John Page

This blog has argued that UKIP needs to speak on domestic policies as well as the EU. UKIP has to say what it would do about the issues which are more important to people than EU membership.

So today we pick just a few recent stories which would be ... would have been ... suitable material for UKIP.

UKIP members and the general public rate crime as a major issue. The Observer has a report (worth reading in full) on "rising levels of violent crime in England and Wales and historically low conviction rates".

One Chief Constable said, 'I don't think you can sensibly deny that there is a higher incidence of rape and a more routine use of violence, and also of weapons-based violence where it used to be fists and feet.'

UKIP should be highlighting these numbers to stress the need for greater local democratic control of the police, stiffer sentences, and reform of criminal legal procedure.

Second is the story of the rail firms awarded £21m in legal costs in relation to the manslaughter and health and safety charges that they were found not guilty on. Lawyers say the state has to pick up most of the legal costs when someone is found not guilty. Victims and rail pressure groups say the award is obscene.

One can understand the principle of the award, but the amount is far too high. The legal establishment complacently allows the escalation of these figures, which in the end are paid for out of ordinary people's taxes. Lawyers again. This is not acceptable.

Third, the Human Rights Act would be scrapped and replaced by a home-grown Bill of Rights by a Conservative government. But David Cameron is understood to have decided against formally withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights, as that could raise questions about Britain's continued membership of the EU.

That would just transfer cases on human rights from the UK back to Strasbourg, so it is gesture politics. Only UKIP would be able to propose root and branch reform of human rights legislation. Should some "human rights" in the UK be reserved for UK citizens? Should prisoners lose some of their "human rights"? These are issues for debate to which UKIP could contribute if it had a mind to. A press release could ask these questions.

These are all issues on which a cheap, "virtual" Press Office could have published releases. Some people object that the releases might not have appeared in the national media.

That misses the point. The material could be used and adapted by branches for their local media, and start to form their "research library" which they could draw on when those issues came up again. Members could receive the releases by e-mail. This evidence that the party was active might increase their sense of involvement.

The opportunity is sitting there waiting to be taken.

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links in my blog at http://thepurplescorpion.blogspot.com/

pentameter

I agree. Everyone knows the EU is corrupt, wasteful and interfering, but it's also remote from most peoples' lives. Hence stories which are told entirely from the point of view of how bad the EU is, rapidly become tedious.

With a lot of things, e.g. the organ pipe fiasco, the origins lie with the EU, but the real problem was that the DTI took a piece of legislation which was intended to apply to volume electrical goods and argued that since church organs contained lead and had electrical blowers, they were electrical goods covered by the legislation. In other words they took an position of applying the rules blindly with no discretion, appreciation of the problem the legislation was supposed to solve, or of the needs of the public and a small traditional industry.

The story was covered on the UKIP website as a quoted article from the DT,

http://www.ukip.org/ukip_news/gen12.php?t=1&id=2151

But there was a lot more to it than comes out in the article and it wasn't just an EU does wrong story. Far better to tell a story about choirs and organ builders, and trace it back through the DTI then back to the EU and illustrate other points such as excessive regulation, gold-plating and then the nonsense of the EU which prompts so much of it.

John Page

You won't get people fired up about organ pipes. They'll think, If UKIP thinks organ pipes are a big EU issue, the EU can't be so major.

And they'll have a laugh and go back to worrying about domestic issues that concern them.

pentameter

It depends on how you tell it. Organ pipes interest few people. Choirs and churches are easy to empathise with. Organ builders are fairly easy to empathise with and their problems will get some people fired up. You'll get some people fired up over the part played by the DTI and the bigger picture of gold-plating, and you'll get a few thinking about the EU.

It would certainly be a mistake to see organ pipes as the issue that redefined our relationship with the EU. Organ pipes are merely another illustration of the problem and that it isn't just an EU problem, it reaches into the way that we govern ourselves and deal with the EU.

There are a few things closer to most people's lives such as council taxes and waste disposal, sorting batteries, money wasted on regional assemblies and so on. Another good one is the water crisis in the South East and the way that it has been caused in part, by spending money fulfilling EU requirements rather than fixing pipes. After all, it was hardly as if there was a big problem with water quality that had to be dealt with.

Certainly, accounts which focus entirely on EU wickedness and waste don't get many fired up. The existence of the Strasbourg parliament and the scandal of its rent is certainly a story worth telling, but I doubt even things as blatant as that galvanise many; I'd guess the usual response is tired resignation.

kernow

The only domestic items which appear to affect "Joe public" are crime and Immigration and UKIP appear to have stood back and allowed the BNP to take over about speaking out on those subjects! Talking about council tax is just a big yawn, people moan about it but those who bother to vote will still vote for the same old parties council tax or no council tax!

John Page

http://www.mori.com/index-news.phtml shows "the most important issues".

More detail at http://www.mori.com/polls/2006/mpm060502.shtml - see questions 7 and 8. You will see the responses for the EU are tiny.

That's why we need domestic policies.

David Holland

I agree with you that we should talk more about crime but immigration I think we already talk about it a lot.

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More people + no new homes = housing shortage.

Jerusalem

I agree completely. We should be appealing to angry white men, but they suspect UKIP won't do anything. And voting for the BNP seems to have lost its stigma. I'm afraid that at the next euro elections, the ones that matter for the small parties, the BNP will win seats and UKIP will probably lose all of theirs.
Plus a BNP vote gets the government's attention, which means more money as well. Guaranteed that most M25 country will turn the BNP soon; these are the areas where white people move to to avoid urban crime and grime. They are also the areas under threat from new housing developments. People there know if they vote Nazi, the government might hesitate. Voting for an "anti-EU party" seems an irrevelance when your main problem is black-on-white crime.

I bet I get ghettoed for this.

David Holland

I was told that people said to UKIP representatives we agree with you but you won't win. We don't agree with the BNP but they are a better protest.

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More people + no new homes = housing shortage.

andypandy

The main problem for UKIP seems to be that they simply have no leaflets available on any major or current issues for its members to distribute, and what there is (as I have seen locally) are poorly produced generalised and heavily anti-EU orientated. In other words, UKIP CANNOT seem to talk about anything else BUT Europe, and try to bring Europe into EVERYTHING that IS talked about. To most people, UKIP is only concerned about the EU, and nothing else matters.

Try to wrap it up any which way you like, even if Europe does affect 80% of all legislation or whatever it is, the average joe is blinded to that and public opinion largely follows whatever the mass media and national newspapers are screaming about on their front covers. The BNP rode well on the backs of the mass medias race and asylum stories as it has for the last 6 years, and UKIP gained because of considerable plugging it got in the months leading up the 2004 Euro vote.

UKIP needs to follow through these issues and concerns and become 'linked' with events as they are reported in the national news. Only then can UKIP expect to gain increasing support