Using a Hungarian undercover reporter, the Daily Mail have found that EU citizens in eastern Europe have been using fake addresses to register with GPs in the UK and then apply for an EHIC card which entitles them to free emergency medical treatment in their own country. But unscrupulous doctors are providing non emergency medical treatment abroad and charging it back to the NHS.
Having failed to make the coup against Nigel Farage and rift in the party leadership they made up a reality, the Daily Mail are now reporting that UKIP has sacked half its staff because Douglas Carswell won't take the full £650k a year short money the party is entitled to.
The party took on a number of staff on fixed term contracts running to the end of May to provide the party with professional support during the election campaign. Had UKIP won more than one seat in the general election then there may have been jobs for some of those people and they may have had their contracts extended. As it happens, despite securing almost 3.9m votes there is just one UKIP MP so there are no extra jobs for them to do.
It's unfortunate to lose experienced campaigners but they were employed to do a job, they've done the job and now their contract is finished. The fact that Douglas Carswell isn't taking all the short money has no bearing on the number of staff the party needs outside of a campaign or the end date on a staff contract.
The Daily Mail and Times are attacking UKIP donor, Aaron Banks, over his support for what they describe as an "offensive" satirical website attacking the LibLabCon parties.
Both newspapers are Tory supporting and have been responsible for a stream of attacks on UKIP since the party started risking their political investments. In the run-up to the local elections this year, briefings that the Conservative Party were sending to these same newspapers attacking UKIP candidates were leaked. The supposedly anti-fascist campaign group Hope not Hate - almost entirely funded by the trades unions - has a blog on their website dedicated to attacking UKIP even though they say that UKIP isn't actually fascist. Fake Facebook and Twitter profiles are still being created masquerading as official UKIP social media accounts and posting inappropriate material which these same newspapers splash all over their front pages. There are anti-UKIP protest groups backed by the Labour Party and the trades unions such as Stand up to UKIP and Still Laughing at UKIP which these newspapers trawl for material for their anti-UKIP campaign.
The Daily Mail and the Times are part of the anti-UKIP campaign. They are too closely involved to be just followers, they are active players in the campaign to protect the status quo. They have invested a lot of time and money buying influence with the Tories and they don't want to see that investment wasted by a party that they have no control over.
The party stresses that it has no links to the LibLabCon website but it is registered to one of Aaron Banks' companies. Good on him. It's about time UKIPpers took the fight to the LibLabCon and gave them a taste of their own medicine. The national media ignore the stories about LibLabCon perverts, fraudsters, drink drivers, etc. whilst devoting front pages to rumours and gossip about even the most lowly UKIP member. The LibLabCon parties, their taxpayer-funded sockpuppets and poodle media companies have had it their own way for far too long, it's time for UKIP to fight back.
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 Daily Mail launched another attack on Cllr Victoria Ayling at the weekend in a desperate attempt to recover from the embarrassment of being comprehensively dressed down by readers on their own website the previous week.
Last week's smear was based around a heavily edited video from several years ago given to them by Cllr Ayling's bitter ex-husband in which she said that she would like to send all illegal immigrants home. Despite being classic Daily Mail rhetoric, they tried to portray this as a racist outburst with the result that the comments section on the website was flooded with comments agreeing with her and criticising the Daily Mail for attacking her.
The latest attack on her is a claim that she was a member of the National Front in the past - again this has come from her ex-husband and this time her mother has joined in, making "the painful decision to speak about the past for the sake of the family" and saying that she doesn't think her daughter should be a politician.
Cllr Ayling says that she attended National Front meetings as a student as part of her research for her thesis for a politics degree. Her ex-husband says this is a cover story, her mother says she doesn't remember it being about a degree and one of her friends who is such a good friend he helped the Daily Mail carry out a second attack on her a week after the last one says that she was a member and took him along with her.
The Daily Mail has once again referred to her as a "trusted ally" of Nigel Farage and refer to "public outrage at her comments" despite there being no such public outrage at her, just at the Daily Mail for its attack on Cllr Ayling.
Cllr Ayling says that this is just the latest in a "bitter vendetta" against her by her mother and it certainly seems that way. She says that her ex-husband took to cross-dressing and forced her to go out with him while he was dressed as a woman and cheated on her with other women. She says that he refused to leave the family home when their marriage broke down and threatened to go public with details of their divorce which she wanted to avoid for the sake of their son.
The Daily Mail's obsession with Cllr Ayling, their misleading comments, their reckless disregard for the welfare of her son and providing a platform for what is evidently a campaign of vindictiveness and revenge by her mother and ex-husband is irresponsible and unprofessional.
Cllr Ayling publicly resigned at the Conservative Party conference earlier this year telling David Cameron to his face how disappointed she was with him. The disappointment at Cameron's weakness - even 5 years ago - is obvious from the 2 minute extract of the 20 minute video that the Daily Mail have published.
By careful editing the Daily Mail has managed to remove the context from the video to enable them to make the accusations of racism. The "astonishing racist rant" was Cllr Ayling saying that all illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers - people with no legal right to be in the country - should be repatriated.
As well as smearing Cllr Ayling, the Daily Mail is trying to portray her as a "close ally" of Nigel Farage. They point out she has a picture of herself standing next to him, that she spoke on stage at conference, that she was invited to a photoshoot in London by him and claim that he fast-tracked her as a council candidate.
Nigel Farage has his picture taking with hundreds of people at conferences because he's extremely popular not just with members but with ordinary people. Having a photo of yourself with him doesn't make you a "close ally".
A great many ordinary members speak at conference and I had a 2 minute cameo appearance at one conference trying to convince members not to vote to send Nigel Farage on a "tour de force" of Scotland to promote the union (the vote passed and he ended up having to have a police escort out of a pub in Edinburgh but hey, you can't win them all). Speaking at Conference doesn't make you a "close ally".
Every UKIP councillor was invited to London to take part in a photoshoot as part of the party's anniversary celebrations. I got the invite as well. It wasn't a personal invite from Nigel Farage, it was arranged by the conference organisers and the press office. Being one of hundreds of councillors invited to a photoshoot doesn't make you a "close ally".
Nigel Farage is leading the fastest-growing political party in the UK - a party with over 30,000 members - as well as a group of 35 MEPs in the EU Parliament. The idea that he has the time or inclination to personally intervene in the selection of a candidate for a county council election when the party was coordinating the largest local election campaign in its history is frankly ridiculous.
We can expect more of these attacks from Tory and Labour supporting newspapers as the EU elections get closer and certainly when the 2015 general election campaign starts. The smear has backfired on the Daily Mail judging by their readers' comments which are overwhelmingly in favour of Cllr Ayling's comments and critical of the newspaper for attacking her.
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wonkotsane is an author at Bloggers4UKIP.
