Searches on the web for information on the political parties before tomorrow's local and Euro elections shows that more people are now looking for information on the Green Party than any other party, except UKIP (graph here). Voters, apalled by the MPs expenses scandal, should beware of voting UKIP as an alternative to the Labour, Conservative or other parties however - not least because their record on personal ethics is a very poor one (see below)!!UKIP centres mostly on what it does not want and what it is opposed to rather than putting forward a positive and coherent strategy (which they dont have anyway). We need genuine euro-sceptics to challenge the current grossly undemocratic EU. UKIP are a negative, reactionary, backward-looking mish-mash of mavericks who often have more in common with the notorious Republican candidate for Vice President of the USA, Sarah Palin, than British people with good sense who rightly question much about the current EU. Some key members of UKIP dont believe in Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection and are in denial about climate change despite overwhelming, independent evidence, which has been verified over and again - these are not people who are in the 21st century!! (See here).
Open Europe, an independent think tank which questions 'ever closer union' as a feature of the EU, ranked UKIP's leader tenth from bottom in a league table of our MEPs for transparency, accountability, democracy and waste. Of the bottom thirteen MEPs six are from UKIP. Green Party leader Caroline Lucas came top the British MEPs in Open Europe's league table.
In the 2004 Euro election UKIP had 12 MEP's elected - but now only 8 remain to represent us. Former leader Roger Knapman left, accusing current leader Nigel Farage of being more interested in plush offices than principles (Farage has reportedly boasted about using his £2million worth of EU allowances to finance his campaigning). Robert Kilroy-Silk left after his leadership bid failed. Ashely Mote was convicted of benefit fraud and kicked out. Tom Wise was charged with money laundering and kicked out. That these people were amongst those selected as candidates to begin with shows very poor judgement and standards (more here).
More analysis of UKIP as a party against progress here.
I wouldn't worry excessively about UKIP; they talk a good game but as you rightly point out, there is something dodgy about them. Anyone else think that Nigel Farage would make a good used car salesman?
ReplyDeleteOur task is to continue to point out what was beautifully said in the election campaign video: if you believe that ethics and integrity have a place in politics, vote Green.