rogerthomas

Hello.

I'm Roger, I live in Wales and have been an active UKIP member since May 2001, just before the last general election. I had never really been too interested in politics up to that point, but always instictively knew that the EU was damaging to Britain. I happened to turn on the TV one night and saw UKIP's party election broadcast. It featured, as I remember, the then leader Jeffrey Titford detailing all that was wrong with the EU in a simple and factual manner. As I continued to watch, I waited for him to say something that I disagred with. It never happened. I took a note of the web address, had a good look through the site and joined within the hour. It suddenly occured to me that I was not alone in my mistrust of the EU and a weight seemed to lift from my shoulders. Finally I could do something to help rescue Britain from the EU.

I was put in touch with my local candidate for the general election and met other local members, of which there were very few in those days. A few months later I was asked to set up an official UKIP Wales website. There was already an unofficial site, but the author, by his own admission did not update it very often and was happy to pass it on to someone else. The site is www.ukipwales.org I don't think this site will mind the plug as I've had their link on my site for many months.

I was also asked to produce a UKIP Wales newsletter. The letter goes out about every 3 months or so depending on funds and is generally well received.

You may be asking, If I've had a link on my own site to here, why have I only joined the forum now. Partly because I have a thousand and one things to do yesterday, and partly because you sometimes post things on websites without taking a lot of notice of it, if that makes sense. A case of not seeing the wood for the trees.

I stood in the Welsh Assembly election last year in a red-hot Labour seat and polled a credible 3.6%. This year we were obviously heavily involved with the EU election. In Wales we have an added problem of a fourth major party, Plaid Cymru. Despite this we came fourth and knocked the Dim-Lebs INTO phpbb_fifth place.

Next year will be the general election again. I intend to stand in a local constituency and whilst I think It will still be tough to make a mark in Wales, I think that big things may happen in othe areas, particularly the south-west and south-east of England.

Anyway, that's enough and I look forward to joining the debate.

Roger

mkpdavies

Welcome,

It's great to see people from other countries than England caring about a hand over of power to the EU.

What would you say is the single biggest obstacle to UKIP in Wales. Do the Welsh have any preconceptions about UKIP, or do you think they are warming to our cause?

I have some roots in Wales, and so it interests me how the people think there.

__________________
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Tom Wilde

Hi Roger,

I've visited your excellent website a number of times over the last year or so. It's a very nice piece of work. Also, before Tony Butcher set up this Forum, yours was for quite a while the only UKIP website I knew to have a discussion board.

rogerthomas

UKIP support surged in Wales last year during the ASSembly election campaign and again this June. From my records we had just 250 members in the whole of Wales in January 2003. That figure now stands at 780+ and continues to grow steadily. Maybe 1000 by the time of the general election.

Plaid Cymru obviously has strong support in Wales and is very pro-EU, so we don't pick up a lot of votes from them. We have gained support from, obvoiusly, the Conservatives and to a surprising extent from Labour.

It has to be remembered that just 50% of the Welsh electorate voted in the ASSembly referendum in 1997. Of those just 25.2% voted for it, so you could say that 74.8% didn't want an ASSembly, yet it went ahead. I would estimate that when you ask about the ASSembly, probably less than 1 person in 20 would say that they support it. Many people who voted yes now regret doing so.

I for one think that the present drive for regionalisation, albeit derailed by the good people of the north-east, is disastrous for Britain. Were England to be split INTO phpbb_regions at the behest of Two Jags and the EU, we would end up with nothing more than the 'Balkanisation' of Britain. If Wales and Scotland were to become independent nations as some are suggesting, what would stop, say, the east Midlands or the north-west of England also requesting independence. Maybe not as far fetched as it initially seems.

The ASSembly came INTO phpbb_being partly fuelled not by pro-Welsh feelings but by anti-English feelings. Many thought that they would be sticking two fingers up to England. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

rogerthomas

I must admit that I don't update the website as much as I would like, but we're all busy people who have to earn a living, raise a family etc. but I do whatever I can. I very rarely say NO.