Today’s letters reflect the two main political events which took place this week – Ms May’s speech on Tuesday Jan. 17th and the inauguration of Donald Trump as 45th President of the USA on Jan 20th – by asking pertinent questions about how these events affect UKIP. The first letter is by Torquil Dick-Erikson, illustrating that the repeal of the EAW is still not addressed:
Sir,
Here is a comment I have posted online on this article in the Daily Telegraph article, and which ought to be of interest to readers of UKIP Daily:
I agree with other readers that this analysis by the “Director of the Foreign Policy Centre at the Heritage Foundation and a former special adviser at the Ministry of Defence” (!!) is completely wrong. It is in line with Hillary Clinton’s view that the main adversary of the West in the world today is Putin’s Russia, not militant Islam (we are told that she took millions of Saudi money for her campaign). Yet this view seems to be in line with present government policy. Mrs May has just annoyed (to put it mildly) those governments that she is pleased to call “our EU allies”, with her forthright rhetoric on Tuesday, full of supposedly resolute Brexiteering spirit. And yet she (and Mr Coffey) says at the end of her speech’s point 11, that she wishes Britain to continue to “lead Europe in sanctions against Russia”. As if they would accept a British leadership! So we antagonise our so-called “EU allies” by pulling out of the EU. We make an enemy of Putin. And, after Trump has expressed his warmth for Britain, and said “an independent Britain will move to the front of the queue” for a trade deal with the USA, we alienate him too, at a time when he wants to seek a rapprochement with Russia! The result of these policies combined will be to leave Britain without a friend in the world.
How did this totally disjointed thinking ever pass muster from the mandarins of the Foreign Office? There can only be one explanation.
It is deliberate.
The intention can only be to actually make a dog’s breakfast of Brexit.
Mrs May’s rousing speech in fact says “No to EU membership, no to single market membership”, but ‘Maybe’ to an “associate membership of the EU’s customs union”. And there is not a word about reclaiming our fishing grounds. Nor about suspending the implementation of the iniquitously unevidenced European Arrest Warrants, which put the liberty of each and every person in the UK under the unsupported say-so of questionable European judicial authorities. Why, in one instance, even a retired British judge (!!) was hauled out of bed at dawn by our own police on the orders of an EAW, to be shipped over to prison in mainland Europe, there to await the outcome of investigations into his case (ultimately dropped, like numbers of others, for lack of evidence).
Any serious Brexit programme would start off by at once suspending the implementation of EAWs received from continental Europe without any evidence of wrongdoing which can be assessed by a British court. Without this safeguard, enjoyed by Brits in Britain since Magna Carta, we are still a vassal state, at the end of the day.
Respectfully, Torquil Dick-Erikson
The next letter by Cllr Paul Foyster asks questions which need answers, especially in the wake of the Inauguration of Donald Trump as 45th president of the USA and the change in policies this will bring:
Sir,
James Dalton writes in his article : ” times are a-changing” – true enough! The point here is that we too have to move with them. Our attempts to take Labour votes is a good start, the gap between rich and working low earners is an insult to us all, but there is so much more we can do. So many members of the public have no idea what we stand for, except obviously Brexit and maybe they think we dislike immigrants.
As far as I know no local UKIPers dislikes immigrants on principle. What they do object to is the system which allows anyone and his cousin to come here. The key factors are quantity, quality and illegals, in this respect we are very badly served. My excellent dentist from South Africa had to jump through multiple hoops to come but an unemployed labourer from the EU just walks in, irrespective of having a criminal record in his native country.
Few people read full newspaper articles. They form their opinions from headlines, which usually consist of an anti-UKIP statement: the media, being part of the establishment, don’t like being challenged, and their smears do damage us.
Since even if we upgrade our failing education, turning out medical people, IT technicians, engineers and other skilled workers instead of sports psychologists, hairdressers, sandal knitters etc., it takes years to train specialists, so we will need to poach from elsewhere in the short term. A flexible points system, a requirement to learn English, integrate, observe our laws and social norms and a strong border are what’s needed, along with temporary and conditional visas for seasonal workers. This must to apply to all migrants, not just those from the EU. Filling the skills gap needs to be a UKIP target. It is the medium to long term solution so we should take on the secondary school system and university education.
In my opinion we need a small number of principal policy targets that we can get through to the public. I have my own ideas of where we should go, others will have different lists, but Brexit has to be just one item.
May I suggest:
Brexit and all that comes with it, border control, electoral reform, education, foreign aid, energy, local government, transport, healthcare, indirect taxation and housing as prime shortlist items for us to address, though the best 5 policy areas may be enough. It must be kept short and clear, Remain or Leave worked because it was a simple choice. Only political anoraks, as we tend to be, bother with detail, the rest just need to know the direction of travel, not a route map.
I wonder what other members think we should concentrate on?
Respectfully, Paul Foyster.
OK, which dopey snowflake fired that Trident missile?
On a slightly different subject does anyone know how to get on the site to sign the petition that Carol Vorderman is doing for Johnny Johnson to receive an honour from this pathetic government, that prefer to give them out to hairdressers for goodness sake.
Paul,
Ageism needs to be overcome here. I believe that many either cannot afford or do not not want to “sail off into the sunset” on enforced retirement and would be happy to continue working.
However, despite being well qualified and experienced, I have found it impossible to obtain permanent employment in the UK since turning 50 so have mostly had to work on contract there. I have had a permanent job elsewhere.
There has to be an available resource here in the short term.
I ran a campaign in the 1990s with others, and with two worthy MPs as patrons, to get employment age discrimination made unlawful.
It was amazing how reluctant the system was while plying us with laws about sex and race discrimination. Labour pledged in the Commons to pass the law shortly before the 1997 election. Then reneged once in power. The Tories were not interested. Labour only passed the law ten years later after an EU directive – well they must have done something good!
I regard it as part of the arrangements to get rid of British people and replace us with young immigrants. Much of the skills shortages we hear about are based on age discrimination. We have the law now which has helped but we need a big change in attitudes as well. Government should be plugging older workers. UKIP should too.
Seton,
I agree but hope that your 50% reduction in Foreign Aid is only a start. I want to see it eliminated but still allowing some reasonable contribution to unforeseeable natural disasters.
Reviewing, updating, optimising, and revising our 2015 UKIP Manifesto before the end of this month should be our No.1 Priority – this team must include Sarah Evans – all living in the same hotel during this period.
My priorities include:-
a, getting us out of The European Arrest Warrant Contract/Agreement/Acquiescence or whatever it really is;
b, listing all errors of omission and commission by Labour and Lib-DEM and Conservative Parties; correcting them and describing our changes for the affordable good;
c, taxation policy to cost starting with persons whose gross income is less than £14000.00p paying no Income Tax but paying National Insurance.
d, simplification of our taxation system to appraise the merits and demerits of merging Income Tax, and, National Insurance;
e, “timely” consideration to be given to reinstatement of our Statutory 6% Rate of Return on Capital Employed(-note this is not Capital Invested) for DLOs(Direct Labour Organisations) in our Public Sector – abolished by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown yielding to pressure from The TUC and most Unions; and, forgotten by The Conservative Party. Our private sector has net profit as a measure of performance whilst our private sector has nothing comparable.
f, stimulation of manufacturing for exports;
g, statutory qualifications for all elective public offices must include abilities to read and write in English(- this will eliminate some illiterate Councillors – particularly in London);
h, reduction of £Foreign Aid by 50% – because we have superior needs here at home, and, although we are charitable we are not a charity;
i, national reductions of our MPs and Councillors by 33% – i.e. MPs from 650/600 to 443, Councillors from say 63 in Enfield(-where I live) to 42 which is what it was when I was an Enfield Councillor;
j, immigration into the UK must be based on our PROVEN NEED and not where you come from;
k, how do we deal with vote-losing ideas such as introducing charges for NHS Services, e.g. Police + Ambulance + A&E £costs for services to self-inflicted patients taken in and confirmed “drunk and incapable or disorderly due to excessive drink and/or illicit drugs – for starters?
Enough for now.
I am desperate for one of those silly little pink ‘pussyhats’ that all the anti Trump sheeple are wearing because I want to look a proper right snowflake plonker as well. Better still, I think I will knit my own except that I am not thick enough to know, or want to do it! Anyone else fancy doing it for me as I am such a delicate little flower I cannot even stomach democracy in action.
I have just had a thought are’nt those pink ‘pussyhats’ racist?!
I have just watched Paul’s post on the UKIP site for his Stoke candidacy, I have to say he was very good and very inspiring, if I lived there and was a labour supporter I would vote for him rather than them, I think we may be in with a chance there, but it must be all hands on deck.
Councillor Foyster says it will be necessary to poach skilled immigrants while our own people are trained. We’ve been hearing that for a decade. If firms can poach they won’t train.
It’s also an interesting question how many trained people we are short of since the practice is to claim that just about anything is ‘highly skilled’. Who decides? Firms! That’s why you need to simply cut off the supply. Mr Foyster’s proposal would probably mean we never reached the point where firms said we don’t need cheap foreign labour any more – which is what it’s mostly about. Not a tiny number of foreign dentists – a popular example employed to make people look no further.
It all sounds to me like bending over backwards not to say stop immigration because the MSM won’t like it. More robust please or the flood inwards will never end. There are more excuses not to halt it than kids can think up for not doing their homework.
You’re right Mike.
Temporary exceptions for the strongest of case, and those only in work permits.
No Australian points, please!
Worth exploring the ‘carry on poaching while we train’ idea a little more.
You are an 18-year-old choosing a course. Are you going to forgo the ‘glamourous options’ like media studies and hairdressing and load yourself with a 40k debt maybe to do a course to get a job where employers are bringing in immigrants on such a scale they may not even want someone who won’t fit in with their existing workforce? Because of a promise that in the future sometime government will be chopping the supply? Base your career on a politician’s promise!! Would you? IT for three years and then the government says ‘not yet’.
Indeed by the time we’d ‘trained’ how many more million will have come in ‘to fill the jobs Britons can’t or won’t do’.
In fact the more the population grows the more the supposed shortages. The only mainstream politician who has pointed this out is Frank Field.
I find it difficult to believe UKIP actually wants to resist immigration as a whole. It started as a small party with a single issue – and it was not that one.
I do agree, Mike. As long as they can go on getting people (more cheaply) from elsewhere they won’t pay to train our own. As Q says, temporary only in emergencies.
I think certainly in the case of Doctors and Nurses it is immoral to poach them from their home countries.
We can surely hammer away at the fact that WE CANT COPE – even our leaders can manage that !
I wonder if you are old enough to have seen a TV series about UK builders working in Germany on post war reconstruction. They were allowed in on a time limited work permit, restricted to one employer who was responsible for any medical bills etc. and when the job was over, they had to return home and start again.
The whole idea of a points system is that it’s flexible, we can allow in who WE need and apply whatever restrictions we wish, which includes employers demonstrating that they have first tried to obtain UK recruits. Get the Unis training people we need, not running useless courses just to make money and the problem will end. A blind slam the doors policy is counterproductive, we actually need a few thousands of skilled people and some temporary harvest workers. Not the hundreds of thousands of individuals without a job to go to. We also have to ensure employers pay a living wage to local workers, even if that reduces profits…There was no shortage of local people willing to work before migrants and those who exploit them reduced wages for low skilled work to below the levels needed to maintain even a basic living standards.
I have worked overseas on and off via work permits for many years. The rules allowed a week to leave the country on termination of the permit (annual renewal) via cessation of employment. A long list of low skilled occupations were not open to foreigners. A work permit application had to be accompanied by proof of need and inability to recruit locally.
Why that system cannot be implemented in the UK is beyond me.
It can be. They don’t want to. David Davis is talking about low-skilled immigration continuing after Brexit.
Immigration is key to the entire New World Order plan they are wedded to. If UKIP won’t oppose it root and branch it is effectively a supporter of the big plan for one world controlled by an elite even if it thinks it’s just being moderate. Getting your enemies to unwittingly work for you – splendid!
The biggest threat to the West is China. Flooding world markets with cheap manufactured goods does far more damage to us than terrorism, and their territorial ambitions in the South China Sea have the potential for a real confrontation with the US.
Aren’t the country’s best brains supposedly in the FCO and HM Treasury?! Explains a lot of the mess we’re in.
Q.
We should all make a point of not buying cheap Chinese tat! I am sure we could survive without it
Q and DD,
I absolutely agree and we all know the main culprits:
Large DIY outfits
Toy stores
Electrical retailers?
Jeans especially and other clothing stores
Unfortunately it is nigh on impossible to identify stuff “made” here but using Chinese components or steel. However we must try.
We must also be aware of the attempts to confuse by forging the approvals that we seek such as “CE” marks moulded into plastic articles which turn out to be non-compliant.
Jack T,
I have found that a lot of this cheap do-it-yourself stuff and clothes just don’t stand up to normal wear, after a few months they break or just look terrible. I have decided it is not worth buying it, but like you say it is very difficult to find the genuine better made things. The same goes for clothes made in Bangladesh, sometimes the quality is appalling, I would much rather we could make and buy our much better produced British goods, it is worth paying the extra and it would mean employing people over here, instead of our money going over there for sub standard items.
You can buy stuff that lasts but it costs several times the price of cheap clothes. It still works out cheaper in the long run but the initial investment is too much for many people. Best to buy classics that won’t go out of style. Black shoes, white shirts say.
Mike,
I wear black shoes and white shirts in my job all the time, so I have invested in some doc martins, not sure where they are made though?
I agree both letters.
Just one point ref EAW. I am still not clear about the USA arrest warrant (or similar) whereby they can recall British citizens for trial in the USA, for crimes committed while in US employment but not necessarily in that country. If it was not a crime in this country, it would be iniquitous.
Just heard on Radio confirmed NUTTALL standing for Stoke – Does that mean we will get thye new Manifesto? I cannot really think he would consider standing without it.
Anyway good luck to him I hope he does a
“DONALD TRUMP” in word, deed and result
He`s got to hit Labour and Conservative equally with both barrels – They are both contaminated with Evil remain lies and ideology.
When I say “Do a Trump” – there can be no Softly Softly approach, no Mr.Nice Guy in either election
Paul Foyster, I completely agree and the sooner our 2015 Manifesto is reviewed, revised, refreshed and published online for everyone to see, the better.
I am sick to the back teeth of MSM interviewers, commentators etc asking the tedious question (don’t they actually bore themselves silly with this?) “Now that there is Brexit, what is the point of UKIP blah blah blah bleurghh”
They’ve been asking this for the last seven bleedin’ months and only the swift publication and publicising of our other policies will shut them up.
Please, please, whoever is doing the Manifesto update, get a move on! The date for the Copeland and Stoke Parliamentary by-elections is 23rd February. Not a lot of time.
TD-E, your concern about the EAW is wholly justified and we need to widely publicise those cases (especially the judge’s!) in which British citizens have been subjected to a foreign law and dragged overseas to answer to a legal system that is not ours. Isn’t there something in the constitutional reforms after the Glorious Revolution that forbids this?
Personally, I refuse to leave these shores until the EAW is completely revoked. If others did the same, there would soon be howls of protest from the tourist and transport industries blaming May for having signed this inimical, un-British warrant.