Zero legitimacy.

One thing I think people are missing regarding the likely appointment of Tony Blair as the permanent President of the European Union: forget who is going to take the role for a minute, just where is the scrutiny for such a role even existing?

If Blair does get the post as I believe he will, it will have had exactly zero endorsement from the electorate as virtually nobody in the continent, let alone our country, has even had a say on whether there should be a President of the EU.

Even the most rabid europhile who has any interest whatsoever in this thing have even an whiff of democratic legitimacy cannot defend that fact. It blows my mind that we are debating who should be President, and not that it is a national scandal and disgrace that nobody has ever had a say on this post, as is the case with so many other aspects of the EU.

And it is important to remember that the self-amending Lisbon Treaty will also mean that we will never again get a referendum on further power grabs. The EU elite are now perfectly entitled, according to the rules they set, to go now as far as they want because people's "elected representatives" (read: Gordon Brown) have decided as much.

The BNP and Question Time.

They complained, cried foul, claimed bias, predicted disaster. But the BNP's Leader Nick Griffin appearing on Question Time did not directly benefit the party.

It was absurd that the entire program was based around Griffin and his own party's belief. Scrutiny is fine, but the world still turns and there were many issues far more deserving of discussion this week than the BNP, which the show was almost exclusively about.

Perhaps though this was a fair reflection of the totally self-defeating media storm kicked off in the run up to Griffin's appearance. Socialist and communist protesters outside BBC Studio HQ, double-page spread after double-page spread in the papers and several politicians calling Griffin's appearance illegal and wrong, with very little substance backing up the arguments. At the end of the day though, Griffin came across as out of his league, which he was. I expected as much from a man whose beliefs are so utterly incoherent and flawed, though the so-called "anti-fascists" obviously disagree with that.

The facts are really very simple. The BNP pick up votes due to the issue of immigration along with the current general disgust with our politicians. What is required then is not to ignore them or wheel out pathetic sound bites as the Labour and Tory representatives did on the show tonight. How interesting for example it will be to see a Conservative government bring in a cap on immigration when hundreds of millions of people can move freely from country to country inside the European Union!

Instead, it must be accepted that while the BNP have had and likely always will have a racist core of supporters, many are now won over by their simplistic and flawed arguments due to hatred for the Westminster clique. I have always said that one of UKIP's key battles must be to make the case for a moderate, sensible policy of controlled immigration that does not let in some and not allow others in because where they come from like we have now. We need a system along the lines of those seen in Australia and America.

After all if we don't, who will? And if nobody does, the BNP will continue to grow.