Following Nigel Farage’s eventual decision not to run in the Newark by-election, Lib Dem MEP for the South-East of England Catherine Bearder shared her thoughts on UKIP’s approach to holding public office, over at the Huffington Post:
Following hours of umming and ahing, Nigel Farage finally declared that he won’t stand for election in the upcoming by-election in Newark, desperately insisting that he is still “a fighter”. It is remarkable that the very man who claims he is not your typical politician, that he says what he thinks and does what he wants, only decided that he would not represent the residents of Newark after consulting internal political polling. Hardly the stuff of a principled and fearless man of the people. It is a surprise he didn’t consult a focus group too.
Political commentators will churn up column inches debating whether he bottled it or not, and what impact this will have on Teflon Nigel. However, this debate misses the central point about UKIP – they hold the electorate in utter contempt.
In less than a month, there will be elections to the European Parliament to select the 73 Euro MPs fighting Britain’s corner in Brussels. This is a hugely important role – the European Parliament has extensive powers to amend and approve legislation across a wide-range of important policy areas that directly affect the lives of British people from trading rules for British businesses to police cooperation to environmental, health and consumer protection. Every country within the EU is different and has its own traditions and cultures, and it is crucial that not only British ministers but also British Euro MPs work day in, day out to make sure that EU rules work effectively for British jobs, for fighting crime, for combating climate change and for projecting British values around the world.
That is what Liberal Democrat Euro MPs have spent the past five years achieving. It was Liberal Democrats who led the charge in launching trade negotiations with the USA and Japan worth billions to the British economy. It was Liberal Democrats who pushed through radical reforms which will end the scandalous practice of throwing perfectly good fish back into the sea. And where were UKIP’s Euro MPs? Mostly they didn’t bother turning up. Nigel Farage has only bothered to attend 43% of votes, ranked 759 out of 764 of all Euro MPs, and UKIP’s Deputy Leader, Paul Nuttall, is even worse with 42% attendance, ranked 760th! And when they do turn up, UKIP have not lifted a finger to make sure EU rules work better for British fishermen and they refused to support the EU-US trade negotiations, which will create thousands of British jobs.
You can read Catherine’s full piece here.
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11 Comments
Kippers I know believe the mainstream parties have treated the electorate with contempt for years. I find many in the electorate who broadly agree with that, and it is something that many newspapers hammer home incessantly. Kippers seem to believe that, as a result, the electorate are mostly misled sheep who need to be led in the right direction by simplified arguments that need not bear a resemblance to anything that might be described as “true”.
The upcoming election is not a referendum on Europe, we will still be in Europe afterwards whoever wins. UKIP’s record demonstrates that we will lose out in Europe if they get elected, and this seems like it might be an effective argument not to vote UKIP. While we’re in, let’s at least fight our corner.
The fisheries argument seems a bit awkward, because we might not have been throwing fish back if we hadn’t been in Europe. Examples are needed of wholly good things that can only be achieved through being in the EU..
“Kippers seem to believe that, as a result, the electorate are mostly misled sheep who need to be led in the right direction”
that view seems to be quite prevalent among lib-dems too.
The UKIP’s approach to the European Parliament is almost Trotskyist in its “the worse, the better” approach of trying to wreck the system from within and never mind the damage it causes to the British public.
Here’s hoping it works as well for them as it did for Militant.
Both the political parties snd the media are giving UKIP too much attention . No publicity is bad publicity, so they say. The coverage of UKIP has been massively disproportionate. The Clegg vs Farage debates were a bad idea and things seem to have snowballed from there. Yes, they are full of closet racists, homaphobes, sexists etc. But the point has been made.
Every time Farrage is challenged on this donor, that fruitcake, that racist, he uses the airtime to hit home his core message on immigration and the EU’s influence over domestic affairs. Whether we disagree with him or not, that core message resonates with a large tranche of the electorate.
Let’s lay off Nigel and his friends, not for hus sake, but for the sake of the country.
The other point about UKIP is that it has the poorest record in retaining MEPs within its own party. There are plagued by disagreements causing people to leave and discoveries that some elected MEPs are embarassing even to UKIP.
This pattern goes back to 2014, but has increased in the present parliament.
So electing a UKIP MEP isn’t necessarily for 5 years!
There are plenty of reasons for attacking UKIP, but this is not one of them. Had Farage stood in Newark, he would have been accused of being a carpet-bagger, someone jumping in for opportunistic reasons, not someone who really want to stand up for and represent the people of Newark. Farage quite rightly said that as he has no personal connections with Newark, he’s not the person to stand there. Plus I think he does have a point that his job now is to lead his party’s campaign in the EU elections, and not to take on the very different job of campaigning to be the MP for Newark.
Our MEPs are NOT there to “fight Britain’s corner”. That is specifically the job of our ministers in the Council. I wish our MEPs would stop talking about British MEPs and ministers as if they were fighting on the same side. A large part of the point of MEPs is that they are independent of national political bubbles, so do not so easily bow to the vested national interests that are the biggest drag on EU reform. I would expect our MEPs to cast a critical eye over the positions taken by UK ministers in the Council, regardless of who is in power nationally.
@Alex, MEPs are certainly there to represent their constituents – to “fight” for them, in the popular parlance. The idea that they’re not is what causes the democratic deficit.
But the “constituency” for the European Parliament is the Euro-region, not the entire country (except for the smallest EU member states). And MEPs represent their constituents as individuals, not the nation state (which is represented by the European Council). The British people are not a homogeneous bloc in terms of representation in the EU, any more than they are in the UK.
Farage is a carpet bagger – he has already stood in loads of places – see Dan Hodges in the Telegraph.
What needs to be tackled is the central parts of Farage message. Immigration – leaving the EU doesn’t give us control of our borders – what gives us control of our borders in international co-operation. If it is true 2 million non-british EU citizens live in the UK and 2 million Britsih citizens live in other EU countries – we should keep saying so. Free movement of people in the EU – I can’t see why it is unreasonable to negotiate changes. That poeple coming here should speak english or benefits should be funded by the country where they are a citizen for the first year. I am not saying i agree with that, just that it is not unreasonable view.
The Euro elections are one of the most amazing display of democracy in the history of the world, and yet they are used as a oportunity to protest vote. Farage says we are run by bureacrats and MEPs, but really if is the national government ministers who usually put through or block things that are objectional. The UKIP way means less democracy and more unaccountable governemnt ministers. the UKIP plan is get rid of the MEPs and use quality MPs like Maria Miller, Patrick Mercer, etc.
“the UKIP plan is get rid of the MEPs and use quality MPs like Maria Miller, Patrick Mercer, etc”
…. plus a Recall system to deal with misbehaving MP’s.
Wow!,…. Well done Caracatus you’re starting to get it.