UKIP Archives - Wolfie Wolfgang

Are You In Or Out? I Know What I Think

wolf01 — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 08:57:00 +0000

I’ve been tempted to stay silent through the EU Referendum campaign here in the United Kingdom assuming, after last year’s depressing General Election result when 26% of the electorate voted in the incompetent government that has led us all the way here to the worrying final days of a national debate on Britain’s future which appears to pay very little attention to the complexities of the EU itself or the reasons for Britain being a member of that much criticised institution.

Let me put it clearly (as all obfuscating politicians, on both sides of the debate, keep repeating), I didn’t vote for this government and I disapproved strongly from the beginning in the idea of the referendum especially as the subject is particularly complex. I do, however, believe in parliamentary democracy. We hope to vote in MPs who will represent us and our interests and who will strive to unravel the very complexities that have so confused and worried the British people in the months building up to this week’s potentially nation-threatening referendum. We are the people, we want the best for the country but we’re not economists.

It was, I think, a major dereliction of duty, for the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, to risk the future of the country for his own narrow interests in the future of the political party that he is currently leading. He now says it would be a disaster for the British economy and for the future of Britain to leave the EU. If he knew that then why did he risk such a disaster by asking us, unqualified economists all, to settle such an important issue with a simple yes or no poll? He was worried before the last General Election about the dangerous influence of the emerging UKIP leader Nigel Farage and the potential split that UKIP’s anti-European policies could have had on the election result and on the large number Eurosceptics in the Conservative Party.

Farage, of course, didn’t even get elected as an MP and only one of his party’s members did, but the damage had been done, he has been helped by the referendum debate, and we are now in risk of having to live with the consequences now that not only the Conservative Party but the nation has been plunged into a deeply unpleasant debate which has resulted in a shocking escalation of racist, jingoistic and simply incorrect opinions being banded around as if they were traditional British values which they most definitely are not.

Anyway, the referendum has been implemented, at an enormous financial as well as national cost, and it is too late now for Cameron to change his mind about what he must realise was just the most serious of a long list of mistakes he has made since becoming possibly the weakest Prime Minister in living memory. British politics too, since the General Election, has descended into a series of miscalculations and mistakes where any objective observer must wonder if Britain is actually capable of governing itself any more. The electorate, understandably underwhelmed and confused by its leaders, has sought consolation in single issue politics – the politics of simple solutions which ignore the complex nature of practical politics, economics, and international relations.

It has become too easy, in this party political vacuum, for easily digested emotional ideas to take on the form of concrete policy whether it be to the right or the left. In a democracy this is truly dangerous and it is even more so when major decisions are made by referendum. That is why we hear more outrage over that shot gorilla than we do for the four hundred thousand people who have been killed in Syria in the last five years. That is also why , if the polls are correct, a large number of British people think it is worth risking the collapse of the United Kingdom because they confuse the fate of fleeing refugees with an ill-thought through economic analysis of the effects of immigration on a nation. An analysis often based on the politics of hatred encouraged by UKIP and some of the nastier members of the Conservative Party.

I have been told many times, mostly by taxi drivers, that many people want to leave the EU because ‘they want their nation back,’ that they are frightened that immigration will ‘swamp’ traditional British values. Apparently, the Great Britain that they are nostalgic for actually existed. When questioned, that traditional Britain appears to mean white blokes in pubs free to be ‘politicly incorrect,’ a nation where everyone was a racially pure Englishman who ‘ruled the waves,’ and that was on the best possible terms with the former colonies of the British Empire, and where everyone was financially secure before those evil Europeans started to take all our cash. It doesn’t take much for people to pine for a past that never existed and which will never be created by leaving the EU.

Those pure-blooded Englishmen who lament Great Britain’s demise by being ‘swamped’ by other cultures, really do need to look at their history books. Being British in the 21st century is indeed something to be proud of and anyone whose family can be traced to the shores beyond the last two hundred years or so, can feel truly proud of their heritage, whether their DNA can be traced to the Ancient Britons who now live on the British Isles’ furthest extremities, or to the Roman, Viking, Danish, Anglo-Saxon or Norman French invaders who all in various quantities ultimately settled and intermarried with the peoples that they found here. It was the very mix in British blood that gave the nation its unique character that has benefited from modern developments and a forward-looking acceptance of change . Modern Britain continues to benefit from new ideas often coming from talented and energetic peoples who have fled from less fortunate nations.

Many of the problems associated with immigration are the consequences of failures in government. We are a rich nation that can well afford to house our peoples, educate them and look after them in sickness and in health. If a majority of voters worry about these issues, as they should, they should look to their elected politicians to make the changes in housing, education and health policies that would address these issues without putting the blame on immigration.

Similarly, if we don’t like the structure of the European Union then we, represented by our elected leaders at the council of Europe, should campaign to make the very necessary changes. I don’t particularly like my local town council but I don’t expect to abolish it and somehow live without it.

I went to York last weekend and, on Sunday, I visited York Minster with the express idea of hearing the excellent choir performing at the main services there. I must have been one of the few people in Britain to have failed to notice that all over the nation there were national celebrations of the Queen’s official 90th Birthday. It was true also in York Minster where the main event, at evensong, was Handel’s great coronation anthem, Zadok The Priest, the one with that magnificent long introduction which has thrilled anyone with ears to listen since the great German (nationalised English) composer, George Frederick Handel, first composed it for the coronation of the German Prince George as King George II of Great Britain in 1727. I’m not a royalist but, like many would-be republicans, I can still admire the elderly woman who has worn the crown as well as anyone ever could and, in that wonderful German music, I could recognise the deep emotions that we all wish to invest in the ideals of our land of birth and which Handel was so brilliant at evoking. I was moved not just by the music but by the reminder, in that wonderful French-style Gothic architecture, listening to the 16th Century English words of Archbishop Cranmer, that Britain should take full delight in its European inheritance and those promises of a great shared culture to come. Don’t knock the best about Britain, often it’s the best about Europe too, I thought, just think of Syria, and North Korea, if you think things are so bad.

York is a beautiful city, rightly proud of its inheritance – proud of the Roman and Viking invaders who were so influential in its creation. York is also a centre for new archaeological research into the ethnicity of those Romans who settled there and who settled even further north along the famous Hadrian’s Wall. It is now becoming clear that, far from being shivering Italians in sandals and mini-skirts, the Roman invaders and settlers of Britain mostly came from France and Germany and some even from Africa. Being a Roman, as the excellent Mary Beard has been recently stating in her BBC television series, did not mean being an Italian born in Rome. To be a Roman was to be a citizen of the largest and most successful union of peoples in the ancient world.

In York Minster that day, one of the Bible readings was from The Acts Of The Apostles, Chapter 21. Now these days, I’m always wary of people who quote Holy Scripture, they usually do it to reinforce their prejudices, but I was intrigued to hear this section about St Paul (not the most liberal of the saints) who had been arrested in Judaea for allegedly blaspheming against the Jewish religion. Whatever happened to St Paul in the end, on this occasion he was not convicted by Judaean law

because the Roman Governor of judea, Felix, found out that Paul was a Roman citizen.

‘And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?

When the centurion heard [that], he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman.

Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea.

And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was [free] born.

Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him. ‘

Now, when I hear all those complaints about the EU being undemocratic and how people want all legislation to be controlled by Parliament, I go back to that depressing General Election of last year and remember that only 26% of the electorate voted for this government. A government where its beleaguered leader struggles on a daily basis to avoid being pushed to the authoritarian right in his own party and who, as a result of the referendum campaign, whichever way it goes, is now severely weakened. If you like the sound of a right wing government then don’t relax too much either. Those of you that dread a Corbyn premiership, might also wish for another legislative tier. If Britain leaves the European Union, many Britons may well regret losing that right of redress that they once had in Europe.

I was reminded of the great Spanish painter Goya’s etching in an article in the Guardian newspaper last week and it was well chosen. The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters (1799). I am more than worried that not only has reason been allowed to sleep during this referendum campaign but that here and overseas, some of those monsters have already started to appear.

So, please vote, if you have a vote, for Britain to remain in the EU. Vote for the EU and then campaign with all your strength for the reforms that many citizens of the European Union would like too.

In case you need reminded about the glories of that Handel anthem, here’s Zadok The Priest as sung by the choir of Westminster Abbey. However ambivalent anyone is about the coronation elements, I for one will be singing the words to ‘let all the people rejoice, alleluia,’ if the nation votes as it should to celebrate this country and its rightful place in Europe on Thursday:

The post Are You In Or Out? I Know What I Think appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

The UK General Election: Who should we vote for tomorrow?

wolf01 — Tue, 05 May 2015 22:00:00 +0000

The leaders of the UK’s seven main political parties (not including Northern Ireland)

In case you are one of those lucky people (presumably not in the UK) who haven’t been subjected to the very long PR campaigns run by Britain’s political parties and the consequent media orgy that has been this, the longest run-up to a general election that I can remember, here’s some explanation.

Strangely, or maybe not, the length of the campaign has made very little difference to the opinion polls that show the main two political parties (Conservatives and Labour) almost equal and, even more unusually, that an amazing 40% of the electorate say that they haven’t decided how they will vote. – it’s not for any lack of publicity. The election will be held on Thursday this week and, needless to say, everyone thinks it will be very close with the strong possibility that neither main party will achieve a working majority.

There has been more than enough coverage of the 2015 election campaign from people who, probably, know what they’re talking about so I won’t pretend to be a political pundit. All I can do is add some of my thoughts now that we only have a day to decide how to vote.

David Cameron

I know some (actually only a few) people who have always voted Conservative and who will continue to do so no matter what. Well good luck to them – I admire people who know what they believe and stick to their principles even if I totally disagree with them. It’s quite interesting, in case you hadn’t noticed, that the Conservative Party hasn’t been elected by the British electorate for 23 years, not since John Major’s victory in 1992 – David Cameron became Prime Minister, without a majority, as the leader of the party that could form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats (leader Nick Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister).

I suspect, by now, most people will have worked out what they thought about the coalition government even if we as a nation still haven’t grasped the realities of political coalition. Certainly the unpopularity of the Liberal Democrats since they entered government shows that being a party of protest is a lot easier than actually having to do the job.

Gordon Brown

I was sad to see the collapse of the Gordon Brown government and still believe that history will redeem his reputation as the man who prevented a much greater economic crisis than we’ve actually endured since 2008. I have been amazed how the Conservatives have succeeded in persuading people that the World economic crisis of that year was all Gordon Brown’s fault. It only goes to show that people will believe what they want to believe – it’s one of the downsides of democracy. The Conservative Party tried to turn the financial collapse into political propaganda and wanted to use austerity cuts as a method of undermining the welfare state on a long mission to fulfil their dreams of a Thatcherite state where there would “be no such thing as society”.

Ed Miliband

The Labour Party, led by Ed Miliband, has distanced itself from Gordon Brown too and acknowledged that the last Labour government made mistakes. It is true, they did (Iraq, Bank regulation, pension fund taxation and failing to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats after the last election) but Ed Miliband, deeply unpopular since coming to the job, has finally started to look like tomorrow’s man as we have got to know him better and in spite of a largely negative campaign against him by most of the British newspapers. It is still highly doubtful that the electorate will vote for Labour to go it alone as he would obviously prefer.

Nigel Farage

The loss of electoral support for the two main parties has led to some dramatic and, maybe, exaggerated press predictions, especially over the last year over the rise (and hopefully, fall) of Nigel Farage’s United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP – pronounced you-kip) that has been blaming everything on immigration and the European Union. As somebody wrote, people who are tempted to vote for UKIP are voting for some imagined past – probably a fantasy English world circa 1952 when the Queen was a young woman, Europe was a long way away, somewhere on the other side of the world, and the sun always shined in the sky as opposed to Mr Farage’s posterior. We will see on Friday if UKIP has made any difference – their popularity is on the wane but, across the country they could still let in the party that their voters don’t actually want.

Whichever main party gets to form a government, the experts and the polls tell us that they will have to at least co-operate with some of the smaller parties and thus, this year, we have all taken extra notice of those other political leaders – especially Nigel Farage of UKIP, Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish Nationalist Party, Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru (the Welsh Nationalist party) and Natalie Bennett of the Green Party. Putting UKIP to one side (I’ve already said too much about this depressing party), the others are all to the left of Labour and in with a real chance of keeping a minority Labour government in power. It is important for anyone who votes for them to realise that their vote might, this time, actually make a difference.

Natalie Bennett

I have much sympathy for many of the policies advocated (as long term ideals but unconvincingly costed) by the Green Party and I’ve been saddened by the several public relations disasters that have plagued their charisma-challenged and surprisingly honest leader, Natalie Bennett, because much of what she has said about the environment and the reordering of economic priorities will be commonly agreed one day and I would like to hear Green Party voices in the House Of Commons even if it is only to act as the nation’s conscience.

Nicola Sturgeon

I am not a fan of Nationalism (Scottish, Welsh, Irish, German, North Korean or any other variety) but then I don’t have a Scottish or Welsh vote. However I disagree with those who want to deny the Scots a voice in the UK parliament as some kind of revenge policy because so many of them want independence from the United Kingdom (maybe we should come up with a new collective name for the old UK). At the moment, the Scottish Nationalists come across as an idealist left wing party with a splendidly articulate leader in Nicola Sturgeon, but, if I had a Scottish vote, I would not vote for a party that wants to break up the UK and I have a long enough memory to remember that it was the Scottish Nationalists who voted with the Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher, to bring down the Labour Government in 1979.

Nick Clegg

The other minority party, of course, is the Liberal Democratic party, led by the much maligned Nick Clegg. OK, Liberal Democrat politicians sat around a Conservative cabinet table and agreed many policies that shocked and saddened many of their supporters but it is possible to believe what they say about doing their democratic duty in doing a deal with the Conservatives at a time of economic crisis when the electorate had failed to elect an outright winner. I would’ve preferred a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition but the Conservatives had more seats and that, I guess, was democracy at work.

Cameron and Clegg – Coalition Partners

This week the British electorate may well have another hung parliament and, I believe, we as a nation need to wake up to the realities of political coalitions. The Liberal Democrats made mistakes in the last government and agreed to policies that still make me shudder but they also limited a Conservative government’s harshest instincts and helped to control the horrors advocated by those right wing Conservative backbenchers – the people who would get their way if the Conservative party wins a workable majority.

So where do I stand just before this important moment in British electoral history?

Well, I’ve never believed that any one party has all the answers but there are a number of policies that I can say I support:

1) We should remain in, support and influence the European Union and only have a referendum if and when major policy changes occur.

2) We should maintain the United Kingdom but improve the political structures in each member country including all parts of England.

3) We should adjust the tax system so that it doesn’t benefit the richest members of society at the expense of the most needy.

4) We should take much tougher measures to limit gas emissions and end the potentially dangerous use of nuclear power.

5) We should stop playing politics with the National Health Service.

6) We should properly fund universities and make them free at source for all.

7) We should re-nationalise public transport and reintroduce bus services in all rural areas.

8) We should down-grade (but not abolish) Trident when the decision has to be taken in 2016 and then, through example and negotiation, lead the rest of the world towards total nuclear disarmament.

Then again, what do I know!

If I lived in most parts of Scotland or Wales, I would vote Labour but I don’t, I live in Lewes in England.

Norman Baker

What I do know is that I have been saddened by the consequences for the Liberal Democrats in the fall-out from the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition and fear the loss of a liberal voice in Britain. Most of my list above is, I think, Lib-Dem policy. I live in a town fortunate to have a very good constituency MP, the Liberal-Democrat Norman Baker and I intend to vote for him on Thursday. We are not only electing a government but someone to look after our interests where we live and Norman Baker, who did some good things as Transport Minister in the Coalition Government (as well as resigning from Theresa May’s Home Office on a matter of principle), has also been an energetic and effective local MP.

Caroline Lucas

Just down the road from here is the city of Brighton – a place that also has an excellent constituency MP in the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas. I hope she too will be returned to Parliament on Thursday.

I would like Thursday’s election to produce an Ed Miliband government with strong Liberal-Democratic and Green backing but I only have one vote. However, I intend to use it and I hope everyone else in this country will do the same however they vote. We should remember that one of the many good things about democracy is that we can also vote people out of power. So get out there tomorrow and, yes, you, the 40% of undecideds, it’s make your mind up time so go vote and make a difference.

The post The UK General Election: Who should we vote for tomorrow? appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

In the UK, sorry World, we’re all down the pub with Nigel Farage and UKIP.

wolf01 — Tue, 27 May 2014 10:17:00 +0000

I’ve often been told that I’m an odd sort of chap and that I’m, well you know, a bit different from other people. I’m not that strange, honestly, I fancy a pint down the pub as well as the next man and I like a laugh in congenial company and more often than I’d like, I get things wrong. So far so normal.

Today, though, I can see what all those people meant. I am a bit different.

I live in Lewes in the UK. I love this town for all its eccentricities, its beauty, its pubs and for the convivial company where I can often have a laugh. Today though I found out that, in the European Elections last week, Lewes has joined the majority of the country by voting for a party that is led from the front by a normal sort of bloke who likes his pint and enjoys a good laugh down the pub. I’m sure that the jovial and remarkable Nigel Farage, is fun to spend the odd quarter of an hour with – well, maybe five minutes, just long enough to have one of those matey conversations at the bar while you’re waiting for your Guinness to be poured. It would become annoying pretty quickly once you realise that he is one of those people, often encountered after a few drinks, who thinks everything is easy. Economics: simple. International diplomacy: a piece of cake. Health and education: no problem. Just leave it to a few good blokes and everything will be alright. More than that, here let me get you another drink, let us govern Britain, it will be great again even just like it was, well, you know, in the olden days. Oh yes and one other thing, or two actually. Everything would be just great if we stopped all these foreign immigrants coming over here and if we left the European Union. See what I mean? It’s simple.

Sorry Nigel and everyone who voted for him, I don’t think things are that simple but thanks for the pint.

The European Union is, almost everyone admits, ripe for reform but it isn’t one of those baby’s rattles that gets thrown out of the cot the moment baby gets bored with it. It has its problems, no question, and it has been going through the worst economic situation in its history but it is a remarkable thing this union of so many European countries coming together to share its rich cultural heritage, its vast industrial experience and skills, its potentially vibrant economy and its populations of people who, united, could make Europe a truly inspiring community of minds – greater than its individual parts.

I like living in Lewes, I like being English, I’m proud of my Scottish and Irish ancestry and of all those ancestors who were brave enough to leave home and settle in India, Australia, the US and even as far away as Peru. I like being European too and, to quote the great, one time Lewes resident, Thomas Paine, I would like to consider myself a citizen of the World.

Here in Britain, maybe for the first time, I feel alienated. I’m beginning to think I must be a bit strange after-all. Looking at those European election results, I wonder about my fellow citizens, I fear for democracy and worry about the future. Nigel Farage has won a remarkable victory, fought an extraordinary campaign and he should be congratulated on a personal achievement but he is dangerous when so many people feel so let down by their politicians that they could risk all and vote for a party that has no politics and that only preaches prejudice and fear.

The two main political parties in the UK have failed us over Europe. Divided amongst themselves, they have shrunk from rocking the boat by insisting on the importance of Britain being in the European Union and the pro-European Liberals have been sunk by their often under-rated and heroic role in diluting some of the worst extremes of Conservative politics. It will be a tragedy if Britain’s liberal voice is silenced.

There is no point just blaming Nigel when the pattern is so obviously been repeated across Europe with Neo-Fascist parties triumphing in too many countries for us to ignore the reality of this bleak moment in European history.

When I was a student, some years ago, I knew two respectable and, I thought liberal-minded ladies, sisters straight out of an Agatha Christie novel, who ran a music shop in Marylebone High Street, London. On one occasion I was there buying a book of Italian songs when a group of young people walked by eating sandwiches and drinking Coca-Cola from cans. One of the ladies tutted and said it was a depressing sight seeing the way society was going. She asked why these lads had to eat immediately after buying those sandwiches and why they couldn’t wait until they got home. She said that we would learn to regret a society that got used to instant gratification. Europe has been through a truly serious economic crisis and life has been tough right across the World. In Europe this week, in England, in Lewes, people have voted for instant gratification: no more austerity, no more complicated solutions, no more global responsibilities. Europe has voted for that easily swallowed sandwich and, if not a can of Coca-Cola, then a comforting pint down the pub with Nigel Farage.

I truly hope that any responsible electorate will learn the error of its ways in time for next year’s General Elections. If not where does a weird guy like me go to live?

——————————————————————————————————–

STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley’s%20Summer%20Of%20love

The post In the UK, sorry World, we’re all down the pub with Nigel Farage and UKIP. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.