The far-right will attempt to emulate UKIP's success but will fail.

The Telegraph's revelation that Marine Le Pen views the French National Front as closer to UKIP than the BNP is evidence of how the far-right would love to gain as much success as UKIP.

The far-right want to be viewed as patriotic, positive and the bastions of popular opinion. Even the BNP themselves are now reportedly copying UKIP where they can.

Unfortunately for the likes of Le Pen and Nick Griffin, being an ethnic nationalist more concerned about the colour of one's skin rather than the content of their character will hold you back massively, as most right-minded people recognise that patriotism and pride transcends ethnicity and creed.

Just as Miliband and Cameron are out of touch with their dismissal of immigration as an issue that people are  rightfully concerned about, Griffin and so-called "nationalists" are equally as out of touch with modern opinion.

My generation grew up in a country with huge social problems caused by segregation in many of our town and cities, and with open-border immigration that has caused problems in the job market with wages being driven down. But we also grew up in a country where races mostly get along fine and are equally as patriotic and passionate about this nation.

Patriotism is no longer about where you came from, but who and what you believe in now. That is why UKIP's outlook of national civic pride that welcomes everyone will continue to thrive, while the BNP's outdated social world view will soon become extinct.

Iceland sets its own fishing quotas, so the EU prepares sanctions against them.

Iceland is a country that has seem to have done what was said to be impossible. It lets its failing banks go to the wall, and didn't die on its feet economically. Likewise it remains a proud European nation, but isn't in the EU.

That really seems to be getting up the noses of those at the top of the EU right now. Iceland's government has done something that is now very novel in Europe: sets its own fishing quotas. Iceland has decided to increase its mackerel quota by 17,000 tonnes. So it should: Iceland's government should be in charge of Iceland's fishing industry, accountable for success or failure by Iceland's voters. It's called democracy.

No, no, no says the European Union. The EU is now set to ban mackerel imports from Iceland because they don't like the policy of the government of Iceland.

As Nigel Farage famously asked, just who the hell do those in the EU think they are? Iceland is wisely outside of the EU and its government is accountable to nobody but its own citizens and constituents. The EU's disastrous Common Fisheries Policy has destroyed the British fishing industry and is an environmental disaster that has lead to millions of dead fish being thrown back into the sea as fishermen inside the EU are forced to do whatever Brussels dictates.

This latest protectionist, bullying stance by the EU against a government that disagrees with the EU's woeful environmental outlook is very worrying, but hardly surprising. As Iceland continues to demonstrate how a European nation can survive and thrive without being in the European Union, the EU's discontent towards Iceland will only continue as it tries to bully and threaten the Icelandic people into submitting to the EU's dominance.

11 MEPs to defect to UKIP's European Parliamentary grouping?

There has been tittle tattle for a while, but The European Parliament magazine has now flagged up the possibility of 11 MEPs from the Polish Law and Order Party defecting from the Tories' ECR group to the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group that UKIP leads.

This would be a big boost to the EFD group, but more importantly a devastating blow to the Conservative Party's grouping which would not survive and would leave Tory MEPs as non-attached. It would leave Conservative MEPs in disarray and strike up another debate as to where they belong on the spectrum in the European Parliament. I suspect a number of them would like to go back to the federalist European People's Party group.

Watch this space.

Does taking the EU's cash legitimatise its existence?

Tim Congdon has written a very interesting piece over at Standpoint, concluding with the following paragraph:

"Second, the civil servants invent structures that encourage politicians to approve further integration. For example, the European Parliament now offers subsidies (ostensibly to pay for "research" and such like) to MEPs who form "pan-European groupings" and "pan-European parties". So subsidies to promote European integration are now being offered to MEPs of separatist parties — including Ukip — that are supposed to oppose it. If the Virginia School is right, these MEPs might even accept the money that is being dangled in front of them."


The issue of pan-European parties is a very interesting one. Yes, the EU wants pan-European parties. But it also wants MEPs and a European Parliament and UKIP taking seats here (and the EU's cash) has led to the Party steadily increasing its vote share where it counts, gaining local Councillors and votes at the General Election.


The EU is offering a set pot of money to British political parties that form pan-European parties. If UKIP does not become part of a pan-European Party, more money will go to fund the pro-EU agendas of the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. If UKIP joins a pan-European Party, it will have money to invest in making the anti-EU argument and will deprive the pro-EU parties of money to make their case. Does exploiting the EU's own system really constitute legitimising it, or is it merely a means to an end?


This is all about playing the EU at its own game, and using the money it has sucked away from British taxpayer's against it. If you don't believe UKIP should form a pan-European Party because it will legitimatise the process and help integration, then why would you believe UKIP should have MEPs standing up in the European Parliament and giving speeches? 

Britain's runaway welfare state was always bound to become a state.

Labour's welfare philosophy while in government was relatively simple: give poor people money. Give them cash. Don't worry if they want to work or not. Don't care if they refuse to work and milk the system. They are poor and vulnerable, right?

Six kids? Nine? Twelve? Here, have a lovely free house and money to make sure you all have a great life. Never mind hard-working 9 to 5 man next door who earns everything he has and has less to show for it. He's not vulnerable and so isn't a priority for the government. Let him pay for his bone idle next door neighbour.

Then the recession came. And with it, a credit crunch that has meant budgets have had to be crunched. Nationally we've seen the start of it, now local Councils are going to take the strain.

It is amazing that while the Council budgets in poorer areas are going to be cut by nearly 9% in parts of Manchester, Liverpool and London but only by 1% in richer areas like Surrey, that still means that the poorer areas of the country are still getting ten times the amount of cash pumped into them.

Naturally poor areas need help to bring them up to scratch. But simply throwing more money at the problem was proven to be the wrong way to go about things, as demonstrated by the fact that Labour's reign in Downing Street oversaw the gap between rich and poor increase. In reality it did not see the poor's social mobility increase, only dependence on government handouts increase as aspiration and individual's independence decreased.

The only way for those living in deprived areas can make their area and their lives better is to be given help, but the right help. A radical resurrection of grammar schools would be a good start, as would an investment in apprenticeships and compulsory work placements that give skills and installs a work ethic into those who wish to rely on the taxpayer to feed and cloth them.

Government subsidises should not be viewed as a right, but a as a wad of cash that has to be earned. It is insane that those who graft and work hard for 30 years straight paying tax into the system the whole time and then are made redundant through no fault of their own, are given the same amount of financial support by the government as someone who has chosen never to lift a finger.

Let us not think either that the Coalition's cuts are leading us in the correct direction. The cuts that are going on now would have to happened under Labour somehow and indeed, David Cameron's government will be spending more public money by the end of this Parliament than is spent right now. These people are not driven by a burning ambition to overhaul Britain's massive public spending project: they apologise and squirm when questioned rather than thriving at the prospect of reshaping a Britain that truly helps the poor rather than ensuring Britain continues to pay for an underclass.

Labour's blanket rejection of any cut  to any local authority will lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy: of course those who are poorest will be hit hardest when cuts are made, if they are taught that their future lies in expecting government to provide for them. This notion is tragic, yet heresy in our corridors of Parliament.

The skeleton in the closet: Coalition wasn't mandatory.

As the Liberal Democrats vote today to pass the tripling of tuition fees in a move that will see student debt triple, despite the fact they pledged to vote against any rise and ultimately abolish fees before the election, the Lib Dems are rolling out the collective responsibility excuse.

"Nobody won the election" says Nick Clegg. True. "There is a Coalition government with a Coalition agreement in place made up of compromises".  Fine Nick. But you forget something: chose to enter the agreement.

The Lib Dems did not have to go into Coalition with the Tories. They did not have to agree to submit on tuition fees and be part of the government that is going to triple them. They chose to. It was a choice they made.

If the Coalition agreement with the Conservatives was not to their liking, they could have rejected it. But they accepted it. Nick Clegg and his gang did far more than compromise: they sold out one of the key principles that got many of their MPs elected for the sake of power for powers sake.

And now they will have to live with the consequences. The Lib Dems are down to 8% in the latest YouGov poll and I wouldn't be at all surprised if that went down further still.

Nick Clegg got into the televised debates and quickly gained parity with Labour and the Tories. But just as quickly he has thrown his parties prospects of being some sort of radical alternative away. Today's vote will seal the fate of Nick Clegg's Party.

Lets close a third of Universities but scrap tuition fees.

Student protesters seem to be missing the point: the reason Labour introduced tuition fees in the first place was because they aimed for 50% of young people to go to University. With the Coalition having no intention of opposing that absurd figure and the economic climate have taken a downturn, an increase in fees was inevitable.

But there is another way. The University and College Union is saying there is a threat under the Coalition's proposals for a third of Universities to close. Ultimately I think that would be the right thing to happen. There was rapturous applause when I pointed out to Labour MP Chukka Umunna on Young Person's Question Time the day before the General Election that Labour had created hundreds of thousands of University places, but created a climate where there were simply not enough graduate jobs to go around. As I put it: "you've created lots of graduates and not enough jobs for them to go into, well done Labour!"

Instead of having thousands upon thousands of Uni graduates who have no graduate jobs to go into, we need to have less people going to University. This isn't about shutting opportunity down for people, it's about recognising that Universities should be places for academic excellence. There need to be more apprenticeships and vocational courses so that people aren't told that University is the only option by teachers in Sixth Form as can be the case now.

Those who do have the academic merit however, rich or poor, should not have to leave University in tens of thousands of pounds of debt. Only the best should go, but should be seen as having earned their place rather than having been handed it by thanks to government targets.

If it's a case of 20% of young people going to University for free or 50% each paying £9,000, it's surely a no-brainer. Half of our young people shouldn't be going to University but neither should those that do get saddled with such debt.

The Battle for Sanity.

If you haven't watched Channel 4's documentary the Battle for Barking, I recommend you do. It followed Labour's Margaret Hodge and the BNP's Nick Griffin throughout their election battle in the constituency of Barking at the General Election, the seat that at the time had the highest concentration of BNP Councillors and support at the time.

Ultimately the BNP were wiped out and Labour were triumphant. But as someone who went down to Barking to help the UKIP candidate Frank Maloney during the campaign, something really stuck out for me in the documentary.

Margaret Hodge won because she was effectively the anti-BNP candidate. She didn't promise she would push for reform on immigration nor did she promise to give greater priority to the needs of the constituents who had been waiting for housing for many years versus immigrants who just arrived, and are deemed to be more vulnerable as they don't speak much English and have young children with them.

Effectively Labour have done a very, very dangerous thing in this constituency and I suspect in many others: they have ran around saying don't vote for the racist BNP. Fair enough. But that's all they've done, aside from wanting more housing to meet the demand of the thousands upon thousands of new arrivals to Britain every year. Labour don't have solutions to the problems immigration has caused in places like Barking, and in other constituencies where ordinary working class people are seeing their communities change radically in a very short space of time.

What people are effectively crying out for is a Party that stands up for the British people, but that does not see British people as an ethnic group but rather as the ordinary, vastly differing group of people that we are. People that are born in this country, or who have come to our country and worked hard, should be looked after. Under Labour and the Coalition's utterly irresponsible immigration policy, they are being ignored and neglected in areas like Barking.

If we want to truly kill off the likes of the BNP, we need British government and the British Parliament to have control of Britain's borders and impose a sensible work permit system that welcomes immigration but that controls the numbers. How despicable it is that our political class have seen fit to hand control to Brussels.

If we're arresting people who burn Korans, shouldn't we be arresting people who burn poppies?

A 15 year old girl was arrested recently for burning a Koran. I find this interesting in itself - would someone who was burning a Bible be arrested?

But this follows the highly unpleasant episode in London recently where a small group of extremist Muslims decided to shout abuse and burn a poppy on Armistice Day during the two minute silence. They were not arrested, in fact they had police protection to stop them being attacked.

Why does a religion get greater protection by the law and a stronger response from the police force than when a gang disrespects an entire nation's memorial of its war heroes? Is it really consistent to arrest someone for burning a religious book while allowing others to burn items that are symbolic of representing a nation?

Fair enough, we are talking about small numbers of individuals taking part in such activities. But their actions will be seen by millions who will be angry and upset.

If we allow such demonstrations to go ahead with placards being shown saying things like "Islam will dominate" while blatantly disrespecting the country they are in, this will surely only lead to more people becoming anti-Islam as they come to perceive the religion as extreme and a threat.

Americans look to Nigel Farage as British Tea Party Leader.

After his latest barnstorming speech in the European Parliament that has now gone viral, some in the US are now looking at Nigel Farage as the torch bearer for a British Tea Party movement.

Having now appeared on Fox News, it looks as if Farage - and UKIP - are now gaining some international coverage.  There can be no doubt that a low tax, small-c conservative movement is required in Britain as the Cameron Project roles on, increasing public spending in government and surrendering to the EU on every issue.

Lord Pearson demands to know why UKIP doesn't have more Peers.

The Coalition's appointment of members to the House of Lords is apparently "entirely consistent" of being "reflective of vote share" at the General Election, according to LibDem Peer Lord McNally.

Former UKIP Leader Lord Pearson has today been ripping into the Coalition, demanding to know that if this was the case then why didn't UKIP have 24 Peers appointed given the Party's electoral performance.

I think the fact that UKIP got nearly a million votes but zero increased political representation in the House of Lords and remains without any at all in the Commons is a disgrace to our political system.