Friday 25 January 2013

Exclusive: #thingsdouglascarswellsays

#thingselliottsays exclusively reveals what Douglas Carswell said to a number of questions.


Q: Will the government plan to renegotiate on immigration with the European Union?
A: Immigration is a big issue with a massive impact on Britain with anyone from Calais to the Urals able to migrate to the UK. This needs to be addressed. The greatest impact is on benefits. I would never like to see a situation where you would have to bring a passport to a hospital to be treated by the NHS, but we need border controls as the cost is too great to provide for other European citizens. We have the technology allowing this but, unlike in both Australia and Switzerland, there is a lack of will to do so. Frankly, the leaders of the British Border Agency are clots for not doing anything. What I do want migration wise is for reciprocal migration in places where British people do go to live and work, like UK citizens going to live in Spain. Some countries should be open, but you do not see many people from the UK going to Romania.

Q: What is the government’s bottom line on what it wants to achieve in its EU negotiations?
A: The way I see it, David Cameron has left himself wiggle room to come out of the EU if he has to, if the EU offers no or token repatriated powers. It would be not only dishonourable for the Prime Minister’s first stance to recommend an out vote but allow him no wiggle room for an out vote. At the moment it would take me four things to want to stay in the EU. Firstly, I would have no jurisdiction for European courts in the UK. Secondly, I would not want single market technical rules to apply to products destined for trade with the rest of the world. Three, I’d like the British government to make free trade agreements with other countries. Other countries have this power I’d like ours brought back to Westminster. Lastly, I would like a cap on labour coming into the UK.

Q: Do you support the building of nuclear power plants, despite government needing to subsidise them?
A: I do not support the subsidy of any sort of energy production whether it be nuclear power or wind turbines. Subsidies are wrong because what we are doing is extracting money from households to pay for turbines or nuclear plants. If a company can build a nuclear power plant without subsidy I will support it.

Q: In local government there are cuts to staffing but where are the cuts in the civil service?
A: Simply put, there are none. The 1970s programme Yes Minister is now a very true account of how government is actually run. Steve Hilton wanted the civil service to be cut by 40%. This has not happened and is a reason for his departure from No.10. Civil servants get a veto on the policy of the government, although they say ‘yes minister’ when first asked to implement it they strangle the policy quietly further down the line. In the 1970s the most major vested interest that the country needed to confront was the NUM and this is what the Conservatives did in the 1980s. Now the senior officials in Whitehall are the vested interest. The government has not done anything about this vested interest. Francis Maude is only doing something now to solve this problem. If we are to win in 2015 the Conservatives must reform Whitehall. This is one thing that all ministers want, despite the broad church that the Conservatives are.

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