Open Letter to UKIP's Nigel Farage on Insulting Bulgarians

Letters to the Editor | March 14, 2013, Thursday // 15:56

Dear Mr Farage,

I read with great interest the open letter to you of Ralitsa Behar, a Bulgarian woman whom having studied in the UK has now returned to her home country. I wish to inform you that as a British man living in Bulgaria I must strongly disagree with her. I do not disagree in any way with her comments and statements and totally support her. But I must disagree with Ralitsa on one fundamental point that she raises - Ralitsa openly invites you to come to Bulgaria and to meet with her and her family. I write to ask you not to come. Personally as a British man I find you remarks so offensive that I would have you stopped at the border. Sadly under European Law I can no longer have you shot in front of your family!

The UK has 78 representatives in the European parliament. UKIP itself has 11 MEPs in the European Parliament. One of which, Roger Helmer was elected as a Conservative MEP but defected to UKIP in March 2012. If we wish to talk about representative percentages, UKIP only has the electoral support of 7.8 percent of British opinion. If we take into consideration the dishonest election of Roher Helmer, call it 'corrupt' shall we? A word you like to use in reference to the Bulgarian Parliament - then of that 7.8% of UKIP representation 0.90% are dishonest (That's one in ten as near as damn it.)

You're anti- Bulgarian comments have caused great insult so I think what is needed here is to explain to Bulgaria that you most certainly do not represent the political will of the British people. And you most certainly and categorically do not represent me.

During your recent visit to Sofia – accompanied by the tabloid press (the gutter press as they are known) with their average reading age ability of just 11 years you deliberately posed for photographs in the poorest and most impoverished area of the city. The area you chose to focus on in no way represents the reality of this wonderful capital city. You deliberately misrepresented Bulgaria for your own political gain. Without doubt if the Bulgarian press had acted in the same manner, focusing only on the deprivation of British inner-cities – You, Yes you Mr Farage would be most outraged. Let's take a closer look a Britain, a place where there are 3.6 million British children living in poverty today. That's 27 per cent of our own children, or more than one in four. Bulgaria's official poverty statistic 'for all' equates to what we have just for children!

And of Bulgarian political corruption, other than of course your own elected MP lying to his electorate and switching party afterward. Have we really and conveniently already forgotten that on 20th May 2009, Harriet Harman announced the creation of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, this intended to manage Members' expenses ending the historical self-policing by MPs of their expenses.

Below just some examples of British parliamentary corruption that I'm sure the Bulgarian population will find most amusing:

The Crown Prosecution Service announced on 19 May 2010 that Labour MP Eric Illsley would be charged with three counts of false accounting; he was also suspended from the Labour Party. It was revealed Lord Taylor of Warwick, a Conservative peer, had been charged with six counts of false accounting. On 13 October 2010 it was also announced that former Labour MP Margaret Moran would also be charged with false accounting, while on 14 October 2010 former Minister of State for Europe and Labour MP Denis MacShane was also referred to the Police - as a consequence of which he was also suspended from the Labour Party. Three Labour Peers were suspended on 18 October 2010 due to their expenses claims: Lord Bhatia was suspended from the House of Lords for eight months and told to repay GBP 27,446; Lord Paul suspended from the House of Lords for four months and ordered to pay back GBP 41,982 and Baroness Uddin faced a police investigation for alleged fraud for claiming at least GBP 180,000 in expenses by designating an empty flat, and previously an allegedly non existent property as her main residence. She was suspended from the House of Lords until the end of 2012 and required to repay GBP 125,349.

In reference to these 'Bulgarian Hordes' whom you claim will swamp our country. In actual fact more people are leaving than arriving and within this number I include myself. I have left Britain and have no intention of ever returning. I would not trade in my new life here in Bulgaria for anything Britain could now offer. It doesn't have anything to offer. The only jobs that the majority of immigrant EU workers do are the worst and lowest paid on offer – the jobs that the British themselves will not do. The same jobs that you and your right of centre buddies like to claim do not exist - but are now somehow suddenly found and stolen by 'foreigners'.

Britain is a much greater country because of the historical and essential input of our ethnic minorities and foreign labour. Since Bulgaria's EU membership in 2006 over 30,000 British nationals have purchased property in Bulgaria – Sorry to contradict you but actually we're all leaving Britain - and I left because of people like you.

Bulgaria is an amazing country, it is full of the most welcoming and beautiful people that I have ever met and you clearly know nothing about it. We 'The West' throughout the Cold War undermined Bulgaria and other socialist countries at every opportunity and now that the wall has fallen it is not without just cause (as one of the so called 'richest countries' in the world) that we help its people to build a better brighter future.

In protest at your remarks I was going to organise a boycott of British goods but sadly I couldn't find any to boycott.

But I will say this: You achieve nothing by your racist xenophobic comments other than to further isolate what was a great nation into a 'backwater has been.' We need Europe and we need immigrant labour, without which many British industries would and will economically fail. I am a Federalist, I would like to see a borderless and united Europe built upon firm Socialist principles and monetary union.

We agree on one thing, this that you and I could not be further apart on the political spectrum. Please stop claiming that you represent the 'will' of the British people – you do not.

Yours,

Jonathan Taylor

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