Britannist

Here’s the text of this morning’s GMTV Sunday programme interview with the leader of UKIP, Mr. Nigel Farage MEP (as broadcast on ITV 1). For anyone reading this before 8.20 am on Sunday 21.1.2007 the interview will be shown again during the repeat of GMTV’s Sunday programme at about (or just after) 8.20 am on ITV 2.

The following is the slightly abridged text of an interview by ‘Independent’ columnist Steve Richards with Nigel Farage MEP, leader of the anti-EU UK Independence Party on GMTV on ITV 1 from 6.56 pm to 7.09 am on 21.1.2007:

Steve Richards (SR): There is one party which is hoping to get disaffected Conservatives to join them. With me here is Nigel Farage MEP. Mr. Farage, you have had a number of defections from the Conservative recently. And you may get donations. Are you talking to any big donors?

Nigel Farage MEP (F): To one or two - including Mr. Stuart Wheeler. We have barely started on persuading more donors. Mr. Stuart Wheeler (who has previously given £5 million to the Conservative Party) may give us a donation. He is thinking about it. People are seeing that Cameron’s policy is wedded to the EU Commission. I’ve yet to meet a businessman/woman who wants business in the UK to be run by Peter Mandelson.

SR: David Cameron is a eurosceptic - he does not want the euro- and says he will quit the European People’s Party (the pro-euro group in Brussels which includes the UK Conservatives).

F: He won’t quit the European People’s Party (EPP). He’s bailed out on that one already. He is not a eurosceptic. He promised that he would quit the EPP in months and hasn’t. He never will. Never. He won’t do it. There is now this vague promise from him to do it in 2009. It is not worth the paper it is written on. Cameron must not be allowed to get away with this. He promised to quit the EPP, hasn't and won't. He is the first Conservative leader for many, many years who wants more EU. He wants the EU to have more power over climate change for instance. He has accepted that the EU makes 70% of our laws and does not intend to do a thing about it. As for his claim to be against the euro. The euro is an argument of five to ten years ago. We’ve won that argument. We’ve moved on to the serious threat of the EU trying to get more power over us now. There is a louder and clearer cry in this country for trade and friendship only with the EU. A new relationship. Several Peers have joined us recently.

SR: How many people have defected to UKIP from the Conservatives? How long has this trend of defections been going on for?

F: It’s been going on for a few months. It works out at about two or three people a day telephoning us who want to leave the Cameron-led Conservatives to come over to UKIP. But these two or three a day are hard-working activists, senior councillors and constituency officials. They are office holders and significant political activists. People do not defect to us on the basis of one speech. When you have spent 30 years being a voluntary worker in the Conservative Party you don’t join us on one speech. You think about it for a while and then join us. The Conservative Party do not believe in low tax, they don’t believe that that we should control our own borders, they don’t believe in grammar schools and they don’t believe that we should run our own country. What’s the point of the Conservatives I ask?

SR: How many Conservative Parliamentary seats (in the Commons) can you take?

F: We’re not targeting Conservatives. We are out to win seats from all the parties. We are targeting all three parties. They are indistinguishable from each other. They’re all the same – whether it’s Labour or Blue Labour (the Cameron-led Conservative Party). We want power back from the EU to govern ourselves.

SR: You could, inadvertently, let in more Labour MPs who are more pro-EU than the Conservatives.

F: We get this argument all the time. Many old Labour people voted for us. And lots of people who did not vote previously, chose to vote for us. If a disproportionately more Conservatives vote for us at the next General Election, then so be it. If people say it results in Labour getting in my reply is it makes no difference. It’s all decided in Brussels. Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal ‘Democrats’ are all the same.

SR: Europe is now very different from what it used to be like. Many say that the UK should be at the heart of europe.

F: We’ve heard this old argument so many times. It shows the classic failure of the UK strategy that if you widen the EU you dilute its powers. But the very reverse is happening – I’ve been in Strasberg this week and can see this for myself. As more countries join the EU, more national vetoes are got rid of. The UK veto on Justice and Home affairs could be gone by the end of this year, I suspect. There is no evidence of subsidiarity or of powers going from Brussels back to the EU member states. Quite the reverse is true. We don’t want laws imposed upon us. When I say we are anti-EU, we are anti-EU not anti-europe. We can't we have have a relationship with the EU like that of Switzerland – just trade and friendship.

SR: There have been internal tensions inside UKIP – just as there are in all small parties. Are you unstable as a political party? Are people joining an unstable and incoherent party? Would you accept that you are a young party and new people are joining something incoherent?

F: We’re more coherent with policy papers now on immigration, tax and there is the work we're doing on education and health and more on the way. Professor Congdon has just joined us. Some branches have been set up in areas where there was no UKIP before and people have fallen out. It is only to be expected. It happens in other parties. We are not as well-rooted as Labour, the Conservatives or the Liberal ‘Democrats’. There have been a few people joining us that we might not want.

SR: Yes, what about that? Why do you think UKIP attracts types like that?

F: A few have joined us and been removed. Some tried to take over branches and were stopped. We are a non-racist and non-sectarian party. There was even a case of people infiltrating who wanted to turn us into an anti-Catholic party. All parties get them. It happened to the Conservatives in Essex.

SR: Not racists?

F: Well, if you look at the memberships of the other parties I think you’ll find racists in their ranks. Extremists have tried to get into the RSPCA and Countryside Alliance. It has not just happened to UKIP. If they did get into UKIP and air their views, being smaller and newer, we would soon find out about them.

SR: What is your sense or hope about elections being held before the next General Election?

F: I think that we have not done enough or taken nearly seriously enough local elections. We can learn an enormous amount from the Liberal ‘Democrats’ in this area I think – winning council seats and councils and then getting into the position to be seen as potential winners. It is difficult to say that we can win seats for Parliament (the Commons) due to the First-Past-The-Post electoral system. But we will make our biggest effort so far in the forthcoming local elections (in May 2007) to win seats. We are also making a great effort to win seats in the Welsh Assembly elections to be held in May 2007.

End of interview 7.09 am on 21.1.2007.

prober

Notably Nigel admitted the party had not done enough or taken seriously enough local elections. 4 months gone and 1 1/2 to go before everything needs to be in place yet little sign yet of central interest in or development of the comprehesive plan necessary to present UKIP as "credible and professional" and relevant as a party in local elections. As he so busy on other things hopefully Nigel as a matter of urgent priority will give MEPs roles, and rapidly delegate key roles and allow them powers to get things done ( Steve A seems to be given only a very limited role), and tells branches whats happening and reassure them things are in hand. Otherwise we wont get candidates let alone a message resulting (in the first test of leadership election strategy) humilation with less candidates/lower results than Greens & BNP. It is reasonable to expect 10% of members in election areas to be candidates ( some branches manage nearer 25% ) . This means some 1300 - 1400 candidates instead of the 350 ish mentioned as the 2006 figure when far fewer councils were up for election.

Gary

I saw the interview and thought Nigel was his usual confident self again, easily rebuffing Richards.

However, did anyone hang around to see Alex Salmond being interviewed straight afterwards? Salmond was polished, as usual, but on the question of post-independence monetary policy, he says "for continuity, we will have Sterling immediately afterwards, but then adopt the Euro" (!!!)

So, what's all this about "independence" then, Mr. Salmond ??

Britannist

Yes, I saw the interview on GMTV with the political opportunist and europhile Salmond.

He said it was ridiculous to suggest that there would be customs posts between Scotland and England if Scotland left the UK.

But there could actually be border posts (between Scotland and England/UK and passport control between Scotland and Northern Ireland/UK) if Scotland quit the UK but remained in the EU free movement of people area and England (and the rest of the UK) quit the EU and had control of its borders again.

As has been pointed out by Gary (above), Salmond said in the interview that he would he would initially keep the Pound and then see if it is in the Scottish interest to join the euro instead.

Which is not what he was saying the other day. A newspaper claimed he made it clear that if he were in charge he would just take Scotland into the euro as a matter of course.

Time the Scottish so-called Nationalists were exposed for what they really are - a bunch of euro-nationalists :evil: whose aim is to put the upper half of the island of Great Britain under the full control of the EU :x .