brian lee

Would you think much of a party that took £20 off you and only £3 was available for actual campaigning or whatever UKIP was doing at the time?
Perhaps they didn't know the price of a loaf of bread.
Those running the Ashford scam certainly did for their own benefit but of not much benefit to UKIP.

The Ashford operation was claimed to be a great success because it got in new members. I didn't see very many, if any, on the streets of South Essex helping to get candidates elected. That was left to a few dedicated members and supporters who were being leached of funds to Ashford.

devilskitchen

I rather think that the point is that this is £3 more than UKIP would otherwise have had. The decline in membership numbers since then would appear to back me up on this.

"Scam"? You're a brave man: you do know what libel is, don't you?

Or, of course, you were doing a very bad job of recruiting active members locally...

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Unio Europaea delenda est

brian lee

devilskitchen saidThat is a possibility, but nothing to do with the boast by the supporters of the Ashford operation that it was successful.

The Leadership and its hangers on have never grasped that UKIP needs members who will give it lots of money, (legally); have a good knowledge of politics; will stand for election; be good organisers; and with sufficient energy to go out on the streets; together with probably at least another half-dozen attributes.

Those who merely paid a £20 membership fee to Ashford, only £3 of which went into the Party funds were not an asset but a liability, particularly if a local branch has to use its hard-earned funds to service them.