Ukip Warn Scotland Not 'To Abuse The English' At Party Conference

Ukip Warn Scotland Not 'To Abuse The English'

First Minister Alex Salmond should accept the result of the referendum on Scottish independence, Ukip's MEP for Scotland has said, warning it doesn't pay for Scotland "to abuse the English".

David Coburn told cheering delegates at Ukip's national conference in Doncaster that he wanted to see a Scottish government "behaving responsibly with the money they raise".

He said: "If it's going to be fair, let him accept the result of the referendum. We would have had to accept (it) if it had been Yes, let him accept it now it's No."

UKIP MEP David Coburn

Coburn raised the West Lothian Question, stating: "We also do not believe that Scottish MPs should be legislating for English laws."

He claimed: "It doesn't pay for Mr Salmond to abuse the English ... that's not the way to treat Scotland's largest trading partner and oldest best friend."

Coburn branded the shape of the referendum an "absolutely shambles", while his own election, he argued, proved that Scots were "equally interested" in getting out of the European Union.

Ukip, he argued, presented a "clear and present danger" to Labour in Scotland, while the Tories and Liberal Democrats were a "cocktail of irrelevance in the Scottish picture".

Food banks, he claimed, were the result of years of socialist Labour and socialist SNP government in Scotland, adding: "The way to eradicate food banks in Scotland is not by wringing your hands but by creating real jobs in the private sector."

He said: "Free enterprise creates jobs, socialism breeds poverty and unemployment," adding: "We need to take the dead hand of socialism from the back of the Scottish young entrepreneur."

Ukip, he argued, wanted a libertarian Scotland, hitting out at the class cliches of left and right.

"We're not interested in all that old class rubbish, it's a load of old nonsense," he declared. "Ukip are a meritocratic party, we want everyone to have a chance to get on in life, and that's a good Scottish principle."

Ukip MEP for Wales Nathan Gill argued: "For too long the Labour Party has taken Wales and the people of Wales for granted."

He said: "It is time for Barnett to be revisited and a fair settlement for the whole of the UK to be made. Wales needs Ukip, Wales needs politicians who are people just like them who have entered politics because of conviction."

The desire for independence in Wales, he argued, was at an "alt-time low", adding: "We know that we are better together and that all of us benefit from this United Kingdom. Wales is ready for change and Ukip is ready to deliver it."

Property investor Andrew Perloff, chairman of Hertfordshire-based real estate firm Panther Securities, said Scotland's rejection of independence came as no surprise given that UK taxpayers "contribute £1,600 per year per person... to these malcontents".

Under the heading "chairman's ramblings" in Panther Securities' interim results, Perloff said: "We have just had the result of the Scottish referendum which appears as a resounding Yes to the union 55% in favour to 45% against.

"I do not know why the result would have been in doubt.

"Why would any faction of a social club resign when all the other members contribute £1,600 per year per person to their particular faction and have been further browbeaten to offer further incentives to these malcontents?

"Perhaps now the English can have a referendum as to whether we wish to keep the Scots in and whilst we are at it, the Irish and Welsh as well! Why should the Scots have a one-way bet?"

In the wake of the historic vote, Ukip leader Nigel Farage demanded that Scottish MPs immediately give up their right to debate or vote on devolved English issues in Westminster.

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