The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Standing Up for the Irish

Text Size

Although the European Parliament is dominated by the sort of Eurocrats who spent wildly and applied endless pressure on the Irish to approve the so-called Lisbon Treaty, which expands the authority of the European Union, it does include a few naysayers, particuiarly members of the United Kingdom Independence Party. In this video one of them, Nigel Farage, denounces the "bully-boys" who did so much to suppress independent thought in Ireland.

View all comments (4) | Leave a comment

Kevin, Meath| 10.9.09 @ 4:57PM

UKIP are a very unpleasant party and completely anti-EU in any form. The 'NO' campaign over here were in fits when they joined their side actually asking them to 'please stop supporting us'. Often read the word 'Nazi' and 'fascist' written here, well you could describe UKIP and their allies the BNP as such, their growing support is a worry. He is right to say that the campaign fell into fits of name calling and mis-information but what he doesn't say is both sides were as bad as each other.

Perry de Havilland| 10.10.09 @ 6:57AM

The notion that the UKIP (small state conservatives with a very large civil libertarian streak) and the BNP (big state old school fascists who want to regulate everything and everyone) are "allies" tells you everything you need to know about the value of Kevin's "analysis".

Kevin, Meath| 10.11.09 @ 6:53PM

Quite right I am being unfair in calling UKIP 'unpleasant' simply because I disagree with some of their policies, wrong sorry. My "analysis" was based on the fact that UKIP are regularly emmbarressed by members of their party often appearing as members of the BNP. Based on the BNP offering UKIP an electoral pact, which to the leaderships credit they rejected. However UKIP and the BNP rarely stand against each other in elections, either because they do not want to split the 'eurosceptic' vote or because they share many of the same supporters. They are often accused of a 'silent pact', UKIP standing in the midlle class south the BNP in the large northern cities. Based further on that some of the founder members of the party were also members of the 'National Front'. UKIP's leaders may be a 'small state conservatives with a very large civil libertarian streak' and their leader always comes across as a fair and pleasant man , which means that either he is such or that he was a good choice as a leader. It doesn't mean that they actively encourage the same support base as the BNP. In my book that makes the mallies, especially as they both wanted a no vote.
If you followed the campaign one of the stangest sites was Declan Gangly a 'small state conservative with a very large civil libertarian streak' campaigning with Joe Higgins who is a, well in a European context I would say a socialist, on the values here a bit further left than that.