ECHR Referendum

Indeed, I believe it’s customary in a maiden speech to pay tribute to your predecessor which I’m very happy to do. Charles Watling, a very decent nice. honourable man, former actor wears his Garett Club tie, nothing even vaguely conservative about him, but a jolly nice chat and it was a clean campaign. ECHR.

The honourable member for Holland and South Deepings earlier made reference to Clacton as being the place for a traditional English seaside holiday and indeed it is with its peer and its miles of sandy beaches and its arcades and perhaps it’s not the holiday that’s as popular as it used to be, now that people go to Spain and elsewhere but it’s still there.

There are other  parts of the constituency that are gentile, quite wealthy but if we go to  places like Jaywick we find the most deprived community in the whole of the United Kingdom, those communities have little faith or trust or belief that government can make their lives better indeed what I found knocking on doors were people saying we want to work, we want to get on we want to make money but as soon as we work for 16 hours a week or more our benefits get taken away, we’re better off staying on benefits.

I have to say I feel immensely sorry for people who the benefit system which is designed to help them is actually keeping them trapped in levels of relative poverty so I will do my best as the MP for the area to bring business investment, private money into the constituency with jobs and training and skills.

See full general election results and statistics: https://www.reformnation.media/general-election-results-list-5-7-24/

Westminster v the EU

I can’t promise that I’ll do it but I will do my absolute damnest to make it happen. Now, it’s funny because I spent nearly 21 years as a member of the European Parliament in Brussels and with it monthly journey to Strasburg and I have to say this place is very different, indeed it’s smaller there is not a chauffeur driven Mercedes available for each member, no large lump sums of money which you don’t have to spend on anything and show no receipts for and I wonder whether perhaps that’s why so many in the British political system seem to adore the European Union so much?

Because, it is a rather wonderful place to work, what I perhaps didn’t expect was to come here and to find that I’m more outnumbered with my Reform team, more outnumbered here than we were in the European Parliament because there are more supporters of Brexit in the European Parliament that I sense there are in this parliament of 2024. This is very much a remainers parliament I suspect in many cases it’s really a rejoiner parliament but the other issue and it’s very interesting as we debate The King’s Speech.

If you look at the  speech itself, the word immigration is mentioned only twice, an asylum just once and perhaps this is not a surprise as when Sir Keir Starmer laid out the six big priorities for the general election for the Labour party, he didn’t mention legal or illegal immigration and that’s the other area in which I think the five of us sitting over here are going to find ourselves massively outnumbered in this house is because we actually do want to talk about these issues.

You see I believe that the population explosion is having the biggest impact on the quality of life of ordinary folk than any other issue, it all started of course when the current Home Secretary became a member of parliament back in May ‘97 and it’s worth reminding ourselves that net  migration was the same during the late 1940s the whole of the 1950s the whole of the 1960s the whole of the 1970s the whole of the 1980s and the 1990s, up until Mr Blair net migration had run at 30 to 50,000 a year, for over half a century.

Open Doors Immigration

Then Mr Blair gets in and decides we’re going to open the doors in a way that had never been done before to the delight and joy of big companies and especially giant multinationals who have always wanted as much cheap labour as they can get and to hell with the consequences for working class families and people.

But perhaps it was even more of a surprise to see that that massive acceleration in our population through immigration would then by a Conservative party who despite promises in four consecutive manifestos actually accelerate what had happened under the years of Mr Blair.

So, we see a population increase of 10 million people since that time that Labour won its last landslide. Even the net figure is a migrant a minute even during the course of this debate many hundreds more people will come to our country and nobody is making the argument that there aren’t some exceptionally wonderful people among them, there are of course, but the sheer level of population means we have to build a new house every 2 minutes.

Even if the Labour government is able to fulfil the 1 and a half million houses that it wants to build during the life time of this Parliament it will make no dent at all on the current shortage of housing.

Rents have risen by 25% since. 2021 Why? Population increase and pressure and the list goes on through access to Health Services, to congestion, to pressure on infrastructure, the population crisis is the biggest impact affecting people’s lives damaging their quality of life and virtually nobody in this place even wants to talk about it.  

Illegal Immigration

But perhaps it’s on illegal immigration that I do really want to make a point. Four years ago, I went out into the English Channel repeatedly filming dingies coming across the channel, dingies with an average of 16 people per boat.

I was described as being a sad lonely desperate figure, always seeking attention and I have no doubt there are some that think that’s still the case today, spot on, thank you, but I did it because it was obvious to me what was going to happen.

It was obvious that there would be a huge influx of people illegally coming to Britain across the English Channel and it would happen because we stopped deporting people who came to Britain illegally and perhaps the Labour party might want to reflect themselves on the last period of Labour government.

Where we had home secretaries like David Blunkett, far, far to the right of people like the shadow Home Secretary today. You came to Britain illegally during the last Labour government your feet didn’t touch the sides you were gone, you were out.

Indeed, in the last year of the Labour government from 2009 to 10 50,000 people who came here legally were deported now none of that happens anymore, it didn’t happen under 14 years of conservatives and it clearly isn’t going to happen under this Labour government and I wonder why?

Leave the ECHR

I think you’ll find it’s the increased role of a court overseas (ECHR) that was set up in the wake of World War II with the very best of intentions that has now completely outlived its usefulness. It is of course called the ECHR the European Court of Human Rights and it was the Labour government that enshrined the convention into British law.

We will not stop the boats even if we sent a handful to Rwanda, we will not stop the boats by attempting to smash the criminal gangs, we’ve been doing that to the drugs industry in Britain year after year, decade after decade with no success whatsoever, the financial Rewards for smuggling people across the English Channel can now can now net a gang 2 to 3 million Euros a week whatever prison sentences or penalties are put upon them.

There will always be people volunteering to make millions of Euros a week. We will only stop this if we start deporting people that come illegally, then they won’t pay the smugglers, but we’ll only do that by leaving the ECHR, but I’ve got a fun question that I think would liven up politics, engage the public and see a massively increased turnout. Why don’t we have a referendum on whether we continue to be members of the ECHR?

Well that was Nigel Farage on the ECHR in his Maiden speech, in ripping form it has to be said, quick summary of what he just said in the comments if you’re joining us.