UKIP MEPs turn their backs on the EU flag as the EU anthem played

Before the start of the first European Parliamentary session, 24 UKIP MEPs held a March for Freedom to signify their work for the freedom of people from EU legislation and waste.
At the beginning of the session, as the EU anthem was played, UKIP MEPs stood and turned their back on the EU flag.

Responding to both events, UKIP Deputy leader Paul Nuttall MEP said: "We don't recognise or respect the EU flag or anthem. They are both symbols of our servitude inside a political union which the British people reject.
"We will do everything we can in European Parliament to oppose the Federalist system which ignores our national democracy and pushes millions of people across Europe into poverty and unemployment. We stand up for our people, not the EU flag and anthem.
"National democracy and EU membership are incompatible. We will do everything we can to free ourselves from this corrupt institution."

New EFD Group formed in the European Parliament. “We will be the peoples’ voice” says UKIP Leader Nigel Farage

A New EFD Group has been formed in the European Parliament, currently comprising of 7 national delegations and 48 MEPs.
UKIP Leader and EFD Group President Nigel Farage said: “I am very proud to have formed this Group with other MEPs and we undertake to be the peoples’ voice.
"We will be on the front-line working for the restoration of freedom, national democracy and prosperity across Europe. Expect us to fight the good fight to take back control of our countries' destinies.
"We have struggled against much political opposition to form this group and I am sure it will operate very well.  Now it is formed I expect other delegations to join soon.”
Beppe Grillo of Italy's Five Star Movement said that: "It is a great victory for direct democracy."
The Group will meet in Brussels on the afternoon of Tuesday 24th June and is comprised of MEPs from: UKIP, Italy’s Five Star Movement, Lithuania’s Order and Justice Party, the Sweden Democrats, the Free Citizen’s Party of the Czech Republic, the Latvian Farmers’ Union and an Independent MEP from France.

UKIP members hit back at media slurs

Today leading members of UKIP including Steven Woolfe UKIP's Economics Spokesman, Amjad Bashir UKIP's Small Business Spokesman, Winston McKenzie UKIP's Commonwealth Spokesman and Andrew Charalambous UKIP's Housing Spokesman have the lead letter in The Independent we publish their letter below:
We are UKIP members, candidates, spokespersons and representatives of the party’s broad range of supporters from minority ethnic and religious backgrounds. We support UKIP’s core values including its zero-tolerance approach to racism and discrimination, and, its commitment to withdrawal from the European Union.
We are deeply concerned about what appears to be a concerted effort by the media to misrepresent UKIP’s policy on immigration and to portray the party and its members as racist or xenophobic.
We have not faced discrimination within the party and we actively support the party’s practice of taking disciplinary action against any member who behaves in a discriminatory manner. UKIP has dealt rapidly with the small number of cases where such behaviour has taken place and has sent out a strong message that it will not be tolerated.
UKIP believes that immigration should be controlled by the UK government and not the EU. Migrants of all origins should have the right to apply to live and work in the UK and be entitled to equality of treatment secured by a points-based system without positive discrimination for those from EU member states. UKIP has never sought to abolish immigration, encourage repatriation, apportion blame or attack migrants or their families.
Increasingly UKIP members are becoming subject to physical and verbal abuse. Members from minority backgrounds who have faced genuine racist abuse are now abused by our opponents. Many have also suffered the humiliation of being called “Uncle Toms” or apologists for a racist party. This level of abuse is unacceptable in a modern democracy. We call on all those who wish to have a mature debate on immigration to cease perpetuating the falsehood that UKIP is “racist”, its members “xenophobic”. We demand opponents no longer engage in physical or verbal abuse and support UKIP in fighting to rid politics of racism, discrimination and sectarianism.
SIGNED
Steven Woolfe, UKIP Economics Spokesman
Amjad Bashir, UKIP Small Business Spokesman
Winston McKenzie, UKIP Commonwealth Spokesman
Andrew Charalambous, UKIP Housing Spokesman
Shneur Odze, UKIP North West MEP Candidate
Dr Raj Chandran, Candidate Gedling and ex Commissioner Racial Equality Commission
Pastor Annette, Reid UKIP Candidate (Croydon North)
Rachel Hunte, UKIP Candidate (Croydon North)
Marilyn Jeffrey, UKIP Candidate (Croydon North)
Jenefer Parke-Blair, UKIP Candidate (Croydon North)
Herman Lyken, UKIP Candidate (Croydon North)
Winston Kennedy, UKIP Candidate (Croydon North)
Rathy Alargaratnam, UKIP Candidate (Morden)
Maxine Spencer, UKIP Candidate (Holborn and Islington)
Emmanuel Ehirim, UKIP Candidate (Croydon North)
Pastor Marjorie King, UKIP Candidate (Croydon North)
Przemek Skwirczynski, Chairman Friends of Poland in UKIP and candidate (Croydon North)
Tomasz Zajaczkowski, Secretary Friends of Poland in UKIP and candidate
Julian Conway, Chairman Friends of Israel in UKIP
Peter Redstone, Chairman UKIP in Israel
Lee Waters, Chairman Gedling (UKIP Anglo – Italian Friends)
Francois Loi, Vice Chairman Gedling (UKIP Anglo – Italian Friends)
Dirk Muller, UKIP Candidate (Croydon North) and UKIP Friends of Germany
Ace Nnoram, UKIP candidate ( Croydon )
Pauline McQueen, UKIP Candidate (Tower Hamlets)
Nicholas McQueen, UKIP Candidate (Tower Hamlets)
Annamaria Mignano, UKIP Candidate (Tower Hamlets)
Bertlyn Springer, UKIP Candidate (Tower Hamlets)
Tony Registe, UKIP candidate (Tower Hamlets)
Amir Latif, UKIP candidate (Finchley)
Cllr Tariq Saeed, UKIP councillor (Barking)
Syed Iliyas Hussain, UKIP candidate (Barnet)
Eddie Otoyo, UKIP Candidate ( Lambeth)
Bryan Tomilinson, UKIP candidate (Hilligndon)
Barry Leavers, UKIP Candidate ( Hillingdon)
Ray McKennon, UKIP member (Hillingdon)
Heidi Rao, UKIP member (Hillingdon)
Khalid Khan, UKIP candidate (Barking)
Keith Rowe, Chairman UKIP Birmingham
George Konstandinidis, UKIP Eastern Region Chairman
Stephen Dion, Chairman Telford & Wrekin and candidate (Wolverhampton)
Jehad Soliman, UKIP Branch Secretary Kettering
Ismael Patel, UKIP member – Leicester Branch
Avvar Taggar, UKIP Candidate (Coventry)
Anish Patel, UKIP member
Chris Apostolou, Chairman Barnet Branch
Edmund Silverman, UKIP member Gedling
Mark Davies, UKIP candidate (Manchester)
Thomas Slivnik, MA Cantab, PHD Cantab FTICA UKIP member

UKIP reveals new billboard design

UKIP today reveals it's new billboard design depicting an escalator running up the White Cliffs of Dover showing how we have lost control of our borders.
UKIP Leader Nigel Farage said: "This is in my view the most powerful image of the entire European election campaign. It is designed to bring home to the British public just what membership of the EU means as regards controlling our own borders.
"The White Cliffs of Dover have always been seen as symbolic of Britain’s island status. That status should give us added ability to pick and choose the people who come to live and work in our country. But under EU free movement laws we have no serious control whatever.
"No doubt the political establishment will react again in mock outrage and throw a new round of slurs and smears at UKIP and at me.
"We’ve been called every name under the sun in recent weeks. But we will not be silenced, and we know that millions of decent British people are on our side and are grateful that we are speaking out."
Paul Sykes, the Yorkshire businessman who is working with UKIP and donating  £1.5 million towards the publicity campaign in the European elections, said: "This poster goes to the heart of the European debate. Over the past 20 years or more, politicians - Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat - have conspired to hide the truth about EU immigration from the British public.
"The British people have never been consulted about opening up our borders to all-comers. Mass immigration from the EU has happened by stealth. No referendum has ever been held. And even now, our political leaders have the brass neck to accuse UKIP, the party exposing this deceit, of racism.
"The political establishment has been trying to bully the British public into silence over levels of immigration that are clearly unsustainable. But, as the scale of Nigel Farage's support demonstrates, voters have seen through this cover up.
​"The Prime Minister should come clean with the British people. He should admit that because we are members of the EU he has no control whatsoever over immigration from the EU.That is a fact that anyone can check."

Who are the Times journalists trying so desperately to undermine UKIP?

Who are the Times journalists behind the constant attacks on Nigel Farage and UKIP? Perhaps it will not surprise you to know that most have family or personal connections to the Conservative Party and that the majority are from immensely privileged backgrounds that have enabled them to prosper as part of the “chumocracy” run by David Cameron. Here is our rundown of the main players:
Baron Daniel Finkelstein: Privately educated former senior official at Conservative Central Office. A key columnist on the paper known for his particular closeness to Chancellor George Osborne. Recently made a Lord by Osborne and Cameron. He has in the past been embarrassed by claims that he has written speeches for Osborne while simultaneously working as Times chief leader writer.
According to the Spectator in September 2013, “what Danny writes today George thinks tomorrow”. He was once overheard on a train boasting to his mother on his mobile about writing Osborne’s conference speech. George Osborne also admitted at the Leveson inquiry that the journalist helped him with "one-liners" for his speeches and once reportedly remarked that he spoke to Mr Finkelstein more often than he did to his wife. Furthermore, Danny Finkelstein was named by David Cameron as one of the six journalists whom he sees “so frequently” that he could not be expected to list the meetings, on account of their sheer volume.
Matthew Parris: Privately educated former Conservative MP whose partner Julian Glover worked as a speechwriter for Cameron and now works as an adviser to Conservative Cabinet minister Patrick McCloughlin, who is coincidentally the MP who took over the seat of Mr Parris when he stood down from Parliament. Parris makes frequent and virulent attacks on UKIP for example in June 2013 he wrote an article for the Spectator article entitled “Why UKIP is a party of extremists” and another for The Times in October 18 2013 called “England loves winners, so UKIP must lose”.
Alice Thomson: Privately educated close friend of David Cameron. During the Leveson Inquiry David Cameron said that: "There's a small number of journalists who are close friends of mine and who I see so frequently that I have not included them systematically in these lists, namely Daniel Finkelstein, Alice Thomson...These are people I see very regularly and I'm never going to remember to tell my office every time I see them."
Alice Thomson is also the wife of former Tory staffer Edward Heathcoat-Amory who is the nephew of former Tory MP David Heathcoat-Amory who lost his seat in the 2010 general election and blames UKIP for his political demise.
The fact that he put a bill for manure on his taxpayer-funded expenses may have had more to do with him losing his seat. The Telegraph in its extensive coverage of the expenses scandal reported that David Heathcoat-Amory’s gardener used hundreds of sacks of horse manure, which based on the receipts they estimated to number 550, before the MP then submitted the receipts to Parliament. Also from 2004 to 2009 he claimed thousands of pounds to maintain his garden, including services like mowing and watering.
Hugo Rifkind: Privately educated son of pro-EU Tory former foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind. Known for his repeated jibes against UKIP in columns in both The Times and The Spectator. Joined the Times as its gossip columnist in 2005.
Rachel Sylvester: Privately educated close confidante of Britain’s most influential active Europhile, Peter Mandelson. Accompanied Mandelson on a trip to Disney in America during his work planning the disastrous Millennium Exhibition. Later denied allegations of tipping Mandelson off about revelations concerning him in a biography by the respected political journalist Paul Routledge. An advanced proof of Routledge’s book was mistakenly delivered to Sylvester’s Westminster office and was later passed on to him with the envelope containing it having been opened.
Tim Montgomerie: Former editor of Conservative Home website and former chief of staff for Iain Duncan Smith. Was Times comment editor until last month, remains a columnist on the paper. Less overtly hostile to UKIP than the others but went into hyperactive “tweeting” mode to promote the latest outrageous attack on Nigel Farage.
Alexi Mostrous: Privately educated news reporter, formerly of the Guardian. Spearheaded the latest wave of attacks on Nigel Farage by the Times.

Nigel Farage steps up his criticism of reckless EU foreign policy

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has stepped up his criticism of EU foreign policy for destabilising countries on Europe’s doorstep and further afield.
Mr Farage said: “We are seeing vanity take the place of reason in foreign policy and the result is to destabilise a whole series of countries to no positive effect that I can discern. It is not just the Ukraine.
“The civil war in Syria was made worse by EU leaders stoking the expectation of western forces helping to topple the Assad dictatorship despite the increasing dominance of militant Islamists in the rebellion.
“In the case of the Ukraine, Brussels has for many years been feeding an entirely unrealistic dream of a future as an EU member state and large net recipient of funds.
“This has encouraged brave young men and women in western Ukraine to rebel to the point of toppling a legitimate president and led to the utterly predictable debacle whereby Vladimir Putin has annexed part of the country and now casts a long shadow over hopes of genuine democracy in the rest of it.

“I do not support what Putin has done – of course I don’t. But the approach of David Cameron, William Hague, Nick Clegg and other EU leaders has been disastrous. If you poke the Russian bear with a stick he will respond. And if you have neither the means nor the political will to face him down that is very obviously not a good idea.”
Mr Farage also called on the British media to take a look at the present situation in Libya, which Mr Cameron claims to have liberated. “It is ungovernable, unstable, divided and very, very dangerous. If that is a foreign policy success, I would hate to see what a terrible failure looks like,” said the UKIP leader.

“The British public were already fed up of being dragged into conflicts where no pressing national interest was at stake. I know many people are, like me, now deeply worried about weak and vain leaders allowing an expectation to grow up that European countries such as Britain will always side with uprisings in the naive belief that benevolent liberal democracy is bound to replace existing regimes, fundamentally imperfect as they are. That is not the way the world works. So I repeat the charge: the EU has blood on its hands

UKIP MEP accuses EU of contributing to a floods crisis by "putting wildlife before people"

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South West UKIP MEP William Dartmouth has condemned the EU's skewed priorities, exposing the damaging consequences of EU directives on flooding.

"On Monday this week European Commissioner Viviane Reding came to the UK to joyously declare that 70% of UK laws originate from the EU.
"Ms Reding's visit took place at the same time as the consequences of heavy rainfall compounded by the effect of EU regulations, have brought about widespread flooding, suffering and the destruction of property.
"The evidence is that EU directives put wildlife before people. It is starting to be clear that DEFRA and the Environment Agency have been zealous in implementing EU directives.
"The new direction was started in 2004 by the European Commission document on 'flood risk management'. This bore bitter fruit in the 2007 EU Directive on Flood Risks. This has been further compounded by the EU’s Water Framework Directive, the Habitats Directive, the Environmental Impact Assessment and the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive.
"This have been followed the letter by the UK’s Environment Agency, and the downside of this is that dredging has been greatly reduced because of the tight restrictions of silt removal and the protection of species such as the Depressed River Mussel.
"In this new EU-induced dispensation, ordinary people are left sandbagged in their own homes because of flooding are the ones who are depressed and not the mussels.
"The front page of the Environment Agency's website says, ‘Floods destroy, be prepared.’
"It is clear the UK has not been prepared, and this is disgraceful."