Election success

Northampton Commentary                                   2^nd  Dec 2012

Following Margot’s terrific performance in Corby two weeks ago we now add  three more,-

Croyden North,- Winston McKenzie, 6%, third place.

Middlesborough, - Richard Elvin, 11.8%, second place.

Rotherham, - Jane Collins, 22%, second place.

All three beat the Lib-Dems, two of whom lost their deposit; with Corby that’s three Lib-Dem lost deposits recently. No surprise that Labour won all these by-elections in their traditional areas. But remember, we also beat the Lib-Dems in 7 of the PCC elections.

Actually, this should have been a Brussels commentary but when I heard about the foster children scandal I decided to abandon the two day Employment Committee and spend some time in Rotherham instead, on election eve. That we were helped by this outrage is irrelevant; the Labour Council did not have to take the children away just before the election. That’s arrogance. This action was condemned on all sides, not least by those who called at the UKIP stand in the market place, where I spent the day. People who stopped to talk all said the Council action was disgraceful and most said they were Labour voters, but never again.

For me, it is more than that. That Council acted as a totalitarian regime,- suppression of  dissidents is what they do best. They could not stop this couple from voting as they wished so they took the children away. How nasty can you get? It reminded me of Stalin sending thousands of dissidents to the Gulags, of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany and of the East German Stasi.

I see a lot of this undemocratic attitude in Brussels and Strasbourg but  in Rotherham I met a lady UKIP member from Sheffield where she was a magistrate. Or, rather, a former Magistrate. She was finding that, increasingly, she was not conducting her Court, passing judgements, or dispensing justice according to our own legal system, forged over generations, but forced to follow EU systems instead. The EU has thus penetrated right down to local magistrate level, so she quit. Good for her, and we now have a fine member.

I try to present a flavour of EU control madness in these commentaries and I offer another here. You will have seen the videos of Nigel and of responses from people like the demented Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian leader of the Lib-Dems. He remarked that the EU budget was only140 billion Euros, a lot less than most national budgets. His conclusion,- “Don’t waste money on national Budgets, increase the EU budget”! He was not alone in leading MEPs in calling for increased EU spending.

Another MEP, Ms Zimmer (Socialist) said that Nigel was wrong to speak like that, “Why do you always have to speak against us?” Clearly, she has not understood the meaning of democracy. For her, and lots of them, democracy is no more than putting an “X” on a ballot paper every now and then. She, they, do not understand that in a Parliamentary Democracy principled opposition is of the essence.

That’s the way the EU is going, and its coming here, make no mistake. So we start by a mass attack in the Council elections next May. Please back up the outstanding results of Margot and the others recently by getting the Party name and logo on every ballot paper next spring. Make it the launch pad for the Euro elections a year later and the Westminster elections a year after that, 2015.

A final comment. The by-election results are the best we have recorded and they were in labour areas. We did well not just by taking Tory and Lib-Dem votes, but Labour also. I am a member of CAEF, the Campaign Against Euro Federalism which is rooted in the Trade Union movement. Every single one of their sixth monthly magazines carries articles condemning our EU membership. One of their leading lights is Bob Crow and if you have heard him speak on the subject he absolutely shreds the EU. Former Labour Minister Lord Peter Shore, now sadly deceased, was a founder member of CAEF and I had the privilege of hearing him speak in Cardiff years ago. In a restrained, controlled way, he too left us in no doubt that the EU was an evil, secretive organisation to be avoided at all costs.

Old Labour is on our side, but they need persuading that we are the right vehicle and we won’t do that by just popping up at General Elections.   

Derek Clark   MEP                                          Northampton 2^nd Dec 2012.