Is there a lot of UKIP votes on this thread?

I think it was probably best to leave out LGBT rights from the manifesto. As has been seen over the last few days when they do try to stand up for LGBT rights they're ostracised by the LGBT community.

So you're saying that UKIP only supports civil rights for groups that support UKIP? ;-)

I'm only half-joking. UKIP's manifesto declares the party's strong support for freedom of speech. Part of freedom is the freedom for other people to loudly and vehemently disagree with you.

At any rate, I think you're mixing up cause and effect. If UKIP had included LGBT rights in their manifesto, I think there's a good chance that they wouldn't have been banned from the march. They were banned because of safety concerns, which seems eminently reasonable given the party's long history of opposing LGBT rights and standing by homophobic party leaders. Trust has to be earned, and for better or worse, UKIP has squandered a lot of trust on this issue. If they try hard, they can earn it back, but they shouldn't expect to be rewarded overnight.

UKIP believes it is time for a review of what is and what is not a criminal offence

That's an interestingly-worded sentence. It's clear that UKIP wants to increase criminal penalties for most things on that list, including "internet/cyber crime, sexual crime relating to minors, fraud, aggression, intimidation, people trafficking and gang masters". (And that's good, since all of those are acts of violence against others.) Drug and substance abuse is the odd one out, in that it's unclear whether UKIP's proposed review would lead to stricter or looser criminal law.

Combined with the other sentence, though, it seems like UKIP would likely propose stricter penalties for producing/selling drugs, and looser penalties for possessing/consuming drugs, while still considering both to be criminal offences.

I understand that a lot of UKIP's voters are ex-Tories who would never endorse a party that openly called for drug legalisation. But even so, this isn't exactly what I would call classical liberalism.

/r/ukpolitics Thread Parent