by Godfrey Bloom
Mercifully I am released from party politics no place for non conformists or those with serious conviction, I knew my days with UKIP were numbered when I heard the phrase ‘we cannot sell that on the doorstep’. This from a party which came to prominence by being different, a cavaliers ‘approach to political correctness, disdain for the metropolitan press elite. The party has now abandoned any pretence at libertarianism. Ask the leadership for a view on fractional reserve banking, hard currency, legal tender laws, regulation, central banks, QE, market interest rates etc. The response will be ‘Er kick out Johnny Foreigner. Drinks all round!’
James Delingpole correctly label UKIP as Liberal Democrats with a Eurosceptic bias. Last year I gave a lecture to the Institute of Economic Affairs predicting a lost opportunity in politics, I did not want to be proven right. Having said that they are streets ahead of the other lot who would like a political commissar in every parish.
A wonderful opportunity has arisen, though, freed from party political work to get on with more important matters. Not the least of which was completing Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. This provoked some research outside my usual sphere of economics and military history.
I also found time for a few holidays . On with the fell boots and away on creaky knees to the Welsh and Cumbrian mountains. From the peaks we could see that testimony to man’s folly offshore wind turbines, too many to count.
This came as a shock as we live in rural East Yorkshire, the scale overwhelmed us. There is no serious economic or scientific assessment which has not condemned this crony capitalistic scam, exposed by no less than the retired chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schroeder by this, whose country is so threatened by this ‘green’ absurdity.
But I wanted to dig deeper, none of this is new. Any horny handed son of the soil at my local pub is on to the wind scam, yet now they see landowners add to their monstrous single farm payment rent for pipelines to carry CO2 out to sea whilst their neighbours growing tomatoes and cucumbers buy machines to manufacture it to assist production. The local power station, Drax, burns wood chippings from Canada and local grass which takes thousands of acres out of food production. Old age pensioners struggle by on a pittance in the local towns and the greenies claim the moral high ground!
So where does Gibbon come into all this? Well I have been investigating the conversion of Constantine, the emergence of Jerome, St Augustine and Ambrose. These early Christians craved martyrdom, the equivalent of a second baptism, fully atoning for past sins, a gateway to paradise if you will.
Notwithstanding we now live, at least in the west, in a secular society martyrdom is obviously something some members of humankind need.
The paradox is the modern greenie is always well heeled. Mummy and daddy are often loaded so offspring Barnaby and Polly can sail around the world on the Greenpeace yacht with none of the angst they would feel on uncle Ted’s boat in the Med. Ironically this modern martyrdom is pain free to them, those who suffer are the poor who cannot afford electricity or food and have seen their jobs go to the Far East.
If you doubt me check “athletes of god.” Particularly the Stylites who lived in the Eastern Empire in the Fifth century: they lived on top of poles! There were Holy Fools who rejected normal social conventions and behaved as though they were insane. These ascetic ideals are difficult for most of us to understand as we live lives of quiet desperation under the iron heel of the state. But these people are today a strong political force albeit small in number. As ever their counter party the crony capitalist hovers like the Griffin Vulture ready to gorge on the carcass. Even the Holy Fool and his money are soon parted.
Godfrey Bloom served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber from 2004 to 2014
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The only MP I have heard talking about fractional reserve banking, or the monetary expansionism of the Bank of England, is Steve Baker.
Paul, I watched an interview of Bloom by the Telegraph’s Emma Barnett, and he tried to start talking about that- even mentioning the word “Austrian” but it went entirely over her head, and I have to admit that I didn’t watch the whole thing because I got so furious at watching this airhead conducting the interview that I stopped watching, rather than break the monitor.
Well Godfrey, UKIP is at least better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick: which is more than we can agree to say about the rest of the buggers.
Bloom is a sound Hoppean. In an interview on LBC once he referred to Democracy: The God that Failed and in the European Parliament he quoted Rothbard. Get this man into the ‘libertarian movement’. *He* is the British Ron Paul, not Farage.
Bloom is right.
Reading this and listening to the tripe coming out of the UKIP conference about a new (even) higher rate of VAT on “luxury” items (how exactly will these be defined?), the more I am beginning to think that the party is just sliding into a lazy anti-immigrant, anti-EU populism that may win it a few votes at the next election but in the long term will just lead off into the wilderness.
Perhaps it is time for freedom-minded people to cut their losses and move on.
Was just thinking along the same lines Peter. UKIP is just another movement striving for power. A recognition of the true nature of power and its influence on the subconscious is what is really needed if we are to move on as a species. I doubt if any virtue can come out of the political process; where the winners gain benefits at the cost of everyone else, and dedicated supporters are cast aside as soon as they cease to serve a useful function…
If Mr Dave is not as stupid as we have reason to believe him to be, he will bang on about justice for England, and give reason for us to believe him. Let his do this, and we can forget about UKIP until further notice.
It isn’t Farage’s job to be Ron Paul, and it isn’t UKIP’s job to be libertarian. Their only merit to libertarians is twofold- to damage the Tory Party, and to get us out of the EU. They don’t have a role other than that.
As yet, there is no role for a libertarian party in the UK. Politics is the last stage of a movement; you get a (major) political presence when you have created a sufficient mood in the population. Currently, British libertarianism could all fit inside one moderately sized pub, and still have room for a rock and roll band and a buffet. This might be because we are generally so busy arguing the fine detail of who will run the buses in Utopia that we never get around to saying what we’d do 5 years from now, rather than 500. Any movement that primarily consists of people whose answer to a practical policy question from one of the populi starts with, “Well, under anarcho-capitalism…” is doomed to marginalisation.
If we get boots on the ground, then we get a party. Parties don’t create constituencies. They represent them.
Damn. Bollocks. That second sentence should read, “the only merit to UKIP is twofold” not “to libertarians”. Sorry. Two nights ago I had a nightmare in which I was Ed Miliband’s wife. I’ve not been quite myself since.
Did he have a big cock and skidies on his knickers?
I fight a mostly unsuccessful war on this Blog against vulgarity of utterance. But I can at least ask you to desist.
You, David & Ian taught me everything I do. Monkey see, monkey do 😉
ARSEBOLLOCKS
Exactly.
If you had posting rights, you could edit your replies.
UKIP is a fraud…..Don’t worry Mr Bloom, you are far from alone. You are not only head and shoulders above them but amusing too in the best way a real Englishman should be! They are getting rid of any independent minds in the Membership. GLT for example, now a Bishop one is told whose writings and warnings over Islamification UKIP don’t like anymore the closer they get power. They loved them five years ago.
This is the kind of story that makes me seriously wonder about UKIPs direction:
http://order-order.com/2014/09/26/farage-confirms-ukip-is-turning-left/
At the same time, their original flat tax proposals have been quietly dropped and there has been much talk of throwing more money at white elephants like the NHS. It all rather seems to indicate that they are trying to outdo Labour in the north and the Conservatives in the south.
While this might pay some short term electoral dividends against LibLabCon, it looks much more like a fairly cynical manoeuvre than a serious strategy.
This kind of thing might work well enough for a protest party, but it will soon unravel if they ever get near to political power. It will also be interesting to see – I and say this more in sorrow than in anger – how Mr Carswell will defend the idea of this new “Super-VAT” in Clacton.
All things considered, the news from the purple party does not look good. Mr Bloom’s comments really just crystalise what a lot of people must have been thinking lately.
UKIP is a strange thing on the political scene, but I think that if it is heading a particular way that deviates from its origins, then that is sadly a part of the political process itself.
The way it works is that they have to cover as many bases and as many people as possible, which unfortunately tends to mean throwing all sorts of objectives and principles under the bus, the more so as it becomes ever closer to that ‘mainstream’ contender for Westminster and more ‘powerful’ as a voice in British politics.
When you have rumours of many Conservative ‘back benchers’ and so on looking into joining UKIP, when you have significant Conservatives actually defecting to UKIP, when they are putting forward measures to counter Labour in the north – and when they as a party are shmoosing up to the likes of Rupert Murdoch and the financial sector…… I think you can kiss any real “change” (of any significance) goodbye.
They are going to be increasingly staffed and backed by the same kinds of establishment figures, rhetoric, principles and back-room dealing with the usual suspects that really shape how the country and the wider world goes.
They have to do, it seems…..on that shady side of things to survive the shark infested waters, and on the other, to appeal to the ‘air-heads’ that were mentioned above in another reply.
I have thoroughly lost faith in the electoral process. I am coming to see it as a complete stitch up and somewhat of a sham. One that gives a legitimacy to a particular bubble of political breeds that end up rolling on with the general status of things regardless of what people may actually want or need.
At the moment, I wish UKIP well. I still think they are better than the others and I personally do not have a problem with them backing some more “socialist” concepts such as the NHS. But I do think that the more popular they seek to be, the more “catch all” they will have to become……and will end up a mirror or clone of the others in general.
This recent post by Dr North may be of interest:
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=85223
I tend to agree with his diagnosis; it is often very hard to discern what a UKIP government would look like, and what has been put forward so far does not look especially coherent.
To take things a little beyond Dr North’s analysis, one might also note that attempts to control immigration will have little success until the major pull factor – UK welfarism – is dealt with. But this would stop UKIP’s appeal to Labour voters in its tracks.
On the other hand, I don’t share North’s confidence in the Conservatives’ ability to take the UK out of the EU. Even +if+ a vote were to take place, and even +if+ there were to be a straightforward in-out choice, I think this month’s Scottish referendum provides a good demonstration of what would actually happen.
Glad to hear things are going well Godfrey. I have no doubt if you weren’t unceremoniously thrown out of UKIP you would have left by now anyway. A principled man in politics (or that was in politics), there are few like you.