· A vote for UKIP is a wasted vote, making it more likely that a Labour or Liberal Democrat candidate will be elected.

· UKIP’s representatives fail to stand up for Britain when it really matters.

· UKIP are an extremist and divided party that has been previously infiltrated with BNP and racists.

· Conservatives are the only mainstream party that opposes a federal Europe and wants to keep the Pound.

In Local Government: In local elections, a vote for UKIP is a wasted vote. Under the ‘first past the post’ system, a vote for UKIP rather than Conservatives makes it more likely that a Europhile Labour or Liberal Democrat will be elected. According to UKIP, they have a mere 30 councillors across the country (source: UKIP Spokesman, Mark Croucher, BBC News Online, 9 October 2003).

For Europe: An independent academic study has predicted that UKIP will lose their three existing MEP seats in the June 2004 elections. Professor Simon Hix of the LSE and Dr Michael Marsh of Trinity College, Dublin, note, ‘the UK Independence Party should lose all their seats, as support for them appears to have collapsed’. This is also a consequence of a reduction in the number of seats that the UK has in the European Parliament (78 from 2004 compared to 87 in the 1999 elections), so raising the threshold to get elected. As a result, a vote for UKIP rather than Conservatives will mean more Labour or Liberal Democrat MEPs are sent to Brussels and Strasbourg (source: Hix & Marsh, Predicting the Future: The next European Parliament, published by Burson-Marsteller Brussels on 13 April 2004).

UKIP’s few MEPs in Parliament fail to stand up for Britain’s interests when it really matters. On the great bulk of votes, they are either absent or abstain - including on such key issues as asylum and immigration, tax harmonisation and the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights.

UKIP and the EU Budget

Control of the EU Budget and highlighting waste and corruption are the most important powers held by the European Parliament. Yet UKIP have been absent from almost every key vote on the EU Budget and its discharge since being elected:

28 October 1999: The European Parliament voted on the EU Budget for 2000. UKIP’s Jeffrey Titford MEP did not turn up for the vote.

13 April 2000: The European Parliament voted on the Budgetary discharge for 1998. UKIP MEPs Michael Holmes and Nigel Farage were absent for the vote.

26 October 2000: The European Parliament voted on the EU Budget for 2001. All 3 UKIP MEPs were absent.

4 April 2001: The European Parliament voted on the Budgetary discharge for 1999. All 3 UKIP MEPs were absent.

25 October 2001: The European Parliament voted on the EU Budget for 2002. All 3 UKIP MEPs were absent.

24 October 2002: The European Parliament voted on the EU Budget for 2003. All 3 UKIP MEPs were absent.

23 October 2003: The European Parliament voted on the EU Budget for 2004. Both Jeffrey Titford and Graham Booth were absent.

‘Vote Tory, UKIP Founder Says’, BBC News Online, 3 June 1999.

Dr Alan Sked, founder of UKIP, has endorsed Conservatives in the European elections over UKIP. He accused UKIP of having ‘no coherenet sense of principles’.

‘High Life Bites Into UKIP’s Anti-Europe Fighting Fund’, The Guardian, 20 October 1999.

Despite pledge to devote most of MEP allowance to an anti-Europe Fighting Fund, UKIP MEPs are alleged to spend almost all of their allowances on lavish hotels and swank bars with other MEPs.

‘Sceptics who betray Britain’, Spectator, by Alan Sked, UKIP founder, 10 February 2001.

The founder of UKIP remarks, ‘no one who has watched the sad decline of the UKIP from a party of principle and honour to one of squalid opportunism could express surprise. For the UKIP has become a political embarrassment to all those who cherish British independence… Even when the UKIP’s MEPs vote - and one of the three has left the party to become an independent - they often vote different ways on the same issue. The official voting records of the European Parliament in fact provide much amusing reading - for example, the UKIP decision to abstain on the vote to reduce the notoriously abused allowances system, when all other UK parties voted for reform… All those who want to save the pound and protect UK independence [should] vote Tory next time… to return a government that will truly be in a position to say No to Brussels.’