By Prue Plumridge
The UKIP campaigned on an anti-europe ticket.
My question is:
If they are anti-europe why have they not declared their position on the Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership currently being negotiated behind closed doors?
They have been surprisingly quiet on the issue. Now why could this be? It would have been a powerful weapon in their campaign against the EU.
Let’s remember that Nigel Farage’s great hero is Thatcher.
Her pursuit of the neoliberal ideologies of deregulation, privatisation and trade liberalisation have left behind a destructive legacy which we are now more than ever reaping the consequences of. Time will prove (I am certain) Farage’s hypocrisy and deception.
We should be clear that the UKIP are libertarians who believe in free market economics and this is the economic model currently being promoted by an unelected, undemocratic cabal of EU commissioners who are negotiating a trade deal with the US that will favour globalisation and the continuing ascendancy and undemocratic power of the big corporations.
Clearly there is a dissonance between what Ukip supporters believe the party stands for and reality.
Whether they are in denial or their support is a protest against the established parties it matters not. There will be tears before bed-time if we continue to think of this party as a group of fruitcakes or loonies or purely a focus for protest. They are cleverly dissimulating their real agenda and the next few months will be interesting as surely they will have to nail their colours to the wall.
It may seem to some that I am expressing anti-EU sentiment. I hasten to add that I am not. I believe that our future lies within the EU. Not the current austerity imposing neoliberal juggernaut which is bringing Europe to its knees but a properly democratic EU which is socially just, acts for the benefit of its citizens and ultimately remembers its history.
I wrote an article, in May last year, for Think Left. ( https://think-left.org/2013/05/04/on-fascism-and-facts-ukip-the-strategic-adversary/). A year on I stand by it. The rise of the right throughout Europe is, whether we like it or not, an articulation of the fear being expressed by its citizens over continuing uncertainty and fear for the future. Citizens, however have not woken up yet, to the fact that the Right including UKIP are only offering more of the same.
The Left need now to rise to the challenge and show there is another fairer and more socially just way.
Think Left 
Very well said indeed Prue thank you for this article. With what has happened in France the rise of the far right is particularly worrying in Europe, this cannot be good for the whole of Europe’s future stability. The BNP may have gone in the UK but I am certain they are hidden elsewhere under Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak of respectability…
Now the ‘shouting’ is over the left need to regroup , reassess and unite in their resolve to bring back common sense politics, which I strongly believe Ed Miliband has, so we need to support him and inform from within to ensure freedom from fear for all, in this green and pleasant land.
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Ed Milliband – are you serious? That is hilarious.
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Reblogged this on Vox Political and commented:
“Clearly there is a dissonance between what Ukip supporters believe the party stands for and reality.”
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The problem is you read their 2014 manifesto and it’s impossible to tell what they believe on these important issues. It’s all part of their strategy not to have policies. An that’s the time- honoured technique of the charlatan – we actually all know what Farage believes – there’s enough on the record – but find it in the manifesto?
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Reblogged this on SMILING CARCASS'S TWO-PENNETH and commented:
This gal’s been reading my mail! Except for the request for an uprising of the Left; until we have a unified Left, a Left that is electable, we fight a guerrilla war. Hitting where we can; retreating where we fail. And people will remember the retreats, not the hits.
A unified Left front, such as we had under the Old Labour Party, before it was re-modelled by the likes of Kinnock and Blair.
A party of Skinner’s, Nellist’s and Benn’s.
For whom do I vote; a marginal left-wing party or an electable slightly left-of-right party?
This is the dilemma. And while I vote with my conscience, many, too many of the electorate will vote with a chance of winning, not their conscience.
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I think more voters are ready for Socialist policies than we believe.
Not many would argue with nationalising rail, utilities, post office etc etc also nationalising those parts of the NHS which have been auctioned off by chief auctioneer Jeremy Hunt.
Lets also get rid of the freedom of choice in Education – the only peolpe who have a choice are those with money!! Just concentrate on proving excellent education everywhere – kids attending local scholls – its not rocket science.
Agree with with your choice of the 3 musketeers!!
Mike
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Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
Syzygysue presents the case that UKIP will be presenting their real, neoliberal agenda over the next few months, after capitalising on people’s fear, fears that, as in Weimar Germany following the Depression, are leading some to vote for the parties of the xenophobic right.
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Oooh .. actually Prue wrote this excellent piece not Syzygysue.
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Are you saying,m then that UKIP is not anti EU?
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What exactly IS the EU and what does it do? I doubt many know or could distinguish it from the EU Court of Human Rights or, um, whatever else there is that’s EUey out there. It might help if concerted efforts were made to educate the general population in these matters. That’s if you could tear them way from X-Factor and footie in the pub, of course, and there’s a problem in itself – many people are stupid and they won’t be able to grasp the distinctions even if you tried to explain it to them. Farage’s beery good-blokeism appears to take take full advantage of this general inability. I’d have to say he’s more Blair than Thatcher though because he’s another disguised Neoliberal, Blair aping Mondeo Man while Farage apes, well, apes. Same again then? 🙂
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Dear Prue
Thank you for this article. It is all true for Britain, and it is true for Switzerland, wehere I live. The powerful right-winged “Swiss People’s Party” (in german: Schweizerische Volkspartei, SVP) always talks about the importance of democracy an poll voters being always right. But you never hear a word from them about companies dominating governments and people like by the means of TTIP.
Keep on publishing and showing the people what is going on.
Michael Bonanomi
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