Independence Now!

That isn't what it used to mean.

a swansong 4 europe

Thank you for your reply, Britannist, but I feel I have to take you up on this claim that 3 months prior to the 1999 and 2004 elections, UKIP were not predicted to either win seats or hold them.

I recall an internal UKIP membership memo issued in the summer of 1998, I think, when UKIP were contesting a seat under the old fptp system in a Euro parliamentary seat by-election in Yorkshire. I think UKIP took around 11%, and from that, were predicting amongst themselves, and no doubt as were others, the probabilty of winning seats in the following years general Euro election.

I do not recall any major publicity suggesting that UKIP would not win seats, nor do I recall this in terms of the loss of the existing 3 seats in 2004. In fact I seem to recall in early 2004 that for about 2 months prior (at least) the newspapers giving UKIP an awful lot of free publicity and that Kilroy was simply the icing on the ready-made cake. If there were any suggesting otherwise, they were in the minority.

Please, also remember that after Farage won his leadership contest, amongst his aims was to "make UKIP the largest party" in the 2009 Euro elections, this is a boast he may well live to regret, as there has been absolutely no indication in anyway shape or form that UKIP is on its way to hold onto its seats next year. If at best, it does so, will be probably only in those areas not particularly good for the BNP, its principle competitor, so such areas like the south east and south west, and possibly the eastern region, so at best 3-6 seats.

Unfortunately for UKIP, even these areas are increasingly proving fertile electoral ground for the BNP, and now the media is slowly beginning to realise that the BNP is here to stay and that success next year is more a case of not maybe, but by how many.

As slight change in topic, I have followed the EDP (English Democrats Party)from its inception and have to say, I am dissapointed with its electoral record and general campaigning tactics, particularly its obsession with the "Scots" rather than the more general term "Scotland". Even the SNP would only use the term "London" rather that say, "Londoners" which is more specific to an individual, and has a more, rather nasty personal attack, type of feel to it.

I think that this has not helped the EDP to fight the corner for geographic England and has simply hightlighted the general dislike those in the EDP have for anyone Scottish, whether intentional or not. Don't they realise that there are many of mixed Scots heritage in this other British nation of England? At least the BNP and UKIP, generally do not follow this type of campaigning.

Britannist

The europhiles brought in proportional voting for the EU Elections assuming that UKIP would not win seats - they were definitely surprised when (in the 1999 EU Elections) UKIP won and even more surprised when won the party three seats and not one. Remember, the UKIP share of the vote in the 1994 EU Election held under the non-proportional First-Past-The-Post voting system was well below the level needed to win a seat in the 1999 EU Election held using the proportional voting list system. The press didn't give UKIP much coverage in the period before the 1999 EU Elections (which, as you know, were the first held under proportional voting - PR) and I got the impression that the europhiles thought that the Greens would win a seat or two but UKIP would not. The europhiles, before the 1999 EU Election, did not think that voting patterns would change in that election where PR was used for the first time in a UK national election - they wrongly assumed that the UKIP vote would be as low in 1999 as it was in the non-proportional-voting EU Election of 1994.

As I have pointed out before in other threads, some newspapers that usually ignore UKIP published what some might describe as balanced articles about the party in the campaign period before the 2004 EU Elections. The newspapers I refer to appeared to give UKIP some fair coverage during 2004 EU Election campaign while UKIP was paying for expensive advertising in those newspapers.

However, in the months before the start of the 2004 EU Election campaign (before it was announced that Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk MEP was to be a UKIP candidate in those elections and before it became clear that UKIP was to run a highly profession campaign with glossy colour leaflets going to every home in the land) UKIP got little press coverage and some europhiles were forecasting that the party could lose its three seats in the EU 'Parliament' in the 2004 EU Election.

The latest opinion poll (carried out by ComRes) published in today's Independent newspaper puts UKIP on a national projected vote share of 1% with the BNP on 1% and the Greens on 2%.

a swansong 4 europe

Come on, stop using opinion polls to prove your point, they invariably fail to deliver anything like the support that UKIP hopes for and always underestimate the BNP vote. As to your claim that newspapers ignored UKIP, again which newspaper and when? I recall very clearly many news items supporting UKIP even prior to RKS, and again, the issue of PR against FPTP has nothing to do with UKIP, UKIP was not even an issue of any relevancy when the decision was made, and the outcome of such elections were neither here or there connected to how "well" UKIP would perform.

UKIP was clearly "set-up" in 2004 with the sole purpose of beating the BNP, nothing more nothing less, and without the media (and who knows what other background meddling) UKIP would have been lucky to hold onto its 1999 level of support as the party had been riddled with internal strife and electoral failures in the intervening years.

Compare that to the BNP, which had always attracted bad media, also suffered from internal strife and yet somehow managed to ride the storm and go from strength to strength electorally between 1999 and 2004.

Any independent witness to the progress of either party in those years would have pointed the finger of greater expectancy at the BNP. Yet, 'miraculously', a party that had virtually no street credability or worthwhile local or national successes to its name, 'suddenly' becomes a media hot potato in the months leading up to June 2004? Do you really expect any sane person to actually believe that UKIP's success in June 04 was not a "man-made" affair, literally?

Britannist

The opinion polls mostly correctly forecast the UKIP share of the vote before the 2004 EU Election and just before the last General Election.

Such as? Any chance you could give me the names, dates of article, name of author of the articles please? For most of the period between 1999 and 2004 (the time between the 1999 and 2004 EU Elections) most national newspapers did not report very much about UKIP. Although there will have been articles about UKIP in the printed media during that time - they would have been fewer in number than those about the majority of other political parties and most of those about UKIP would probably be negative about the party as some national newspapers are UKIP-hostile.

Let me put it this way (and as I have stated in this thread earlier): the above is correct to the extent that the europhiles in the UK Labour Government who brought in proportional voting (PR) at the 1999 EU Election did not think UKIP would win any seats in 1999 and thereafter because they thought that voting patterns under PR voting would remain the same as in 1994 when UKIP got a tiny share of the vote in the EU Election held that year using the non-proportional First-Past-The-Post voting system. The europhiles were, of course, wrong - the UKIP vote increased substantially to a 7% national vote share in 1999 and more than doubled again at the 2004 EU Election.

The UKIP success in June 2004 was due to it policies; to its hard-working members running a highly professional campaign; to several well-known celebrities backing the party and to the support (in that particular election) given by an anti-EU Yorkshire businessman who I understand allegedly helped the party pay for glossy colour election leaflets delivered to every residential address in the land (in May and early June 2004).

UKIP is a small party (but larger in terms of membership than all other UK mainland small parties except the Liberal 'Democrats') which did not have a large budget for the last General Election campaign and its abilities to contest elections - as with all other parties - partly depend on how much money it has.

Dissident Congress

Somewhere in DCHQ is a leaflet produced by the Tories for the 1999 Euro elections. It gives a predicted percentage of votes for each region and the number of MEPs from each party. It states that all MEPs in England are from Lib-Lab-Con and no Green or UKIP MEPs are elected.

A miscalculation or a propaganda tool?

__________________
Dissident Congress

Promoting Populist Patriotism

Our Nation - Our People - Our Heritage - Our Future

Britannist

The europhiles never expected UKIP to win a single seat in the 1999 EU Election (the first election held across the UK using a form of proportional voting) and they certainly never thought that UKIP would increase its number of seats from 3 to 12 in the 2004 EU Election.

No doubt they are going around now again saying that UKIP will lose all their seats at the next EU Election - which is what they claimed would happen in the period before the start of the last EU election campaign.

a swansong 4 europe

UKIP success in 2004 was NOT due to its policies and hard working activists! Do you actually believe such rubbish? The single biggest advantage that UKIP had was the arrival of RKS and his little band of public backers that crawled out of the woodwork - only to crawl back in just as quickly - in the months lerding up to June 2004 To suggest otherwise is tantamount to denial of magnitude. If UKIP's policies and activists had been the major player then UKIP would have been successful in ALL its elections fought, and you know that is simply not the case and never has been.

You cannot keep arguing that it was down to the PR system that UKIP won, but everywhere else fought under fptp was somehow 'different'.

As for the various articles I read, I would take weeks to track them down, just as you would in your equally claimed references to media coverage, and to that aim, I shall not waste my time, other than to say your recall of events is completely opposite to that of mine. We must have been living in different countries. Needless to say, should I come across any of the said references, I will post all the dates and details willingly.

I attended many UKIP meetings between 1999 and 2003, and by and large, at least in the north west, street activists were few and far between as was co-operation between branch and groups, who seemed to loathe the idea of mutual self help, along with the availability of ANY national recruitment leaflets.

In fact when leaflets were produced by head office, every single one was always on the same theme - Europe - it never changed and never could due to the closed vision attitude of the UKIP leadership, they simply could not get the idea in their heads of the need to produce such material for general distribution, and I suggest, NOTHING has changed at all in the last 5 years. Any material produced by them was always expensive and singularly themed and generally lacking in vision.

UKIP was is still largely is a single issue party that should have been what is always set out to be, a pressure group to force the Conservative Party (and probably Labour) to change its agenda on Europe.

Britannist

There is no need to be rude. If you persist in being rude I will not respond to your postings in this thread. I know that you have written today (at 1.05 pm in posting number fifteen to the thread about Frank Field's comments on the English Question in the English Democrat section of the forum) that you "like a good verbal showdown" - but would you please remember that it is not nice to dismiss the views of another as "rubbish". I cannot make you agree with me on this - but I have not been rude to you and do not think you should be rude to me.

UKIP did well in the 2004 EU Election because of the hard-work of its members in running a highly professional campaign in getting leaflets to every residential address on the UK mainland and because of the support of a Yorkshire businessman who allegedly helped UKIP by paying for some or all of those glossy colour leaflets. Ex-Labour MP Robert Kilroy-Silk MEP certainly helped push up the UKIP vote in three EU constituencies where there were huge swings to UKIP from Labour at the last EU Elections in 2004 (including the one he contested) but I do not think he helped boost the UKIP vote in many of the other EU constituencies.

The UKIP vote is spread out fairly evenly across the English and Welsh part of the UK and, consequently, the proportional (PR) list voting system used in EU Election in the UK since 1999 is best-suited to delivering seats for UKIP. Some other small parties "stack up" votes in specific localities/wards making it easier for them than for UKIP to win council seats - but harder for them to win in a proportional-voting election held nationally (such as an EU Election).

I have several copies of UKIP leaflets used in the 2004 EU Election and immigration and other policy issues are mentioned on them. Anyone visiting the official UKIP website (and many do) can see that the party has published a range of policy papers and formulated policy positions on a large number of subjects.

The presence of UKIP candidates in many ward and constituency elections is determining who wins quite a few of those electoral battles and this angers the europhiles who want UKIP out of the way (i.e. they would prefer UKIP not to contest any elections) and a return to what they regarded as the "cosy" days when all candidates standing in ward and constituency elections were in parties officially favouring EEC/EU membership.

UKIP is the fourth largest political party on the UK mainland in terms of maximum votes received in this decade (so far) and in terms of membership and number of constituencies contested nationally. The party is not an anti-EU pressure group. It is an anti-EU political party with a range of policies which has (unlike most other small parties except the pro-EU Liberal Dims) representation in the Commons, Lords and in the rival 'Parliament' in Brussels.

Independence Now!

Yes, the EDP do have an unhealthy not to say BIZARRE attitude towards Scots. The rant by Matt O'Connor (very English surname that one!) must have cost them quite a few votes in London. It is worth noting that London has the third largest number of Scots in it on earth.