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2006 Conference

Please see http://www.ukip.org/newconference2006.php

2005 Conference
Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, London

By N Scrase.

All of us in UKIP are fighting for the liberation of the UK, but no longer are we fighting alone and no longer are we fighting for the liberation of only the UK. In the European Parliament (EP) the Independence/Democracy Group (IDG) brings together MEPs from ten different countries to fight for each other. The IDG currently has 35 members (when it reaches 37 it will be able to nominate a candidate for President of the EU Parliament!), and several spoke in this conference. One of the benefits of belonging to such a grouping is that you can use EU funds to host conferences: “Using the Devil’s money to do God’s work”. Here is a resume of each speech:

Nigel Farage MEP (UK)
Recent successes for UKIP in the EP have been the exposure of the criminal record of the French Commissioner Mr Barrot (which you will remember from the media coverage this attracted at the time), and the Vote of Confidence (in the Commission) debate successfully launched with immaculate timing just prior to the French Referendum on the EU Constitution which may have helped win the “no” vote. Nigel told us that a new and ugly nationalism exists, an EU nationalism, within the EU institutions. It was again evident from the reaction to the Dutch “no” vote of a German Commissioner (member of the Constitution drafting team), when he said to Nigel that “you may win your little battles, but we have 50 ways to win”. By that he presumably meant that the Commission would go ahead and implement the Constitution regardless of the referendum results and consequent lack of ratification, for that is what is happening.

Phillipe de Villers (MEP (France)
Phillipe said that the reasons that the French electorate voted against the Constitution were because they do not want Turkey in the EU; they do not want the Services Directive; and they do not want yet more political integration. Despite the “no” vote, these things are going ahead. We can imagine French anger at this spilling out onto the streets in the future. Phillipe said that the way the IDG operates is a good example of an alternative future for EU states, i.e. cooperation and celebration of differences between countries, rather than supranational harmonisation.

Hans Blokland MEP (Netherlands)
Hans offered us an insight into the dirty tricks played on the Dutch electorate during the EU Constitution referendum campaign. They were told that if they voted “no” various bad things would happen to them, e.g. “the lights would go out in the Netherlands”; or that there would be a “Balkans type war within the EU”; or that “the Netherlands would be sidelined in the EU”. He said that they were treated like children by the government with an aggressive “yes” campaign funded by taxpayers money. In the end all the hard sell backfired, and utterances from certain EU apparatchiks like “The Constitution is the capstone of the EU superstate” and the “birth certificate of the United States of Europe”, helped the “no” camp to success.

Vladimir Zelezny MEP (Czech Republic)
Vladimir told us that the President of the Czech Republic is the only Head of State in the EU who has refused to sign the EU Constitution (HM Queen Elizabeth should take note), and that 70% of the Czech MEPs voted in the EU Parliament against the Constitution. He also told us how the Czech Republic feels a sense of deja vue about being in the EU, as it feels like being back in the Soviet Bloc system: a totalitarian state. His sense of humour was immense, as he painted a picture of the absurdity of life under EU regulations. For the mathematicians amongst you, he referred to Peter Mandelson as Mandelbrot! For the non-mathematicians amongst you, Mandelbrot was an expert at chaos theory – how apt, bearing in mind the recent debacle with import quotas from China.
However behind the humour lies a deep hatred of the recycled communists who have adapted themselves into highly paid EU positions, where Czech MEPs are more highly paid than the Czech President and pay less tax.

Mario Borghezio MEP (Italian)
Mario spoke in Italian, but his speech was translated live to the audience by a very talented Italian lady translator from the EU Parliament. We were reminded that Irish has recently been made the 21st official language of the EU, and so the mind boggles at the shear quantity of talented language experts in Parliament. Mario and his colleagues say that the single currency has been a failure for Italy, and they are calling for the return of the Lira. He noted that countries that have their own currency also have more liberty, and that the origins of the pound sterling and Lira signs in fact come from the Latin word for liberty. Like UKIP in the UK, his party has launched a campaign to get a referendum in Italy to let the electorate say whether they want to remain in the EU.

Dick Morris (UKIP’s election guru)
Dick congratulated UKIP on its successes. UKIP performed very well in the 2004 European Elections, and although UKIP had not secured any MPs in the General Election this was due to the manipulation of the agenda by the establishment to avoid the issue of the EU during the campaign. In fact, by its campaigning and giving a voice to anti-EU feeling in the UK UKIP had triggered a series of knock-on events that had changed the tide. Blair conceded a referendum on the EU Constitution, this forced Chirac to do the same in France, and of course, France voted “no”, which helped the Netherlands “no” success.
Dick now exhorted UKIP to campaign against the accession of Turkey into the EU, as this would be the next most fruitful campaign target. The logical basis for opposing Turkish membership, as Roger Knapman pointed out, is that UKIP is opposed to political union with any other countries, whether Turkey, France, Malta or any other, and membership means political union.