKIP is now clearly the country’s third largest
political party and even if that did not translate into seats won, we
gained a great moral victory.
Next, the thanks. A huge thank you to the whole UKIP Thirsk and
Malton team, who should be immensely proud to have achieved so much with
such limited resources. Our team has true star quality and to Emma,
Janine, Dave, Eric and all involved in the campaign I offer my heartfelt
gratitude. UKIP should be immensely proud of your truly superb
contribution to the great cause of regaining our nation and our
democracy.
Finally, the future. Of course, UKIP’s greatest achievement has
been to force our Prime Minister to concede a referendum in 2017 on
Britain’s membership of the European Union. Legislation to provide for
this should be enacted later this year. And over the coming months,
the terms of Britain’s membership of the whole project will be reviewed
with the European Commission. UKIP’s task will be to present a
positive picture of a Britain released from the tentacles of this doomed
venture. On the morning after polling day, I spoke to my old friend
William Dartmouth MEP, UKIP’s Trade Spokesman, who told me that he was
rewriting his “Out of Europe – Into the World”, a compelling account of
how our economy would benefit from EU exit. And we need to use our new
strength to increase pressure on the Conservative Party to up the terms
of its renegotiation strategy, not forgetting that when Michael Howard
was its leader, repatriation of the truly appalling Common Fisheries
Policy was a Conservative objective, an undertaking that was quietly and
characteristically dropped by David Cameron. If we were to recover
our 200-mile fishing limit again, it would underscore the truth that we
are a maritime, trading nation and not just one more colony of a failing
Continental state.
So we have much to be proud of. In particular, we should be proud
of the manifesto on which we fought the General Election. This was the
best of all the manifestos and the only one independently audited and
verified. In great measure, it was the work of Suzanne Evans, UKIP’s
excellent Deputy Chairman, and for my part it will be my bible in the
years ahead. So congratulations and thanks to all involved in our
campaign. Now let’s brace ourselves for the challenges that we face
and ensure that in 2017 under UKIP’s inspirational leadership, both past
and future, Britain can become a sovereign and independent nation once
more, looking confidently out to the wider World!
Until next Tuesday!
Toby
Toby on Tuesday
'Inequitable Life'
7.00pm this evening will see the very last public event of our
campaign when we hold our pre-Eve of Poll Meeting at Malton’s Milton
Rooms. Let’s hope for a good turnout for a vintage occasion at which
everyone, including the Press, will be welcome. We can all celebrate
the birth of our new Princess, have a traditional election speech and,
all being well, some lively questions. With the help of our truly
superb UKIP Thirsk and Malton team, what I have tried to do all through
this campaign is to combine the new social media, like this blog and our
website, with very traditional electioneering, speaking at countless
hustings and actually meeting and talking to people.
High points of the past few days have included visits to Malton’s
Jack Berry House, an astonishing new facility for injured jockeys and
the wider Malton community, inspired by the legendary racehorse trainer,
Jack Berry, to a centre in Easingwold enabling the severely disabled to
enjoy productive work run by the inspirational Mark Johnson, to Colin
Badgery’s fascinating Thirsk Birds of Prey Centre, among the
constituency’s most remarkable visitor attractions, and of course last
Wednesday to Leeds Arena for BBC1’s Yorkshire television debate.
But the meeting that has in many ways made the deepest impression, as
evidence of the cynical way in which we are governed, has been with the
representatives of the Equitable Life Assurance Society’s policy
holders. As a direct result of Government maladministration, they have
effectively had a total of some £2.8 billion stolen from their
pensions. The background to this is that, despite holding some £26
billion of savers’ funds, the Society, like the banks, had accumulated
immense unhedged liabilities that it was unable to meet. In 2000, it
closed to new business and slashed payouts to its million or so policy
holders, of whom several hundred live in the constituency. As the
regulator of the Society, the Treasury was directly responsible for this
fiasco but from the start was determined to evade responsibility.
A series of public enquiries and Parliamentary debates followed. In
July 2008 the Parliamentary ombudsman, Ann Abraham, published her
report in which the Treasury was found guilty of regulatory
maladministration. It also emerged that on “data protection grounds”
the Treasury had destroyed the details of 353,000 policy holders, rather
as in an entirely separate scandal potentially embarrassing files had
gone missing from the Home Office. At the 2010 Comprehensive Spending
Review, George Osborne accepted her finding that the total loss suffered
by the Society’s policy holders amounted to £4.3 billion. However,
due to “affordability constraints”, their compensation was limited to
£1.5 billion only, leaving the balance due of £2.8 billion in the greedy
hands of the Treasury.
The truth is that the Treasury saw the Society’s policy holders as
elderly, respectable people unlikely to make a fuss. They were not,
unlike the bankers who obtained 100% support from the Government, “too
big to fail”. By virtue of their being pensioners, time would in due
course take its toll and relieve the Treasury of its responsibilities.
They had been prudent, careful and thrifty and so could go hang in the
warped world of modern politics, where those who shout loudest and cause
most trouble actually prevail. I was pleased to be able to tell the
policy holders’ representatives that, if successful on 7th May, I would
take their cause to my heart and make it my own. But then we are
surrounded by instances of bad government – we will see this on a global
scale tomorrow when Greece, bankrupted by its membership of the Euro,
is due to pay a further $200 million to the IMF, a sum that it just does
not have. We must brace ourselves for the contagion that, as night
follows day, will surely occur throughout the Eurozone.
Perhaps the only wise decision made by our own politicians in the
past generation has been to keep the Pound and avoid the Euro. The
presence of UKIP has in large measure secured this policy and our
influence will only grow in the years ahead. And on Thursday, let’s
get the vote out and ensure that the whole constituency is painted
purple. So until next Tuesday, when we’ll know the result and there’ll
be a chance to thank our truly wonderful team at UKIP Thirsk and
Malton!
Until next Tuesday!
Toby
