Why We Target #Ukip – In A Nutshell

Noticed a question on Twitter today …

"Ignore characters in party and media rhetoric; which UKIP policies do you dislike most. Genuine question…"

Interesting. We’ve been asked this before.

We are many here, so I speak for this Moderator only when I mention the following Ukip Policies (from their May 2015 Manifesto) that I disagree strongly with;

• Leaving The EU;
• Tax Cuts for the Rich;
• Cutting Foreign Aid;
• Abolishing Inheritance Tax;
• Scrapping Climate Change Act;
• Supporting Fracking;
• Abolishing Green Levies;
• Opposing the so-called ‘Mansion Tax;
• Keeping our Trident nuclear deterrent;
• .. and others.

There are other policies – in fact many Ukip Policies – that I and many others strongly agree with:

• Ensure big corporations pay their fair share of tax;
• Tackle the problem of sham marriages;
• Fund 20,000 more nurses, 8,000 more GPs and 3,000 more midwives;
• Scrap the ‘bedroom tax’;
• End unfair ATOS-style work capability assessments and return the system and funding to GPs;
• Build one million homes on brownfield sites by 2020;
• End the abuse of zero-hours contracts;
• Prosecute all cases of adult sexual behaviour with minors;
• Give voters real power to sack their MP, Councillor or other elected politician;
• .. and others.

Here’s the problem: These Manifesto Promises are worthless.

The world and his wife all knew that other than Conservative or Labour, no Party had a hope in hell of gaining a Majority at GE2015. Those two parties created their Manifestos in the belief that they might have to actually deliver.

Other parties? Not so much. You might as well put “Free kittens for the under 5’s” in there.

Ukip is a Populist Party, in the worst sense:

“Hey, Nigel, what Policy would get us good publicity and more support? We’ll go with that.”

“Er, do we actually support it? Can we deliver it?”

“That’s the great thing! It doesn’t matter!”

“Great, so we can just invent a problem and put a popular solution in here?”

“Yeah, easy.”

In the end, rating a minor party – any of them – by its Manifesto is pointless. So when the Manifesto is so useless a benchmark, how do you judge any party?

Simple: By their actions, statements and behaviour, their honesty and financial integrity. By the people they select and vet as candidates, by the inflammatory rhetoric they use, and the falsehoods they get caught out using.

“Ignore characters in party” ?

No, and that’s the point. It’s a very good way indeed of measuring a party’s standards.

For minor parties – it’s the only way.

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