Bas Belder MEP of the Dutch SGP has defected from the Group organised by and around UKIP, to the Group organised by and around the Conservative Party.
The SGP is an ultra-Calvinist party that was founded in opposition to giving women the vote. It barred women from membership until 2006, and it still does not permit them to be candidates for public office.
That is the outer fringe of Calvinism. The DUP has any number of women politicians, even if they do tend to be married to the male ones.
Banning women from political participation is not remotely the position of the Free Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing), the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England, the Free Church of England, the Church of England (Continuing), and so on.
Nor does even everyone in the Dutch Bible Belt, a real Belt separating the Catholic South from the historically mainline Protestant but now very secularised North, vote for the SGP. Most communities there are like similar communities in the North of Scotland or in parts of Northern Ireland. But that is all.
It is fine by Farage, though.
And now, it is fine by Cameron, too.
That is the outer fringe of Calvinism. The DUP has any number of women politicians, even if they do tend to be married to the male ones.
Banning women from political participation is not remotely the position of the Free Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing), the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England, the Free Church of England, the Church of England (Continuing), and so on.
Nor does even everyone in the Dutch Bible Belt, a real Belt separating the Catholic South from the historically mainline Protestant but now very secularised North, vote for the SGP. Most communities there are like similar communities in the North of Scotland or in parts of Northern Ireland. But that is all.
It is fine by Farage, though.
And now, it is fine by Cameron, too.
If you are a Conservative, then I hope that you are very proud of the company that you are now keeping: the Danish People's Party, the True Finns, and now the SGP.
If you are a UKIP supporter, then I hope that you are very proud of the company that you have been keeping.
For that matter, if you are a supporter of the Danish People's Party, or of the True Finns, or of the SGP, then how do you explain your party's association, either with the anarcho-capitalists of UKIP, or with the Thatcherite ultras, the neocon hawks and the ALEC members of the Conservative Party.
The Danish People's Party, the True Finns and the SGP are each and all many things. But none of them is any of those.
Or is it?
As the aged Roy Jenkins existed between New Labour and the upper echelons of the Lib Dems, or as certain figures used to exist between a section of the Labour Left and a section of the Communist Party, so Daniel Hannan seems to exist between UKIP and the Conservative Right. He is of course quite correct that Margaret Thatcher remains the de facto Leader of both of those parties.
Even though she is dead.
They are like something out of North Korea. A plain and simple cult. Hardly any remaining Conservatives are not members of it. No one would join UKIP for any reason other than membership of it.
The belief that it is theologically impossible for anyone ever to equal, still less to surpass, a now-dead Prime Minister whose every successor's only proper role is to preserve her dogmatically defined legacy, is the stuff, not of politics, but of religion.
It is strikingly similar to the basis of Shia Islam. Might there be people who believe that Margaret Thatcher is merely occulted, so that She will appear again at the End of Days?
In UKIP, quite conceivably. That party has now noisily predicted its victory at three by-elections caused by scandal, in two cases leading to imprisonment. But the Conservatives held Newark, the perfect UKIP seat at the perfect UKIP time. Labour held Rotherham. The Lib Dems held Eastleigh.
Tomorrow, the Lib Dems are expected to come to a settlement in relation to the MP for Portsmouth South. Look out for the predictions of a UKIP gain. There will not be one.
But, as with the many promised and undelivered dates of the Apocalypse among those who seem to have missed the bit about knowing not the day nor the hour, that will not concern the Elect. Or, as it were, the Unelect.
In the meantime, Labour at Westminster needs to propose primary legislation disapplying in the United Kingdom anything approved by the European Parliament but not by the majority of those MEPs who had been publicly certified as politically acceptable by and to at least one seat-taking Member of the House of Commons.
Even though she is dead.
They are like something out of North Korea. A plain and simple cult. Hardly any remaining Conservatives are not members of it. No one would join UKIP for any reason other than membership of it.
The belief that it is theologically impossible for anyone ever to equal, still less to surpass, a now-dead Prime Minister whose every successor's only proper role is to preserve her dogmatically defined legacy, is the stuff, not of politics, but of religion.
It is strikingly similar to the basis of Shia Islam. Might there be people who believe that Margaret Thatcher is merely occulted, so that She will appear again at the End of Days?
In UKIP, quite conceivably. That party has now noisily predicted its victory at three by-elections caused by scandal, in two cases leading to imprisonment. But the Conservatives held Newark, the perfect UKIP seat at the perfect UKIP time. Labour held Rotherham. The Lib Dems held Eastleigh.
Tomorrow, the Lib Dems are expected to come to a settlement in relation to the MP for Portsmouth South. Look out for the predictions of a UKIP gain. There will not be one.
But, as with the many promised and undelivered dates of the Apocalypse among those who seem to have missed the bit about knowing not the day nor the hour, that will not concern the Elect. Or, as it were, the Unelect.
In the meantime, Labour at Westminster needs to propose primary legislation disapplying in the United Kingdom anything approved by the European Parliament but not by the majority of those MEPs who had been publicly certified as politically acceptable by and to at least one seat-taking Member of the House of Commons.
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