Thatcher Sympathises With UKIP

It's not unexpected news that Thatcher has sympathy with UKIP, however Alex Singleton at the Telegraph has an interesting post:

Baroness Thatcher may be the ultimate symbol of the Conservative Party, but it seems that she has sympathies with UKIP. Before the general election, she had lunch with Lord Pearson and they discussed the problems that Pearson, then UKIP’s leader, was having in keeping the support of activists.

She advised him to hire Viscount Monckton, a former Telegraph journalist, who she said had done a brilliant job for her in the Number 10 Policy Unit.

If this is the case then Alex's final paragraph is spot-on:

...there’s a question [the Tories] should be asking themselves. If even Margaret Thatcher, the longest-serving Conservative PM of the 20th century, now thinks that UKIP is worth helping, aren’t the Tories getting something seriously wrong?

Quite.

Tory Admits MPs Want EU Rule

From Lords Hansard:

Asked by Lord Pearson of Rannoch:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Howell of Guildford to Lord Tebbit on 10 November (WA 80), what areas of United Kingdom national sovereignty have been transferred to European Union competence since 1972 under (a) majority voting, and (b) unanimity, in the Council of Ministers; and what areas remain under the sole control of Parliament.[HL4192]

(My emphasis below):

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford): No areas of competence have been transferred from the UK to the EU under majority voting or unanimity in the Council of Ministers. The limits of EU competence are clearly set out in the EU treaties, and only an amendment of the EU treaties can transfer any competence to or from the EU.

Parliament is sovereign; and EU law has effect in the UK because-and solely because-Parliament wills that it should. The EU Bill currently before Parliament includes a clause which seeks to place on a statutory footing this common-law principle.

So there it is in black and white, Conservative Lord Howell of Guildford admits that Parliament could say no but doesn't. We can remove ourselves from EU competences, and EU governance, (though now slightly more difficult) if only our MPs knew what a spine looks like.

Quote Of The Day

Lord Pearson:

"It is safe to say yet again that our membership of the European Union has removed our democracy; it has taken away the right of the British people to elect and dismiss those who make their laws. Our system of representative parliamentary democracy, for which millions have died over hundreds of years, has been frittered away. It no longer serves the people. That is why the time has come to give power back to the people. They deserve it anyway; it is their power and it belongs to them. Before long their anger will overflow if they do not get it back."

hattip: witteringsfromwitney

EU External Action Service

There were a few questions and comments yesterday in the Lords regarding the progress in setting up the replacement for the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Lord Howell of Guildford asks, in a follow up question (my emphasis):

Did he hear Javier Solana's view that this is going to be "the biggest diplomatic service in the world"? Has he noticed that, since the Lisbon treaty came into force, 54 new super-delegations, previously EU embassies or delegations, have been set up around the world? To whom will this enormous force be accountable, what will it cost and how much of the impact will fall on the already squeezed Foreign Office budget?

Lord Brett replies:

My Lords, we are looking not at the creation of a major new entity but at the reorganisation of the current external representation of the European Union into a much more coherent and effective body.

It's not often that the words 'European Union' and 'coherent' are used in the same sentence. Of course the best way of making the External (non) Action Service more coherent and effective would be to abolish it. Lord Brett continues:

It is not yet possible to give a detailed breakdown of costs.

No I bet it isn't, rest assured though it ain't gonna be cheap.

Any costs would have to be held within the overall EU budget for financial perspectives, which is €49.8 billion, but we are committed, in the form of Cathy Ashton's high level committee, to producing results by April this year, which is not far away. I regret to say that I do not have them at the moment.

Notably Lord Brett avoids the part of the question regarding accountability, though I think we can all guess the answer to that one. There then follows a couple of questions on the staffing of the EAS noting a desire that appointments are based on merit, not because they are French. UKIP's Lord Pearson then asks:

Can the noble Lord give us a clear assurance that there will be any British embassies left in 10 years' time? If he can give that assurance, will he tell us where they will be? If he does not have the answer at his fingertips, would he be good enough to put a letter in the Library?

A pretty fair question given the concerns. But no, apparently not:

My Lords, I used to listen to with great interest, and enjoy, the questions of the noble Lord and the expertise and perseverance he showed on Europe. However, since he became leader of UKIP, his questions have got more esoteric and strange; I can think of no stranger one than this.

Lord Brett didn't answer that inconvenient question either, Lord Brett may have considered the question strange but that doesn't negate the fact that the answer to it could be 'none'.

It's clear that Lord Pearson is now regarded as enfant terrible in the political world; anyone with a desire to exit the EU must regarded as somewhat peculiar. Your Freedom and Ours cites another example here in a different debate, on climate change:

Nevertheless, Lord Brett, the Minister in question summoned his vituperative powers:

I am afraid that I consider that to be quite a long way from the Question on the Order Paper. The noble Lord seems to be becoming on climate change what the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, has become on Europe.

So there we are: you want to insult a peer you compare him or her to the Lord Pearson of Rannoch, than whom there is no one more terrible in the eyes of the Ministers.

Shocking isn't it that anyone could possibly hold a different opinion to Lord Brett.

UKIP Want To Ban The Burka

I read, with my head in my hands in despair, at the editorial in today's Sunday Times that Lord Pearson is proposing to ban the Burka.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the leader of UKIP, said (my emphasis):

“We are taking expert advice on how we could do it. It makes sense to ban the burka — or anything which conceals a woman’s face — in public buildings. But we want to make it possible to ban them in private buildings. It isn’t right that you can’t see someone’s face in an airport.”

As the Times rightly points out this makes UKIP the first national party to call for a total ban, and plants them firmly in BNP territory. Not even the BNP has called for a ban in private buildings - they are, rather predictably, gloating.

Lord Pearson continues:

“We are not Muslim bashing, but this is incompatible with Britain’s values of freedom and democracy.”

I'm not sure how Pearson correlates the values of freedom and democracy with being forcing not wear certain clothes. It would also appear to be an infringement of the 'equal before the law' part of the supposedly Libertarian-leaning party's constitution, which states:

2.3 The Party will be guided in its activities by the principle of non-discrimination, including non-racism and non-sectarianism, and will be guided by the principle that all people are equal before the law.

Personally I largely hold the view that the less a government bans the better, I do not believe that a total ban in this case is the answer. Bans obviously should apply in areas where facial covering is deemed unacceptable for example; banks, building societies and airports, and it's also right to try to tackle genuine concerns regarding immigration and the rise of Sharia Law.

But to me Pearson is starting to show a worrying obsession with Islam, he was, after all, the person who invited anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders to the UK. He also stated in 2009 that Muslims are:

“breeding ten times faster than us. I don't know at what point they reach such a number we are no longer able to resist the rest of their demands. We must be looking at somewhere between 10 or 20 years. If we don't do something in the next year or two we have in effect lost."

Is it Pearson's aim to have Muslim-bashing as UKIP's second priority and why on earth is he using similar language to the BNP? In all it leaves me frustrated and a little angry.

As someone who wants the UK to exit from the EU, I have very little choice at the ballot box. Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems have all signed up to the EU project (and will continue to do so), the BNP is, for obvious reasons, a non-starter, so the only realistically choice I have is, for the main political issue I really care about, UKIP.

It is the only political party I have ever campaigned for on the doorsteps, one that I've voted for more than any other, and I often do so against my own better judgment. I despair, at the antics of the leadership, the in-fighting and even the chaotic nature of UKIP's organisation and its amateurish internet presence. But I carry on because I passionately believe in Britain not being run by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.

There are two main criticisms I have faced when campaigning;

1) UKIP is a joke party, with no other policies other than EU withdrawal.

and far more serious;

2) that any Eurosceptic must be a closet racist, xenophobic little Englander.

The finer points of the EU's impact can be easily lost in the damaging second accusation, so any discussion on immigration and Islam by UKIP has to be treated with caution. Something, which Pearson acknowledged himself last year on the Politics Show (no longer online):

“We’ve got to be very careful, especially in this area of immigration, that we cannot be confused with the BNP. I accept that. There’s a fine line to be drawn here...”

UKIP needs to seriously focus on wider policy aims (which still suffer at the hands of the EU) such as education, crime and healthcare like the other parties.

However, thanks to Pearson, the job of trying to convince the electorate that UKIP is a non-racist, serious and 'safe' party to vote for has now become much much harder.

UKIP Leadership Campaign

The new UKIP leader to replace Nigel Farage, who is stepping down to fight the Speaker John Bercow in the General Election, will be known later today.

There are five candidates standing in the contest and they are:

Lord Pearson,

Gerard Batten MEP

Mike Nattrass MEP

Nikki Sinclaire MEP

and Alan Wood, a councillor from Wiltshire.

In a contest that has seen some controversy Lord Pearson appears to be the favourite, and he is the preferred choice of Farage, who upset the other candidates earlier this month when on the BBC Daily Politics show he claimed:

"Only one of them is a serious credible candidate, and that's Lord Pearson"

Lord Pearson himself, made some comments critical of Muslims claiming that they are:

“breeding ten times faster than us. I don't know at what point they reach such a number we are no longer able to resist the rest of their demands. We must be looking at somewhere between 10 or 20 years. If we don't do something in the next year or two we have in effect lost."

During the campaign it also emerged that candidate Mike Nattrass is being investigated over his expenses.

Given that UKIP are the only genuine eurosceptic party worth voting for, yet again it seems they display much better talent at shooting themselves in the foot than promoting the eurosceptic cause.

The announcement should be about 3pm today, although the result will probably be known before then.

Update: No surprise, Lord Pearson is the new leader of UKIP.

Results are as follows:

Lord Pearson 4743
Gerard Batten 2571
Nikki Sinclaire 1214
Mike Nattrass 1092
Alan Wood 315