Ukip

Watch and read: Nigel Farage launches Ukip’s 2010 election manifesto

Does Nigel Farage really have no idea what was in Ukip’s 2010 election manifesto? Yesterday, he claimed on the Daily Politics he had never seen or heard of many of the policies the party stood for. But if you take a look at the video above, Farage was one the main speakers when the manifesto was launched in April 2010. The low-grade staging is again a sign of how far Ukip have come in the last three years, but their message hasn’t changed much. Farage claims: ‘The choice the public has is not about a change of government but a change of management’ Always the outsider, and who offers the

Nigel Farage disowns all of Ukip’s 2010 manifesto policies

‘We need to have a domestic policy agenda that adds up’ — Nigel Farage said on the Daily Politics today. The Ukip leader aptly summed up, and proved, one of the main challenges for his party as they attempt to become a mature force. Farage did his best to disown anything the party stood for at the last general election. Andrew Neil quizzed him on a variety of official policy positions, many of which are inconsistent and unfortunately remain on their website or available in official documents. On replacing Trident, Farage claimed his position was at odds with what is stated on the party’s website: ‘Andrew Neil: Is Ukip now

Ukip prepares ‘spooking’ campaign for Wythenshawe by-election

How will Ukip play the Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election? As a Labour seat with a relatively large majority (Sebastian profiles the constituency here), it’s a perfect location for Nigel Farage’s party to underline its claim that it can steal discontented voters from Labour just as easily as it does from the Tories. Labour is already nervous enough to be testing out special anti-Ukip leaflets arguing Farage is not on the side of the working class. It might have seemed a natural seat for the party’s Deputy leader Paul Nuttall to stand in. He gave a strong speech at the party’s autumn conference on how the Labour party no longer

All you need to know about the Wythenshawe and Sale East by-election

It’s by-election time once more. In just over three weeks, the voters of Wythenshawe and Sale East in Greater Manchester will head to the polls on the 13 February to decide who will replace Paul Goggins, the Labour MP who died suddenly earlier this month. By-elections are often thought to be a useful barometer of how the country is feeling, but in reality they are mostly fought on hyperlocal issues. This one will no doubt be watched closely given the rapidly approaching Euro elections in May. The Tories and Lib Dems are unlikely to do well in either battles, while Ukip and Labour will be going head-to-head in both instances.

Ukip councillor blames floods on Cameron and gay marriage

With just 124 days till European election polling day, you’d expect Ukip to be working tirelessly to professionalise the party’s operations and hide away any controversial opinions. They don’t appear to be doing a very good job so far. David Silvester, a Ukip councillor in Henley-on-Thames, has written to his local newspaper explaining how Britain’s recent spates of floods are David Cameron’s fault — because he has angered God with the Same Sex Marriage Bill: ‘The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel (and in naked breach of a coronation oath) will be beset by natural disasters such

Europe will affect the Scots referendum, but not in the way everyone expects

With William Hague in Glasgow this morning, the Scottish independence debate has swung round to Europe once again. Europe is indeed going to be important as we head towards the referendum, but perhaps not in the way everyone expects. The Foreign Secretary spent this morning warning that Scots would be worse off if they left the UK and then joined Europe as a separate country – without the UK’s rebate. This will rumble on until the September 18 poll, with claim and counter claim from both sides and neither able to prove anything definitively. Hague’s visit, though, has overshadowed one intriguing piece of polling data which could prove to be

Owen Jones’s letter to Ukip voters exposes the Left’s blind spot

I try to avoid mentioning Owen Jones because he already gets so much attention from people on the Right, including quite a lot of abuse on t’internet; the poor man’s probably blocked more people than have followed me. But his letter to Ukip voters in today’s Independent interested me as a study in what Jonathan Haidt described as the Left’s blind spot. Owen’s argument is that Ukip supporters have Left-wing views on the economy and therefore should desert former City trader Nigel Farage and join him in voting for a socialist party. A lot of Ukippers (horrible word but I can’t think of any other) do have fairly socialistic views

James Forsyth

Will a Euro election defeat for Cameron lead to a Tory-Ukip pact?

The Conservative party has never come third in a nationwide election. But as today’s YouGov poll in The Sun shows, they are on course to be beaten into third place by Ukip in the European elections: Now, European elections are normally an after-thought in British politics. As even David Cameron admits, most of us can’t remember who our MEPs are and almost two-thirds of us don’t bother to vote for them. But as I say in the column this week, coming third behind Ukip will send the Tory party into a panic. In the weeks after the result, there’ll be calls for an electoral pact with Nigel Farage and his

Will 2014 be the year of the populist party?

With Ukip widely expected to win big in May’s elections, 2014 may well be the year of the populist party. Not easily categorised as left or right wing, populist parties across Europe pit the good, honest, ordinary voter against the out of touch, liberal, mainstream political elite. The populists claim to represent the former against the latter, an authentic and honest voice in a world of spin and self-interest. Nigel Farage is not the only one to be surfing the wave of widespread disillusionment, with politics in general and politicians in particular. In Italy, Beppe Grillo straddles both left and right. The popular comedian and blogger ran on a vehemently

Podcast: Benefits Street vs the left, Cameron’s Euro mission and our 1964 expose

Has Benefits Street exposed Britain’s dirty secret? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Fraser Nelson debates the Labour MP Frank Field on the left’s reaction to the Channel 4 programme, why successive governments have failed to tackle the problem of welfare dependency and whether Iain Duncan Smith’s reforms will finally crack the problem. Professor Vernon Bogdanor also looks at the 50th anniversary of Ian Macleod’s infamous ‘What Happened’ article in The Spectator — apparently blowing the lid on Alec Douglas-Home’s succession to the Tory leadership. Was Ian Macleod a saboteur or truth teller? Was Macleod lying in his article? And why did the Tory party distrust R. A. Butler

One solution to the housing shortage – build on Hampstead Heath

If I was going to measure possible reasons to desert the Tories at the next election, and I can think of a couple, plans to concrete over the countryside would score pretty highly. As a theoretical idea about something happening miles away from my home it almost makes me want to write letters to the Telegraph; if it were in my backyard I’d be shaking my fist at passing traffic or whatever people in the countryside do when they’re angry. This is moderately dangerous to the party, because what’s different now to, say, five years ago is that disaffected shire Tories have a plausible alternative to turn to, one that isn’t

There are no shortcuts to reforming the EU

What does a Tory eurosceptic look like? Loud chalk-stripe, a flash of red braces and the faintest whiff of a lunch-time gander at the Members’ wine list. Right? Wrong. The economic trauma of the crash of 2008 is demanding that just as Conservative modernisation needs to be rebooted to suit the new Age of Austerity – with a focus on bold economic reformism to tackle welfare traps, worklessness and failing schools instead of the cultural gesturism of early modernisation – so too the crisis demands a rebooted euroscepticism.  The Tory Party in Parliament has been transformed by the arrival of the Cameron generation: more entrepreneurial, impatient, ambitious and global in

Toby Young: Join my campaign to save the country

This is going to be the year I do my Flash Gordon routine and launch a campaign to save the universe from Ming the Merciless. By which I mean some sort of alliance between the Conservatives and Ukip to prevent Miliband becoming the next prime minister. When I first started thinking about this, my conclusion was that any formal pact was out of the question. Not only have Cameron and Farage pooh-poohed it, but the polling evidence suggests that any gains the parties made by not fighting each other would be more than offset by their losses. Some Tory voters would be alienated by a pact, as would plenty of

Portrait of the week | 3 January 2014

Home Six months of talks in Northern Ireland, chaired by Dr Richard Haass, a retired American diplomat, ended without resolving the contentious issues of flag-flying, sectarian parades or a policy on trying crimes committed during the troubles. Bus loads of Romanians and Bulgarians set off for London as restrictions on their right to work in Britain were lifted. Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, called for refugees from the conflict in Syria to be given asylum in Britain; Lord Howe, the health minister, said that some should be accommodated in the European Union. Tories were said to have persuaded Boris Johnson to undertake ‘short bursts’ of campaigning before the election. The Duke

Tory wars back after Christmas truce

After a seasonal interlude, rival Tories are back to doing what they do best: warring over the heart and soul of the party. In the cuddly corner, we have Bright Blue; a think tank of hoody-huggers who are imploring the PM to be nice to immigrants. The Guardian has been purring with approval since Bright Blue’s director Ryan Shorthouse ‘specifically called for the Tory Party to adopt a Liberal-Conservative manifesto for the election’: ‘At the moment, the messaging is quite negative and uninspiring – it’s not enough to win voters and gain momentum. We need to be more inspiring and bigger picture than that and we need a positive vision, not

David Cameron talks nonsense about vetoing future EU enlargement

Fair’s fair. Ed Miliband might be a fish-faced ninny but that doesn’t let David Cameron off the hook. And not just because he’s trailing a fish-faced ninny in the polls. No, the Prime Minister can be a terrible poltroon himself. Witness his witless suggestion today that the United Kingdom might veto future EU enlargement unless something is done to  thwart “vast migrations” of people. It is a silly thing to say for a number of reasons and the first of those is that Cameron is in no position to make any such suggestion. He cannot bind future British governments and since there is no immediate prospect of any country being

Isabel Hardman

Tea at 22: Michael Fallon on jobs, Europe and Ukip

In the latest episode of Tea at 22, I interviewed Conservative business and energy minister Michael Fallon on his work in two Whitehall departments, Tory EU policy, and the party’s approach to Ukip. Fallon was the Spectator’s Minister of the Year for 2013. He had some very interesting points about how the Business department in particular might look different under a Tory majority government, suggesting that the Lib Dems had held the Tories back in getting more young people into work. Asked whether the Lib Dems had left the labour market rather more gummed up than the Tories would like, Fallon said: ‘Yes we would certainly have liked to have

What is David Cameron for?

A mischievous question, I know, but one prompted by Janan Ganesh’s latest Financial Times column. It is eight years since David Cameron became leader of the Conservative party and three and a half since he became Prime Minister. He may only have 18 months left in either post. We know – or think we know – a lot about Cameron. He is what he seems to be. Decent fellow, capable in a crisis, unruffled. A better-than-average product of his class and background. Thought he should be Prime Minister because he reckoned he’d “be good at it”. And yet the thought nags: what is he for? What is Cameron’s ministry about? As Ganesh

Ukip and Tories scrap over their squeeze message

One thing that has been abundantly clear about the Tory plan for Ukip is that it will involve a long, slow ‘squeeze message’ (more on that here) that has already been deployed: the vote Ukip, get Miliband line. Naturally, Ukip is keen to counter that and argue that in fact this early squeeze message to encourage voters to think strategically is just wrong. To that end, party donor Alan Bown has taken out a full-page advertisement in the Telegraph today that argues ‘UKIP stand poised for a major breakthrough in 2015, within reach of victory in many seats across the country’. He outlines the results of four polls: in the

There’s nothing crazy about opposing immigration extremists

On Monday Douglas Murray blogged that I personify the ‘craziness’ of the British immigration debate. By criticising the views of both a Ukip councillor and a Labour pollster I was apparently guilty of a doublethink, as if there were no political space between open borders and ‘send the lot back’. But there’s nothing contradictory about opposing both those on the hard right who favour the mass deportation of anyone who wasn’t born here and those on the liberal left who want to shut down the immigration debate altogether. We need an immigration policy which works for Britain, one which delivers us economic benefits while addressing longstanding public concerns about the