UKIP Southampton
My picture shows UKIP MEP Nigel Farage pictured in a tank outside the last Conservative Spring conference with, presumably,a typical UKIP member. Earlier that week David Cameron had called UKIP members "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly."
Tory Party Chairman Francis Maude added some UKIP members had "unsavoury connections" with the far-right.
Personally, I have never disliked people for being members of other political parties. Some of them, such as Bill Kearns, Nigel Gould and Jon Walters (who have all been active in their respective political parties), I can count upon as amongst my best friends.
I don't fall either into the minority view within the Conservative Party that people who joined UKIP are traitors who are natural Conservatives, a view that is both naive and arrogant.
While I admit it galls me that in seats like Eastleigh, the arch Euro-federalist, Chris Huhne was elected over the sceptic Conservative, Conor Burns with most people who said they would vote UKIP expressing a second preference for the Conservatives, thats life.
The result in Eastleigh was as follows last time:
Liberal Democrats- Chris Huhne 19,216 votes 38.6 share −2.1 swing Elected.
Conservative- Conor Burns 18,648 votes 37.5 share +3.2 swing
Labour- Chris Watt 10,238 votes 20.6 share −1.3 swing
UKIP - Chris Murphy 1,669 votes 3.4 share +1.6 swing
Lib Dem Majority 568
Turnout 49,771 votes 64.8% +1.0%
Swing −2.6 from Lib-Dems to Conservative.
So assuming Conservative canvass returns were correct regarding second preferences on UKIP voters, it seems fairly cut and dried that UKIP cost the Conservatives the seat in Eastleigh and let in a very pro-European.
However, I am sure their response would probably be that as all the other candidates were in favour of staying in the EU, they were all as bad as each other and that in a democracy the UKIP activists had a right (indeed a duty) to stand and state the case for withdrawal. After all politics is all about debate, and if people feel strongly about an issue, they have every right in a democracy to campaign upon it.
Which brings me to some of the weird things that have been going on in Southampton...
Their candidate for Southampton, Peter Day has been writing letters to the national press posing as an non-aligned individual when he is a party candidate!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=397537&in_page_id=1770 ,
UKIP have also been frantically writing to local Conservative candidates urging them to defect when they have never shown the slightest inclination of doing so and then publishing variations on discussion forums that Tories are on the verge of leaving the Conservatives/defecting to UKIP etc., etc. As one exasperated Conservative put it to me, " I don't agree with them, I am happy with my party yet I know that if I even ask them to stop contacting me than it will only encourage them". If they do reply, UKIP will probably say they are then in discussions with senior Conservatives!!! If when reads the UKIP discussion thread, one could really begin to believe there was something in all of it when actually Stephen Phillips, the Press Secretary for UKIP Southampton answer at the end of the discussion thread is a fabrication. He does his party no service at all...
I don't fall either into the minority view within the Conservative Party that people who joined UKIP are traitors who are natural Conservatives, a view that is both naive and arrogant.
While I admit it galls me that in seats like Eastleigh, the arch Euro-federalist, Chris Huhne was elected over the sceptic Conservative, Conor Burns with most people who said they would vote UKIP expressing a second preference for the Conservatives, thats life.
The result in Eastleigh was as follows last time:
Liberal Democrats- Chris Huhne 19,216 votes 38.6 share −2.1 swing Elected.
Conservative- Conor Burns 18,648 votes 37.5 share +3.2 swing
Labour- Chris Watt 10,238 votes 20.6 share −1.3 swing
UKIP - Chris Murphy 1,669 votes 3.4 share +1.6 swing
Lib Dem Majority 568
Turnout 49,771 votes 64.8% +1.0%
Swing −2.6 from Lib-Dems to Conservative.
So assuming Conservative canvass returns were correct regarding second preferences on UKIP voters, it seems fairly cut and dried that UKIP cost the Conservatives the seat in Eastleigh and let in a very pro-European.
However, I am sure their response would probably be that as all the other candidates were in favour of staying in the EU, they were all as bad as each other and that in a democracy the UKIP activists had a right (indeed a duty) to stand and state the case for withdrawal. After all politics is all about debate, and if people feel strongly about an issue, they have every right in a democracy to campaign upon it.
Which brings me to some of the weird things that have been going on in Southampton...
Their candidate for Southampton, Peter Day has been writing letters to the national press posing as an non-aligned individual when he is a party candidate!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=397537&in_page_id=1770 ,
UKIP have also been frantically writing to local Conservative candidates urging them to defect when they have never shown the slightest inclination of doing so and then publishing variations on discussion forums that Tories are on the verge of leaving the Conservatives/defecting to UKIP etc., etc. As one exasperated Conservative put it to me, " I don't agree with them, I am happy with my party yet I know that if I even ask them to stop contacting me than it will only encourage them". If they do reply, UKIP will probably say they are then in discussions with senior Conservatives!!! If when reads the UKIP discussion thread, one could really begin to believe there was something in all of it when actually Stephen Phillips, the Press Secretary for UKIP Southampton answer at the end of the discussion thread is a fabrication. He does his party no service at all...
http://www.ukipforum.co.uk/about11516.html
Meanwhile something I applaud is that UKIP have even published a blog locally
http://www.ukip-southampton.blogspot.com
However some of the claims on it are so fantastic as to be extroadinary.
I would invite readers to visit it to see what I mean.
I also note that it is written anonymously- is it really an 'official' blog that really represents UKIP in Southampton I wonder ?
Meanwhile something I applaud is that UKIP have even published a blog locally
http://www.ukip-southampton.blogspot.com
However some of the claims on it are so fantastic as to be extroadinary.
I would invite readers to visit it to see what I mean.
I also note that it is written anonymously- is it really an 'official' blog that really represents UKIP in Southampton I wonder ?
posted by Matt Dean at 6:26 pm
14 Comments:
Hopefully the next UKIP leader won't be a complete dunderhead like Mike Nattrass, who has a fanatical hatred of Conservatives, and no brain for strategy.
Suchorweski says he will carefully target seats and not stand in all as UKIP have been doing.
Do UKIP want to get out of Europe or not? Under Nattrass they assist pro-European parties to win more seats. I suspect Nattrass has an IQ of around 50. He stood against Bill Cash!!!
suchorzewski
The site hasnt been updated for almost a month!!!!!
Matt. The Southampton Conservatives have had loads of emails from UKIP activists over the past few months (ex UKIP Council candidates asking to join the Conservatives, asking if they can come to our meetings, people forwarding UKIP campaigning documents). We have been very honest and open with them and if they genuinely want to join because they support our views, thats great. I supect they don't however. It is all rather childish I think and frankly a waste of everyone's time. There is a huge amount going on in politics locally and nationally at the moment. I would much rather debate policy issues. I would also rather be spending my time helping my constituents and I find their antics a little distracting. Jeremy.
What I find strange is why they target the Conservatives with all this rubbish- (a) havn't they got better things to do and (b) do they actually think it will make any difference (to anything) really?
Weird...
www.southamptonukip.blogspot.com
The guy at the front of the picture must be the fruitcake or loonie that tory boy spoke of.
As gfar as im aware there are as many closet racist in the tories as there is in UKIP
In my experience there are sadly plenty of racists in every party in Britain- but more than most in UKIP and the BNP considering how small there memberships are.
The BNP is just full of racists.
Dave Cameron has no evidence of any racists being in UKIP
If David Cameron hasn't got any evidence of their being racists in UKIP, he isn't looking very hard. I personally know 2 in Southamton.
Id be interested in knowing who they are. UKIP Southampton would expel anyone who was found to be a racist.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Its good to see that the person who stated there where racist within ukip southampton cant back it up. Yet another un-founded accusation.
love to know what was in Ryan Newell's blog you removed, Obviously a true statement. Please don't go all Mandelsonny on us. Stick to fact not fiction. PS. I was a conservative with a small c, thanks to Cameron's betrayal over the EU I am now a UKIP sensible socialist.
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