Open letter to Nigel Farage

An open letter to Nigel Farage MEP from Nikki Sinclaire MEP:

3rd October 2009

Re: Your Leadership

Dear Nigel,

After much consideration, I feel it is incumbent upon me to write you this letter. I beseech you to reconsider your resignation as Party Leader, for the sake of UKIP, our cause and, more importantly, our country.

In all good conscience, I cannot see the sense of an internal election, costing more than £25,000, less than six months prior to a General Election campaign. I think it essential for the party to keep its eye on the ball and prepare for the election.

I completely concur with your judgment that you have too many responsibilities and you must prioritise. However, I respectively suggest that, in the short term, you have chosen the wrong priorities. We need you to lead the fight here in the UK, to spearhead our campaign as only you can do.

I cannot understand why you can't delegate some of your Brussels responsibilities to one of your 12 MEPs. You could still hold the title of EFD Co-President and give your wonderful plenary speeches but spend only six days a month in the parliament (as promised in your leadership election campaign).

You led us to an historic victory this year and have taken us to the centre ground of British politics, winning Labour strongholds such as Stoke, Newcastle under Lyme, Dudley, Plymouth , Sunderland, Hartlepool and others. Yet UKIP did not win one single Conservative stronghold and, if you step down, the party could be seen once again as an offshoot of the Tory party if the leadership race went as many expect, thereby costing us votes.

I also ask you to honour your pledge to the UKIP members - who elected you for a four-year term - to see out that commitment. The last thing the party needs now is a couple of months navel gazing. We certainly need a debate on the direction of the party in the near future but preferably after a General Election. If we are to have a leadership race, a race that will elect a leader, according to our constitution, not just for the forthcoming General Election but for the next European Election and possibly a second General Election, we must debate some key issues now in order to give a new leader a strong mandate.

This mandate will have to make difficult decisions, such as UKIP’s inclusion in a pan-European party, that you recently proposed we support. I feel that we, as MEPs representing UKIP’s best interests, could not go forward with this unless it is debated and voted on at conference. So I am glad to learn the proposal has been shelved for this year.

To conclude, Nigel, I ask you please to lead UKIP into the General Election and help increase our support across the Country whilst winning Buckingham and taking UKIP to a new level. Only you can do this, Nigel. Please do not desert us now. All UKIP MEPs will, I know, support you in return, to help you become the first UKIP MP.

If you choose to stay as Leader, I would not put my name forward in the leadership ballot and would urge others to do likewise.

Yours

Nikki

Nikki is saying what most UKIP members are thinking. Setting aside the fact that this is the wrong time to be choosing a new leader and the lack of an inspiring candidate to take over from him (meaning no disrespect to any of the declared candidates) Farage is well liked by most UKIP members and he has done an excellent job so far in growing the party both physically and politically.

I have sent the following to Nigel this morning:

Dear Nigel,

Having read Nikki Sinclaire's open letter to you asking that you reconsider your decision to resign as leader, I would like to echo those sentiments and also ask you to reconsider.

You have been an effective figurehead for UKIP and are well known and trusted by both the membership and the electorate.

I understand your reasons for standing down as leader but I feel that your workload could be cut to benefit you and the party. With all due respect to the declared candidates, there are no other high profile or inspiring candidates for the leadership. This is not a reflection on the candidates, it is a product of the media's interest in you and the way the party is currently set up with the leader as spokesman for everything. We are no longer a minority party on the fringe, it is time this was reflected in our public figures.

I would like to suggest that you hand over as much of your duties as is practical to others within the party. To help achieve this - and to broaden the range of public figures we have in the party - I would suggest you appoint policy spokesmen (a shadow cabinet of sorts) to represent the party in the media. This will not only help you reduce your workload and allow you to stay on as leader, it will also increase the profile of senior party members so that when the time comes to choose a new leader in future, we have more public figures to choose from.

I believe that the best thing for our party - and by extension for our country - is for you to lead us into the next general election as leader of the party and following the election as leader of a group of UKIP MPs in the House of Commons.

Regards,

Stuart Parr
Bloggers4UKIP

If you would like to add your weight to the campaign to get Nigel to reconsider, you can email him at nigel.farage@europarl.europa.eu.

Edit:
Nikki has started an online petition for Nigel to remain as leader.