For a lot of years I have watched and been involved with attempts to break the ConLab stranglehold on British politics, which has never been more obvious than now under Covid, Boris locking the country down every which way and Starmer asking for more restriction, not less!
Parliament has been rendered useless but beyond Covid, the established Parties are unrecognisable to older eyes, whether through candidate selection, electoral complacency or enfeebled media.
Splinter Parties have waxed and waned but will never achieve the following necessary to change national politics. The closest attempts we‘ve seen have relied very heavily on Nigel Farage‘s influence but even he has always been excluded from the House of Serpents, by fair means or foul.
Which brings me to “Like-Minded Independents – a collaboration of …” The collaboration I envisage is not cross-political, the intention is to reach beyond, to non-political public figures and organisations who can see the decline we see and have already expressed major concerns with the manner that covid has been managed in the UK.
Politically, if it gets that far, the idea of Like-Minded Independents is just that: Not a Party, nothing requiring registration or a small army of Party klingons – just individuals, prepared to stand as Independents, broadly supporting the concerns and outcomes expressed by the collaborators with a simple expression of political, even radical, objectives.
Mine would include:
- significant reform to the structure of Government,
- the promise of a stable, patriotic, financially responsible, independent nation,
- the exposure, influence (and influencers) of Common Purpose
- the exposure and punishment of corruption,
- brutal objectivity
- consequences …
There‘s room for plenty more but avoiding a Party leaflet approach – the why us not them – is intentional, trying to focus instead on what type of country we want and how to get it back.
I‘m putting it to the followers of INDEPENDENCE Daily, a site I‘ve followed since the early Ukip days, and because I want to collect and collate ideas and periodically publish them, rather than see them lost as the days move on, documented in and by INDEPENDENCE Daily.
At the moment I‘m still running a business (when the doors open again!) so I have some admin capacity and I am not concerned about funding at the moment, unless and until the idea gathers momentum in which case a rethink might be due. What I‘d like right now is ideas:
- Potential contacts, incl influential ones: how to reach them and maintain interest. Imagine every Wetherspoon pub visually supporting L-MI
- How people could stand as an Independent – what support they’d need, etc
- The importance or otherwise of involvement with local politics – is focussing on national events more important?
- And what role can L-MI supporters play, to spread the word etc?
That‘s it for now – over to you, comments welcome! Call me stupid but I feel we have to try!
Ed: I’m happy to offer the pages of INDEPENDENCE Daily for collecting ideas and information.
Wow Alan Piper! What have you started? Listening to all the comments replying to your article is already drawing out individual thoughts and feelings of patriotism lost since the UKIP’s ‘nearly-there’ election, with most candidates getting second or third place in the First Past the Post electoral system, which we need to vote out. Just before the Brexit Party entering the fray, I commented that UKIP needed to signal a willingness to cooperate in joint efforts to defeat the LibLabCon junter. But UKIP had no such appetite to reconcile with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party even though both parties had the same purpose. Alan’s idea of independent candidates is even more fragmented and voters will be more confused than before, in their confusion they will simply vote for the people they know rather than spend precious time reading hundreds of manifestos to weigh up the minor differences each proposes.
Do we really have a strong personality in UKIP to stand up to so many up-coming Tory backbenchers? Have we lost all our potential winners over the last decade of woolly wandering?
We need to respect those who put themselves forward for leadership, being human, each has certain weakness or faults, but felt compelled to do so as no-one else had stepped forward to lead the Party. Everyone learns on the joh the first time round, even Boris had to learn from Day one as Prime Minister; nobody is perfect, that is why a team is required to pool resources and efforts to form the Government. Do we blame Nigel Farage for leaving UKIP to form the Brexit Party? What is so special about UKIP that we cannot bear to combine our strength with that of the Reformed arty. We are all calling for the same result – Reform Parliament and win the people’s trust and vote, with the pledge to make life better in a democratic country that trades with and cares for all global nations.
All good fun, but as dull as ditchwater.
The government talks of re-set, we should be talking of revolution.
I can’t see ambition, enterprise or objective in any of the comments on here so far.
There must be only one game in town and that is to build on our great escape from the enemy Brexit and make Britain great again and resume our rightful position in world affairs as a self propelled, sod ’em all independent nation.allied primarily to the Commonwealth.
I have see nothing here so far that is even going to rouse 10 per cent of grass roots peasants to rouse them from their customary deep apathy and understand the necessity of taking an interest or fighting for the good of their independent nation or even their basic democratic heritage and freedoms of even speech and thought, never mind of totalitarian incarceration.
Oh and “likeminded” only conveys the thought of an assembly of virtue signallers
How about starting a world association of “like minded independent councillors”?
However, never mind me folks, count me in for support, something has got to be urgently started somewhere, but please can we have some objective ambition, no body is going to listen to us without a clear purpose
I
The malaise is that not only has the present system of government failed, certainly for the last 30 years or so, but parliament is peopled by the wrong sort of characters, I.e. The majority of whom have never done a real job or had experience of real life in the raw and thus are divorced from their electorate and effectively only look after their own jobs and permanent aggrandisements
They do have to be all rooted out and chased into the wilderness and silenced as Blair etc should have been
Laudable but naive.. That is the very first step and you could not have taken a better one. Remember you will have to face massed ranks of establishment and Civil Service and government and Politics and a totally indoctrinated indebted country. So you need to be more than clever . you need brilliance, back up and luck
Good luck.
Oh for heavens sake. You do not have to follow a hackneyed path to your own front door. You do not need to follow footsteps or even a path. Cross the f* ing lawn. There will never be a better time than now. Nobody in the country wants this except a few hugely benefitting. A few are managing to hang on but most are hugely dissatisfied but dumb. Do not follow rules, collect ’em. And use anything of them you might need from Nigel to Billy Bloggs.
Alan. As we all know, effectively breaking through the LIB/LAB/CON musical chair party politics is incredibly difficult but it may not be impossible.
Taking on the poltical establishment in the traditional way means playing by their rules which are stacked against all newcomers, organisationally, financially and at a branch level attracting sufficient activists. We need to take a new approach to make an initial breakthrough. Thus, a nationwide body of ‘Independents’ is an idea worthy of further investigation. Of course, there are already hundreds of Independent councillors elected every year who have no political party allegiance (some do though). This may present some confusion to the electorate. How would it be made clear that say ‘National Independents’ differ from ‘Independents’ and how may this grouping be bonded nationally without forming a formal political party at this stage?
Perhaps, if a ‘National Independent’ candidate were to sign up to a body of core beliefs such as small government, balanced budgets, national skills training, education, limited immigration, etc this would bond the candidates in a national movement without forming a poltical party and without compromising their independent status. They would organise and fully fund their own election campaigns. There would be no need for a formal national branch network at this stage.
A ‘National Independents Declaration’ outlining those core beliefs for electoral distribution would need to be drawn up with say a group of ‘National Independent Founding Fathers’ who believe in the movement, share its core beliefs and wish to oversea the management of those core beliefs but do not seek election themselves or wish to engage in the electoral process.
Of course this is only a structure to get a national movement off the ground. When and if successful a more formal party structure would be needed.
Not sure how the Electoral Commission would view this set up but you have to start somewhere.
When people vote in a general election, they are conscious for the most part that they are electing a government for the next 4-5 years. I have noticed they will vote for someone they recognise as a total pranny if they want either a Consocialist or a Labour/Marxist govt. In other words, they vote for the party of choice for government. Even if it means holding their nose. Occasionally, owing to local circumstances “a man in a white suit” gets in. But they do no good and soon disappear forever.
As I see it, there is only one party at present that has the faintest chance of gathering mass voter appeal required to break the musical chair hegemony. It isn’t UKIP.
So who is it Tony?
Yep the current system demands a PARTY system.
Does the concept fall at the first hurdle?
” effectively breaking through musical chair party politics is incredibly difficult but it may not be impossible” It may well be thus under the current rulz.
It may well be that the new initiative comes under the banner RADICAL
Discuss.
I like the idea of LMI but I have my doubts as to whether it could be made to work in practice. People generally are not really engaged with politics. They are tribal and do not think deeply enough about the political scene except when they that the current status quo isn’t to their liking!
Years ago I was pestering my MP regularly and vociferously about this and that. He wrote one day in particularly waspish style saying that as I had such decided views on everything perhaps I should stand for election!! He, of course, knew full well that it was highly unlikely that I could do so. I takes money and lots of time spent walking the streets and knocking on doors to try and get peoples’ attention. When I was canvassing for UKIP I was just one of many working the patches. Even then it was no easy task to get people to engage with the message. Many many times I came up against rank prejudice on the doorstep because UKIP wasn’t one of the LibLabCon ‘tribal colours’!
The current ‘‘one-party’ state (in todays money) system that has evolved over the last year or so could well prove to be the undoing of the LibLabCon but it will still need huge organisation and very vocal backing from some well known endorsers to make this kite fly! That makes it sound as though I am shooting down the concept without consideration. That is not the case at all. I hope it can be made to work because we most definitely need change!
There was a candidate who stood for the leadership of UKIP whose name I am having trouble recalling (double barrels dont sit well in my brain for some reason!) Rees-“something or other’. I think he was ex military. He had some very good ideas about ‘direct democracy’. I would have voted for him without a doubt because he had that ‘certain something’ that inspired confidence!
“The current ‘‘one-party’ state (in todays money) system that has evolved over the last year ”
Not so Frederica, That state has existed for, well not wanting to give my age away, 42 years at least! (ultimate number given by Arthur Dent)
Thinking ‘outsie the box’ ( to use a worm tongue expression) is what is required methinks.
RADICAL is a word that keeps popping in the last grey cell.
Frederica……….that would be John Rees-Evans. He left UKIP after his failed leadership bid and set up his own party and called it Democrats and Veterans, but believe since then it has rebranded to something else. In hindsight, I think in 2017 those of us in UKIP should have turned our backs on Henry Bolton from the outset, and voted for John Rees-Evans instead. However the main reason which put me off him was his inability to give a speech without looking down at a Smartphone as an aide memoire. Things might have been very different by now with UKIP, but its all hindsight.
With regard to this article going Independent is the way forward now. A few old Kippers/The Brexit Party/Reform UK supporters where I live have left that behind and set up a local Independents Party with the ultimate intention of going into a loose alliance with other local Independent Parties. We are part way through our leafleting campaign, and what is obvious through speaking with people who are in their front gardens etc, that they are fed up with mainstream party politics, and fed up with being lied to at election times just to harness a vote, and those parties who do win failing to deliver on the promises they made. Does that ring a bell with anyone?
In our LA we have a serious threat to greenbelt and a council hellbent on meeting their housing target with a town sized London overspill estate, euphemistically called a ‘garden village’ until they got fed up with us pointing out some of our towns were not as large & renamed it a ‘garden community’.
People were utterly fed up with party politics, the residents group in one town has ousted 2 council leaders & independents have ousted the Tories in the rural wards. UKIP, who naturally aligned with them (residents first & protect the greenbelt) did not stand where they stood. In 2019 the Tories lost overall control & have been propped up by the LibDems & 3 so called Independents, whose wards are not under threat of overdevelopment.
This year the local Kippers have decided to stand as independents. 3 of us have no choice anyway, as victims of the fake, illegitimate chairman’s penchant for ‘suspending’ anyone who flags up his unconstitutional behaviour. Today I heard that the one branch member who had planned to stand as UKIP has decided to stand under no description in view of the current UKIP horror story of the fake leader, fake chairman and and peculiar & embarrassing London Mayoral candidate.
Helena. It makes me furious to hear of building on greenfield land.
Surely there are Brownfield sites still, that should be used. Maybe in the ‘red wall’ areas.
Since our wonderful present government have promised to ‘build back better’ and develop in those areas, that is where they will need housing.
Hello Colin. As I was reading the post it reminded me so much of you, that I was surprised it was not you.
Yes, going Independent is the only way to go now. Also, I like the idea of a loose collaboration as set out in the Like Minded Independents post.
L.M.I. might even be a memorable ‘label’.
It is unfortunate that the idea has only just surfaced. Though I suppose there is some time left before the next G.E.
Perhaps you need some kind of on line presence? Not Social Media please!!
Good thinking Alan Piper. Good Luck.
Pauline……in fact David Allen who has written many an article on this site has previously put forward the Independent idea as the way forward, calling it a ‘Coalition of Independents’. In fact it is me and David Allen who have set up an Independent Party local to where we live, and he taking the leading role in it. So we are now actively putting that idea into practice right now, in the hope that other Independent groupings will join us.
I wasn’t aware of that. Great minds thinking alike etc. Where are you both standing? Good luck. Viv will be posting L-M2 anytime soon.
I agree with you Frederica, something like this will still take huge amounts of finance and the legacy parties know this and make it very difficult for anyone to break through. There was a UKIP Leadership candidate in 2016 called John Rees-Evans standing in Cardiff South and Penarth who funded UKIP’s Party Political Broadcasts and all the Welsh election broadcasts. He was a retired entrepreneur. If some sort of umbrella organisation could be formed it might benefit from crowdfunding as well as some business backing.
John Rees Evans.
Left when he didn’t win in 2017. Had a set up behind him waiting in the wings, wanted to call themselves Affinity but ElCom, like the computer, said No.
Then teamed up with the veterans & morphed into something that got dubbed the Donkey party.
Helena, only because very stupidly in my opinion, he had a donkey within the party logo
I think you may mean Reece Evans . If so,I listened to a speech from him. He was certainly a good personality. His entire speach was entirely about process and computing. Not much wrong about that. I asked two questions, one about plan and organising, and the other abouthis politics. They both lapsed into process and how using computers would change everything. To my mind there was little else there, but he had demonstrated with his business ( In computing ), that he was up there with the money and youth.
So In the same meeting we had Bill Etherington and I remember thinking that he with Bill Etherington or Kurten would together have made a seriously powerful combination. And well worth a couple of thousand. And if they could bring in Anne Marie.That might get rid of the idiot conservative destructive carpet baggers out of UKIP from joining. Gone fishing!
TG Spokes…….your post just goes to prove how politically out of touch you are. Anne Marie Waters is at the opposite end of the political spectrum to David Kurten. Politically they are like chalk and cheese. Anyway apart from that, I thought you were an admirer of Boris!!
Actually Colin I don’t think they are. If you listen to them both, you will see that they both apreciate the others opinions. AMW is not at war with muslims, only their treatment of females, and the various laws of any kind, that should and don’t protect her sisters and girl children in Britain. I have never heard Kurten speak against this. I am sure he never would. He isn’t stupid.
Our Governments reaction to this matter is the problem. It is and for many years has been cowardly, dismissive, procrastination., and a product of the ignorant ( and i mean this in the old fashioned meaning ) labour ( Vengeful anti Israel ) left wing. And none want to be found out. hence Shhhhush
You personally may not like either of Hence them. But labelling people can be a mistake. I don’t really care what the mob might thinkor or how they might choose to categorise. Can either of them help ?
I am sure, they would put aside any silly squabbles to get even some of what they wish for
Furthermore Colin, I think you would find that in a final analysis The majority agree.. Only the noisy and those who have purposely brought this situation about, can disagree
.There are lots of charities pointing to the results.
The Chinese are solving the problem by education of the uighurs. Better than terrorism. Even Mali agrees. I expect Yemen would if they could
TG Spokes……..you are definitely wrong there. They are like chalk and cheese. If you have been a member of For Britain, one cannot join the Heritage Party which David Kurten leads. The same ruling applies to Reform UK as well insofar as For Britain is concerned.
Hi Stupid!
Yes, I agree that this is currently much the best suggestion – but we have to give the independent candidates a forum, a channel where they can all upload their policies, cross-refer to others, and put the major focus on policies. Ideally the public could then express their interest in policy options (existing and new) and in return get a list of the independent candidates that best match their criteria. Not easy to do but we need to make a start. This will need funding and transparent management.
We should differentiate between major changes of direction which will affect our future for decades (eg: regulation and big govt vs deregulation and small govt, energy policy direction, major infrastructure (HS2, rail vs road vs air), Brexit vs EU or USA membership, defence and international posture) and relatively trivial issues (BBC licence fee, council tax caps, turning illegal immigrants back mid-channel).
Major items need different treatment (eg: referenda) and defined review stages (audits, cancellation options).
Political parties are too easily subverted by money etc, so we also need to update our laws to ensure that MPs are paid by their constituencies, not centrally, and can be speedily recalled if they don’t live up to their promises. If they work for us then they must be paid by us (as a precept on the council tax or whatever local taxes we pay) and reviewed by us.
Do what I did last April and join the SDP party I do not regret doing so I cannot contemplate voting for the Liblabconsnp buffoon Boris needs to go and Starmer is a Red Tory the Governmental system in Britain needs decentralizing, We need to become a Federal Republic and a written construction similar to the German lander system
Adam Hiley.You are entitled to your views of course but No Way would I support Britain becoming a Federal Republic. So I’d rather you did not try to turn this Like Minded Independents coalition idea in that direction.
By all means stand as an SDP Party candidate, if that is where you belong.
Adam…….Britain becoming a Federal Republic, what a thoroughly ridiculous and repugnant statement to make. If that is the considered view of the SDP, then its no wonder they are unable to harness more than a few votes across the country.
Sorry to be negative, but this is nonsense. I spent 16 years as a councillor having this stuff about Independents. Trouble is if they are truly independent they are individuals. If they conform to a concocted manifesto, that is if they can ever agree, they are party labelled ” Independents”.
Individual Independents will get absolutely nowhere against an established, unelected bunch of civil serpents on the one hand and scheming career party councillors on the other.
For God’s sake, if it’s reform you want, we have the golden opportunity of getting behind
Reform UK, with a unique record of winning a national election in six weeks, in such numbers that they smash through the First Past the Post system and start to make the change that can ONLY come from breaking the current one party state.
Tony, I hear what you say about Reform UK. I had been selected to stand as a Reform UK candidate after a very lengthy selection procedure, but the party had too many flaws to make it a going concern, and it was all largely held together by the charismatic leadership of Nigel Farage. However any political party worth its salt has to be bigger than one person, but when Farage stood down from the leadership four weeks ago that really signalled the end of that party for me and many others. I have mentioned flaws, and the biggest flaw with Reform UK is that it is wholly undemocratic in the way that it is run. Nobody is elected but everyone connected with it is appointed and that includes the party leader, so when Farage stood down who was one of perhaps three or four shareholders who owned the party (a Limited Company) one of the other shareholders was appointed leader as his replacement. One really cannot preach democratic reform of the country, when one’s own party is totally undemocratic. The other flaw is that on the run up to major local elections, the party decided against formulating a manifesto of polices in advance, so what the heck are people voting on. For me at least these flaws are a non starter, and going Independent as a number of us have done, means that we have some control over our destiny which under Reform UK didn’t exist.
Alan Piper has the right idea. It can be made to work.
Here in Allerdale (West Cumbria) it has worked. For years the Borough Council was Labour dominated,with all that that entails.
There were a small number of Independents, some leaning left, but still Independents.
Before the last council election a group of people, all well known in their different communities,decided to stand for election as Independents. It involved a lot of hard work.
I was at the count. All of them bar one had an unbelievable number of votes. I enquired about the odd one out. “Everyone knows she is independent Labour” was the reply.
Result: The Independents formed the largest group on the council until Tory skulduggery managed to overturn it. Never mind, there is a five seat bye-election in May which should sort things out.
The biggest problem is getting people to cooperate for the common good.Some incline left,some right, but there is always common ground in the middle
Common ground – not common purpose?
OK. I understand the general thrust or intention and agree.
Looking at your shopping list, you will need to resolve lots of differences.
The airy ‘significant reform’ to the structure of Government – does this include the dreadful idea of proportional representation?
Should you have two candidates with diametric opposed views how would you go about asking one to step down to avoid splitting the vote?
Stable patriotic nation et al. That sounds as hard as defining ‘love’.
Common purpose. OK but how – become a teacher? Give me the child until he is seven and I shall give you the (indoctrinated) man, type of thing?
Exposure and punishment of corruption. Laudable. Many are exposed but few convicted – see the Teflon snp, and the shoot them in the head lying Cressida Dick. How do you get them preferably into jail or out of office?
Brutal objectivity whatever that means.
Notice, I didn’t say NO at any point.
It need fleshing out a little and I don’t mean a common market 600 page explanation (!). A concise para on each would put us on the right road. Until then you only have disparate ideas and individuals – yes I know that’s what you are aiming for. But without some sort of agreed base of reference to glue things together independents are just that – independent.
Oh and good luck – so far so good.
This sounds good on paper but I suspect that you will eventually have to revert to the party system as it is too deeply entrenched in our politics today. I suspect that the Brexit party will gradually decline now that it has lost it’s guiding star, and I don’t see much of a future for the Heritage party outside London, despite it having an excellent leader. UKIP is the one that is still here, although we are still trying to drag ourselves out of the pit which we have fallen into after the departure of you-know-who, so perhaps we should be working on a UKIP revival as UKIP has an established base already. If UKIP has survived, and maintained a base, after all the shenanigans that we have been through in the past few years, it may the lifeboat that we should be clinging to?
Why do residual Kippers keep proselytising the myth that Farage has gone. Rubbish! He is very much politically involved as President of Reform UK and is constantly breaking issues that Fakestream ignore.
As I understand him, he just does not want to be burdened with the day to day campaigning. There are many others: Richard Tice, David Bull, Ben Habib, Martin Daubney, Michael Heaver, Ann Widdecombe, Claire Fox, Inaya Folorin, Rupert Lowe and many others who are fighting like hell on various issues.
Has anyone heard a single word from UKIP lately?
Philip. I’m not sure about the lifeboat. I think what we need is a warship! its high time the LibLabCon was blasted out of the water! UKIP as UKIP served its purpose. It achieved the referendum and a Brexit (of sorts) was negotiated. Technically we are ‘out of the EU’. But only technically it not really a good deal or even a finally done deal! UKIP should have re-branded. Many others have said the same thing on here and I agree with that. The current leader has ‘history’. So, rightly or wrongly, he carries that baggage which could well prove to be a ten ton rock to drag him down in the viper pit that is politics today!
Phillip. I agree and have recently rejoined UKIP. I was a branch chairman for 5 years. Like most other branch officials found there was a scant handful of activists prepared to get stuck in with the letter writing, leafleting, manning of stalls…even for the slog leading up to the Referendum it was the same foot soldiers. Steve Crowther’s prediction of masses of Tories piling into help never materialised. We carried on campaigning during the Appeaser May years despite the procession of new UKIP leaders, the infighting and the lack of direction coming from above. We held the line when The Brexit Party lured members away. We had an action morning in support of the Fishing industry on the Brixham road when some supporters for Leave Means Leave drove up and had the nerve to as if UKIP would leaflet for them that afternoon. Nigel Farage was ruthless in his attacks on his former party and relished the support of the MSM in doing so. Yes he is Mr Brexit but magnanimity is not in his make up. I suspected it would be but a matter of time before he left TBP, now Reform Party, a hollow shell. What is left for us now? who is there to vote for? Well I will be spoiling my ballot paper for the local elections unless there is an independent worthy of support. However, acting leader, Neil Hamilton has put a good slate of candidates together for the Welsh Assembly election in May and some big hitters are returning to the party overall. The MSM is up to its usual tricks, giving no coverage at all to UKIP. Two UKIP members in Swansea set up Voice of Wales, covering topics such as the Penally camp near Tenby for immigrants, but BBC Radio Wales manager to get VOW bounced off You Tube claiming that there had been complaints about it. They now use other social media outlets and are garnering more support.I see green shoots for UKIP and hope that it attracts many votes in Wales and that that success will carry through to rebuild its membership and branch structure through the rest of the UK. It takes years for a new party to get going and will take a lot of guts as it can get darned nasty out campaigning now. I’m backing UKIP, a household name and a recognised brand.
Good common sense Phillip.
UKIP lost its chance when it failed to emphasise its absolute commitment to non-racism. This politically naive error – the hostile MSM was waiting for the chance to eliminate the threat to those who run both Labour and Conservative parties – ensured that average voters returned to their usual political homes.
A Ratner moment. The parrot has joined the choir celestial. So close, we were so close.
JF
Julian, you are so right there. Totally bang on. UKIP has had its day, and I’m afraid so has The Brexit Party/Reform UK. With Richard Tice at the helm it just will not cut through……
UKIP having an established base, I don’t think so. I would have agreed with you three years ago, but the Tommy Robinson factor saw to that. As said before the county where I live once had 17 branches and now it has three. It controlled one council and had several councilors several other local authorities. Now I think the number of their councilors throughout the county can be counted on one hand. The party I am afraid is in terminal decline, and with a little over 1000 members nationwide it has no chance. It is well past the resuscitation stage.