With the Conservative and Labour parties doing their best to drive their historical support away one has to wonder what might happen next. I don’t mean next week, or next year, but the next election and the one after that. All the traditional political parties are suffering as they have drifted to the extremes, thereby limiting their appeal to that huge block of middle England that a party needs to be successful.
If you can’t support the Conservatives or the Labour party, who can you vote for?
It’s not as if there aren’t alternatives, just the opposite, there are hundreds of them. Since the referendum 119 new political parties have been registered to contest Great Britain elections (Northern Ireland is a different register). Bizarrely, 28 of those include, within their name the words ‘independent’ or ‘independents’, which is a contradiction in terms, but allowed by the Electoral Commission.
The rate of applications is interesting as the pace seems to be quickening:
|
From |
To |
Number |
|
23/6/2016 |
01/01/2017 | 9 |
|
02/1/2017 |
01/01/2018 |
39 |
|
02/1/2018 |
01/01/2019 |
53 |
|
01/01/2019 |
14/03/2019 |
18 |
Amongst them is the Brexit Party which, with Nigel Farage’s support will get the exposure necessary, though a month and a half after registration one still cannot join it and there is very little information about it in terms of its organisation, structure, constitution, rule book, etc. etc. Currently it’s a couple of web pages asking for money. Even those who have registered an interest have heard nothing by way of updates or progress reports.
However, this appears to be a vehicle for the EU elections only, should they take place. The latest news regarding Catherine Blaiklock’s resignation as leader for inappropriate social media comments just magnifies the concerns about the party as a stable organisation.
It’s essential to have a national profile of some sort because people will not vote for a party and a leader they don’t know. In this sense Nigel Farage would appear to be critical to voting success all the while Brexit is the backdrop.
It’s not for no reason that new political parties fail, even those with high profile people involved. It’s rather like a large company, but instead of doing business and relying on a defined product portfolio, it must survive on opinion, eventually expressed as votes. The organisation and structure must be as professional as any business yet the vast majority of its activity is carried out by volunteers, including the management functions.
Typically, small political parties wind up with people in positions they are not well qualified to undertake. Equally, election candidates are selected from limited membership numbers, thereby leading to poor quality all round. On top of that many people tend to vote tribally, so making a good case or having good ideas is lost on people who aren’t listening.
The usual outlets for mass communication are generally barred to small parties. TV and radio simply aren’t interested. There’s plenty of airtime for elected MPs to make up an android panel and even a spot for pointless celebrities, but honest and patriotic people who put their efforts into a politics with integrity are ignored. Such is the landscape we inhabit.
Other problems a political party has is the national sense of its purpose. If you are a small party who have cobbled together a dozen candidates in a dozen constituencies, you are still trapped in an artificial convention of having to present a national manifesto as if you were seeking government. This is pointless yet essential. The small party will have to present a view on defence capability but will never be in a position to implement that.
Usually, amongst a raft of good ideas lurks the idiotic policy which sucks the life blood from any campaign for a period. Furthermore, wherever they sit on the political spectrum they will be opposed by their generic opposition. If a party is centre right, centre left and further left won’t vote for them; the reverse is also true. Wherever you stand politically there will be substantial numbers of people whose votes are lost from the start.
Then there is the perennial problem of negative pandemics, in the political sense. UKIP suffered greatly from this. A party councillor or candidate says something alleged to be non-PC and the entire party is tarnished with it for as long as the news cycle, driven by political opposition, lasts.
Political parties need massive support, widespread constituency bases, money, and most of all time to develop all these constituent parts. Most, even when fielding candidates, will barely register with voters. An additional yet potentially crippling factor is that in some constituencies new parties will be fighting each other and there is no mechanism to prevent that from happening.
However, it is essential that the voting public, in each constituency, have a credible alternative, so how is this to be achieved?
Let’s look again at the possibility that this credible alternative could be the independent. It’s worth comparing their respective problems:
- Political parties have a national dimension in their campaigns, in that it is the party, a central and homogenous group, seeking to spread their ideology down into constituencies with their representatives, thereby needing a national profile to achieve this. However, the independent has no national dimension and no need for the big national figure. This is a ground up approach, not a top down one.
- Political parties are bound to present a national manifesto, no matter how irrelevant. Independents do not.
- Political parties can suffer greatly from mud-slinging, whereas an independent can only damage themselves.
- Independents have no need of a national organisation, just a local one.
- General elections are, in fact, 650 local elections, so where media is concerned there is a greater likelihood of local media exposure than national. After all an independent is not addressing the nation.
- There will always be opposition for parties with a defined political stance, whereas independents can reflect the mood of the constituency in general. An independent Conservative will not do well in Newham, in just the same way as an independent Labour will tank in Tonbridge and Malling.
- Parties strive to contest everywhere, and it plays very badly when they fail. UKIP discovered this to their cost as the powerful argument of 3.8m votes in 2015 sank without trace with just 594,068 votes in 2017. Independents are connected to just one election, not 650. There only need to be 50 independents in the UK parliament to make a massive difference to government policy. That means, perhaps, focussing on the 50 most winnable seats.
There are a range of options and independents are not without their problems also. However, with good candidates and good local campaigns presented in an environment where many people simply cannot vote for their traditional parties, they do represent a real alternative. That’s what I’m seeking to achieve. To find out more see the website of the Coalition of Independents.
Some very sad comments posted here I’m afraid.
UKIP represents the views of most of the posters on here I think, read the manifesto produced under Gerard Batten.
But the posters will not be voting UKIP because mass/immigration and the surge in Islamic influence in our Country, is not an immediate issue where they live!
I’m sorry but that NIMBY attitude is best described as, pathetic!
-“The latest news regarding Catherine Blaiklock’s resignation as leader for inappropriate social media comments just magnifies the concerns about the party as a stable organisation.”
Do you have a source for this? Catherine Blaiklock is the Brexit Party’s ‘founder and leader’, so where does that leave the party, other than in a position where Nigel Farage himself can ‘bravely step up’ and take over?
And what exactly is Ms Blaiklock supposed to have said that was ‘inappropriate’? Has she been criticising Islam again? Oh, Nigel won’t stand for that you see! 🙂
I’m not certain what she did or didn’t say, suffice to say that it seemed to be enough for her to resign as leader and for Nigel to agree to that and categorise her role as simply the person who did the leg work in setting up the party. In itself a very simple act. She’s still registered as leader though (as of now) with Mick McGough as treasurer.
MEP Tim Aker resigned as Thurrock Independents Aveley Councillor to join the Brexit Party. The recent (Thursday 21st March 2019 election) was lost to the Tories on a 24.9% turnout. Are people perhaps AFRAID of change, despite moaning about the Government?
Yes, absolutely, so they need a good reason to switch. Local elections, though aren’t too revealing. The one you mention would depend upon whether the Thurrock Independents candidate was the incumbent or challenger, how good the Conservative was on the ground and other stuff like that. My concern is for general elections where people will either stay at home or vote for an alternative. we don’t really have to make the argument as to why they should vote for an alternative but why they should still vote.
Provided, the alternative has credible support (this is where the COI comes in) is presentable and doesn’t give people a reason to not vote for them, that have a chance, if not to win, then to change the expected result.
Since UKIP is now hopeless I am convinced by your argument. This one . it does make some sense. Mmmmmmm? I’ll have to think.
Maybe the coming GE, owing to the clear failure of the present government, will present a good opportunity. I certainly will not be voting for any of the mainstream parties again so it will be choice between UKIP and an independent with the odds on the latter since I am registered in a constituency which has not been affected by unwanted immigration.
Your assumption that anti mass immigration is the one policy which will affect people. Try reading the UKIP interim manifesto at http://www.ukip.org/uploads/UKIP%20Manifesto%20Sept%202018.pdf
My biggest email bag during the 2017 GE was animal cruelty, particularly non-stun slaughter.
JF
The connection is Islam; GB made a tactical error in allying himself with TR at this time. That will lose UKIP the vote in areas where the issue of an Islamic takeover is not visible.
Note the relevance of “at this time”. First we must achieve a clean exit from the EU. Second, and for many reasons, we must free ourselves from the control of supranational organisations such as the UN.
Only then may we tackle the ever pressing issue of the increase in the followers of Islam in our country. TR is right, GB is right but the timing and sequence of the battles are critical.
You are entirely right there. Gerard Batten has compounded the problem that UKIP will have in May come the local elections, by announcing a UKIP rally this coming Friday in Whitehall, sponsored by Tommy Robinson. This policy really doesn’t make any sense to many existing members and voters alike. To announce this just before the May election campaign is total madness. We are in desperate need of a new leader come May 3rd.
The sensible way forwards as a party is, as i have long advocated, to put together under an “Anti PC division ” of ukip . this can then include Animal Cruelty , female equality and other policies in disguise and the population can then vote for it with clear consciences, and serious ready made support… But it couldn’t be led by TR now. Margot whatsit does a solid job… Catherine Blakelock would have made an good division leader. She has the brains a quick wit ( Butnot quit yet ready enough for really big things ) But there went yet another big opportunity wasted by inability to accept anything or anybody not to the liking of somebody or some clique. The list includes serious prospective leaders. Wasted. Foolish. And petty..
You never waste talent. Measured discipline and rewards…… Even minor talents must be allowed to grow.
UKIP is nowhere in the polls when it should be soaring ahead. That suggests,as all previous elections since 2016 have indicated, that it is no longer an effective electoral force. Candidate quality is critical and UKIP simply cannot field enough of the right calibre. I spoke recently to a long standing Conservative member who resigned over the Brexit betrayal. I asked him if he would vote for an Independent conservative candidate. He said he would. He won’t change his conservative beliefs and in a heavily Conservative constituency like mine it’s important that any independent meets that criteria. It’s not a sample one can make any judgments about, but much more encouraging than had he said he wouldn’t.
UKIP’s lack of success: All I ever read is whinging about UKIP by people who have not been any more instrumental in winning this war than UKIP has. Almost as if willing its demise.
As for UKIP people being low quality, they could hardly be any worse than the present establishment.
Very true Mary,
But the main theme posted on here seems to be that UKIP is right over most things, but have mistimed giving their views on one issue when they should be concentrating only on Brexit.
Brexit is obviously the major issue facing this Country at the moment.
But it is NOT the only one!
Brexit WILL win UKIP many votes in any forthcoming elections.
But so will their sensible manifesto proposals on many other issues such as; immigration, NHS, animal welfare, etc, etc.
Where will the Brexit Party go when the establishment stitch up over Brexit is complete?
Probably down to the pub for another photo shoot or over to the States to dine with the Donald.
Once again leaving the real, murky political stuff to the likes of UKIP, who thankfully have all their policies on a range of issues in place!