Independence Home.

I have always felt that UKIP needed an equivalent of Conservative Home. With the party being a true beckon of democracy and open debate, it always seemed like such a site with a UKIP flavour would be a natural fit.

Which is why I am happy to announce that myself and Harry Aldridge today launched Independence Home, a site independent of UKIP which aims to pass comment and encourage debate. I will still be blogging reguarly on here, but please head over to IndHome and feel free to leave comments there too. That is after all what makes such sites brilliant, not the editors or the content but the interaction factor. It really is the best thing about the advent of the internet.

Why "libertarian" Tories are wasting their time.

The Tory party does have a few politicians that I like. Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan, for example. Similarly, the Labour party has politicians I look up to like Frank Field and up until her death, Gwyneth Dunwoody. Unfortunately, just like Dunwoody and Field, I feel the Carswell and Hannan are going to have to get used to being, at best, outspoken backbenchers (and in Hannan’s case, not even in Westminster).

The route they seek to take Britain in one revolves around an agenda of national independence (withdrawing from the European Union) and a huge degree of a localism (local referenda and much more beyond). This is essentially, though not exclusively, a libertarian agenda. Amongst grassroots Conservative party members I have no doubt that it would be fiercely popular. Yet I feel this philosophy is about to be rallied against by the incoming Conservative government.

I believe that the effect David Cameron is going to have on the Tory party is profound. He, in my estimation, is going to lead a party that will decimate Labour in next year's General Election en route to forming a government. A moderniser, a solid communicator, Cameron will truly be the Tory's version of Tony Blair. Yes, he will put the Conservatives back in government. But I believe from then on out, it will become a party that is far more about rallying around a personality than an ideology.

Just as Blair sought to drive socialism out of the Labour party, I believe Cameron and his team will seek to do exactly the same within the Tory party, only this time targeting libertarians and other true small-c conservatives. You know the lot. They are too much of a risk to Cameron's image for the Tory party. They talk of NHS reform. They talk of radical educational shake-up that goes far behind the recently announced "primary school academies". And perhaps most importantly, they link up with old school eurosceptics like Bill Cash and Nicholas Winterton in strongly and publicly opposing the European Union, something which I believe will be increasingly unwelcome as "Prime Minster Cameron" increases his stranglehold on the party as its supposed saviour.

It will be interesting. I can see the likes of Hannan eventually saying enough is enough and opposing Cameron outright. Yet I believe by then it will be too late. The party will have become a different beast, a party even more wishy-washy and happy to drift on with the status quo than it is right now. Radical refomers won't just be ignored, they will be ousted as the Blue Labour project comes to fruition. Of course these people could make a genuine difference. They could help Nigel Farage and UKIP champion a manifesto built on a true raft of alternative, radical policies to get the UK back on track. They could, and one day I hope they do.

The Libertas grand plan.

According to a quite reliable source of mine, Libertas seriously do think that they are going to achieve enough MEPs to be able to form a European parliamentary grouping. I would be very surprised if they did: under the rules for the next Euro Parliament a grouping requires 25 MEPs from 7 different countries. That is the new, upped threshold which was recently proposed thanks to the tireless efforts of europhiles like Labour MEP Richard Corbett in a not-so-subtle ploy get rid of the only eurosceptic grouping in the European Parliament and the one that Nigel Farage and UKIP play a significant role in, the Independence and Democracy group.

Declan Ganley has been quoted as saying he is hopeful of 70 MEPs for Libertas. Even with widespread internet advertising and a flash website, I think that's an absurd prediction. Yet I think Ganley is worth watching. He makes cohesive - if flawed - arguments on reforming the European Union. He clearly recognises that there is an unelected political elite driving the EU. Yet he thinks that a solid grouping of MEPs can change the direction of the European Union, and believes that the EU has been a cause for good and should continue to expand.

It'll be interesting to see if Mr. Ganley's opinion is the same in ten years after a decade of banging his head against the EU's brick wall of democratic deflection. He's going to either collapse and accept the EU's unchanging structures, or become as eurosceptic as myself. Those who have seriously sat down and questioned the direction of the EU over the years have invariably eventually recognised withdrawal as the only viable route.

Sickening Labour double standards.

So Labour's Immigration Minister says that up to 100,000 people could settle in the UK if pre-1997 the Gurkhas were allowed to stay, hence why he and the Labour government are against them being allowed to.

This is the same Labour party who unequivocally, absolutely, totally support the European Union's open borders which has allowed millions of Eastern Europeans to enter the country and settle. This is also the same Labour government who support Turkey's future EU membership, which would lead to a country with a vastly different GDP from Britain's and with a population of over 70 million, having open borders with the UK.

Unbelieveable.

Small voices vs. a big problem.

I thoroughly recommend watching Channel 4's Dispatches: The Westminster Gravy Train. It is a damning and well put together show that truly exposes, no matter what MPs say to their constituents, that the Westminster system is totally broken and easily up for abuse for any MP who feels like pocketing themselves a few quid. They'll be acting within the existing rules, you see.

I don't think that Gordon Brown's proposal is going to change anything. The simple may be tinkered with slightly but there can be little doubt that this proposed shake-up is simply being used as a bone to appease an electorate who are after Labour's blood. I would however trust someone like Harwich MP Douglas Carswell, who has repeatedly and controversially really pushed hard for an agenda of total Westminster reform.

The most telling thing for me about Channel 4's Gravy Train program was how none of the MPs talking about how bad things were in Westminster really had any degree of influence at all. The public, unless they are constituents of one of the MPs featured, probably had never heard of the likes of Greg Mulholland, Douglas Carswell or Norman Lamb. And, due to their outspoken nature on the issue that cannot exactly be welcomed by many of their colleagues, they will probably remain small, uninfluential dissident voices against a failed system.

Why I UKIP.

Many people ask why I am in UKIP, both young and old, so I thought I'd give a brief overview as to what motivates me to work hard alongside other members for this cause we all believe in.

I came across the party simply during my A-Levels and was instantly taken in by its straight talking common sense and support for grammar schools, a policy I strongly support from personal experience. Of course I began to take an interest into the EU, hoping to dispell what the party was claiming was going on to our prosperity and our democracy. Unfortunately, the more research I did into the issue of the EU, the more I uncovered not a irrelevant issue, but a political monstrocity.

The issue of the European Union is nothing short of a tragedy and a national outrage. Only a few days ago a BBC poll tells us that still 55% of British people would prefer to leave the EU and maintain a trade deal. Yet none of the old parties dare represent this point of opinion. They allow potential party division to quash any thirst of national independence and self-government. Our professional party politicians have failed us in the most sickening of ways. While those with foresight on the right and left of the spectrum in the 1970's, from Tony Benn all the way to Enoch Powell, warned of the dangers of a federal superstate, hardly any MPs now dare raise their heads above the paraphet and stand up for the national interest. An entire generation of politicians have turned their back on democracy, a value that has in the past seen men and women die to protect.

The EU is I concede a contentious issue, but only as it is one that has been allowed to drift for far too long. Long enough for our country to already be bled dry of billions of pounds. Long enough for British tax money to be pumped into EU propaganda aimed at young people right across the continent of Europe. Long enough for our fishing industry to be all but wiped out and for our agricultural sector to be badly damaged. Long enough for thousands if not millions of African farmers to be held back from any form of economic development via artificially high EU food prices. Long enough for Britain's borders to be destroyed, thereby sowing the seeds for potential social problems in many of our overpopulated towns and cities. And long enough for our Parliament in Westminster, once known as the "Mother of all Parliaments" to have been pillaged of its powers with our gutless political class willingly gagging itself and refusing to talk about the profound consequences this has had.

A few cries have gone up from a few honorable members from inside the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Yet we are still in the strangehold of what is increasingly becoming an aggressive, confident federal European superstate. A system controlled by unelected bureaucrats in a disconnected land, well rewarded for the orchestration of a project that was never permitted by us, the people. This subject pains me. The lack of public knowledge as to who is behind this entire charade and what has happened in our name disgusts and angers me. Yet I refuse to be bitter and choose instead to work in a pro-active nature to right what I believe is a tremendous wrong in the history of not just Britain, but the politics of the European continent. Many before me have made far greater sacrifices against far greater odds.

The old parties have nothing to offer me, and so I am glad that UKIP is here fighting the battle. Figures like Nigel Farage have battled for many years already at great personal cost and now it is for us young people to take up the mantle and join those who have came before us in rocking the boat and standing up for a thought so unfashionable in Westminster, yet so popular outside of it - that we want our country's future to be utterly and totally decided by the people of that country. That is democracy and that is my cause. That is our cause.

Only a moron would vote BNP.

The arrest of the BNP's third candidate on the list of the Eastern region for the selling of illegal firearms comes as no surprise to me. The BNP have a past of members with criminal pasts and convictions as exposed on a BBC documentary a few years back.

This coming a day after a leaked BNP document (another one) exposed that the BNP's official party line is that black Britons and Asian Britons do not exist, surely underlines the point that no amount of anger or disgust with politicians can justify voting for a party with such disgusting views that the BNP clearly holds.

This is why UKIP's presence is so important. Yes, virtually an entire generation and political class have let down Britain. But sensible immigration is about space, not race. Britain is a multi-racial country and I for one am incredibly proud of that fact. True patriots will deliver a kick-in just as hard to the BNP as to the rest the old three parties on June 4th by voting UKIP, a party that isn't, never has and never will judge a person by the colour of their skin.

Politics is changing.

The wider implications of the Damian McBride story are obvious yet huge. This was truly an internet sensation stirred up and pushed forward by blogger Guido Fawkes during his feud with Labour's unofficial cyber General Derek Draper. More importantly perhaps is the way Guido was passed the info by whoever wanted to expose one of Gordon Brown's top advisors, instead of a hack journo. Westminster is quickly becoming a far more open playground, despite some MPs apparent attempts to barricade the political system from within.

Future governments are either going to have to adapt very quickly or suffer the consequences. The internet is the purest form of direct political interaction, where MPs can be accessed through blogs and emails. It is the closest thing to direct democracy we have in the UK. Barriers for interaction and participation are virtually non-existant, hence why most ordinary people love it and most politicians dislike it or are yet to "get it" fully. I think this will have woken many of them up. The internet is no longer the home for a niche, narrow audience. It is quickly becoming the mainstream mass market.