In answer to a query I received recently asking if UKIP is publicising its self enough in North Wales I was prompted to reply at length. Below is an edit of my response which I’d like the wider public to share.
“I would say that UKIP in Wales has a stronger voice now than ever before, particularly with John Bufton taking up his role as MEP, with Adam Brown who is the first non-Labour councillor ever to be elected to represent the uncompromising Gurnos estate in Merthyr and Neil Greer, councillor for Penydarren ward, Merthyr joining UKIP. In addition, more locally, Colwyn Bay UKIP’s Janet Griffiths and Jennifer Geddes recently became councillors, and again in the Colwyn Bay, Mold and Llandudno areas, UKIP members have recently been actively campaigning in the towns and offering leaflets to passers by. As our membership grows, (and we are seeing a month on month increase of new members joining the UKIP North Wales branch for sure) our organisation and strength is also growing. With each new member comes another helper in publicising the party.
I attended the National party conference in Southport and saw first hand the efforts that are being made to bring in new prospective parliamentary candidates across Wales and the training being proposed to maximise the party’s presence, and I witnessed the forward planning which will form the basis of the general election campaign, and the planning behind proposed forthcoming publicity efforts in Wales.
To be fair, Gordon Brown only appears to have fired the starting gun of the general election campaign a couple of days ago, and yet UKIP North Wales members have been out on the streets campaigning since before the European Elections and in the months that followed, and right up to the present day, rain or shine. I stood on the street corner in Mold myself only recently with local UKIP party campaigners who were handing out leaflets and having some very interesting and encouraging conversations with the electorate, but there were only so many of us, and it is true to say that we’ve had a reluctant media coverage both locally and nationally until recently.
Our warnings about the dangers of the EU, our loss of sovereignty, our elected officials becomming virtualy powerless with 75% of British laws now being made by Brussels, the hollowing out of our Parliament and so much more, are only now starting to sink in with many, especially as they can now see and feel it all starting to take effect. With the British news media finally starting to reveal the shocking truths about the EU to the wider British public particularly, this is all helping to boost the membership of UKIP, and helping to add deserved credibility to the message our party has always been trying to get across. We must withdraw for membership of the EU.
Another issue that has helped our profile is that we’re managing to shake off the age old misconception that UKIP is somehow in cahoots with the BNP. I think people are now beginning to realise that UKIP has nothing what so ever to do with the BNP, nor will it, and that our policies on such things as immigration are much more considered, acceptable and indeed fair, being born out of common sense rather than reactionary and down right racism. Once people we have spoken to realise that we are most definately not associated with the BNP, they warm to us much more, and even start to tell us what’s on their mind, which is important. The message we are getting is that the electorate is fed up with the present political situation in Wales and most definately fed up of the ‘traditional’ Labour entrenchment.
Since people no longer view UKIP as kranks or one off’s, which is brought about largely because we have consistently done well in elections and have in fact raised our profile somewhat through those successes, more people are taking us seriously and realising that UKIP is the only party who are truly fighting Britain’s corner for our independence, way of life and culture. The rest are either quietly flogging our country off, or paying lip service to not selling our country down the river, but doing so in such a way that the country has been given away to the EU anyway, regardless of their apparent heroic rhetoric.
There are also those who are “disenchanted Labour voters and Conservative in-fighters who have left a void ready to be filled”. The voters have indeed had enough. The members of UKIP North Wales are hearing this from the electorate at every public campaign we make, and I just hope that, on election day, the voters will remember all this when it comes to endorsing a political party on the voting paper.
But most of all I think that the upturn in the number of people that I’ve seen asking to join UKIP locally is because they are finally starting to realise the skullduggery that has been going in their name by our career politicians, selling Britain down the river to the EU behind our backs, in some cases to feather their own political futures. The people of North Wales are now feeling the effects of the betrayal that we were promised a referendum but then denied one. The local voters have seen through David Cameron , who’s promise to have a referendum we now know to have been a folly because the Lisbon Treaty having being signed, and legally binding, means that any such referendum ‘after the horse has bolted’ would have no standing whatsoever. It’s also because our national (and some local) news media, at last is starting to bring home the truth about the EU, the dreadful Lisbon Treaty, and the un elected bullying European Commission, and exposing some of the dangerous new EU Directives being tabled.
From my own point of view, £45 million pounds a day of our money is an awful lot to be handing over to the EU at a time when our own counties and local councils so desperately need funding. I wonder at the logic of it all, and I despair with each community support organisation in Wales that closes or gets its funding cut, with each school that cries out desperately for cash, with each piece of our community infrastructure that is dismantled and scrapped due to lack of money and with every new stealth tax that is imposed upon us. Lord help us in Wales when the EU its self starts raising British taxes and contributions, as is currently being proposed, and please, don’t get me started on the what might happen to the Welsh and British flags and to our National Anthems once the new EU president is chosen. You’ll note that I said ‘chosen’, and not ‘elected’.
I’m certain, with the available local resources and local fund raising efforts permitting, you should be getting a leaflet through your door soon from us at UKIP North Wales, and if you don’t, tell us where you are and we’lll make certain that you and your surrounding neighbours get one.
In the meantime you can always view our websites at http://www.ukipnorthwales.org , http://www.ukipwales.org where you will find a growing list of profiles for the latest prospective parliamentary candidates and don’t forget http://www.johnbufton.eu all of which are fairly new websites, and another mark of proof perhaps that we have been emerging from the shadows in the area and that we are starting to make our mark on the political landscape in Wales.
Of course there’s room for improvement, and you can be sure we’re doing everything we can to increase our relevance and position in the hearts and minds of the electorate, but I would impress that any assistance that the public can offer us to help get our message across would be most appreciated, and they should contact us right away. We have a contact form online, and full local contact details at http://www.ukipnorthwales.org/contact-us/ . For the latest news of prospective parliamentary candidates and consituencies, see our website at http://www.ukipwales.org . We’re adding to the list often as more people come forward to represent UKIP.
Roy Norry
UKIP Wales