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.

Peter Luff MP on the EU

Conservative MP for Mid Worcestershire, Peter Luff, has written the following in his local newspaper:

My New Year resolution is to speak out on one of the most important issues affecting all of us, not just in Droitwich Spa aand Worcestershire, but in the whole country – our relationship with the European Union write Peter Luff MP.

A dangerous view is developing that we would be better off out. This is nonsense and it’s time for the sane voices to start speaking up.

The jobs, influence and peace that the EU has brought are real and tangible. The current Eurozone problems would affect us whether or not we were in the EU, but thank heavens we stayed out of the Euro ourselves. In a recent survey the three main reasons for the disillusion with the EU were immigration, the budget and human rights legislation. Let’s take them in turn.

People have a point on immigration – the Labour party has now apologized for not introducing the same controls asa the rest of Europe at the time of the big eastern enlargement. The very sudden influx was not the EUs fault – it was the last government’s.

On the budget, current estimates suggest that our net contribution – the difference between what we pay in and what we get back – in 2012 will be around £8 million, which sounds a lot of money. But in the same year we will have spent more than £200 billion on welfare payments, over £90 billion on education and around £110 billion on the NHS. So the total cost of the welfare state last year will be about £400 billion – and expenditure on the EU is around 2% of that.

Finally human rights laws are absolutely nothing to do with the EU – they are the result of a totally separate institution called the Council of Europe. It’s about time to start busting the myths and reminding the country which side our bread is buttered on

And the Tories tell us to trust them to do the right thing where the EU is concerned?