prober

I have done a 2 page summary in Word on the various public arena statements by Nigel after he was elected and in "ask Nigel" on his "votenigel" website. Nigel displays a crisp and clear "big picture" vision, with"out of EU" fundamental but committment to domestic platforms, and with tha past "No " brand changing to a set of positives.

I dont know technically how to post the revealing summary. but in essence it makes clear that Nigel sees UKIP as a "proper party" election machine with the empasis on media and publicity with him as the "face". He commits to leading a clear direction for members to follow, not managing, and will appoint the best people to get a grip of party admin, election organisation, member communication, mass party & young member generation, policy design and leaflet generation etc . So far very good... desperately what at last is needed after years of neglect.

But in examining the totality of his statements the huge and disturbing gap becomes apparent . Nigel sees electoral vote as the ONLY route to influencing other parties and the political system , and selecting and shouting a loud set of messages the ONLY route to ultimately winning elections. Nigel is open on "proper party" = just an election machine.

With an open Tory door, implementation of Nigel's approach will surely increase UKIP's vote and attract Tories abandoned by Cameron. The Tory party now leaves a huge gap in UK politics with a "3 parties in 1". if UKIP's aim is not to actually achieve change in UK society but merely split off enough Tory votes and activists to force the Tory party back to what it should be doing then Nigel is on track.

If however UKIP is to be more than a "Tory shover" and instead wants to both actually change things in the UK for the better and also fill the political gap, then without UKIP becoming credible in the eyes of the public and system it soon reaches a vote ceiling and will not be feared.

To go further electorally and be elected it has to evolve into a "political movement" by means of a multi aspect political impact approach. Nigel is silent on that. The big question now, is that having cleared out "wingers" from the stable, he feels confident enough in his position to listen to and respond to the argument and be prepared to evolve UKIP to meet the longer term need.

To explain further, a "pressure group" just does demos to get publicity. a "campaigning group" is cleverer and identifies and has sustained targeting of decision makers on macro issues ( eg houses on green belt) . A " public education " group achieves gradual change in public perception by leaflets explaining convincingly what is going on, how it affects them on the things that matter and why the political elite dont care. An "infiltration group" identifies quangos, civil service and other routes of decision making and has a long term plan to get its people into these jobs . A " people's defence" group tries not to change the system but stand up for local people in how it is applied locally ( eg planning applications) . A "political panel" group prepares quality position papers of a standard to be taken note of by media and the establishment ( a la Rowntree trust) . A political "strategy group" develops full understanding of how local regional and national government systems work and their statutory public cinsultation mechanisms so as to permit extremely high efficiency in party effort versus impact versus cost . A " proper political party" emerges only at election time to put up candidates and hope to get votes by shouting "vote for me, the other lot are rubbish" .

" professional political movements " imaginatively and deliberately aim to design their capability systems actuion plans and outlook to do all the above things, and more (short of terrorism !) to maximise long term success in achieving a set of political objectives ( which may themselves evolve ). There are alternative historical examples.

Nigel says we have to be a "proper party" ( ie stand in elections) because at the crunch only votes matter in putting on the pressure. However votes are not enough and in any case to get the votes, we must be seen by the voter to be credible in impacting on things between elections.

So accepting that just standing and shouting and having just the anti EU protest vote ( unlike possibly the anti war vote) is important but wont win elections, is UKIP doomed unless it matures and sets itself up in admin organisation and outlook terms as a professional political movement ?

As an illustration, the UKIP website frequently has closed items revealing some rotten EU going on (which it hopes the press will read ).Nothing is ever said on what UKIP is doing about it ( not election time chum)
Eg MEP Titford complained on the website that the EU has ( another?) propaganda school pack initiative in schools. I asked " so what is UKIP doing about it " . The reply was " publicity was in newspapers which teachers will read. UKIP has no resources to launch a major young people's education campaign in the nations schools " Oh dear, this displays a UKIP role perception problem not a resource problem . In a "UKIP political movement" a named person would have specific responsibility for young people education and would design a quality UKIP stance school pack for regions/branches to buy/download as money comes available within a planned initiative to get education authority parity of material access to young people etc. Instead we shrug out shoulders.

Time for culture change in UKIP ? Lets hope the conference shows some light on that.

prober

The conference shows that UKIP will NOT evolve into a political movement in the next 4 years, and the leadership has chosen a limited role for UKIP as soley an an election fighting machine. ( eg not getting involved in public education on EU or stalling EU measures )etc

The question is will this be successful on impacting on the EU related political scene?. I suggest that because Cameron has abandoned Conservitism and handed a massive opportunity on a plate to UKIP and because UKIP will be more professional with a team of key people at the top, UKIP will do much better electorally . However with its very narrow focus on what it sees UKIP as for, it will then soon reach a ceiling which means it wont reach its local and other electoral objectives.

The crunch for UKIP is 2009, for which it has to start making the case to the public now on the penetration of the EU into all matters that concern their lives . It is evident this will NOT happen under the new UKIP mindset. The implications are massive failure by UKIP to reach its MEP electoral aims in 2009, and massive failure to influence the political process , meaning a new leader... but too late.

SponPlague

:idea: 2009? There's a risk of a general election next year :!:

Karen

Well done prober for your well thought out analysis of our situation. We should all and and think about it. Broadly I agree with you, but we suffer from limited resources - no not money but manpower. I ahve been 50% of attendees at local branch meetings which have now ceased. The next door constituency (highly marginal Conservative) has no officers or candidates at all. Nigel has demanded unity behind him but much of the disllusion has come his dirty tricks department always crouching ready to strike at any rivals. Remember Anthony Butcher, Petrina Holdsworth, Robert Kilroy Silk, Damien Hockney, Richard Zucherwski, Robert Kilroy Silk, Peter Troy, Ashley Mote, Mark Daniel...Are they all BNP/MI5/Spawn-of-the-Devil? Oh and Nigel does not like you lot either: he wants a proper UKIP controlled discussion forum to replace this one and UKIP uncovered. Perhaps thnenew head of media, Adrian Lithgow can help to combat the disillusion of members.

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Lady Di, Hitler and Communism are dead. Forward to Independence!

Soddball

I suppose it depends on where UKIP plans to be in the future. Is it trying to evolve from a protest group into a formal political party? If so, it could do worse than take the approach the Lib Dems have used and build support slowly at a local council level. The Lib Dems have been working on it for 20 years now. It's a long slow graft building trust and support.

At present I don't see UKIP achieving anything significant at the 2009 elections. The first-past-the-post system is a poor one for small parties - not that great for bigger parties either.

Karen

Actually Steven Allison said something similar at conference. With MEPs but few councillers and no MPs we are top heavy so by starting now for next year's concil elections we have a chance of building things up for 2009.

__________________
Lady Di, Hitler and Communism are dead. Forward to Independence!

Simon Muir

Doorstep voter: So what are you going to do about rubbish collection?
UKIP canvasser: Once we're out of the EU, our flat tax will help.
FX: door slam.

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Macduff, becoming tired of tomfoolery, flung his sword aside, and seizing hold of McGonagall, brought the sublime tragedy of Macbeth to a close in a rather undnigified way, by taking the feet from under the principal character. (review, Dundee 1858)

harryaldridge

Not quite. It is for us to get off our arses and stand on local issues. UKIP does not have local policies beyond direct democracy etc. Local candidates must find local issues.

As for other policies, the policy working groups should help flesh out the detail of policy in a number of areas.

Soddball

Are you suggesting that UKIP local councillors are failing to address local people's concerns? I would hope every councillor would realise that talking about European or UK issues around local elections would be a mistake.

Any thoughts on how this situation could be improved?

Lewkip

You just cannot please people can you?

Nigel is right to get us to focus on winning elections, and he said, which is not reported on this thread, that we have to campaign outside of election time.

Good grief people, we are a POLITICAL PARTY! Our sole aim is to win elections, nothing more complicated than that! All this endless debate about different forms of interest groups are distracting. It seems that whatever Nigel proposes will always be shot down in flames because he said it! He was criticised for being a one-man band then he names a team. Then he's criticised for wanting to be a Tory pressure group then he announces wildly different policies to the Conservatives.

None of this makes any mark with you! You bring up a casualty list of ex-members as if they're martyrs! By extending this argument, you effectively label people like me who are STILL in the party as some kind of suspect who is not to be trusted.

It seems to me that nothing short of taking a seat in Parliament will please you people, and even then, you'll say `Why only 2 seats when we could have had 5?' I fear that many here feel change must come from the top only, that they feel inadequate to make an impact from the grassroots level. It will probably be futile to point out those instances in political and commercial life where people have taken matters into their own hands and forged ahead regardless of the naysayers around them. These are the people that make the difference. Bellyaching won't.