Today’s first letter is from Catherine Blaiklock, Eastern Regional Chair:
Sir,
we need to get UKIP out of a 1980’s time-warp!
68% of 18-30 year olds voted for anti-EU and non establishment parties in the Italian Election.
Nigel Farage noted that CPAC last week in the USA (Conservative Political Action Conference) was full of young people.
8 million people (80% of whom are estimated to be young men) have watched Jordan Peterson’s fight with Cathy Newman on youtube. I recommend anyone who has not seen this video to watch it.
I get told all young people in the UK are brainwashed, Marxist snowflakes. Many clearly are but many are not and are dying for a political message that is different – as is evidenced by the popularity of Jordan Peterson, his book and his videos. The Millennials flock to Corbyn because he is fresh and new and at least has something to say directly to them, rather than the half-baked policies of the Conservative party who seem to alienate their core whilst not engaging with anyone young.
And what does UKIP do?
We continually appoint people with an average age of 60+:
Gerard Batten: *1954 – Mike Hookem: *1953 – Margot Parker: *1943
We are clearly a party of old people and we desperately need young and middle aged people with energy to join. My plumber, my plasterer – these men aged 35-45, have energy and passion. Where are they? They support everything we stand for but we cannot attract them and even people who previously joined have walked off in disgust.
I support Gerard and I know he has a difficult job but he has got to get energy and life into this party. We will die if our membership has an average age of 60+. He must appoint some people who are 16-40. There are people around. Reece Combes who set up Kipper Central and is only 17, is an outstanding example, as is James Turner, 22, the candidate for Anglesey in 2017, or Daniel Woolfe (mid 30’s), the Parliamentary candidate for Gloucester – a teacher and a young David Kurten. There will be many others who I do not know. These are our future and our country’s future. They also know how to use social media which is also the future. All this political activity is happening every day on twitter but it is not translating into anything for UKIP because we do not engage properly and continue to have no internet strategy or message!
5 Star in Italy said, ‘We got 32% of the vote because of our dense social media’ connections.’
16,000 UKIP members is not an example of ‘dense social media connection’:
Farage 1.1 million, Hopkins 900,000, Trump 45 million.
Those are numbers that will change the political landscape.
We will not make progress if we continually appoint the same old people and are stuck in some 1980’s timewarp, talking to forty old UKIP members in a church hall somewhere.
Respectfully, Catherine Blaiklock, Eastern Regional Chair
The next letter is from Jane Collins MEP:
Sir,
I write about the UKIP Damages Nonsense.
There is a lot of comment and speculation currently being circulated about the defamation case against the three MPs and how much UKIP will have to pay as a result of the recent judgment.
I have to say that everything I have seen has come from people who know absolutely nothing about the case and would seem not to have read the judgment. It is as we say in Yorkshire a load of rubbish.
I would therefore like to make it clear that the judgment handed down in February did not specify any amount of costs that UKIP is liable for. In fact the judge specifically stated in the judgment that he was not there to assess the costs.
The judge concluded in view of minutes from the NEC that members of the NEC had been directing the management of my case and that the party was therefore liable to pay costs incurred for a specific period March 2015 – June 2015 plus the assessment hearing of January 2017.
Again I would like to stress that the Judge did not put any figure on what the costs are but made it clear that if they could not be agreed they would have to be decided by detailed assessment. As yet I am not aware of any figure being requested by the Labour Party or having been agreed by UKIP. those speculating about what this number might be don’t know what they are talking about and should really sit down and read the judgment before firing off comments and emails.
Respectfully, Jane Collins MEP
I. ‘m not an IT expert. I can barely control my own computer which is clearly better qualified and knowledgeable than me.
However I have clocked up a vast mileage of employing kids of all shapes sizes and abilities. And have a relative with huge responsibility of running a serious programming team.
1, All kids under 30 believe they are IT experts. but are still in the playground.
2. And so are their teachers, whose main expertise is raising the childs expectations. Aided and abetted by adoring, or more usually aggresive parents hoping that someone be blamed. Clearly hopeful for compensation.
3. The other problem of course is nothing to do with the kid. It is that nobody except the original writer understands what it’s supposed to be doing. It’s not easy to find out from looking at the program. and if its a complex management, or engineering program . They could die at their desks.
For anyone hoping to employ someone this is a serious mountain to climb. Rarely does anyone who has not been to a proper university for a decent degree, made the grade. Although there are the odd exceptions, And they can be worth the risks. Usually they end up doing websites and other low grade work if they can find any that isn’t completion paid.
I cannot remember who was being replied to , but it can stand alone.
It might be a good start not to get known as a party that “No platforms” AND ARRESTS (and holds for 3 DAYS) speakers who share the concerns of those younger people who actually are paying attention.
You won’t attract younger activists..or the middle aged (like myself) doing that.
https://youtu.be/fE6gy6Ww91w
Starting with Jane Collins, I am a Yorkshireman, when a court finds you guilty of libel that means you have libelled someone. Worse the judge found UKIP guilty of delaying a reasonable settlement for blatantly political reasons, costing more. You Jane have not said what you believe about that. I also hate what gangs of men from another culture have done and are claimed to be still doing with impunity against vulnerable women. In my own county, where are the true Yorkshiremen?
UKIP won the referendum with old men, we were on the streets week in week out, spat on and reviled due to our toxic policy regarding immigration. It was the young that spat on me most, one set my bag of leaflets on fire with a dog end. Kids don’t think or read deeply enough about anything that has over ten words in it. That’s a statement that I will amend for the thousands of young people who are trying to make sense of Brexit without doing the reading and learning.
I despair of our country sometimes until I have a few ales with old and determined codgers like me. We will win our freedom because we old uns will still March behind our flag.
My council runs local democracy sessions for schools. We get 30 minutes to cover the subject. From the questions they ask us it is very clear that the vast majority know very little about politics or government and many are utterly uninterested in the subject, those that do tend to parrot the opinions of their parents or teachers. The last question we ask them is “do they think they should be given the vote at 16?” Usually most do.
When I was a teenager, I too was not interested in politics. I voted Labour like my parents.
And also not interested in my middle age.
I only got interested with the whole issue arose of our country becoming a slave state/magic money tree for the new Fourth Reich.
This was when I joined UKIP.
Since then I have met several politicians.
They are a breed apart, mostly ignorant, obnoxious and narcissic.
The reasons they want to be become politicians are the very reasons that it should never happen.
On PM Questions, with few exceptions, all I see are rows of Bimbos and Schoolboys.
Liars almost all, we need to make manifesto commitments legally binding.
And minimum age of forty.
And to have had a proper job.
I’d raise the age of suffrage to 25, not lower it.
The reason young people in Italy vote anti-EUSSR is about not having a job.
We would be in the same position if we had adopted the Euro.
Our young people ARE snowflakes, they have never experienced hardship. They think it’s “austerity” not to have a mobile phone.
Whereas older people in the UK have experienced the post WW2 years and well know it could happen again.
It probably WILL happen due to the government and personal debts now in extent in the UK. There are a lot of idiots about suffering from instant gratification syndrome.
Most are young. And thick.
I agree with Catherine entirely as well. UKIP needs more younger members but one of the problems is, how do we attract them? At a recent schools seminar I spoke at, the students were apparently generally anti-UKIP and BREXIT. They were brainwashed and believed that BREXIT had robbed them of golden opportunities for their futures in the EU. This is of course a pipe dream. For a start the EU speaks with 25 odd languages! One way is to try and convince them that UKIP and BREXIT has saved them a lifetimes liability in supporting EU pensioners. The pensions liabilty in only 18 of the 27 EU countries is well over 30 trillion euros. The UK has the lowest liability of alll the EU countries investigated and our pensions, despite being the lowest in the EU, are currently now not being paid until we reach 70. I think this is another area that UKIP must push aggressively during our campaigning. After all, the figures quoted are based on an EU report! Please ask me for more information.
1980 Time Warps, what does UKIP do. The same types of questions are being asked to the UKIP leadership and what does that a leadership do. NOTHING from what I can see.
I have added a comment to a reply to a recent article where I compare UKIP with Blairs second Iraq war. Blair had no exit plan and UKIP has no ‘after Brexit’ plan. Without a ‘five line on an A5 sheet’ manifesto UKIP has nothing to offer the British voter. I agree new younger members are urgently required, an effective leadership is also required. Without an effective leades the battle is lost before it starts.
D. Turgoose
Young people of 16 have zero experience of real life and can’t even vote. They have nothing to contribute until they have some real life and work experience.
This is true but it goes further than this.
Due to TV brainwashing, they have developed a strong entitlement/instant gratification syndrome.
They see that older people are often comparatively well off (especially in the housing aspect.) What they can’t grasp is that we’ve all had to work hard to get it. Due to the above mentioned brain washing, they think the answer to their aspirations is debt (or even gambling). Which in the end leads to disaster.
Most of the housing expense is deliberately caused by a rich property owning elite who see their wealth increase. (Eg Tony Bliar)
HI Jane.
Would just like to say the judgement is a travesty.
But exactly what UKIP and any dissenters can expect from British justice.
You have my full support.
Being cynical I would just like to say that I am grateful not to see you sentenced to 9 months imprisonment for trying to protect English children from islamic rape and gang rape – as has just happened to Jayda Fransen.
Her story is horrific.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzopaEAYwpY
Best wishes
Catherine is correct that we must attract younger people to the Party as well as capable professional people too if we are to prosper as a party.
Lets be honest though, we have not completely rid ourselves of the one issue party label in the consciousness of the public or MSM and many people, including Nigel Farage concluded that UKIPs job was done after the Referendum. Why throw your lot in with a party that to all intents and purposes had completed its objective – a one trick pony? And importantly we must not forget that it is a very courageous professional who will become an activist for UKIP – subtle discrimination, perceived and real of UKIP activists in business and particularly the public sector is a reality. Nobodies career is ground to a halt for being a Labour, Liberal or Tory activist.
Another problem is that we are as yet unable to offer capable and enthusiastic young people a career path in politics like Lib/Cons can because we have no MPs. It may be the support for Five Star in southern Italy can be explained by the fact that youth unemployment is approx 50% whereas here in the UK our young people can mostly find work and can afford to indulge in Corbyn’s Never-Never Land political ideology (for now).
When (if) Brexit is carried out and the MEPs have bitten the dust the Party will have to sharpen up its polices or die. We have a year to reshape UKIP for a post Brexit world with policies and image that appeal to young people.
I agree with Catherine Blaiklock; the way to do this is to transform UKIP into an exclusively online operation, potentially, and then change the Constitution to conform. To harness the talent of young people it is essential that their skills can be recorded on a central database so that we do not for example finish up with another inept and costly effort to bring order to the email chaos when their is the knowledge and expertise potentially on tap. It should be the responsibility of the branches to deal with members who do not have online access yet instead of the party always having to move at the speed of the slowest ship.
However, it is important not to throw the baby out with the bath water: Gerard Batten has been communicating well with the membership and is clearly taking steps to clear up the mess left by Bolton. His long experience with UKIP and as a politician does provide benefits. The 5 Star movement may have been successful in attracting the votes of young people in the south of Italy, but their leadership seem incapable of agreeing or maintaining a platform for very long which will inevitable bring disenchantment: youthful vigour needs to be attenuated with mature judgement.
It’s not just Branch Members who are not online, it’s Branch Committee Members too. Our revised Rule Book should require that elected Branch officials should as a minimum be able to use emails, the internet and online banking, or else we as a Party will never drag ourselves into the 21st Century. Each Branch Committee should also sppoint an IT “expert” – who will probably need to be under the age of 35
Sounds sensible!
I agree with Catherine entirely. The idea that the young generation are pro EU is greatly exaggerated by the msm. I think lots of young people can see what is happening in Greece, Sweden and the streets of Paris etc. What the tory party and labour party call policy is more EU globalism whether we leave or stay.
Can ukip be an alternative political opposition to the post democratic nonsense peddled by May and Corbyn? Absolutely. Empower the next generation. All arguments against ukip are based on identity politics. But that is not enough. Increasingly young people can see that jobs (or zero hours contracts), housing(rent till you die), and even our laws (free speech policed arbitrarily) are organised against their interests. Empower young people and they can tackle these issues on their social media sites etc The older generation have a lot to pass on to the next generation so lets get the old codgers talking to the millenials.
I am replying to a number of comments, not this one specifically.
1. If we just dismiss all young people as useless, we will not get anywhere – it is also insulting to millions of people.
2. Young people have got big problems – their average hourly wages are falling , they spend a large proportion of their income on rent, they have no pensions, they do see older people as owning all the assets and all the pensions.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/under-45-chances-are-you-wont-own-a-home/
3. Some are brainwashed, some are not. It is our job to make the message, not just say, it is impossible or not worth doing.