Another anti-UKIP smear from the Daily Mail

It seems that the papers have nothing better to do with their time at the moment than make up stories about UKIP.

Today it's the turn of the Daily Mail with the sloppiest piece of anti-UKIP propaganda we've seen for a while. They are running a story "UKIP candidate forwarded racist e-mail ranting against the family of murdered Stephen Lawrence" which starts with the following sentence:

A Tory MP called in the police after his UKIP opponent sent him a grotesque diatribe comparing the family of murdered Stephen Lawrence to apes. 

It then goes on to give details of the email John White sent to Peter Luff MP and how he refused to apologise. It's only when you get two thirds of the way down the article that you get to see how the story has nothing to do with UKIP:

He added that he had let his UKIP membership ‘lapse’ a couple of years ago.

Last night, a UKIP spokesman said that Mr White was no longer a member of the party.

He added: ‘UKIP abhors racism and takes all allegations of racism extremely seriously.
'John White left UKIP in 2012 after becoming unhappy about the direction of the party.’

So he isn't a member of UKIP and hasn't been a member of UKIP for two years but the Daily Mail still try to imply this has something to do with UKIP.

Mr White, who won more than 3,000 votes at the last Election, was a member of the Labour Party for 33 years, switching to UKIP when Gordon Brown became Labour leader.

So he was in Labour for 33 years followed by 3 years in UKIP but he's described as an ex-UKIP candidate, not a former lifelong Labour Party member.

The Daily Mail then go on to quote Luff slagging off UKIP because of an email sent by someone who isn't a UKIP member:

This exposes UKIP for the narrow-minded bigots they really are.

The Daily Mail is so far in the gutter Thames Water should bill them for sewerage every time they print a newspaper.

The Times plans anti-UKIP smear campaign

A very well put together statement on the anti-UKIP smear campaign the Times plans to run from Monday. The only important bit of information that's missing is that the Times have been briefed by the Lib Dems for this campaign. Makes you wonder how much of an "investment" they've got in the current political class if they're going to actively campaign against UKIP during this election campaign.

UKIP has been aware in recent weeks of relentless activity by Times journalists aiming to derail its rapid rise in popularity. This has included questioning about the private lives of party staff that would disgrace the now defunct News of The World.

The Times is planning to run on Monday a series of claims that UKIP has breached the rules on using European parliamentary funds while campaigning to get Britain out of the EU.

In fact UKIP has always worked hard to ensure that demarcations between EFD employees and party employees are properly observed. UKIP MEPs who donate to party funds do so out of their own post-tax salaries. UKIP MEPs work for withdrawal from the EU just as they promised the voters that they would when elected in 2009.

It is clear that their success in advancing this agenda and increasing the popularity of the party has upset the political establishment and its media supporters.

For the avoidance of doubt, UKIP MEPs are careful to observe European parliamentary rules when spending resources on advancing the goal of British withdrawal.

UKIP has from the outset been the biggest constituent part of the EFD group and Nigel Farage is the group leader. It is wholly legitimate and within the rules for some EFD staff to work out of London and indeed staff from other groups that include other British political parties do the same.

After the rapid growth of the party, UKIP has now put in place a bi-annual review as an extra check to ensure that staff responsibilities remain appropriately demarcated and that the actual work patterns of staff remain consistent.

We anticipate being on the receiving end of a continued smear campaign from pro-EU journalists but will not allow it to deflect us from our mission to secure for the British people a vote on withdrawing from the EU and taking back powers of self-government and control of their borders.

Two wins for UKIP while Elvis beats the Lib Dems

More popular than the Lib Dems

UKIP won two council seats from the Conservatives in Haverhill yesterday:

St Edmundsbury Borough Council (Haverhill East)
Name	Party	Votes	%
Tony Brown	UKIP	529	54%
Pat Hanlon	Lab	240	24%
David Roach	Con	157	16%
Ken Rolph	LD	54	5%
UKIP gain from Con

Haverhill Town Council (Haverhill East)
Name	Party	Votes	%
Paul Firman	UKIP	630	64%
Ken Rolph	LD	107	11%
Liz Smith	Lab	229	23%
UKIP gain from Con

The best result of the day. though, was in the Clifton North by-election in Nottingham where the Lib Dems were relegated to last place by the Bus Pass Elvis Party.

Nottingham City Council (Clifton North)
Name	Party	Votes	%
Patricia Ferguson	Lab	1,179	41%
Andrew Rule	Con	1,025	36%
Kevin Clarke	UKIP	536	19%
David "Lord Biro" Bishop	Bus Pass Elvis	67	2%
Tony Marshall	LD	56	2%

UKIP councillors have best attendance records

Research by the Times (£) has found that UKIP councillors have the best attendance of any political party.

UKIP councillors attend on average 92.4% of compulsory meetings, Conservatives attend 88.6%, Labour attend 88.3%, the Lib Dems attend 87.7% and the whiny Greens attend just 79.6% of meetings.

Propaganda from the LibLabCon parties dismissing UKIP councillors as ineffective show that the opposite is the case: if you vote for a UKIP councillor they will spend more time representing you than councillors from any of the other parties.

Green Party complains about UKIP being designated major party

Green MP being arrested for
public order offences

The whiny Greens are complaining that OFCOM have given UKIP major party status for the EU elections, meaning that UKIP will have to receive equal media coverage to the LibLabCon parties.

The Green Party has 2 MEPs and received less than half of UKIP's share of the vote in the last EU elections in 2009 so why would the Green Party expect to receive equal media coverage to the mainstream parties? Not because they're popular or because they expect to do as well as the mainstream parties but because they think they have better policies than the mainstream parties.

It is a decision influenced by what can be easily measured, polling figures, rather than considering the fact that the Green Party is the only party representing significant majorities of public opinion on issues ranging from re-nationalising the railways, to making the minimum wage a living wage to having a publicly owned and publicly run NHS.

The last thing a media regulator should be doing is forming opinions on political party policies. Election performance and opinion polls - facts, not opinions - are absolutely the right things to base a decision on. Just because the Green Party base their manifesto on unevidenced opinion doesn't mean OFCOM should.

Clegg -v- Farage: It's on!

Malicious lies from anti-UKIP campaign Hope not Hate

Trade union front organisation, Hope not Hate, has given up any pretence of non-partisanship and is openly attacking UKIP.

Nick Lowles: Bought and sold
with union gold

Hope not Hate claims to be an anti-fascist campaign group with no political axe to grind but it is funded almost entirely by trade unions and has admitted that UKIP isn't a fascist organisation and therefore shouldn't be targeting UKIP. Hope not Hate is running a political campaign against UKIP on behalf of the trade unions. They even have an attack blog called Purple Rain which is devoted to campaigning against UKIP.

Hope not Hate claimed yesterday that a former Labour Party branch chairman in Dudley who has defected to UKIP is a former BNP member. They have seen the same name Steve Daniels on the BNP membership list which was leaked a few years ago and made an understandable assumption that it was him as the address is the same. However, if they'd asked for clarification before posting a libellous article on their attack blog they'd have been told that Steve Daniels has a son also called Steve Daniels who used to be a BNP member living at the same address. Hope not Hate have been told about their mistake but from experience there is little hope of a correction.

On Tuesday another post on their Purple Rain attack blog claims that an ex-National Front member has been made chair of Boston & Skegness branch with a picture of Cllr Victoria Ayling and some quotes from the widely condemned and refuted Daily Mail smear against her. Hope not Hate's selective quoting makes it appear there is no doubt about the claims when Cllr Ayling has denied being an active member of the NF and said that she had some involvement with them in the 70s as research for a degree course.

In an email newsletter sent out yesterday begging for money to fund their anti-UKIP campaign, the man who profits from their trade union funding, Nick Lowles, said:

At this weekend's party conference, they tried to remove journalists from a fringe meeting on Sharia Law. They didn't want the public to see their true colours -- and sure enough one of the first questions asked was, "How can you be both a Muslim and an English man?"

What Lowles fails to mention of course is that this wasn't a question asked by the fringe organisers, it was a question from the audience and the rest of audience booed and jeered the man who asked the question. UKIP is quite happy to shows it true colours - the reaction of the audience shows that the implication that you can't be English and Muslim is something that UKIPpers don't agree with even if the British government says you can't be - but Lowles and his trade union paymasters instead prefer to mislead the public to help their election campaign on behalf of the Labour Party.

UKIP won't reveal their true agenda to voters. That's up to us. Make a £25 donation now to help us expose the extremist views they're trying to hide.

The more supporters like you chip in, the more leaflets we can deliver, the more ads we can run, the more campuses we can visit -- the more hope we can spread.

And here we see why Lowles and his trade union paymasters are lying and defaming UKIP members - they're trying to raise funds for a leaflet and advertising campaign attacking UKIP and judging by the fact that tax dodging Hope not Hate is asking for £25 a time in donations they must be planning to spend big.

Hope not Hate's new-found obsession with UKIP isn't ideological in any way, it's purely financial. Like any self-respecting communist, Nick Lowles makes a lot of money out of his political career and that money is only going to keep coming while there is an "enemy" to fight. For the trade union money, the enemy is anyone who challenges Labour. For government money (they get a lot of our taxes as well) the enemy is anyone Lowles calls a fascist or racist.

Cold War 2

The EU-sponsored coup in Ukraine has taken its inevitable course with a Russian invasion of Crimea.

Russia has had imperialist ambitions since the break-up of the USSR. The CIS was created almost immediately after the USSR broke up and a union of Russia and Belarus was created with the intention of expanding to other former Soviet states. To provide a supply of compliant republics to feed the NewSSR (see what I did there?) Russia changed its policy on breakaway republics - apart from those trying to break away from Russia of course - from ignoring them and letting them sort themselves out to supporting them, including militarily if it suits their agenda.

It is this policy of supporting pro-Russian breakaway states that led it to invade South Ossetia and Abkhazia a few years ago (both of which want to join the NewSSR) and why it has now invaded Crimea. It also helps that the ceding of Crimea to Ukraine during the days of the USSR and the subsequent failure of Russia to reintegrate Crimea immediately after the break-up of the USSR is something that still grates with the Russian people so Putin can expect public support for what he's doing.

The first cold war came about when America's sphere of influence came up against USSR's sphere of influence. The second cold war is just starting and it's the EU expanding into Russia's sphere of influence. It is inevitable and pre-mediated and demonstrates the lengths the EU will go to to expand its empire. And just like in Georgia, the EU will stand impotently on the sidelines telling Russia that they're being naughty whilst doing nothing to help.

There is no doubt that the EU sponsored the coup in Ukraine - we all know it, the Russians know it. Thousands of pro-EU protesters spent weeks in Kiev and someone supplied them with food and made sure their bills were paid while they were waving the ring of stars in the capital.

Crimea will come out of this conflict in the same state as South Ossetia and Abkhazia - recognised by Russia and a handful of the usual suspects as an independent state but officially unofficial. The EU's dream of controlling the gas and oil production in Crimea as well as its strategically important Black Sea port has come to nothing whilst Russia's relations with the west have declined once again. The world is a more dangerous and unpredictable place than it was a few weeks ago and all in the name of Russian and EU imperialism.

Don't get mad, get even

English Democrats prospective MEP in court for electoral fraud

The English Democrats' political brain, Steve Uncles, was in Dartford Magistrates Court today after being charged with 10 counts of electoral fraud.

Uncles has contested a great many elections for local councils, Westminster, the EU and ironically the Police & Crime Commissioner elections and failed consistently. He tried to do a deal with Sinn Féin to change English Democrats policy on Northern Ireland to hand the province over to the republicans in exchange for a donation. He's abused, bullied and defamed political rivals and been threatened with legal action over his behaviour a number of times. He's been in the press more than once for offensive behaviour and attracted criticism for mocking the death of a mentally ill Labour supporter.

During last year's local elections in Kent, the English Democrats fielded a number of candidates that many believed didn't exist and the police were called in to investigate. One of these was "Anna Cleves" (Anne of Cleves) who is of course an English historical figure and supposedly lived in the house that was knocked down to build Steve Uncles' house. Another candidate was "Steves Uncle" who Steve Uncles publicly admitted was a pseudonym.

As the police have pressed charges it's safe to assume these people were fake, along with a number of others and as they've pressed charges against Steve Uncles - something they rarely do with z-list wannabe politicians - it's safe to assume they have some pretty strong evidence that he was responsible for them appearing on the electoral register and then on ballot papers. It is presumably the fact that these fake people were fraudulently entered onto the electoral register well in advance of the election so that they would qualify to appear on ballot papers that made the CPS think a prosecution would be in the public interest.

Uncles pleaded not guilty to all 10 charges today and will now appear at Maidstone Crown Court on March 14th for a preliminary hearing. The maximum penalty for each offence under the Representation of the People Act is a £5,000 fine and 6 months in prison.

Labour criticise Nigel Farage's choice of venue for public meeting

The Labour Party are so desperate to undermine UKIP's surge ahead of the EU elections in May that they've sent out a press release criticising Nigel Farage for holding a public meeting in a building that got funding from the EU.

The Sage in Gateshead was partly funded by the EU Regional Development Fund (ERDF) which, according to Labour, means that Nigel Farage and UKIP are hypocritical. One of the Labour EU election candidates and TUC secretary, Judith Kirton-Darling, says that the £10m of our own money that the EU graciously gave us back to help build the Sage and other local landmarks is proof of the north east's important relationship with "Europe" (they mean the EU).

It costs us about £53m per day to be a member of the EU and we get about £1.6bn per year back via the ERDF. That's less than 8.5% of what we pay in. There is no such thing as "EU money" because the EU doesn't generate wealth, it leeches off the wealth of member states and loses approximately £1 in every £4 it is given to waste and fraud. The small percentage of our own money the EU gives us back isn't something to be grateful for, it should shame the politicians who allow so much of our money to be spent abroad when so many are in need at home.

Clegg -v- Farage

Nick Clegg has challenged Nigel Farage to a debate on the LBC radio station on whether we should stay in the EU or leave.

Farage has raised the stakes and told Clegg to get Cameron and Miliband on as well and make it a proper leaders' debate.

Even though Nigel Farage is the most popular party leader (on the odd occasion polling companies ask) and most people in the country want out of the EU, a debate on LBC would still be a tough gig because it's a London radio station and support for the EU and unfettered immigration runs high in a city where only 45% of the population are "white British".

That said, any credibility Nick Clegg might have had in an EU debate is destroyed by the fact that as a former EU commissioner he is obliged to promote the EU at all times and never to criticise the EU or its institutions publicly or he will lose his EU pension. And that's before you get onto his vacuous claims about millions of jobs and world peace relying on the EU.

Nigel Farage will undoubtedly wipe the floor with Clegg on the EU and any other topic for discussion that comes up because both Clegg and the Lib Dems are wrong on pretty much everything, as evidenced by their rapid decline into obscurity in opinion polls and at the ballot box. Although it would be nice to hold out for the other two europhile leaders to get in on the act it's not going to happen because whilst Clegg has nothing to lose, being about as popular as a dog poo sandwich, it would be electoral suicide for the other two to try and debate Nigel Farage. By saying no to a one on one with Clegg in the hope that Cameron and Miliband will join in, Farage will look weak. He should accept the offer, wipe the floor with Clegg and use Clegg's rare show of backbone to shame Cameron and Miliband into live televised debates with the three main parties plus the Lib Dems.

There is a poll on the LBC website on who you think would win the debate between Clegg and Farage. It's a fairly close-run thing but Farage is out in front at the moment.

EU has mobile roaming in its sight again

The EU have got mobile phone operators in their sights again, aiming to abolish all roaming charges across the EU by 2016.

Research has shown that almost half of people travelling abroad don't use the internet on their mobile phones when travelling in the EU and a quarter don't use their phones at all.

Mobile phone roaming is an obvious reminder that the EU isn't one country and the EU don't like any reminders that a United States of Europe doesn't exist (the EU Commission's vice president, Viviane Reding, has called for it again this week).

Mobile phone operators are pumping billions into upgrading infrastructure to take advantage of 4G technology and they need to recoup that cost through their customers. It costs money to provide mobile services to customers from another network and operators need to be able to charge for that service so they don't have to pass that cost on to their own customers.

All the mobile phone operators have add-ons that will allow you to use your phone in the EU and elsewhere at a reduced cost or as part of your inclusive package for a daily or monthly fee. Three allow you to use your inclusive minutes, text and data (subject to conditions) in most of the countries where they own a mobile phone network. There is also an EU cap on roaming call, text and data charges anywhere in the EU.

Consumers have options and protections, forcing mobile phone operators to create the illusion of a United States of Europe with the unilateral abolition of roaming charges is both unnecessary and counter-productive. Allow them (encourage them, even) to make their own bilateral agreements on roaming and protect the interests of their own customers.

Barroso tells BBC it could be impossible for Scotland to join the EU.

Emperor Barroso has told the BBC that it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for Scotland to become a member of the EU if it declares independence from the UK.

The SNP's stance on the EU is frankly bizarre - they want to swap a British union dominated by Scots and Scottish interests for a European Union in which it would be a tiny, insignificant voice. Despite being told several times that their belief that they will automatically be given EU membership is incorrect, they continue to plan for a future in which Scotland breezes into the EU and nobody makes them join the €uro.

Personally, I would be happy to see Scotland declare independence. The Scottish people never wanted union with England in the first place and they never took to Britishness the way the English did. The relationship between the two countries has always been strained with the 700 year old Battle of Bannockburn being invoked in most "debates" about Anglo-Scottish relations as if it was still a raw wound. The battle for independence should be won honestly though, not by bluff and bluster which is what the SNP is coming out with now.

As the independence referendum gets closer, the wheels are coming off the SNP's wagon. The Tories, Labour and Lib Dems have all pledged to block any currency union with Scotland which was one of Alex Salmond's key pledges for an independent Scotland along with EU membership, a budget surplus, not taking on a share of the British national debt and some other pie in the sky stuff. Most Scots know they can't afford independence even if they want it and the SNP's habit of making promises it can't keep won't help change their minds.

UK second in Wythenshawe & Sale East

UKIP's John Bickley came second in yesterday's by-election in the Labour stronghold of Wythenshawe & Sale East.

A hate campaign by Labour and BNP activists that saw voters and activists abused and intimidated and criminal damage at UKIP's office in Sale wasn't enough to see off UKIP's surge from fifth place in the last election in Wythenshawe & Sale East to second.

UKIP saw the biggest increase in vote share followed by Labour and the BNP whilst the Lib Dems and Tories experienced huge losses. The Lib Dems, Greens, BNP and Monster Raving Loony Party all lost their deposit.

Party	Votes	%	+/-
Labour	13,268	55.4%	+11.2%
UKIP	4,301	17.9%	+14.5%
Conservative	3,479	14.5%	-11%
Lib Dems	1,176	4.9%	-17.4%
Green	748	3.1%	N/A
BNP	708	3.0%	+0.9%
Monster Raving Loony Party	288	1.2%	N/A