Prospective UKIP candidate wows Witney audience

The following event was organized by the UKIP Witney branch.

Philip Vander Elst, a UKIP prospective candidate for the South East in the 2009 European parliamentary elections, wowed the audience for his speech on “Why Britain should leave the European Union” last month in the Corn Exchange Witney. To a packed meeting, Vander Elst spoke with eloquence and passion about the damage Britain’s membership of the EU has done to our economy and democracy and he warned of further damage to come if the Lisbon Treaty is implemented. He explained that his objection to the EU was not taken from a “little England” perspective. His father had been a Belgian scientist and he himself, though educated in England, had spent much of his childhood in Belgium. But he thought European integration, through forming new ‘supranationalist’ institutions, which are increasingly concentrating power in a small elite of Euro-bureaucrats and politicians and making government increasingly remote from ordinary people, is bad for all of Europe, and not just Britain.

He explained that he had fought against European federalism ever since his early twenties, when he had written the official manifesto for Conservatives Against the Treaty of Rome and has been a passionate defender of Britain’s right to govern herself ever since.

His detailed and informative 45-minute speech struck a huge chord of sympathy with the audience (by no means all UKIP members) and sparked-off a barrage of questions which continued over refreshments and until long past the meeting was due to end.

Philip Vander Elst, is a freelance writer, lecturer, and broadcaster, with 30 years' experience in politics and journalism. He is currently Number 4 on the UKIP list of MEP prospective candidates for the South East in next June's European elections.