[lit-ideas] Farange, Titford, Nattrass, Bloom and Sluts
- From: David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 25 May 2014 20:55:49 -0700
I don't know what to say about the resurgence of the right in European
parliamentary elections, but having today mentioned reading a history of the
far right I feel the urge to post some background to this evening's results.
Here's info on UKIP. While there's no clear connection to literature or ideas,
perhaps members of the list may be interested? I promise not to make a habit
of this.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
The Guardian:
In a stunning warning to the established political parties, Ukip was on course
to win as much as 28% of the national poll. That is a near doubling of the
16.5% it secured in the last European elections in 2009, when it came second to
the Tories with 13 seats.
Twenty years ago, in its first European election, Ukip managed 1% of the vote.
The Liberal Democrats suffered a near-total wipeout losing all but one of its
11 MEPs and placing serious pressure on Nick Clegg to justify his leadership of
his party as its share of the national vote was 7 %.
Labour was predicting that when all the final results are assembled it will
have polled 25.7% and the Tories 24.5%, but Labour was dependent on a very
strong showing in the capital against the Conservatives to ensure it pushed the
governing party into third place. The Green party will have come fourth.
Wikipedia [edited for brevity] on UKIP:
Nigel Farage is the leader of UKIP after being re-elected on 5 November 2010.
Early leaders were Jeffrey Titford and Michael Holmes. In 2002, Titford stood
down as party leader, but continued to sit as a UKIP MEP. He was replaced as
leader by Roger Knapman. In late 2004, the mainstream UK press speculated on
if or when the UKIP MEP, former Labour Party MP and chat-show host Robert
Kilroy-Silkwould take control of the party. After further disagreement with
the leadership, Kilroy-Silk resigned the UKIP whip in the European Parliament
on 27 October 2004.[26] Initially, he remained a member, while seeking a bid
for the party leadership. However, this was not successful and he resigned
completely from UKIP on 20 January 2005, calling it a "joke".[27] Two weeks
later, he founded his own party, Veritas, taking a number of UKIP members,
including both of the London Assembly members, with him.[28] In the 2005
general election, UKIP fielded 495 candidates and gained 618,000 votes, or 2.3%
of the total votes cast in the election, and did not win a seat in the House of
Commons. This result placed it fourth in terms of votes cast nationally.[29]
Its best performance was in Boston & Skegness, where Richard Horsnell came
third with 9.6% of the vote.[30] In April 2006 David Cameron, during a
phone-in on London's LBC radio station, described UKIP members as being
"fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly."[31] Farage asked for an
apology. but Cameron did not back down.[32] On 12 September 2006, Farage was
elected leader of UKIP with 45% of the vote, 20% ahead of his nearest rival.
In September 2009, Nigel Farage announced that he would be resigning as leader
of the party in order to stand for Parliament against the Speaker, John
Bercow.[36] The leadership election was contested by five candidates - Malcolm
Pearson, Gerard Batten, Nikki Sinclaire, Mike Nattrass and Alan Wood - and was
won by Malcolm Pearson with just under half of the 9900 votes cast [37] During
the party's conference in 2013 the whip was suspended from Godfrey Bloom, after
he was reported to have made sexist comments. According to Farage, on 24
January 2014, the UKIP general election manifesto in 2010 was "drivel" and
"nonsense". He said he had never read it (despite having written the foreword
and having helped to launch it). He said that the manifesto was written by
UKIP's then policy chief, David Campbell Bannerman, and that "the idiot that
wrote it has now left us and joined the Conservatives". The party is working on
new policies which will be unveiled by the end of 2014, he said.[7On Any
Questions, Nigel Farage described plans to increase the use of wind energy as
"loopy" and said it would lead to Britain being covered "in ugly disgusting
ghastly windmills" that would not satisfactorily provide for Britain's energy
needs.[124]
Then UKIP spokesman Christopher Monckton said that the intention of a proposed
United Nations climate treaty was to "impose a communist world
government",[124] and stated that UKIP was the only option for those who
disbelieve in climate change as "all the major parties have decided to sign up
to the eco-fascist agenda".[123]
In March 2010, the UKIP MEP Nikki Sinclaire was expelled from UKIP after
resigning from the EFD grouping, citing her displeasure at what she perceived
to be racist and extremist parties that belong to the EFD Group. Sinclaire also
cited the deterioration of her relationship with Farage, the co-leader of the
EFD group.[145] Sinclaire was subsequently expelled from UKIP for refusing to
be part of the EFD group.[145] She later won a sex discrimination claim against
her former colleagues, to which UKIP did not lodge a defence, and the ruling
went against the party by default.[146]
Mike Nattrass failed a candidate assessment test in August 2013 and was
deselected by the party for the 2014 European election.[147] He took the party
to court over the decision, but lost. In September 2013 Nattrass resigned from
UKIP, becoming an Independent MEP in the process. Natrass described Farage's
leadership of the party as "totalitarian", following his earlier
deselection.[148] He was the fourth UKIP MEP elected in 2009 to leave the party.
Godfrey Bloom whilst sitting as a UKIP MEP, and a senior party member made
statements that have been described as "sexist". A few weeks after being
appointed to the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender
Equality on 20 July 2004, Bloom told an interviewer that, "no self-respecting
small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of
child-bearing age."[149] After inviting students from the University of
Cambridge Women's Rugby Club to Brussels in 2004, Bloom was accused of sexual
assault, making "sexist and misogynistic remarks" and using offensive language
during a dinner party. Bloom, who sponsored the club with £3,000 a year,
admitted making misogynist comments but denied sexual harassment.[150][151] On
20 September 2013, UKIP withdrew the party whip from Bloom after he assaulted
journalistMichael Crick in the street, threatened a second reporter, and at the
party's conference jokingly referred to his female audience as sluts.[152]
Bloom sits as an independent MEP, but remains a member of UKIP.[153]
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