One of Nigel “Thirsty”
Farage’s stalwarts has hit on a good way of promoting his chosen party: churn
out scores of Tweets, almost all with no citation, no matter how shaky, and
keep churning them out, so that anyone of opposing view is forever playing catch-up,
and the UKIP faithful have an ample stream of, er, by-product to Retweet. Step
forward Roger Da Costa.
Da Costa claims to be
a “passionate supporter of the NHS”,
despite also supporting a party whose commitment to a flat tax would mean
shrinking the state to the kind of size last seen in 1939, when there was no
NHS. But then, he also supports doubling prison places, and there wouldn’t be
any money for that in UKIP fairyland either. So he’s good on the
distant-from-reality thing. How good? Here we go.
“If the UK left the
EU, British expats would still have ‘executed right’ to remain a resident of
Spain under Article 70 b Vienna Convention” he declares. Highly
questionable (you can see the text of that Convention HERE). Plus
he manages not to mention Ireland, Portugal, or France. This is because none
of them are party to the Vienna Convention. But that’s as solid as his
argument gets.
It gets worse? Ho yus, it’s downhill from there, as witness “HS2 is being constructed under orders from
Brussels as a consequence of the TEN-T directive”. Paranoid, much? This is
a flat-out, pants on fire, unequivocal lie. TEN-T is
about interoperability, and the “corridors”
identified in the directive do not have to be built at all (Lisbon to Madrid
for example).
How about another rail related whopper? “Rail privatisation occurred as part of an EU
Directive (EU Directive 91/440). The UK cannot renationalise the railways as
members of the EU”. Another total lie. There is no requirement in that
directive for any selling-off. Moreover, in pulling the plug on Railtrack
and now putting Network Rail on the Government’s books, we have renationalised.
So while Da Costa searches for the nearest fire
extinguisher, let’s move on to another example of dishonesty and paranoia. “Ukraine now has a [sic] unelected new leader put there by the
unelected EU Commission just like they did with Greece and Italy”. The EU
had nothing to do with the Ukraine’s interim leader, and has never imposed
anyone on any member state. Pants still
on fire.
But onwards and downwards: “Labour destroyed our border controls then with the help of the BBC
denounced anybody who voiced concerns about mass immigration as racists”.
Yes, BBC paranoia is obligatory within UKIP, as is the border controls whopper.
This is the same BBC that the Farage fringe shamelessly manipulates in order to
garner free publicity.
Still, he believes it, and some UKIP members do too, so that’s all right, then.
3 comments:
Article 70(b) would work both ways then. EU nationals could "flood" into the UK "unchecked" due to its "porous borders", establish their rights under the EU and not be subject to any lessening of those rights after the UK left.
Interesting. I'm sure EU nationals who recognise the UK as "an easy touch" are making plans now!
Ashie. Not to forget all the EU nationals already here.
The "HS2 is an EU plot" campaign only started when they thought there were middle England votes in it.
Their 2010 (general election year) Transport Policy promoted a bigger version of HS2. Plus what would have been HS3 (London -South Wales/ South West England) and HS4 (linking Birmingham HS2 to Thames Valley area HS3). No mention of EU plots, and no mention of where the money would have come from.
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