We, as ordinary voters, do not set the rules governing the democratic process. We are rule takers. We all recognise that First Past The Post (FPTP) is deeply flawed but we can do nothing about it.
People have been campaigning for years to get rid of it, to no avail. Everyone has had to abide with a deeply, unfair, two party system whether they like it or not.
No election has ever been rerun under a FPTP system, irrespective of how close the result. The most striking example was Kensington and Chelsea in 2017 where Labour won by 20 votes – after three recounts.
Leave would have won the referendum regardless if it had been by one extra vote or ten million more votes in its favour. The fact that no one expected ‘Leave’ to win, is besides the point. We did expect the rules to be adhered to.
The Electoral Commission gave no indication of the size of the majority required.
Leave won by a startling 1,269,501 extra votes – over a million extra votes (see here)!
If the London result is taken out, Leave won by 11%, including every other large metropolitan area.
When Cameron said that he would honour the referendum result, we all believed him. We thought this country was fair. We thought Parliament played by the rules.
The referendum was very clear – the British government agreed to abide by the result.
The referendum did not mention ‘deals’ or give ‘half in, half out’ questions.
Even worse, both major parties campaigned in the 2017 General Election to honour the results of the referendum – in other words, they both campaigned on a ‘Brexit’ manifesto.
And then 498 MP’s voted to back the government’s bill which set a deadline for article 50 and said that, deal or no deal, we will leave the European Union.
How can MP’s or ministers of either party be believed any longer?
If democracy is broken, people have nothing to fall back on. It does not matter about any economic arguments or technical arguments – nothing is as important as democracy and trust. Once that trust in democracy is broken, it is very difficult to get it back.
People believe that they have no say and nothing makes any difference and their voice has been silenced.
All the focus has been on the splits in the Conservative Party but the real issue is the complete break down in the democratic process.
Would Labour have fared any better as a party dealing with Brexit? It is questionable.
Corbyn and Tony Benn have always been Brexiteers. Corbyn knows that Labour will not be able to implement 50% of it’s 2017 manifesto if Britain remains within the EU.
Working class Labour voters are generally Brexit voters. All of them understand that mass immigration affects people’s wages and ability to get decent jobs. (Btw – The Democratic Party in the USA also used to be the party of borders and immigration controls against Big Businesses demand for cheap labour.)
Against that, Corbyn has some 80% of his members who support Remain. Labour is rumoured to have lost 150,000 members recently over this issue (see here).
Clearly Labour is as split as the Conservatives, just in a different way.
Ironically, the only party that has really been focusing on Brexit recently (after UKIP went off to promote Tommy Robinson rather than Brexit) is the “Communist Party of Britain Marxist Leninist’’ They are staunchly for Brexit. They were handing out leaflets at the Leave Means Leave rally last week in London
Democracy, Sovereignty, the Rule of Law, control of our borders, British jobs, a British army, (not a European army!) are things the major parties seem to have lost sight of – and the things that are so important to the proper functioning of an independent, nation state..
The Brexit Party, with Nigel’s support, (if article 50 is delayed or extended), will reach out to all 17.4m leave voters across all parties who feel that democracy and the Sovereignty of the United Kingdom have been been betrayed and fight to return us, once again to being an independent and proud nation.
“Ironically, the only party that has really been focusing on Brexit recently (after UKIP went off to promote Tommy Robinson rather than Brexit) is the “Communist Party of Britain Marxist Leninist’’”
UKIP is still totally focusing on Brexit. Gerard has been focusing on that for over 25 years. I think that’s a particularly prejudiced and poorly informed remark.
When Catherine Blaiklock was a candidate for UKIP in the 1917 General Election she stood in Great Yarmouth. In the 2011 census the population of Great Yarmouth was 97,277. The number of Muslims there was less than 500. No Islam problem there then.
Should Catherine stand for ‘The Brexit Party’ in the next general election, perhaps she might stand in Luton. The 2011 census there showed a population approximately twice the size of Great Yarmouth but with 50,000 Muslims.
Who knows, perhaps Catherine might then understand the huge numbers of people that Gerard and Tommy speak for. And also, why it’s essential that UKIP is a multi-issue party; not a single-issue party led by a single-issue politician like Nigel Farage.
“If democracy is broken, people have nothing to fall back on.”
Really? Half bricks and Molotov cocktails, overturned buses and burned out job centres, that is what we can fall back on.
And if those treacherous politicians get in the way then string them up. They deserve it. That is the ONLY thing we can fall back on.
Anyone who has seen GB in action over the last 10 years would have realised when he became leader that he would come in for relentless attack (although there was not hit piece in this week’s Mail on Sunday as expected by GB). When he promoted his ‘charter for muslims’ idea about 10 years ago he was vilified, and even at the GE17 press conferences – which were in the main very poorly attended by the media, so this is not a new problem – Nuttal had to constantly deal with questions about GBs ‘islam is a death cult’ remarks. But he was the last man standing and nobody else wanted the job. He could have stayed focused on Brexit, which gave him the chance of redemption and getting a bigger platform, but instead he doubled down on the whole islam thing by teaming up with TR. This has given his enemies all the excuses they needed to do their devious deeds. But what I find most problematic is that he refuses to say whether or not he will stand in the leadership campaign. This means that, yet again, UKIP may find itself lurching from port to starboard side, his flirtation with TR has led to many jumping ship, but if the party now lurches to starboard again then all those who joined because of TR’s endorsement will also jump…… PLEASE has nobody ever heard of the phrase ‘keeping a vessel on an even keel?’. Gerard must make his intentions clear because at the moment he is causing many members to stay on the sidelines. It is impossible to be fully supportive of him if you think he will be gone in 3 months, because we know full well the next leader – whoever that may be – is most likely to take the party in a totally differerent direction. And if he doesn’t want to stand for leader then I don’t believe he has the mandate to change the philosophy of the party. He should have the conviction to announce he will stand, lets have a real election for leader in a multi-stage process not a 9 person first past the post farce like last time, and see what members want. Until then, the lack of mandate undermines his leadership.
Catherine, another way of looking at the referendum result is that the referendum was taken as a countrywide vote if it had been taken on a constituency basis it would have come up as winning by 80 seats, and that is a lot of seats.
Courtesy of Freddy Forsyth.
Was it only by 80 seats ? I read elsewhere that over 400 seats voted Leave ?
If we had had an Electoral College then we would have won by 80 seats.
The reason for an EC in the US is because the founding fathers had the foresight to realise that a nation dominated by the most populous states would be an unhealthy one. That metropolitans would rule the country. We have an imbalance in the UK too, but have no redress as do the Americans. London exerts so much influence that even an entire country (Scotland) feels the unfairness of it, let alone the cities and towns of England and Wales.
Why, we even have a mayor who regards London as a separate entity and courts foreign nations for favours and investments.
I always use the EU referendum voting area results in letters to the press 270 Leave 129 Remain. They have a more powerful impact than 48% to 52%
“On 23 June 2016 the recorded result was that UK voters favoured leaving the European Union, by 51.9% for Leave, and 48.1% for Remain with 270 (67.7%) voting areas and Northern Ireland constituencies voting to “Leave the European Union” to 129 (32.3%) which voted to “Remain a member of the European Union”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum
The Brexit Party is reminiscent of The Referendum Party – the late Jimmy Goldsmith’s 1997 GE party. Blair would cheerfully have obeyed his NWO masters and taken us into the euro without a referendum – for which he would have been awarded the EU presidency, Jimmy put the brakes on that. But… it was a one trick pony, I know, I campaigned for our candidate, despite there being a UKIP candidate in our constituency. (we joined UKIP in 1999, recruited from the Democracy Movement which followed on from the Referendum Party)
What is the latest move by papilon farage in that he is thinking of going in with henry bolton “our nation ” party
I remember nige saying to a gathering “well, what has he done wrong”.
I was not far off course when posting UKIP should keep plenty of blue water between nigel & party, bargepole plus.
Farage used the word ‘vehicle’ several times last week and mentioned ‘there are a few vehicles out there’, it takes too long to register a political party so he needed a ready-made ‘off the shelf’ vehicle he could simply jump into and drive. Saves a lot of time and effort! I’m not sure if HB is really his political soulmate but obviously he isn’t going to get in the way.
from PMB. Strikes me, Farage’s only possible reason for starting another Brexit Party at this time must be a desire to destroy Ukip. Presumably, if he is behaving rationally, it is more ‘sour grapes’ that Ukip is still there and actually doing rather well, without Nigel Farage.
On the other hand, Does Nigel Farage act Rationally? We have said that Theresa May does not act rationally. We know that she is a Remainer but the prospect of all that razzemetazz surrounding the post of PM. made it worth her while to accept the leadership of the Tory Party. Isn’t Farage very much like May? He craves the spotlight doesn’t he. Can’t live without it can he. I don’t know whether psychiatrists have a technical term for this rather widespread mental disorder. If not we’ll just have to label them exhibitionists.
Catherine, while I wish you all the best with your new party, I just question the wisdom of setting up yet another pro-Brexit party, unless it is indeed to further split the Leave vote.
UKIP has a leadership forthcoming in the next couple of months, to all those who quit the party ‘in disgust’ or in disagreement with Gerard Batten, would it have not been more prudent to hold your tongues, and seek your opportunity to change the direction of the party yourself by standing in that leadership election?
For all its faults, UKIP is an established ‘brand’ in the minds of the electorate, and despite its shortcomings of late, if UKIP appears on the ballot paper, voters will recognise it, rather than shrug their shoulders and think “who?” when they see other parties like For Britain, Democrats & Veterans, Our Nation etc.
Also, is naming this party “The Brexit Party” not simply instantly branding this party as “single-issue”?
Finally, I would like to know some insight into who will be funding this new venture; I have no doubt that if Nigel Farage is offering his endorsement, then Arron Banks is going to be involved somewhere, especially considering his failed attempt to join the Tories last year.
Do you understand why the Leadership election arrangements have not already been published ?
Why ?
Catherine, you say “… the only party that has really been focusing on Brexit recently (after UKIP went off to promote Tommy Robinson rather than Brexit) … ” That is not correct. As I see it, UKIP has not lost its focus on Brexit. Gerard has always been committed to Leaving the EU and wrote his book in 2014 setting out how the UK should mange Leaving, and has repeatedly said our current Government is doing it all wrong.
There are various campaign groups in favour of Leave all working separately and without co-ordination, like Leave means Leave and Get Britain Out and others even more hidden than UKIP such as “for Britain”. UKIP is still the largest and carries the biggest threat against the establishment.
The problem is that he allowed his views on Islamic ideology to be aired and the MSM jumped on that and refused to discuss anything else with him thereby trying to present him as obsessed or even extreme in his views. They could then use that as an excuse to ignore him and UKIP, which seems to be an organised and deliberate conspiracy.
A UKIP Newsletter in December said —
“The British media establishment has ramped up its campaign against UKIP. Currently, the Daily Mail is leading the charge with a smear campaign against UKIP Leader Gerard Batten.
Contained in this newsletter are some of the press releases we have put out over the past few days. All of the major national media outlets have ignored them. The media has gone from frosty to positively arctic towards us, and we know why. The establishment’s plan to bankrupt UKIP and for it to fade out of existence in 2018 failed. Now with Brexit betrayal in full swing, UKIP’s existence is dreadfully inconvenient.”
Catherine, please acknowledge that Gerard has not and still does not refuse to speak to the MSM, rather the opposite. The MSM are deliberately denying Gerard and UKIP access to the public debate out of fear of UKIP’s wise approach, better arguments, better policies and ultimately profound influence.
Let us hope the Public can see the deception that is going on and when the time comes will vote massively for UKIP again.
Catherine, please come back.
Gerard and his press officer have been invited on numerous occasions to talk to LBC . As has TR.
They have refused.
Kris Hicks ( our press officer ) is on a HUGE salary.
Three times the national average. With perks .
From UKIP subscriptions.
He’s failed.
Don’t believe the bulls**t you see and hear on social media George.
Get the facts right.
But DON”T listen to me.. Do your own research….
Then come back and tell us what you have found….
Please…..
“an organised and deliberate conspiracy.” Indeed, but wasn’t this an error on GBs part? “Know thine enemy” is a necessity in any war and the reaction was inevitable once the necessarry ammunition was given to them.
The corrollory of Debbie’s point may be that you can like a party leader but feel the party is being dysfunctionally run. I have frequently on this admirable forum written that I do not believe UKIP is the right vehicle to take on the currently hostile establishment. I don’t want to repeat my reasons. 17.5 million voters…..maybe more now, are pulsating with anger at how the people they elected have actually turned against them and are breaking any convention, rule or practice in their determination to thwart our historic referendum vote. They desperately need a Brexit Party to represent their frustration. Single issue, in this case, holds a distinct advantage of uniting aĺl or any of the 17.5m, whatever their previous alliances, in one massive assault on a totally discredited establishment. Under such circumstances, FPTP could have little drawback. Recently, disgust at the Labour Party in Scotland allowed SNP to win through the system. Determination to see UK leave the EU could have the same result. So despite my reservations about the expected leader’s snobbish remarks, I am persuaded by Katherine’s final paragraph that a Brexit Party is just what the doctor ordered.
Good point Tony.
Everyone is quick to criticise first past the post. However, nobody ever seems to look at the disadvantages of proportional representation or similar alternatives. With first past the post you get the candidate who the majority voted for and collectively you get a government of the majority elected. Everyone knows what type of government each party will give them. The problem with PR is that almost inevitably it leads to coalitions. We know those do not work from our experience in this country and others. It leads to weak government and to a collective government who trade off one policy against another in an auction that nobody voted for. Hardly democratic and I would say a worse outcome than FPTP. Alternatives of PR such as single transferable voting leads to second choices of usually weak candidates that people can live with and so the danger is that they win based on votes transferred from first choice candidates who do not get an outright win. I agree any new party must galvanise the electorate to vote for it in large numbers but maybe that is no bad thing. Be careful what you wish for in changing any electoral system. I for one would not vote for change despite not supporting either of the 3 traditional main parties.
“With first past the post you get the candidate who the majority voted for” is not strictly correct. The winning candidate is the one with more votes than any other candidate which could fall well short of the majority of voters. We should not confuse the (possibly corrupted) use of the word in elections with the real majority.
e.g Winner 35%, second 34%, third 31% > winner obviously wasn’t wanted by 65% of voters. Add in more candidates and the disproportionate representation can be even worse. This is the issue with FPTP, but we probably need a better solution than straightforward proportional representation as proposed by some.
People criticise FPTP for a very good reason – it is the maddest system you can imagine for electing a national Government or a Local Authority for that matter.
In Bishop Auckland in 2015 the only two Brexit supporting candidates ( myself / UKIP and the Tory – nice intelligent man ) together got about 19,000 votes ( from memory ) and the Lab candidate got about 15,000. However – that lady got elected as she had more than either of us singly.
So a massively LEAVE voting constituency is ‘represented’ by a Remainist.
Even leaving UKIP out of it altogether, in Scotland in 2017 a small majority of voters voted for Unionist parties. Yet because SNP came first in most places to look at the HoC you would think that a great majority of the Scots favour SNP.
FPTP has a baleful influence and is the single sole cause why ‘Parliament’ is now so at odds with the People.
In Italy via Prop Rep the nearest equivalent to UKIP are now in Government.
In Germany the AfD are the official opposition – all down to the fact that Prop Rep means that every vote counts.
I never thought I would agree with Rhys Buriss on anything, ever, never. But that is a darn good post on the need for PR.
Nigel wants to destroy UKIP. A question for Debbie and Viv if I may. Have you guys left UKIP?
I haven’t. Debbie will tell you herself.
Ok thanks.
I’m still a member.
Even though I am a member of ‘For Britain’ that’s good to hear. Thanks.
Here we have a whole article promoting a proposed new Brexit supporting party.
Yet when I tried to post a few lines, the other day, about another Brexit supporting party my comment wasn’t accepted.
Strange!
Catherine, the country already has a Brexit Party, its called UKIP.
What are you doing ! apart from massaging Farages ego that is.
You are above this.
Morning Jeff ! Well, she gets published in the Daily Telegraph for a start. As an example UKIP has not been mentioned AT ALL in the Telegraph since December 9th. I think what she might be saying is that UKIP has been out of focus regarding Brexit and that its leadership is no longer taken seriously by either the press or the public due to its focus on other , lesser, issues. UKIP has effectively removed itself from the debate by refusing to engage with LBC / SKY / and others too.. a long list thats getting longer.
Political leaders just can’t do that. We have to be on top of the live debate. UKIP is not engaged at all as far as I can see .
A lot of good UKIP people have been lost in the last year through arguing about other things, but Brexit is the main issue. If we can secure Brexit (common ground for all the disparate factions ) we can fight for other issues that matter once we have won. Unfortunately none of us can beat the clock. Time is running out. I think its 72 days to go….
…..Kevin, which political Party are you a member of ?
UKIP
No election has ever been rerun under a FPTP system, irrespective of how close the result. The most striking example was *FIFE NORTH EAST* in 2017 where Labour won by *TWO VOTES*.
To be charitable, must be London Bubble thinking.
Catherine;
I am just thinking aloud at this point, as opposed to being firmly of the view : but I wonder if a Party which is single issue will lose potential votes by virtue of that fact ? I.e. it will be ridiculed by the Established Parties as not being serious about Government, given that Government is about a whole load more issues than just the E.U.
At the same time, the danger of having too many policies in the ‘offer’ is that one or other of them is sure to offend a particular constituency.
I believe that as an absolute minimum the Brexit Party should adopt as a policy of equal importance with LEAVING the EU on WTO Terms ( by the way, your publicity today does not spell that out, as I believe it should…….Don’t forget that both major Parties will claim to be in favour of Leaving – just not under WTO ) that of campaigning for Proportional Representation for elections to the Commons and Local Authorities.
In my view the sole reason there is a political crisis at present is simply that we do not live in a democracy. The FPTP system simply allows the two supposedly opposing groups to carve government up amongst themselves. Over 400 constituencies voted Leave, yet over 500 MPs are Remainist. ONLY Prop Rep can deliver us a HoC which broadly reflects the will of the people as expressed on Election Day.
I hope you will adopt at minimum Prop Rep as co equal with Leaving on WTO Terms. Perhaps if so the Party could pledge that if it were elected in sufficient numbers to the Commons it would agree to a dissolution of Parliament as soon as Prop Rep had been enacted ( thus justifying its short list of policies for its Manifesto ).
https://independencedaily.co.uk/proposed-policies-ukips-leadership-membership-consider-part-one/
https://independencedaily.co.uk/proposed-policies-ukips-leadership-membership-consider-part-two/
Rhys Burriss
Excellent proposal!
“… (after UKIP went off to promote Tommy Robinson rather than Brexit) …”
Catherine I for one don’t see UKIP as being a one trick pony party and never have and I’m not one of those that has an obsession with Tommy Robinson, either way. UKIP gives a voice to those like me who want to see a fully sovereign independent UK which is run by a UKIP government in order to keep it that way. UKIP gives a home to those that now see the conservatives for the con that they are and to those dispossessed by labour that is now only interested in cultivating the immigrant vote.
I see UKIP as a unifying force that can put an end to a century or more of divide and rule politics in the UK.
UKIP the Party has never promoted Tommy Robinson. The NEC has declined to move away from the issue of Brexit. Only Gerard has promoted TR and Gerard is due to stand down shortly for a new leadership election. Talk of UKIP promoting Tommy Robinson is grossly premature at best and downright wrong at worst and plays to the mainstream determination to smear us. And that is before we even begin to address the issue of whether TR really is “far right” or not. In my book, “far right” is the correct description for those who would ignore the democratic referendum result and thus prove that democracy is dead in our country.
I think your points are fair as far as they go.
However the NEC has in practice allowed the MSM to portray Gerard’s support for S Y-L as that of UKIP more generally by virtue of the fact that it has not set in train the arrangements for the election of the Leader due to take office after Gerard’s year has transpired.
If we had an ongoing election for Leader during Feb and March then assuming there would be candidates opposed to S Y-L becoming a member UKIP the party could not be portrayed as pro S Y-L.
I thought that members such as Nigel and Catherine resigning over the issue were premature, as the Leadership election was supposedly imminent – however it seems to keep being postponed……why ?
JM,
Good post, Tommy Robinson as far as I can see is personal link to Gerard more that a party issue at this moment in time.
To try to show it to be more intentionally is joining the anti UKIP hate /smear campaign.
Across Britain there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of Brexit activists who retired out to pasture after the 2016 referendum and out of despair during the subsequent farcical handling of our decision to leave by Theresa May’s government.
Hundreds if not thousands more Brexit activists have also left UKIP as its internal problems and leadership fiascos decimated its ranks. Some have joined the Conservatives, a few perhaps even Labour…. But many, many more feel politically homeless.
Brexit is about independence and freedom. It’s about we, the people, exercising our rights to be self-governing and free, to be able to pick our leaders and sack them if they are proven incompetent, corrupt or incapable of listening. It’s about we, the people, winning at last.
Yes, the country has plenty of issues to sort out despite Brexit…and some may well ask whether setting up a new party now is timely or divisive, however I’d argue a dedicated Brexit party offers those across the political spectrum the opportunity to unite under a new and inclusive banner of solidarity.
Our solidarity in demanding our ultimate independence and freedom is a prerequisite of enabling future policy and legislation that will deliver corrections to our current predicaments such as a declining standard of living and the uncertainty and hand-wringing about our own national identity… but perhaps most of all, it will renew pride in our nation which has been the leading light of progress, democracy, tolerance and fairness for hundreds of years.
It’s time Britain got it’s mojo back. And that time is now.
You don’t have to like a party leader as long as you agree with the way the party is being run.
The Party System is the Corruption of Parliament. Why do you persist in doing it? http://www.cravenfreedom.com
Martin, it is certainly Parliament v The People right now. I take it you and your club will be making yourselves seen and heard outside The Palace of Westminster between now and next Tuesday ?