The Dangerous Incompetence of the Conservative Party

The Conservative Party has acted incredibly and dangerously incompetently in its handling of Charlie Elphicke, the MP for Dover who has been suspended by the party.

Why is it dangerous?

Two Reasons.

Firstly it sets a dangerous precedent that it is okay to publicly accuse someone of wrong doing without having to say what that wrong doing is or, indeed, letting the person who you are accusing even know what the crime they are accused of is.

If Mr Elphicke is guilty of a criminal act then he, like anyone else, should pay however the prevailing precedent in the United Kingdom has always been innocent until proven guilty and the right to have your day in court. To, effectively, publicly denounce someone without giving the information to the person so that they may reply to the accusations is wholly wrong and leaves the door open for others to make public unspecified allegations without recourse.

It is stated that the allegations have been referred to the police, then surely it would be better to wait until the police have decided that there is a case to investigate or, at the very least, inform Mr Elphicke of what has been reported to the police before informing the media of his suspension.

It is also highlights the double standards at work here, the MP for one of Mr Elphicke's neighbouring constituencies, South Thanet, has been investigate by police, charged and faces trial next year (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-40936151) yet still retains the Conservative Party Whip.

The second area of dangerous incompetence is setting the precedent that it okay to suspend someone without giving them sufficient reason for that suspension.

How many unscrupulous employers would love to have that power! Now handed to them on a plate because the law makers of the land have decided that is the way to handle things?

While the reports are that Mr Elphicke has been suspended, the reality is that it is his membership of the party has been suspended. He is still able to act as an MP - suspension from the House of Commons is a completely different matter and does not, it seems, cover matters of police investigation. 

The Conservative Party have acted in a dangerous and incompetent way in the matter, they would be far better working on ways that protects the rights of all individuals.

The Real Reason's We Need an October Election

We need a General Election in October, not because of the change in Prime Minister but because of the change in the UK.

In Britain we do not elect the Prime Minister, we elect individual Members of Parliament to represent us and the leader of the party with the most MPs simply becomes Prime Minister by default. There have been plenty of times when the Prime Minister has been in place without an electoral mandate, most recently Gordon Brown and before that John Major from 1990 until the election of 1992.

So, in normal times, a simple change of Prime Minister does not really warrant an election unless there is some constitutional change leading to the people of Britain actually directly electing the Prime Minister.

However these are not normal times.

The country is now split, not by left and right, but by in and out. This split crosses traditional party divides.

The manifestos, visions and ideals that were presented to the electorate in 2015 are now null and void. Now we face a future outside the European Union and this impacts on the lives of all of us.

The British people now need to be able to choose what that future should be. The political parties need to set out how they will negotiate the exit from the EU and what their vision of life outside the EU will be like.

The new Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition must go to the country and explain what they will do to secure the future of the UK, explain how life outside the UK impacts on education, health, social care, employment etc. and what they will do to secure the future of those most in need of help from society. These leaders must go to the people with their vision of a United Kingdom which thrives, their vision of how they will bring British society together.

They must also present their plans for ensuring that leaving the EU doesn’t mean leaving Europe. It is one thing leaving the bureaucracy of the EU system but Britain did not vote to leave wider European cooperation across defence, security, scientific research etc.

The British people must now be given the chance to choose which vision they believe is best for this new future.

On a secondary level we need a General Election so that the electorate can reaffirm or reject their current representative in Parliament. MPs are paid to represent the wishes of the people in their constituency, yet the referendum saw many instances of the MP’s views being completely at odds with the majority of their constituents.

It is only fair that those who wish to continue receiving public money to represent the people of their constituency should ask those people for their support in the post referendum world.

Those are the real reasons we need an October election and it is the duty of those who want to represent us to take their visions of this new Britain to the people and ask us to choose the path to that future. 

The Immigration Issue

The result of the UK referendum on whether or not to stay within the European Union resulted in a narrow majority to leave.

However since the vote there are many who have protested, called for a second referendum and slated the result with such a passion it makes you wonder if they had shown the same commitment to the EU during the campaign whether the result would have been different!

The important thing now is to move forward and truly understand why people voted to leave in order to ensure that the deal eventually reached by politicians is one that tackles the concerns of those voted, whether or not it be for leave or remain.

Immigration is of course the hottest issue but there is a failure, particularly on the Remain side, about why. A poll has shown that 77% of those who voted leave are happy for existing EU migrants to stay, so if it is not the actual people who have moved to the UK what is the reason that immigration has resulted in a leave vote?

It is the perception of the impact of immigration that is the real issue and one which the Remain campaign dismally failed to counter.

Many people believe that those coming from the EU jump to the front of the queue for housing, benefit payments, hospital services etc. There is also a belief that migrant workers take British jobs and that, in doing so, they push down wages for the rest of us.

Most of these beliefs are over exaggerated (of course there area few migrants who abuse the system but equally some British people do to) much of the over exaggeration is fostered by those in Government seeking to deflect the blame from themselves for many of the economic problems they have caused, unfortunately most were also on the Remain side hence their reticence in being truthful!

So the challenge is to dispel and nullify these perceptions whilst retaining the free movement agreement as part of the UK’s new deal with the EU.

This has to start at the top – both in the UK Parliament and with other EU leaders, who have continuously failed to understand the mood of many citizens of the EU and whose failure to do so has led to the increase in Right Wing organisations across the continent.

But equally all of us have a responsibility to challenge those perceptions, not by branding people as racists but by demanding that those we have elected to represent us, both in the UK Parliament and EU Parliament, tackle these issues immediately and deal with the UK’s exit from the EU swiftly, in a manner allows all the citizens of the UK to benefit from a trade deal that allows people to travel freely across the EU.

Immigration and the Need for Sensible Debate

As we plunge headlong toward the European Parliament elections on May 22^nd there seems to be little doubt that IMMIGRATION will be the hot topic of debate throughout the campaign, largely spurred by the rise of UKIP of late.

UKIP has managed to control the immigration agenda with its message of EU immigration puts Britain’s out of work.

Yet this message is over-simplistic and the ‘mainstream’ parties have failed to address this, allowing UKIP to control the immigration discourse. Over the next couple of months we really and truly need to see much more measured and logical debate on the subject, particularly because it is more than one single issue which means there should, in reality, be more than one debate on the issue.

There are at least four separate issues within that all-encompassing word ‘immigration’.

There is the issue of asylum. The blanket attack on immigration does not allow for the consideration of those whose lives are at risk by staying in their own country, are we, as a modern society, prepared to sit back while men, women and children are murdered by regimes which hold no care for human life, only their own greedily acquired thirst for power? While we can take action to try to halt those regimes from operating, these things take time and, in the meantime, obviously we, as a society, need to ensure there is no blood on our hands by leaving those at risk to die.

Then there is the issue of immigration control from outside the EU. Successive Governments have taken action to curb this but there is still a need for qualified workers in the UK to fill the skills gaps that exist. This is less an immigration issue and more a national one. Why do these skills gaps exist and why do Governments not take greater action to ensure that we have, for example, the right number of Doctors trained to meet national needs. By focusing resources on the skills gaps and ensuring that Britain has the necessary skilled workers to meet demand then this form of immigration naturally reduces.

Thirdly, and we are coming to the contentious issues now, is the free movement of peoples through the European Union. The is serious concern among many people about the effect of workers coming in from Eastern Europe, not only in terms of ‘taking’ jobs from British workers but also about pushing down wages.

However, this is as much about the effects of recession as it is about immigration.

When times are good and jobs are plentiful we need those migrant workers to fill the roles us natives often shun! Even now many migrant workers are needed to fill roles in social care to enable providers to operate, if we were to leave the EU and put in place a blanket ban on immigration our already crumbling social care system would be put into more crisis and the lives of many put at risk. Naturally it would be better then to work within the EU, and ask, if Eastern European members are in a state of poverty that forces their nationals to seek work elsewhere what is the EU doing to ensure those nations benefit, economically from membership?

Finally there is the issue of illegal immigration. We have all seen those images of migrants waiting at Calais to climb under lorries or jump on trains and this, to my mind, is the most important area of tackling immigration. It is ILLEGAL, therefore a criminal activity. It also fosters greater illegality as people traffickers con many out of money, and their livelihoods, smuggling them into the UK.

In terms of the EU debate it is obviously better to work within the EU to prevent illegal immigration. Those waiting at Calais have already entered the EU at some point and it is that issue that needs to be tackled, where are they entering and why are they not being stopped. That can only be tackled through cooperative working within the EU.

Leaving the EU would actually make matters worse. Not only would Britain have no leverage over people coming into the EU illegally, there is also the likelihood that those who currently have free movement within the EU would seek to enter the UK illegally.

Over the next few weeks there will be a lot of nonsense spouted about Immigration. It is times for politicians and the media to ensure that the real issues and sensible debate about those issues is at the forefront.

Twitter: @TonyButcher