Should Nigel Farage be in the 2015 General Election TV Debates?

If they overtake LibDem membership no excuse why UKIP shouldn't be in debates

As well as their Party Election Broadcasts (got via standing so many candidates) UKIP will get loads of media coverage. But despite the way that UKIP will do very well in the Euro elections (low turnout, seen as a protest vote election) Farage is not going to be PM or in a position to decide who is:

When it comes to the debates, the only membership that counts is that of the House of Commons before dissolution.

Reply 41

Swanbow

19

If you the United Kingdom had a proportional voting system UKIP would be the 4th biggest party in the country. The only reason why UKIP don't have any seats and probably won't after the next election is due to our farce of a voting system.

Sure, why not?

Yes, let them join the debates (the Green Party ought to be part of the debate, too). For two reasons;

1) It's vital to democracy. They are a popular party who are consistently polling well.

2) It will highlight their incompetence and utter ineptitude when it comes to areas of policy other than the EU!

Reply 44

Sunny_Smiles

Original post by Burridge

Yes, let them join the debates (the Green Party ought to be part of the debate, too). For two reasons;

1) It's vital to democracy. They are a popular party who are consistently polling well.

2) It will highlight their incompetence and utter ineptitude when it comes to areas of policy other than the EU!

yeah I actually agree here that both UKIP (who I prefer over the "libcancon") and the greens should be allowed to be in the debates equally - the reasons they aren't shown to "exist" is probably the biggest undermining factor of both of those parties electorally (apart from UKIP in recent times perhaps :lol:

). those who say that neither should be in the debates are just, in my view, insecure about their preferred parties getting less support

Reply 45

ottom

8

Do away with the TV debates. Election campaigns were already becoming too presidential prior to 2010. Instead they should have individual Q and A sessions on Question Time (as was the case in some previous campaigns).

Reply 46

Ace123

OP

2

Original post by ottom

Do away with the TV debates. Election campaigns were already becoming too presidential prior to 2010. Instead they should have individual Q and A sessions on Question Time (as was the case in some previous campaigns).

why not have both, two different styles to get into more policy detail could be good.

on a separate note I think the Maria Miller issue has shown why Farage should be in the debates, he was the only one to speak out against it, Labour and the LibDems very very quiet for fear one of their own would be found out

Reply 47

This Is Matt

We all now our voting system makes it difficult for smaller parties to gain an MP. It all comes down to where your supporters are distributed.

Imagine if, at one GE UKIP pulled more votes than the Lib Dems (say a 100k more) As Lib Dem support is concentrated and UKIP support is more evenly distributed, UKIP could have zero MP's but the Lib Dems could have 30 MP's. Yet UKIP had more votes but the Lib Dems get a say in the Commons.

Is that fair?

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 48

mcfc

12

Original post by This Is Matt

We all now our voting system makes it difficult for smaller parties to gain an MP. It all comes down to where your supporters are distributed.

Imagine if, at one GE UKIP pulled more votes than the Lib Dems (say a 100k more) As Lib Dem support is concentrated and UKIP support is more evenly distributed, UKIP could have zero MP's and come second or third a lot or constituencies and the Lib Dems could have 30 MP's. Yet UKIP had more votes but the Lib Dems get a say in the Commons.

Is that fair?

That is totally unfair. These small parties have no place in the parliament.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 49

MichaelYEAH

11

Original post by MrKappa

I don't see a good reason why he shouldn't.

And Miliband is an arrogant prick.

+1 imaginary rep.

Also, I wanna see Farage in the debates 'cause he's hilarious!

Reply 50

Manitude

20

I believe UKIP have said they intend to field a candidate in more than 50% of constituencies, so in theory they can win an outright majority. I think we all know that's not going to happen in 2015, though they may get an MP or two.
On the basis that they are actually making an attempt to get into government and are on track to get a significant share of the vote, I think they should get a chance to debate.

If you look at what are probably the next two biggest non regional parties, Greens and BNP, they only fielded 310 and 338 candidates in 2010. A majority would be 326, so the Greens could not win a majority whereas the BNP in theory could have. Contrast this to the 558 fielded by UKIP and you see that they are seriously trying to get a majority vote. Also worth mentioning that the BNP were considerably more popular then than they are now, so I'd expect them to field more candidates. I don't know how the Greens are doing at the moment, if I'm perfectly honest, but the fact I've not heard anything suggests they're not doing a whole lot in comparison to UKIP. Further, UKIP have really been pushing themselves to the front of politics recently so I would expect them to field more candidates than in 2010, giving further reason to allow Farage to debate.

In my opinion it would be totally wrong to prevent them from having an equal platform to lib/lab/con just because people disagree with their views.

Reply 51

This Is Matt

Original post by Manitude

UKIP have really been pushing themselves to the front of politics recently.

This! No one will deny that UKIP are aiming to become a genuine alternative. They have moved away from the protest and minority voting and have started to become mainstream.

Reply 52

JFens

I don't think he should be included in the debate as there needs to be an intelligent and informed debate about issues such as the European Union. I don't think Nigel Farage makes any actual intelligent arguments, his arguments are simply based on panic and Xenophobia. Also, the way I see it, UKIP are a one-issue party and so Nigel Farage won't have much to say on other areas such as education or the cost of living.

Reply 53

This Is Matt

Original post by JFens

I don't think he should be included in the debate as there needs to be an intelligent and informed debate about issues such as the European Union. I don't think Nigel Farage makes any actual intelligent arguments, his arguments are simply based on panic and Xenophobia. Also, the way I see it, UKIP are a one-issue party and so Nigel Farage won't have much to say on other areas such as education or the cost of living.

You don't read/listen his blogs/speeches do you? If you did you would realise he has lots to say and much of it is hard to disagree with. I'll give you an example:

Farage: I think too many people are going to university and lots of the time to get degrees that are not particularly good degrees. We need to reinvest in colleges to teach a trade or skill. There is no shame in not going to university. It's great to learn a skill or do an apprentice. The politicians warn of a skills shortage if we left the EU or had a controlled immigration policy but if invested in our people and made sure they have the skills to do the jobs, there's wouldn't be a skill shortage.

Later on the NHS...

Farage: They say the NHS would fall apart as it relies on foreign doctors. Whilst it is good to have people who have skills working in Britain, if we invested more in the nursing and medicine departments at our universities we could create more doctors and nurses. At the moment lots of medicine places are full of foreign students as they pay a lot more and the universities want more money to make up a shortfall when we have very intelligent student doing a degree they don't really want to do as they didn't get a place to study medicine. Let's invest more to create more place on medicine courses.

It continued. You get the gist? It's very hard to disagree as it's a valid and reasonable point. Australia did it and their skill shortage was reduced massively.

Reply 54

kumon

16

No **** ukip and their scaremongering, besides they want to privatize the NHS and are homophobic pricks.

Reply 55

This Is Matt

Original post by kumon

No **** ukip and their scaremongering, besides they want to privatize the NHS and are homophobic pricks.

Listen to what they say. Being against gay marriage doesn't make them homophobic. If it did, the CoE is and most other religions. Not scaremongering. Scaremongering is claiming 3 million jobs will be lost if Britain exited the EU. They conveniently forget the EU forced us to reject a free trade agreement with the Commonwealth (over 2bn people in it) why did they force us to reject it?
The trade agreement was only offered to include Britain and not the whole of the EU.

Reply 56

Rakas21

21

Original post by This Is Matt

Listen to what they say. Being against gay marriage doesn't make them homophobic. If it did, the CoE is and most other religions. Not scaremongering. Scaremongering is claiming 3 million jobs will be lost if Britain exited the EU. They conveniently forget the EU forced us to reject a free trade agreement with the Commonwealth (over 2bn people in it) why did they force us to reject it?
The trade agreement was only offered to include Britain and not the whole of the EU.

Your imagination seems to have run wild. The Commonwealth has never ever put a free trade agreement to us to reject. Hell, most commonwealth countries don't even have free trade with each other.

Reply 57

This Is Matt

Original post by Rakas21

Your imagination seems to have run wild. The Commonwealth has never ever put a free trade agreement to us to reject. Hell, most commonwealth countries don't even have free trade with each other.

Incorrect! TPSEP and CEPEA. Both proposals included the bulk of Commonwelath nations but both excluded the UK as Britain isn't allowed to negotiate its own trade deals. Instead the EU as a representative of all EU member states negotiates.

Reply 58

Rakas21

21

Original post by This Is Matt

Incorrect! TPSEP and CEPEA. Both proposals included the bulk of Commonwelath nations but both excluded the UK as Britain isn't allowed to negotiate its own trade deals. Instead the EU as a representative of all EU member states negotiates.

Their all Pacific based. Is there any evidence that they'd have liked to include us?

Reply 59

MASTER265

Original post by Ace123

So Ed Miliband has said he does not want Farage in the 2015 TV debates- http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/03/nigel-farage-tv-election-debates-ed-miliband

Farage has said this is ridiculous and demands a place- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10743541/Nigel-Farage-demands-place-in-party-leaders-election-debates.html

What is your view? I think he should
1- UKIP are now the 3rd party costantly polling ahead of Libdems
2- It would be good for democracy
3- The public want it
4- They have come 2nd in the last 7 MP by election
5-They got 25% in the local elections last year
6- They are likely to do very well in locals in 2014 and could win EU election

What does everyone make of the argument they have no MP's? I think it is irrelevant because Parliament has been dissolved so no one has any MP's and also the previous MP's were elected over 5 years ago

Absolutely, it would be his democratic right and judging by the political headway they have made they sure deserve it. At the end of the day if Farage is as wrong and hopeless as red ed and Dave believe what have they got to lose from publicly debating him.

UKIP could define our future so to not would be foolish and I honestly believe it would be a smart move by Cameron, if he and Farage can dominate the debate by bashing each other and give ed as little ammunition as possible it would definitely hurt labour. Farage has demonstrated he as great debater and in all honesty ed is not the best so of course he would want to remove Farage from them.

UKIP and Tories while opposed to eachother sure could decimate ed from our TV screens and Clegg while a genuinely nice guy just hasn't got the fight as we saw.

Should Nigel Farage be in the 2015 General Election TV Debates?

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