Millennium3

The 'respectable' anti EU movement has to unite to have any real hope. Too many giant ego's unfortunately.

Populist Lee

And who, pray, decides what IS and what IS NOT "respectable"?

The Guardian?
The Times?
The Telegraph?
Puffed up UKIPPERS?
Puffed up EDs?
Prigs?

I'd prefer to fight for the Cause shoulder-to-shoulder with people who have the stomach for the Fight, than those who keep looking over their shoulders for plaudits from the Mainstream.

Millennium3

Yes, I agree - however BNP are considered as racist and if UKIP worked directly with the party they would inherit the same tag. It would be better if the membership of both parties joined together [along with the ED's and other anti EU parties] to form a new party without baggage - membership is required from across the [left/right] political spectrum if there is to be a movement and eventual success.

Alex McKee

You cannot be serious. The BNP are racist. I would sooner leave the country than work with them.

brian lee

As you know in any party there has to be top leaders, middle leaders and bottom leaders - the membership itself cannot do much without them. Any of the three groups of leaders can be disparaged by calling them ego trippers, but if people do not have what I call a Messiah complex, nothing will happen.

So if one were to start again, look back at say the start of UKIP in the run up to the 1994 European Election. How did they find each other in the first place and how did Sked become their leader. Where are they now? We know where Nigel Farage and Gerard Batten are, but I think most of the others lost their passion for UKIP at various times along the way, and Farage and Batten don't get on together.

However, all those people are 14 years older and are probably just about burned out; and the zeal of people when they are contemplating fighting elections is lost when they keep losing. With my miserable 636 votes for UKIP in 1997, which was better than several on the Party's National Executive, I was still active enough to say, "I will be back". But keenness has to be backed up by a lot of money and a suitable organisation. At various times UKIP has had the former, but never the latter.

Looking at the BNP, UKIP and the EDP and assuming that many members of the BNP are not racists, the best brand is that of the EDP. It allows people to concentrate on the fact that the UK is now in a constitutional mess, which looses the first two letter of UKIP and the B of BNP.

What happens inside a party is very much determined by its constitution. I have never studied the BNP party constitution but that of UKIP is not fit for purpose. The EDP constitution is probably OK for a small party, but I suspect will soon have to be looked again as it gets bigger.

(Once it got its first 3 MEPs the UKIP organisation and aims went to hell, made even worse when it got 12). My own view is that the forefathers of UKIP were right about standing at EU elections but not taking up the seats if elected. By saying you are opposed to the EU and then getting involved with it sends out the wrong image, but unfortunately the money was available and it proved to be a corrupting influence. The fight is not in Brussels but against the politicians in this country. Many UKIP members have lost sight of that. You can make all the clever speches you like to the politicians in Brussels but it is the voters in this country that have to be convinced.

So, Millennium3, whoever you are, are you willing to expose yourself and champion the cause?

Martin Harvey

Brian Lee wrote

(Once it got its first 3 MEPs the UKIP organisation and aims went to hell, made even worse when it got 12). My own view is that the forefathers of UKIP were right about standing at EU elections but not taking up the seats if elected. By saying you are opposed to the EU and then getting involved with it sends out the wrong image, but unfortunately the money was available and it proved to be a corrupting influence. The fight is not in Brussels but against the politicians in this country. Many UKIP members have lost sight of that. You can make all the clever speches you like to the politicians in Brussels but it is the voters in this country that have to be convinced.
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Brian has hit the nail on the head. UKIP Activists are now realising the futility of work their socks off at EU Elections, only to get flack from the press and some dodgy MEPs on a gravy train many miles away.
UKIP is the only Party that has grass-roots activists in sufficient numbers to be able to fight a proper Westminster election campaign, and local elections, and get good results in sufficient numbers to rattle the Establishment.
Any doubters out there are welcome to join the 'REAL UKIP', at least in UKIP we know who the 'DEVILS' are, in the other small Parties, the DEVILS are only just beginning to show.
UKIP will shock the establishment seriously over the next two years,

Martin Harvey.

Millennium3

I have no pretence of being that champion, but I do agree that it is much to do with energy and the damage loosing election does to an individual's confidence and enthusiasm - gradual progress is more likely to attain success than hurling bodies at the enemies weapons.

Gradual progress is about retaining and encouraging 'unpaid' talent by being consultative, being selective about the seats fought, but above all in UKIP's case - choosing policies [beyond leaving EU] which have wide appeal, to broaden the base of potential support.

Millennium3

I suspect there are many BNP members who are not racist, but are simply extremely angry that so many people of foriegn birth live on this over crowded island and they see the BNP as the most likely party to change this.

g hall

I expect a lot of voters vote BNP as it is perceived as the really shocking protest vote without having read anything about this "party"

__________________
"That government is best which governs least."
"This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries".
"To be "matter of fact" about the world is to blunder into fantasy --and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful."

brian lee

On the question of the BNP. I have seen a lot of their leaflets and discussed them with members of UKIP. I have not found one person who disagreed with the content.

To what extent there is a thuggish element in BNP is a matter of conjecture. Most people only get that information from the media and they are the last people to tell you the truth because they start with their own perceptions and make the facts fit. Some of them such as the Guardian try to do it to UKIP which has never indulged in suspect activities.

When I have met and talked to BNP candidates and agents at election counts they have always been dressed and behaved immaculately. Unlike some others who shun them completely I am prepared to at least make cocktail party type chat with them.

Martin Harvey has acknowledged that I might be right on the value of MEPs, but I think he is misguided in his view of the strength of UKIP to conduct proper campaigns at Westminster and local elections. In Essex last May the local election results for UKIP were pretty dismal. UKIP fought 21 seats and EDP 6. Out of the 27 seats, in precentage of the vote, EDP came first with 30%, second, fourth, sixth, 19th and 20th. In several areas the UKIP vote went down considerably including that for Martin himself. The UKIP Regional Organiser who had been appointed and paid a salary by the EU via Tom Wise, MEP to give advice on elections, came last with 3.4% of the vote, which admitidly was an improvement on the 20 votes he achieved the last time he stood.

There are too few of us to fight each other and we cannot afford to loose deposits to the extent that UKIP did in 2005. I reckon that election cost UKIP branch members about half a million pounds one way or another, apart from the money contributed by the big donors.

We all indulge in wishful thinking but the UKIP grass roots appear to be doing that more than most. At present at local elections, which are the prequisite to general elections, the EDP appears to be going forward whilst UKIP and the BNP are going back.