The rise of the UKIP in the polls—what does it mean?

A contributor to The Telegraph writes:

The Conservatives are in real trouble. Unless they can stage a reconciliation with the large numbers of former Tory voters who now intend to support Ukip [the UK Independence Party], they can give up any hope of challenging Labour at the next election.

After seeing that, I wrote to Paul Weston, the head of the British Freedom Party, who was once a UKIP candidate:

Have you written anything about your former association with UKIP and why you left the party, and what you think about their present rise?

As for me, I never thought anything of them. While I agree with them of course on the need to leave the EU, I always felt that their focus was too narrow.

Mr. Weston replies:

I left UKIP because Nigel Farage replaced Lord Pearson as leader and promptly put Islam and Third World immigration into a PC box which must never be mentioned. UKIP is doing well in the polls at the moment, but Cameron could finish them off overnight if he wanted to, simply by offering the electorate a referendum on staying/leaving the EU. He may have to do this if he wants to win the 2015 election, but the moment he does so, UKIP will be dead in the water. Most members are disgruntled Conservatives just waiting to be gruntled.

Paul Weston: Rejected a party that won’t
stand for the defense of Britain

- end of initial entry -

Alexis Zarkov writes:

I’ve been following UKIP and Nigel Farage for some time, and I disagree with Mr. Weston. In a number of his speeches and recorded meetings with constituents, I’ve heard Farage condemn the ongoing Islamization of Britain in no uncertain terms. He’s also called for a halt in immigration particularly from members of the EU like Poland, where a Pole can enter the UK and immediately apply for housing and benefits. I suspect Weston had some kind of falling out with Farage. A visit to the UKIP site provides various UKIP manifestos (policy documents). On immigration (a sample):

End mass, uncontrolled immigration. UKIP calls for an immediate five-year freeze on immigration for permanent settlement. We aspire to ensure that any future immigration does not exceed 50,000 people p.a.

Return people found to be living illegally in the UK to their country of origin. There can be no question of an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Such amnesties merely encourage further illegal immigration.

Repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act and withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In future British courts will not be allowed to appeal to any international treaty or convention that overrides or sets aside the provisions of any statute passed by the UK Parliament.

End the active promotion of the doctrine of multiculturalism by local and national government and all publicly funded bodies.

I wish our Republicans could come out with something so straightforward. Romney called for illegal immigrants to self deport, and got savaged on that even by members of his own party.

As for UKIP being “dead in the water” if Cameron calls for a referendum, I also disagree. For one thing, Cameron is unlikely to call for an unambiguous “in or out” referendum. He’s a member of the political class that strongly supports the European Project. Those people are zombies, utterly unable to give up on the EU and multiculturalism. Moreover, Cameron has already reneged on his “ironclad” promise to hold a referendum, and Farage has been beating him up over that for years. If Cameron offers anything at all, it will be something that provides enough wiggle room to keep the UK in the EU.

However, let’s say the very unlikely does happen. Would that kill UKIP? Possibly, but UKIP has expanded beyond the narrow issue of membership in the EU. Farage is also attacking the disastrous energy policy common to the three major parties in Britain. In short, UKIP is giving the voters a real choice and has drawn votes (mainly) from the Lib Dems. But recent polling data shows UKIP getting more and more support from the Conservatives, and even from Labour.

LA replies:

This is very interesting.

However, I notice that your quotations from UKIP’s documents say nothing about Islam. Perhaps that is the issue, rather than immigration as a whole, that alienated Paul Weston from UKIP, since anti-Islamization is perhaps his main issue.

December 21

Paul Weston writes:

I would say the following in reply to Alexis Zarkov:

Alexis Zarkov is quite correct in his analysis of Nigel Farage with regard to mass immigration. I also appreciate that in private, Mr Farage makes his personal views on Islam well known, as do many rank and file party members. However, Mr Farage publicly runs scared of outright confrontation on the Islam issue and the third world immigrant issue. When he talks of immigration and the problems surrounding it, he refers in the main to Eastern Europeans, principally Polish—whom UKIP can safely criticise because they are white—and he does this in order to deflect allegations of “racism.”

This may be the correct approach in these heavily propagandised times. If he was saying what I am saying, he could kiss good-bye to any further invitations from the BBC to expound upon his views, and he would be destroyed by the left-wing media in general. Under his leadership, UKIP has climbed the greasy pole of British politics to a level where it can actually influence the policy (or certainly the future policy) of the Conservative Party, and I doff my cap to him in this instance.

Having said that though, my personal view is that the demographic and political expansion of Islam within the West will bring horrors and carnage to 21st century Europe on a scale greater even than WWII. Any political party serious about the future of Britain should be doing everything possible to ensure such a scenario can NEVER be allowed to happen. I appreciate Mr Farage may well be adopting the correct political approach necessary to advance his party, but I don’t believe he will have the fortitude to deal with Islam (should he ever achieve power) in the future, based on the fact that he lacks the fortitude to publicly raise this thorny issue in the present time.

The next twenty years will be nothing like the last sixty years. We can only logically look forward to economic ruin and social breakdown along tribal and religious lines. It is more than probable that mainstream politicians in suits will have little influence over events as they inexorably play themselves out. The Camerons and Farages of this world will allow Islam to achieve such a head of steam over the next few years that our future can only be glimpsed through the prism of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, but this time on a Continental scale of such magnitude it could very easily lead to WWIII in a nuclear age.

Which rather explains why I left UKIP.

Alexis Zarkov replies to LA (this comment was received before Mr. Weston’s previous comment was received):

Here is a video excerpt from an open meeting where Nigel Farage addresses the ongoing Islamification of Britain. He’s no shrinking violet, and states his opposition to Islam and his support for Judeo-Christian values. The meeting went on for more than an hour, and I watched the whole thing some months ago. I can think of no other white western politician who hits all the major issues: Energy, Islam, immigration, multiculturalism, the EU, industrial policy, deficits etc. with the same courage, intelligence and wit. He regularly does battle with the BBC multicultural socialist reporters and interviewers on radio and television and smashes them. If only we had a Nigel Farge to battle the thuggish, traitorous, and anti-white Democrats instead of the Caspar Milquetoast types in the GOP.

Paul Weston replies:

I have just watched the Nigel Farage video provided by Mr. Zarkov. It is all well and good making the pronouncements Mr. Farage so capably does, but he needs to go further, which I fear he will not do. It is no use wanting, or perhaps wishing, for Islam to adapt to our way of our life, or for Christianity to be promoted more vigorously in our schools. Unless we re-take the education citadel it will continue as it is, and with regard to Islam, I have only the following to say: Islam will never reform. It poses the most serious threat to Western Civilisation and peace that perhaps we have ever known. Islam—not “fundamentalist Islam”—must be removed from the West. No more mosques; no more madrassas; the closing down of any Islamic institutions promoting ideological supremacy and hatred, along with the deportation of Muslims guilty of promoting such hatred. Then, and only then, will Islam decide that perhaps Britain is beyond takeover, followed by the voluntary emigration of large numbers of Muslims. All very harsh I know, but unless we do this we are finished as a race and as a culture. Too harsh for Mr. Farage’s palate I fear, but I wish my children and grandchildren not only to live in a liberal democracy, but to survive. That is how serious the situation really is.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 20, 2012 11:10 AM | Send