B.A.Ware

The reason I am asking this question is at some of the wash up meetings (certainly one) members were calling for the party to be a protest party this was reiterated when one of the forum members contacted Malcolm Wood the south west regional organiser and asked him the question are we a political party or a pressure group only to be told we are a pressure group.

Here are my thoughts on the subject

The British public are crying out for a fourth way they are sick and tired of career politicians lining there own pockets

The Tory party are an ineffective opposition and will stand on any principle that will get them in power.

The Labour party abandoned its socialist policies and pinched the Tories.

The Lib/Dems are too liberal for a lot of people.

So what we need is a fourth party with clear and distinct policies. We must be a fully fledged party with a full manifesto with the EU issue being one of our main policies.

We need to fight elections on policies not the European issue we should only mention the EU as a way of funding and driving through our policies. We have to stop saying negative messages like No to the EU and Stop immigration and start giving positive messages like YES to EU reform(which still means withdrawal and putting in trade agreements) and YES to Respected immigration. I know these are plays on words but we must really start getting positive messages out.
We might loose people so be it, I think in the long term we would gain a lot more.

If you became a fully-fledged Party I think you would lose some members because you are quite a broad spectrum of people with one common concern. If as a Party you became right-wing, you'd lose some, same with the left. However, I think you would gain more votes and new members to replace and end up with more people in time.

You need to understand that people want a MP who can represent them, how can a member of a pressure group do that? Okay for Euro elections because you will be perceived as experts for that, but not in General, or local.

Christina

Hudson

I wonder if the kamikaze single issue party approach might be better. Once we're our of the EU, and measures have been put in place to ensure we can't re-enter without an overwhelming public mandate (at least 80% of the electorate, not just the turnout), then national politics will be changed and what seems popular now may well be irrelevant. Just the fact that UKIP got elected would shake the big three to their rotten cores.

I think UKIP, in any form, would attract the full spectrum of political supporters becasue it's the only credible anti-EU party. I'd even vote LibDem if they were the only party committed to getting us out of the EU. However, I wouldn't vote for them thereafter. Similarly, I reckon UKIP would be a single term government.

The big question that remains is what should UKIP do in order to get elected in the first place? Should they wait until reality bites and the blissfully (in some cases wilfully) ignorant British public realise what's happened to their country? Will it be too late by then? Or should they chase every popularist policy; without going INTO phpbb_too much detail so that the party can spin its message to all with equal appeal?

I don't know the answer.

This is why your previous sentence was wrong. It is only the BNP which raises all the issues as to why were are going downhill. I do not see UKIP as a credible Party at all, I wouldn't vote for them in the GE even though I was advised to by my Verita leaders at the time. Why? You're a pressure group. That's what I was told, that's what has been denied by some UKIP folks, but is seems from this thread that many think it is within UKIP. I would never vote for a pressure group, I want a good MP not a pressure group member. I had to vote Conservative instead, as at that time I hadn't read up on the BNP.

If things get really, really bad, they will realise that the BNP is their only choice for a Party that can sort things out and has the will to do so. UKIP could be in that position I believe, but not as you are now.

Christina

mkpdavies

Because a few people DO want UKIP to be a pressure group, that doesn't mean ALL do.

Anthony Butcher would have made a great MP for example. As would a number of other people in UKIP.

People should look the whole picture when voting, not pigeon hole themselves INTO phpbb_voting for a party, just because it's got their colours. Sadly I think this probably is what people do.

The BNP are a joke and will never have any kind of power. It makes me laugh that you think the BNP is a fully rounded party, when all the evidence suggests otherwise. The BNP are fully focused on race and play lip service to everything else. Indeed the BNP is more of a single issue party than any other and you know it.

I'm hopeful that the good people of Britain will never give the BNP any significant power, as that medicine will kill the country. Indeed it is the worst insult to be labeled as a similar party to the BNP.

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No I don't. I have read the 54 Page Manifesto of the BNP and isn't all on a single issue. If you read yourself you'd find that it contains many policies that have nothing to do with race. It has a lot to do with culture, such as art and music.

It has a tough crime policy especially on drug dealers, which we need.

It has nationalist economic policies to make Britain as self-sufficient as possible and to combat globalisation.

It has policies on abolishing income tax altogether.

It has policies on transport.

It has policies on the environment, which are the toughest green policies of any Party.

It has policies on Health, which include what Tony Green tought were unique policies which he offered to Veritas, the BNP already has them, but they don't have the fanatical aspect of TG's policies, such as keeping diaries and only dealing with preventive medicine.

It has education policies which are excellent.

These are just a few, full details available online for free.

The idea that the BNP is just a one-issue party is the caricature of the Media, partly and partly because our culture is being eroded by our Establishment to accomodate those with different cultures. It is the most important thing right now, before everything else can be put right again.

Interestingly, I still have my UKIP leaflet from the General Election.

That's the front of it.

Inside the first point is:

Next is pensioners offering an extra £25 a week, which I now know is a false figure, from this forum, it is more like £10 a week.

Next is having referendums.

Then regulations killing small businesses.

The GM crops and removing bans on vitamins, etc.

It says, Only UKIP will leave the EU and regain control of our borders. This is a lie of course, because no mention of the BNP is made, and people round here know about the BNP,so it is pretty stupid to lie like that.

No policies! Everything is a result of leaving the EU, that's all.

Oldham West and Royton, is spelled Oldham West and Royston! League of Gentlemen? It can't be because of me, I don't drive a Taxi!

Hey! C'mon, it is good for UKIP to learn about these things, I'm not trying to pull you down, but give you an honest appraisal of why I didn't vote for the local UKIP. I thought the BNP were racist scum at the time.

You need policies is what I am saying. The BNP has them, you don't. You could win the middle classes who won't vote for the BNP right now, nut just carry on as you are. You are doing fine, honest. You'll win all the elections if you stay the way you are. People will want Councillors from an EU crtical Party which hasn't got much to do with local concerns.

Christina

PS I do agree that Anthony Butcher would make a good MP, he seems to be a man of principle who does not buckle when people try and get him to change his principles.

nyorks-patriot

Well if the BNP are a joke what does that make us?
Because they give us a fair troucing in the election.
However that possition could be changed quite quickly if we said openly we are a Ring Wing Patriotic Conservative Political Party.
Then embraced polcies which would make us so.
The Liberals at the higher levels of the party are starting make me sick its the same rot that set in at the Tory party.
People so out of touch with reality.

The BNP went from 6th place to 4th in the GE. Keep ingnoring reality though, it was what the respectable Parties do and why Britain is in such a mess.

Christina

I think that is a constructive idea and an excellent one.

Christina