THE result of the European Convention on Human Rights was eventually encapsulated and enshrined into UK law in the 1998 Human Rights Act.

Labour minister Jack Straw at the time hailed the act as “one of the great legal constitutional and social reforms of this government”. “This government”? Forced into it more like!

Plots are afoot to keep the HRA 1998, but case history has shown that victims of crime and whistleblowers of the act have been admonished and themselves been victims of what has turned out to be a judicial farce.

We need a (written) constitution – a Bill of Rights if you like. A daughter product of Magna Carta.

Is it not the British people’s right to govern themselves and not be dictated to by the unelected European elite who quite obviously do not have any understanding or sympathy for our historic customs?

Therefore, we need, and demand, a referendum on future major issues (ie membership of the EU), and not a referendum stitch-up, that is, a plebiscite in which confidence tricks are used like those Harold Wilson used in 1975 to pull off a loaded referendum victory.

The British people never got what they were led to believe they were voting for. Remember about five years ago was it? When the Irish voted the “wrong” way, they had to vote again until they got it right!

UKIP want referendums that offers clear choices. Firstly we have to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act.

But before all that, the public need and are entitled to be told the truth, culminating in a straightforward question about being ‘in’ or ‘out’ – a ‘member’ or ‘no longer a member’ of the EU.

Everyone in UKIP, from members to senior management, will be monitoring both the above important issues closely – very closely indeed!

JOHN MADEN (UKIP Oxford West & Abingdon)
Montagu Road
Botley
Oxford