The media, once again, were premature in writing off UKIP. They hadn’t anticipated the Tory manifesto, which leaves more room for UKIP to overtake on the right than you would normally find on the M4. It’s the most left-wing manifesto the Tory party has produced since the absurd Heath documents of 1970 and 1974.
Aside from Brexit and the welcome promises to pull out of the single market and the customs union, there’s almost nothing in it of interest to Conservatives. It isn’t in any meaningful sense a Tory party document, indeed, tellingly, Theresa May introduced it on Thursday as ‘my manifesto’. There was minimal input from MPs and none from the voluntary party.
This isn’t so surprising. There was no real leadership election last year. Theresa May is a centrist rather than a true Conservative and she backed Remain in last year’s referendum.
Whilst we are in a General Election campaign I feel free to criticise my own party’s manifesto for four reasons:
(1) I wasn’t party to writing it.
(2) I’m not standing as a candidate and therefore I am not bound by it.
(3) I supported Andrea Leadsom in last year’s leadership election and hold no brief for Theresa May, whom I’ve never even met, and
(4) The party got its panties in a twist over my bogus 2014 convictions and won’t even issue me with a membership card. Indeed Central Office is treating me quite rudely at the moment, although Theresa May was briefed by MI5 when Home Secretary and is aware that I was set up. There it is. I’m only a semi-detached member of the Tory party at the moment.
On page 37 the manifesto commits a Conservative and Unionist government to not repealing the absurd Human Rights Act 1998 during the Brexit process. That process is scheduled to last until March 2019, although the farcical negotiations with the EU are likely to have collapsed long before then; indeed they have effectively collapsed already. The government may yet come to its senses and pull out using Vienna, which would accelerate the process.
However, on the face of it, we are likely to be lumbered with the HRA for another 21 months. As usual this proposal, which makes a nonsense of the promise on page 54 to reduce immigration to the tens of thousands, has not been costed. It is in fact quite expensive, not least because of the impact of Article 8 (right to family life) on immigration.
What is worse, the manifesto commits the country to staying in the hopelessly out-dated European Convention on Human Rights for a further five years. This means that we will be subject to the full force of European Court of Human Rights rulings even after Brexit. The Convention is of course a different treaty to the Treaty on European Union, indeed it predated the Treaty of Rome by some seven years.
Whilst there has been much talk from my party about ‘bringing rights home’ it has been so much hot air. We are all talk, no action, on the ECHR. It’s a similar story on asylum, indeed the manifesto at page 40 is materially misleading. It asserts in terms that the UN is reviewing the equally outdated 1951 Refugee Convention. In fact there are no proposals to amend or replace it at all. If the Conservatives are re-elected, there will be no real change on asylum policy. Hundreds will continue to die each year trying to reach the UK and billions will continue to be wasted on asylum support. The commitment to regional asylum, whilst humane and sensible, is frankly just so much waffle.
The commitment on page 41 to protect the Armed Forces from the European Court of Human Rights cannot be reconciled with the commitment on page 37 to stay in the ECHR. Mrs May was Home Secretary and must know that Articles 2 and 3, which have caused most of the problems, cannot be derogated from.
Since they cannot be derogated from it follows that we cannot enter a unilateral reservation. Our brave forces will continue to be hammered by the Strasbourg Court without mercy. The only way to stop it from happening is to repeal the HRA98 and pull out of the ECHR.
There is similar incoherence on energy – the party wants cheap energy yet is still buying into the anthropogenic global warming hoax, which is driving up energy prices. It’s almost as if the several authors of the document never exchanged drafts. Perhaps it’s just as well that the media are scientifically illiterate!
I cannot part company from the section on defence without observing that the proposed defence expenditure over the next five years is shamefully low. My party, sadly, continues to be committed to a weak defence.
Denunciation of the ECHR is straightforward. All that is required is six months’ notice under Article 58(1). All that is required is the political will.
Staying in the ECHR also means no restoration of the death penalty in the next Parliament. That is because of the impact of the notorious Sixth Protocol, designed to increase the murder rate across the UK and Europe by limiting courts’ powers of punishment for murder to life. It’s been a huge ‘success’ and has cost the lives of thousands of innocent people.
Once again my party’s manifesto is incoherent, almost to the point of gibberish, with respect. On page 44 it talks about fighting crime, but the commitment to staying in the ECHR on page 37 means that we shall continue to encourage the offences of murder, manslaughter and inflicting grievous bodily harm by having soft sentences. In practice capital punishment would at least halve the murder rate, as it did in Texas, which in turn would have a knock-on effect on GBH, as most murders are GBH gone wrong.
It was particularly silly to rule out a referendum on restoring capital punishment in the week that the Scottish child torturer and murderer Ian Brady died, at long last. He and his co-killer Myra Hindley waited, of course, until the disastrous Homicide Act 1957 came into force before starting their killing spree. The act watered down the penalty for most murders to life imprisonment and cleared the way for paedophiles to rape and kill little boys and girls without fear of being hanged.
Tragically, Brady and Hindley needed no second invitation. It is no accident that the murder rate started its long and grisly climb after the 1957 act came into force.
It looks as though Theresa May will win a handsome majority on 8th June. Since a Tory victory would effectively seal Brexit and should spell the end for the hated Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, who pretty much runs the country at the moment, this would be all to the good.
Mrs May however is not promising to solve our other pressing problems. It’s a weak manifesto, she will continue to be a weak leader, no offence intended, and her successor will inherit a divided country, mired in debt, with tiny Armed Forces and huge domestic discontent.
Of course the ban on foxhunting should be overturned! It’s despicable and a gross interference in the life of the countryside.
Andrea Leadsom is hardly my heroine – she was a candidate of straw, but the best that the Right could come up with at the time. The problem was that our majority was too small and a few left-wing MPs were able to derail her campaign by threatening to defect.
The Tory Party does have a Right Wing you know, which thinks along much the same lines as UKIP. Theresa May is from the left of the party. It’s scarcely surprising that our views differ.
However, in fairness, she did eventually get around to serving notice under Article 50.
Whilst I have concentrated on the £200 billion plus bill for an extra unnecessary year of EU membership, the lengthy delay has also allowed GO2 to organise a terrorist campaign, flagged via ISIS, in the vain hope of deterring us from continuing with Brexit. The tragic consequences of that were plain for all to see last night in Manchester.
The government’s lack of grasp, weak response and failure to tell the truth about GO2 will simply encourage further terrorist attacks.
We don’t just have to pull out of the EU. We have to shut down the covert German intelligence operation in London. Until the government does that they might as well have COBRA in permanent session.
Just like my party then, Dee!
Fair comment Mike! The Tory trouble is that ministers (a) are house-trained and won’t cut bureaucracy, preferring cuts in front-line expenditure, when at least £75 billion a year of waste could be eliminated and (b) are economically illiterate. Like Labour and the LibDems, who are equally clueless, they thin the way to raise total tax revenue is to raise tax rates!
It’s odd, with respect, that UKIP don’t make more use of Tim Congdon – they are the only party with access to serious economic advice. We get ours from the Treasury, hence the PM’s humiliation in recent days, flogging a Treasury proposal they got that idiot Hammond to swallow.
UKIP ‘make use’ of very few people with a coherent grasp of policy, Michael.
It’s true that the Tory Right lost a great leader in Enoch Powell, whom I knew, but we famously defeated Heath in 1975 and elected Margaret Thatcher, who in turn survived the German-sponsored internal party coup and attack on the Falklands in 1982 and the German/IRA attempt to assassinate her in 1984. It was not until after she left office, sadly, that she came to appreciate that Germany was still the enemy.
May isn’t going to last as long as people suppose. She has badly bungled the election campaign and thrown away the chance of a 1997-size majority, partly because of her poor choice of Chancellor. Hammond is dragging the party down.
Yes there is a vacuum on the right, and yes we are borrowing far too much. We need to abolish the failed NHS, scrap oversea aid and go back to Beveridge.
Michael, why are you a Conservative? Because the sort of Conservatism you support died when Edward Heath became Prime Minister.
I am my own political animal and my politics were right of Conservative even before Edward Heath. UKIP for a time reflected really closely with my views but now it is hopeless. Indeed I was so angry the other day when on Question time and again of the Leaders Debate our sloping shoulder leader Paul Nuttal suggested chopping back the International Aid Budget and spending the whole of the supposed saving on the NHS. No-one seems to realise we are overspending at a rate of £1.5b A WEEK and any saving should be used to reduce this overspend.
Nevertheless I enjoyed your article and for educating us with your depth of knowledge on issues of laws binding us to the EU.
Like me it looks like you and many authors on UKIP Daily are in the wilderness looking for a party that largely supports our views and are not finding it out their. Just like there is no changing the EU, it appears there is no changing UKIP for the better either.
The reason the £1.5 bn a week overspend is not being mentioned (apart from political expediency) is the the touted assumption that growth in the economy will eradicate it. Ah yes with the date regularly put back! Osborne originally said 2015. With all the talk of a booming economy most people assume well a bit late but SOON. Ah yes.
Mike. You cannot eliminate the deficit if you allow a steady increase of public expenditure in line with steadily increasing GDP, and that is what is happening.
Increasing workers rights and increasing public expenditure are both wealth consumption with no linked wealth creation.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we were free of the EU to be able to do the type of deals presently being done by Donald Trump.
Of course Antony. The touted assumption is that increases in GDP and more tax receipts will not be seized on as a whole for more spending. That was the assumption by the budget responsibility quango in 2010. Some chance!
Always willing to respond to kind invitations, Jack T!
I agree with most of the comments, save that I think May really needs a majority of over 75 to get the ECA72 repealed without difficulty. A lot of Tory candidates are rubbish of course, but they’ll be pretty much bound by the manifesto.
With that house-trained idiot Hammond, no offence intended, holding her back (the silly dementia tax was clearly a Treasury idea, designed to make older people pay, instead of our bloated bureaucracy), she may not get 75.
I look forward to reading UKIP’s manifesto with interest. I’m sure it will make better reading, but why is not being cleared by the NEC?
We all got a general circular e-mail saying the manifesto has been “approved” by the NEC, so I assume it has been, likely in the sense of having been presented in finished form at the last minute, with two alternatives (this close to the election) — “this manifesto” or “no manifesto”.
Michael, I believe there is a vacancy, not yet announced, for leader of a party said to be pro-brexit. I’m sure that you would be welcomed by many.
Looking forward to what Banks will come up with later in the year. Won’t be before the GE though.
The problem with ECHR is less what it says and more how it’s applied and that it subverts the sovereignty of the signatory nations by a political court. Its judges are often left wing politicians with no legal training. The “rights” are applied “flexibly”, governments have a “wide margin of appreciation” (discretion) in “interpreting” it and there are generous exemptions for government action. The convention offers little to no protection against the one entity which needs protecting against which — the government. In practice, the convention is only used to enforce a socialist ideology on signatory countries. Article 1 of the (First) Protocol supposedly protects the right to private property but is a dead letter as the court has chosen to apply it in a way which makes it meaningless (the Duke of Westminster case where the UK government expropriated vast amounts of real estate from the Duke and the court ruled that this did not violate the article although any sane person would disagree). Article 3 of the same protocol (the right to “democracy”) was abused to overthrow a 450 year old democratic system of government on Sark with an undemocratic socialist one.
Sadly, the present UKIP leadership will squander this golden opportunity and score an own goal to the left of the Tory party because UKIP’s manifesto is also being written by one person without consulting the grass roots, the NEC, the party spokesmen or anyone else who should be consulted.
Just on the subject of the ‘Right to democracy’ I have long argued ( not that anyone is listening other than a few local, Ukippers in the N/E ) that UKIP should have mounted a case, esp. after the 2015 election, that the FPTP system is effectively a denial of democracy. Essentially I believe there is a strong argument that for four million people to vote for a party and get no MPs, and for the 50% of Scottish voters who voted for unionist candidates to get 3 MPs is a complete denial of democracy. Then add in the fact that Libs had an allocation of working peers in 2015 with zero similar allocation to UKIP ~ and you could easily shame the Government with such a case. Even if it did not, ultimately, succeed, it would cause a lot of useful publicity for UKIP.
These were my arguments in 2015 ~ course it’s going to be more difficult after June result comes in 🙁
88 pages of vague pathetic BS, dancing around secondary issues.
will only vote Conservative if there is no other alternative, like UKIP.
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Since May is going to win there ‘May’ be a case for a tactical vote for Labour. Just saying. If May gets a vast majority she’ll walk all over us but her majority at the moment is too small for Brexit to be guaranteed even if she wants it. A reasonable majority say 40 might be a good idea.
“Conservatives”? What do they conserve?
An unassailable right to our future nation for the indigenous British people? NO. Freedom of Speech? NO. Exclusive British fishing grounds? NO. British Common Law over the EAW? NO. Independence from any European Court, ‘Human Rights’ or otherwise? NO. Our freedom from a pernicious enemy within? NO. A humane law that prevents idiots tearing foxes apart? NO. Our humane laws on the slaughter of animals? NO. One law for all and all equal under the British law? NO.
Monogamy? NO. Assurance that no barbaric sexual abuse and GBH is allowed in Britain? NO. Freedom from immigration that drags us down? NO.
The Conservatives are not be trusted with the future of this country. But none of the mainstream parties are. Nor will UKIP unless its leadership manages to find its guts and backbone and tells the truth.
Sigh, Panmelia, they won’t!
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/685158/Theresa-May-ditches-plans-Britain-out-European-Convention-Human-Rights-Tory
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/how-is-britain-going-green-by-shutting-down-industry/
Panmelia,thanks for reminding us how useless the Conservative Con-Artists really are.They are running our once great country into the ground.How someone like
Michael Shrimpton could again come on here (UKIP DAILY) as a Consevative,when he is out of kilter with their policies which are so damaging the country is beyond my
comprehension.Everyone click on my links,and you will see from the first how Sharia May has broken her promise,to ditch that damn Human Rights Act,which is nothing more than a charter for criminals.Uncanny that War Criminal Tony Blair said to his then Attorney General,Lord Goldsmith that The Human Rights Act,was his greatest
achievement in office,See from my second link how Michael Shrimpton’s heroine,
Andrea Leadsom,still wants to close down what is left of British Industry,and also wanted to sell of Britain’s Forests,and also overturn the ban on foxhunting,something which she shares with her leader,Sharia May.Just shows how despicable those Conservatives really are.
Thank you,Geoff.Elliott,UKIP RCT Branch,Pontypridd.
Thank you Dee. The left in my party certainly are! Theresa May knew she was PM the night before, in Birmingham. A small group of pro-European MPs had threatened to defect to the LibDems if Andrea won.
It’s to get round this group that the PM called the election.
Michael, thank you, I love your articles – you sort things out for me in a way I can understand.
The charming Leadsom was shafted and has since been exiled to the wilderness, the Tories are a ruthless bunch.
There is a fundamental problem with the declaration of human rights. Individual clauses are hard to disagree with, however they do not make a coherent whole. The reason being – they are not compatible with each other.
Lawyers regard them as all being at the same level of significance, however this is not the case. Some of them need to over-ride others. As a hierarchy. Not doing so gets us into the muddle, for example not being able to deport a criminal alien because they have the right to a family life with their pet cat.
In particular there are two incompatible rights:
– To decent treatment irrespective of gender.
– Freedom to practice religion.
However, a well known religion discriminates against females. Should this take precedence over the equality clause or not? It needs to be explicitly stated within the declaration itself.