UKIP - Job done or only just started?

With the resignation of both Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless, many in the media are now saying that UKIP has achieved its goal and it is no longer relevant on the political landscape.

Indeed, the aforementioned Mr Carswell has been gloating on his Twitter feed about a council byelection in his area where the Tories have taken a seat from UKIP , claiming that many Kippers think ‘job done’.

So, what is the reality? With the triggering of Article 50 and the initial founding reason for UKIP (Leaving the EU) looking like a reality, what have UKIP got left to offer?

BREXIT

Firstly, our withdrawal from the EU is not as cut and dried as it may seem. Never forget that two thirds of the MP’s at Westminster backed remain and that the Prime Minister has a very slim majority.

We are already seeing talk of a ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ BREXIT when the reality is that, in the words of our London MEP Gerard Batten, BREXIT means Exit.

This kind of pigeonholing, picked up by the mainstream media, is being used by the pro EU MP’s as a way of making the people feel that doing what was proposed during the Referendum (Withdrawal from the Single market, removing the authority of the European Court of Justice and putting in place a sensible migration policy) will be difficult and harm our country after we leave.

Indeed, in recent weeks we have seen significant backsliding by the Tories on a number of points – They are talking of ‘transitional’ periods where  open door migration will continue, the suggestion that our territorial fishing waters may be part of the ‘negotiation’ over trade and that the Prime Minister herself wants to continue with the iniquitous European Arrest Warrant (EAW) that has been almost useless in the fight against terrorism.

The EAW is an affront to our basic rights under English law and has resulted in serious miscarriages of justice in many cases – Google the likes of Andrew Symeou, Deborah Dark and Alexander Adamescu to see how Habeus Corpus, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, is totally undermined by this draconian piece of legislation, originally implemented by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary.

It was UKIP pressure that brought us the referendum in the first place – with the LibDems pushing to overturn the referendum result and Labour totally divided and incoherent on the subject, only a strong UKIP electoral threat can ensure that BREXIT is a success and implemented in an acceptable way for the people of the UK.

Labour’s confusion can be seen on this short video from Nathan Gill MEP where they opposed UKIP amendments in the European Parliament to the EU BREXIT Resolution, including them opposing our ability to strike free trade agreements and protecting both EU and UK citizens rights during the negotiations

The UK political alternatives

UKIP are the only party since 1906 to have won a national election other than Labour and the Conservatives (The 2014 EU elections).

If we are no longer relevant and past our function, who will oppose those two parties on behalf of the people of England and the UK? The Liberal Democrats have already shown in their 5 year stint as coalition partners to the Tories that they will sacrifice principle for power (Tuition fees, a fudged referendum on electoral reform, etc) and their new clothes as ‘The Party of In’ is in direct opposition to the will of the people.

Labour are no longer a cohesive opposition – weak leadership, contradictory messages on policy, lack of a sensible economic policy that is run by a man who nearly bankrupted London in the 1980’s and their slavish adherence to the failed doctrine of multiculturalism will see them in the electoral wilderness for many years.

The Greens? They are even further to the ‘left’ of politics than Labour and dress up their Marxist policies in the veneer of caring for the planet – yet they support open door migration (Which damages the environment through overpopulation) and the one council that they have run in Brighton produced almost the worst recycling figures for any local authority in England in contradiction of their supposed aims.

UKIP have a full independently costed manifesto from 2015 that is neither to the left or right of British politics and reflects the concerns and priorities of the majority of the people of our country.

The Future post BREXIT

UKIP have always been a radical, campaigning party. We have taken policies that have resonated with the man in the street and put them in to the mainstream of the political debate, from the EU to migration to Grammar Schools. Our electoral threat has forced the government in to taking UKIP policies seriously, even incorporating some of them in to their programmes (Although they will talk about and pay lip service to them whereas we would implement those policies)

Whilst leaving the EU was the founding aim of UKIP, our transformation from single issue campaign group to fully fledged political party happened a number of years ago and has been reflected in a rise of support to the extent that nearly four million people voted for us in the last General Election (More than the SNP and Liberal Democrats combined)

Whilst there is no doubt that the last year has been difficult with two leadership elections and the loss of elected representatives and members who see our mission as complete, a rebrand and refocus on to our other policies is currently underway.

We have not fought to get away from the clutches of an undemocratic, unelected and aloof EU establishment only to put power in to the hands of a disconnected establishment at Westminster – our aim now is to make our country more democratic and increasingly to put power back in to the hands of the people at a local level.

With interference from Brussels removed, we will campaign to roll back the dead hand of the state on our everyday lives, championing the small and medium sized businesses that will drive the growth of our economy post BREXIT.

Unlike the government who had to do a dramatic U turn on their plans to increase tax on the self employed, we will be the party that empowers people to take control of their own lives and build the businesses of tomorrow in the outward looking, globally trading and independent country that we will become in the 21st Century.

Our plans to take people on the minimum wage out of taxation altogether will put money in to the pockets of those striving to better themselves and remove the need for the complex in work benefits system that rewards the big corporations with a cheap, subsidised workforce at the taxpayers expense.

Unlike the establishment political parties, UKIP are proud of our country and believe in our values and traditions. We will be the only party brave enough to speak out about political correctness and challenge the rise of the Radical Islamist ideology that threatens our community cohesion and way of life, championing an overarching British identity that binds us together as one community irrespective of race, religion or gender.

We will speak up for our armed forces and our veterans, giving them the respect and funding that they deserve. The other parties shy away from this as they feel there are not many votes in it – our support is based on what is the right thing to do, not on extra points at the ballot box.

UKIP will strive to mend our broken electoral system, championing electoral reform and finally giving England an equal voice within the Union. Our aim is to give the same level of representation that is enjoyed by Scotland through their Parliament and Wales & Northern Ireland via their assemblies, building a Union fit for the future built on partnership and mutual recognition.

At a local level, we will champion the voice of the ordinary man and woman, giving them the right to recall their MP if they are not satisfied with performance and legally binding referendums on matters of importance if enough people support it via petition.

We will continue to oppose vanity projects such as HS2 and the Heathrow Third Runway, putting the money saved in to improving our infrastructure overall and benefiting the many rather than corporate interests and a privileged few,

UKIP are the new political force in 21st Century Britain, a People’s Army driven by your wishes and aspirations rather than big corporations, public sector trade unions and unaccountable bureaucrats – join or support us as we look to a bright future for our country after we leave the clutches of the overbearing and obsolete European Union

The Public Is Bored Of Cameron And His Cast Iron Promises

It was another 'big moment' from Ol' Cast Iron. "Game- changing speech", "UKIP killer", etc, etc.

And everyone yawned.

Speaking personally, I really couldn't be bothered to read what he said in any detail - something about cutting benefits to immigrants, was it? Firstly, Cameron's "essay crisis" style of leadership - or more correctly followship - is entirely reactive. As such it is always, too little too late, and his lazy, gentleman-amateur way of governing means that the details are invariably badly thought out and the proposals sloppy. Finally, of course, is his notorious mendacity and bad faith in following through on implementation.

Like Tony Blair before him, Cameron seems to view the act of making a speech about something as real as doing what he was talking about. In Blair's case, his charisma meant that it certainly worked for a considerable time as far as electoral popularity was concerned, but by the time Cameron came along people had begun to see through the charade. Cameron both  lacks Blair's star quality and was elected by people already bored of spin and style over substance. Whereas Blair inherited an economic boom, Cameron has had to govern in a time of unremitting austerity.

All these reasons means that Cameron's shelf-life at the top in considerably shorter than his mentors. The boredom and sense of ennui when he gave his latest speech marks the beginning of the end. The public are beginning to want a change in leader. Although Cameron's personal ratings are considerably above his party's, this will change as boredom changes to hostility. Never very popular with his backbenchers, he has made plenty of enemies due to his aloofness and arrogance. Once his personal approval ratings become worse than his party's, then it's possible he will face a leadership challenge.

However, it is more likely that he will simply step down quite soon after the next election. Never very interested in governing, his ambition was simply to be Prime Minister for a period of time, because, well it's just something that someone of his background is born to do. Soon it's back to the grouse, the hunt and riding with the Chipping Norton set. He will leave behind him a country little if any better than the one he found, and a demoralised and badly damaged Conservative Party.

But we in UKIP should thank him. If it wasn't for his arrogance, his Metropolitan snobbery, his ill-treatment and contempt for his own activists, his complacency and cowardice, UKIP would perhaps never have morphed into the powerful insurgent force it is today.

Agent Cameron, once again we salute your service to Queen, country and the United Kingdom Independence Party.

Looking outside the box.

UKIP 1 Establishment 0.
While the Tories and Labour make silly excuses and Limps try and spin their lack of results as a labour and Tory problem, UKIP should be jubilant in the results we have garnered over the last few weeks in the polls and elections. And rightly so.

Now is the time for us all to pull together, I know some think we are taking a new direction, but as the party of the people we are going in their direction and it is working.
We have to have faith in the leadership and back them even if we do not agree with their decisions at the time because it seems their decisions are working for the greater good of the party.

We need to go with the flow on the good ship UKIP and see where it takes us.

We can not get our main goals of EU withdrawal and equality within our own country, some say our vision is inward but to me it is not, looking inward is concentrating on the Eu whereas we could look outward to the world for trade partnerships and the betterment of all and not just a secular section of the world called Europe. We need to concentrate on spelling out to the masses the flaws and inconsistencies of Europe.

We now have to pull together and fight as one Unit. The peoples army.

On QT last night some of the snipes at UKIP were from an uneducated view, we will not change that view hostility, we have to show why we think it is wrong and why our vision will benefit the UK and beyond.

They talked of a 30 billion hole in the NHS by 2020, well the logical and simple solution would be get our country back and stop a 10 billion a year pay out in membership fees, plus all the quangos to do with the dictacts from Brussels.

The HS2 vanity project being scrapped would save 80 billion plus.

Global trading would bring in millions and we can only have that by going it alone, without the EU shackles.

We need to be less insular and look outward, our new trade deal with China = unnecessary tariff expenditure due to our EU membership, the commonwealth can not be traded with because of our EU membership. Growth is stifled by our bailing out of declining economies in the Eurozone.

One idiot stated about Education within Europe, We are the only country, apart from Scotland, that has to pay, the EU students get grants to get education in the UK, so we fund it via taxes and fees.

They call us insular, well they are the insular ones, the world is bigger than Europe.

I just wish people could see that instead of the doctrine views spewed out by the small insular minded LIBLABCON brainwashing that they all hang on.

So lets fight as one, it is not about right and left. IT IS ABOUT RIGHT AND WRONG.

UKIP - The Great Realignment Of British Politics Finally Begins

It is difficult to know what to celebrate the most - Douglas Carswell's fantastic victory in Clacton or John Bickly's very close second in Heywood and Middleton.

What is now absolutely clear is that the great realignment of British politics, so long prophesised, is finally underway. 

Some quick points:

• UKIP is rapidly becoming the party of the indigenous working class, displacing working class Toryism in the south of England and challenging Labour supremacy in the north.
• Both Conservative and Labour are retreating deeper and deeper into their regional heartlands and can no longer really be called national parties. Labour's vote evaporated in Clacton, as did the Tories in Heywood and Middleton. 
• UKIP is now surely the only serious challenger to Labour in it's post-industrial heartlands.
• The Labour vote is now realigning in tune with the modern party's middle class leadership and Metropolitan obsessions. Labour has sucked up a very large proportion of the previous LibDem voting middle classes at the same time as losing large amounts of working class supporters to UKIP.
• Despite our advances deep into Labour territory, thanks to the huge public sector vested interests and the dependency culture deliberately created by Gordon Brown, the Labour vote remains very strong in their core areas and will be difficult to break down. After all, after the Rotherham revelations a party with Labour's track record should quite properly cease to exist, and yet it is still winning by-elections in the kind of places similar to those badly affected by such terrible scandals.
• The LibDems are destroyed as a national party, doomed to total humiliation except where they have strong local incumbency factors in their favour. They will lose hundreds of deposits at the next general election. However they may well still hold the balance of power afterwards because of their still strong localised concentrations in support.
• Judging by the idiotic comments and spin from the LibLabCon parties after tonight's debacle, of which the victory address by Labour's Liz McInnes was the most ridiculous, the political class (a) continues to treat the voters with contempt by insulting their intelligence and (b) still doesn't know what has hit it!

RIP RON SMITH
UKIP New Forest East

With a heavy heart I pass on this sad news.

RIP Ron, you will be missed by a lot of people and be remembered for having a full life, being a stalwart and the guiding force of the New Forest East branch of UKIP.

Condolences to his family at such a sad time.



The following was sent to me from Peter Day:

Ronald James Smith was born in Aldershot on 30^th March 1921.  His father was in the army stationed at Aldershot and was badly injured in WW1 losing the use of one of his arms.  After Ron’s early years in Gibraltar, the family returned to the UK, first to Belfast and then Farnborough.  During WW2, Ron was sent to the Duke of York Military School in Dover, and in 1945 he joined the Royal Engineers where he did an apprenticeship at the Army Technical School.  From there he became a regular soldier, but did a Chemical Engineering degree in his spare time.

After the Army, he was accepted as an Industrial Chemist for Research & Development at the National Gas Turbine Establishment in Farnborough.  From there he joined the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) as an Instruments trainee, but by the time he left he was the Refinery Instruments Supervisor.

He returned to the UK and joined Lummas as a Process Engineer, and later shared the design of all the control systems for Total’s Immingham Refinery.  Later he joined Comsys Automation in Paris, but was sent back to the Middle East as a consultant, becoming the Chief Instrument Engineer for Aramco, when  he retired.

Ron became involved with UKIP prior to the 2005 General Election, when he became the agent for Peter Day in Southampton Test and Kim Rose in Southampton Itchen.  He later set up a UKIP branch in New Forest East (NFE), where he became the Chairman, and was also the agent for Peter Day in the 2010 General Election.

He remained Chairman of NFE until his deteriorating health forced him to pass the Chairmanship over to Phillip Fawkes.

Ron was a real stalwart for UKIP over the last 15 years running the Southampton branch when Colin Cain retired and then the NFE branch, where he organised speakers for open meetings, including a packed hall for Nigel Farage in Lyndhurst prior to the 2010 General Election.  He was also a tireless writer to Prime Minister David Cameron and local MP Julian Lewis, as well as the ‘Times’ and ‘Telegraph’.

He will be sadly missed by all who knew him in UKIP.

UKIP now stand before two paths - and we must choose wisely

The drawbridge for a progressive Ukip is being lifted - so run for a leap

It has become clear to me that there is a silent battle taking ground in Ukip, between those who look to the past and those who look to the future. It’s now that the Party must decide its destiny – and I must say; only one option will provide Ukip a longstanding future. Party membership may have risen steadily over the years, but as days pass we lose excellent contributions because they believe that the party is not going the right way – and it rightly isn’t, with a group of boring old-Tories possessing greater influence in Ukip.

The fact is, no one joined Ukip to comply with the establishment; actually the complete opposite. Many of us are proud anti-establishment folk, seeing our leaders as relatively unaccountable, ineffective and inward looking spineless men who believe they can tamper with the country’s traditions and culture however they wish. The main reason I, like many, are in Ukip is because of the “I will not support the LibLabCon - I will not obey” mentality, which is a fair enough mentality. Like when an establishment politician explains that we should not support Ukip because they are a ‘smaller party’ and consequently has no future in British politics, it’s like a slave, who wants nothing more but freedom, to be told that he or she will never get hold of that freedom. Thankfully, we are getting strong determinism to see change; and many of the determined are currently being accommodated by Ukip, but the Party leadership must ensure that they are stuffing the pillows sufficiently.

Many activists are not finding comfort on the pillow, like I’ve heard from many in Young Independence. This is ultimately because the Party is currently taking the ‘love it or hate it’ approach, and as much as this may secure ground among boring Tories and some Old Labour, it’s not enough to secure the electoral success we hope for in the 2015 General Election. The 'bunker reality' is that only a Ukip talking about development, expansion, curry and the Commonwealth can really pierce into unknown territory. Moreover, it would prove significant to steal the far-left’s mantra  that the EU robs workers of their rights and centralises businesses with the multi-national cooperations, with their full-hearted dedication to this project going way back – because it does. And the fact is many joined the Ukip of the small man, the small business, the pub and so on. There are some overly nationalistic forces in the party which project mixed messages to the wider population, and could even come out as some dodgy Isolationism.

But we should be the party of the Global Britain – that’s where the money is. Goodbye to the shackles of EU laws and regulation and hello to a Britain freely trading with the world and establishing special ties with the Commonwealth, perhaps even establishing closer economic and military relationships in the long run. What the people of Britain really want to hear is that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the party of the world and everyone is invited*. The three main parties have ruined the party and British want a fresh alternative to be the DJ – a DJ that will probably play Rule Britannia and the James Bond theme tune quite often.

If Ukip manifest itself as the true progressive party of British politics, like the SDP-Liberal Alliance did in the 80s, anything is possible. But the difference is This is a party which has grown from the people and have a natural instinct to provide what the people want – and that’s a Britain men and women of all backgrounds can call home. So fix up Ukip. In 10 years we don’t want Ukip to be added to the list of grassroots political movements that eventually slipped over their own oil. In one sense, we are a party of proud opportunists, because we were blessed with an opportunity we should never neglect: to make a change for the future, not the past.

*very strict terms and conditions apply

The Tories Wither On the Vine

It is not often Michael Heseltine gets things right, but he hit the nail on the head in his otherwise risible performance on the Sunday Politics.

When asked about John Major's speech which included an intervention on fuel prices (7:20), Heseltine said: "I myself was more interested in the other part of his speech....the need for the Conservative Party to recognise what is happening to it...it's membership is shrinking into a southeastern enclave."

Indeed.

Reading between the lines, this could well be the fate of the Tory party. Outside of the well-heeled home counties, support for the party is fading away. UKIP is taking a considerable percentage of the old "Thatcher Tories" vote - those aspirant working class and lower middle class voters notoriously labelled  the 'C2s' in the jarring marketing argot. Even in rural areas, where support for the Conservative Party is still weighed rather than counted, recent reports suggest that support is not as solid as it once was.

There are many reasons why this should be so: the ever-increasing concentration of wealth in London and the South East stockbroker belt plus rampant immigration has left poorer rural areas and "Essex man" voters feeling the pinch alike. As a result, these former Tory heartlands are increasingly vunerable to growing UKIP support. The whole situation is not exactly helped by Cameron's decidedly metropolitan leadership which to put in mildly does not come across as sympathetic to these area's concerns.

However, as valid as these reasons are, there are long term reasons for the Tory decline in these demographics that they will find it very hard to recover from. To understand why, you have to understand that the Conservative Party isn't really at heart a "conservative" party at all, it is a Tory party, dedicated above all to preserving elite power and privilege.

Arguably, during the past few decades the Conservative party has done as much if not more damage to institutions and traditions that people of modest backgrounds relied on to prosper. It can be argued that the three most important of these are (were) family, national identity and grammar schools. Of these three, the so-called  Conservative party initiated and engaged enthusiastically in the destruction of the first two and stood idly by as Labour maliciously destroyed to third. It was the Conservative Party, during the Chancellorship of Ken Clarke, who started the revocation of the marriage tax allowance. It was the Conservative Party, of course, that signed us to the then the European Economic Community in 1973 and have had a more or less disgraceful record on the subject of "Europe" ever since. As for grammar schools, although their demise was initially a result of the Labour education minister Tony Crosland's malevolence, it suited high Tory purposes that these were levelled down to "bog-standard comprehensives" because it meant less competition for their own, usually privately educated, children.

The results of this vandalism are all visible all around us: an ill-educated, socially-immobile, confused and demoralised population reeling from the effects of family breakdown and a rapid weakening of national identity. A properly "conservative" party would surely have defended all these institutions and more with gusto. However, because their survival  meant little to the elite they completely failed to do so. Yes, the Left have taken full advantage of circumstances to make the situation indescribably worse, but they would not have been able to advance their  multi-cultural sub-marxist ideology to anything like the same extent they have if the Tories had not been asleep on the watch.

Many of the more dim-witted and myopic Tories blame the rise of UKIP as the cause, not a symptom, of their travails. However, the reality is that the rot was well set in long before UKIP arrived on the scene. The Times  journalist Matthew Parris once came up with a great metaphor to describe how political change happens in society, likening it to the tipping of gravel into a swamp. For a long time no change seemed to be occurring on the surface, but all the time underneath the pile of gravel continues to build, until one day it breaks the surface. Arguably that is what the rapid rise of UKIP represents - long neglected voters are finally in revolt. A similar process is also underway in Labour voting heartlands, as the ever more marxist Labour Party becomes progressively estranged from the concerns of it's core voting demographic.

The Tories are finally waking up to the need to change, and are now making substantial efforts in order to re-engage with the voters. Doubtless their efforts will meet with some success, and UKIP should by no means be complacent in under-estimating the threat that the ideas of Douglas Carswell could pose to our party. However, in the great scheme of things it is almost certainly too late to reverse the decline entirely: the neglect, contempt and betrayal felt by many previously conservative-voting demographics is so deep-rooted that millions will find it extremely hard to trust the party again. Instead, many seem to be attracted to UKIP as a new, energetic and (largely) unsullied rival. A future as a minority, perhaps even south-eastern regional, party seems the best the Conservatives can hope for.

Conservatism vs. Toryism

Recently we have had a lot of tiresome articles in the "right wing" press around the theme of "uniting the right" prior to the next general election.

As you would expect, there was a lot of  nonsense about formal pacts with the Conservative Party: let us not even bother with that. However, what was most risible was an article in the Spectator by Toby Young suggesting that the differences between the UKIP and the Conservative Party were essentially petty, and that both parties were conservative with a small 'c'.

It is amazing the extent to which the dwindling band of Conservative Party supporters delude themselves about the true nature of their party, and why it is now is such steep decline. In am article of rare insight, Tim Stanley nails it in the Telegraph, explaining current Conservative Party troubles in terms of the fundamental split between proper small-c conservativism and toryism.

The fact is that at the core of the Conservative party is toryism. The Tory Party was of course  the ancient predecessor to the Conservative Party, originally formed to protect vested interest and the status quo during the reign of Charles II. The party  adopted the mantle of conservatism much later under it's leader Robert Peel, whose maximum was the much more progressive idea of reforming the bad but preserving the good in society. Peel's subsequent repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 led to a major split in the party.

However the Conservative Party has never been able to get rid of the canker of Toryism, and throughout it's history an inner core of aristocratic or well-born Tories have always cynically used the party as a very effective shield for the preservation of elite interest. This has been especially true since extensions of the electoral franchise meant that the numerically small number of high-born Tories were vastly outnumbered by the total voting population. The strategy always adopted by the Tories within the Conservative Party has been to co-opt various small 'c' conservative sections of society under the party banner in order to remain in power and see off the threat of socialism.

Throughout the 20th Century this was surprisingly electorally successful, but the underlying presence of toryism within the Conservative Party has nonetheless caused a lot of harm. One very damaging consequence was the continued association in the minds of many people of capitalism with the exploitation of the workers by the aristocracy. Another was that benign institutions that deserved conservative support such as the grammar schools were left undefended because their destruction was actually helpful to elite Tory interests.

The modern age has seen an ever-widening and unbridgeable gulf between the interests of conservatism and those of toryism, and this is perhaps the central reason for the Conservative Party's long term decline. Perhaps the dominant reason was and is the rise of the European Union and the new international elite, which pitted the Tory lust for power and position directly against the conservative desire to preserve and nurture national institutions: "Conservative" governments have proved enthusiastic supporters of signing away our sovereignty in a way that truly "conservative" governments would never countenance.

The diametric opposition between conservative and tory goals is manifest in a multitude of other ways, too. Consider:

A conservative is in favour of grammar schools, whereas a tory sees their destruction as helpful to the preservation of their own public school educated dynasties.

A conservative believes in the wealth-creation of free market capitalism, whereas a tory is happy with corporatism, better preserving as it does the old boy network. 

A conservative would support traditional marriage, whereas a tory sees little value in doing so, as the breakdown of marriage damages the poor far more the than the rich.

A conservative would help the traditional family in the tax system, whereas a tory sees the lower orders as mere units of production to be sent out to work.

A conservative would believe in limiting immigration, not least because of it's impact on local communities, a tory has no interest in doing so and just sees another source of cheap labour.

A conservative would support meritocracy, whereas a tory would be quite happy with gender quotas, knowing how these can be subverted to create an elite of extremely wealthy power-couples and concentrate wealth still further.

A conservative would support a feee market in energy, whereas a tory supports wind farm subsidies, as they transfer resources from the taxed poor to those with landed estates.

A conservative has set principles, whereas a tory is a Vicar Of Bray.

The sad fact is that, whatever deluded conservatives like Toby Young think, the Conservative Party only believes in conservative ideas fitfully. Moreover, the suspicion is deeply lodged within the minds of large sections of the electorate that it only ever adopts conservative positions when it helps the inner tory elite. This has had the tragic effect of estranging vast chunks of the electorate from conservative ideas. Quite obviously, as Dr. Stanley says, in many ways under the blue-blooded leadership of the Cameroons this is a decidedly tory government rather a conservative one.

UKIP may not be an out and out small-c "conservative" party, but it certainly contains strong elements of conservatism within it. What it certainly is not is a "tory" party, and it should have nothing to do with a Conservative party that is forever deeply tainted with a tory cynicism and selfishness that has hobbled the progress of this country for so long.

At the end of the day, you cannot touch pitch and not be defiled.

Statistical Analysis: What Will Be The UKIP Effect At The 2015 General Election?

As the General Election approaches, we will start to be inundated with endless polls and predictions at an ever greater rate of frenzy.

So what will be "The UKIP Effect" in 2015?

Even today, almost all coverage repeats that tired old canard that a high UKIP vote damages the Tories. Lord Ashcroft was at it again recently, followed by the dependable UKIP-trashing article in the increasingly risible Daily Torygraph. This time it was the ever more erratic Peter Oborne's turn to parrot 'A vote for UKIP is a vote for Labour'.

We in UKIP of course know that the truth has been far more complicated than that for some considerable time, with a rising proportion of voters from other parties switching to us. Also, very significantly, many people who have not voted at all for a considerable time are now voting UKIP.

The best model so far come up with is the one by Survation which shows that the composition of UKIP votes changes with the size of UKIP's vote. At low levels, UKIP's vote is indeed heavily Tory dominated, but becomes steadily less so with time. Survation calculate that the optimum UKIP vote for the Labour Party is a UKIP vote is around 16% - a figure which is bang in the middle of the unprompted (c.12%) and prompted (c. 18%) totals for UKIP.

Modelling the Data

To see how UKIP may do in the next general election, I have used Survation's analysis and applied it to the 2010 General Election data*, where UKIP got 3.09% of the vote. I have then weighted that data to take into account some likely changes in voter behaviour.

UKIP's Effect On The 2010 General Election

It is often claimed by the 'Vote UKIP - get Labour' crowd that UKIP robbed the Tories of a majority at the last election on the crude assumption that the UKIP vote was greater in many seats than the shortfall in Tory votes.

Using the more sophisticated Survation model on the 2010 election data, this is shown to be false, with UKIP denying the Tories in just 8 seats, leaving them still way short of a majority on 314 seats in total. However,  the Survation model does not take into account those who vote UKIP but otherwise would not have voted at all. Taking this into account would reduce the total number of seats affected still further.

Liberal Democrat to Labour Swing

What we are most interested in of course is the effect of UKIP on the 2015 General Election. A simple model would just be to just using the Survation linear regressions to re-calculate the votes cast in every constituency for given degrees of swing to UKIP. However clearly circumstances have changed since then. The final Tory / Labour or Tory / Lib Dem swing is impossible to predict, so I don't attempt to model it here.

However, one fairly certain difference is that a substantial quantity of voters who voted Liberal Democrat in 2010 have permanently switched to Labour in disgust over the Lib Dem's coalition with the Tories or their broken pledge over tuition fees. To model this effect, I have reallocated votes in every constituency based on a national aggregate swing of 8% from Lib Dem to Labour.

The Effect of Incumbency: The Lib Dem "Cockroach" Effect

Another major factor that must be taken into account is the effect of an MP's incumbency. An individual MP regardless of party can build up a significant personal following. Traditionally incumbency has been a weak factor in UK politics but all that changed with the advent of Liberal Democrat "pavement politics". Whereas Labour and Tory MPs have low incumbency votes of around 2% and 1% respectively, the Liberal Democrats have a whopping 5-15%, making them much harder to dislodge.

One Liberal Democrat spokesman described his party as currently 'hanging on like cockroaches'. How very apt. Nonetheless, it is likely that the Lib Dem "cockroach effect" was a more significant factor  than UKIP on David Cameron's failure to gain a majority on 2010. In order to model this effect, I have simply added an incumbency weighting to each party where they have a sitting MP.

UKIP Effect On Party Vote Share

After taking into account the 8% Liberal to Labour swing, Labour starts off with a small advantage over the Conservative Party in terms of total votes cast. Because at low UKIP voting percentages  the Tories are disproportionately affected more than Labour, the Tory vote falls more than the Labour one until, as suggested by Survation, UKIP's total vote reaches 16%. Thereafter, Labour's vote falls more rapidly than the Tories until at around 28% Labour lose more votes to UKIP than the Tories do. Moreover, at around this level UKIP severely threatens to overtake both parties in terms of the total size of the vote.


UKIP Effect On Seats Won

As shown in the graph above, UKIP have a much more powerful effect on the number of seats won by the Conservative and Labour parties than in the proportion of votes cast: at moderate UKIP voting strengths, the gaps between the Tory and Labour parties opens appreciably.  This modelling seems to tally with Lord Ashcroft's recent conclusions after his extensive polling in Tory marginals, which shows that UKIP has a strong negative effect on Tory chances at current polling levels of support.

UKIP fail to gain any seats at all until their vote reaches the mid twenties, and thereafter the number of UKIP seats rises very substantially. This shows the huge effect the constituency model has on favouring parties that concentrate their support effectively.

Even though the percentages of votes recorded by UKIP's approach those of the Conservative or Labour parties, UKIP only wins 2 seats at 25% of the total vote! 

This model is very naive in the sense that it completely ignores any developing "hotspots" in UKIP support, but nonetheless it shows just how far the party has to go in building up based on local strength to create the clusters of support necessary to gain seats.

Note also that the extreme incumbency effect means that the Lib Dems, despite having a maximum of 15% of the total vote, retain nearly 30 seats until UKIP support gets to very high values. No wonder Nick Clegg was looking smug at the Lib Dems' conference this week.  However much we may wish it, a Liberal Democrat meltdown is very unlikely to happen.

UKIP Effect On Marginal Seats And The Choking Of The Political Class

What is perhaps most interesting is the UKIP effect on 'marginal' seats. What constitutes a 'marginal' or 'safe' seat has no firm definition. (The great Tory diarist, Alan Clark, told a joke in his diaries about a Tory MP boasting about having a safe seat. "You mean it's unopposed?" came the reply. That probably sums up what many a neurotic MP feels about fighting to retain their seat at elections. )

For the purpose of this modelling, a "marginal" seat is regarded as any seat where the gap between an incumbent MP and his nearest rival is less than 10% of the total vote. 10% swings at elections are rare, so a MP would normally be considered safe above that figure.

As shown in the graph above, a major problem for the Tory Party is that, as it's support is more thinly spread across the country, it has many more marginal seats to defend. We can see by comparing the above graph with the one modelling seat distribution that, on UKIP votes up to 15%, the Tories have more marginals to defend than Labour, even though Labour has appreciably more seats. That is a very serious matter now that Tory membership is substantially below the Labour party's, significantly affecting the ability of the party to mount an effective ground campaign in swing constituencies.

We can therefore see that the Tory Party really now has no choice but to radically reform itself, almost certainly along the lines that Douglas Carswell has previously suggested. As I have previously argued, this is a major threat to UKIP that we absolutely have to counter.

The differential between Tory and Labour marginals decreases as the UKIP vote rises, largely because many Tory marginals become Labour-held marginals. The effect goes into the reverse above 16% as UKIP starts to take more votes from the Labour Party than the Tories for each extra percent gained. This means that Labour marginals start to become Tory again.

However, above 20%, the number of Tory marginals increases dramatically as UKIP start to directly threaten Tory seats rather than just to hand them to Labour. Similarly Labour marginals start to rocket after 25% after UKIP starts to directly threaten them. This is very significant for the culture of our politics, because the collapse of the safe seat significantly weakens the incentive for Political Class careerists to enter politics, as it makes their career progression a great deal more risky. 

UKIP Effect On Lost Deposits

The major effect UKIP has on Lost Deposits is undeniably on it's own. The number of lost deposits recorded against UKIP falls dramatically between 5 and 10%, which is not surprising given that the limit of a lost deposit is 5% of the vote and  this model assumes a very even distribution of  UKIP support around the country.

The growth of the UKIP vote does not substantially effect the lost deposits recorded by other parties apart from the Liberal Democrats, who suffer the major humiliation of being effectively wiped out in substantial numbers of constituencies at high UKIP voting strengths.

UKIP Effect On The Destruction Of National Parties

The commentator Fraser Nelson remarked in 2012 that we were no living in 'Tricolour Britain', where parties had a limited national presence: the Tories concentrated in the South, Labour in Northern England, Wales and Scotland, and the Liberal Democrats mostly in the South West. His thesis was that no one party could be truly regarded as 'national'. That has certainly been true of the Tory Party for some time, which has become all but extinct in Scotland and Wales and is essentially now an English Party.

The rise of UKIP is exacerbating these trends. The models above show that, amazingly, UKIP becomes the second party in the North at around 23% of the national vote. In the South (excluding London), UKIP overtakes Labour on just 20% of the national vote.

Conclusions: Is your glass half empty......or half full?

How you interpret these results depends very much if you are pessimist, or an optimist.

A pessimist would say, with some justification, that however well UKIP poll now, there is bound to be some migration back to the LibLabCon parties come general election time. Therefore the best UKIP could possibly hope for is a vote in perhaps the low teens. In other words, a vote that could well result in the very worst possible outcome from a 'Kipper point of view: a Liberal Democrat - Labour coalition which would almost certainly result in no European referendum as well as daft socialist and Metro-Lib policies being implemented. Probably worst of all some kind of new constitutional tinkering that would ensure that the ghastly Lib Dem's stayed in power in perpetuity. A future of left-wing hegemony would seem to be assured.

An optimist would say that it is perfectly possible for UKIP to poll at much higher polling levels, particularly if the party has momentum after the European elections next year. Moreover, the floundering Ed Miliband and Labour's travails means that the Tories may well make up some ground against Labour, while still losing other votes to UKIP. Campaigning on the white hot  issue of immigration is likely to swing many Labour - leaning working class voters to our cause.

If UKIP score 20% or above, then British politics really will be shaken to it's foundations: the vast growth in marginal seats will throttle the career path of the political class and at the very least will mean politicians will have to start listening to the people rather than residing in a Metropolitan Liberal echo chamber. Secondly, the inability of any wing of the LibLabCon to claim a truly national mandate will surely lead to a much greater clamour for localism and devolution of powers away from Westminster. Moreover, it is entirely possible if UKIP can create some regional hotspots, East Anglia being the most likely area, that we will finally get seats in Parliament.

Is it too outlandish to think that UKIP could hold the balance of power? Probably, but we may as well shoot for the stars.

--FIN--

*Appendix: Notes on Modelling

Please note that the modelling undertaken here is entirely the private work of the author. It is not endorsed in any way by UKIP, Survation or any other organisation.

For the budding data scientists and number crunchers amongst you, here are a few notes on the modelling approach taken.

Calculating Swings from Survation's Linear Regressions

Survation very helpfully supply three simple linear regression lines for each of the LibLabCon parties which makes modelling easy.

The proportion of voters (in %) switching to UKIP from each of the LibLabCon wings are modelled as follows:

Conservative:   78 - (1.44 x X)
Labour:             1.2 x X 
Lib Dems:         22 + (0.32 x X)

Where X = the total UKIP vote.

The Survation model is not without it's weaknesses: firstly, it seems to take no account of voters who have previously not voted at all who now vote UKIP. Including these people would tend to flatten modelled changes between the LibLabCon parties as for a given UKIP total vote there would be less proportional swing from one branch of the LibLabCon to another.

Secondly, Survation's linear regression model is not really applicable after  a UKIP total vote of 25-30% is reached, because the negative slope of the regression line for Tory switchers to UKIP means that after around 30% the model goes into reverse, with the total number of Tory voters starting to rise with further increases in the UKIP vote! However, Survation can obviously be forgiven that as 25-30% is beyond the upper limits of any currently attained or projected UKIP aggregate vote.

Note: when modelling swing, you should not simply use the linear regressions on the total aggregate vote for each party, work out the proportion switching to UKIP, then divide that total to get the number of switchers in each constituency. Instead, you must work out the number of voters switching from each party based on the proportions of Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem voters in each constituency compared to the national average votes for those parties.

Modelling Lib to Lab Swing

As noted above, an 8% swing can not be calculated by simply mean taking 8% off the Lib Dem total in any given constituency and adding it to the Labour total. Rather, the swing must be proportional to the number of Liberal Democrat voters in any given constituency against the national average of such voters.

Modelling Incumbency

Incumbency is extremely difficult to model well because it will vary wildly depending on many factors. The approach adopted here is crude but does given some indication of how much better Liberal Democrats candidates in particular will perform than modelling based on average swings would suggest.

I have added incumbency weightings for all Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. These weightings are 1, 2 and 10% for the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties respectively. In order not to distort aggregate vote totals, I have then subtracted the proportional amounts from parties where they are challengers to a seat. For instance, the Lib Dems held 57  out of 650 seats in the 2010 General Election. I have therefore added 10% to the calculated votes of Lib Dem incumbent candidates. I have then subtracted (57 / (650 - 57) ) x 10 = 0.961% from all other Lib Dem candidates to even up the aggregate vote.

Lost Deposits

Note that the lost deposit totals also include seats where parties did not stand, which give a baseline figure of around 19 "lost deposit" seats for the LibLabCon parties who do not as a rule stand in Ulster.

The Destruction Of National Parties

"Northern" vote share is comprised of those constituencies in the North West, North East or Yorkshire and Humber.

"Southern" vote share is comprised on constituencies in the South East, South West and Eastern (East Anglian) regions. London is excluded.

Universal Credit: The Public Sector IT Merry-Go-Round

This morning we have been regaled with stories about the predictable fiasco of the government's Universal Credit system being described as being dogged by “weak management, ineffective control and poor governance" by the National Audit Office.

The whole thing is, of course, drearily predictable: we have got used to disaster after disaster with government IT projects. But once again we must ask - why do government IT projects seem so prone to disaster?

There are a number of reasons. Firstly, massive IT projects, public or private, almost always take much longer to implement than when first estimated. However, there is an added pressure in the public sector to shoe-horn project  outcomes into  the demands of the electoral cycle and, quite correctly, they are subjected to a great deal more public scrutiny.

But the major reason for the litany of public IT disasters is a culture of the project merry-go-round.

Imagine you are a senior manager at a corporation, and you convince the governing board to finance a huge project that will greatly increase your power and prestige within the organisation. Naturally, you want this situation to continue as long as possible - ideally forever.

However, in the private sector, failure to complete the project and positively effect the bottom line will, sooner or later, lead to you getting fired. Not so in the public sector, where failure is rarely punished as quickly or severely. The bizarre result is that there is a personal disincentive to actually deliver the project. Instead, from a personal point of view it is best for managers to keep the band-wagon rolling for as long as possible. As a result, IT projects run into trouble, and rather than being pruned our abandoned, are simply restarted again and again.

As an IT consultant who has worked for several public sector organisations, I have seen projects restarted from scratch not once, not twice but astonishingly more than half and dozen times, with just a jazzy new name to rebrand the project and make it look  like something entirely new. Estimated completion times have overrun by almost orders of magnitude in the process. Never have the managers concerned been sacked. Of course it would be going too far to suggest that managers set out with such cynical intentions, but just like the rest of us they will tend to make decisions that secure their own positions and justify them on other grounds.

For that reason, do not believe those siren voices who say that Universal Credit should be 'reviewed' or 're-evaluated'. You can bet your bottom dollar that under that umbrella a new turn on the merry go round will begin, the project will be rebooted, and the total cost and implementation time will rise again. Meanwhile, nothing will be delivered, but many management empires will be built, the civil service employees at the Department of Social Security will be able to justify their continued existence, and no doubt many consultants will be very well re-numerated.

Either finish it, or kill it stone dead.

Government defeat on Syria? It's the UKIP effect.

Last night, for the first time since 1782, the Prime Minister lost a vote on taking military action. Much of the press and Twittersphere are presenting this as a Labour victory, but in fact the Labour leader’s amendment motion also fell. In other words, the leaders of the largest parliamentary parties lost control of their parliamentary members last night. This is no Labour victory – it is a victory for democracy.

The defeat of the motions has taken the leaders by surprise. British ships were already manoeuvring into position in the Mediterranean, alongside those of the US and Russia. The Parliamentary vote was to have been the equivalent of box ticking before military action commenced.

Yet only 25% of the British people are in favour of British military action in Syria. 50% are against. To those who believe in representative democracy, loss of the vote should have been no surprise at all. If our democracy was truly representative, the margin of defeat should have been much greater than the 13 votes it turned out to be.

It was a surprise because our democracy hasn’t been particularly representative as of late. Polls show that our leaders are on the wrong side of public opinion on a whole range of issues – immigration, climate change spending, Europe to name just three. This military action was to have been yet another issue to add to that list. So what has changed?

Simply, it’s the UKIP effect. MPs up and down the country are starting to realise that unless they represent the opinions of the people who put them in Westminster, those same people have the ability to remove them from that place in 2015. When there was just Lib, Lab and Con to choose from – a conglomeration of intermingled opinions – the public were relatively hamstrung. Many of course simply failed to vote at all. But now there is a credible alternative (and a string of very close defeats in by-elections, as well as wins at local level, have made us credible).

Thanks to UKIP, our Parliamentarians are starting to wake up to the fact that they need to listen to the people once again.

Zombie Tories Today, Zombie UKIP Tomorrow

Stuart Parr blogged yesterday on the astonishing news that Tory membership could be as low as 59,000. Having crunched the numbers, he showed that even taking much more generous estimates of membership that the party, once sitting councillors were excluded, is now almost completely devoid of activists.

No one seems to know exactly how many members the Tory party now has, including the Tory party itself. Rumours circulate of estimates between 59,000, 84,000, 100,000 and 130,000. However membership does seem likely to have slipped below the psychologically important 100,000 mark. Still appreciably bigger than UKIP's of course, but crucially even those members who remain are horrible demoralised, with around half of them no longer campaigning for the party.

The Tories are now a Zombie party. Terrified that it's members and the country will perceive the horrible truth  must surely be the reason why the Tories refuse to release estimates of membership. However, it is another fantastic own goal by it's blundering, arrogant leadership. Refusing to be open about the issue won't stop rumours circulating, and, as is the way with rumours, getting ever more wild over time. More importantly, it is yet another insult to it's poor remaining membership. After all, would you want to be a member of an organisation that refused to tell you even the most basic of information about itself?

Given our own rapid rise in membership, it is very tempting for us 'Kippers to sit back and gloat, and look forward to the wonderful day when UKIP membership overtakes not only the failing Lib Dems but also the weak and sickly Tories.

Not so fast.

The fact is that our structure is as archaic and in desperate need of reform as all the other parties. The era of the rigid silo is well and truly over. In the internet age, political parties will have to take on the characteristics of social networks.  Policy formation, for instance, must be crowd-sourced rather than confined to a closed and select few, and there must be all sorts of models for social engagement and membership.

In no way should the hard work and guts of UKIP activists in getting our party up to a historic high of 30,000 members against the fierce head winds of general voter apathy and alienation be disparaged. However, as the pundit Fraser Nelson never tires of pointing out, something is desperately wrong with party politics in this country when other voluntary organisations and causes routinely have memberships in the millions.  Put UKIP membership figures in that context and it shows just how far we have to go.

The first political party who radically reforms itself on social network lines may see huge increases in membership, and there is a great danger that it won't be us. Nothing is as dangerous as success, as the saying goes, and it is very tempting indeed to think that nothing is wrong and to carry on as we are.

It has been to UKIP's huge luck and advantage that it's principle rival has been lead by people without an original idea in their heads over the last few years. It would be extremely foolish to bank on that luck lasting forever. Facing extinction, there are strong signs that the Tories are now beginning to look seriously at Douglas Carswell's ideas to "spotify" the party. Carswell, perhaps the most brilliant original thinker in British politics today, has already proven the worth of his ideas in his own Tory branch in Clacton. Given his head, he would be far more formidable opponent than dunderheads like Cameron or Grant Shapps.

The political fates are always fickle: although now very seriously wounded, you should never underestimate the Tory party's ruthless instinct for survival. It has still got significant financial resources,  individual though woefully under utilised talent and  residual - though badly tarnished - brand recognition and loyalty. A Tory party returned to it's members and supporters via the social network route could well leave UKIP high and dry, struggling to catch up but without the depth of resources to do so. It is therefore absolutely essential that UKIP is both first and boldest in embracing the new models of social organisation that are an inevitability in the age we live in.

The Tories may be a zombie party, but that is the thing about zombies: they have a very nasty habit of rising from the dead.

UKIP And Political Correctness

Metropolitan journalists must love Godfrey Bloom. Not only does he give them license to exercise their feelings of smug superiority, but he does so in the dog days of August. A dopamine fix and valuable copy all rolled into one. It is therefore not surprising that the "Bongo-Bongo Land" story has run and run.

The latest journalist to give vent was that Uriah Heap of the political classes and Metropolitan moderniser to his fingertips,  Matthew D'Ancona. Writing yesterday in the Telegraph, he opined that modern-day political correctness  was no more than politeness necessary in a diverse society, and that the Bloom furore marked a 'fork in the road' for UKIP, who he describes as a "fringe party".

D'Ancona's fork in the road analogy is very telling, as it offers the binary choice so common in Metropolitan circles: you either follow our "correct" way, or you are by definition a racist / sexist / homophobe, blah, blah, blah, spouting prejudice, hatred and deliberately causing offence.

In practise there is a third way, and that is not to be gratuitously offensive but not to shy away from hard truths either. In that narrow sense D'Ancona has a point: Bloom did overstep the mark with using a disparaging and dated phrase that can only be interpreted as dismissive and derogatory. Although it was not racist, it hardly helps UKIP's cause when the party makes great play of exploiting our links to the Commonwealth. Whenever we talk about that in future, the question "do you mean Bongo-bongo land?" will not doubt be used against us.

However, in the wider context D'Ancona is very much in the wrong. His emphasise on being polite completely ignores that politeness segues very easily into lying, or at the very least avoiding telling others painful truths not in order to protect others but to protect yourself. For instance, not mentioning to someone that they are fat is no doubt polite, but it would be immoral not to do so if that person is dangerously overweight.

Politeness, in short, can very easily be a camouflage for outright moral cowardice, and it is moral cowardice that so completely infects our political and media classes today. Having by and large led shallow, easy lives in Metropolitan circles where the greatest social crime is to say something that doesn't make others feel good, they refuse to confront issue after issue on the spurious grounds that it is "impolite" to do so.

It is therefore "impolite" to face the truth that Islam contains some tenets wholly at odds with Western civilisation. Instead, we are told time and time again that terrible crimes committed in it's name are 'nothing to do' with the religion. It is "impolite" that the lawless sub-cultures of Romania and Bulgaria will probably lead to an explosion of crime when those countries  are given full unfettered immigration rights at the end of this year. It is "impolite" to mention that much foreign aid is wasted, and that if we were really serious about helping Africa and developing nations, we would instead unilaterally withdraw from the morally truly wicked Common Agricultural Policy.

Cosseted and buffered against the harsh winds of reality, this is precisely how our gilded Metropolitan elite would prefer things to remain, hence the blatant attempts at moral intimidation aimed at Bloom and UKIP this week. However, it is this culture of lying and cowardice that the rest of society is heartedly sick of. Both Bloom and UKIP were largely given the benefit of the doubt during this last week by an electorate who see UKIP as it's last best hope of ridding themselves of a political class that has become so completely morally corrupt.

There should be no return to the 1970s world of casual insensitivity and prejudice so typified by Rupert Rigsby from Rising Damp or Gene Hunt  from Life On Mars, but nonetheless the public are prepared to hear hard truths, and look to UKIP to utter them. In short, we must continue to be thoroughly rude, but not gratuitously so. To Political Correctness, we must never bend the knee.

Thoughts of a Young Independence member: Immigration

After watching the latest episode of BBC Question Time, I really get a feeling of how Ukip foreign policy is still seen by many people: as something very Nationalistic, and possibly leaning towards xenophobia. It's very saddening, particularly because Ukip is the most global party of the lot - seeing prosperity beyond the regulation fuelled shackles of the EU. Admittedly foreign policy is still quite elusive. There is also a sense that Ukip does not appreciate the melting-pot granted by immigrant populations settling in Britain over the past decades; and this sense is false. I want to differentiate between integrated immigrants and incoming immigrants; as well as assemble some picture of foreign policy, or to the least how I see it.

Yes - Britain is a melting-pot, and that's obviously wonderful as the diversity instilled has really driven our economy forwards, especially in terms of small business which our county has always naturally thrived out of; but mass open door immigration, which brings forth unskilled labour, just increases exploitation. And then there are those who don't work and seep out of the benefit system, as well as getting involved with a lot of criminal activity. Basically, if we left the EU we can get some co-operated skilled immigration from English speaking counties, whose people can integrate. How can we embrace such immigration? It's simple; they've been right under our noses all along. The people of the Commonwealth.

Coincidentally, it has been part of Kippers’ tales for a while now for Britain to negotiate free trade agreements with - our true allies - the Commonwealth under a Ukip government, and perhaps we should go further to establish a military alliance; frankly because it's the best way to uphold a global network which defends against redoubling cascades of threats emerging from the world, and Britain cannot afford to keep it up alone in an epoch of slow growth. That also goes for Britain's - the Commonwealth's - investment in the sciences, and there's nothing wrong with saying we want to be a leading science power once again: it's not looking back because we're a miserable bunch; it's common sense. In the meantime, the EU is an utter fiasco - and Britain must start the process of dismantling it by leaving; and pushing the rest of Europe into a far more flexible, freer agreement in an organisation like the European Free Trade Association, where global countries like Switzerland have cherished for their success.

Moreover, what we have seen in migration descending from EU membership and, bluntly, open door immigration in all aspects, are pockets of societies expanding and drifting apart from Society's mainstream course; and consequently we have seen a rocket in crime, extremism and, (gasp!) artificial Labour tribalism in post-Blair immigrant communities. However, when we look at our previous immigration waves, Commonwealth immigration waves in particular, you see something much more stunning: you see a great deal of respect and concern for the nation, therefore why talks should be held with credible representatives of the Commonwealth community, internally and externally, on how to establish an immigration agreement which makes ambitious skilled newcomers excited, as well as the indigenous population. But it would principally be controlled.

As I write, Lord Ashcroft publishes his ‘open letter’ to Nigel Farage on the Daily Mail, which fundamentally regards Ukip supporters “[knowing] the world is more complicated – a vote for UKIP is a vote against the complication.” This is part of the current wave of smearing leading to the local elections of 2013 where Ukip can feasibly win big; but is only true in the aspect of unfolding the glories of the past – not retreating to the past, where our economy has no chance. The party’s admiration of Thatcher only goes as far as admiring her strength in troubled times, but to attempt to regenerate Thatcherism only demolishes our claim that there is no street Ukip can’t build momentum on; mutatis mutandis Ukip attempts to unify a country previously divided by ideology. And the signs are it's succeeding. Besides, Ashcroft's studies show that a large chuck of the party's supporters are in fact traditional Conservative voters; so this further conveys how out of touch the old establishment are, and the best is wished for Ukip's success in every election.

UKIP fielding record number of election candidates

The numbers are in and UKIP has managed to field 1,727 candidates in the May elections - only 33 less than the Limp Dems.

The last time these same elections were held in 2009 UKIP had just 593 candidates.  We patted ourselves on the backs at getting such an unprecedented number of candidates at the time and were disappointed but satisfied with gaining 8 councillors and finishing second or third in almost every seat we contested.

How times have changed.  We're now looking at nearly three times as many candidates and expecting a lot of them to win.  In the last five weeks we've had five by-election wins - this has never happened before in the party's history and it bodes well for next month.  If tribal voting wins on May 2nd it won't be through lack of trying on UKIP's part.

The extremists aren't doing too well this time round with the Greens fielding just 877 candidates, the BNP fielding 100 and the English Democrats 29 with an ongoing investigation into their Kent candidates list which includes some dubious names such as "Anna Cleves" who apparently lives near Anne of Cleves Road in Dartford and "Steves Uncle" who, according to the nomination papers, lives with a relative of their local organiser and candidate for Swanley division, Steve Uncles and Eastleigh flop Mike Walters.

An insight into the future of YI

It's now February. A month earlier the notorious Ollyshambles occurred and the Young Independence Council nominated, then Events Officer, Rob Comley to the position of YI Chairmen. Comley later asked me for an interview - it was believed to be the right thing to do leading to the YI Elections in March. So here it is; Bloggers4UKIP interviews YI Caretaker Chair Rob Comley:

Q1. How do you feel taking on such an overwhelming role in Ukip, especially after such chaos?

            It is an absolute honor to look after Young Independence, even if it is for the short time until the annual elections in March. As I have said many times over the past few weeks, it is incredibly important that we all work together until this time, for the best of YI, regardless of whether you see yourself as more libertarian or conservative. This is something I have tried to stress since day one of being asked to take over and it is the message I will be trying to convey until the elections in March.

 Q2. What are your views on Ollyshambles?

            I have spoken to Olly personally over the past few weeks about his plans for the YI council and the direction we were going in during his brief spell as chairman. Myself and him get on rather well and agree on many internal YI council issues and these are the policies I have tried to follow up and complete. It is important that we try to move on from the situation and move forward for the best of the party. I would, however, like to take this just to say on record that I disagree with Olly’s controversial views.

Q3. Do you support the voluntary resignations which have taken place within YI? Have they managed to discuss their concerns with you?

            It was sad to see Gareth Shanks and Allrick Birch resign as Elections Officer and Treasurer, respectively. Myself and Gareth are good friends and I can understand why he was upset. We spoke about his concerns on a number of occasions after I took over and although I tried my best to persuade him to continue, he thought it was best to step down. He has since decided to focus on running for YI Yorkshire chair and I wish him the best of luck. I met with Allrick personally to discuss his resignation, and again, I asked him to continue until March but did stress that he should do what he feels best.

Q4. Why have you appointed Harry Aldridge - the 2011-2012 Chair of the Youth Wing - to the position of Vice-Chair?

            After I was asked to take over as YI Caretaker Chair Harry rang me to offer a helping hand. I deemed it important to have stability within YI and Harry, having the experience as YI Chair himself, seemed like the perfect person to offer this. I asked if he would be willing to come back onto the council until March as my vice and he was very happy to do so. He has been a great help!

Q5. What does the future look like for Young Independence?

             We have just finished putting together a ‘reformation of YI’ document and presented this to Steve Crowther and Will Gilpin during a four hour long meeting – there wasn’t a topic that we didn’t cover regarding YI internally and externally!

Externally, you will see a lot of changes slowly happening to YI over the next 12 months, especially between now and March. In the next elections we are planning on removing the social media officer position, instead combining it with the communication’s officer’s duties, as well as adding a universities officer.

Regional YI branches have been approved and we now have 8 Interim regional chairs – Robin Hunter-Clarke (East Midlands), Daniel Thistlewaite (Easter Counties), Jack Duffin (London), Matt Mackinnon (North West), Oluf Marshall (Scotland), Chris Wood (South East), Reece Warren (South West) and Thomas Hoof (West Midlands), as well as Sam Launder taking care of the Yorkshire region. This means that new members can talk to someone and get involved at a local level, as well as nationally.

We have also listened to what was wanted from our members and we have decided that it is time for a new YI website – this is something we believe to be vital in keeping up with other political youth wings. Getting our message across to university students and young workers equally is also vital and we will be planning an event to get some of these people involved between now and March.

 Internally, we will be putting new rules into place to ensure YI runs smoothly and efficiently as the youth wing of UKIP. We will also be planning the March election to ensure that this goes ahead without any glitches.

Q6. What is your perspective of YIs interjection into universities?

            I believe that working with Universities is an important part of YI. Students currently feel let-down by the current government, especially the Lib-dems. We are now the only major political party with a ‘no-tuition fee’ policy and it is vital that we get this message out there to attract more student voters. We now have four official student societies set up around the country and over twenty more trying to set up. It is important that we continue to work with these groups and I shall be trying to push this up until March, hopefully arranging a University activist’s day with guest speakers. Since I was elected onto the council I have been in the process of writing a ‘how to set up a society’ booklet and I shall be completing this very shortly.

Q7. How about sixth forms, and even the bigger youth picture; e.g. Youth clubs and public events?

             Away from YI I have been setting up a schools and colleges project in my local area, with the intention of making it national. The aim of the ‘MyLife-MyChoice’ project is to get young people between the ages of 15-18 interested in politics and out voting by the time they are 18. I also get the students to make a choice on whether they approve of the European Union. This has been approved by the Bexley chairman, David Coburn NEC and will hopefully start in the next couple of weeks.

Q8. You were elected to the position of Events Officer back in the good old days of November. Do you wish to continue administering events for YI post-March?

            My main focus at this current time is steering YI into the right direction and I have been too busy trying to do this that I have yet to consider my future on the council from March. I don’t actually think I’ve gone to bed earlier than 2 o’clock in the morning since I have taken over! I’ve been told on many occasions by my partner that I need to know when to stop but I am so determined to make YI successful that it has outweighed most things in life recently!

 In the meantime, my first event is on Saturday 9th February where ourselves and UKIP’s LGBTQ* will be having a joint get together at the Charring Cross Players Bar, London from 7.30PM. Everyone is invited and we are lucky enough to have David Coburn addressing members!

Q9. What are your hobbies and why did you join Ukip, in brief?

              I have always had a great interest in politics and history and although I have qualifications in animal welfare, as this was the original political direction I was going towards in life, I decided that party politics was the place I wanted to be.  Away from politics I have an obsession with vintage and ‘Indie’ clothing and you will often find me walking the streets of Brick Lane, as well as a strong passion for music and going to the theatre – so much so that I think I have seen The Woman in Black at the West-end close to ten times now!

I have always voted UKIP at every opportunity and decided it was time to become an official member in the spring of 2012. I remember looking at the 2010 manifesto and agreeing with everything that I read – I automatically fell in love with the policies and haven’t seen anything to change my mind since. I lived in Chelmsford, Essex for a brief spell last year and tried to get involved there as much as I could as a supporter, but on moving back to my family home in Bexley I have been an enthusiast, becoming the Secretary of my branch as well as trying to set up a society at the University of Greenwich where I am now studying a BA in Politics.

Thanks for your time Rob.