UKIP Public Meeting at Henley Town Hall

A well attended public meeting in Henley Town Hall last night (Monday 23rd of June 2008) heard a panel of speakers address issues relating to the Henley by-election, the European Union and the state of politics in the UK and around the world.

The meeting was opened by Steve Radford from the Liberal Party who spoke on the importance of free trade as opposed to the protectionism preferred by the European Union. Nigel Farage then spoke on the Lisbon Treaty and the importance of the Irish NO Vote. The final speaker was the Henley UKIP by-election Candidate, Chris Adams, who shared his campaign experiences and talked about issued being raised on the doorstep.

Steve Harris, UKIP South East Organiser and Henley Campaign Election Agent then chaired a lively question time. The UK Independence Party being unique amongst political parties in that public question time is exactly that: Public. There are no planted questions, no set pieces and no subject is taboo.

The session actually opened with an impassioned plea from the floor for UKIP to disband and for its members to stop damaging the Tory Party and allowing the Labour Party to retain power. It is not an unreasonable assumption that the question was being put by a disgruntled Tory. Nigel Farage explained that UKIP’s primary aim was to get this country out of the European Union. In order to do that we needed to fight elections against every pro-EU Party and that included the Tories. The questioner denied the Tories werepro-EU but accepted it was Heath who took us in and that every Tory Prime Minster from then on allowed the power of the EU to grow, up to and including the last Tory Prime Minister, John Major who signed the Maastricht Treaty. The current Tory Leader, David Cameron, is now on record as saying the Tories will not repeal the Lisbon Treaty should they win power at the next election. The feeling of the meeting was definitely that any Tory who felt the Conservatives were in any way really eurosceptic was in fact fooling themselves. The Tory grass roots might not want further integration but the Conservative Leadership was 100% united with both Labour and the Lib-Dems in supporting the EU Project, while both UKIP and the Liberal Party are both in favour of leaving the EU.

Questions included “What do Lib-Dems actually stand for?” Answer: whatever they think you want to hear in order to get your vote! through to the state road network in Henley – Answer: terrible!

The meeting closed at 9.00pm. Chris Adams, UKIP Candidate for the Henley by-election wrapped up the meeting and Steve Harris thanked everyone for coming. About forty of us retired to the Argyll public House in Henley to relax and unwind after a very successful day’s campaigning.

From: Henley UKIP