LONELY LITTLE UKIP: AGAINST EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE – AND ALMOST ALWAYS LOSERS!

INTRODUCTION

Most rational people would regard it as rather strange to seek election simply to work against the institution one is aiming to join. Nevertheless, in the euphoria following their election to the European Parliament last June the new UKIP Members set out explicitly to contest if not undermine the workings of the European Parliament – and the European Union more broadly. To what extent have they achieved this objective? How exactly have they set about achieving this rather bizarre goal? By looking at the achievements of UKIP MEPs over the last six months we might be able to discover whether this approach actually has an impact – or whether the millions of votes for UKIP in June 2004 were actually wasted!

The voting record of UKIP MEPs in European Parliament committees has already demonstrated that UKIP MEPs cannot even be bothered to attend and vote in parliamentary committees, where most European law-making work in Parliament starts . In this new report we examine the results of recorded votes in the Parliament as a whole since last July, on a series of important resolutions, ranging from the position of Parliament on anti-Semitism to its support for action to tackle the effects of the Asian Tsunami. Future UKIPwatch.org special reports, to be published shortly, will assess UKIP’s record on EU law-making, and their record of attendance and absenteeism.

What is fascinating is that this report demonstrates that UKIP MEPs do actually sometimes vote in Parliament – but UKIP MEPs are overwhelmingly against everything. And they are almost always losers!

UKIP’S VOTES

It was not until January 2005 – six months into the new Parliament’s term of office - that UKIP MEPs actually managed to vote in favour of something for the first time. This noteworthy event occurred on the European Parliament’s resolution on anti-Semitism and racism. At least this is consistent with the UKIP statement on their website that it is a non-racist party.

But what UKIP votes against is even more illuminating, and more than a little worrying. In January 2005 for example, UKIP Members voted against a resolution supporting the fledgling democracy in Ukraine. Only 18 MEPs out of the entire European Parliament of 732 Members voted against this resolution, the largest single group of opponents being six UKIP MEPs plus their fellow travellers Robert Kilroy-Silk and Ashley Mote.

If they thought about it UKIP’s MEPs might suggest that they are keeping their promise to their electors of not interfering in the affairs of individual countries. The problem is that what they choose not to bother to vote on at all, includes parliamentary resolutions condemning the abuse of human rights, urging free and democratic elections, opposing capital punishment and condemning the trafficking of women and children, in countries such as Zimbabwe, Tibet, Iran and Cambodia. Does UKIP support the suppression of such human rights in these countries? Apparently so – or at least they appear to be of no concern to UKIP’s MEPs.

At other times UKIP votes against or officially abstains. Such was the case with the recent resolution on the Asian Tsunami. The resolution welcomed the generosity of donors, stressed the key priorities for relief agencies, and requested that the Commission be generous with its €200 million emergency reserve. It also called for the establishment of a comprehensive and effective early warning system to be developed without delay in the Indian Ocean and for the international community, led by the UN, to develop an effective and coordinated plan for action in the event of future disasters. UKIP, with their colleagues from the Netherlands, Italy, France and Poland (yes, a member from the infamous League for Polish Families) formally abstained from the vote!

So, what about the issues which affect us all, for example climate change? On a resolution agreed in November 2004 about EU strategy for the Buenos Aires Conference on Climate Change, every UKIP member, plus Kilroy-Silk and Mote, voted against the resolution, along with French and Polish counterparts in their political group. Interestingly, in a follow-up resolution on climate change in January 2005, which examined the outcome of the Buenos Aires conference, UKIP didn't vote with the rest of their group and, instead, chose formally to abstain (with Kilroy-Silk and Mote joining the rest of the Independence and Democracy Group in voting against the resolution). So to start off with UKIP MEPs felt strongly enough to vote against a resolution but they had no opinion on a subsequent and related resolution. Perhaps climate change, like consistency, doesn’t bother UKIP too much!

CONCLUSION

Far from disrupting the work of the European Parliament or the European Union, UKIP are fairly irrelevant politically. Their votes count for little, have overwhelmingly been used negatively, and have changed nothing. However hard they vote against everything and everyone, they are a minority interest often, it appears, even within their own Independence and Democracy Group. And, in the case of the resolutions examined in this report, UKIP have almost always been losers.