UKIP Policy on Crime

Tony Bennett · 01-08-2006, 07:50 PM

Hi all,

I live on a crime-ridden estate in Lancashire with all the usual problems - drugs, unemployment, anti-social behavior, burglary, car theft, vandalism, drunks on Friday & Saturday night etc. etc.

Can someone please tell me in *specific* terms what the UKIP policies are on the following issues:

1. Dealing with anti-social behaviour i.e. people who are foul-mouthed and abusive i.e. would you make abusive language a crime

2. Sentencing (especially on burglary, robbery, crimes of violence and causing death by dangerous driving)

3. Building more prisons

4. The death penalty

5. Stopping the Police wasting time on all this 'human rights' stuff and getting out there preventing crime and dealing effectively with it.

Also, does UKIP support quotas for the police, army, civil service etc. to bring in more ethnics i.e. preferring non-white recruits to white because there aren't enough ethnics yet to meet their percentage targets (whatever they are)

I'd be grateful, thanks

mkpdavies · 01-08-2006, 08:00 PM

1. Zero tollerance for petty crime, but honestly I don't know where abusive language fit's into this. I would suggest that UKIP would expect the police to enforce current laws on threatening and indimidating behaviour much more.

2. Harsher sentancing, with life meaning life if found guilty in a court of law.

3. Manifesto promise.

4. Referendum for the people.

5. Manifesto promise to abolish the human rights act and return to laws of this land. Seriously I think you should read the manifesto on UKIPs website.

UKIP of course do not promote any form of discrimination, including "positive".

C_steam · 01-08-2006, 08:02 PM

From the last manifesto:-

Quote:

LAW AND ORDER

Crime levels are still rising, especially crimes of violence and public disorder (note 9), despite government claims to the contrary. Decent, law-abiding British citizens feel increasingly vulnerable and personal safety is now a major concern, particularly for women and the elderly.

People justifiably complain that the police are less visible and less accessible, police stations have been closed, the law no longer appears to work on behalf of victims, and sentences are too lenient to act as a proper deterrent. The result is a serious loss of respect for our police forces and a lack of faith in the whole process of law and order enforcement.

As in other areas of public service, the UK Independence Party believes that policing can be much improved by greater local control. We need to relieve our forces from too much central direction, including performance targets, the mass of paperwork and politically-correct rules that ignore the realities of the job. UKIP wants to see ‘bobbies back on the beat’ and the handcuffs on the criminals, not the police.
Review sentencing and require credible minimum and maximum prison terms.
Strengthen the powers of lay magistrates and reopen local magistrates courts.
Relieve our police of unnecessary paperwork.
Make Chief Constables and other senior officers directly accountable to local government and remove
Home Office placements from police authorities. Support the presumption of innocence for homeowners defending their homes from intruders.
Build new prisons as required.
We are confident that these measures will succeed in reducing crime by making it more likely that it leads to an appropriate penalty. But the largest impact on crime will come from UKIP’s programme of improving job opportunities, reforming education, restoring local democracy and reinforcing family values. With a greater sense of purpose and belonging, the crime problem will become easier to manage, even drug-related crime and the anti-social behaviour associated with binge-drinking.

Above all, UKIP will never accept being ‘harmonised’ into the European Union’s system of Corpus Juris which would abolish trial by jury, establish a European Public Prosecutor and allow imprisonment without trial. We shall also expose the specious argument that these measures are necessary to protect us against terrorism.

Also

Quote:

A UKIP administration would restructure the law to ensure that free speech once again came to mean just that. There is no one 'correct' view on immigration, the European Union, devolution, multiculturalism, education, women's rights, fox hunting, or anything else. UKIP believes that the British people are perfectly capable of using their traditional Freedom of Speech responsibly - just as they always have done.

Also

Quote:

We live in a prosperous society in which the state takes care of our health, our children’s education, our welfare and our pensions. Along with state provision comes state control. The state thinks it knows best how to provide our public services and also how we should all behave. Between them, Brussels and our own nanny-state have made rules, a great many of them, to protect us against health and safety risks, against environmental damage and against ourselves.

Alongside the rules, we have rights. But too often, rights favour the criminal rather than the victim and the unruly pupil rather than the teacher. They create tension rather than relieve it, emphasise differences, set society against itself and diminish the much more precious right to free speech. They encourage anyone with a grievance against the police or the NHS to sue for compensation. All these rights are eagerly exploited by the army of no-win-no-fee lawyers.

The reality is that all these rules and rights are killing off the virtues of trust, initiative, responsibility and respect that make society work. We are all encouraged to be ‘consumers’ who live for ourselves and live off the state – the state being everyone else in society.

.............

A change of mindset is necessary in order to move away from the regulatory culture, the dependency culture and the compensation culture. All these have been fostered by a mistaken over-reliance on state help and protection. We do not believe that smaller government or fewer rules and rights will result in a country which is less safe, healthy or compassionate.

UKIP will repeal the 1999 Human Rights Act, preferring to rely on British custom, our common law and the principles of the European Convention of Human Rights which are based on individual freedom rather than state control. Outside the EU, we shall also avoid our freedoms being overtaken by the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and its misguided notions of fairness.

Tony Bennett · 01-08-2006, 10:12 PM

UKIP LAW AND ORDER POLICIES – REPLIES BY KEITH HAND

Crime levels are still rising, especially crimes of violence and public disorder (note 9), despite government claims to the contrary. Decent, law-abiding British citizens feel increasingly vulnerable and personal safety is now a major concern, particularly for women and the elderly. People justifiably complain that the police are less visible and less accessible, police stations have been closed, the law no longer appears to work on behalf of victims, and sentences are too lenient to act as a proper deterrent. The result is a serious loss of respect for our police forces and a lack of faith in the whole process of law and order enforcement. As in other areas of public service, the UK Independence Party believes that policing can be much improved by greater local control. We need to relieve our forces from too much central direction, including performance targets, the mass of paperwork and politically-correct rules that ignore the realities of the job. UKIP wants to see ‘bobbies back on the beat’ and the handcuffs on the criminals, not the police. Review sentencing and require credible minimum and maximum prison terms.

Comment: GOOD

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Strengthen the powers of lay magistrates and reopen local magistrates courts. Relieve our police of unnecessary paperwork. Make Chief Constables and other senior officers directly accountable to local government

Comment: WHY NOT ELECT CHIEF CONSTABLES LIKE THEY DO SUCCESSFULLY WITH SHERIFFS IN THE U.S.?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and remove Home Office placements from police authorities. Support the presumption of innocence for homeowners defending their homes from intruders. Build new prisons as required.Comment: GOOD We are confident that these measures will succeed in reducing crime by making it more likely that it leads to an appropriate penalty. But the largest impact on crime will come from UKIP’s programme of improving job opportunities, reforming education, restoring local democracy and reinforcing family values.

Comment: HOW EXACTLY WILL ‘FAMILY VALUES’ (AND WHAT ARE THOSE PRECISELY?) BE ‘REINFORCED’?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With a greater sense of purpose and belonging, the crime problem will become easier to manage, even drug-related crime and the anti-social behaviour associated with binge-drinking. Above all, UKIP will never accept being ‘harmonised’ into the European Union’s system of Corpus Juris which would abolish trial by jury, establish a European Public Prosecutor and allow imprisonment without trial. We shall also expose the specious argument that these measures are necessary to protect us against terrorism.

A UKIP administration would restructure the law to ensure that free speech once again came to mean just that. There is no one 'correct' view on immigration, the European Union...

Comment: I THOUGHT THAT THE ‘CORRECT’ VIEW ON THE EUROPEAN UNION IS THAT WE ARE ‘BETTER OFF OUT’?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

…devolution, multiculturalism, education, women's rights, fox hunting

Comment: WOULD UKIP KEEP THE BAN ON FOX-HUNTING?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

, or anything else. UKIP believes that the British people are perfectly capable of using their traditional Freedom of Speech responsibly - just as they always have done.

We live in a prosperous society in which the state takes care of our health, our children’s education, our welfare and our pensions. Along with state provision comes state control. The state thinks it knows best how to provide our public services and also how we should all behave. Between them, Brussels and our own nanny-state have made rules, a great many of them, to protect us against health and safety risks, against environmental damage and against ourselves.

Alongside the rules, we have rights. But too often, rights favour the criminal rather than the victim and the unruly pupil rather than the teacher. They create tension rather than relieve it, emphasise differences, set society against itself and diminish the much more precious right to free speech. They encourage anyone with a grievance against the police or the NHS to sue for compensation. All these rights are eagerly exploited by the army of no-win-no-fee lawyers.

The reality is that all these rules and rights are killing off the virtues of trust, initiative, responsibility and respect that make society work. We are all encouraged to be ‘consumers’ who live for ourselves and live off the state – the state being everyone else in society.

A change of mindset is necessary in order to move away from the regulatory culture, the dependency culture and the compensation culture. All these have been fostered by a mistaken over-reliance on state help and protection. We do not believe that smaller government or fewer rules and rights will result in a country which is less safe, healthy or compassionate.

Comment: FOUR WORDY PARAGRAPHS WITH NOT A SINGLE POLICY COMMITMENT

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UKIP will repeal the 1999 Human Rights Act

Comment: 1998 ACTUALLY (CAME INTO FORCE IN 2000)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

preferring to rely on British custom, our common law and the principles of the European Convention of Human Rights which are based on individual freedom rather than state control.

Comment: UKIP HAS BADLY MISSED THE POINT ON THIS ONE.

ALL THAT THE HRA 1998 DOES IS TO INCORPORATE ALL THE 25 ARTICLES OF THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS DIRECTLY INTO BRITISH LAW.

IF WE REPEALED THE HRA 1998 TOMORROW, WE WOULD STILL BE LUMBERED WITH E.G. ALLOWING GYPSIES TO FLOUT PLANNING RULES WITH IMPUNITY (‘RIGHT TO FAMILY LIFE’) AND KEEPING FOREIGN CRIMINALS AND TERORISTS IN THIS COUNTRY (AS THEIR HOME COUNTRIES MIGHT BE A BIT BEASTLY TO THEM IF THEY GO BACK)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outside the EU, we shall also avoid our freedoms being overtaken by the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and its misguided notions of fairness.

Other Comments: THANKS FOR THE INFO, BUT I COULD FIND NO MANIFESTO COMMITMENT IN WHAT C_steam POSTED ON HOLDING A REFERENDUM ON THE DEATH PENALTY

mkpdavies · 01-08-2006, 10:20 PM

UKIP have said many times that moral issues such as the death penalty should be for the people to decide via referendum. I remember it being on cards during the GE.

Clippo · 02-08-2006, 09:53 AM

Election manifestos are documents full of waffle & promise. No manifesto is a statement made on oath and the statements therein, (including UKIP's), are of hope & intent rather than anything else. Read the manifestos of the other parties, especially with regard to Crime, & say, Immigration. If you pick them to pieces & compare them you will find very little difference in reality between them.

To me, the hard bit is actually implementing these ideas. It seems to me that the Home Office, who actually draw up detailed legislation & the Judiciary, have become a very considerable obstacle to reversing the liberal trends in crime & punishment over the last 50-60years and frequently resort to the 'Human Rights' act when the going gets tough for them.

In my career, I have interviewed many people for different jobs but one major criteria I used was to consider 'what people had previously actually done in some situations rather than what they say they would do'. Applying this to the election process discriminates against parties like UKIP, (& the Liberals or BNP for that matter), because they've never had the opportunity to prove themselves. On the other side of the coin, Labour & Conservatives are both responsible for the mess we are in at the moment by creating soundbite, crisis-response legislation and therefore neither deserve re-election imo.

For all those reasons, I support mostly UKIP's statement of intent to have referenda on certain topics. I don't think this should be restricted to the 'Swiss model' where you need a petition of 25% ? of the electorate to initiate a particular referendum. By all means keep this but also have the opiton that if UKIP were the governing party, they could initiate referenda automatically. That's what Id like to see, and UKIP to promote, in the Crime & Punishment area.

I've said before on these forums that crime is a something of a personal issue and that a referendum shouldn't simply be like 'do you support the death penaly for certain crimes' but rather the referendum should contain many carefully crafted questions, like a census perhaps. Legislation would then be created to satisfy the majority, (& where possible to allow the victim of the crime to have a greater input to the sentence).
Nothing stays the same and so I would add that some referenda should be re-visited, say at 10 yearly intervals, to see if it still met majority views.

Finally, UKIP should consider the root causes of crime. Don't give me the social deprivation etc cr*p - it was a quantum leap worse in the first five decades of the last century than it is now. I think UKIP should seriously look to the education system, implementing serious community work. requirements into the syllabus.

Prevention is better than cure!

Tony Bennett · 02-08-2006, 04:09 PM

re (Clippo): "I don't think this should be restricted to the 'Swiss model' where you need a petition of 25% (?) of the electorate to initiate a particular referendum.

ANSWER: The current number of voters in Switzerland needed to trigger a referendum is 50,000 - that's in a population of around 4 to 5 million (I think). Translate that to the U.K and you would be talking of around, say, 600,000 signatures.

They Swiss increased the number from the previous figure of 35,000 a few years back.

In 2000, the Swiss government announced that they were about to enter into formal talks with the E.U. about membership. The Swiss people pretty soon scotched that one! They rapidly held a referendum - in September 2000, if memory serves, they crushed this by 78% voting 'No' to the question: "Should the Swiss government enter into negotiations with the European Commission to join the European Union?".

Referendums are very popular in Switzerland, they vote on several issues evey year, often going down to the polling station to vote on several issues at one go, i.e. on one ballot paper.

QUESTION: Under UKIP's proposals for the people being able to trigger a referendum on the death penalty - or any other issue - how many people would be required to set up a referendum?

Postscript: Switzerland is one of the wealthiest, highest-income nations in the world

Robin · 02-08-2006, 06:30 PM

The judges and magistrates should be elected too.

Possibly the jury,or another jury alongside the first,should say what the sentences are.

Clippo · 02-08-2006, 09:37 PM

Keith,
I put the question mark after the 25% in my previous post because as I was typing the post out I couldn't exactly remember and 25% came into my head. Thank you for clarifying the figures.

Some months ago on the internet I found quite a lot about the Swiss system and referenda conditions in Australia & Canda & some US states I think but I can't recall the links.

I am a complete fan of this direct democracy tool and am so frustrated that UKIP don't make a play on it more - to me it is the one promise that sets UKIP apart from the rest of the selfish poiliticians of all parties in this country - who vote for their own or own party opinions rather than their specific electorate.

But also, the key point was in UKIP's case I don't think triggering a referendum should only be down to collecting N thousands of signatures. As I said before, by all means include that option but also give the government of the day the power to initiate their own referenda, say with a limitation of 2-3 per parliamentary session. UKIP will presumably do this for EU membership anyway.

Robin wrote

Quote:

Possibly the jury,or another jury alongside the first,should say what the sentences are.

I think this would prove to rather unwieldy & difficult to implement in practice. However, I can't see why the initial jury can't make some suggestion to the Judge about a specific sentence.

With respect to killing crimes, & I think it has been mooted even in parliament recently, I would favour a study to redefine types of killing - similar to in the US - murder 1 etc. but also make allowances for true crimes of passion.

With respect to my comment about about the personal issue of crime I mean that until you've experienced a burglary or been mugged or whatever, you don't really know the anger & stress it causes the victim.

Therefore for certain types of crime I think physical pain should be an option if the victim agrees. We are led to believe that a majority in this country would agree to the death penalty for murder etc. although there are many people, especially on this forum, are implaccably against it. In that case I would like to see registered voters, on the electoral list, indicate their preference for punishment for murder of themselves or their wards. So if a criminal is found guilty of murder, the judge or jury will then look up the punishment opinion of the murdered individual or their guardians and implement that. Thus for those implaccably against, their killers would be jailed for life. Also, for death penalties, an automatic appeal should be implemented with say 3 judges to specifically look for reliance on weak evidence.
For crimes of fraud and the like, where it has been argued that the technicalities of some recent cases has been way beyond the ordinary public juryperson, why not give the presiding judge the option to selective pick jurers from relevant professions?

Whatever policy path UKIP choose to take in the Crime and Punishment debate, it's going to be a war of attrition to implement majority viewpoints versus self opinionated MPs, Home Office, Judiciary & Legal 'experts'.

Clippo · 02-08-2006, 09:48 PM

Keith wrote

Quote:

Postscript: Switzerland is one of the wealthiest, highest-income nations in the world

This has been pointed out in several previous posts on the forum with the implication, as I think you are doing, that this correlates with their referendum situation.

It has also been pointed out before that they've had no serious armed forces for 150 years, avoided costly involvement in 2 world wars - indeed probably made money out of them - and also a host of other factors.

Nice try Keith

View Poll Results: Should the death penalty be restored?
Yes, definitely	11	52.38%
Certainly not	5	23.81%
Yes for premeditated murder	0	0%
Yes for killing Police Officers	0	0%
Yes for premeditated murder and killing Police Officers	0	0%
I don't know - there should be a national referendum on bringing it back	5	23.81%
Voters: 21. You may not vote on this poll

01-08-2006, 07:50 PM	#1 (permalink)
Tony Bennett Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 1,031	UKIP Policy on Crime Hi all, I live on a crime-ridden estate in Lancashire with all the usual problems - drugs, unemployment, anti-social behavior, burglary, car theft, vandalism, drunks on Friday & Saturday night etc. etc. Can someone please tell me in specific terms what the UKIP policies are on the following issues: 1. Dealing with anti-social behaviour i.e. people who are foul-mouthed and abusive i.e. would you make abusive language a crime 2. Sentencing (especially on burglary, robbery, crimes of violence and causing death by dangerous driving) 3. Building more prisons 4. The death penalty 5. Stopping the Police wasting time on all this 'human rights' stuff and getting out there preventing crime and dealing effectively with it. Also, does UKIP support quotas for the police, army, civil service etc. to bring in more ethnics i.e. preferring non-white recruits to white because there aren't enough ethnics yet to meet their percentage targets (whatever they are) I'd be grateful, thanks

01-08-2006, 08:00 PM	#2 (permalink)
mkpdavies Uber Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Woking Posts: 31,053 Party: Libertarian Party	1. Zero tollerance for petty crime, but honestly I don't know where abusive language fit's into this. I would suggest that UKIP would expect the police to enforce current laws on threatening and indimidating behaviour much more. 2. Harsher sentancing, with life meaning life if found guilty in a court of law. 3. Manifesto promise. 4. Referendum for the people. 5. Manifesto promise to abolish the human rights act and return to laws of this land. Seriously I think you should read the manifesto on UKIPs website. UKIP of course do not promote any form of discrimination, including "positive". __________________ http://brits4ronpaul.blogspot.com/ http://wokinglibertarians.blogspot.com/ http://lpuk.org My ignore list Labour, Blue Labour, Lib Dems

01-08-2006, 10:12 PM	#4 (permalink)
Tony Bennett Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 1,031	REPLIES BY KEITH HAND UKIP LAW AND ORDER POLICIES – REPLIES BY KEITH HAND Crime levels are still rising, especially crimes of violence and public disorder (note 9), despite government claims to the contrary. Decent, law-abiding British citizens feel increasingly vulnerable and personal safety is now a major concern, particularly for women and the elderly. People justifiably complain that the police are less visible and less accessible, police stations have been closed, the law no longer appears to work on behalf of victims, and sentences are too lenient to act as a proper deterrent. The result is a serious loss of respect for our police forces and a lack of faith in the whole process of law and order enforcement. As in other areas of public service, the UK Independence Party believes that policing can be much improved by greater local control. We need to relieve our forces from too much central direction, including performance targets, the mass of paperwork and politically-correct rules that ignore the realities of the job. UKIP wants to see ‘bobbies back on the beat’ and the handcuffs on the criminals, not the police. Review sentencing and require credible minimum and maximum prison terms. Comment: GOOD ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Strengthen the powers of lay magistrates and reopen local magistrates courts. Relieve our police of unnecessary paperwork. Make Chief Constables and other senior officers directly accountable to local government Comment: WHY NOT ELECT CHIEF CONSTABLES LIKE THEY DO SUCCESSFULLY WITH SHERIFFS IN THE U.S.? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ and remove Home Office placements from police authorities. Support the presumption of innocence for homeowners defending their homes from intruders. Build new prisons as required.Comment: GOOD We are confident that these measures will succeed in reducing crime by making it more likely that it leads to an appropriate penalty. But the largest impact on crime will come from UKIP’s programme of improving job opportunities, reforming education, restoring local democracy and reinforcing family values. Comment: HOW EXACTLY WILL ‘FAMILY VALUES’ (AND WHAT ARE THOSE PRECISELY?) BE ‘REINFORCED’? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With a greater sense of purpose and belonging, the crime problem will become easier to manage, even drug-related crime and the anti-social behaviour associated with binge-drinking. Above all, UKIP will never accept being ‘harmonised’ into the European Union’s system of Corpus Juris which would abolish trial by jury, establish a European Public Prosecutor and allow imprisonment without trial. We shall also expose the specious argument that these measures are necessary to protect us against terrorism. A UKIP administration would restructure the law to ensure that free speech once again came to mean just that. There is no one 'correct' view on immigration, the European Union... Comment: I THOUGHT THAT THE ‘CORRECT’ VIEW ON THE EUROPEAN UNION IS THAT WE ARE ‘BETTER OFF OUT’? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ …devolution, multiculturalism, education, women's rights, fox hunting Comment: WOULD UKIP KEEP THE BAN ON FOX-HUNTING? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ , or anything else. UKIP believes that the British people are perfectly capable of using their traditional Freedom of Speech responsibly - just as they always have done. We live in a prosperous society in which the state takes care of our health, our children’s education, our welfare and our pensions. Along with state provision comes state control. The state thinks it knows best how to provide our public services and also how we should all behave. Between them, Brussels and our own nanny-state have made rules, a great many of them, to protect us against health and safety risks, against environmental damage and against ourselves. Alongside the rules, we have rights. But too often, rights favour the criminal rather than the victim and the unruly pupil rather than the teacher. They create tension rather than relieve it, emphasise differences, set society against itself and diminish the much more precious right to free speech. They encourage anyone with a grievance against the police or the NHS to sue for compensation. All these rights are eagerly exploited by the army of no-win-no-fee lawyers. The reality is that all these rules and rights are killing off the virtues of trust, initiative, responsibility and respect that make society work. We are all encouraged to be ‘consumers’ who live for ourselves and live off the state – the state being everyone else in society. A change of mindset is necessary in order to move away from the regulatory culture, the dependency culture and the compensation culture. All these have been fostered by a mistaken over-reliance on state help and protection. We do not believe that smaller government or fewer rules and rights will result in a country which is less safe, healthy or compassionate. Comment: FOUR WORDY PARAGRAPHS WITH NOT A SINGLE POLICY COMMITMENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UKIP will repeal the 1999 Human Rights Act Comment: 1998 ACTUALLY (CAME INTO FORCE IN 2000) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- preferring to rely on British custom, our common law and the principles of the European Convention of Human Rights which are based on individual freedom rather than state control. Comment: UKIP HAS BADLY MISSED THE POINT ON THIS ONE. ALL THAT THE HRA 1998 DOES IS TO INCORPORATE ALL THE 25 ARTICLES OF THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS DIRECTLY INTO BRITISH LAW. IF WE REPEALED THE HRA 1998 TOMORROW, WE WOULD STILL BE LUMBERED WITH E.G. ALLOWING GYPSIES TO FLOUT PLANNING RULES WITH IMPUNITY (‘RIGHT TO FAMILY LIFE’) AND KEEPING FOREIGN CRIMINALS AND TERORISTS IN THIS COUNTRY (AS THEIR HOME COUNTRIES MIGHT BE A BIT BEASTLY TO THEM IF THEY GO BACK) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Outside the EU, we shall also avoid our freedoms being overtaken by the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and its misguided notions of fairness. Other Comments: THANKS FOR THE INFO, BUT I COULD FIND NO MANIFESTO COMMITMENT IN WHAT C_steam POSTED ON HOLDING A REFERENDUM ON THE DEATH PENALTY

01-08-2006, 10:20 PM	#5 (permalink)
mkpdavies Uber Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Woking Posts: 31,053 Party: Libertarian Party	UKIP have said many times that moral issues such as the death penalty should be for the people to decide via referendum. I remember it being on cards during the GE. __________________ http://brits4ronpaul.blogspot.com/ http://wokinglibertarians.blogspot.com/ http://lpuk.org My ignore list Labour, Blue Labour, Lib Dems

02-08-2006, 09:53 AM	#6 (permalink)
Clippo Uber Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Cheshire Posts: 2,264	Election manifestos are documents full of waffle & promise. No manifesto is a statement made on oath and the statements therein, (including UKIP's), are of hope & intent rather than anything else. Read the manifestos of the other parties, especially with regard to Crime, & say, Immigration. If you pick them to pieces & compare them you will find very little difference in reality between them. To me, the hard bit is actually implementing these ideas. It seems to me that the Home Office, who actually draw up detailed legislation & the Judiciary, have become a very considerable obstacle to reversing the liberal trends in crime & punishment over the last 50-60years and frequently resort to the 'Human Rights' act when the going gets tough for them. In my career, I have interviewed many people for different jobs but one major criteria I used was to consider 'what people had previously actually done in some situations rather than what they say they would do'. Applying this to the election process discriminates against parties like UKIP, (& the Liberals or BNP for that matter), because they've never had the opportunity to prove themselves. On the other side of the coin, Labour & Conservatives are both responsible for the mess we are in at the moment by creating soundbite, crisis-response legislation and therefore neither deserve re-election imo. For all those reasons, I support mostly UKIP's statement of intent to have referenda on certain topics. I don't think this should be restricted to the 'Swiss model' where you need a petition of 25% ? of the electorate to initiate a particular referendum. By all means keep this but also have the opiton that if UKIP were the governing party, they could initiate referenda automatically. That's what Id like to see, and UKIP to promote, in the Crime & Punishment area. I've said before on these forums that crime is a something of a personal issue and that a referendum shouldn't simply be like 'do you support the death penaly for certain crimes' but rather the referendum should contain many carefully crafted questions, like a census perhaps. Legislation would then be created to satisfy the majority, (& where possible to allow the victim of the crime to have a greater input to the sentence). Nothing stays the same and so I would add that some referenda should be re-visited, say at 10 yearly intervals, to see if it still met majority views. Finally, UKIP should consider the root causes of crime. Don't give me the social deprivation etc cr*p - it was a quantum leap worse in the first five decades of the last century than it is now. I think UKIP should seriously look to the education system, implementing serious community work. requirements into the syllabus. Prevention is better than cure!

02-08-2006, 04:09 PM	#7 (permalink)
Tony Bennett Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 1,031	Democracy, Swiss-style re (Clippo): "I don't think this should be restricted to the 'Swiss model' where you need a petition of 25% (?) of the electorate to initiate a particular referendum. ANSWER: The current number of voters in Switzerland needed to trigger a referendum is 50,000 - that's in a population of around 4 to 5 million (I think). Translate that to the U.K and you would be talking of around, say, 600,000 signatures. They Swiss increased the number from the previous figure of 35,000 a few years back. In 2000, the Swiss government announced that they were about to enter into formal talks with the E.U. about membership. The Swiss people pretty soon scotched that one! They rapidly held a referendum - in September 2000, if memory serves, they crushed this by 78% voting 'No' to the question: "Should the Swiss government enter into negotiations with the European Commission to join the European Union?". Referendums are very popular in Switzerland, they vote on several issues evey year, often going down to the polling station to vote on several issues at one go, i.e. on one ballot paper. QUESTION: Under UKIP's proposals for the people being able to trigger a referendum on the death penalty - or any other issue - how many people would be required to set up a referendum? Postscript: Switzerland is one of the wealthiest, highest-income nations in the world

02-08-2006, 06:30 PM	#8 (permalink)
Robin Senior Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 928	The judges and magistrates should be elected too. Possibly the jury,or another jury alongside the first,should say what the sentences are.

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