Is anyone else as angry as I am about this UKIP infighting?
Nearly 4m votes, third largest support by far, one MP, two near misses, hundreds of seconds and very few lost deposits.
Significant swathes of support in traditional Labour areas in Wales and up north. Eastern areas still loyal. Numerous gains in local elections.
All this from a 2010 base of just above zilch. In fact one can bring it forward in time to early 2013 when our first significant gains in bye elections and local elections shook the legacy media out of its metropolitan comfort zone.
We should be celebrating, sticking it to the man. Rubbing their media noses into the mud for the abysmal failure of their orchestrated smear campaign….instead we are on the back foot, bemused by a public display of handbags at dawn from the party’s head honchos.
What a betrayal of those millions of voters who disobeyed orders and went with UKIP and those platoons of volunteers who trudged the streets for The Purple.
Many folk are heaping calumny on Patrick O’Flynn and I suppose his asides to the media were not particularly helpful. But I have the impression that his outburst was sparked off by the unedifying catfight between elements of Team Farage and Douglas Carswell over the short money. Moreover I feel that Nigel made a big mistake in appearing to take up a position against Carswell on this matter. DC is the Tory version of Labour’s Frank Field – a granite rock of integrity against which even the stormiest waves of attack can leave no mark.
I love Nigel. His contribution to the growth of UKIP has been immense. No other political figure in recent times has had to endure such a vicious and unending campaign of denigration and vilification as this man – much of it, disgracefully, from the pages of the Telegraph and Mail. But he definitely fumbled the ball with the quite bizarre “unresignation” episode. It was quite unnecessary. He had given himself a period of grace of several months to reflect on his future as leader. By passing the temporary reins to Suzanne Evans he chose wisely for Suzanne made a favourable impression across all political lines with her handling of the media and the production of a manifesto so well presented that no hack or political opponent could tear even one page apart.
I suspect that elements of Team Farage suddenly panicked. The prospect of Suzanne taking over the mantle with ease raised made them recall the successful SNP transition from Salmond to a little known Sturgeon and proving that UKIP could survive and thrive beyond Nigel and, without Nigel there would be no Team Farage.
It seems clear that much of the “don’t go away for even six months, Nige” surge was as orchestrated as a spontaneous love in for Stalin in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Nigel’s mistake was to accept it at face value. It undermined the reputation that he had built up over the years as a plain speaking bloke who meant what he said.
In fact this episode of leaks and innuendo is merely the latest of a long line of poisonous anonymous “briefings” over the last year or so from disaffected elements within UKIP, many of them popping up at Breitbart where James Delingpole and others have been waging a subtle campaign against “RedUKIP” in the hope of returning it to its libertarian free market roots and targeting Farage because he was one of the first to notice that many disgruntled Labour voters were going UKIP. It’s almost as if the Delingpole brigade looked back to those halcyon days when UKIP had little electoral support but the few could comfort themselves with clutching their Ayn Rand books and being voices in the wilderness.
We cannot afford this. By this time next year we know that the Cameron mirage will have faded – he won’t be able to deliver on the referendum conditions, immigration or his Micawber like dependency of hoping something will turn up to pour into the bottomless pit of the NHS and Foreign Aid. Labour will still be tearing itself apart trying to be left and right at the same time.
You owe us that, Team UKIP. We are here in our masses, ready to cross the Rubicon and all we can see are the senior officers hitting each other with their handbags.
Knock it off, you lot – this is not about petty squabbles – we’re talking about saving the soul of our nation.
