Ukip

Nigel Farage has kicked off the first day of Ukip party conference at Doncaster Racecourse with a speech claiming that anti-EU groups are united and ready to push for a UK exit from the European Union: ‘We are together, we are united, and we believe that the tide has turned. I believe that we are on course to win the most historic and the most important political victory in any of our lifetimes.’ United as they may be, perhaps one of the brains at Ukip ought to have done a bit more research regarding their conference venue before going ahead with the booking. For all their preaching about the need to

Nigel Farage held another event in Westminster this morning to announce the dates of his ‘Say No – Believe in Britain’ tour, through which he hopes to drum up support for a Brexit. While the venue and message were identical to his press conference in July, the Ukip leader did reveal some details: twelve regional co-ordinators have been chosen, 300 events are planned over the next few months and six million leaflets will be delivered by Christmas. In light of the British Future polling on the toxicity of Ukip’s immigration message, Farage was keen point out he will work with anyone to achieve a Brexit — even Jeremy Corbyn. He said that a Corbyn victory

A cross-party group of MPs, including Ukip’s only MP, is to formally join the Westminster-based ‘Out’ campaign, Coffee House has learned. An ‘exploratory committee’ of MPs which started discussing how to advance the case for ‘Out’ in June, will become the Parliamentary Planning committee for the Matthew Elliot-led Out group, which is to move into new offices in Westminster Tower later this month. The members of the parliamentary planning committee are Steve Baker, Douglas Carswell, Bernard Jenkin, Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins, Owen Paterson and Graham Stringer. More MPs will join the committee in the coming weeks. It will advise the campaign team and build support for this particular Out campaign

Ukip’s selection procedure for its London Assembly and Mayoral candidates is ‘undemocratic’, the party’s own MEP for London has told Coffee House. Gerard Batten has refused to take part in the selection procedure because it is ‘undemocratic’, with the party’s London membership getting no vote on the candidates. He said: ‘If Ukip is a democratic party, then it should allow the London members to select the candidate. Ukip is nothing if not a grassroots party. Activists who are not allowed to vote for a candidate may not feel motivated to campaign for that candidate. Ukip talks a lot about the undemocratic nature of the European Union, so we should practise democracy in

Nigel Farage is trying to block Suzanne Evans from becoming Ukip candidate for Mayor of London with a covert campaign to install a less threatening, loyal party colleague in her place, sources have told Coffee House. Ukip will select its mayoral candidate this weekend. Evans is the bookies’ favourite and the best-known outside the party. But it has moved from a one member one vote system within the London party for picking its choice for the mayoral elections to a private selection. The six-strong panel for the selection includes a number of Farage loyalists, including Chris Bruni-Lowe, Paul Oakden and Mick McGough. Party insiders are furious that this panel seems to

On the Swedish election before last, there was shock that the populist Sweden Democrats ended up with a foothold in parliament. Even more shock when they did well enough in last year’s election to topple the conservative-led government. Sweden’s parliament works on coalitions, but no party wants to do any kind of deal with Sweden Democrats. They’re regarded as toxic, beyond-the-pale. But now, according to a shock YouGov poll today, they’re the no1 party in Sweden. At first it was argued: let these lunatics come to parliament! They’re nuts, let everyone see how mad they are! In fact, they’ve been coming pretty well-prepared to debates in the Swedish Parliament – even the ones that

Britain’s Poles go on strike tomorrow to protest the widespread anti-Polish xenophobia across the country, which is literally everywhere. There are about one million Polish people in Great Britain, and many sectors of the economy depend on them, so in theory they could hold the country to ransom by striking. But they wont, and this is the beauty of open orders. Firstly, they won’t because so many eastern Europeans work in areas where they have so few working rights. That’s why big business likes them, and why many working-class natives resent their arrival. So if your Polish worker goes on strike, you can just sack him and hire a Romanian

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/chinasdownturn-labourslostvotersandthesweetestvictoryagainstaustralia/media.mp3″ title=”Isabel Hardman and Rowenna Davis discuss Labour’s lost voters” startat=622] Listen [/audioplayer] The Labour leadership contest was supposed to be a debate about the party’s future. Instead it has oscillated between petty personality politics and bickering. Nobody is addressing the question of how to win back lost voters. The four candidates have barely mentioned the fact that Labour is not winning seats in the south of England, nor the huge challenge from Ukip in its heartlands in the north. Given that the party failed to win its majority in England, it is staggering that more attention hasn’t been paid to this at hustings and in speeches. The candidates

Ukip have been accused of being too politically correct. Yes, you did just read that sentence correctly. In a somewhat bizarre scenario, Nigel Farage’s former senior aide Raheem Kassam has taken issue with the phrasing of a new list of appointments in the party. After Ukip released a press release announcing new positions, including Mark Reckless’s appointment as the party’s Economic Spokesperson, Kassam — who ceased working for Ukip after the election because of in-fighting in the party — reacted online. Kassam’s issue wasn’t with the people hired — or even the press release — but instead the fact ‘spokesperson’ had been used on the accompanying graphics instead of ‘spokesman’. He claims that the gender