A MESSAGE TO UKIP CANDIDATES

Today is polling day and people all across the country are voting in County Council elections, by-elections, and of course, the South Shields Parliamentary by-election where Richard Elvin is standing for UKIP. This morning I sent out the below e-mail to all our West Midlands UKIP candidates, I am now putting it on this blog as a means of passing on the same message and my good wishes to all our UKIP candidates across the whole country.

Dear UKIP Candidate,

Today is the day you have been working so hard for – it’s polling day and people are now voting. By the time you are reading this it is certain voters have placed their crosses on their ballot papers for you – what a nice feeling that is.

Some counts are being held tonight after the polls close at 10 pm, and many more tomorrow, Friday. This means we won’t have a full picture of how well we have done until later tomorrow, but rest assured, UKIP is going to do well in these elections despite all the nasty Tory tricks and some home goals by some of our UKIP candidates who turn on Facebook and Twitter and switch off their mental faculties at the same time.

The people have had enough of the other three political parties who have left a trail of broken promises and a financial mess that is going to take a mammoth task to clear up – no longer are they worried that voting for UKIP will split the vote and let the others in – they want a change and UKIP is it. As a UKIP candidate today you are serving those people just by having your name on the ballot paper, which in my eyes makes you a hero.

So thank you for standing up for the interests of the people, thank you for fighting the UKIP cause and thank you for all your dedication and hard work over the last few weeks – today is the day you will find out it was worth it.

Even if you don’t win where you are standing, just by being there you are helping to force through a change for the better in this country – without you UKIP would have no impact and without a large number of candidates UKIP would have been ignored and the people would have had no one decent to vote for – so you have played a vital role and it has been worth all you have done.

So, on behalf of me and, I am sure, everyone in UKIP – THANK YOU AGAIN. Good luck.

Regards, Derek Bennett.

GETTING IT WRONG FROM THE CRIMEAN WAR

Godfrey Bloom MEP



UKIP MEP, Godfrey Bloom, did an interview on economics as UKIP is often being criticised for not having its figures balanced. Below is a transcript of the interview Godfrey did. The moral, don't mess with blunt speaking Yorkshiremen.

Interviewer In The Times yesterday they claimed your numbers don’t ‘stack up’. That you are £120 billion short.

GB Look I spent 35 years in the City crunching numbers, I don’t get numbers wrong. Times leaders’ are written by political journalists at the behest usually of their Tory masters. They do not know how to ‘do’ numbers which is why we are in this almighty mess. Interviewer So what are the numbers

GB I have to break down that question into 2 parts. First the numbers we know. The Times made no serious attempt to understand the spending cuts which UKIP would make. £15 billion per annum on EU membership, £12 billion on fake charity subscriptions, £14 billion on overseas ‘aid’ £60 billion on Quangoes, if you allow £10 billion of Quangoes to remain. That gives us a saving of £91 billion to open the batting.

Interviewer So what is part 2?

GB We accept there is massive tax avoidance and more modest evasion, beware the things are quite different and often mistaken as the cause by politicians and lazy journalists. A much more modest tax rate would mean much less avoidance, why set up hugely expensive trust funds and offshore companies if the tax was cheaper? Make tax cheaper than avoidance. History shows that revenues usually flat line or indeed increase with tax reductions. Indeed governments know this but the political dynamic always raises its head. The politics of envy. “He’s rich we hate him, he should pay penalty taxes”. We heard it yesterday from Ed Milliband, it plays well on the stump, but it doesn’t help the country.

Interviewer But you advocate flat tax, surely this is not fair, many people think the rich should pay more.

GB Well they do. Read your Adam Smith. Each according to his means. Under our proposed system we would have £13,000 tax free transferable inter-spouse (£15,000 for pensioners). So a worker on £30,000 per annum (just above the national average) would pay £4,250. We would scrap national insurance and higher earners on £100,000 would pay £21,750, so all is fair, certainly fairer than it is today.

Interviewer Many people would argue it is only right that high earners pay significantly more GB What is or is not fair is a subjective subject, but if you look at numbers It can become a bit more objective. Interviewer But this still leaves you a gap of £30 billion.

GB Well this is where straight numbers do not work. A lesson President Hollande of France is learning the hard way, i.e. increase tax by 20% means revenue will increase by 20%. Well it doesn’t. People simply leave the country. As they did in the 1970s UK when tax was confiscatory. Look at today, you start a business with your life savings. It takes 3 years to get off the ground. When it is strong enough to pay a decent salary, say £70,000 per year the company pays NI, the owner pays NI and PAYE. He ends up with less than half the money he is making. My point is the other £30 billion will come from growth, the economy would start up again, if you look across the world the growth is where there is low regulation, low tax and small government. We now have a government which spends nearly 50% of GDP, 18p in the pound servicing debt, a national debt growing by 10% per year. 28% youth unemployment and growing. If public spending was good for the economy our GDP should be growing by at least 5%. If public spending was beneficial, if regulation was beneficial, the logical extension of the argument would be to immediately create 3 million health and safety jobs and the economy should boom. I wonder if anyone but the Lib Dems actually believe that would work.

Interviewer So The Times is wrong (sneering tone)

GB The Times has not been right since Billy Russel exposed commissariat shortcomings in the Crimean War.

A NEW BUSINESS GROUP CALLS FOR EU RENEGOTIATION

Despite many large multinational companies still promoting the EU and British membership of it, some businesses are beginning to realise that EU membership brings with it a burdon for their companies. A group of 500 business leaders have decided to go public and are now calling for the current two-tone Conservative Liberal Democrat Government to negotiate a better deal with the EU for the UK and, of course, their businesses.

This group of leading business figures have set up the group which they are calling ‘Business for Britain’, this looks and sounds very similar to the ‘Business for Sterling’ group that was set up in the days when it looked possible there would be a referendum on destroying our own Sterling currency by joining the EU’s now problematic euro.

Although noble in its attempt to stop the avalanche of EU legislation that is swamping and destroying businesses in the UK, unfortunately, this group have made the error of giving their backing to David Cameron’s calls for renegotiation with the EU, which as most who understand the realities of EU membership will know, will never happen.

David Cameron has hitched his wagon to a dead horse that is going nowhere, and sadly, by joining in with this Conservative journey to a stationary end, the Business for Britain group will find it too will not get past the starting post. In reality the group should be promoting British withdrawal from the EU as the only means of being able to slash the job and business destroying EU regulations.

In its misguided way Business for Britain wants the UK to remain as members of the EU, but do not realise that the only way powers can be returned to the UK is by Britain leaving the EU, in reality this group should be linking to UKIP and not David Cameron whose only track record on such issues as the EU and referendums is broken promises and spin.

IF ITS FRIDAY, IT'S A FUNERAL

Its Friday and it's another funeral, two in a week and both on a Friday. Last Friday, the 12th April, we attended the funeral of an old neighbour from our little Crescent here in Walsall who died at the age of 96, she had a good long life.

Although she was Christened Mary Valentine, the Valentine because she was born on Valentine’s day, all her life she was known as Val, or ‘aunty Val’ as everyone called her in later years.

She and her late husband moved into the Crescent in the mid 1930’s when our little traditional semi’s were first built and brand new, she lived in that house up until around eighteen months ago until she could cope no longer and moved into a nearby home where all her friends and neighbours would pop in to see her.

 This Friday, the 19th April 2013, it was a case of wearing my dark suit, white shirt and black tie again for the funeral of Ron Dorman, who passed away recently, he was in his eighties. Aunty Val was someone we could not help befriending after moving into our home in the Crescent, we were situated just a few doors up on the other side of the road. However, Ron was a different matter, he decided I was someone who was going to be useful and that was it.

Ron Dorman in usual finger pointing mode,
making his points at a meeting.

Not long after the 1997 General election in which I had been a Referendum Party candidate, I was sitting at my desk in our small family business in Birmingham when the telephone rang. “Hello, this is Ron Dorman here and you were a Referendum Party candidate”. “Er, yes. that’s correct” I confirmed. “Right, now I suggest this is what you do”. That was it, I was now in Ron’s anti-EU group and there was no escape.

In fact it was a privilege to have known Ron Dorman, who sadly passed away at the age of 84 on Wednesday 20th March. He had been found in his home in Erdington, Birmingham, by his next door neighbours who had been concerned they had not seen him for just over a day. Pauline Mosely and Ian Scott, long time friends of Ron’s, dashed to his home where he had been found. Even though it seems he had died the day before, his computer was still running - he had been working on the anti-EU campaign right to the very end.

Ron had been a Socialist and Trade Unionist of the old school. He was the sort who was both left wing and patriotic, it was people like Ron who went to war for their country and cam e home and voted Labour - these people were a special breed and Ron was one of them. In fact he would lead them even into old age as an active member of the Pensioners Convention.

Although my political opinions were more to the right of Ron’s, we both worked happily together organising anti-EU meetings with a range of cross party speakers. Ron could get along with everyone who held moderate political opinions.

He was not the sort to splash his money around, getting treated to a pint from Ron in the pub was a rare threat, which made him ideal for organising campaigns where money was a challenge. One campaigner said of him that he could go a long way on a pound, over his life he went a long way to leave a legacy that any campaigner could be proud of.

Speaking at his funeral, Ian Scott said how he met up with Ron again in the early eighties and they struck up a working partnership - he did all the driving and Ron did all the talking. In fact as Ian drove to meetings Ron talked all the way, did all the talking at the meeting then talked all the way home. Ron was certainly one of those people with a lot to say.

We said farewell today to Ron, an old Marxist socialist, someone I would not have believed I would have befriended some years ago, but I will miss Ron and have good memories of him - we have campaigned side by side for the same thing, our withdrawal from the EU.

MARGARET THATCHER

Baroness Thatcher

It has been some time since I last posted on this blog due to being too busy with other things, so on the day of Baroness Thatcher's funeral I thought it fitting to return to blogging and include an article I have written about her for the Euro Realist newsletter.

Everyone talks about remembering where they were and what they were doing when Elvis Presley died, for me I vividly remember where I was and who I was with the day news of Margaret Thatcher’s resignation as Prime Minister was released. That news came as a shock even though I knew at the time she was under attack from the pro-EU deviants in her own Conservative Party - I thought she would fight and beat them as she had such spirit and resolve. 

On that fateful day of Mrs Thatcher's resignation, I was with a customer in our family business and we heard the news on the radio from the workshop, we both looked stunned and knew we had come to the end of something very special. I had hoped that she would make a quick recovery and return to the Tory leadership - how could the Conservative Party survive without her was my reasoning, in reality that party has not survived without her. That betrayal by her own was the start of their downfall. 

When the europhiles in the Conservative Party stuck the knife in and betrayed the most powerful leader they had had since Churchill, they did not realise they were also bringing about their own downfall. Those like me, who had always been a natural Conservative voter and supporter felt betrayed by their actions, even worse the man they chose to replace her was so useless my personal loyalty to that party was at the beginning of its end and had gone completely by 1994. 

My own Conservative beginnings were discovered when, as a young lad I expounded my own political opinions to my then left leaning parents, my father had been a member of the Communist Party during the 1930’s. My parents looked at each other with horror and said,: “He’s a Tory”, and that was it, I decided then I must be a Conservative and as soon as I was old enough to vote my cross went in the Conservative box in every election irrespective of who I was voting for. Margaret Thatcher’s Premiership was the peak of my Conservative voting days. 

By the time she came to power my parents were committed Conservative voters too, on the night she won the 1979 General Election my dear old dad rang me and was delighted she had done it. At that time Britain was a battered, demoralised and run down nation, the power and overbearing might of the Trade Unions had brought the country to its knees, Britain was the ‘sick man’ of Europe. Attitudes to this country rapidly changed when Prime Minister Thatcher sent in the SAS to end the Iranian embassy siege on the 5th May 1980. Suddenly the British people, after that dramatic rescue of the hostages, had their pride returned and the world looked at Britain with new eyes - we were no longer a weak nation that could be bullied or pushed around. 

Like all people Mrs Thatcher was not immune to making errors, her biggest error was the signing of the Single European Act which was the EU version of Pandora's box. From the moment of that signing all the ills of the EU were released and gave it the power it had always aimed for. 

Euro Realist reader, Bernard Juby made a good point in the letters page of the Daily Telegraph. amongst the letters of tribute to her on Wednesday 10th April, he pointed out that before the Brighton Bomb Mrs Thatcher had always been approachable and considered that even began the process of her downfall, he wrote: “almost anyone could go up and speak to her.” He continued: “After the bomb, she was surrounded by a ring of steel. As a result she lost touch with the electorate, and it was downhill from then on.” 

Margaret Thatcher was a woman of great courage and did what was needed to be done, no matter how painful it was. She turned a tired and demoralised nation into a land of home owning people who, for the first time in their lives, began to own shares in the companies they worked for, she put the nation on the road to success and we thank her for it.

SERIOUSLY EMBARRASSED

The other day when going through my e-mails there was one from a person who is a regular visitor to this blog, he asked: "Why no postings since the 24th January?"

I must admit to being seriously embarrassed as I normally try to update the blog on a regular basis and the blame for a lack of posting can be placed fairly and squarely with UKIP.  As someone with quite a bit of involvement with the UK Independence Party most of my spare time is taken with UKIP.

Due to a combination of organising candidates for the County Council elections which are due to take place on the 2nd May, also contacting the volume of new members which are joining the party at a rate never seen before, there has been no time for blogging - so please be patient.  As soon as the election period is over I will endeavour to return to normal.

DAVE'S IFFY SPEECH

Yesterday David Cameroid laid out his pro-EU stall and set things in motion for a repeat performance of the lop-sited and shamefully biased 1975 Referendum on membership of the Common Market.

If you remember during that referendum everything the EU has become was flatly denied - there was not going to be any loss of sovereignty, there was no threat of a single currency, its laws would not override UK laws, there was not going to be a European police force or European army and of course, most importantly, we voted to remain as members of what was a Common Market – we have never voted on being members of this monstrous thing called the EU. Yet, here we are today, after being stitched up in 1975, with all of those things and more we were told we were not going to get and Dave is planning to repeat history if and when we get this promised referendum, hence the importance of UKIP being there to give an honest side to the debate which is now more urgent than ever the UK gets out of the EU.

If Dave gets what he says he wants and renegotiates our terms of membership, just as Harold Wilson told us in 1975 with his then renegotiated terms, and we make the same error again and vote to stay in the EU under those new terms, it won't be long before the EU reverts to normal and what we voted for will not mean a jot. There’s masses of evidence to show just how little the EU and its fanatics care for democracy - look at the 'No' vote on the Nice Treaty in Ireland, or the votes against the EU constitution in France and Holland, which was ignored with the Lisbon Treaty which is exactly the same as the EU constitution - does anyone think the EU will have any regard for the outcome of a referendum in the UK? After the furore the EU will soon return to its power grabbing life as normal.

Once the pro-EU fanatics have frightened the people of the UK with all their scare stories of wars in Europe, millions of jobs lost and with the UK marginalised and alone in the world if we leave, the electorate will, in their ignorance, vote to stay in under the new terms and the UK as a nation will be finished for all time. It will not matter who governs then as the EU will be in full control.

In Dave Cameroid’s speech there more if’s than a sewer full of the if’s in whiffs. If he is re-elected (which he won’t be), if and when the time is right, if he gets the deal he wants and so on. The one if he did not mention was the; if he does not break yet another promise as he is inclined to do.

In 1975 we got it wrong, we believed our pro-Common Market politicians and now we are facing a repeat performance – this time we have to get it right and vote for out of the EU despite Cameron’s false promises. The UKIP message is the only option for me, we have to ignore the siren voices and scare stories and remain focussed on the goal of full withdrawal from the EU - anything else will bring disaster. Forget Dave’s iffy speech and vote for out of the EU.

DAVE'S SPEECH, THE GET BRITAIN OUT VIEW

Tim Aker of the Get Britain Out Campaign.

Following on from David Cameron's speech on the European Union on Wednesday 23rd January 2013, Tim Aker of the anti-EU campaigning group, Get Britain Out, made the statement below. As anticipated, David Cameron has let the British people down by avoiding the best option for our country.  All the polls indicate a majority of the Great British Public want an EU Referendum.  The people of our country, however, must be given an In/Out referendum before the next General Election.   

Sadly the Prime Minister is showing he is motivated only by power and politics rather than the welfare of the British people.  His actions speak louder than words.  The cast iron guarantee on a Lisbon Treaty referendum proved rusty. He ordered a 3 line whip against an EU vote earlier in this parliament. He could easily order a 3 line whip for an EU referendum before the election. Like Tony Blair on Iraq, David Cameron has trust issues on the EU. Cameron’s option to wait after the next election, to offer a weak tinkering of our EU membership is unacceptable.  Britain will be weaker, uncompetitive and less cohesive as a result.   

We face another unsustainable wave of new immigration from Bulgaria and Romania, with a minimum of quarter of a million newcomers expected from 2014.  Most will be eligible for jobs, benefits and housing within months of arrival.  The effect on unemployment, with few British jobs available, and the current lack of housing will be catastrophic.  Yet the government is powerless to do anything about it while we remain inside the EU.    

This month the Eurozone announced record unemployment rates, with the contagion threatening to hinder any British recovery.  The longer our whole economy is tied to the EU’s regulatory machine, the slower our growth and exit from economic malaise.   

Years of renegotiation will solve little and cost British taxpayers over £80 billion in membership contributions between now and 2017.  In any case, it will not work because other EU member states have already informed the Prime Minister they will not accept his proposals.  Our government will squander even more British taxpayers’ money trying to turn the EU into something it is not.    

The EU is only going one way.  The current solutions to the economic crisis in the European Parliament and Commission will involve even more integration.  Banking and Fiscal Union will be complete by 2017.  Article 16 of the Fiscal Compact incorporates Fiscal Union into EU law by 2017 at the latest.  We have no choice. We are bound by EU laws, rules, regulations and Directives while we remain inside.  There is nothing to stop a future government taking Britain into Fiscal Union.   EU Treaties were not set up to allow for renegotiation.  There is no option for a ‘pick and mix’ EU.  They do, however, allow for withdrawal which would give us the ability to negotiate our own free trade agreements. Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty provides for a two-year withdrawal process; Articles 3 and 8 compel the EU to engage in free and fair trade with its neighbours.  The EU is constantly engaged in free trade negotiations with non-EU states, so there is no reason why we cannot set up our own deals after we leave.    

The UK could swiftly repeal the 1972 European Communities Act and leave the EU, however, there is more evidence within the EU’s own treaties which would make it more worthwhile for us to negotiate British ‘withdrawal’ than renegotiate ‘different terms of membership’.   

Get Britain Out unswervingly calls for an In/Out EU Referendum now, to leave us free to govern our own country without EU interference, and arrange our own simple trading relationships as we thought we had when we joined the ‘Common Market’ in 1972.  Please share our response to David Cameron's speech with any and all who will be interested.

IT'S TIME TO CONVERT NON-JOBS TO DEFENCE JOBS

Fighting for Britain: Cousins Robert Bufferey & Derek Bennett, Coronation day 1953.

Sorry for the absence from blogging, UKIP has been keeping me busy leaving me with little time to post anything here recently. One issue which really does need comment on is the continual run down of our armed forces and the steady destruction of our Royal Navy, RAF and army.

News has it today (22nd January 2013) that another 5,300 soldiers are to go cutting the total army numbers down to 82,000. With the Royal Navy having far too few ships and a serious lack of aircraft carriers, as well as the RAF having a shortage of aircraft Britain and its dependent territories is left vulnerable. Considering the rumblings of aggression from Argentina over the Falklands Isles and our need to protect and defend them, these cuts are foolish as there is no way we could put together another ‘Task Force’ to retake them if the worst happened again.

All British Governments have cut the defence budgets over the years, yet at the same time never balked at increasing our payments to the EU which does nothing for Britain and its people other than undermine our democracy.

As our defences are cut Governments make us more and more reliant on joint EU defences which increase the nation’s vulnerability. By creating this situation each and every Government that has cut the defence budget over the years can only be described as treasonous. If non-jobs can be created in local and national Government with people shuffling bits of paper on large salaries just to improve the unemployment figures, it is time to cut that practise and divert this money to where jobs are needed, in our armed forces.

FREE MOVEMENT ACROSS EUROPE

Derek Bennett enjoying Corfu 1970.

Most of us will have memories of our very first passport, some more distant than others. My first British passport was purchased on the basis of a possible holiday to Spain with some pals in 1968, which sadly did not come about. 

In that original dark blue, hard cover real British passport, the old black and white photo was of a fresh faced young man smartly dressed in a collar and tie, and when you looked at the back pages of the passport, unlike those of most of my chums which had entry stamps for several countries, mine was pristine with not a single stamp. 

In 1970, three years before Britain unfortunately joined the then Common Market, a group of friends planned a trip across the Continent and were going to drive down to Brindisi in Italy where they were to take the ferry across to Corfu. My Pal Roger and I had decided to hitch hike to Brindisi and take the ferry too and eventually meet up with the others in Corfu. 

So, early one morning in June 1970 I left my Walsall home and the great adventure began and as we sailed out of Dover en-route to Zeebrugge, I took my first look of the white cliffs of Dover from the see as we set off on my very first trip abroad. One of the things I was looking forward to was seeing my virgin passport fill up with stamps as we crossed borders on our journey across the Continent. 

A few hours later as we stepped of the ferry I eagerly handed over my passport and to my dismay there was no stamp forthcoming, just a cursory glance from the border guard and we were on our way. Our first lift was with a Flemish lorry driver who was on his way to Germany, which was great news as this took us a good part of our way. At the border the driver told us where to go for passport control, but before we got there a German policeman stopped us and asked us where we were going and asked how much money we had with us. Once he knew we weren’t vagrants he sent us on our way with no stamp in my still pristine passport. 

The next morning, bright and early we were close to the German Swiss border and a painter and decorator picked us up and with our rucksacks stored in the back of his estate car with his pots of paint and brushes, we set of at breakneck speed towards the border. As we got closer I could see the armed border guards and there was no sign of this chap slowing down or stopping. As I began to worry that the armed guards would shoot us as we hurtled through without stopping, the decorator gave a friendly toot on his horn and a wave which was returned by the border guards and in a flash we were in Switzerland - minus another stamp on my immaculate passport. 

At the end of this trip we arrived in Corfu with my still pristine passport and no one had really bothered about us crossing several borders, it was the same on the return journey home about three weeks later. 

The reason I tell this tale of my first venture beyond the shores of my homeland is that of late one of the arguments the pro-EU lobby have come up with is that if the UK left the EU free and easy passage across Europe would cease. This does nothing other than to highlight the desperation to which these EU propagandists have reached. As growing numbers of people are beginning to realise there are no benefits to EU membership and the pro-EU lobby have been losing every argument in the EU’s favour one by one, this silliness regarding the restriction of free movement if we quit the EU is about all they have left. However, the fact that many others, and myself, were able to travel across Europe with such ease before we joined the EU only goes to prove the point that if we return to the status of a free nation once again as non-EU members, we will simply return to the situation we had before we joined and free and easy passage across the Continent will continue. 

We still have to take our passports with us when we travel across the EU now, the border guards are just the same when they give our documents a cursory glance and little will change. Leaving the EU will not stop the hoards of British holiday makers flocking to the Spanish Costas with their cash, which the Spanish, Greek and Italian hoteliers and other tourist businesses really need, nor will it stop Continental visitors from visiting us where we will make them most welcome too. But what it will stop is the large influx of people who have no work to come to and expect to receive generous benefits as a British Government, free of the EU, will be able to control who lives in the UK – which will be those who have employment awaiting them and can bring skills needed in the UK. Our borders will once again be our own, as they were in the days of my virgin passport before we were drawn into the EU which is now the cause of so many problems all across the Continent.