rjt

This may be my last post on the forum for some time due to University/Work Commitments but I wish to express my belief for a final time that we must not split the anti EU vote at the next election. Although an alliance with the BNP is unacceptable those of us in UKIP, The English Democrats, Liberal Party etc must work together not fight each other. Our partys do not have to merge to achieve that but we should not look to oppose one another, I accept there are policy differences but these should not obstruct the work of withdrawal form the EU

Anthony Butcher

With all due respect to the Liberals and English Democrats, I am not sure that they

a) are ardently anti-EU to the core.
b) count for much with the electorate.
c) will be able to make much difference.

Carl Faulkner

...gained about 230,000 votes with much, much less money and less publicy than UKIP.

Anthony Butcher

But UKIP got 2,650,768 votes. Even the BNP got 800,000 votes.

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.

Anthony Butcher

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...html/front.stm
Rather amusingly, there is a Senior Citizens Party as well as a Pensioners Party.

Tom Wilde

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.

mkpdavies

You do realise all this talk of alliances with the Liberals is probably causing Shadbolt to have kittens.

Then again if they want out of the EU, I'm sure he can put this aside for the common good!

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Tom Wilde

I have to admit, that is a large part of the attraction.

Tom Wilde

Some people seem to behave as if there already is a UKIP/Liberal pact:

http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/V...ticleID=882512

This is about a councillor in Peterborough called Tony Palfrey, who was elected to the council in June as a member of the Liberal Party (not the LibDems!). It turned out later that he was also a paid-up member of UKIP. Labour have been huffing and puffing ever since, claiming that the electorate was somehow misled. However, the Liberals, UKIP and the election authorities all seem pretty relaxed about it.

Johnny Hates Jazz

English Democrats, Liberal Party, Countyside Party and the Senior Citizesn are already in discussion about an Electoral Pact.

UKIP were asked - but guess what - the current leadership did not respond.

I guess you guys have got to do something about your current leadership !!!!!!!!