"We asked the 20 protesters at the Ukip conference why they were there" - Daily Mirror article 26/09/2015

I write this blog article as for some reason the Daily Mirror will not allow me to post in the comments section.

Link to article

During the UKIP conference in Doncaster (23-26 September 2015) a small protest was organised to oppose UKIP's conference being held in the area.

The Daily Mirror (partner to the anti-UKIP organisation "Hope Not Hate") published some pictures and interviews with protesters there opposing UKIP.

In this article I hope to answer some of the "points" raised by the protesters and answer some of the accusations.













"No to Racism" - What racism?
Sure some unfortunate UKIP members have made objectionable comments. Yet UKIP have a zero tolerance policy to such behaviour.
The Labour party have former members of the BNP, a Neo Nazi and various members who have made racist and offensive comments. They have never been pulled up on it?

If UKIP are "racist", then name one racist policy..? This is a question that frequently leaves particularly left wingers (as it usually is screaming "racist") cross-eyed, as UKIP do not have any racist policies.

"No to bigotry" - UKIP aren't intolerant against anyone's opinions. "Stand Up To UKIP" and the Labour Party are intolerant however to anyone who has a differing opinion to their own. They label anyone who has legitimate concerns about immigration as "racist", "xenophobic" or "bigoted". When in reality it is about having sustainable numbers.

"Farage was a banker" - Farage has never in his life been a banker, Labour activists know that, anti-UKIP protesters know that... But they know that if they keep pushing that tired little lie enough people will spread it like a bad game of Chinese whispers. It is a cowardly tactic.

Delightful egotistical picture and message. But lets take a closer look shall we...

Dave also happens to be a self labeled "Socialist" and Labour Party member.

Oh... and a member of the Labour Party supporting Union, Unison.

This charming individual reveals;

"I'm disgusted Ukip are having their conference in my town. Doncaster is a working-class town. We don't need Ukip coming in here trying to divide us.

"They blame the migrants, they blame the refugees, but the crisis was caused by the rich bankers."

The unsustainability of mass-migration has nothing to do with the economic status of our country at the moment. Nor does it have anything to do with what UKIP are raising as an issue.

Having a population and country added to at the rate of 350,000 people per year is unsustainable. We neither have the resources or the ability to assimilate that number into the country over the long-term future.

FYI: Mass migration impacts the working-class hardest. Be it a reduced number of jobs available, businesses head-hunting cheaper labour, which inevitably drives down wages.

As for "Dave's" message. I suggest he grows up just a little bit and also admits to being a member of the TUSC and part of the (later to be mentioned) team for PPC Mev Akram. 

Tim Jones expresses his opinion.

"We need to show solidarity because there's been very little since the closure of the pits in '84, '85.

"When there's an economic slump people are always looking for someone to blame. Once it was the Jews and now it's the Muslims and refugees."

Yet again I am at risk of repeating myself. The reality is UKIP have no racist policies and the only division that exists in this instance are the ones holding up the signs.

UKIP aren't racist, they have no racist policies and the very declaration that "UKIP are not welcome in Doncaster rather goes in the face of the vote in the 2015 General Election in Doncaster:

Deny UKIP their right to assemble, speak and stand as a political party in Doncaster is inherently fascist in nature.

I do wonder why people don't call up this kind of behaviour as such?

"I'm a humanist, I don't see the colour of people's skin, and I don't want racists coming to my town.

"I can't stand Nigel Farage and as for Katie Hopkins, I hope someone punches her in the face. I can't stand the ugly witch."

Jane, who is a "humanist" that advocates physical violence on those she disagrees with believes UKIP have some sort of problem with the colour of people's skin, which I am sure will come as to quite a shock to the numerous ethnic members and candidates who stood for the party in the 2015 General Election. Not to mention the 2 Asian and 2 black London Mayoral candidates who have stood for the party in the past.

Again, Jane lapses into playing the racist card. When UKIP do not have any racist policies.

Oh... and had more Prospective Parliamentary Candidates in the 2015 General Election than the Green Party...

As for "hands off our cash"... I'm not entirely sure what point she is trying to make?

Also, you say you don't want racists coming to town... But you don't seem so sure if UKIP are racist out of the newspapers:

Oh and don't you think it would have been more honest to mention you are a member of the Socialist Workers Party?

UKIP MEP's work for their wage, as do MEP's from any other parties as do all the UKIP employees or elected officials? Unless she is advocating withholding pay based on a persons political beliefs?

Somewhat bigoted isn't it?

Stephen who is of the opinion that Yorkshire was "built by immigrants"...

If Yorkshire was built by immigrants, then what were the "Wars of the Roses" about?

"Ukip have been for a long time the only people who've wanted to come to Doncaster. It's a safe Labour seat so other parties don't bother.

"They're trying to fill that gap and it just shows how broken the system is that no party will even try."

Not really sure what to make of these ramblings?
Is he saying Doncaster is a safe Labour seat so UKIP shouldn't bother?
Is he saying the system is broken because Labour are the only party that can get elected?

The fact remains that people are more likely to shift their vote from Labour to UKIP than they would be shifting their vote to the Conservatives.

UKIP are the best chance Doncaster has to having an alternate vote? Yet he bemoans the "broken system" and then protests against that alternate vote...

Apparently that is democracy in 2015.

Oh and before I forget Stephen... Have you forgotten to mention something..?

Namely that you are a fully fledged member and activist for Yorkshire First?

"A girl I was talking to said she was coming so I only found out about it last night.

"I think Ukip are racist and they're trying to draw working-class votes away from Labour."

So here we have Joshua who turned up apparently to impress a girl?

He boldly says that he thinks UKIP are racist, but yet again I feel I must return to that question again. Name one racist UKIP policy?

Is he accusing all people who vote UKIP of being racist?
Is he accusing all UKIP candidates and members of being racist, many of whom are Jewish, Muslim, foreign-born or from other ethnic backgrounds.

Then he lets the cat out of the bag. Or should I say, lets the cat out of the Labour bag.

UKIP are trying to "draw working-class votes away from Labour". - How dare they? Golly gosh, doesn't it just make you want to go out and start accusing complete strangers of being racist?!

Yet another tribal Labour supporter slips up. Does he even think UKIP are racist? Or does he just worry for Labour's vote?

Ann, who is a home educator to her poor 7 children, who conflates a rather immature story surrounding Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister David Cameron with UKIP for some reason on her piece of paper writing what is frankly a pretty immature picture says;

"Nigel Farage is so hypocritical. He appeals to the working class but he's wealthy himself.

"He's more Tory than the Tories. I wish he'd disappear back under the rock he came from."

Ann claims that Nigel Farage is hypocritical, because he is wealthy?
Nigel Farage lives in a semi-detached house with his wife and daughters. He drives himself via Euro-Tunnel to the European Parliament to work.

Meanwhile we have Labour Party MP's claiming back memorial wreaths on expenses, flipping properties for housing and claiming extensive expenses for a whole manner of things that should be paid for with wages.

Yet Farage is the person she has trouble with?!

Also... Is there a possibility that Ann has forgotten to mention something..?

Will we see Ann outside the local Rotherham office protesting against the money grabbing actions of their MP.

I'm not holding my breath.

Zac who describes himself as an "Anti-racism campaigner", when in reality he just holds extreme Far-Left Socialist/Marxist views, and tries to manipulate others with false accusations that UKIP are "Far-Right", "fascist" and "racist". Even going as far as to undertake anti-democratic tactics to oppose UKIP.

"I came all the way from my home in Tottenham, north London. Last year we had 1,000 but I think this time the focus is on the Tories and Manchester.

"But we still have to focus on Ukip. People are trying to ape their views. They haven't gone away."

So here we have it. He feels his mission is complete at UKIP and now he is going to start on the Conservatives.

His aim is to oppose anyone who isn't Socialist, or left wing in any way he can. Even so much as to falsely accuse and manipulate children...

Here we have Woodhouse College in Barnet, London clearly breaching the 'Education Act 1996'...

"Woodhouse College" have obviously skipped out on actually inviting an anti-UKIP campaigner, even though that is what Zac describes himself as being, and have instead, on this occasion invited Zac of "Stand Up To Racism", instead of "Stand Up To UKIP" Zac.

Regardless, the very fact that he is accusing UKIP of racism in a college is outrageous.

Remembering he is instructing impressionable children and young adults in a college setting, he labels UKIP as "fascist", falsely claims that UKIP predicted 26 million Romanians and Bulgarians were to flood the UK. When in reality they said that "29 million Bulgarians and Romanians will earn the right to come to the UK". This being a fact on 1st of January 2014.

UKIP weren't scapegoating immigrants. They were stating the fact that net immigration had already been incredibly high in the lead-up to January 2014, and opening up the UK's borders to countless millions would only further make it able to people from very poor countries (comparatively) to come to the UK to work. This is a fact.

He also conflated UKIP with "pinstripe Nazis" with its attitude toward Muslims?
What attitude he has accused UKIP of having to Muslims is utterly beyond me...

We then have an article in Buzzfeed where he pridefully claims to have given lifts to people on polling day who would vote against UKIP. "Support any party other than UKIP in South Thanet". Holding a sequence of protests undoubtedly spreading the same lies as have been echoed above.

How can this not be considered undemocratic?

We also have him participating in a "Marxist event"...

...a Socialist Workers event that encourages people to lie to those who might not know UKIP policies to mislead them... "it's important we label them (UKIP) as racist and take on their arguments. When we do it, Ukip hate it and many people don't normally realise what their policies are."

...a Unite Against Fascism event featuring now leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, MP Diane Abbott, Labour MEP Claude Moraes, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett and many others...

...and a General Election 2015 Hustings Meeting hosted by Labour Party supporting Union Unison...

Lani thinks that UKIP do not represent the Working Class... Well I suggest Lani reads UKIP's 2015 Manifesto. Which has many policies that would assist low earners.

Such as getting rid of Income Tax on the minimum wage...

She pridefully holds up a sign, we have since proven to be nonsense.

"I think they're a vile party taking advantage of people in hard times and relying on the vulnerable.

"When I heard Katie Hopkins was at the conference I genuinely thought it was a joke."

Taking advantage?
How?
Are any of the messages UKIP carry inaccurate?
Debate them, don't stand in the middle of a street demanding people oppose them based on what? False accusations and absolutely nothing in terms of debate?

How many times have UKIP rep's been on Question Time, The Daily/Sunday Politics, Newsnight and other programs?
How many times have they been put straight on the issues raised?
I can't think of any times...

As for Katie Hopkins. She is entitled to her freedom of speech as is Lani.
You might not like what she has to say but she should be free to express her opinion.

She isn't a UKIP member. But people do listen to what she has to say.

You might want to prevent her freedom of speech, as well as UKIP's. But we live in a nation where Freedom of Speech is a right we all hold.

Last but not least, we have Mev, a College lecturer... Shock/horror...

She holds up a sign saying UKIP are racist... Nonsense and that UKIP are "not welcome here"...

We live in a democracy. If I was to stand outside the Labour Party conference in Brighton screaming at Trevor and Jennifer Jones (Husband and wife organisers of the "Stand Up To UKIP" event who just so happen to be Labour Party members and Corbynites) that they were not welcome in Brighton, I would be called an undemocratic fascist.

So why is it acceptable for these people to act like undemocratic thugs spreading lies about UKIP and its members being abusive to attendees?

Why won't the media criticise them for their actions?

"I stood for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in May. It's about telling the ordinary people in Doncaster that we don't want this here.

"Farage is telling us he's standing up for British workers but it's Farage's mates in the city screwing them over."

Yes. You forgot to mention that you lost your deposit on 1% whilst UKIP got 23.1% more of the vote (nearly 10,000 votes). So it would seem UKIP's message resonated more with locals than yours did.

The ordinary people listened. They voted UKIP. Not TUSC.

As for "Farage's mates in the City screwing them over"... What mates would they be? Metal traders? Because that is what Farage was, NOT A BANKER...

I am willing to bet that the Labour Party have more mates in the Capital than UKIP do, after all they are bankrolled by plenty such as She is just Labour Party Mk.2 putting out the same old propaganda and lies about UKIP as the Labour Party do.

In fact I fully recommend everyone reminds themselves where the Labour Party get their funding from by reading this article; 'Political Party Funding A list of Labour’s non-trade union donors: Financial Services sector now party’s second biggest cash funder'

The Mirror article proudly finishes off with a picture of the protesters. Whilst in the background...

I will let you decide for yourself if there is a motive at play. But I'd suggest the evidence speaks for itself.

If you haven't already. Please read my article about the "Stand Up To UKIP" event organisers (Labour Party members and Corbynites!) 

Refugee Crisis: Yanis Varoufakis On Question Time

Just read a report in the Huffington Post about Yanis Varoufakis attempted attack on UKIP on BBC Question Time on 24 September 2015, the parties attitude towards the immigration crisis and our responsibilities as an economically stable nation.

 Small flaw in Yanis's thinking however.

Yanis, the Ex Greek finance minister said that borders were "an absurdity when looked at from space".

I wonder if the Nazis/Italians thought that in May 1941. I am sure the Greek people were happy with borders before that invasion and equally as happy with their borders when the Nazis and Italians were swiftly kicked out.
Now we have the refugee/migrant crisis, we see the impact on the Greek people:

The fact of the matter is Angela Merkel opened Greece's doors without their say so, the EU inviting people to put their lives on the line risking travelling across the Mediterranean. They took the sensible camp selected process off the table. Which has cost many people their lives, and left numerous countries including Greece struggling to pick up the pieces.
Yanis went on to say "Let me begin by saying my answer to that question is completely the opposite," "Let me remind you ladies and gentlemen that we are all migrants. And we’re all economic migrants."

I have no doubt that we are mostly immigrant descendants to the locals we currently reside. But the reality is we have all made homes for ourselves, we have worked and in many instances fought to preserve our cultures, our freedom and our national way of life in the face of much peril. Not many more so than Greece and the United Kingdom in World War 2 for instance.

Why does this distant fact make the decimation of our way of life, and our right to choose what we do less valuable?

"If I believe my anthropologist friends we are all Africans, actually. We came to these parts of the world."
As Suzanne Evans, UKIP panelist on the program rightly interjected: "But it was a long time ago."
This much is true, but I again reaffirm the point that this attempt at conflating thousands of years of history and migratory shift into a single subject to quantify the acceptance of a huge number of people we neither have the resources to take care of, or should be the single nation to welcome is a point that Yanis overlooks and the very left wing BBC audience were more than happy to not consider.

Varoufakis went on: "A long long time ago but the notion that at the time when there are tens of thousands of desperate refugees being washed up on the shores of Greece and Italy, when there are 3.1 million refugees from that particular conflict in Jordan, in Turkey, in Lebanon and these poor countries have opened their doors to these refugees and they’ve welcomed them, they’ve sheltered them, they’ve fed them, they’ve made sure that they have water to drink."

Has Yanis taken into account the hundreds of millions we continue to pump out in foreign aid? More so since this crisis started.

What Yanis should have said, and what all people should be saying regardless of political leaning is; that the International community should be coming together in the form of a conference, either led by the UN, or the combined sources of Europe and the Middle-East and America/Canada etc to work out how many people can be taken by each nation, and what we can do to remove i) the problem of ISIS/IS/ISIL and ii) how we can stop Assad from terrorising his own people in the manner which he has done in the past.

He didn't bring up any of these matters. He just did as many populist people like to do in this crisis, which is to wave the checkbook, swing the door open and not think of the repercussions.

"To have this discussion in Cambridge today on whether there will be ten or twenty thousand people who are let in, to have this moral panic because of a few wretched souls on the other side of the channel in Calais?"
"This is not putting in good stead this country."
Really Mr Varoufakis? An estimated "5%" of those in Calais are thought to be from Syria. What are we talking about now? Are we talking about the refugee crisis in Syria, where people are fleeing for their lives, or are we speaking about migration as a whole?

This is where you lose the argument as far as I am concerned. You have done as the media frequently do, you conflate economic immigration with refugees.

This is disingenuous to say the least.
A few more facts that might have slipped the former Greek Finance Ministers thinking;
Greece is 131,951km in size and 11,030,000 in population.

The UK is 242,495km in size and 64,511,000 in terms of population.

From the years 2000 until 2013, the UK's population has exploded from 58.9 million in the year 2000 to 64.1 million in 2013 (64.51m estimated in 2014), partly as a result of mass-migration, open borders to the country from Europe and the Rest of the World. (fig's gained from World Bank).

During the same period of time, 2000 to 2013, Greece's population has only increased by 100,000 (a difference of 5.1 million from the UK), from 10.92 million to 11.03 million (again World Bank fig's).

Greece's net immigration has never been more than 50,000 previous to the year 2013 whilst the UK's has been between 250,000-350,000 net per year.

With all due respect to Mr Varoufakis, I would rather not take advice on how to run the UK, and how many migrants to take in considering nobody wants to stay in Greece due to abysmal conditions which have been caused, in a large part, by dodgy politicians.

Now you might bemoan the financial crisis that impacted banks and crashed the economies of countries across Europe.

But when you consider that Greece has defaulted on its debt (a massive thing in a countries history) 5 times in 1824, 1843, 1860, 1890, and 1932 you might start to ask yourself the question. Whos fault the financial status of Greece really is?

You might further like to remind yourself that the last time Greece were in a financial Union, the Rand, 1932, they were chucked out for "manipulating the national books" and borrowing more money then it was ever possible for Greece to pay back.

Sound familiar?

So no Yanis. We have accepted in over 5 million people more than Greece and our services are stretched as it is.

Regain control of borders and give ourselves a system where by we don't need to build a new house every 7 minutes to keep up with demand, not to mention urgently need to build more schools, hospitals, develop transport network to hold up the with the strain, create new power stations so we don't have to be dependent on Labour Governments declaring war on countries because of "weapons of mass destruction" that also happen to be in countries which have vast oil-fields. Then maybe we can talk about helping many of the worlds in need people brought to the UK.

Until then... I suggest you worry a little bit more about your own country, its finances and its ability to take care of its own starving population before you start attempting to play the moral trump card on the UK!

So I would very much appreciate it if Yanis didn't talk down to the political representatives of this country from what is quite frankly, the economic, social and humanitarian disaster which is known as Greece.