It has been just two weeks since Henry was crowned. The culmination of three months of umbilicus inspection saw a unique Conference for a rebranded UKIP. A lion was revealed.
The leadership election, the third in my time as a UKIP member, started way back on the 9th of June on the resignation of Paul Nuttall after the disastrous general election campaign. Some would argue it started after the Stoke debacle, but I don’t wish to argue that point.
June the 9th gave UKIP activists and members a stark hit of political reality. From gaining the votes of nearly four million voters in 2015, UKIP garnered the votes of less than 600,000 electors in a post Referendum Britain. Hard to bear political reality. Leave voters returned to their political homes, motivated either by the fear of Corbyn’s Labour, or hatred of the ‘nasty’ Tories. The most negative of elections.
The political miscalculations by the UKIP leadership were gargantuan. A party which did not know its voters. A party unclear as to whether to stand candidates. A party incapable of selecting candidates. A party incapable of providing deposits. A party unable to understand where its target seats were or where to focus resources. A party unclear as to its purpose.
Meanwhile, down in the mysterious environment of the UKIP ‘grassroots’, stoic work was ongoing in spite of the rudderless meanderings of the UKIP hierarchy. Organised and committed candidates and activists were working against the usual barriers and obstacles on behalf of our cause – to ensure the United Kingdom leaves the EU and regains its independence. Theresa May announced a snap general election on 18th April 2017.
On the 19th April 2017 I was in the local photographer’s studio with another UKIP candidate getting portraits done and by 26th April our literature was designed and ordered, funding having been sourced locally with minimum assistance from region and none from the central Party. Further literature was ordered for the ‘Postal address’ through the UKIP system. Some, though not all, reached letter boxes in the constituency. The national campaign was a disaster. The Party even failed to publish a manifesto in time for the postal vote drop – you literally could not make this level of incompetence up.
During the general election campaign I received direct assistance from John Rees Evans who gave of his time and skills to make a promotional video. I received moral support from communication with Anne Marie Waters, the only representative of the Party who said what needed to be said after the Manchester bombing on 23rd May. No other Party representative or officer provided either assistance or encouragement during the campaign. On the 9th of June 2017 reality crystallised and Paul Nuttall resigned.
The resignation of Paul Nuttall clearly re-energised many in the Party. Perspective can be distorting, but a renewed and enthused effort seemed to come forth from many UKIPers that had not been apparent from them during the General Election.
In the preceding three months I have witnessed, from some UKIP members, more effort going into attacking the character and person of fellow UKIP members than in attacking the policies of our political opponents. I have seen the selfish underbelly of the Party. I have seen an MEP and branch Chairman support the attempts of left wing thug groups and the Police ‘Service’ to silence Anne Marie Waters in Rotherham on 1st July 2017. I have read the words credited to Bill Etheridge in the Telegraph and the Mirror labelling members of the Party with the familiar tropes ‘far right’, ‘neo-fascists’, and ‘infiltrators’. I have seen the Party elite attempt to have Anne Marie Waters removed from the ballot. I have seen the new Party leader attempt to remove Anne Marie Waters from the ballot through use of solicitor threats.
During the leadership hustings, several of the candidates took an approach to Anne Marie Waters of ‘playing the (wo)man not the ball’. Henry Bolton argued that the tone and the language used by Anne Marie Waters were unhelpful.
Four months after the general election and UKIP has a new leader who has now been in post for less than two weeks. The political errors from earlier in the leadership campaign have now manifested themselves in the creation of a new party ‘For Britain’. Did those who supported Henry Bolton during the leadership campaign understand this inevitable consequence, or had they not been paying attention?
Divided? Ruled? UKIP as a party claims ownership of the Brexit issue, but the public and the voters just do not see it the same way. UKIP has failed to move on from the Party that spent years fighting the just fight: to ensure a future for Britain outside the EU and return sovereignty and self-determination to the people. The UKIP message, whatever that may be – for the voters don’t know – has failed to move out of the campaigning past and failed to project a vision for the future of the nation and national politics in a post EU era.
Divided the former party now is, with John Rees Evans also leaving UKIP to join a different new party ‘Affinity’. Politics is changing, the voters are discontent and the Labour/Conservative stranglehold on politics is currently tightening due to the divisions in UKIP that have manifested themselves since the 2016 referendum and the resignation of Nigel Farage. Yet the stranglehold relies on the wafer thin confidence of a disgruntled public.
There remains a political opportunity for a Party that gets its pitch right and engages the widespread interest of the general public. I will leave you with a thought, one to reflect on, often over the coming weeks and months: Which Party can realistically do this?
Certainly not UKIP under HB, James. No vision, no strategy, no relevance.
Thanks for your thoughts, and good to have met you.
Q
I have been a UKIP member since 2009. As others have suggested I may retain my membership but support AMW’s new party as well!
Somewhere down below Viv posted a comment to which there was no “reply” box.
In it she was commenting on the fact that HR sends his communications to branch chairmen and secretaries rather than direct to members.
I didn`t get a copy of his letter `till it was printed on here – I certainly didn`t get a communication from my branch, can`t say I expected one!
I have no idea how branches are run, or even how they are expected to be run, but I do know that this nationwide “web” of united UKIP is a myth, some perhaps do have members numbering above 50, perhaps some are less than a dozen and anyway perhaps half their membership are old cogers like me, prepared to get actively interested in a national referendum campaign, but not really interested in local politics or Twitter or Facebook.
Anyway, how does a local chairman/woman know who has actually renewed their membership? I`ve just had my renewal reminder from HO and returned it there.
As it happens, I will only be paying £15 to HO and my branch will know I have renewed because I will also put £15 plus a small donation into their account.
In my experience as a recently appointed and subsequently elected branch chairman, branches get monthly updates on membership. The system isn’t perfect, from my point of view, needing work to interpret, but it is there.
As a former member, I would like to point that in more than 2 weeks new leader did not change a single persona in the top hierarchy of the UKIP, which could suggest few possibilities: Mr Bolton is pleased with UKIP’s who is who as it stands at the moment, he is rather slow in decisions making or he is really not prepared to take over the party lead yet. What and where is team Bolton?
You’ve got to give the chap a week to polish his image, another week to worry, another week to panic. Then he might, possibly, start consulting and even deciding. But then the poor sod has to work out who’s to believe.
I had hoped we might see progress inside 3 weeks, But the media clearly has taken more on itself. But he must remember he’s the leader and must start giving away bits of authority, he cannot do everything himself, and start to organise, not look for cronies,
Let’s see.
Bolton won and we should all now get behind him to make a success of UKIP. As it has been pointed out, the MSM are now going to find it hard to traduce Bolton’s experience and character.
In fact, ‘For Britain’ could well turn out to be a blessing in disguise for UKIP. The MSM will have a new party to focus their smearing on, and a new target for their viewers/listeners/readers to be brainwashed into believing are ‘far-right, racist, fascist, Nazi, extremists’.
While the MSM is distracted, Henry Bolton will have chance to regroup and rebuild UKIP, and may even start to find favour with the MSM.
Great minds think alike Stuart. It also occurred to me that Hope not Hate might find a new target and leave UKIP in peace for a while.
Regards
“While the MSM is distracted, Henry Bolton will have chance to regroup and rebuild UKIP, and may even start to find favour with the MSM”.
Yes, Jolly Good.
Except it won’t be UKIP getting all the MSM banner headlines will it. You know, the ones they used to get when they were, er, radical?
Regrets but I have to agree fully with James D.
” I have the selfish underbelly of the party(ff)……”
But what pains me most is that Farage and Bolton played the woman not the ball.
How do we move forward from here? I Don’t know.
There are some points that should be made here:
1) EVERYONE was caught out by May’s breach if pledge to abide by the fixed terms act. The Conservatives – much better funded and resourced than us – had a bad time organisationally, too. Here’s part one if ConservativeHome’s post mortem – shared here before, but it bears re-reading: https://www.conservativehome.com/majority_conservatism/2017/09/our-cchq-election-audit-the-rusty-machine-part-one-why-the-operation-that-succeeded-in-2015-failed-in-2017.html
2) “A party incapable of providing deposits.” Why should it? We were, as usual, outside of by-elections, skint. Occasionally, in the past, the likes of Paul Sykes have helped with centralised election addresses (but that caused issues of its own and is a separate article in itself for a rainy day).
3) You say AMW was “the only representative of the Party who said what needed to be said” – but in what capacity, e.g. officer, elected candidate, did she “represent” the party?
4) “I have seen the new Party leader attempt to remove Anne Marie Waters from the ballot through use of solicitor threats.” if, as has been suggested, she was on the ballot illegally, contrary to party rules, why SHOULDN’T a legitimate candidate object?
I will leave YOU with a thought James: Given past precedents, e.g. Robert Killroy-Silk, Mike Nattrass, Alan Sked and others, all of whom have formed pist-UKIP parties, how likely are the new parties to thrive?
The leaflets provided were poorly thought out – – most of the space was either wasted, irrelevant or plain wrong. Give the PPCs a simple template and let them get on with it, they know their patch best. Suitably monitored of course.
Regards the splits, it’s no good papering over the huge rift between those who are pessimistic about the future and those who believe that there is still hope. A UKIP led by AMW would have been torn to shreds by the media. That is the reality of the situation we were in.
A steady hand and a cool head is what we need now.
The UK will on current policies be a majority Muslim nation by 2050.
Labour, the Liberals and the Tories have no intention of doing anything to stop that, or even talking about it. And now UKIP have joined them.
What ‘hope’ do you hold out that that will be avoided, Julian?
I quite agree about the leaflet templates. Some of the points puzzled me and my colleagues in Preston. Some background research told us that they referred to local issues in London. Some other points on the leaflets indicated that they were produced by someone in London with little or no idea about the rest of the country. And they were very dear. We didn’t use them.
I agree with the other points, too.
A: The Mogg party.
UKIP has elected (not crowned), an expert on international security and borders, with an OBE (can you imagine Corbyn or May getting an OBE for anything they’re likely to achieve?).
It’d be a good idea to treat him with some respect and give him the chance to show us what he’s made of, and find out where he wants to lead the party.
Cameron’s hairdresser got an MBA for services to hairdressing so anything is possible.
Cameron, a toff but not a gentleman.
Great piece James. I couldn’t agree more, disenfranchised is how many of us feel.
My suggestion for UKIP priorities:
1. Brexit
2. Islam and its evils
3. Cultural Marxism
This would be the prioritisation of effort, not a sequence of actions. A party should be able to do more than one thing at a time. It should be doing all these (and within this scope the usual stuff such as addressing the economy, housing, NHS etc)
I am hesitant to criticise Mr Bolton too much – give the man a chance. He is opposed to non-stun religious slaughter of farm animals. This would be part of item 2, and it is a surprisingly important part – akin to the recalcitrant screw described in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. The entire value of the motorbike is embodied in that srew – it is stuck. Unfortunately UKIP is stuck at the moment, although not everyone seems to see it to be so.
However Mr Bolton should have held out an olive branch to the losing candidates. It is the polite thing to do anyway. More significantly it would have allowed him to delegate items 2 and 3 to others who are knowledgeable in these matters, leaving himself to focus primarily on item 1.
I do not see tackling the EU and tackling Islam as entirely separate. They are both corrosive, controlling and intolerant concepts, and both need to be opposed, if we are to retain out ancient freedoms and rights as British citizens.
I do not know how others will respond. However I will be supporting UKIP regarding Brexit, and I will be supporting For Britain regarding Islam. For me, it is not either / or. It is both.
Correction: retain our ancient
Hugo, as so often I completely agree with your comment.
I shall do exactly the same, support UKIP for Brexit and For Britain against Islam and every thing else in between.
I strongly got the message from AMW supporters here that none of them considered Brexit either a done deal or anything less than highly critical in its carry through.
There I will finish because it is old and well known ground.
Michael Keal in, ‘Brexit and Beyond Part 1’ is persuasive and I hope he is right.
Jim Dalton is erudite and, I fear, correct.
Personally I think it is a tragedy that it has come to this.
Good points Hugo which will not be served by a leader who is an appeaser.
I`m glad you said that Jack, unfortunately he is a member of the establishment and most of them are appeasers, it`s part of what I call EU “Think” the result of 40 odd years rule by committee, red lines and fudged issues.
Isn`t there a comparison?
1939 the age of the appeasers.
1940/45 – Churchill,
1945/51 fall of Churchill and loss of positive unity rejection by should be grateful people.
UKIP Year dot to 2016 positive unity of purpose Brexit triumph.
2016/7 rejection by the people and internal collapse.
Could it all be the inevitable conclusion of a struggle ending in success ? (Something about hubris?)
UKIP
It take exception to the term “appeaser”. I will now go into a sulk and say nasty things about anyone who disagrees with me.
I asked you a question in the Sunday Express on the make up of Bolton’s team if he has one yet. Or is every one carrying on as before, I have been unable to find out
In his letter to members (which we reproduced here on UKIP Daily because many members hadn’t received it) HB said that he’d finalise his team in this (coming) week. So nobody knows as of yet. What we do know is that HB is making up his own mind, is not taking chums on his team and/or handing out deputyships to cronies.
That’s already pretty refreshing.
Regarding the send-out of his letter to members: apparently it went out to branch chairmen/secretaries to forward to their members. Why – I don’t know. It’s strange though when Mr Oakden’s and Mr Crowther’s e-letters always reached members without having to go through branch chairmen and secretaries.
Hint: the nec, who need to approve, meet towards the end of October…
Rob regarding the NEC approval. If he has the strength to do so, HB could announce the team he wants, then give the NEC the choice – approve it face the flack if they didn’t.
I like your post.
It is my belief that having more than three aims would be counterproductive
I would like to see HB defining the purposes and aims of the party Either seperately as a party separate from a movement, seperate from Ltd.co. or as organised splits, ( This often works ) or as regiments, or would he prefer to hide them. Or anything different.
But he needs to tell us..Once he’s done that and organised it and picked his leiutenants. Things should move at last. Once he’s done that we can start to get the money in.
Seperately, it’s my personal belief that muslims, the same as all of us hate being bullied ( And thats what Imans do ). If you look at crowds of muslims you will see the odd man, often in white, ( that’s all he’s doing is moving thru the crowd ) watching everything, doing nothing and rarely listening.
I feel that the law and order and “No PC” policies can be a less inflamatory, ( as with the Grooming gangs saga )option.. However I agree it must not be allowed any longer. And can all come under a destroy PC banner ( or call it cultural marxism )
Anyway that’s what a leader is for.
I agree with your general point. But I think it’s important that things are well founded. For example, opposition to 2. might be predicated on support for 3., or something like it.
Not “For Britain”. The vast majority simply won’t go for something that will inevitably be described by the media as hard right and be classed as akin to the BNP. That IS what will happen, even if it’s not true and people will believe it. The media gave us a hard time, just think what they will do to to “FB”.
No doubt it will attract a following to start with but as it develops the mainly single issue aspect of AMW’s platform will become increasingly obvious.
Only one party can offer a challenge to the establishment, has an existing though small machine in place and some remaining elected representatives. The new parties will, by fighting UKIP, simply damage the chances of a proper Brexit and a stronger UK after we leave.
We have one last chance to change politics and we won’t do it by forming or joining new parties. Another leadership election is unthinkable. We had all better hope that Henry pulls off a miracle and do whatever we can to help him….or the establishment will have won yet again.
Icni, you keep writing essentially the same point but with differing wording.
You never did answer my questions from some time ago: Have you examined Islam? Have you read the Koran?
I can’t claim to have read it cover to cover but I’m familiar with the passages people usually quote and I have visited several islamic countries and talked to Muslims ( and Egyptian Christians). Part of the clashes with modern western society are actually cultural, not religious. For example Islam demands that Muslims dress “modestly”, women AND men, there is no exact specification on dress.
Clearly there is a lot to do on integration and immigration but an all out face off with Islam is not the way forward.
Anyway right now we have bigger problems.
I’ll keep on saying the same thing as long as people continue to post against Henry.
Icini, do you think that Islam is compatible with democracy? If so, please explain how the laws of Allah would be incorporated into a modern democratic process.
I am not a theologist and the matter is horribly complicated.
In my opinion that rather depends on who interprets scripture and how accurate it is. There was no “tablet of stone”. Do you believe in the 10 commandments or the sermon on the mount. If the old testament commandments is your bag, than what else do you believe in from it. In places it’s quite a nasty book.
The Koran also describes Christians as “people of the book”, it often appears contradictory.
In fact many of the cultural attitudes and some of the scripture is clearly not comparable. Islamic prophets had no idea modern western civilisation would ever exist, neither did the Jewish ones who wrote the old testament. The closest any of them came to it was Rome. Just worshiping one particular version of who God is causes problems. All the Abrahamic regions agree there is but one God. These days some of us believe there is none. In the time round the 16th. Century, Christians were happily burning each other over matters of doctrine. More recently we had the Irish troubles. Mistakes we must not come anywhere near to repeating.
Whilst I am a Christian, to my mind religion, all religion, can be a dangerous thing and in fact we have become a largely secular society. As always it’s the extremists and evangelists who cause the trouble. You can’t persecute people just because of their religion.
“Head on” will never win hearts and minds, even if it seems attractive it simply makes matters worse. We need to find better ways of addressing the problems and could start with border control and equal, impartial application of existing laws. Not something we can do whilst we remain in the EU.
I asked her what she thinks of the fact that the UK’s Muslim population is doubling every 12 years, and given current demographic trends the UK will be majority Muslim by 2050:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/11/muslim-population-england-wales-nearly-doubles-10-years
http://www.ukipdaily.com/uks-demographic-transition-islamic-state/
She hasn’t replied to that either.
The demographics are seriously concerning. The 50% point is concerning, however the point of no return is the figure which is key.
The point of no return I estimate to be somewhere around 2030 to 2040. Time is running out rapidly.
Thankyou for linking to my article.
AMW must be exceptionally busy. Keep your email brief and to the point, and she may reply.
Thanks you for your reply Hugo. The point of no return could be seen as even sooner than the 22% figure in your article, because in about 2025 white British babies will become a minority of those being born. The last figures I could find from NHS England were 2013 when it was 63% white British. That percentage is going down every year.
Icini clearly has no intention of dealing with this fact, as she has replied to you and not me. One of the things I regularly say to left wingers online, after they have failed to give a straight answer to my question three times running, is “What sort of ideology is it that depends on refusing point-blank to answer certain questions?”
One of UKIP’s USPs used to be that we did not shy away from asking and answering uncomfortable questions. I have to ask myself whether I belong in the same party as people who do that, or with people such as Brenda Rattle above who think that Hope Not Hate stopping attacking UKIP would be a good thing. If the BBC/Guardian/HnH stop attacking us, it’s not a good sign, it’s because they feel we’re not worth it. Because we’ve caved in.
Just saw Henry Bolton on Sky News talking about banning the burka. His reply was all about face coverings and motor bike helmets. No mention of the oppression of women and the incompatibility of Western values. Yes it appears Keith that UKIP have caved.
Additionally he actually used the word musketry or something along those lines. Sounded like a right toff.
Keith, you are correct that if HNH etc stop attacking UKIP it would not be a good sign.
We will see whether Mr Bolton listens to the grassroots members or whether he listens more to the religious lobby within UKIP.