Britain's version of Tea Party rocks political system across the pond

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

The often stale British political system is being rocked by its very own Tea Party.

 

The UK Independence Party (UKIP), formed in 1993 opposing Britain’s entry into the European Union, failed to make an electoral dent for a long time. However UKIP has built up steam in recent years and is spearheading a seismic shift in the British political spectrum.

 

In this year’s local elections – the British version of midterms -- UKIP took a stunning 23 percent of the vote, up from the 3.1 percent they won in the 2010 national election. Their leader, Nigel Farage, is buoyed by their recent success.

 

“We want to take back our country, we want to take back our government, and we want to take back our birthright,” Farage told FoxNews.com in forthright language rarely seen in British politics.

 

Farage has good reason to be confident of UKIP’s potential. Since he took the party's helm for a second time in 2010, the party has been revitalized, capitalizing on dissatisfaction with the Conservative Party’s shift to the center under current Prime Minister David Cameron.

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English Tea.

[Valin]

Lord Ashcroft poll: Nigel Farage’s Ukip to benefit from upsurge in Conservative defectors

Nick Dorman

1/4/13

 

A clear Tory election win was looking less likely tonight after it was revealed by a party grandee that of the ­37 per cent of their voters who have deserted them, around half intend to vote for Nigel Farage’s Ukip.

 

Lord Ashcroft, who writes ­exclusively for the Sunday People today, said: “If Conservatives want to govern without a coalition of parties, they need a bigger coalition of voters.”

The billionaire ex-Tory vice chairman added: “This research shows that it is far from impossible for the Tories to win outright.

“But to do so they will need the votes of everyone who supported them last time, plus practically everyone who is even prepared to think about doing so next time.”

 

The poll also found that only six per cent of 2010 voters would switch to the Tories in 2015.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

[Valin]

http://youtu.be/rpx7EV78egM

[nickydog]

I'm happy to see this. British friends have been almost insulting about my Tea Party preferences. I read somewhere recently that Europeans nervously look at the Tea Party as bordering on Fascism. Is that possible?

[Valin]

I'm happy to see this. British friends have been almost insulting about my Tea Party preferences. I read somewhere recently that Europeans nervously look at the Tea Party as bordering on Fascism. Is that possible?

When they say Fascist, what they really mean is Nazi...which is not the same thing. All Nazi were Fascist, but not all Fascist were Nazi's.

[nickydog]

 

I'm happy to see this. British friends have been almost insulting about my Tea Party preferences. I read somewhere recently that Europeans nervously look at the Tea Party as bordering on Fascism. Is that possible?

When they say Fascist, what they really mean is Nazi...which is not the same thing. All Nazi were Fascist, but not all Fascist were Nazi's.

 

 

Yeah, I understand their nervousness in regard to Nazisim, but it's hard for me to figure out exactly what Fascism is. Mr.n. tried to explain it to me and ended up saying it was like a circle where 2 points end up meeting together. Somehow.

[Valin]

 

 

I'm happy to see this. British friends have been almost insulting about my Tea Party preferences. I read somewhere recently that Europeans nervously look at the Tea Party as bordering on Fascism. Is that possible?

When they say Fascist, what they really mean is Nazi...which is not the same thing. All Nazi were Fascist, but not all Fascist were Nazi's.

 

Yeah, I understand their nervousness in regard to Nazisim, but it's hard for me to figure out exactly what Fascism is. Mr.n. tried to explain it to me and ended up saying it was like a circle where 2 points end up meeting together. Somehow.

 

 

May I (highly) recommend Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change

Jonah Goldberg

 

“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?

 

Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

 

Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist

 

(Snip)

 

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Simply carrying the book around will provoke reaction from the tolerant open minded left.