As you are probably aware, Oldham West & Royton - the constituency in which I live - is in the the throes of a by-election campaign following the recent death of our sitting MP Michael Meacher. And, as is customary during such occasions, party campaign literature is beginning to arrive through the letterbox. Today, I had the pleasure of receiving a circular from UKIP's parliamentary candidate, John Bickley. The leaflet was rather asking for a fisking, so here it is:
Michael Meacher was a conviction politician who worked hard for the voters of Oldham West & Royton. He represented the people of this constituency, for a party that no longer represents anybody.
A bold claim indeed. But Michael Meacher was elected in the 2015 General Election to the Oldham West & Royton seat on a majority of 23,630. That is more votes than the UKIP (8.892), Conservative (8,187), Lib Dem (1,589) and Green (839) candidates combined. Evidently the people of Oldham West & Royton felt Michael Meacher, as part of the Labour Party, represented them pretty happily. Given the man represented the constituency since 1970 (always under the auspices of the Labour Party), the claim seems fatuous.
I used to believe in Labour. Like many in my family before me I thought that the Labour Party believed in representing the hard working people of our country. That was a long time ago. Far from believing in the people of Britain, Corbyn's Labour Party would rather sympathise with the IRA than sing our national anthem to honour our brave armed forces.
It is probably worth pointing out that WWII was fought precisely so that we might have the freedom to decide whether to sing the national anthem or not. It would be rather odd to fight fascism simply to replace it with a rather more British version. As for honouring our "brave armed forces", I am at a loss as to what evidence is being offered to suggest the Labour Party don't? Presumably this is in response to not singing the national anthem which, for the sake of clarity, nowhere honours the armed forces.
Aside from all that, it seems something of a non-sequitur that Labour once supported working people (as Mr Bickley himself ruefully notes) but now doesn't because they (though I suspect this is limited to Mr Corbyn) don't sing the national anthem. I struggle to see the link here.
I'm standing in this by-election to fight for what I believe in. I'm standing to fight for what is best for Britain. I'm standing for the unwritten future of our children and grandchildren. I'm standing for you and I want to tell you my top priorities for this election.
UKIP believes in the NHS and with my party I will fight to keep the NHS free at the point of use. When they were in power, the Labour Party not only supported but encouraged the fat cat privatisation of the NHS with PFI deals.
Equally, we could look at the words of their leader Nigel Farage. He claimed Britian will "have to return" to a debate about funding the NHS through a private insurance system. He has also been caught on record stating the NHS should be "funded through the marketplace of an insurance company".
Again, Paul Nuttall (one time UKIP deputy leader) stated: "I would like to congratulate the coalition government for bringing a whiff of privatisation into the beleaguered National Health Service".
Douglas Carswell, UKIP's only sitting MP, famously wrote in his document Direct Democracy, that his proposals may "see some local health services introduce private health insurance schemes, which if successful, other local health services would then want to emulate in order to satisfy the raised expectations of their own local electorates."
UKIP is opposed to mass, uncontrolled immigration. We are the only party prepared to take on the establishment and regain control of our borders. David Cameron is unwilling, unprepared and incapable of doing it. His Tories can't take on the establishment, they are the establishment.
I want to live in a country where I can feel safe again. How can we possibly combat criminal gangs when we're importing organised crime, unchecked from overseas? Right now we can't even look into the backgrounds of people who come into this country. The Labour Party did that, and the Tories can't fix it.
It is fair to say all the major parties are opposed to "mass, uncontrolled immigration". Were they not, all would dispense with wasting money on any border staff at all. Most waves of mass immigration that have come to this country have been thoroughly controlled and usually in response to a distinct lack of native workers with specialist skills. Presumably, the reference is to our continued membership of the European Union. However, Jeremy Corbyn has made no secret of his position of the EU and the Labour Party have been very clear that they will not be giving David Cameron a complete pass on his EU negotiation.
More concerning, Mr Bickley states he wants to live in a country where he can feel safe again. It does seem that immigration is the basis for his safety concerns and he goes on (without any credible evidence) to link immigration with "criminal gangs" and "organised crime". If such was true, we would find our prisons full of immigrants and foreign nationals. The figures, as of 2012, don't seem to bear this out (see here). The immigrant and foreign national numbers in prison seem to reflect the the national immigrant population.
I think it's time that somebody took a stand and protected our national identity. I'm unashamedly patriotic, I'm proud to be British and proud of all the people in our country.
I refer you to the above. Apparently he is "proud of all the people in our country" except those who have come as immigrants.
As a Mancunian, I believe that the fight to get our country back should start here, in Oldham West & Royton.
"As a Mancunian" is unlikely to go over well with those who are overtly and self-consciously Oldhammers. Indeed, one might almost appear a little like an immigrant.
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