Migration Watch has just reported that the vast bulk of net immigration into this country has come from outside the EU, so why the huge emphasis on leaving the EU as a cure for the immigration problem in UKIP’s latest video on the subject?

Angela Simmonds

I feel it is doubly unfortunate that the voice-over in UKIP’s latest video on immigration was scripted to say in the closing remarks that the first thing to do is to leave the EU. Nobody in the country believes this is an imminent possibility and so the DVD is only helping to spread a mood of helpless resignation to the swamping of the British people by foreigners.

As it is, the coalition is claiming the credit for restricting the flow of some classes of non-EU immigrant, which will help a little, but won’t touch the flow from Africa and the Indian subcontinent (containing together about 2.5 billion people) due to marriages, other “family reasons”, and the continued flow of asylum cases let in by the judges.

UKIP has a policy on which many of us fought the last General Election and this is for a complete halt to all immigration for settlement for 5 years while the country has the chance to formulate a population policy and deal with the huge backlog of illegals. We aways made it clear that pending our leaving the EU, this halt would apply where we could apply it, i.e. to non EU immigrants, which are now revealed to be 80% of all immigrants to the UK.

It is key to UKIP getting acceptance as a major force in British politics that it pushes in the direction of policies it believes in, even if, because of EU membership, it can’t get the whole loaf.

Another current example is this:

Removing the UK from the European Convention is entirely do-able without leaving the EU, despite the myth being propagated in some legal circles that the Lisbon Treaty forbids it. (In fact the Treaty does not touch any aspects of the UK’s administration of justice under the protocol 30 opt-outs.) UKIP should put its weight behind leaving the ECHR, which would be hugely popular in the country. Even if in the short term Cameron bodges some fudge to keep us in, UKIP will get the credit and exposure for advocating the move, and create a reputation for standing up for the British people, which will help even in council elections.

How did the Government bail out the banks – did they take shares in them or was it by some other means?

David Staff

1          In the case of Northern Rock, the Government just nationalised the Bank’s assets (buildings mainly and some value in its “toxic assets) and assumed its liabilities (to retail depositors repaid or guaranteed in full, and probably most wholesale creditors).  The shareholders were wiped out – no compensation so far as I know since liabilities exceeded assets by a large margin.

2          In the case of HBOS/Lloyds, the exact details are not totally clear (to me) because the rescues of both banks were complicated by the fact that Lloyds was taking over HBOS in the critical week from 1^st October 2008.

3          Under pressure from its shareholders Lloyds revised its offer for HBOS during the takeover from 0.75:1 to 0.61 Lloyds share : 1 HBOS share .  The exact terms of the Government’s cash injection are therefore difficult to determine since the shares of both banks were zooming down in the days leading up to the announcement of the Government action on 8/9 October 2008.  Nobody outside the special unit in the Treasury seems to know the exact prices on which the Government acquired HBOS and Lloyds shares.

4          My best estimate is that HBOS issued about 17 billion new shares to the Government at around 65 pence each (making an injection of £11.5 billion) and injected into Lloyds about £5.5 billion at a price of around 1.05 per share, meaning Lloyds issued about 5 billion new shares to the Government.  After converting HBOS to Lloyds at 1 to 0.61, this left the Government with about 15 billion of Lloyds shares.  Former HBOS shareholders (of whom I was one) held about 12 billion Lloyds shares after conversion.  Original Lloyds shareholders seem to have held about 6 billion so that total Lloyds shares in issue after the Government bailout and after the HBOS/Lloyds merger were thus 33 billion, of which the Government’s share was 15/33 or 45%.

5          As a result of two rights issues in 2009 of 0.6:1 and 1.34:1 at 38 and 37 pence respectively, the Lloyds shares in issue now total about 68 billion.  This indicates that the Government did not take up its rights (this may have been part of the original deal) so that it now holds around a quarter of the Lloyds current market value (£49 billion) but is still showing a loss of about £5 billion on its original cash injections.  If and when Lloyds share price reaches about 110 pence (now 72 pence) the Government will reach breakeven on its original 8^th October 2008 injections to Lloyds and HBOS.

6          The RBS story is similar I suspect, without the complexity of two banks merging at the time of the crisis.  The Government’s share of the RBS stock was about 83%, even higher than it was in HBOS above and it will still be this proportion if there have been no RBS rights issues since.

Therese Coffey (Conservative) 25,475

Daisy Cooper (LibDem) 16,347

Adam Leeder (Labour) 8,812

Stephen Bush (UKIP) 3,156

Rachel Fulcher (Green) 1,103

The UKIP vote was 5.7% of the total vote, comfortably exceeding the 5% threshold to save the candidate’s deposit.  This was an increase of over 50% in vote share and actual votes compared with the 2005 General Election.

In the country as a whole in 2010 (2005 figures in brackets) UKIP:

• fought 560 seats (498)
• saved 101 deposits (36)
• obtained 917,000 votes (603,000)
• scored 1637 votes per seat (1211)

Professor Bush would like to thank all those who voted for him and the five policies which UKIP stood for in the election, viz:

• A permanent end to mass immigration
• A long-term programme for rebuilding our manufacturing industry
• Withdrawing Britain from the undemocratic European Union
• Recovery of our fishing grounds and industry
• An urgent start on building a secure nuclear-based future for our energy supplies.
• Opposition to mass house building projects in Felixstowe and Martlesham
• Giving parish councils the final say in all housing planning issues
• Replacement of Natural England’s and DEFRA’s policy of “managed” retreat of our coastline by a national long-term programme of river flood and coastal erosion defences, adequately financing local initiatives and building them into the overall design for Britain’s coasts.

Stephen would like to thank all those who worked for the campaign’s success, including those who displayed posters in their windows or on boards, and most particularly his Campaign Manager, Gillian Bush, June Larter (Secretary and Treasurer of Suffolk Coastal UKIP branch), Ann Downing (his Agent), Ron Whitmore (UKIP branch Chairman for Suffolk Coastal), Barbara Shout in Felixstowe, Colin Hodson in Martlesham and Clive Boot in the Woodbridge area.

Thanks are also due to the organisers of the 7 hustings, which I as the UKIP candidate was invited to take part in with the other four candidates: St John’s Church, Woodbridge, United Reform Church, Halesworth, Church of St Peter and St Paul, Aldeburgh, St Edmund’s Hall, Southwold, Ben Greatorex, Woodbridge School, Market Hall, Saxmundham, St Felix School, Southwold.  Also the visit to the mock election at Saxmundham Middle School (Kevin Minton) where my alter ego, Leanne Wallace, was standing as the UKIP candidate, was very much appreciated.

The Exclusion of UKIP and the Green Party from the hustings arranged by St John’s church in Felixstowe was a regrettable breach of the democratic process, but was more than made up by the interest generated in our stalls outside the Owl and Pussycat and on Felixstowe’s promenade in the days just before the election. 

Of particular note from the media was the courteous and fair-minded intereview conducted by Trevor Lockwood of Felixstowe Radio and the interview by Felixstowe TV.

Thank you again to all those who voted for me and helped in the campaign.

UKIP’s main four policies which have direct relevance to East Anglia and Suffolk Coastal in particular are:

(1)  to provide 50 GW of nuclear power electricity to replace the imminent loss of North Sea oil as Britain’s national energy mainstay by 2050.  This would reduce CO2 emissions by 40%, the biggest single reduction that any party is showing how actually to achieve.

A “quick-as-possible” start on Sizewell C is the subject of a petition which we have been running on our street stalls for several weeks.  Work on the road “system” between the A12 and the Leiston area, and on the A12 itself is an integral part of UKIP’s vision for the new power station (see the Q&A section on this website for answers to people’s queries on fuel reprocessing and waste disposal).

(2)  For UKIP’s plan to adopt a 30 year £1.5 billion p.a. programme for national flood and coastal defences [one of our 5 Long Term Programmes (LTPs)] see the Manifesto, Section 2 – Jobs, Enterprise and Skills.

A National Rivers and Coastal Agency (NRCA) would be established to take responsibilities for this away from the Environment Agency, DEFRA and Natural England, which latter quango would be abolished.  The NRCA would concentrate on building comprehensive, properly engineered and managed defences agains major inland river flood risks and severe coastal erosion as on the East Anglian coasts, parts of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, Sussex and Kent.

It would aim to build on local initiatives such as those in Suffolk Coastal at Southwold, the coast to the North of there, Felixstowe, Aldeburgh and Ore and along the Suffolk and Norfolk coastline.  NRCA would have the funds to establish comprehensive coast models to see that all initiatives, both existing and new would not shift a problem from place to place.  Offshore dredging operations and access channels for shipping would come within its remit, as would helping to establish local supply chains to carry out the work involved.

(3)  Excessive wind generated electricity subsidies will be reduced to a common level applicable to all non-fossil fuel sources of electricity, and UKIP will ensure that farms with more than 5 turbines are built offshore to protect our landscape and villages from massive visual intrusion and noise.

(4)  Wildlife conservation.

(See Q&A to Suffolk Wildlife Trust on this website for our policies on the countryside, marine protection and land management generally.)

As the LibDems are the beneficiaries of the “performance” of their leader in these debates, it will repay every voter to look at their policies carefully, particularly on immigration and defence, which has not so far figured very much in the election.

On immigration the LibDems want to give an amnesty to unknown numbers of illegal immigrants, which the Home Office estimates place anywhere between 600,000 and one million.  Given the history of systematic underestimation of immigration, the figure is more likely to be a million or even more.

Given that current policy allows each granted asylum seeker the right to bring in at least one claimed dependant, Clegg’s policy, which he apparently defended yesterday, May 3rd, as a courageous act of equity to (yes you have guessed it) asylum seekers who have all been at the mercy of evil people smugglers, will end up by doubling or tripling this figure.

Hasn’t Clegg ever gone to Calais and spoken to the French authorities there or even our own Home Office?  Talk of a few dozen people smugglers is throwing dust in the eyes of the British people.  You have to ask why do LibDems and their allies have such a regard for immigrants that they want another two million or more of them in our country on top of the current annual flow of 500,000?  England, where overwhelmingly they settle is already the most densely crowded country in the industrial world – more than Japan and the Netherlands.

On defence, the LibDem policy of throwing doubt on the continuance of the Trident deterrent beyond its current replacement date of 2020-24 will simply increase pressure on Britain to give up its permanent United Nations Security Council seat, a seat we have held since we, the USA and the former Soviet Union co-founded the United Nations in 1945.

In fact Clegg is personally committed to handing over our seat to the EU, which with his nuclear policy would leave France as the only credible independent country in Europe.

One or two former political figures like David Owen, who helped found the LibDems, and who have close contacts now with them, have advanced the idea that the nuclear deterrent could be carried more cheaply by cruise missiles.  Unlike the Trident ballistic missiles whose route to target is set in the submarine in a vertical parabola, which cannot be interfered with after launch, cruise missiles are basically horizontal in flight, continuously corrected by the guidance they carry with them and therefore continuously exposed to electronic jamming and redirection.  This is all apart from the colossal systems of communications, research, maintenance, dock systems at Faslane and Devonport which would have to be built from scratch for the new cruise missile submarines, but which are already built for Trident systems and their replacedments.  But then these “details” are of no concern to politicians, acting out roles on the national stage or, in Owen’s case, trying to stage a comeback.

So vote LibDem with its European obsessions added to its defence illusions, UN Security Council Seat surrender and policy of uncontrolled immigration and you will end up with Britain ceasing to be an independent, self-governing country in any sense at all.

Your leaflets describe a 50% expansion in manufacturing. How do you intend to achieve this?

Jack Harris

Can you publish the detailed estimates of the way to eliminate the £170 Billion deficit according to UKIP’s policies?

James May

How has this deficit come about?

In 2009/10 the government estimates it will receive from taxes £490 billions.

It estimates it will have spent around £660 billions (of which £330 billion on wage and agency costs).                  

Therefore the Deficit 2009/10 is £170 billions.

National Debt

At 30 April 2009 this was around £600 billions.

For 2009/10 add £170 billions

Therefore the Estimate of National Debt at 30 April 2010 is £770 billions                                    

Starting point for deficit elimination

1          Public sector wage costs (i.e. wages themselves, employers’ pension contributions, employers’ national insurance) are around £330 billion.

2          Public sector wages are around 5% higher than the private sector on average.

3          Public sector employer pension contributions are typically 14-18% of salaries.  Private sector employer pension contributions are typically 4-6% of salary, say an average of 5%.

4          Number of employees in the public sector:

            in 2001 7 million

            in 2007 8 million.

5          Unemployment in April 2010      2.5 million

            Unemployment in April 2007      1.6 million

Over 3 years the increase is around 900,000 (entirely in the private sector where employment among British workers has fallen over 10 years by 200,000).

Many private sector workers have opted for wage cuts and/or 4 or even 3 day working weeks to keep their jobs and firms going.

UKIP’s View

6          The public sector is just too heavy a burden for the private sector to bear.

7          This burden must be reduced in the interest of both economic necessity and equity between the public and private sectors.  Nothing else will match the scale of the problem.

8          UKIP therefore proposes no tax rises but expenditure reductions by the public sector (which is paid for by taxes on the private sector and on individuals as taxpayers):

Annual Expenditure Reductions by 2015

(These do not affect services delivered to the public, but merely restore productivity to where it was in 2007.)  Figures are constant £s per year.

(i)         Reduce top public sector salaries by 2% per annum for 5 years and medium salaries by 1% p.a. for 5 years. Low salaries will not be reduced. This will save £16 billion per annum by 2015. 

(ii)        Reduce public sector employers’ annual contributions to employees’ pensions to the average in the private sector over 5 years.  This will save £33 billion.  No changes will be made to pensions already being paid.

(iii)       Reduce public sector employee numbers to 2001 levels by natural wastage (2.5% per annum).  This will save £33 billion.

(iv)       Capital cost savings of 2% give £6 billion per year by 2015.

Total annual labour & capital cost savings by 2015 £88 bn

(iv)       Benefits to be paid only to UK citizens over 21 and residents who have paid rates and taxes for 5 years.  This will save £5 bn.

(v)        Consolidate housing and other benefits into a single cash benefit, saving £10 bn p.a.  No pensioners’ benefits to change.

(vi)       Stop the UK’s annual subscription to the EU.  This will save £10 billion a year by 2015.

(vii)      Abolish most Quangos and all Regional Assemblies, reduce admin overheads due to simpler tax and benefits system (£5 bn).

Total repeat annual savings by 2015 will be £118 billion.

(viii)      One off savings: ID cards £10 billion, NHS database £5 billion.

Total annual savings by 2015                    £118 billion (A)

Plus one-off savings 2010-12                       £15 billion

B       Increasing Income by 2015

(i)         UKIP’s Manufacturing expansion programme (see Jobs & Economy leaflet) will add around £80 billion of output on which taxes paid will give £27 billion.  The increased private sector (about half a million) will absorb employees released from the public sector of around the same number.

(ii)        There will be some general expansion in the economy of about 10% over 5 years (some generated indirectly by (i) above) giving around £140 billion on which taxes paid will give £49 billion

Increased real terms income p.a. to government £76 bn (B)

(C) Cost of UKIP’s long-term programmes p.a. £20 bn

(These are defence equipment, energy, flood and coastal protection, transport, manufacturing expansion.) 

Net reduction in annual deficit by 2015: A+B-C = £174 bn

Surplus by 2015 is £174 bn less £170 bn = £4 billion

Estimated Total National Debt by 2015

At April 2010 it is £770 billions

Increase 2010 to 2015 is £420 billions

Therefore total National Debt by 2015 is £1190 billion

(This is much lower than any of LibLabCon’s projections (£1,400-1,600 bn) just for halving the deficit!) 

UKIP’s policy on waste is, as in all things we do, based on efficient and prudential use of resources. 

As always we start from the facts.  For any artefact there are four possible outcomes (Table 1): (1) recycle, (2) convert to energy/electricity, (3) incinerate to atmosphere,(4) disposal in landfill. 

1          RECYCLING:

We follow the 3 R’s precept to:

(i)  reduce                   primary use where possible by good design (e.g. of packaging)

(ii)  reuse                    either directly (non-food only) or by simple  adaptation (e.g. pipework)

(iii)  reprocess            plastics can often be compacted, melted and formed into other lower grade uses such as fencing and board without costly energy intensive cleaning.

Having said this, there will always be an irreducible minimum where other means of disposal are required.  The three remaining options are:

2          Energy from waste (principally incineration or bio-digestion into space heating)

3          Incineration to atmosphere

4          Landfill

In line with our fundamental efficient and prudential principle, UKIP strongly favours option 2.  Here as in so many matters of production and conservation Switzerland sets the bench-mark for the rest of the world.  Referring to household waste (around 460 kg per person in the UK) some international comparisons for 2002 (latest available) are:

Table 1: Waste disposal by countries and type of disposal

As can be seen the UK is enormously behind in making some use of waste – behind even the USA with 60 times the area of England.  This is the consequence of 50 years of gross mismanagement and neglect by the Labour and Conservative governments.

Our policy is to promote by all possible means, using our Production Enterprise Centres, but not confined to them:

(a)        redesign-for-reuse products [options 1(i) and also 1(ii) and 1(iii)]

(b)        direct-from-householder-to-user collection systems (options for 2 and 3)

(c)        compaction systems for plastics, paper and board to provide fuel brickets for electric generators and local heating systems (option 2), including dual fuel systems for remote localities.       

Question 1
What will you be able to do to help:
a) the maintenance of the sea defences of the area;
b) the number of oil tankers sitting just off shore;
c) the viability of Southwold as a community – the preservation of its character, the issues of affordable housing, transport, policing and medical care?

Question 2
What do you feel is the solution to the concern that there is a lack of control over, or proper consultation about, the big decisions being made that affect the town directly?

Question 3
Are you in favour of the reintroduction of sea eagles – yes or no?

Question 4
What is the unique selling point of your party for this area?

Question 5
How do you intend to fill the shoes of John Gummer?

Dominic Knight of the “Southwold Organ”

Prof says . . .

Question 1

a) Sea Defences

East Coast Erosion

UKIP is committed to five long-term infra-structure programmes, one of which is our £30 billion, 20 year, programme for comprehensive river flood prevention and coastal defences for the south and east coasts of England.  This will of course include the provision of permanent sea defences in the Southwold area (see UKIP Manifesto section 2: Jobs, Enterprise and the Economy, and section 11 on Energy and the Environment).

b) Oil Tankers

The very large number of tankers anchored off the Southwold coast are there because the Labour government has specifically designated this as the one place in UK waters where ship to ship oil transfers can take place.  As an example, out of 54 tankers anchored off the British coast, 30 were anchored off Southwold on 18th February this year.

A junior Labour minister has announced that legislation would be “laid before Parliament as early as May”, but that is now impossible.

There is both a pollution threat to our beaches from oil spillages and worse, a combined terrorist-pollution threat.

As your MP I would not be content with the slow process of UK legislation, but require tankers to move on, using our influence in the International Maritime Organisation, which is headquartered in London and which has within its ambit two agencies: the Marine Environmental Protection Centre and the International Sea Safety Management Organisation.  Both of these organisations are actively aware of the pollution and terrorism threats and have great influence on sea users and governments.  They should be lobbied hard.

c) Viability of Southwold

The future of Southwold and neighbouring Reydon will be strongly affected by (i) its age structure (14% under 19; 44% over 60 and 14% over 80 – 2007 mid year estimates from the National Statistical Office) and (ii) the relatively high proportion of second homes which are not occupied full-time.

It is doubtful if any community with this age structure is viable long-term because the small number of children (234 or 6% under 9) will lead inevitably to a sharp decrease in the locally born population in 20 years or so ahead.

The high proportion of second homes, combined with the decrease in the locally-born popuation makes it unlikely that the essential character of Southwold will be maintained beyond this 20 year period without a specific remedy.

The remedy lies in the establishment of new business in keeping with the town’s history.  This can only come from re-introduction of the fishing industry and the repair and maintenance which goes with that.  Such a change would attrace a new, younger element to the town on a considerable scale, which would be under the control of local people.

To re-establish the fishing industry along the Suffolk coast – and indeed all along Britain’s coast, Britain will have to withdraw from the EU Common Fisheries Policy, reassert its sovereignty over our part of the Continental Shelf (broadly the median lines between Britain, Norway and the Continental EU), decide its own fishing policy in the light of sensible fish stocks conservation and the needs of our fishermen.

UKIP’s policy, as is well-known, is to withdraw from the European Union, with all that will mean to our former fishing communities along our coasts.

UKIP espouses two other policies with direct bearing on Southwold and indeed on Suffolk Coastal generally:

(i)     UKIP favours final planning decisions to be made at the level of those directly affected, unless there is a clear-cut national interest involved.  This would mean parishes would have the final word on housing for instance – and this would apply to the extend and nature of affordable housing.

Coastal protection

(ii)     As mentioned in 1(a) UKIP has a 20 year £30 billion programme for coastal protection and river flood defences (see UKIP Manifesto section 2).  Responsibility for coastal protection and river defences would be removed from Natural England and the Environment Agency and vested in a National Rivers and Coasts Protection Agency (NRCPA) responsible to the people of the affected areas.  With the stated resources, it would be able to design and finance sound schemes of protection along our coasts, including those at Blyth estuary.  The NRCPA would also have the resources and remit for sensitive developments for recreation areas such as lagoons, wildlife reserves, as well as farming, should the local people favour these.  This would have the potential to increase the long-term viability of Southwold and Reydon.

With major new income streams and a younger tax-paying population, Southwold would be well-placed to afford the transport, policing and medical care which its people will need.

Question 2

Lack of Control over Big Decisions

Our policy of putting the final decision on local planning in the hands of the parishes, and if necessary to local referendums, will replace entirely the unsatisfactory and undemocratic “consultation” processes we now have – as described in Question 1(c) for example.

Question 3

Sea Eagles

No, I am not in favour of their introduction into Suffolk Coastal.

I regard the proposal by Natural England as a costly gimmick to, in their own words “lead a high-profile flagship species project that will highlight the organisation”.

Question 4

Unique selling point of UKIP

UKIP’s unique selling point is its policy of withdrawing Britain from the European Union.  The benefits for Southwold and surroundings are:

(i)     re-establishment of our off-shore fishing industry

(ii)    recovery of £12,000 million in annual gross payments to the EU, a substantial portion of which will go into the fishing industry and the coastal protection programme as described in answer 1(c).

Question 5

Shoes of John Gummer

As an MP I will:

(i)     Help any individual constituent that I usefully can;

(ii)    Oppose mass housing schemes in Felixstowe and Martlesham, derived as they are from assumptions about continued mass immigration, which UKIP is adamantly opposed to.

(iii)  Press for local people to have the final word on planning in their parishes.

(iv)  Focus on promoting new job-bringing enterprises to the constituency as described for Southwold above, and by the use of new Production Enterprise Centres foster the expansion and development of existing small businesses.

(v)  I will be a constant, articulate advocate of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU which will enable the recovery of our fishing and our release from the EU’s Labour rules.  Among other things these (a) have stopped our applying the same tests of capability to E doctors that we apply to doctors from the rest of the world and (b) by the inflexible 48 hour working time directive caused real problems in the staffing of our hospitals.  In addition the landfill directive is having the effect of spreading industrial waste on to productive agricultural land.

(vi)  Press for the responsiblity for the out-of-hours service to be returned directly to the GPs.

(vii) Press for a post-bus type service on the Swiss model, combining mail collection and delivery services, transport of people and domestic pets, which will also help maintain post offices in rural areas.

My wife and I are concerned about the disposal of nuclear waste. In the event of more nuclear power stations in the UK, are we going to leave our descendants with a mountain of waste? What are the French doing about this problem?

Alfred Farnell