I'm in UKIP to fight for more than just withdrawal from the EU.

I can quite understand where Lord Pearson, under orders from then-Party Leader Nigel Farage, was coming from. UKIP was founded on the principle of withdrawing Britain from the European Union and that has been far and away the main policy and objective of the Party ever since.

However, as a relatively new member (I joined in April 2007) and being a very young figure by political standards, I disagree with the premise that after withdrawal from the EU, UKIP would have nothing to offer. We are now beating the government in national European Elections and scoring 12% in by-elections like in Norwich North, a campaign I worked for and helped to drive full time, sleeping upstairs on the floor in Norwich HQ for over a month along with many other fantastically dedicated members.

Some may say that such results are because Britain has never been more eurosceptic and that disdain with the establishment parties has grown to such dizzy heights. But I know for a fact that UKIP, like in Norwich North, are winning votes because we are the only Party that offers a unique flank of policies aside from the EU. No to ID cards, proper immigration controls, restoring grammar schools, binding local and national referenda, increasing the defence budget by 40%, bringing the poorest out of tax together and making people better off working than people on the doll. And yes, withdrawing from the European Union, giving Britain's Parliament back the authority envisaged by the country's forefathers and adding many billions back each year into our coffers.

I personally joined UKIP because it was the only Party that I saw which wanted to radically shape Britain's future. I believe this is a country which has been taken onto the wrong path by our political class who are utterly detached from reality and what it is like for ordinary people in today's Britain. To correct that, having experienced the very worst that Britain's state educational sector has to offer as I have, requires bold, radical vision.

If Britain withdrew from the European Union we would be a country with our democracy and some degree of prosperity back. But if UKIP disbanded, I would have nowhere to fight for all of the other things I believe in. And I find the thought of that a great shame.

The Pearson chapter.

So it is Lord Pearson who is the new leader of UKIP, winning some 48% of the vote the Party's members. What does this mean for UKIP?

Well Pearson has a credible profile in Westminster as one of the top critics of the European Union. He has a lot of contacts within the Tory Party still and David Cameron's eurosceptic wing have a lot of admiration for Pearson, as illustrated by Daniel Hannan's endorsement of Pearson as Peer of the Year for the Spectator awards.

Crucially, Pearson was far and away the best leadership candidate in terms of raising money and securing the back of large donors. Considering we've just been screwed by the Electoral Commission out of hundreds of thousands of pounds, that is some potential baggage that was going to come with the job. I think Pearson will do well in securing UKIP the sort of cash that it has always found lacking.

Pearson's focus on militant Islam is one which must be treat with the utmost respect and a degree of sensitivity for those Muslims who feel their religion already unfairly used as a political football. The issue is a fair one to address but is of course sensitive and must be approached positively. I suspect the media and other parties will try and stitch UKIP up as being an anti-Muslim Party, which is tosh. Personally, I feel we should be much more focused on policies concerning the economy, education, law and order and healthcare. But Pearson has been strong in advocating direct democracy, which is a very big positive and something we need to talk about much more.

If UKIP is to progress under Pearson at the next General Election, we must realise and go further in separating ourselves from being seen to be EU obsessives. Yes, the issue of the EU is important. But to tell the story of how Brussels is robbing us of our democracy and our prosperity, we must first be seen as a viable alternative by talking about bread and butter issues. With Pearson being a close ally to my political idol Nigel Farage, I am sure this is the direction UKIP will continue to take.

Pearson must now use his business savvy to improve the internal structure of UKIP and ensure that our impact in the General Election sees a unified Party making a statement and breaking into the House of Commons.

Would an EU wide tax convince some eurosceptics that enough is enough?

Something that really, really bothers me is the state of euroscepticism in this country. While UKIP fights the good fight, and a clear majority of the public would now back the "out" side if we ever do get an in or out referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, our elected politicians just seem so less bold. They do not want to face up to the question that the EU issue really poses to them.

The huge rump of supposedly eurosceptic backbench Tories and Labour MPs who openly admit that the EU is undemocratic and moving in the wrong direction offer only the hope that a multi-speed EU can be developed somehow. Or they go back to the totally flawed argument that we need to be in the EU for the economic benefits.

Unfortunately for them, soon enough a breaking point will come (it has for many already) when it is simply no longer credible to say that the EU is going to become anything other than a country in itself, with the UK as a designated state, albeit a large one. A point when the argument will be based more on the question as to whether we want to be part of a federal Europe or not, which has always been the real crux of the issue.

What is the new unelected EU President's first item on the agenda? No, not democratising the EU, not addressing the huge increase of euroscepticism across the continent and not discussing concerns of the legitimacy and implementation of the Lisbon Treaty. No, Van Rompuy wants to install an EU tax on international financial trading, the first step towards Brussels having far greater financial muscle and economic say even over countries that managed to resist entering into the euro currency.

When this is at the top the agenda for the first ever permanent EU President, what sense is there in so-called eurosceptics trying to deny that the EU is about anything other than closer integration? Lisbon has rattled a lot of cages, Van Rompuy looks ambitious and the game for soft eurosceptics who say that the undemocratic monster that is the EU can be tamed, will very soon be up. It will not be a matter of changing the EU, but whether its aggressive push towards statehood is worth being a part of.

A hung Parliament would be a very good thing.

Interesting that Iain Dale writes today that he agrees with Labour old boy Ray Hattersley that a hung Parliament would be a very bad thing. I couldn't disagree more.

Lord Pearson, the favourite to be the next leader of UKIP, agrees with me that a hung Parliament would be a very good thing and I'm glad he does. The fact is that I'm one of the young 'uns coming through who has grown up under the New Labour project, created and ran by Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell and Gordon Brown, among others. In many ways, I see very direct similarities between Blair's modernisation process of the Labour Party in the early 90's and the David Cameron project in the Tory Party. And it's frankly scary.

You see, advocates like Iain who support the Conservative Party of course support the Tories because he believes they, with David Cameron as Prime Minister, will bring positive change and improve the country. They naturally then want a strong government that has the authority to make such changes. But having seen Labour's dominance of Westminster, especially up until 2005, so-called strong government carries heavy risks. It allows the governing Party, with a three line whip, to have what is effectively a dictatorship controlled by the PM, their front bench and the whip enforcers.

Having seen just how much damage a so-called "strong" Labour government have done to the country, a Tory one fills me with just as much fear. I don't mind having a government with a significant majority. It's just that if the choice is between Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat, none of which I believe are parties of any real idealogical conviction, I'd pick coalition government every single time. Then hopefully the damage that these people can do will be limited.

The rules of the BNP game are changing.

Some may have thought that forcing the BNP to open up its membership to ethnic minority members was a clever thing to do. It opens the Party up to infiltration and stops it discriminating against non-whites. Those are the good points.

However, the thing people forget about Nick Griffin is that he has been pouncing around pretending not to be a racist/Nazi for the past decade or so. Though he collapsed when under heavy scrutiny on Question Time, those who shout racist and fascist at him like the Unite Against Fascism socialist/commie mob are doing him a favour. Griffin has spent years articulating his argument on why he and the BNP are not racist. Now, to politically-minded folk who have spent time looking at the origins of the BNP and Griffin's politics, that argument has little credibility.

But to a lonely pensioner trapped in an East London ghetto, scared, afraid of what many parts of inner city Britain have become, both in terms of the lack of law and order and the huge influx of immigration that has transformed the area they grew up in, Griffin is being made out to be simply the outnumbered patriot who is being attacked because he simply is not "politically correct". Griffin is a victim, but a victim simply of a Britain that overwhelmingly rejects racism. The simple fact is though, in places like Barking where Griffin will be hoping to become an MP, thousands of people aren't necessarily voting for a racist (having no idea of the BNP's true core), they are voting for a Party they believe is victimised just as much as they feel they are. They can relate to the BNP's barrage from the mainstream.

The fact that the BNP are now going to have a few token non-white members is going to make the allegations of racism all the more easy for Griffin to run rings around. And the simple truth is, the greater credibility Griffin has to his "we're not racist" argument, the more votes his Party will receive.

UKIP has always been proud to want proper border controls, proud of displaying the British flag at meetings no matter how un-mainstream that has become, proud to speak out against the failed project of multiculturalism but most importantly of all, proud to stand up for and comprise of people of all colours and creeds. The trouble is now that the BNP are going to try and emulate many of the arguments UKIP have been making, that it is about space not race.

I have always said that it can be only UKIP that can ever destroy the BNP, as the other parties offer no solutions to the issues that cause people to vote BNP in the first place. Let us hope that that happens and that the BNP do never get accepted to be a non-racist Party, even with their mistaken new non-white members. The moment that they do is the moment that their electoral potential shoots through the roof. And that's a scary thought.

Is Turkish EU membership now dead in the water?

Despite the fact that Liberal Democrats Europe-wide have just backed Turkish EU membership officially - meaning that Labour, the LibDems and the Conservatives in Britain all now support that huge phase of enlargement - Van Rompuy's appointment as the first ever permanent President of the EU could be a signal that Turkey's entry into the EU is highly unlikely in the near future.

Here is what our new unelected EU President has to say on the subject of Turkish membership:

"Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be part of Europe. An expansion of the EU to include Turkey cannot be considered as just another expansion as in the past".

"The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey."

Or maybe I'm just a pissed off eurosceptic clutching at straws?

The post-democratic era?

Herman Van Rompuy and Baroness Ashton are now the President and High Representative. And who, exactly, voted for them to hold such roles? It was decided by our beloved leaders. In Britain's case, a man who has only ever been elected by the constituents of a small Scottish constituency and has not been elected by even his Party nor the public as Prime Minster.

Perhaps this is what was meant by Peter Mandelson when he said we may be approaching the post-democratic era, where power is taken away from the people and made on behalf of them on a scale so far remove that the people's feelings and thoughts don't even matter any more. It is only the men and women backed by the millions of their respective Party machine that get to make the decisions now.

Of course Baroness Ashton has achieved a first, becoming one of, if not the most powerful British politician in the world without having been elected to anything, ever.

How very clever as well for a British High Representative to have been selected. Ashton will now represent Britain and France on the UN Security Council when there is a common EU policy. To the naked eye then, Britain will still be represented by a Brit while the French push for EU integration on security and defence anyway. I suspect that is the main reason Ashton got selected.

The EU's Foreign Minister will speak from the UK's UN Securty Council seat

This is the type of thing that the Lisbon Treaty will get in through the back door. You know it must be bad if William Hague is calling it a " big step towards a united States of Europe".

Just what though will the Conservatives do about it? Well they said they would not let matters rest there and Hague is clearly not happy with such a coup by the EU, so surely the Tories won't let things like there?

Except, sadly, the Conservatives are going to be about as useful on the issue of the EU as a chocolate teapot. Unless an in or out referendum is threatened, those in Brussels will dismiss Cameron and Hague off-hand. And you better believe that the Conservative Party would rather except whatever the European Union has to throw at Britain in order to avoid more in-fighting. It's how we got into this mess in the first place.

Hat tip: Gawain Towler.

Should UKIP not stand against anti-EU MPs?

The Better Off Out pledge requires that sitting MPs who publicly endorse the fact that Britain would be better outside of the EU, require a free run from UKIP in their constituencies.

I have changed my stance on this, from being a firm supporter of the BOO pledge to more of a sceptic. After all, where were all of these MPs - largely Tory - in the media when Cameron turned tail on his referendum pledge? Only Bill Cash really spoke out, and he isn't even one of the BOO set. The argument is that UKIP shoudn't cost these people their seats so they can make the anti-EU argument in the Commons, but if they are going to be partisan to the point of not being critical, then it seems a bit of an empty pledge.

There is also the question as to whether we want UKIP to be seen as a one issue Party. An MP like Bob Spink may be anti-EU, but disagree with UKIP on a whole range of other policies. Is UKIP right as a Party to simply care about that MPs stance on that one issue if they are happy to vote for 42 days? I'm not convinced.

Is it any wonder..

That most normal young people aren't interested in politics? The Queen's Speech was totally devoid of any substantial policy, and was basically a chance of a bunch of politicians to ponce around.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Queen's Speech is worthwhile. But only if there's going to be any real meat, rather than just more "we're going to make the country better" rhetoric that everyone knows is bull.

An effective EU President will achieve ever closer union.

The utter nonsense of the Conservative position is that the Treaty of Rome quite clearly calls for "ever closer union". Therefore it is senseless to call those driving the EU at the top as undemocratic and all the rest of it if you are committed to EU membership as the Conservative Party is and has always been. The EU is moving in a very definite direction. Its pro-integration agenda cannot be stopped, only opted out of by leaving and instead trading freely with our European neighbours.

It is for that reason that it comes as no surprise to me that the new favourite to be our unelected EU President is a man who wrote the following for his Party's manifesto: “Apart from the euro, also other national symbols need to be replaced by European symbols (licence plates, identity cards, presence of more EU flags, one time EU sports events".

In the bubble of Brussels, that agenda makes him a very tantalising prospect indeed. So do we want this, or do we want to leave?

Addressing immigration.

I'd just like to make something clear once again, seeing as everyone seems to have totally missed the point on the immigration/anti-BNP issue.

It really is very simple: whilst we are members of the European Union we have an open-border with the rest of the European Union. When you ask most British people what their concern on immigration is based upon, it's largely to do with the huge amounts of hard-working Eastern Europeans who have entered the country in recent years after the likes of Poland and Romania joined the EU.

And, as I'l say again, it is perverse that we are now discriminating against people who want to live and work in our country according to their place of origin. Outside of the EU and you'll face tests, inside the EU and no restrictions whatsoever. Sickening.

No referendum.

Never again will there be a transfer of power from Britain to Brussels without a referendum, according to David Cameron. What a joke.

He's not going to give a referendum on Lisbon now nor a referendum on bringing back specific powers as argued for today by senior Tory MP David Davis. In reality, Lisbon is a self-amending Treaty so Cameron would need to hold a referendum on Lisbon itself in the future anyway, as that is where further power will be transferred via.

I feel sorry for the mugs who actually still believe this guy to be anything resembling a eurosceptic. He is clearly happy for things to go on as they are, drifting into a federal Europe. We will shortly have a President of 27 countries who has not been voted for by anyone and whose very existence hasn't even been voted on by the British people. Cameron is happy to let that go. He could have kicked up a fuss and tried to reverse it, but he isn't going to try. Just like he isn't going to try and stop the other myriad of powers being transferred as Lisbon sets out.

In truth I am far from surprised. The choice however is now clear. Cameron is going to pose, as potential future Prime Minister, very little problems for the federalists driving the EU forward. And don't forget, if history has taught us anything, that opposition leaders generally become only more cowardly, self-serving and europhile once they get into 10 Downing Street. Now that's a scary thought.

Alan Johnson understands the immigration fears of British people, but has no way of solving the problem.

Alan Johnson has admitted that the government have made mistakes on immigration and that in many areas it has placed a strain on jobs and services. More than that though, he has come out with this:

Mr Johnson said he believed the moderate majority want immigration to be carefully controlled, while accepting it has enriched Britain's culture, and was good for the economy.

At the same time as accepting genuine refugees, they wanted Britain to send home illegal immigrants, failed asylum seekers and foreign national prisoners.

Pretty spot on there Mr. Johnson. The problem is, he knows as well as I do that being in the EU means that you can't deliver on carefully controlled immigration as we have totally open borders with hundreds of millions of people from fellow EU member states like Romania, Poland and Bulgaria, countries where it is easy to obtain false EU documentation to pass through the EU even if you are from a non-EU country.

The fact that the government have restricted and discriminated against non-EU citizens coming into the country is an omission that they know immigration is now out of control and having a negative effect. Shockingly though, they do this while allowing whoever wants to come in from the EU in, in what is blatant and sickening bias and discrimination. Why doesn't Mr. Johnson flag that one up?

Roger Helmer shouldn't have stood as a Conservative.

This is what Roger Helmer, a Conservative MEP, said back in June:

I personally regard our commitment not to accept the Lisbon Treaty as the heart of the Manifesto on which I was elected two weeks ago, and I should regard any retreat from it as a betrayal of our supporters, and of the British people. This is not the way to restore trust in politics. I am confident that the Party will indeed do what it says it will do — if I were not, I should not have stood as a Conservative. If however I am wrong, and at some future stage it becomes clear that it would not, that the Conservative Party intended to resile from the referendum promise, then I for one should have to consider my position very carefully.

Will be interesting to see if Helmer finally realises he has no place in Cameron's Conservatives.