Our prospective European Parliment candidates in Scotland will be pleased to know that we will be contacting local groups and organisations to arrange dates for them as guest speakers. This will also allow  the public to ask questions relating to UKIP and the European .

 Hopefully when the public hear UKIP’s common sense, none PC policies they will like what they hear so much that they will join up as members. 

In short it’s all hands on deck to help out and support the Glenrothes By-election which is on the 6th of November. UKIP is lucky to have  Dr Kris Seunarine standing as candidate, the public could not ask for someone better to represent them in Parliament. That’s if they want honesty, openness, and a real willingness to serve the electorate.

After the Glenrothes by-election it will then be all hands on the deck for the European elections. If any group or organisation would like too have a UKIP candidate along as a guest speaker, please get in touch, we will get back to you.

UKIP Aberdeen is growing, and we will continue to grow, as more and more people become aware of what we stand for, and our policies. People have had enough of Britain being destroyed by unelected bureaucrats in Brussells.

UKIP Aberdeen

Scotland is a Nation in the United Kingdom – it is not a Region of the European Union as Jim Wallace, Deputy First Minister describes us!

The Labour Party is committed to the EU, The Conservative Party have said they would ‘re-negotiate’ our terms of membership of the EU and yet they have joined up with The European Peoples Party which is committed to the EU. The UK Independence Party however, advocates Britain’s full withdrawal from the European Union in favour of a free-trade agreement similar to those enjoyed by other no-EU states including Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Mexico.

There will be no effect on jobs if we leave – this has been confirmed by the European Commission. In any case, Scotland buys far more from the European Union states than we sell to them; they would not want to lose such a valuable market. After all, the UK is the world’s 4th largest economy in its own right.

Britain’s MEPs currently represent only 11% of the voting strength in the European Parliament. Our influence in the European Union, which was never strong, is being diluted as the EU Empire expands. Our Manifesto pledge, therefore, is simple and straightforward, and indeed has been used elsewhere. We present as our election pledge the following promise, which is extracted from the Labour party manifesto of 1983 and which is as true now as it was then.

“Geography and History determine that Britain is part of Europe but the European Union, which does not even include the whole of Western Europe, was never devised to suit us. Our membership of it has made it more difficult for us to deal with our economic and industrial problems, and has weakened our ability to achieve the objectives of our international policy.

Any future British government is bound to find continued membership a most serious obstacle to the fulfilment of its policies. In particular the rules of the Treaty of Rome are bound to conflict with our strategy for economic growth and full employment, our proposals on industrial policy and for increasing trade.

For all these reasons, British withdrawal from the Community is the right policy for Britain. That is our commitment.”

Of course the European Union has changed since 1983. In the intervening years, it has developed a diplomatic service, a flag, an anthem, an army, a police force, a judiciary, and many other aspects of statehood, the most recent being its attempts to grant itself a Constitution.

UKIP is committed to a Britain which is free, democratic, independent and most importantly, is governed by the British people through our parliaments at Westminster and Edinburgh. We believe that the Scottish taxpayers’ money should be spent on Scottish hospitals, schools and pensions. Just imagine what we could achieve if we saved the annual £11 billion contribution to the European Union – most of which , according to the EU’s own auditors, is lost in fraud and corruption – and spent the money here!

The time has come for Scotland to say NO!

Scotland belongs to YOU not the EU!

If you would like to find out more or to help in any way contact George Cormack – Regional Organiser UKIPScotland
Email : geo.cormack@btinternet.com

]]> http://ukipaberdeen.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/about-ukip-scotland/feed/ 3 ukipaberdeen http://ukipaberdeen.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/ukip-aberdeen-meeting/ http://ukipaberdeen.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/ukip-aberdeen-meeting/#comments Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:57:08 +0000 ukipaberdeen http://ukipaberdeen.wordpress.com/?p=36 Continue reading →]]> The next meeting will take place on Tuesday 7th October, probably at the Queen Victoria pub in Rosemount at 8pm. Keep watching this blog in case the venue is changed to one of the committees’ homes.

Hope to see new people there, bring your friends, the more the merrier.

Irish media now more Eurosceptic, warns EC report

MARK HENNESSY, Political Correspondent

IRELAND’S MEDIA have become more Eurosceptic and more tabloid in their reporting in the years between the second Nice Treaty referendum and the Lisbon campaign, the European Commission has warned.

In a private briefing document circulated by the commission in Brussels, it warned that Ireland’s “changing media landscape” between 2002 and 2008 has implications for public opinion about the European Union.

RTÉ’s broadcasting dominance has been hit by satellite broadcasters who increased their audience by nearly 10 percentage points since the 2002 Nice referendum, while “news content on the main commercial national station TV3 is of quite low quality.

“There is a shift away from the State news radio and TV stations. This means that the quality of debate has suffered. Commercial radio and local radio are increasingly important to reach – and their style is different from the old State broadcasters,” it said.

British “Eurosceptic” titles have become more influential in the Republic, while radio listeners have drifted from RTÉ to independent stations “that have a greater focus on entertainment than news”.

“Since 2002 we have seen an increase in UK titles with “Irishised” editorial. Forty-one per cent of all Irish people read one or more of the following; the Irish Sun , Irish News of the World , Sunday Times , People , Irish Mirror , Sunday Mirror , Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday . These have proven to be significant opinion formers which in general have been more Euro-hostile,” it said.

The Rupert Murdoch-led media group News International has increased its hold over the tabloid and Sunday paper market, the document explained.

“Editorial is highly critical of the European Union and even more so of the Lisbon Treaty. What has changed is that these papers were previously printed in the UK, but now they are printed in Ireland. Also more of its editorial content is produced by Irish journalists on Irish issues – but subject to the London editorial line,” it went on.

The Irish Sun , which has 309,000 mostly young male readers, has “taken a campaigning Europhobic stance in line” with its sister title in the United Kingdom.

However, the influence of the upmarket Sunday Times is particularly noted by the commission because it is read “by 363,000 middle-class, well-educated readers, who would traditionally have been European supporters.

“Not only has the editorial been largely critical of Europe, it is rumoured that it has been refusing contributions from staff that are pro-Europe,” the commission’s paper said.

The launch of the Irish Mail on Sunday and Irish Daily Mail has also affected Irish opinions on the EU since they “have run intense Eurosceptic campaigns and employ a variety of right-wing journalists. These target primarily middle-class, middle-aged females, who tend to be a demographic that is widely more ‘Euro-hesitant’. Of less importance are the Irish Daily Mirror and the People . Both titles are owned by the UK Trinity group. In general their commentary has been fairly balanced,” it went on.

While the commission notes the increase in sales of UK tabloids and broadsheets, it went on: “What has gone mainly unnoticed is the growth in reproduction of foreign news in indigenous Irish titles like the Irish Examiner , Irish Times and Irish Independent . The Irish Independent takes much of its European news from the Daily Telegraph .

“Despite being the largest national daily title, it no longer has a Brussels-based journalist. The main reason for this is the cost-cutting that many of the indigenous Irish titles underwent in the early part of the decade. Both the Irish Times and Independent reduced editorial staff numbers. This has created a dependency on outsourcing reporting to UK titles.”

The development of a conservative religious press since the second Nice Treaty is particularly noted by the commission: “These titles have an even more conservative viewpoint than the Church hierarchy on many issues. They are bitterly anti-European, supposedly because of liberal European attitudes on; church/State relations, homosexuality, abortion, stem cell research and various other social issues.”

Though the circulation of ALIVE!, which targets conservative, older readers, is unknown, the paper claims that 365,000 copies a month are handed out, the commission briefing went on.

The fragmented anti-Lisbon Treaty campaign had a much stronger internet presence, using viral e-mails, videos and songs.

“Apart from official websites, the internet has largely been a space left to anti-European feeling. Given the ability to reach an audience at a much lower cost, and given the simplicity of the No campaign messages, it has proven to be easily malleable during the campaign and pre-campaign period.”

• The unabridged EC analysis of Irish media coverage of the Lisbon campaign is available at www.irishtimes.com/indepth

© 2008 The Irish Times