To get a bit of background information for this post, head on over to this BBC News article. For those unwilling, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) are broadly anti-EU, and favour Britain isolating itself from the European Union more. In the past they have never shied away from playing on people’s fears, and blowing things out of proportion.
In this particular case, they presented a question within a Europe-wide census as asking citizens about their sexual activities. The question was referring to what is sometimes called common-law husband/wife relationships. This is when people live together but do not actually get married.
The tone used by a UKIP representative is toned down in this article, compared to the previous one that was issued before the EU decided to drop the question altogether. The UKIP member now appears to concede that the meaning they attributed to ‘consensual union’ may have been incorrect.
Anyway, I don’t know for certain, but it is unlikely that an entire party could mis-understand a term…
Nov 28 2007
UKIP – Ignorant Or Manipulative?
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