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I just don't think that any kind of alliance is going to work; I would bet money that the only way the UKIP leadership would accept a merger is if the Liberals and ED are subsumed by UKIP. I doubt that either party would be up for that.
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I'm not sure how close to us the ED are on most policy issues. The Liberals agree with us on Europe, on identity cards, on regionalisation, and possibly on other matters (though probably not on immigration).
I agree that neither party is likely to want to be subsumed by UKIP and neither is big enough to add much campaigning muscle to our efforts. The Liberals are a serious political factor in about 3 or 4 isolated pockets of Britain, but are virtually invisible elsewhere.
Despite all this, I do wonder if some sort of loose UKIP/Liberal electoral arrangement might benefit both parties.
Benefit to the Liberals: a bit of publicity. Most people currently don't even know they still exist. We could also campaign for their candidates in a couple of constituencies, perhaps in Liverpool or Peterborough.
Benefit to UKIP: (1) It is already obvious that the big parties' weapon of choice against UKIP is to portray us as right wing extremists. This may be ridiculous, but a smear doesn't have to be true to be effective. (Ask poor John Kerry about that!) People who don't know much about UKIP might believe it, or half-believe it, or at least "play safe" by not voting for us. Paradoxically, even though the Liberal Party is virtually unknown, the label "Liberal" is widely recognized and understood. Would Liberals ally themselves with a far right party? If we had some sort of formal alliance with them for the next election, and publicized this fact, then any attempts to smear us as far right would be widely seen as laughable.
(2) In the South West, many voters are torn between fervent euroscepticism and a traditional loyalty to Liberalism. If the Libs backed us there, the conflict in many voters' minds would be removed and they would happily wave bye bye to the LibDems to support us. Could be worth a couple of seats?
Anyway, this is all just late-night armchair strategising, but maybe worth mulling over some more.
