An open Letter to Lord Pearson and the UKIP leadership

In the aftermath of another disappointing set of election results the leadership must make some crucial decisions, and involve the party membership in the decision making process. The failure of the party leadership to listen to rank and file members is culpable. UKIP must decide if it’s a party only interested in gaining seats in Europe or if it has ambitions to be a mainstream political party, dedicated to governing in Westminster. The concept that gaining seats in the EU would raise the party’s profile in the UK election is no more than a myth as results demonstrates.

If UKIP has a genuine desire to gain seats at Westminster, then we must get away from the concept that UKIP is a grass roots party and join the real political world by understanding what is required to gain seats in parliament, that means UKIP must become a professional mainstream political part. That requires a change in party structure, policies, funding and targeting seats; it requires a change of attitude towards the whole concept of where UKIP stands today, UKIP can no longer be led by mavericks wearing a Tory rosette on one lapel and a UKIP rosette on the other. It can no longer wash its dirty linen in public; it can no longer consider coming fourth a success story or keep using lack of publicity as an excuse for failure. UKIP must take action to bring in professional fundraisers, professional PR consultants and professional leadership.

The results from this election confirm that in order to gain seats any candidate requires both funds and a large team on the ground for months not weeks before an election, the next GE will s in all probability be held within the next 18 months, so planning must start now.

UKIP must understand that it currently lacks the funding and activists to contest the 400 plus seats that were contested at the current election, putting up paper candidates is not the way forward. UKIP should be looking at targeting between 50 and 75 seats selecting these candidates using a professional approach not the “who ‘s willing to stand’ approach each candidate to be approved by the NEC based on their ability to win the seat. Once selected the candidates must be support financially and by a strong election tem at constituency level.

The importance of gaining seats on local councils cannot be underestimated, nor should the importance of local issues when campaigning for parliament. Local council elections are scheduled in many regions for next May (Possible coinciding with a fresh GE) again UKIP must start planning now by selecting candidates, holding local surgeries and general becoming active at community level. None of this will happen on its own, it requires coordination at national, region and local level.

Another weakness within UKIP is the lack of local branches, difficult to remedy but an essential task for regional organisers to tackle.

Finally we come to the crux of the issue, why did we perform badly in the current GE, Even allowing that UKIP increased its share of the vote nationally, in the majority of seats where both a BNP candidate and UKIP candidate stood in the same constituency, the BNP candidate gained more votes. A thorough analysis of all the results is required and quickly to answer some vital question as to which of the UKIP policies appealed to the voters and which failed to impress.

There is also an urgent requirement for UKIP to appoint spokespersons on a wide range of issues that are bound to arise from the hung parliament, on a professional basis we can no longer leave this task to Nigel and Lord Pearson, UKIP requires a much wider range of people promoting UKIP policies in a professional and concise way and making more media appearances in the process, trotting out Lord Pearson or Nigel every time the media require a sound bite from UKIP has a negative effect and quickly becomes stale.

Philip Wray