UKIP conference

Last sunday I paid a visit to the UKIP conference in Telford to meet their “regions expert”, John Kelly.

John is very knowledgeable on the subject or the euroregions and is actively taking fighting his local regional assembly.  He has been refusing to pay part of his council tax until the council proves that they have a legal right to give that money to an unelected regional government – the law says “no taxation without representation”.  This is, sadly, in stark contrast with the Conservative MP’s in the West Midlands who have all offered words of support to the West Midlands NO! campaign and stated their objections to regional government but want to wait until they are in government before they actually do anything.  It’s disappointing but that’s another story.

When John asked me what I thought UKIP might be able to do to help the campaign I asked him what UKIP were actually doing to oppose regional government.  His answer was “not enough”.  He then introduced me to Mike Natrass, the UKIP MEP for the West Midlands.  John and Mike had a chat about the regions and decided that UKIP would get together a committee and construct a policy for opposing the regions.

West Midlands NO! is awaiting the details of UKIP’s anti-regional policy with baited breath and is proud to have influenced their direction in a small way.