Tonight Paul Nuttall, UKIP’s chairman, presented the Politics Slot on Channel 4. I was delighted to see that my meetings with him and Nigel Farage have thus far borne fruit. In the King James version of the Gospel of St Luke, Chapter 15, we find the ‘Parable of the Lost Sheep’:-
Jesus “spake this parable unto them, saying:
4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he finds it?
5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost?
7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, who need no repentance.”
However, in UKIP’s case, it does pay to be cautious before rejoicing. Paul’s proposal is just that – a proposed policy. It will not become UKIP’s actual policy unless their membership approve it – which presumably they will have the chance to do at their next party conference in March. It is by no means certain that they will do so however as can be seen by this item >>> http://juniusonukip.blogspot.com/2011/12/farage-and-nuttall-v-ukip-wales-party.html
I have also been here before. I helped formulate their previous devolution policy, when it was being written by their then Chairman, now Tory defector, David Campbell Bannerman. After David had retricted the policy to a version of English Votes for English Laws, I was surprised to see him claim on TV that ‘UKIP were now the only party campaigning for an English Parliament’!
Nevertheless I think we may be cautiously optimistic that the English Democrats’ campaign for ‘an English Parliament, First Minister and Government with at least the same powers as the Scottish ones’ may be shortly joined by UKIP.
If that happens we English Nationalists will be a significant step closer to the day when we have our own English version of Alex Salmond as our First Minister standing up for English Interests!
