I have just watched the video showing the launch of The Brexit Party (TBP) in Coventry. None of the presentations mentioned UKIP. I think this is good, as I will explain.

However there was a question: “What is the difference between UKIP and TBP?”. In his answer Nigel said, amongst other things, that UKIP now attracted a “loutish” and “thuggish” element. This sort of language is frankly not exactly helpful to the cause of getting us out of the EU. Here’s why:

Unless the High Court declares that the extensions are illegal and that we did actually leave the EU on 29th March, we will most likely be facing EP elections next month. 

This will surely be read as a de facto “2nd referendum”.

It will be a count of the votes of LibLabConSnpGreenPlaid vs the votes of UKIP+TBP.

If the former add up to more than the latter, the establishment will feel entitled to say “The People Have Changed Their Minds and Don’t Want To Leave Anymore”. They will then proceed to cancel the Article 50 notice. And we will be locked into the EU irrevocably for another generation or more.

I know that most of the Tory and many of the Labour traditional voters want us to leave, but a vote for these parties will be counted as a vote for their leaderships, and both leaders want us to remain.

Our side will not be given much air-time by a generally hostile MSM. We must not waste it carping at the other pro-Leave party. We must at all costs avoid headlines such as “Farage and Batten go to war over EU elections.”

We must use such airtime as we are given to get this message across, putting firmly into the minds of all the voting public:

“If you want us to leave the EU, vote UKIP or vote TBP. Under absolutely no circumstances vote LibLabConSnpGreenPlaid.”

Those who want to leave the EU, and who have long admired the efforts of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Dan Hannan, must realise that if they vote Tory this time that vote will be counted as a vote for the Party of Theresa May the Remainer, and a support for her policies, for her falsely-labelled “Withdrawal” Agreement which will leave us in a state of subjugation as a voteless colony of Brussels.

Indeed Jacob’s own sister, Annunziata Rees-Mogg, has realised this and is running as a candidate in Farage’s new The Brexit Party! Let us hope that Jacob, and Bill Cash, Mark François, Owen Paterson, and all the other Tory leavers also realise this and speak out to support her.

Those who want to leave the EU, and who have long admired the past efforts of Kate Hoey, John Mills, the Labour Euro-Safeguards Committee, and indeed the late Tony Benn, must realise that if they vote Labour this time, that vote will be counted as a vote for the Party of Jeremy Corbyn the Remainer, and a support for his policies, for keeping us shackled in the Customs Union, and under permanent servitude to Brussels.

Distinctions for Tory or Labour Leave voters will be swept aside as the numbers are brutally added up.

In this campaign, the essential thing is for all those Brits who want us to be once more a free, independent, country, in charge of our own affairs, owing allegiance to no other, to realise that they will have to vote either UKIP or The Brexit Party (which of the two is of secondary importance).

Clearly in the campaign between now and May 23rd, the MSM will want to get UKIP and TBP to bicker and to quarrel. If they succeed in this, if all the interviews on air are distracted into a focus of getting the leaders of these two parties to criticise each other, people will be put off voting for either of them.

So the temptation to snap and peck at each other must be strenuously resisted by both TBP and UKIP. It is a trap into which we must not fall.

We must realise that we are on the same side in this fight, just as Nye Bevan and Winston Churchill stood side by side during WWII. Nye Bevan had called the Tories “vermin”, and Churchill was a hard-line right-wing conservative, yet both took a statesmanlike stance, sank their differences, stood together for the duration, and led the nation through to victory. Only then was there a general election, where they could turn on each other, as indeed they did!

I am certainly not suggesting that Gerard and Nigel should become blood brothers. But it is essential for them and their followers to realise that their votes, taken together, should add up to at least 50% + 1 of the total votes cast, as in a real referendum, to reconfirm the referendum result of 2016.

And, by collectively beating the old legacy political establishment, to show the country, and the world, that the face of British politics is now changed beyond recognition.

During the campaign, both Nigel and Gerard and all the candidates in these two parties should refrain from making derogatory remarks about each other, but focus single-mindedly on beating the other side.

Luckily the EP election is run on a type of Proportional Representation system, so every vote counts and can be counted, unlike with the First-Past-The-Post system used for Westminster, where splitting the Leave vote would indeed be fatal.

Two Brexit parties better than one?

Actually, the fact there are now two Brexit parties is therefore not such a bad thing for the EP election. Indeed, collectively the two may well gather in more votes for the Leave Cause than if there were only one party.

The British voting public might be fairly divided into two main groups: those who would never under any circumstances vote Labour, and those who would never under any circumstances vote Tory.

With our FPTP voting system, in order not to waste their vote on a candidate who will certainly not be elected, many if not most voters will vote for the candidate who they reckon has the best chance of defeating the one they dislike or fear the most. This means that Labour-haters will vote Tory, and Tory-haters will vote Labour. It does not mean that they are wedded to supporting the Tories or Labour respectively.

This attitude (“We gotta vote for the nasty party to stop the even nastier one from getting in”) may be one of the factors that have kept those two parties going so far. However it is now crystal clear, at least to the 17.4 million who voted Leave, that neither of these two Parties are any longer fit for purpose.

Just as, 100 years ago, the Labour party supplanted the Liberal party as the chief alternative to the Tories, so now both Labour and Tory parties may be supplanted, in future, by UKIP and TBP.

During the EP election, the existence of two pro-Brexit parties may well be an advantage. Northerners who voted Labour may find it more congenial to vote for UKIP, indeed with Tommy Robinson and his appeal to the working class, and Home County dwellers who voted Tory may feel more at home voting for Nigel’s TBP. Together we must work to break free from the EU. The next month will be decisive.

Then once out and free, we can fight each other to our hearts’ content, sitting in future, I’d hope, and expect, on opposite sides of the House of Commons, cutting and thrusting at each other across the despatch box…

I hope this helps.

 

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