Thursday 28th March 2024

Home » Frontpage » Currently Reading:

As In The United States . . . Voters See Reasons To Rise Against Elite Establishments In Britain

June 2, 2014 Frontpage No Comments

By DEXTER DUGGAN

The British political elite’s lukewarm or hostile positions toward traditional-values issues could have been a major reason that some voters instead chose the insurgent United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in recent elections, a British pro-life leader told The Wanderer.
“It is certainly likely that UKIP has benefited from voters disillusioned with the stance of other parties on pro-life and family issues,” said Paul Tully, general secretary of Britain’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC). “In the case of Conservative Party voters defecting to UKIP, [Conservative Prime Minister] David Cameron’s championing of so-called gay marriage is likely to have been a major factor.
“This may also have been an issue for Labor [Party] voters defecting to UKIP, although the media pundits generally prefer to ascribe the working-class support for UKIP to xenophobia and racism,” Tully added in a May 27 e-mail to The Wanderer.
UKIP’s unexpectedly strong performance in the late-May elections showed it winning significant support from both Conservative and Labor Party voters, each of whom was said to have felt left out by the agendas of elite leaders.
While some voters seeking a traditional-values alternative may have turned away from the long-established parties, there were complicating factors that meant a vote for UKIP, founded only in 1993, wasn’t necessarily a straightforward pro-life vote.
Tully, the SPUC official, said, “UKIP does not take a position on core pro-life issues, though it did oppose the legal redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples when this was being debated last year (in the UK Parliament).”
Moreover, Tully said, as candidates sought to become members of the European Parliament (MEPs), “It is also difficult to assess the impact of pro-life issues in the European elections for structural reasons.
“Officially the European Union has no jurisdiction on abortion — it is a matter for individual member states to legislate on,” Tully said. “This is rather misleading, however, since the EU certainly does involve itself in abortion politics and abortion promotion (e.g., in developing countries). A recent example of the EU engaging on abortion was the Estrela report — a radically pro-abortion report submitted to the Parliament that was very narrowly rejected.
“Despite this, many MEP candidates refuse to declare a position on abortion because formally it is not a matter within the competence of the EU,” he said.
“A further difficulty is that the voting system used in England and Wales does not allow voters to designate a preferred candidate,” Tully continued. “Votes are cast only for a party, and MEPs are elected depending on the number of votes their party receives. Because issues like abortion do not always run on clear party lines, it is usually impossible to ‘vote pro-life’ — unless it is possible to elicit the voting commitment of all the candidates on pro-life issues, and unless it happens that all of a party’s candidates hold a similar commitment.
“The size of constituencies and difficulty of contacting candidates mean that even the first step is virtually impossible (in the London constituency, for example, there were over 120 candidates in total),” Tully said.
In any event, he said, “SPUC remains firmly nonaligned in its approach, and will continue to lobby for pro-life policies regardless of the party-political situation.”

Wins In Ireland

Meanwhile, Cora Sherlock reported at LifeNews.com on May 27 that there were some heartening results for pro-lifers in the recent Irish elections: “A significant number of the newly elected councillors are immediately identifiable as strongly pro-life from their vocal opposition to the recent abortion legislation. This is a really encouraging development.”
Writing in Britain’s liberal Guardian about UKIP’s strengths, John Harris noted on May 23, “If a party is averaging 47 percent of the vote in a Labor stronghold such as Rotherham, toppling Tories from their perches in crucial Conservative territory, and apparently heading toward first place in the European contest, something important is obviously afoot.”
The Labor Party generally would be thought of as socialist.
“Moreover, if people are supporting UKIP in such large numbers — even after the media’s massed guns have been rattling at it for weeks — it is probably time to drop all the sneering and think about why,” Harris said.
He added that “on my side of politics, the most difficult stuff to process is about things from which the left tends to avert its eyes: notions of identity and belonging, anxiety about accelerated change and the fact that that leftie hooray-word ‘community’ can actually have chewy connotations. Crudely put, when you meet a Labor-UKIP switcher who expresses worries about immigration, you can’t simply reduce what they say to falling wages and the lack of social housing.”
A victory photo on the online home page of UKIP showed party leader Nigel Farage surrounded by celebrating supporters. Of the seven clearly identifiable people’s faces around Farage, two were black, and a woman appeared to be from perhaps India or Pakistan.
U.S. radio talk host Laura Ingraham on May 27 played Farage’s voice gloating that the other parties’ leaders looked like goldfish tipped onto the floor that were desperately gasping.
In an analysis posted early on May 26, Neil Munro, White House correspondent of The Daily Caller web site in the U.S., said Cameron’s Conservative Party “lost a large share of its votes to UKIP as immigration escalated year by year — spurring competition for jobs, housing, and education services.”
It was a complaint frequently voiced — that unlimited immigration was holding down wages and limiting citizens’ opportunities.
Munro noted a parallel with “the Constitution-minded Tea Party movement in the United States, which opposes ‘crony capitalism’ in Washington, D.C., and the push by progressives and business groups to double the annual inflow of legal immigrants and guest workers up to roughly 4 million per year.
“That inflow would be roughly equal to the number of American youths who turn 18 each year, and would drastically increase the labor supply, amid a slack economy, a shrinking middle class, increasing automation, and flat wages,” Munro wrote.
Farage issued a statement as election time dawned, saying that Prime Minister Cameron had broken his promise to the British people to get immigration under control. Cameron “has done so because he refuses to take back control of our borders in respect of more than 400 million people from more than two dozen countries on continental Europe,” Farage said.
“. . . It is also clear that we are seeing a very significant surge in immigration into the British labor market from Romania and Bulgaria, as well as a more general rise in EU immigration, just as I forecast,” Farage said. “We simply cannot go on like this if we are to even begin the task of restoring the living standards and community cohesion available to millions of hardworking British families. Enough’s enough.”
Meanwhile, moderate conservative blogger and Catholic Tim Stanley of Britain’s London-based Telegraph wrote:
“Ukippers have been scorned and mocked for a long time, but they’ve now earned the right to be treated with respect. They are a key part of the British political process in the sense that they now are the soapbox for those who feel left behind, envisage a radically different future, or who are just fed up with how things are and want their frustrations to be heard. We should listen to them.”
And the editor of the Telegraph blogs, Damian Thompson, also a conservative Catholic, noted that among Church officials, “assorted prelates have dismissed [UKIP’s immigration policies] as wicked without giving the matter a second thought.
“It’s true that UKIP aims to replace our open doors with a strict points-based system. You can make an argument that this is un-Christian, but if the Churches are going to insist that there’s an imperative to oppose it, then they also have to say that no Australian Christian can vote for the country’s ruling Liberal/National coalition, which is operating such a system with popular support,” Thompson said.
Various observers noted the similarities between UKIP and the U.S. Tea Party movement, both of which arose in outrage that vital national concerns simply were ignored by the established powers — although the Tea Party flexed its muscles faster.
Even after Tea Partiers burst onto the scene in 2009 because of Barack Obama ramming massive federal spending even higher, the establishment made little attempt to accommodate their concerns. The Republican upper crust sneered, and Obama, as subsequently became plain, threw the oppressive power of the federal government against this citizens’ movement.
Pro-life voters would be another group that expects to see action from the political class, not mere symbolic words that go nowhere.
More than 90 lawsuits have been filed against the anti-conscience “mandate” of Obamacare — which requires taxpayer funding of risky contraceptives, sterilization and abortifacients.

Familiar Betrayals

However, conservative editor Terence Jeffrey wrote that neither pro-life Republican U.S. Senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma nor Pat Roberts of Kansas asked Sylvia Burwell to express any commitment that this imposition would be changed (The Wanderer, May 29, p. B3, “HHS Confirmation Hearings: 49,000 Words, Zero On Abortion-Drug Mandate”).
Burwell is Obama’s choice to succeed pro-abortion radical Kathleen Sebelius as head of the Obamacare-administering Department of Health and Human Services. Burwell, a longtime left-wing Democratic activist, served in the White House of strongly pro-abortion Bill Clinton.
In fact, editor Jeffrey reported, Coburn declared he supported her nomination — as did “moderate” GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona. McCain had praised her nomination from the first. Meanwhile, socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont felt perfectly free to push for Burwell to help with a single-payer government medical program for his state, Jeffrey reported.
“In two Senate committees, not one senator had the moral courage to ask her where she gets the moral right to impose this kind of tyranny on the American people,” Jeffrey wrote, referring to the anti-conscience mandate for abortion drugs.
Kansas Sen. Roberts’ office told The Wanderer on May 27 that Roberts did question Burwell about the lack of transparency regarding abortion coverage provided through health plans on the exchange, and also voted against Burwell in the Senate Finance Committee hearing.
During questioning, Roberts told Burwell: “When Secretary Sebelius testified during a subcommittee hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last October, she promised to provide Congress with a list of federal insurers on the exchange that do and do not include abortion coverage in their plans. To date, Congress has not received that information. If you were confirmed as the next HHS secretary, would you be willing to provide Congress with that information?”
Burwell dodged: “As [Office of Management and Budget] director, I was not directly engaged on this topic. I understand that [the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] is committed to ensuring that HealthCare.gov provides the key information consumers need to make an informed selection from among the [Qualified Health Plans] available to them.
“Additionally,” Burwell continued, “each plan in the Marketplace must include a summary of benefits and coverage and a link to the plan brochure, where consumers can learn more about which services are covered. If confirmed, I will continue the work of the CMS to assure that consumers have access to information regarding the coverage they are purchasing in the Marketplaces.”
Oklahoma Sen. Coburn’s office told The Wanderer on May 27: “Dr. Coburn is not on the [Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions] or Finance Committees, so he did not question Ms. Burwell. Dr. Coburn only introduced her at the Finance Committee hearing. However, he will continue to press for religious freedom with regard to the contraception mandate.”
The office of Coburn, who also is a medical doctor, didn’t address the fact that Coburn publicly announced his support for Burwell without saying he sought any stand by her against the mandate.
Jeffrey wrote: “Unless Burwell rescinds Sebelius’ regulation — which she will not — she will become the enforcer of the single-greatest attack on freedom of conscience in the history of the United States.”
Rob Haney, immediate past chairman of the Republican Party in Phoenix’s Maricopa County, lamented to The Wanderer that GOP betrayals have become all too familiar.
“I have heard so many like stories of Republicans not objecting to these appointments that they all seem to merge into the same continual story,” with “nary a word against McCain for destroying the party and country,” Haney said.

Share Button

2019 The Wanderer Printing Co.

Vatican and USCCB leave transgender policy texts unpublished

While U.S. bishops have made headlines for releasing policies addressing gender identity and pastoral ministry, guidelines on the subject have been drafted but not published by both the U.S. bishops’ conference and the Vatican’s doctrinal office, leaving diocesan bishops to…Continue Reading

Biden says Pope Francis told him to continue receiving communion, amid scrutiny over pro-abortion policies

President Biden said that Pope Francis, during their meeting Friday in Vatican City, told him that he should continue to receive communion, amid heightened scrutiny of the Catholic president’s pro-abortion policies.  The president, following the approximately 90-minute-long meeting, a key…Continue Reading

Federal judge rules in favor of Gov. DeSantis’ mask mandate ban

MIAMI (LifeSiteNews) – A federal judge this week handed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis another legal victory on his mask mandate ban for schools. On Wednesday, Judge K. Michael Moore of the Southern District of Florida denied a petition from…Continue Reading

The Eucharist should not be received unworthily, says Nigerian cardinal

Priests have a duty to remind Catholics not to receive the Eucharist in a state of serious sin and to make confession easily available, a Nigerian cardinal said at the International Eucharistic Congress on Thursday. “It is still the doctrine…Continue Reading

Donald Trump takes a swipe at Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him

Donald Trump complained about Catholics and Jews who did not vote for him in 2020. The former president made the comments in a conference call featuring religious leaders. The move could be seen to shore up his religious conservative base…Continue Reading

Y Gov. Kathy Hochul Admits Andrew Cuomo Covered Up COVID Deaths, 12,000 More Died Than Reported

When it comes to protecting people from COVID, Andrew Cuomo is already the worst governor in America. New York has the second highest death rate per capita, in part because he signed an executive order putting COVID patients in nursing…Continue Reading

Prayers For Cardinal Burke . . . U.S. Cardinal Burke says he has tested positive for COVID-19

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke said he has tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19. In an Aug. 10 tweet, he wrote: “Praised be Jesus Christ! I wish to inform you that I have recently…Continue Reading

Democrats Block Amendment Banning Late-Term Abortions, Stopping Abortions Up to Birth

Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment that would ban abortions on babies older than 20 weeks. During consideration of the multi-trillion spending package, pro-life Louisiana Senator John Kennedy filed an amendment to ban late-term abortions, but Democrats steadfastly support killing…Continue Reading

Transgender student wins as U.S. Supreme Court rebuffs bathroom appeal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to a transgender former public high school student who waged a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding…Continue Reading

New York priest accused by security guard of assault confirms charges have now been dropped

NEW YORK, June 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A New York priest has made his first public statement regarding the dismissal of charges against him.  Today Father George W. Rutler reached out to LifeSiteNews and other media today with the following…Continue Reading

21,000 sign petition protesting US Catholic bishops vote on Biden, abortion

More than 21,000 people have signed a letter calling for U.S. Catholic bishops to cancel a planned vote on whether President Biden should receive communion.  Biden, a Catholic, supports abortion rights and has long come under attack from some Catholics over that…Continue Reading

Bishop Gorman seeks candidates to fill two full time AP level teaching positions for the 2021-2022 school year in the subject areas of Calculus/Statistics and Physics

Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School is a college preparatory school located in Tyler, Texas. It is an educational ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Tyler led by Bishop Joseph Strickland. The sixth through twelfth grade school provides a…Continue Reading

Untitled 5 Untitled 2

Attention Readers:

  Welcome to our website. Readers who are familiar with The Wanderer know we have been providing Catholic news and orthodox commentary for 150 years in our weekly print edition.


  Our daily version offers only some of what we publish weekly in print. To take advantage of everything The Wanderer publishes, we encourage you to su
bscribe to our flagship weekly print edition, which is mailed every Friday or, if you want to view it in its entirety online, you can subscribe to the E-edition, which is a replica of the print edition.
 
  Our daily edition includes: a selection of material from recent issues of our print edition, news stories updated daily from renowned news sources, access to archives from The Wanderer from the past 10 years, available at a minimum charge (this will be expanded as time goes on). Also: regularly updated features where we go back in time and highlight various columns and news items covered in The Wanderer over the past 150 years. And: a comments section in which your remarks are encouraged, both good and bad, including suggestions.
 
  We encourage you to become a daily visitor to our site. If you appreciate our site, tell your friends. As Catholics we must band together to rediscover our faith and share it with the world if we are to effectively counter a society whose moral culture seems to have no boundaries and a government whose rapidly extending reach threatens to extinguish the rights of people of faith to practice their religion (witness the HHS mandate). Now more than ever, vehicles like The Wanderer are needed for clarification and guidance on the issues of the day.

Catholic, conservative, orthodox, and loyal to the Magisterium have been this journal’s hallmarks for five generations. God willing, our message will continue well into this century and beyond.

Joseph Matt
President, The Wanderer Printing Co.

Untitled 1

Catechism

Today . . .

Abortion Advocates No Longer Consider It “A Necessary Evil,” They Celebrate Killing Babies

Last week, Kamala Harris became the first vice president in U.S. history to make a public visit to an abortion clinic. Though the Democratic party’s support for abortion is nothing new, Harris’ Planned Parenthood appearance does illustrate how that support has become a flagrant celebration of abortion as a public and personal good, essential to both “freedom” and to “healthcare.” At the appearance, Harris proclaimed,  It is only right and fair that people have access…Continue Reading

Wisconsin Supreme Court says Catholic charity group cannot claim religious tax exemption

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a major Catholic charity group’s activities were not “primarily” religious under state law, stripping the group of a key tax break and ordering it to pay into the state unemployment system. Catholic Charities Bureau (CCB) last year argued that the state had improperly removed its designation as a religious organization.  The charity filed a lawsuit after the state said it did not qualify to be considered as an organization…Continue Reading

Walgreens and CVS Will Start Selling Abortion Pills That Kill Babies

The two largest pharmacies in America will start selling abortion pills this month that end the lives of unborn children by starting them to death. Walgreens and CVS will both sell the abortion pills despite the fact that they kill a developing human being and have killed at least dozens of women and injured tens of thousands more. They plan to initially roll out abortion drug sales in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, California…Continue Reading

Cardinal Burke announces novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for ‘crises of our age’

VATICAN CITY (PerMariam) — Raymond Cardinal Burke has announced the start of a global, nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, calling on Catholics to beseech Mary’s intercession on the Church and the world in the face of the “crises of our age.” In a new endeavour published online over the weekend, Cardinal Burke announced a novena beginning in March, and culminating on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.

Texas attorney general targets Catholic nonprofit, alleges it facilitates illegal immigration

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 21, 2024 / 21:15 pm Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to shut down a Catholic nonprofit organization in El Paso based on allegations that the group may be facilitating illegal immigration, harboring immigrants who entered the country illegally, and engaging in human smuggling.  Paxton filed a lawsuit against the nonprofit Annunciation House, which has operated in the state for nearly 50 years. The lawsuit asks the District Court of El Paso…Continue Reading

The King of Kings

Cindy Paslawski We are at the end of the Church year. We began with Advent a year ago, commemorating the time awaiting the coming of the Christ and we are ending these weeks later with a vision of the future, a vision of Christ the King of the Universe on His throne before us all.…Continue Reading

7,000 Pro-Lifers March In London

By STEVEN ERTELT LONDON (LifeNews) — Over the weekend, some seven thousand pro-life people in the UK participated in the March for Life in London to protest abortion.They marched to Parliament Square on Saturday, September 2 under the banner of “Freedom to Live” and had to deal with a handful of radical abortion activists.During the…Continue Reading

An Appeal For Prayer For The Armenian People

By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE (Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke on August 29, 2023, issued this prayer for the Armenian people, noting their unceasing love for Christ, even in the face of persecution.) + + On the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, having a few days ago celebrated the…Continue Reading

Robert Hickson, Founding Member Of Christendom College, Dies At 80

By MAIKE HICKSON FRONT ROYAL, Va. (LifeSiteNews) — Robert David Hickson, Jr., of Front Royal, Va., died at his home on September 2, 2023, at 21:29 p.m. after several months of suffering and after having received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. He was surrounded by friends and family.Robert is survived by me —…Continue Reading

The Real Hero Of “Sound of Freedom”… Says The Film Has Strengthened The Fight Against Child Trafficking

By ANA PAULA MORALES (CNA) —Tim Ballard, a former U.S. Homeland Security agent who risked his life to fight child trafficking, discussed the impact of the movie Sound of Freedom, which is based on his work, in an August 29 interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. “I’ve spent more than 20 years helping…Continue Reading

Advertisement

Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. The email and postal addresses are given at the end of this column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 53-59)…Continue Reading

Color Politics An Impediment To Faith

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The USCCB is rightly concerned about racism, as they should be about any sin. In the 2018 statement Open Wide Our Hearts, they affirm the dignity of every human person: “But racism still profoundly affects our culture, and it has no place in the Christian heart. This evil causes great harm to its victims, and…Continue Reading

Trademarks Of The True Messiah

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on September 2, and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + In Sunday’s Gospel the Lord firmly sets before us the need for the cross, not as an end in itself, but as the way to glory. Let’s consider the Gospel in three stages.First: The Pattern That…Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… The Holy Cross And Jesus’ Unconditional Love

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON Each year on September 14 the Church celebrates the Feast Day of the Exultation of the Holy Cross. The Feast Day of the Triumph of the Holy Cross commemorates the day St. Helen found the True Cross. It is fitting then, that today we should focus on the final moments of Jesus’ life on the…Continue Reading

Our Ways Must Become More Like God’s Ways

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Fifth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings: Isaiah 55:6-9Phil. 1:20c-24, 27aMatt. 20:1-16a In the first reading today, God tells us through the Prophet Isaiah that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, especially when we look at what the Lord…Continue Reading

The Devil And The Democrats

By FR. DENIS WILDE, OSA States such as Minnesota, California, Maryland, and others, in all cases with Democrat-controlled legislatures, are on a fast track to not only allow unborn babies to be murdered on demand as a woman’s “constitutional right” but also to allow infanticide.Our nation has gotten so used to the moral evil of killing in the womb that…Continue Reading

Crushed But Unbroken . . . The Martyrdom Of St. Margaret Clitherow

By RAY CAVANAUGH The late-1500s were a tough time for Catholics in England, where the Reformation was in full gear. A 1581 law prohibited Catholic religious ceremonies. And a 1584 Act of Parliament mandated that all Catholic priests leave the country or else face execution. Some chose to remain, however, so they could continue serving the faithful.Also taking huge risks…Continue Reading

Advertisement(2)