UKIP Civil War: Marta Andreason v Neil Hamilton!

It would appear that disgraced former MP Neil Hamilton is threatening Marta Andreason!

Dear Marta,

Your e-mail about MEP selection, apparently sent to SE UKIP members, contains a false and defamatory statement about me and Christine:

"While we learn about this selection procedure we are also hearing rumours about ....the Hamiltons having already been given top positions on the list in....... the South West."

Firstly, Christine has no intention whatever of being a candidate in any elections.

Secondly, it is completely untrue that either of us has been 'given top positions on the list in the...South West."

I should be grateful to know why you have chosen to spread false rumours about Christine and me, without either identifying your source or having the courtesy to check the facts with either of us.

As you may know, I am a barrister by profession and a very experienced libel litigant. Your e-mail is defamatory and damaging to Christine and my reputations both within and beyond UKIP in its implication that we would countenance (still less be complicit in) any manipulation of the selection process for our own personal advantage.

Please identify

(1) the source of the 'rumours' to which you refer;
(2) who made the alleged offer of top positions on the SW list and
(3) where, when and by what means such alleged offer was made;
(4) Please also supply me with a list of every recipient of the e-mail containing the false statement of which we complain.

Unless you can answer the above questions to our satisfaction, we require you immediately by e-mail to apologise and retract your false statements about us.

We also require you to send an apology and retraction (in terms to be agreed with me) to all recipents of the offending e-mail. You should also warn them that if they, in turn, repeat your false statements, they would also be exposing themselves to the threat of legal action.

I am copying this e-mail to the Party Chairman and Party Secretary for obvious reasons.
Yours sincerely,

Neil H

Dear Members,

I have received the email ABOVE from Mr. Neil Hamilton which is self-explanatory.

He asks for apology and retraction: Well, the fact is that I heard the rumours I mentioned in my prior email. However I did not refer to the veracity of the rumours as I cannot verify if they are true or not, nor did I intend to portray them as true. I just wanted to point out how they became more credible to me when I learned about the new selection process. Whilst the rumours are in the public domain, I have not found any rebuttal from any of the parties mentioned.

Furthermore Mr. Neil Hamilton establishes a link which I did not certainly raise in my email when he refers to " its implication that we would countenance (still less be complicit in) any manipulation of the selection process for our own personal advantage". I have to say that I was not aware of his or his wife's involvement in the make over of the MEP selection process when I wrote the email to you. I was told NEC members wanting to stand as MEP would not be involved in defining the selection process or any part of it. I now feel I might have been misinformed.

Overall I feel that Neil´s email is an attempt to deflect from the points that I was making in mine. He has not referred at all to the proposed gagging of MEPs in flagrant disregard for the terms of their mandate. Nor has he attempted to rebuff the claim that the now highly centralised NEC and the party leader have taken over the placement of candidates on the list in something that I have to say really resembles a totalitarian party.

Please note his warning to you, the recipients of my email, at the end of his message.

In any case I think it is disgraceful that as an elected representative of the British people I am threatened in such a way following a communication to my voters and UKIP executive should not tolerate this behaviour....but, in this respect, I only get silence from that corner.

While you will now hear that the procedure I forwarded to you in regards MEP selection is " only a draft" for discussion...to be modified...inaccurate, etc., the fact is that if I had not made you aware the decision would have been taken in the next few days and be presented to all of us as a "fait accompli".

Clearly, with the new party constitution, the decision on who will eventually become a UKIP MEP in 2014 has been left in the hands of the Party Leader, which is very different from saying that it is in the hands of the Party (its members). And there lies the problem.

Best wishes
Marta Andreasen MEP

Nikki Sinclaire and Katie Hopkins continue to Battle for British Freedom!

 

 

And a very Happy Christmas and New Year from the Junius Team!

UKIP: Nigel Farage is the biggest waste of EU money says fellow MEP

 

Nuff said!

Marta Andreasen and Gerard Batten on the lack of democracy in UKIP

 

 Please let me be an MEP again. I need the money!

 

Our readers will find the following two emails of interest. They concern the forthcoming MEP selection process and how Farage will have the final say on who's selected to stand in 2014. They confirm that UKIP is a dictatorship under one man - Nigel Farage! Batten's comments regarding the last NEC meeting are also most illuminating!

 

However, we have very little sympathy for these two individuals. Let us not forget that Ms Andreasen was quite happy to benefit from a previous rigged selection process: LINK

 

And Mr Batten was content to remain silent when complaints were brought to his attention regarding the same subject.

 

They are now only expressing concerns because both their seats are due to be handed over to Farage sycophants in 2014. So excuse us if we fail to shed any tears over their imminent deselection!

 

 

 

Dear Fellow members,

I have recently received information from Gerard Batten (see below) about the procedure that the NEC will be implementing for the coming 2014 European elections.

I am of the opinion that the process, under which I was put second on the South East list in 2009, was a satisfactory one, notably in regards the involvement of the regional committees and the exercise of democratic rights by the members.

Under the new rules, the Regional Committees will not establish the list of candidates; this will be determined by the NEC after certain interviews. More importantly the local party members will not have any say over the placement on the list, who you would prefer to see elected. Instead this will be done under the auspices of the NEC, but in reality by the Party Leader.

A sitting MEP will not know if they will be permitted to stand again until literally just before the polls, giving no time to prepare or run a campaign or operate in a normal way. I value and respect your views as local members and activists. If you no longer want me to represent you, then that should be your choice.

But what has prompted me to communicate with you at this point in time, is the fact that this NEC has decided that for the period 2013-2014, no sitting MEPs will be allowed to communicate with you on any level. This is ostensibly to allow a level playing field for other candidates.

This restriction on communication is against my mandate, and therefore illegal, and prevents me as an MEP and you as a party activist or member from doing our jobs, effectively shutting down the region for twelve months in terms of campaign preparation and fund-raising.

As UKIP members and activists we are justly proud of our position in favour of individual freedom and minimal state interference. It is why we work against the anti-democratic laws and the government by decree emerging from the European Union.

I work everyday to uphold these principles and further our cause locally and at national level through constituency work and our activities in the media.

While we learn about this selection procedure we are also hearing rumours about Patrick O'Flynn and the Hamiltons having already been given top positions on the list in the South East and South West.

I want to see UKIP getting seats at the next European and the General elections. It is one of the things I have been working for since I was elected, second only to the objective of getting the UK out of the EU. But these arrangements are not the way to achieve it. There is a danger of coercion and cronyism, which should have no place in our party.

I am writing to you to bring these concerns to your notice, and ask you to speak out to the party leadership if you share my concerns at the direction that the party seems to be taking. I also wish to say that I intend to continue to communicate with you to the extent that it is necessary for my functioning as an MEP, regardless of any possible sanction.

If you agree, I ask you to show your support by writing to the leadership to demand a more democratic and transparent selection process which allows your voice to be heard and respected.

This would also have the benefit of allowing candidates to be selected in good time, and for sitting MEPs to function effectively both as MEPs and as candidates.

It seems ironic that a party which stands on a platform of opposing the undemocratic decrees of the institutions of Brussels is in danger of mirroring those very same methods. Thank you for your time and trouble in reading this, and for your continuing support.

Sincerely,

Marta Andreasen


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Gerard Batten MEP
Report to the UKIP MEPs on the UKIP NEC meeting
3rd December 2012


MEP Selection 2014.
This subject arose towards the end of the meeting. Party Chairman, Steve Crowther, gave verbal report outlining the proposals for MEP selection in 2014. He said that written proposals would be circulated later.

I summarise what he said (I hope accurately) as follows:

Objectives
These are threefold:
1. To ensure all MEP list are made up of quality candidates.
2. To maximise the enthusiasm of the activists and members
3. To avoid the perception that the Leader has picked the candidates

The Process
1. This would begin in the New Year, and finalise just before the 2014 elections begin. The process is summarised as follows:
2. Nominations to open in early 2013
3. Applications for one Region only
4. Assessment of candidates for March 2013
5. Assessment to include: retrospective assessment of existing MEP performance; psychometric testing; media testing; etc
6. Provisional selection would be by a ballot of the Region’s members, but this would only decide the list not the placing on the list
7. NEC to discuss candidates if any problems perceived
8. Regional list places to be decided by a ballot of the members in the first quarter of 2014
9. Formal adopting of candidates by the NEC just before the campaign begins

Further conditions
Steve said that during the period 2013-2014 sitting MEPs would not be allowed to communicate with their Regional membership as this gave them an unfair advantage. Not deciding the places on the list for twelve month it was proposed by Steve that this would stimulate competition in the Region between the candidates in terms of positive activity.

I made the obvious point that MEPs not being able to communicate with their Regions would impede them from doing their job, and would impact adversely on the members' perception of their performance. It is also totally impractical since MEPs cannot be prevented from communicating with their constituents who may, or may not be, UKIP members. I made the point that sitting MPs and MEPs etc would always have an advantage over other candidates (unless they were seen to underperform) and that other parties usually had some kind of preferential system for them.

I repeated my view that the best system would be as used before: for the Regional members to rank the candidates twelve months before by a ballot; if the lead candidates proved themselves unsuitable before the election they could be removed.

Paul Nuttall made the point that this process would effectively shut down the Region for twelve months in terms of campaign preparation and fund-raising.

At this point I had to leave the meeting.

I understand from others at the meeting that Nigel then returned to the meeting (having been absent for this part of the agenda) and on being told what had been discussed said that a secondary ballot with members ranking the candidates was unnecessary and the ranking would the decision of the Leader and NEC. Nigel also thought that we should have the flexibility to slot people in at the end of the process.

Happy Christmas from Nigel Farage

UKIP Press Office lies exposed!

We have already covered UKIP's links to anti-homosexual parties in the EU Parliament and Farage's support for an anti-homosexual priest who has described homosexual men as "sodomites" - LINK

UKIP's Press Office were quick to deny claims that Farage had backed Rydzyk. They admitted that a statement had been circulated in support of the priest but stressed that Farage had not "written or signed" it and was unaware that it ever existed. LIES!

Here is a copy of the letter in English:

English version [download]   Here is the version in Polish. Note Farage's signature:

Polish version [download]

So there you have it. Positive proof that UKIP's sordid little press office has lied yet again!

See: LINK & LINK

UKIP extremism exposed by the media

And so at last the media spotlight is turning on UKIP extremism! It is gratifying to know that UKIP's clear links to far-right groups is finally being exposed by the British newspapers. For far too long Farage's UKIP has enjoyed an easy ride when it comes to this issue. There is more to come!

Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, is facing new accusations of homophobia in his party over its links with anti-gay, far-right European politicians and claims that he has backed a populist Polish priest who describes homosexual men as "sodomites".

Farage – whose party has shot up to 14% in an Opinium/Observer opinion poll today – vowed last week to exploit Conservative divisions over gay marriage, while insisting that his party "respects the rights of gay people to have civil partnerships". Its poll surge is a serious worry for Conservatives ahead of the 2014 European elections, from which Farage believes his party can emerge with the highest share of the vote of any UK party. Ukip's support is now almost half that of the Tories, who stand on 29%, 10 points behind Labour on 39%. The Liberal Democrats are on 8%.

While Farage is keen to portray Ukip as tolerant of gay people at home, investigations by the Observer show that it is in alliance in the European parliament with parties containing politicians who have expressed open hostility to homosexuals. Farage himself has been linked to a campaign in Poland supportive of hardline Catholic media outlets that are strongly critical of homosexuality.

In September, Polish free press campaigners produced a statement that they said was from Farage in support of Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, a Polish priest and founder of Radio Maryja and its associated outlets, whose stations stand accused of pumping out strongly antisemitic and homophobic material. Last year Rydzyk greeted the arrival of the first gay Polish MP with the words, "the sodomites are coming; it is a really grave matter". The statement reported as having been from Farage expressed the Ukip leader's "wholehearted support" and "encouragement" for the priest's media outlets, which it said were involved in "a battle to preserve freedom and democracy in Poland".

Last night a Ukip spokesman said that, although it accepted the statement had been circulated, Farage had not "written or signed" it and was unaware that it ever existed. Ukip, which has 11 of the UK's 73 MEPs, is the largest member of a group in the European parliament called Europe of Freedom and Democracy, which includes four members of the far-right, anti-gay United Poland party and nine members of the Northern League, the rightwing Italian party.

United Poland MEPs have strongly backed Radio Maryja. They left the European Conservatives and Reformists group – in which Tory MEPs sit – in protest at the Tories' gay equality agenda in 2011. A United Poland spokesman was reported as having said: "There is no place for homosexuals in our party."

The Northern League also has members with strong homophobic views. League MP Massimo Polledri recently declared that "homosexuals have to go to the psychologist to feel better", adding that having a gay son "would be like my daughter telling me she wanted to be a nun or to marry a Moroccan". The League was one of three parties which last month blocked a bill in the Italian parliament that would have made incitement to hatred of homosexuals an offence.

Rafal Pankowski, author of The Populist Radical Right in Poland and a social science professor at Collegium Civitas in Warsaw, said: "Radio Maryja is very strongly homophobic. It has frequently called homosexuality 'a disease' and 'a major threat to western civilisation'. United Poland MEPs have strongly supported this message. They are a radical right splinter group that competes for the significant homophobic audience of Radio Maryja."

The independent gay MEP Nikki Sinclaire, who was expelled from Ukip for refusing to sit with Northern League colleagues in the European parliament, told the Observer that Ukip was still "without a doubt homophobic".

Earlier this year senior Ukip MEP Roger Helmer equated marriage between two gay men with incest. He said: "If two men have a right to marry, how can we deny the same right to two siblings Are we to authorise incest?"

The party's candidate in the recent byelection in Croydon North, Winston McKenzie, said, days after Rotherham council removed children from Ukip-supporting foster parents, that it would not be "healthy" for children to be adopted by gay couples.

A spokesman for Ukip in Brussels said the party had no link with Radio Maryja, although it had supported the cause of press freedom in Poland. The spokesman said that the fact that Ukip had teamed up with other parties in the European parliament did not mean that it any way agreed with any of those parties' policies: "It is a marriage of convenience, so we get speaking time in the parliament. There is no necessity for commonality of policy."

To read the original: LINK

Also see: LINK

UKIP: Godfrey Bloom's far-right links cause him some trouble!

Just a few weeks after a press conference by the Europe of Freedom & Democracy (EFD), chaired by Front Nationale's Marine le Pen, confirmed that Godfrey Bloom is not merely a short-term member of the pan-EU party, but actually a founder member and board member, we see some interesting developments.

Bloom's fellow EAF board member, Kent Ekeroth, of the Sweden Democrats, has been the centre of scandal after a racially-motivated attack in Stockholm where he attacked an immigrant while one of his colleagues assaulted a woman.

The EAF has attracted considerable media attention, and its true colours have been exposed. The press are circling, and the EAF is in a corner. UKIP is part of the big story.

Bloom has made an extraordinary statement concerning his membership of this far-right gang of racist thugs.

And now, he has apparently been persuaded to resign his seat on grounds of 'ill-health'.

Bloom will hand his seat over next month, journalists are being told.
 

 

This is the tip of the iceberg

UKIP: Mike Nattrass crawls back to Farage

There is no fool like an old fool. And how that saying could have been written for Mike Nattrass! He has now scuttled back to the EFD group to eat humble pie at the feet of Nigel Farage. And yet this was the man who originally condemned the EFD group as having views incompatible with his own:

 

"Mr Nattrass left the group because, as he said, he did not want to sit with MEPs “who do not wish to leave the EU and have very odd views on many issues which are incompatible with my own”. He also said that by remaining a member of the EFD he “would be condoning this progressive destruction of our cherished institutions” and would be ‘far more effective’ as a non-attached MEP."

The EFD Group has not changed. So why the U-Turn? It's all about ego and money. Mike Nattrass is clearly a man without a shred of integrity, a self-interested fool who will happily prostitute himself for extra cash and publicity in the sordid racist grouping known as Farage's EFD. Nikki Sinclaire is well rid of him.

Here's an interesting piece by Mary Honeyball MEP on Nattrass, UKIP and their links to the far-right.

UKIP provide further proof of their far-right leanings

This morning in the plenary chamber Martin Schulz announced that two MEPs have joined UKIP’s Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) political grouping.
 
The first of these is Mike Nattrass, though he is actually rejoining after quitting the group in June 2010. Mr Nattrass left the group because, as he said, he did not want to sit with MEPs “who do not wish to leave the EU and have very odd views on many issues which are incompatible with my own”.

He also said that by remaining a member of the EFD he “would be condoning this progressive destruction of our cherished institutions” and would be ‘far more effective’ as a non-attached MEP.

Perhaps more intriguingly, the newest member of the EFD is Slavcho (aka Slavi) Binev from Bulgaria. Mr Binev was elected in 2009 as an MEP for Attack, a far-right nationalist party, that he has since left. The Attack party has been involved in a number of scandals, most notably in 2006 when then leader Dimitar Stoyanov made racist and misogynistic remarks about another Bulgarian MEP. What’s more Mr Binev was named in a 2005 US diplomatic cable on organised crime as heading the MIG entertainment group whose ”criminal activities include prostitution, narcotics, and trafficking stolen automobiles”.

UKIP are a strange bunch with stranger friends and this acceptance of Slavi Binev is further proof. It’s worth remembering another person who felt the need to leave the EFD, Nikki Sinclaire who resigned from the EFD citing her displeasure at what she claims to be some of the racist, extremist parties that belong to the group. Sinclaire was subsequently expelled from UKIP for refusing to be part of the EFD group, but went on to win an Employment Tribunal claim for sex discrimination against them.

Farage may be feeling confident after UKIP’s showing in the recent by-elections, but he should show a bit more care about his public perception. I have already spoken about Godfrey Bloom’s sharing wine with fascist leader Marine le Pen and now Farage has decided to campaign against gay marriage in order to steal votes from the Tories. Farage, it appears, is well on the way to exposing the extreme-right and bigoted character of UKIP.

To read the original: LINK

Also see: LINK

UKIP: An NEC member on Sir Patrick Moore, David Bannerman and Nigel Farage

 

The following e-mail was sent by a member of the UKIP NEC, and it concerns Nigel Farage's response to the news that Sir Patrick Moore had signed DCB's nomination papers when he stood against Farage in the party leadership contest.

 

It rells us a lot about Farage, and the dynamics behind the scenes in this shoddy little party:

Please let us get this right. I am still disgusted with this business even now.

So here it is in detail.

 

What happened was DCB asked to meet Patrick because, he said, he had met him at his school when he came to give a talk, years previously. I said I would arrange it sometime, and consequently DCB came and stayed here at my house for a couple of days. I took him to visit Patrick and it was whilst we were there talking about this and that, when effectively out of the blue DCB asked Patrick if he would support him in the leadership contest. When Patrick said he would, he then asked if he would sign his nomination papers. Patrick again agreed. I should point out Patrick was (I put is and had to change it) so generous he agreed straight away without even thinking about it. I had nothing to do with this, which little scenario, unfolded before my eyes.

When the nomination papers were published, Nigel Farage went ape-s ** - claiming Patrick had already agreed to support him with his signing of nominations for leadership (he hadn't actually to my knowledge anyway, and only based this assertion on Patrick supporting previously when it was he who asked Patrick first) and demanding to know from all and sundry including me, firstly via his acolyte Ray Finch (in a quite bizarre conversation something like the Spanish Inquisition) then later himself how dare I go and get Patrick to sign DCBs papers. In point of fact as I relate above I had nothing to do with it. He was hopping mad at DCB getting in first and asking and his not doing it.

The only 'help' DCB had from me was arranging for him to visit Patrick - which I have done for dozens of people who asked.

I now suspect strongly that businesss of getting signatures for leadership election nomination was the main reason DCB wanted to meet Patrick with a view to asking him for that support - not as he said, to just visit him because he admired him and wanted to meet him again after the school visit all those years ago.

That, I assure you, had never occurred to me.

 

Farage got Ray Finch who I believe works for him to go around to Patricks straight away when he found out, and more or less demanded Patrick support him too. Patrick could not go back on his word having already signed papers for DCB, so Finch got Patrick to agree to making a statement of how wonderful he thought Nigel Farage was, and how he was an excellent leader before would make a good leader again .. or words to that effect. That was subsequently published as part of the statements of the candidates for Nigel Farage.

Patrick was so disgusted with the whole business of being manipulated in such a cavalier way he very nearly resigned from UKIP there and then. I begged him not to and am glad he did not.

 

That is the truth of it for everyone to know.

(signed)

Chris Davies MEP on Nigel Farage

UKIP spin won't fool anyone!

And so the sycophants desperately try to spin UKIP's election defeat into victory. And how we have laughed at Nigel's useful idiots and their pathetic attempts to convince people that UKIP is on the road to victory. The British Democracy Forum features numerous examples of their lies and spin. Nothing new there then!

 

UKIP's leadership can always be relied upon to turn to the right

Consider the facts:

UKIP came second in Rotherham with 22%. Sounds impressive doesn't it? But let us take a closer look!

The voter turnout was just 33.89%. So UKIP's '22%' was in fact 7.3% of the vote. And that's from a total electorate of 63,131!

And let us not forget that UKIP was several thousand votes behind Labour, a pro-EU party!

To use Rotherham as the basis for the claim that UKIP is now offically Britain's third party - as some newspapers have done - is just madness!

Here is what Richard North had to say on UKIP's election 'victory' night.

Typically, the by-elections of yesterday have evoked some extraordinarily superficial analysis, including a complete misrepresentation of the UKIP position. But then, with the legacy media getting so many things wrong, it should be no surprise to find it going adrift here.

UKIP aside, however, the really interesting story is the mandate delivered at these and the last batch of by-elections – six contests in total.

Starting with the Middlesborough constituency, we find that an electorate of 65,851 delivered a Labour victory on a turnout of 25.6 percent. With 10,201 votes cast for the winning candidate, Andy McDonald, that represented a mandate of a mere 15.5 percent.

The picture in Croydon North, with an electorate of 85,107, also delivered a Labour victory, this time with 15,892 votes, giving the winner a mandate of 18.7 percent. Then we have Rotherham, where Labour's Sarah Champion gets a mandate from 15.6 percent of the electorate.

Then, two weeks ago, we had the Manchester Central by-election. With 89,519 registered voters, Lucy Powell 11,507 votes gaining a Labour victory with a "mandate" from 12.9 percent of the electorate.

On the same day, the 75,175-strong electorate of Cardiff South and Penarth gave Stephen Doughty a mere 9,193 votes, delivering a mandate of 11.6 percent while Corby, with its electorate of 79,468, gave Andy Sawford 17,267 votes – a mandate of 21.7 percent.

In a total of six recent by-elections, therefore, we have mandates ranging from 11.6 percent to a maximum of 21.7 percent. Overall, from a total electorate of 461,251 the total votes cast for the six winning candidates were 73,836, representing an average mandate of exactly 16 percent.

Interestingly, that compares closely with the dismal performance of Labour's Seema Malhotra in last year's Feltham and Heston by-election, where she gained a mandate from 15.7 percent of the electorate.

Thus, as we remarked at the time of the police commissioner elections, we have a situation where politics is in crisis. Actually, it is democracy in crisis. Where you have six MPs elected to parliament on an average mandate of 16 percent, that is no longer democracy.

This is not even the tyranny of the majority. It is rule by a tiny minority – less than one fifth of the electorate.

As for UKIP, in the six by-elections, 15,074 votes were cast for the party, out of that total electorate of 461,251. That actually gives an average poll of a tiny 3.3 percent of the electorate prepared to turn out to vote for this minority party.

On the other hand, Ed Miliband welcomes his recent results as an endorsement of "One Nation Labour". But the mandate is no endorsement. The reality is that, if representative democracy is not already dead, it is dying on its feet. And, with the support of 3.3 percent of the electorate, UKIP is not providing a credible alternative.

To read the original: LINK

Also see: LINK

Nuff said!