UKIP News

UKIP Wales Election Broadcast 2007 and visit by Nigel Farage MEP

28-04-2007

Following the polls showing that the UK Independence Party are in with a good chance of gaining seats in the Assembly, Party leader Nigel Farage MEP will be coming to Cardiff North to campaign with the candidate, Sir Dai Llewellyn, in the last few days of the campaign.

The meeting point will be 10.30 at the Post Office on Methyr Road, Whitchurch.

To view the election broadcast - click the link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzdP_l3ZUQk

UKIP delighted with new poll

30-04-2007

The UK Independence Party today highlighted the results of the ICM/Global Vision survey that showed that 69% of the British people want a referendum on our continued relationship with the European Union.

A spokesman said, “This poll only reinforces our belief that we are winning the argument. According to the Global Vision figures a full 29% of people believe that the UK would be Better Off Out, with another 36% wanted to see a fundamental change in our relationship with Brussels”.

"The UK Independence Party is in tune with the majority of the British public in this most important of issues. It is now up to us to ensure that everybody knows that there is a choice and there is a great future for our country, outside the EU”.

Notes

"Do you think there should or should not be a referendum on the proposal that Britain should have a looser relationship with Europe, maintaining free trade and cooperation on common policies, but opting out of political and economic integration?", 69% said ‘yes'.  An overwhelming 75% of those aged 18-24 said that there should be a referendum. 

EU is forcing us to empty your bins once a fortnight

30-04-2007

Millions of people are already being exposed to potentially deadly levels of bacteria caused by rotting waste because councils face being fined millions if they don't meet European targets on use of landfill sites.

The targets were set to reduce dependency on landfill. By 2010, every ton of waste over these stringent limits will incur a fine of £150.

But Britain is so reliant on the sites that the fines collected by Brussels will soon total £1billion - all paid, of course, by council taxpayers. In a bid to reduce the level of fines, and avoid passing them on in the form of crippling council tax rises, local authorities have been forced to encourage Britons to recycle instead.

More and more local authorities are switching to collecting waste just once a fortnight.

In a double whammy for ordinary households, Chancellor Gordon Brown has imposed his own landfill tax levied on councils who exceed their targets.

This alone is estimated to cost council taxpayers an extra £3billion over the next four years, according to recent figures by the Local Government Association.

But Britain is so far short of reaching the EU target that the National Audit Office estimates that by 2013 we could be paying £205million a year in fines to Brussels.

On the other hand, if nothing is done to reduce Britain's growing rubbish mountain, it will simply lead to still further hikes in council tax.

UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said: "At least someone's beginning to talk about the elephant in the room. We have been telling people for months that we are chasing yet another EU directive.

"If people still don't think that being part of federal Europe affects their daily lives, this will bring it home to them."

Doretta Cocks, of the Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection, said: "Ultimately it's the EU and its landfill directive that's driving councils to undertake these new measures "And also our own Government, which is increasing landfill taxes.

"We, as council tax payers, are bound to pay one way or another.

"This is not representing the public in the way it should be represented, nor providing the service we expect."

The EU decided to phase out the amount of waste going to landfill with its Landfill Directive in 1999.

The legislation has hit Britain harder than other nations because we throw out more waste and therefore use landfill sites more than any other country in Europe.

An LGA spokesman said: "There's a recognition that we have to be more environmentally friendly, but obviously there's a cost issue here too.

"The more environmentally friendly we are, the more we recycle and the less goes to landfill - so councils face fewer fines.

"What's always an issue is that any costs faced by councils are passed on to the taxpayer."

The Government has already suggested that households could pay an extra £10-a-week for rubbish collection as early as next year under new powers for local councils.

Meanwhile, with nine million British homes no longer receiving a weekly waste collection, fears are growing that the cutbacks could create health problems for householders and binmen alike.

There is growing scientific evidence to suggest that dangerous organisms such as listeria, E. coli and a bug linked to the C. diff hospital killer could flourish if waste bins are collected only twice monthly.

Bacteria multiply in normal household rubbish and levels increase the longer it is left to rot.

Daily Express

£8bn new wave of migrants for UK

30-04-2007

Just months after the controversial move to give full European Union membership to Bulgaria and Romania, the European Commission has already begun plotting the next stage of expansion.

A secret deal has been agreed to pump £8billion into some of Europe's poorest countries to enable them to join the EU within the next few years.

The new fund is supposed to help to root out corruption, develop democracy and tackle human rights abuses. But Foreign Office officials fear that most of the cash will end up being channelled into big infrastructure proj ects that are little more than bribes to encourage the countries to join the EU.

Countries set to benefit from the lavish aid programme include Turkey, Albania and Serbia, where wages are far less than those in Britain. Critics fear the deal will spark a fresh w ave of mass immigration to Britain, already struggling to absorb hundreds of thousands of w orkers from Eastern Europe.

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, said it was wrong to encourage further EU expansion while the fall-out from the last wave of enlargement w as still continuing. "It seems the EU knows no limits to its territorial ambitions to be a superpower, " he said.

"This scheme is nothing less than bribery - w e are being forced to subsidise the next massive wave of immigration. It is a very bad deal for Britain. It is perfectly clear that Romania was not fit to join the EU this year and yet now we are encouraging countries that are even less fit to join up.

"Far from sorting out corruption in these countries, the injection of huge sums of money is going to make corruption worse."

The new EU fund, the Instrument for PreAccession Assistance, is supposed to help countries prepare to join the EU by building democratic institutions. But internal Foreign Office documents show British officials fear that most of the money will go to huge infrastructure projects of the kind that have often been dogged by allegations of corruption.

A briefing note prepared by civil servants for Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett warns: "There is obvious temptation for both host governments and the Commission to channel money into infrastructure projects which absorb cash easily and are relatively easy to contract."

Officials say this would clash with Britain's aim of targeting money from the fund at tackling corruption and human rights abuses. But they warn that the UK will have "little formal influence" over how the cash is spent.

EU enlargement has encouraged massive immigration to Britain in recent years.

An estimated 800,000 Eastern Europeans are thought to have come here since 2004.

New figures this week showed the number of Bulgarians and Romanians heading for our shores has trebled since the countries joined the EU at the start of this year.

The latest deal is all the more surprising because of the human rights records of many of the countries involved.

Turkey, which has a population of 72 million, is singled out by Amnesty International for major violations of human rights.

Albania, which has also been criticised by the international community for its human rights record, is the poorest country in Europe, with gross domestic product per head equal to only eight per cent of the EU average.

Serbia is accused of illegally harbouring war criminals, including the notorious Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, who is charged with genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

So-called EU candidate countries such as Croatia, Turkey and Macedonia will be asked to meet the EU's minimum membership standards in return for the cash. But other countries classed as potential candidates for membership will only have to "approximate" to the EU's standards.

The European Commission was asked to comment on the scheme but did not respond.

A statement on the Commission's website said the fund was designed to "support efforts to enhance political, economic and institutional reforms" in the countries concerned.

Sunday Express

UKIP leader calls for referendum

20-04-2007

UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage today slammed the decision by Tony Blair not to offer the British people a referendum on a new EU treaty.

Mr Farage said that decision was "outrageous"

"I am not interested in what the new treaty is called, I am interested in what it does.

"The British people have not had a say on our position in the EU for 32 years, and we must have a referendum on any treaty which transfers power away from Westminster."

Immigration: pointless

18-04-2007

Immigration: Pointless

The government's plan to introduce a points system for granting UK visas was described today as "pointless".

The Chairman of UKIP, Dr John Whittaker, said, "The points system would work if it assessed applications for everyone who wants to live in Britain.

"But Mr Byrne's system will have no effect either on illegal immigrants or people coming here from the European Union.

"Eastern Europe is by far the largest source of recent immigration but the truth is, we have no control over that because it's Brussels and not Britain that sets the laws."

Dr Whittaker added, "The government is trying to reduce the small number of legal immigrants from outside the EU in a vain attempt to compensate for those coming in from Eastern Europe."

UKIP fields record numbers

18-04-2007

The UK Independence Party will be fielding a total of 1031 candidates in the forthcoming elections.

This breaks down to:

963 borough and district candidates
33 Assembly candidates in the Welsh elections
35 Parliamentary candidates in the Scottish Elections

This does not include the 218 town and parish council candidates.

Leader Nigel Farage said he was "delighted" that the party are to field over three times the number of candidates as last time.
"To have such an increase in the number of candidates shows how the party is moving forward and that we are really offering an opposition in British politics."

Who is Blair trying to fool?

16-04-2007

Following the statement by the Prime Minister that the EU needs only limited changes to existing treaties, Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party said:

"This is the same old spin from Blair and his government. Every time a new treaty comes on the horizon they describe it as a 'tidying up exercise' or 'amendments'. The reality is that each treaty drags us further into a country called Europe.

"They have already sneaked in parts of the rejected Constitution, the EU flag, removed the crown on pints and now they want to blatantly implement another huge chunk of this discredited document.

"These are more weasel words from the Prime Minister to avoid a referendum that he would undoubtedly lose heavily." 

UKIP launch English manifesto

10-04-2007

[ To view the manifesto click here : http://www.ukip.org/pdf/ukipmanifesto2007.pdf]

Handing greater control of local finance to town halls will be central to the UK Independence Party's (Ukip) manifesto for local elections in England, published today.

Ukip will field more than 1,000 candidates on May 3, promising to 're-empower and rebuild democracy'' and hoping to shake off a reputation as a single-issue party.

And the launch will also mark the start of a series of policy groups set up by the eurosceptic party to develop policy across a range of issues.

Deputy leader David Campbell Bannerman said the victory of bureaucracy over democracy in Brussels had been mirrored by an erosion of local authority power in the UK.

Under Ukip proposals, councils would take back control of business rates and a share of a proposed new local sales tax brought in to replace VAT, he said.

That would mean locally-elected politicians being in charge of spending at least half the money available to the council, rather than relying on Government grants.

Whitehall would also be removed from the planning process under proposals to abolish the appeal process, and regular and binding referendums allowed on key local issues.

That may include controversial moves to close local hospitals, Mr Campbell Bannerman suggested ahead of the launch.

'What we will promise people is a radical alternative'', he said.

'There's no choice at the moment - it's three of the same.''

HRH is right, they are crazy

Responding to comments made today by Prince Charles about EU regulations, Jeffrey Titford said, "He is absolutely right, the rules have only been damaging".

His Royal Highness described the rules which prescribe what seeds can and cannot be used in UK agriculture as "lunacy". He said, "What could be crazier than... having the kind of EU legislation which made it impossible to sell the seeds, and many of these wonderful old varieties that people have developed over thousands of years".

"Traditional methods of British farming produced plant and animal varieties that are ideally suited to our environment and climate", said Mr Titford, "But EU rules have made it illegal to use common sense and good husbandry".

"I am delighted that somebody with the high profile of the Prince is prepared to say it how it is on these matters. Maybe now some people will realise quite how our national life is being affected across the board by intrusive and micromanaging regulations", said Mr Titford.

The EU regulation can be found here

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32002L0053:EN:HTML

UKIP Scotland launch manifesto

03-04-2007

UKIP Scotland launched their manifesto for the Scottish Parliamentary Elections on Monday 2nd April in Edinburgh.

The launch was led by Deputy Leader David Campbell Bannerman, who is also the party's lead candidate for the Highlands and Islands.

Mr Campbell Bannerman spoke about the main points in the manifesto to the assembled group of journalists and supporters, including the main proposal to sack all 129 members of the Scottish Parliament and replace them with the 59 Scottish MPs who would debate Scottish business for one week a month. When asked how much it would cost to pay the MSPs off, Mr Campbell Bannerman replied, “What pay off? They've done pretty well out of Holyrood already.”

The other key policies are:

·    Restore local democracy, with direct votes and more local control over finances

·    Restore the UK's independence by leaving the European Union

·    Give schools and colleges more independence over teaching, examinations and discipline

·     Bring in proper local management for health care and take politics out of medical care

·     Take back control of borders and allow our government to determine who is allowed to stay, rather than the European Union

·     Make police chiefs directly elected and forces accountable to local peopple and boards

·     Have a flat tax with an income tax threshold of £9000 to take 4.5 million lower paid people out of tax entirely and make everyone else better off

·    Replace CAP with prices supports that recognise local conditions, such as hill farming

·    Rule out satellite-based vehicle pricing

·    Save rural post offices

 The full manifesto can be downloaded at http://www.ukip.org/pdf/ukipscottishmanifesto.pdf

To view details of the candidates click here http://www.ukip.org/pdf/holyroodlists.pdf in pdf format