Yasin Akgun is a former member of UKIP and Young Independence, UKIP's inept youth organisation. He left UKIP after becoming disillusioned with the leadership's total failure to make the party a real force for change in British politics.
The following articles are worth reading. They are written by Mr Akgun and were taken from Political Pundits:
UKIP MEP’s Have Worst Attendance Record (Again)
I remember a year or so ago when I was working for UKIP reading a report by Open Europe that UKIP MEP’s were amongst the worst attendees to the European Parliament, it was then I started gnawing my Starbucks cup trying hard not to disappear inside it with a heaping feeling of cringeworthy embarrassment.
Fast forward to the present and UKIP finds it in the same boat, again. VoteWatch, an independent organisation has published a report which shows, in an entirely neutral way, the attendance rates of MEPs from all EU member states. MEP’s from Britain, averaged out between all of them had the worst attendance records when compared to all other EU countries.
British MEPs averaged 85% whilst ten other countries had over 90% attendance for their MEPs, the highest featuring Austrian MEPs with a 94% attendance rate.
The highest attending British MEPs were all Conservative (Giles Chichester, Malcolm Harbour, James Nicholson and Charles Tannock) and Liberal Democrat (Baroness Sarah Ludford and Bill Newton Dunn); all with an average of 98%.
In fact, if you were to take UKIP out of the equation Britain’s average would rocket up from an embarassing 85% to over 95%.
Interestingly, the one party that apparently is so concerned about the EU has the worst attendance record. The one political party that talks about nothing but the EU has the worst attendance record. An insulting irony for the millions of people that voted for UKIP in the last European elections with the promise that elected UKIP MEPs would be right inside parliament fighting for the interests of British people.
It doesn’t end there. I confronted some UKIP members about this, guess how many said that they were angry and would raise the issue with the party? None. Guess how many responded with utter hot air? All. Amongst my favourite responses were:
UKIP do not recognise the European Parliament so why would they attend parliamentary sessions?
erm, interesting that they recognise the parliament when it comes to clocking in and cashing out..
UKIP MEPs have more use in their own country than in the European Parliament
erm, how does that work out? What use do they have when they have about as much say in national issues as Nick Griffin has on a black history month event?
Yasin why do you always pick on UKIP, grow some political back bone, don’t see you saying anything about the Tories
This one was my favourite as it was said to me on Facebook above various statuses and links to articles I’ve written criticising the Conservative Party on a myriad of issues. And having someone from UKIP who refuses to acknowledge that not bothering to turn up and represent your own country when laws are being made is in any way wrong tell me that I have no political backbone is like, well, like having Katie Price call me a slag, or Nick Griffin tell me I have no respect for immigrants.
My most favourite of all the responses was this one:
people don’t vote for UKIP for them to go to the European Parliament
Hmm, not what was said on the election leaflets. Good luck getting any votes telling people that. Vote for us and we won’t bother our overpaid arses to go and represent our country, despite cashing in on the allowances that are there to allow us to do so. Even Prentis McCabe couldn’t PR spin that one.
For a party that obsesses over the EU and bangs on about it all the time you would expect that they would be camped outside the European Parliament, there at every meeting and vote, sticking up for us poor Brits. Evidently not.
UKIP members wonder why Eurosceptics want nothing to do with them. They wonder why they lost to the BNP in practically every constituency in the general election. They wonder why, despite at least 60% of Brits wanting a referendum on the EU that barely 2% vote for the one party that promises an in or out referendum.
Oh and how many elected UKIP MEPs no longer sit with UKIP in the European Parliament? Two. In other words, barely a year gone by and UKIP have already lost two MEPs. And counting..
To see the original: LINK
What Costs Nothing & Achieves Nothing? Joining UKIP..
I admit the title is slightly harsh but then again it is true. UKIP’s latest drive to increase its fast decreasing membership is to offer free memberships to everyone.
UKIP haven’t exactly been doing well with its members and membership base. Every where you look online or in the papers you hear of members, officials and even MEPs leaving the party. The situation has got increasingly dire for UKIP over the past few years. So much so that one of their MEPs was forced to admit that there are now more ex-members than current members. Which is worrying for a party that hasn’t been there for a long enough time to have the excuse of ‘they all died out’.
When I was in UKIP one of the incentives I wanted to start for the youth wing of the party was to start a student membership scheme of the party. £1 student membership which is geared directly towards the student; online newsletters instead of archaic snail mail and text alerts when relevant. I wrote a proposal outlining why it was needed, how it would pay for itself and the mountains of benefits it would have. The National Exec didn’t want to know.
Fast forward a year or so to now, it seems they’re reacting too late and too desperately to their utterly dire membership situation. Free membership sounds all well, until you look at the terms and conditions of this free ‘membership’:
members joining under the FREE scheme, do not have internal party voting rights
So therefore they are not members since the UKIP constitution states that members have rights to internal voting. And this from a party which has aspirations for running the country?
I have a good idea as to what genius had this brain wave of an idea but I’ll just sit back and admittedly arrogantly titter at their ineptness at marketing or recruiting.
So if you want to get nothing for nothing then join UKIP for free. You’ll be a member but not a member. You’ll just be a recipient of political spam. On the surface it seems like a mildly clever marketing ploy but let’s face it, people aren’t as stupid as the people or person that came up with this recruitment drive.
No doubt I may get the odd UKIP member replying to this article or bitching like a bruised banana elsewhere about me that this article is merely anti-UKIP propaganda when it is simply straight talking. Incidentally something they think they’re good at.
If UKIP want new members they need a proper marketing drive which starts from the bottom up. Not from the top down. Which is ironic since this is their philosophy on running the country.
To see the original: LINK
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