If you were to listen to and take
seriously some of the more ridiculous claims made about UKIP and its leader
Nigel Farage by some of their political opponents, you could be forgiven for
thinking that they represent a modern day reincarnation of Adolph Hitler,
Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan and all their supporters rolled into
one. If you believed some of the same type of nonsense written about both
individual UKIP voters and Mr Farage himself, they are not only racist,
fascistic and homophobic, but xenophobic as well and are fully prepared to
destroy the country's entire economic well-being, as well as their own
financial futures, in order to ensure that not a single "Johnny Foreigner"
gets to remain in good old Blighty. After all, it's worth recalling
that UKIP members and their leaders still think there'll be bluebirds over
the white cliffs of Dover; and that Nightingales still sing in Berkeley Square,
well, at least according to their critics anyway!
Of course, according to some of
the more insane ramblings of UKIP's opponents there is a much more sinister and
serious side to UKIP, other than its longing to be transported back to those
heady days of the 1950's, when things like rationing were fashionable. Some of
the party's more seriously deluded adversaries would have British voters
believe that on taking office a UKIP government would instantly announce a
pogrom against anyone who happens to be black, brown, Irish, or otherwise
foreign-looking. Don't speak English? Out you go! Don't have a Union Jack
indelibly emblazoned on your forehead? You'll be out as well! Don't know the
words to Rule Britannia? Better start packing now then!
Clearly, it goes without saying,
according to these same opponents, that UKIP and its leadership are so
economically incoherent that although throwing out all of the foreign born
investors, doctors, nurses, dentists, scientists, cleaners and nannies might
have a marginal effect on the economy, at least the country that they will be
left with will be almost entirely white and British, so things will be fine! No
doubt according to these same anti-UKIP sources, Mr Farage and Co are already
planning to hire a fleet of ships to transport these millions of unwanted
foreigners back across the Channel, just before he has England's coastal
waters mined and orders the Royal Navy
to conduct regular live fire anti-smuggling drills along the length of the
South coast, specifically targeting any French owned ferries that might have
the temerity to bring foreign tourists for a day out to England.
Needless to say, if you believe a
word uttered or written by UKIPs opposition, especially in the forms of Nick
Clegg and Ed Miliband, then foreign owned companies will automatically
up-sticks and sod off back to the country that they came from, leaving behind
three million mostly white, English speaking Britons without a job. However,
looking on the bright side, most of those could probably be employed doing the
jobs that were previously held by those millions of recently deported
foreigners? Obviously, it goes without saying that virtually every country in
the world whose citizens had been deported from the UK would be extremely cross
with the new UKIP government, but hey-ho! like they say, you can't make an
omelette without breaking a few eggs. More seriously though, the likes of Spain
and Portugal would almost certainly retaliate by forcibly deporting all of
those "squillions" of British ex-pats who have relocated to their
countries in search of a peaceful retirement, bringing with them their often
extensive pension savings. But clearly the Spanish and Portuguese governments
would spit in the face of these much needed foreign revenues, because after
all, who needs valuable foreign residents, or highly skilled migrants in this
day and age?
Obviously for most of UKIP's
opponents, the worst and most dangerous thing about the party is its leader,
Nigel Farage. For them it is inconceivable that he is what he purports to be, a
normal everyday bloke, who likes a drink, a fag, likes to go fishing; and likes
to get on with people. How dare he be so normal? So from the opposition's point
of view, there has to be an unseen angle, something about Farage that is nasty,
dangerous, or worrying, a dark side that he has somehow managed to hide from
the British public for the past twenty-odd years; and despite having spent most
of it in front of the cameras. Maybe he has a nice doppelganger that he parades
in front of the public, while the real nasty Farage kicks the shit out of
kittens and small kiddies in the privacy of his own home? Maybe he stands in
front of the bedroom mirror at night throwing Nazi salutes at his own
reflection? Maybe he's a foreign plant, paid by the EU to severely disappoint
and confuse the British people? After all, he's got a foreign sounding name, so
for some of his opponents and critics that would be fairly conclusive evidence
of wrongdoing!
It's just not right for some of
UKIP opponents, that a guy who has been privately educated, smokes, drinks, who
has held down a regular job, who has admitted publicly that he admires Margaret
Thatcher; and who thinks Britain deserves better than simply being a region of
an unrepresentative, overarching socialist United States of Europe, should be
so popular with a large section of the British public! How dare he? God forbid
that someone normal like Nigel Farage should seriously challenge the well
established duopoly of the Conservative and Labour, which have helped to
fatally undermine daft ideas about British sovereignty, culture, history and
all of those other apparently quaint ideas that nation states are supposed to
value and cling to.
Doubtless there are any number of
groundless, bizarre and frankly quite ludicrous charges that will and would be
levelled against the UKIP party and its leader Nigel Farage, including of
course the old chestnuts of it being a single issue party, a one-man band, its
divisive policies, or the purported damage that it causes to Britain's reputation
abroad, most of which have no real substance when looked at with real cold
logic.
Firstly, if one accepts that the
European Union is a fully functioning international government, bringing
together the various functions of 28 separate member states; and incorporating
common issues such as trade, tax, transport, immigration, welfare, law,
defence, policing, international affairs, etc. then the EU per se cannot ever
be regarded as a single issue topic, simply because all of those various areas
of national competency are subject to EU intervention at some point and some
level. It is blatantly absurd for anyone to suggest that our UK membership of
the EU is a single issue, when our immigration, transport, energy, welfare,
defence, policing and tax policies are directly affected by decisions that are
taken by what is after all a foreign parliament. So that is a lie! Our
membership of the EU is and never was a single issue topic.
Secondly, although Nigel Farage
is undoubtedly the man most closely associated with the UKIP brand, having
steered it to its current position in the polls, why is that any different from
associating David Cameron with the Conservatives, or Ed Miliband with Labour,
they are after all leaders of their national parties. For anyone to suggest
that UKIP lacks alternative spokesmen or women to speak on its behalf is
ridiculous, given that the party contains any number of perfectly qualified
individuals, including the likes of Suzanne Evans, Paul Nuttall, Diane James, Tim Aker,
Jane Collins, David Coburn, Steven Woolfe, Patrick O'Flynn and many others who have appeared on various
television and radio broadcasts. Based on making that simple link between media
appearances and importance within the individual party might mean that Grant
Schapps has now supplanted David Cameron as Conservative leader, or that Andy
Burnham has replaced Ed Miliband as Labour leader, both of which suggestions
are laughable!
Thirdly, part of the problem with
UKIP's opponent's entire argument is that they seem to believe that modern
Britain is one great big happy homogenised society where discord and distrust
has been outlawed, largely for our own community good, which if it were true
would make the UK almost unique in the world. In truth, all that the failed
experiments of mass migration and multiculturalism has brought us is a highly
divided patchwork of communities and neighbourhoods, more identifiable through
their ethnicities, their languages, their cultures than through any form of
commonality with the native white British population. Rather than being the cause
of such problems, UKIP has simply acted as the identifier of these already
underlying issues, bringing them into the mainstream debate, rather than
leaving them on the margins, where the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal
Democrats would rather they remain. Were it not for UKIP and Nigel Farage, it
is impossible to imagine that mass migration, or the EU's free movement of
people would have even been discussed in polite society, let alone forced a
serving Conservative Prime Minister, or indeed a leader of the opposition to
form policy around resolving the underlying issues. UKIP's opponents may choose
to employ a lazy and by now well worn out tactic of shouting about latent
racism, or even outright fascism, but the truth is that such community issues
have been built up over the past 50 years and will need to be addressed at some
point, sooner rather than later. Simply closing your eyes to the problem,
sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "tra-la-la" at the
top of your voice is no longer a viable solution I'm afraid, unless of course
you're happy to wake up one morning and find the entire country in ruins.
Finally, as for Britain's
international reputation being damaged by the country having such open and
honest debates regarding mass migration, our EU membership, the free movement
of peoples, the inexorable loss of our national sovereignty to a foreign power,
the obvious dangers posed by religious fundamentalist's who live amongst us,
why shouldn't we have such national conversations; and why should we care how
other nations perceive us because of it? The truth is that unrepresentative
overarching organisations like the EU probably create much of the danger that
they purport to prevent; and it's not as if the likes of Germany, France,
Italy, Greece, Spain and others are not beginning to have similar conversations
themselves, for the very same reasons as ourselves. Fundamentally, each of the
EU member states will look out for their own national interests first and
foremost; and they would not give any special consideration to the UK or to
anyone else, if they believed that that would hurt their own narrow self
interest, so the idea that Britain should somehow put aside its own best
interests for the benefit of another foreign state is quite frankly ludicrous.
As for anything else, it's all
pretty much "playground politics". Suggesting that just because an
individual person who happens to be standing under the UKIP banner is a
reflection of the entire party membership is a complete nonsense, a bit like
saying that every Labour member is a cheat and a thief, or that every
Conservative member is a complete nut-job, or that every Liberal Democrat
member is a sex pest, a lazy generalisation made by lazy people. So what if one
person somewhere says they don't like "negroes", I'm sure there will
be a black person somewhere who still calls white people "honky" in
an equally disparaging way, so f*cking what, who cares? If you don't like
somebody's politics, don't vote for them!
So what if a potential representative
of a political party calls someone a "poofter", or believes that
their God has caused flooding to punish the legalisation of gay marriage? Who
actually cares? If it's that much of a problem then doubtless that person is
going to be unsuccessful at the public ballot, assuming of course that a
majority of the electorate actually disagree or disapprove of their views.
However, for the media, or indeed their political opponents to suggest that one
person's opinion somehow reflect an entire party's views is just plain stupid.
But I guess therein lies part of
the problem. Today, what with social media, online newspaper comments,
sound-bites and the rest there is virtually no requirement to substantiate
anything that one cares to write or say about individual politicians, or indeed
their parties. One only has to look at the online "trash can" that is
the Guardian newspaper to witness the level of personal bile, serial untruths
and unfounded allegations that are regularly levelled, not just against UKIP
the party, but pretty much anybody that might even consider offering them their
electoral support. But then why wouldn't they when you have archaic political
dinosaurs regularly being put up by the likes of the BBC to disparage and
denounce UKIP and its policies, but without a shred of evidence being asked for
or demanded by the broadcasters.
It
is interesting though that for all that their supporters might denounce and
denigrate UKIP on social media and in the various online forums, the two major
English political parties, Labour and Conservative have found themselves being
influenced by UKIP, whether they like it or not. Who would have imagined that
both David Cameron and Ed Miliband would have found themselves compelled to
move on the subject of immigration, not because they wanted to, but because
they were driven to it by electoral pressures, initiated in large part by UKIP
and its leadership. But then sometimes that's the problem with entirely lazy
and wholly incorrect accusations, because they're so transparently and
unbelievably wrong, people start to see through them!
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