Save The Pub's campaigner Nick Hogan visits London

The UKIP Save The Pubs campaign began its London & The South East leg in earnest on Bank Holiday Monday May 4th with campaigner Nick Hogan and UKIP London Chairman Paul Wiffen touring pubs in the Bromley and Westerham area. This was to pave the way for Nick Hogan to address a public meeting today, Tuesday May 5th, at Trinity United Reform Church in Bromley at 7.30pm along with Steve Harris, UKIP MEP candidate for the South East in the forthcoming June 4th Euro Elections (along with UKIP Leader Nigel Farage and EU Whistleblower Marta Andreasen).

Nick Hogan is the landlord of the Swan With Two Necks in Chorley near Bolton who was fined £11,500 for refusing to send three Second World War veterans out into the rain to smoke. He has been pursued unrelentingly through the courts in the North-West for his refusal to implement the smoking ban and has lost several of his pubs as a result. He now spearheads UKIP’s campaign to “let the landlord decide” on a whole range of issues including smoking, live music & karaoke. He will stand for UKIP in Chorley in the June 4th elections.

On Tuesday May 5th, Hogan & Wiffen are joined by sitting London MEP Gerard Batten & MEP candidate Lawrence Webb touring the pubs in East London’s Havering & Redbridge boroughs in the UKIP-liveried London Campaign Taxi (see attached pic), ahead of its early morning appearance at the Stratford protest over the French company Bougyes employing Portuguese workers to build the Olympics Village on May 6th. Its Ripped off, Out of Work and Ignored slogans should really resonate with the workers protesting yet another travesty of EU labour being used to undercut costs on public money projects at the Stratford site.

Later that morning (May 6th) the four of them will tour the pubs in Westminster & The City in the UKIP Taxi talking to landlords. They will then snare politicians at the Westminster Arms off Parliament Square at lunchtime to protest the increase in beer tax brought in by Chancellor Alistair Darling in the recent budget, instead of “Axing The Tax” as UKIP have been demanding (33% of the price of a pint is taken by The Exchequer). Catch the UKIP Cab outside the Westminster Arms at lunchtime on Wed 6th May.

Nick Hogan’s campaign to Save Our Pubs continues nationwide right up until the June 4th elections and beyond!

UKIP line up for Freedom2Choose Meeting

Members of Northern England Freedom2Choose will be meeting this Saturday 11 April at The Painters Arms Public House, 35 Bradford Road, Drighlington, Bradford, West Yorkshire. This regular event attracts visitors from throughout Northern England who are concerned with the erosion of civil liberties and choice, particularly in relation to the smoking ban.

MEP Godfrey Bloom (UKIP Yorkshire MEP) will be amongst the speakers attending the meeting, which commences at 2pm, along with Jason Smith (UKIP Bradford) and Nick Hogan (UKIP Chorley) to offer support for the Freedom2Choose national campaign to amend the smoking ban. Godfrey Bloom MEP is expected to speak at 4pm.

Pro-choice group Freedom2Choose hold regular meetings throughout the country and now boast over 4.5 million supporters. Freedom2Choose are a non-political, unfunded, voluntary organisation seeking to demonstrate that suitable alternatives exist to accommodate smokers and non-smokers alike.

John Baker, Freedom2Choose Secretary and organiser of the event states, “The landlords are delighted that Godfrey Bloom continues to take an interest in the draconian smoking ban, as the ban has devastated the licensed trade. They are interested in hearing the UKIP policy on the smoking ban and are expecting more visitors than usual at this gathering. All new-comers and guests are more than welcome to attend.”

The current smoking ban legislation in force within the UK is one of the most stringent within Europe and Freedom2Choose is campaigning for a reform to place the UK more in line with the majority of the other EU countries.

Cheapest Pint In Britain ?

You might have heard about JD Wetherspoons doing pints from £1 but we have found a pub cheaper .Nick Hogan UKIP'S Parliamentary Candidate for Chorley has launched a 98p pint to highlight the "stupidity" of Wetherspoon's 99p offer.

His Lancashire pub the ''Swan With Two Necks'' in Chorley is offering customers a 3.5% brew called "With a Spoon" specially commissioned from the Barons Revenge Brewery for the pub. The pint will be served with a plastic spoon and customers who collect ten spoons will get a free pint.

The deal is the brainchild of well-known licensee Nick Hogan, famous for his stance against the smoke ban.

"I've done this to highlight the stupidity of Wetherspoons," said Hogan. "Their 99p pint will not benefit the general pub trade — just their chain. This is at a time when the pub trade is in serious decline for a number of reasons — not least the smoking ban.

"This will not help the industry and will encourage the sort of drunkenness that the public is thoroughly fed up with. It is irresponsible and stupid."

The deal at the Swan With Two Necks begins this Friday.

UKIP Launch Protect Our Pubs Campaign

A campaign to protect Britain's pubs is to be launched in Wigan next month.UKIP chose the town as venue for the launch of its Save The British Pub campaign and will roll it out nationwide if the event is a success.

The party is preparing for a public meeting at Newtown Labour Club on December the 10th 2008.UKIP wants a change in the law to allow smoking rooms and also wants the Government to lower taxes on drinks. It chose Wigan because it believes there is great support for pubs in the town.

The campaign comes as the third Standish pub closed in as many weeks. Many traditional pubs are now boarded up across the borough.Wigan UKIP chairman Alan Freeman will chair the meeting and guest speaker will be anti-smoking ban UKIP landlord Nick Hogan.

UKIP have also invited Wigan MP Neil Turner to debate on the evening, although his office have said that with Parliament sitting that day he is unlikely to attend.

Mr Freeman said: "With Christmas and the New Year festivities just around the corner, now is the ideal time to launch. People who maybe haven't been out for a while, go out for a drink and are reminded how important pubs and clubs are in community life.

"I can't think of anything more wrong than the sight of 70, 80 and 90-year-olds having to stand outside in the cold because they happen to like a smoke.
"No wonder some have given up going out altogether, and are now suffering the consequences by being lonely and isolated. I go to Labour clubs and social clubs myself, and am very worried about what is going to happen to many of them.

"I'm a smoker myself, but I'm not saying it is good for you or for everyone. But I can't see what is wrong with having a ventilated room set aside in a pub or club for smokers."

Nick Hogan, who runs the Swan With Two Necks in Chorley, is the towns UKIP candidate in parliamentary elections.He has been in the pub trade for 20 years.

UKIP is now the "only hope" for Britain's pubs, and a recent poll in trade paper the Morning Advertiser, 68% thought that only UKIP could save Britain’s beleaguered pubs and backed UKIP's efforts to reverse the smoking ban and change the drinks tax rates.

Mr Freeman said: "We would revise the smoking ban to allow more choice, and we believe pubs and clubs should be able to choose to be smoking or not.

UKIP North West Mini Conference

UKIP North West is holding a mini conference at 9.30am, The Crofters Hotel, A6, Garstang Lancashire, PR3 1PH on Saturday October 25th 2008.

Speakers include:

Phil Griffiths (UKIP North West Chairman)
Michael McManus (IND DEM Researcher)
John Whittaker (North West MEP)
Nick Hogan (UKIP Chorley Candidate - Smoking Ban Rebel)
Paul Nuttall (Party Chairman)

Please attend if you can.

Chorley UKIP candidate revealed

Pub landlord Nick Hogan has been selected as parliamentary candidate for Chorley by the UK Independence Party.

His appointment was announced at a public meeting held by the party at the Swan With Two Necks public house, Chorley. "I am very pleased to be asked to become the parliamentary candidate," said 40-year-old Mr Hogan.

"The EU affects our daily life in every way and I am fed up to the back teeth with the rules coming down from the European Union. "We have had enough and must say 'no' to being dictated to." He explained that the smoking ban, which has led to 36 pubs a week closing in this country, was "the final straw".

"At the end of the day we are British and proud to be British and do not want to be run by faceless bureaucrats in Brussels," said Mr Hogan, whose wife Denise is licensee of The Swan With Two Necks.

His selection was welcomed by Paul Nuttall, UKIP chairman, who said that Mr Hogan would be an asset to the party and would work hard to help further its aims of withdrawing from the EU.

Mr Hogan is currently continuing his fight against his recent conviction for of failing to prevent people from smoking on his former licensed premises in Bolton on four occasions in July last year. A district judge has refused his appeal but on a point of principal he is now preparing to take the matter to the Court of Appeal.

UKIP advocates lifting the smoking ban in public houses and giving landlords the right to choice whether to allow smoking in all or part of their premises.