Farage's self serving strategy is to concentrate UKIP's effort and resources on the 2014 European elections for the EU red herring, pointless powerless useless parliament. This will ensure about one million Euros in the back pocket of every UKIP nominee selected by Farage. That's all the Farage plan can achieve but it does come with a huge downside for those of us who want get our country back for our children.
It does not matter how many MEPs UKIP gets they cannot free our country. The power to do that resides solely at Westminster with MPs who will be elected in June 2015. Let us be generous to Farage and say UKIP wins 40% of the vote in the Europeans. That will make UKIP the biggest party on share of the vote and would push the Tories into 3rd place with Labour 2nd. The turnout will be around 25% at best. UKIP's will be clearly seen as a protest vote aimed at giving LibLabCon a good kicking
This will however result in something like 30 UKIP MEPs. Great until you look at who these people are likely to be. There's more than one Godfrey Bloom in UKIP or as Warren Buffet frequently says, "There is never just one cockroach in the kitchen." These heirs to Bloom will be paraded up and down the land by the pro EU BBC and shown wading into the brown stuff week in week out until the General Election campaign starts in earnest. Great propaganda for the EU philes.
The Tory dish UKIP message will be vote UKIP get Labour. Look what happened in the Europeans and by the way look at the idiots UKIP have cue lots more of heir to Bloom TV footage repeated ad nausem. Do you really want to vote for these clowns and let Labour in? Red Ed will of course be helping with his back to the 70s version of Socialism.
Thus the better UKIP does in the Europeans the more MEP heirs to Bloom there will be running around the TV studios when they should be keeping their heads down and cleaning behing their fridge. The LibLab spin machine will also be running this cycle rubbishing UKIP. UKIP does have some members able to hold their own in TV dates but hardly any are on UKIP slates as they do not have the Farage seal of approval. The LabCon campaign will wipe the floor with those elected.
So the bigger the UKIP vote in 2014 elections that don't matter the better it will be for the Tories in 2015 in the election that does matter. I still think Labour will win an overall Westminster majority with a well merited collapse in the LibDem vote and MP numbers. It will be back to good old fashioned two party politics. The vestigeal LibDems BBC friends will ensure they will still remain well represnted on QT etc. These will be seasoned with some UKIP MEP heirs to Bloom to ram home the fruit cakes and loony message. And what of UKIP MPs? Don't be silly there won't be any and there won't be any in/out referendum either.
2 comments:
The great tragedy is that UKIP (primarily the hard-working activists of the past) have put the party in a position where the majority of the public now accept the message about the EU. It has a great opportunity. Regrettably the temptation for Farage to prefer poor candidates who do not threaten his leadership will undermine the cause. Over-accentuation on Immigration will not help as it will label the party as the successor to the BNP.
As the only anti-EU game in town with a smidgeon of hope of leaving the EU I have determined to help the party from the sidelines, hoping that someone will usurp Farage in time.
This is what I said to Tim Congdon. He clearly needs to understand that a General Election is to a European Election what cheese is to chalk. It has to be seen as a step in a marathon that may last for decades, as it did for the Labour Party and has for the Liberal-Democrats.
This General Election poses an outside chance of UKIP getting their first MP. Perhaps that should be the target so that Farage has to give up leadership to the new MP. A not-impossible target is for UKIP to hold the balance of power IF they can cause the L/D's to lose a lot of seats to other parties and win a number themselves, whilst Labour and Conservative poll an even number of seats, or nearly so.
See next post
Continued from previous post.
Dear Tim,
As a former South West Region chairman and one of few UKIP Councillors at the time I should like to make you aware of the reasons why I was successful in local elections, why UKIP were successful in European Elections and why UKIP always fail in General Elections.
I am doing this because there is a danger that UKIP will have high expectations in a General Election and may fail, as usual. This need not happen, but UKIP have to use resources wisely and understand the "dynamics" of elections.
Alan Wood CEng MSc MIMechE
PARISH COUNCIL ELECTIONS
Won on the character of the candidate - often very easy to win a seat. Any UKIP member thinking of progressing to Parliamentary candidate should cut their teeth here and serve the community. Often "bad form" to mention your party.
TOWN & DISTRICT COUNCIL
If well known in the area it is possible to win as a UKIP candidate by putting in the work on door-knocking and leafleting. Put up paper candidates if possible to get as many candidates as possible in the election, but ask them to leaflet for serious candidates and make a financial contribution to expenses. Good chance to win as other parties have to spread their resources too. Local candidates important.
COUNTY/UNITARY ELECTIONS
Same process as TOWN/DISTRICT elections. Harder to win as the number of homes may be 3 or 4 times the number for Town/District. Probably best to identify seats where the sitting Councillor is retiring or where you have your strongest candidates. Local candidates preferred.
EUROPEAN ELECTIONS
Need a good (experienced) team in each Region with a competent Regional Election Officer and Regional fundraiser. Postal voters must be targeted early. UKIP should know how to do this. Need good lead candidates able to put over UKIP policies on TV.
PARLIAMENTARY BY-ELECTIONS
Depends where held and the political climate prevailing. Very expensive use of resources and unlikely to win as main parties will be "eyeballs out".so budget should be set to justify the target e.g. must beat LIBDEMS.
PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
Parliamentary elections are DIFFERENT !!!!!
The public perceive a chance to retain or remove the Government e.g. John Major (Remove), Tony Blair (Retain), Gordon Brown (Remove).
The minor parties are squeezed except where there is antipathy to Labour AND CONSERVATIVE. Small parties who have built up supporters can win seats e.g. LIBDEMS in 2005 and 2010.
The smaller parties find their supporters between elections having to choose their least worse option candidate. UKIP candidates are often inexperienced, underfunded, squeezed out of TV discussions and generally far too optimistic and naïve.
In 2015 UKIP need to have decided on a mission and a strategy. My mission would be to promote the party as the party to hold the balance of power.
Realistically there are only a percentage of seats that are winnable by UKIP. They need to be identified now. The candidates need to be selected now and if possible their constituency party given funds to build up their support base, especially during local elections in 2014. In 4-way seats where UKIP are strong there will be opportunities to win.
Overt deals with other parties are counter-productive. To create the scenario where Labour and Conservative are level-pegging after the election and LibDems lose most of their seats it is important to assess NOW those seats where a candidate is to be a paper candidate to allow Lib-Dems to be beaten by Labour or Conservative.
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