Exclusive: Who is the new YI Chairman?

We get to know the new YI Chairman and his deputy.

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New elected YI Chairman
Nate Rydings & Reece Coombs - YI Chairman & Deputy Chairman.

This evening Nate Rydings was crowned the new chairman of Young Independence, the official youth wing of UKIP. Viribus News had an exclusive interview with him to find out who he is and what he stands for.

Nate Rydings 19, is from Wigan. He first got involved in politics whilst in the army, he joined straight from school and left a year later. He explained that there was a feeling of neglect, that the British government had neglected the armed forces and the thing that attracted him to UKIP was the promise of an increase in spending on all things defence.

His key focus now elected, is to hold elections for his YI Council and then build UKIP’s youth manifesto, which he plans to form via direct democracy.

“YI will be different to other organisations such as Young Labour and Conservative Future because members won’t just be leaflet fodder they will have a direct say in the party’s policy on youth issues”

This election was particularly hard fought and there was quite a lot of accusations made between the two candidate’s Jonathan Wood & Nate Rydings which led to Nate only winning by just one vote.

However, Nate said “I want to put the campaigning behind me now and bring people with opposing views to myself into the fold and treat it as a business proposition, if they have a good idea I am more than willing to listen and put it into action”.

With an election so close it was always going to be controversial as you can tell by losing candidate Jonathan Wood’s statement:

“We are bitterly disappointed and upset to receive today’s result. The fact that just one vote decided the result has made this an especially hard pill to swallow.

Jonathan spoke to Nathan shortly after hearing the result to concede defeat and to congratulate them on their victory. While Jonathan has agreed to remain treasurer for a little longer, we are disappointed that Will has been replaced by somebody who openly voted for Labour in the last general election. We would also, at this juncture, like to express our disappointment that Nathan decided not to thank our superb outgoing Chairman, Jamie Ross McKenzie. While we didn’t win, we believe we speak on behalf of the overwhelming majority of YI members when we say, Jamie: thank you so much for everything that you have done for YI over the last few years.

Regardless of what side you were on in this debate, it is very clear that this election was a total shambles from before the start to finish. From many members not receiving any official information, to members not getting their ballots to the manifestos not being sent out. And while we do not wish to be involving ourselves in sour grapes, we do genuinely feel that had everyone wishing to vote was given a ballot, it is quite possible that it would have been an incredibly different result.

We both want to thank our amazing supporters, both in and out of YI who have given us fantastic support and have made this very tough campaign bearable. We stood on a campaign that said Young Independence should reject careerism and self-interest, that it should adopt a bold and radical approach and, most importantly, it should #StandforSomething. We still believe this. Unfortunately it is clear that Young Independence has chosen a different approach and so the new chairman should be allowed to implement this approach, regardless of our opinions of this.

While we come to an end of an era for our political lives, we are so grateful to all of you who have given us support and have remained loyal to us throughout.”

 

So, who is Nate Rydings?

Nate is 19, from Wigan and went to a couple of normal working class comprehensive schools, he joined the army at 16 and left to return to academia, he is now studying BTEC Public Services to get enough UCAS points to go to University – he does not know what university course he will study yet but he will be the first in his family to gain a degree if successful, he also does not know what career he wishes to pursue yet, but he was adamant that he does not want to work in politics.

We questioned Nate on some key policy points to find out where he stands on the political spectrum:

Privatising the NHS?

“I am completely against privatising the NHS and the PFI agreements should be scrapped and the NHS should always be free at the point of use”

Where do you stand on tax?

“Where taxes can be lowered they should be, in Wigan council tax is a big issue and we believe it is too high, so we would like to lower it wherever possible”

What do you think about the talk of a United Ireland?

“All areas of the UK should remain the UK – although if an area of the UK wished to leave via referendum I wouldn’t stand in the way as I believe in self-determination”

Cultural Marxism?

“Brain washing is happening on schools and I experienced it with teachers were the only views that were allowed to be broadcast were those of the left”

We also spoke briefly to his Deputy Chairman Reece Coombes who seemed to be more politically savvy but shared most of the same views as Nate and they were both well-rehearsed on their answers relating to the youth manifesto.

Nate and Reece have a hard job ahead of them with an all time low membership and a party that is struggling to find their feet.