Friday 24 July 2009

Norwich By-Election & UKIP's lack of political will

I write before the count has started. Yesterday on Newsnight one of the BBC's numerous political correspondents reported that Cameron had made 6 visits to Norwich to support their candidate! Farage has I believe made 2 visits. Cameron and Osbourne had been out in Norwich at dawn yesterday, voting day, leafleting for the Tories. At least 40 Tory MPs including most of the shadow cabinet had visited Norwich in the last two weeks to work, canvass and generally support their candidate! THE UKIP hierarchy's performance in support of their candidate is woeful compared to this Tory effort.

The support for UKIP is there as this morning's excellent local council results in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire show but UKIP hierarchy must get out of Brussels and back to the UK at these critical Westminster elections and get their support out and into the polling booths.

We can only get out of the EU by a vote repealing the 72/73 European Act in the House of Commons. Not only is serving on EU committees a distraction and waste of time but it simply ties UKIP into support for the whole EU project. We will end up with another situation as ocurred in Romnania with Derek Clark, a UKIP MEP, signing us up to a subsiduarity agreement although it is UKIP policy to oppose subsiduarity root and branch.

Well the results are now in, a Tory victory as expected. I give the full results below.



The UKIP share of the vote at 12% is around the average we were getting in District Council elections but given this was a high profile Westminster by-election it is an OK performance for which the candidate, Mr Tingle deserves credit. However let us forget all the rubbish that we beat the Greens, trounced the BNP. The fact is we did not disturb the 3 party dominance of Westminster elections.

How much better could it have been if Mr Tingle had received from the UKIP hierarchy the sort of support Ms Smith got from the Tory high command? UKIP will wait a long time to have as good an opportunity as this for the reasons I discussed previously. The drop in the turnout from 62% to 45% will be mainly Labour votes which I estimate at roughly 10000 i.e. more than enough to wipe out Ms Smith's majority. One fifth of these votes, roughly 2000, would have been enough to put UKIP into second place which would have been a real success. These were votes that UKIP should have been targeting with their big guns. The Tories could never hope to get these votes but UKIP could. Why did UKIP not succeed? Because their big guns were not there for the fight. They were only concerned with getting their noses into the EU gravy train in Brussels, securing places on 'important' committees etc. Campaigning hard in the UK for Westminster seats as the Tory hierarchy did is simply not important to the Farage Cabal now their future at Brussels is secure for 5 years.

That is UKIP's weakness and I weep for our cause. Can you see Andreasen doing what Cameron and Osbourne did yesterday, up at the crack of dawn, leafleting for their candidate in Norwich. I cannot! Ms Andreasen has got what she wants out of UKIP, an MEP seat. She sees her interests and her future in Brussels. It will be interesting to see how long Mr Farage or UKIP figures in her plans.

3 comments:

david abbott said...

Well said. Who but a real patriot would want to trudge round wet and windy Norwich when the comfortable bars and restaurants of the continent are so tempting?
As you point out real patriots are in short supply among the UKIP leadership. Being an MEP is itself the lucrative goal for most of them. And when Britain leaves the EU, the paychecks and priveleges will end.
So UKIP leadership would risk its lifestyle by winning Westminster elections.

Eric Edmond said...

I agree 100% with you David. That is why we both along with Del Young raised concerns about the commitment of UKIP MEP candidates to our cause and in one case to our country while we were together on the NEC. We were both kicked off the NEC as a result by Farage's Cabal of sycophants who care only about getting on the EU gravy train. Del did not stand again for the NEC for the same reason. Our cause of withdrawal from the EU is bigger than UKIP and UKIP is bigger than Farage but this crucial ordering has become reversed in a cruel con trick played on the many thousands of patriotic UKIP rank and file supporters by the Cabal

Greg_L-W. said...

Hi,

Eric Edmond's comments are in substance correct but when various decent people joined a potentially viable alternative - in the form of UKFirstParty, see details at:
http://UKFirstParty.blogspot.com
sadly there were those who had lacked the integrity to resign from EUkip yet felt it apposite to take their morality, which had served them in EUkip and at which they had been outmanoeuvered by Farage's self serving cabal - their corrupt and unethical behaviour has led to the effective destruction of UKFirstParty powered by just that greed and dishonesty which Eric Edmond & Del Young claim to condemn in EUkip.

Perhaps a suggestion based on the first principle of any democracy: The Pragmatic Art of The Possible and founded on a grouping with the ambition but with ethics, morality and integrity - and of course some basic understanding of the legalities of Constitution and Political possibility.

'I have a dream' may have served Martin Luther King's followers well but well you will remember he wound up dead pretty damned soon after!

Foundations on both fact and some ethical understanding are essential encouraging those who have befouled and destroyed UKFirstParty or EUkip is NOT a sound place from which to start.

Failures rarely make leaders! Merely untrustworthy plotters previously and inevitably thwarted in their ambitions!

As has been proven.

Regards,
Greg L-W.