UKIP Local

Does the European Union (EU) affect local issues in Bournemouth?

You bet it does! And nearly all local issues, because the EU now make the laws on most issues affecting Local Government.
The European Union will ultimately run Britain by directives to Local Government. In fact it’s happening already but the Government doesn’t want you to know, and the other parties, being pro-EU, have kept remarkably quiet. The EU’s full title is the European Union of Regions and Cities. Fancy most people not knowing that – not surprising because it’s all being done quietly. It is intended that Regional Assemblies like the unelected Exeter Assembly, sub-Regional Groups centred on cities like Bristol, and sub-sub-Regional Groups centred on Towns like Devizes carry out the EU instructions. There are already such bodies in place called Strategic Partnerships and Community Planning Partnerships.
Britain’s public services are being regionalised and reorganised. The Regional Assembly deals with the Regional Spatial Strategy which affects all local planning issues. The strategy covers policy matters like waste incinerators, windmills, and housing. The interesting point is that the Government has awarded itself the right to overrule all local objections.
The Primary Care Trusts are centralising hospital treatment on large hospitals. The Courts Service has been reorganised, as has the Probation Service, the Police and the Fire and Ambulance services. Local objection to the cutting out of smaller hospitals has been ignored and only Police Regionalisation has been stalled.
The EU working Time Directive is having a massive effect on hospital services because Doctors and Surgeons can only work limited hours. People like lorry drivers have had their hours cut and consequently their take-home pay. You may think that electing a Councillor will make a difference and that they will stop all the nonsense? Wrong. If your council is run by Liberal-Democrats, Conservatives or Labour they can make a difference? Wrong. They have to obey Government targets based on EU directives. They must set Council Tax within a Government limit and spend it on Government priorities.
The worst point about Regionalised Local Government is that your vote doesn’t make a difference. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, the scope for local decision-making is almost negligible. Your local councillors will barely have any power to change things. A slight change of emphasis here and there.
The EU directives, as followed by the Government and being implemented through Regional Local Government leave virtually no scope for change. The paid Officers drive through the Government’s EU agenda with pretendy consultations; to paraphrase Billy Connolly. This is why you have bugs in your wheelie bins, your mail is now priced by size and weight and older youngsters who are short in stature must sit in child car seats.
And what about Council Tax?
Councils receive about two-thirds of their budget allocation from Government taxes like VAT, Income Tax, Corporation Tax and Inheritance Tax. The trouble is that they give £41m every day to the EU and are forced to implement costly EU directives plus Regionalisation. Not much left for local services!
So why vote for UKIP?
Because the other parties want to be in the EU, which means that things can only get worse. More Council Tax, local democracy replaced by government by bureaucrat – the EU way, with the 25 unelected Commissioners in Brussels like Peter Mandelson making the Directives which the Local Council Officers have to implement. Sounds a bit like the Soviet Union doesn’t it? A vote for UKIP is a signal to government and the other parties that you want local democracy restored so that your local councillors do what you want, not what the EU wants. And that you want your taxes spent here, not on EU follies.

A message from Steve Crowther, UKIP’s Chairman

Our manifesto. “Shaping the future”

We will -

* Empower local people by giving you the right to call binding referendums on local issues.
* Let you, the people, decide major planning schemes like supermarkets, wind farms, large housing developments and major transport schemes like HS2.
* Grant no right of appeal for developers from the people’s decisions on planning schemes.
* Introduce election for county health, education and police boards. UKIP will give you the power to decide how your health service, police and schools are run.
* Expect your councillors to put the people’s needs first, ahead of party dogmas.
* Make councils, schools, police, hospitals, planning and social care put local people first.
* Keep central government out of local government.
* Let councils control their own finances by keeping half of local business rates.
* Give councils the power to reduce local business rates, in order to stimulate growth in the local economy.

Council services: No front-line cuts

To maintain and improve front-line council services we will -
* Halt all cuts to front-line council services.
* Keep police on the beat to protect the people from antisocial behaviour.
* Improve care for the elderly.
* Develop youth services.
* Maintain the roads properly.
* Give rates relief to local businesses.
* Increase provision of free parking.
* Invest in high-quality state education.
* Scrap council non-jobs.
* Close unnecessary central government departments and quangos.
* Preserve our public libraries.
* Improve public transport.
* Energise the voluntary sector.
* Devolve budgets, not burdens.

To pay for these commitments, we will -
* Cut councillors’ allowances and expenses.
* Slash fat-cat pay deals for senior council staff.
* Limit the number of high-paid council employees.
* Restrict councils’ advertising and self-promotion budgets.
* Sell surplus council land.
* Abolish non-essential and ‘politically-correct’ services.
* Leave the EU to save £50m a day for local services
* Drop the EU Landfill Directive, which adds at least £50 to every household’s council tax bill.
* Control immigration and ease the burden on local services.

Protecting local people from crime

To keep the people and the streets safe, we will -
* Halt the scrapping of frontline police jobs.
* Refuse to tolerate any anti-social behaviour or so called petty crime.
* Build more prisons.
* Make sentences mean what they say.
* Elect county police boards to let local people set police priorities.
* Cut police form-filling and free officers for real police work.
* Crack down on nuisance neighbours.
* Oppose votes for prisoners.

Immigration: Britain for the British first

To cut immigration and the heavy cost of immigration, we will -
* End open-door immigration, which let in 3 million people in 13 years.
* Withhold all State benefits from immigrants for five years.
* Introduce proper border controls.
* Increase UK Border Agency staff as needed.
* Freeze permanent immigration for five years until we sort out the system.
* Deport all illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers.
* Target working visas only on those with the skills we need.

To pay for these commitments, we will -
* End benefits in cash or in kind to anyone who is not a British citizen.

Planning for our green and pleasant land

To put the people in charge of the decisions that affect our countryside, we will -
* Put people’s wishes above central government and big business with planning referendums.
* Ban new wind farms and subject existing ones to democratic local planning procedures.
* Annul the Localism Bill’s right to build on the green belt.
* Direct new housing and business developments to brown-field, not green-field sites.
* Build new power plants to secure our energy supply.
* Use existing houses more efficiently by encouraging rentals.

To pay for these commitments, we will -
* Close the Climate Change Department saving up to £18billion a year.
* End wasteful EU and UK subsidies to ugly, cost ineffective ‘renewable energy’ scams.
* Stop all payments to the Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel and other UN climate-related agencies.

Health: Sorting out the National Health Service

To keep the health service safe and protect our elderly and disabled people, we will -
* Let the people elect county boards to oversee vital services.
* Halt all cuts in front-line NHS doctors, surgeons, dentists and nurses’.
* Axe failing, surplus NHS management. Reintroduce proper matrons to run clean hospitals.
* Return nurses training back to hospitals rather than University class rooms.
* Make specialist care available as needed, to save lives now lost through delay.
* Cut waiting lists to European levels – Poland treats cancer patients faster than we do.

To pay for these commitments, we will -
* Restrict free health care only to UK Citizens.
* Require all visitors to exhibit adequate health insurance at the port of entry.
* Introduce lifelong private insurance against the costs of long-term care.

Education: Put pupils and parents first

To bring Britain’s education up to international standards, we will -
* Let the people elect county education boards to make our schools better.
* Scrap useless paperwork and trust teachers to do their jobs.
* Build more Grammar Schools.
* Insist that schools teach the 3 Rs.
* Close colleges using bogus courses as a back door into Britain for foreign students.
* Reinstate the student grant and educational maintenance allowance.
* Encourage vocational apprenticeships.
* Give parents the right to choose where their children go to school.
* Protect rural schools.
* Offer better support for home schooling.

To pay for these commitments, we will -
* Let head teachers sack bad teachers.
* Reduce Local Education Authority bureaucracy.

Housing: Local British people first

To address the housing shortage caused by 3 million immigrants in 13 years, we will -
* Restore proper controls on immigration to ease the demand for housing.
* Incentivise re-use of 970,000 empty houses, equal to eight years’ English house-building.

To pay for these commitments, we will -
* Audit all council-owned and state-owned property.
* Sell most surplus or disused state-owned property.

Transport: Keeping our communities on the move

To keep Britain moving, we will -
* Let the people decide on local transport infrastructure by calling binding referendums.
* Reopen local railway lines where needed.
* Preserve way-leaves of disused railway lines in case they are needed again.
* Halt widespread over-zealousness in parking enforcement.
* Remove all speed cameras, except those proven to reduce accidents or demanded by the community.
* Provide free parking at all hospitals.
* Oppose HS2 (High Speed Rail 2).
* Protect free parking for Blue Badge holders.
* Protect rural bus services.

To pay for these commitments, we will -
* Tax foreign lorries using British roads.
* Ensure that road maintenance is more efficient through better, more competitive tendering and stopping authorities’ ‘gold-plating’ schemes.

BUT, whatever we, the people, want or decide…

UKIP would like to point out that unelected EU bureaucrats set overall policy in -

* Foreign Affairs
* Economic Affairs
* Public Health
* Transport
* Justice
* Energy
* Employment
* Environment
* Police
* Farming
* Social Affairs
* Fisheries
* Immigration
* Law Enforcement
And they won’t stop there. That is why we want our national and our local democracy back. If you want it too, vote UKIP with pride.

You can download the manifesto in PDF format here