DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

As a fellow Liberal Democrat, I dispute the assertions expressed by my colleague and Group Leader of the Medway LibDems, Geoff Juby, in last Friday's edition of the Medway Messenger, wherein he stated that most people in the UK wanted to get out of the EU.

For a start, only 34.19% of the electorate bothered to vote, leaving 65.81% whose views were not expressed either one way or the other. And of the 34.19% who cast their votes, only 27.49% voted UKIP, which constitutes just 9.09% of the entire electorate. Hardly a 'majority' methinks! The last thing we want to be accused of is that of doing UKIP's work for them by perpetuating their myths. It is only the government that can take us out of the EU, and in the real world, that will never be UKIP.

I agree with Geoff in that we should continue to back our party leader, Nick Clegg, who has shown enormous courage in fighting the pro-EU corner and for heading-up those very successful and most welcome LibDem policies brought forward under the coalition government, something which the UK media has a strange reluctance to report on. However, I also believe that our established politicians do need to start speaking the language of the 'common man', but without the vulgarity of Mr. Farage. One does not have to be rudely aggressive in order to be assertive, and assertiveness is something which we very much need.

People have said that when Farage speaks, they feel he is speaking to them personally. Never mind the vacuous nonsense he espouses, it is the language that people are responding to. Career politicians take note - get your finger nails dirty, roll up your sleeves, work up a sweat and get in touch with the salt of the earth. Learn the language of the people and speak to them so they understand you and more importantly, believe you. Respond to questioning with an honest spontaneity and not with practiced cardboard cut-out party lines. That way, people may possibly re-engage with political realism as opposed to UKIP fantasy and thus save the UK from falling into the abyss.