Michael Phillips: Why you should vote Ukip

HOT has invited all five parliamentary candidates for Hastings & Rye to send us an electoral statement saying why they should get your vote. Here is the statement from the Ukip candidate, Michael Phillips.

UKIP policy in this General Election is to place our candidates tactically. In general, where the sitting MP of whatever party is known to be a sound Leaver, we will not be opposing him/her. And where the MP is known to be a Remainer we will challenge them.

Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, falls into this latter category. She is not just any old Remainer or even fence-sitter; she is a high profile and passionate Remainer, who appeared before millions on live TV to declare her views. I am quite sure that she understands perfectly well that remaining in the EU means her country being swallowed up into a huge superstate, where Foreign Powers will continue to make our laws, leech our cash, and generally treat us with contempt. This lady deserves to be challenged by UKIP.

Now, I know that many Labour and LibDem supporters want to strengthen the PM’s hand in the forthcoming negotiations but can’t bring themselves to vote Tory to do so. Well, there is another way. Voting for UKIP will do the job just as well. The message will be heard and understood loud and clear in Brussels. Conservative voters can be reassured, the Prime Minister will get her landslide and can well afford to lose this Remainer, so they may wish to vote UKIP as well.

I am not going to get into the minutiae of how our soon-to-be-ended EU contributions are spent on the NHS, Pensions, Education, Social Welfare, Defence, etc. My task (and UKIP’s) is to provide the wherewithal to fund these programmes. Withdrawal from the EU will enrich the British Treasury by some £13 billion a year (some say ‘only’ £8 billion). This money is then available to spend on our people.

Naturally the EU will be poorer every year by the same amount – no wonder they don’t want us to go. Apart from the above, I think we should dramatically reduce, if not abolish altogether, the disgusting waste that is Foreign Aid. The insanity here is that we have to borrow the money in order to give it away. Another £13 billion a year saved.

Then there is the monstrous proposal to spend £52 billion on HS2. This money should rather be spent on upgrading existing rail links, such as providing a super-fast service to London from Hastings. A few hundred London salaries coming into the town would utterly transform the local economy as well as provide decent career opportunities for local youngsters.

Who am I? I am a working-class lad from a coal-mining background. Brought up on a council estate in Ayrshire. I have no time for the SNP and their ilk. I will not be deserting my English friends.

I am asked for my reaction to the Manchester bombing. My views tend to be on the harsh side. Since we find after each of these atrocities that the culprits were already known to the authorities, why not prevent the next one by rounding up the suspects and interning them? That is what we did in the War. There are plenty of cold, wet uninhabited islands off the Scottish coast suitable for the purpose.

Also in: Election 2017