Viewpoint: Now even Farage wants another referendum.

Okay, this is a genuine surprise, as I wasn't expecting this at all.

Nigel Farage wants a second EU/Brexit referendum.

Let me say that again.  Nigel Farage wants a second EU/Brexit referendum.

I never thought I'd see the day.

Admittedly he thinks that a second referendum would kill off the "remoaner" campaign to undermine Brexit, and certainly if a referendum happened, and it went 55-45 or greater in favour of Brexit, then certainly it would kill off any further campaign to remain, but the evidence at the moment suggests otherwise.

The most recent poll, done by ICM in December actually gives Remain a 3% lead, 46 to 43.  ORB International's Brexit tracker, puts disapproval of the Prime Minister's handling of Brexit at 63%.  Neither of these are great indicators that a second referendum would deliver what Nigel Farage is looking for.

Of course, he does have the radical extremist right wing press on his side, which he thinks can deliver him the vote he's looking for.  But the influence of the press continues to diminish and as their losses mount up, they try to get louder and louder to encourage people to take notice of them, which is in fact having the opposite effect.  Plus, campaigns like Stop Funding Hate are having an impact on these company's bottom lines, by persuading advertisers not to advertise with these brands that have decided to align themselves with hateful messages.

I'd actually quite like a second referendum to happen, but I don't expect it to.  Theresa May already bungled one major gamble with last year's general election, and I don't see her going for another big gamble in a second referendum, but I've been wrong before.

Quick Viewpoints: Tuesday 13th January 2015

A few quick thoughts from the Viewpoint OpsCentre…

Facebook are presenting warnings on the front of videos that contain violent imagery, making them the only videos that don’t autoplay.  Apart from having all videos not autoplay automatically, there should be a warning on videos that will actively reduce your IQ by a few points…

A bitcoin entrepreneur who renounced his US citizenship to avoid paying taxes, is now unable to re-enter the US, because he doesn’t have enough ties to his new home country of St Kitts & Nevis.  Tragic irony, or poetic justice?  You tell me…

Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions is to appeal the four-year sentence, with the last two years suspended, handed down to a Co Donegal man found guilty of dangerous driving causing the deaths of eight people.  I should think so too, that sentence is a travesty of a sham of a mockery.  Human life should not be so poorly valued.

Nigel Farage made another Fox News appearance to say there are no go areas for non-muslims in France, just days, after another pundit said Birmingham in England had no non-muslims.  Heck, he’s making more appearances on Fox News than he has cast votes in the European Parliament…

Strictly Politics: Reckless move sees backlash.

Yesterday, Mark Reckless was a Conservative MP for the constituency of Rochester & Strood.  Today, he’s the probable UKIP candidate for the seat, in a by-election that could be happening in November.

Just like his name, his move to join UKIP and resign as a Conservative MP, was Reckless.  There’s no guarantee that he will get re-elected.  In fact, based upon what happened earlier today in Rochester, Mark Reckless, might have committed a reckless move of political suicide, by joining UKIP.

Channel 4 News political correspondent Michael Crick, has written about what was supposed to be the former MP’s triumphant return to Rochester with Nigel Farage, and the fact that it turned into a roasting for Reckless, at the hands of a local Conservative constituency organisation that had revenge and vengeance on their minds.

Most of what Reckless heard were Conservative activists who were unsurprisingly disgusted at what he’d done, and gave him a piece of their minds, and there were a lot of those.  Mark Reckless, could well have defected himself out of a job, that he could have held onto for about 8 or 9 more months.

Michael also raises a good point about Labour here.  Should they run a campaign here or let Tories and UKIP fight it out between themselves?  To me, the answer is obvious.  Yes, they should run a campaign in Rochester & Strood and run it hard.  After all, until 2010, it had been a Labour seat.  Reckless may well pull a group of voters to UKIP with him, and hopefully, it will split the right wing vote enough for Labour, or some other party if Labour don’t feel up to it, to go in and potentially win the vote. The Green Party would be a good party to get behind right now, if they decide to submit a candidate.

There have been comparisons made with the final days of John Major’s government in the mid 1990s.  In some ways, this is worse, as the Referendum Party was at the time, an untried, untested movement in electoral terms.  UKIP are tried and tested, and have won some seats, mainly at the council level, but also in the European Parliament.  Some people are expecting UKIP to win at least a seat at the UK General Election next year.  I expect that UKIP won’t win a seat, but their very presence will probably mean the Conservatives will lose seats, mostly to Labour.

Overall, this weekend may have proved that political defections are fraught with danger and if you make a Reckless move, you may just end up paying the penalty.  You have to wonder who was the more reckless, Mark Reckless or Nigel Farage?

UKIP feeling the heat in Scotland

UKIP's Nigel Farage never met a controversy he didn't like.  In this case, it's being protested against in Edinburgh.  A number of protestors yesterday confronted him as he held a news conference in a pub, and he had to be locked in for his own protection. 

Now he is trying to put a brave face on it today, by saying that he'd been in worse places than that.  Yeah, right!  You felt scared for your life, so you got the police to bring a van so you could get away without facing the protestors again.  Because you knew in your heart, they had you pegged, to a T.

UKIP describe themselves as "...the UK’s third political party – and the only one now offering a radical alternative...".  Third political party?  Not true.  In terms of elected representatives, they have only 11 MEPs, 3 members of the House of Lords, 1 Assembly Member in Northern Ireland, and 201 councillors in Local Elections.  That's a lot lower than many parties, behind the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and even The Green Party. 

Yes, they may have made a major breakthrough in England, but outside of England, they have just 1 MEP, for Wales, and 1 Assembly Member in Northern Ireland, and even this was a defection.  Their only electoral success outside of England is the one MEP in Wales.  This gives the impression that they are somewhat of a band of 'little Engalders', as it were.

They're fighting hard to establish themselves as a mainstream party, even going so far as to ban former BNP Members from joining or standing as candidates, but this is mere smoke and mirrors.  The party's policies and actions in various situations have spoken far louder.

They proposed a 5 year freeze on immigration, and they wanted to initiate a drive to remove all illegal immigrants from the UK, something that in cost terms, is impractical.  They want to leave the European Union, withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, and the European Convention on Refugees.  They want cut corporation taxes and abolish inheritence taxes and national insurance.  UKIP lost a sex-discriminitation case when Nikki Sinclaire was expelled from UKIP.  Now you might say they lost because they mounted no defence, but to be honest, they must have known what they'd done was indefensible.  This is an extremist right wing party.

And whilst Nigel Farage might find it easy to accuse Scottish Nationalism of being extremists and being "akin to fascism", but it's clear to me, that he obviously has little understanding of Scottish politics and his view of the UK is obviously a view of England primarily and not of the other nations in the Union.

However, SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, got it wrong when he said the UKIP Leader had "lost the plot." as to be honest, UKIP and Nigel Farage never had the plot in the first place.  Farag'e accusations of a hate campaign as well are liudicrous.  If you think a small student demonstration constitutes a hate campaign, then you know nothing about politics.  UKIP has little credibility, and even less believeablity after this.

Nigel Farage might be trying to make UKIP seem more electable, but nobody should be fooled by extremism dressed up in a suit.  And their audience outside England, might be extremely limited indeed.