mrabody

I hope you are speaking specifically about the West midlands and not besmirching the good names of the many candidates in other areas who do want to organize the party at the grass roots level.

__________________
Drew Belobaba,
UKIP PPC for Lewes
Almost as unelectable as Raymond Finch!

Richard Allen

Given that Niall was responding to me I wish to disassociate myself with his comment. Given that as a branch Chairman he had no interest in fighting local elections I don't think anyone should take lectures off him about how to build up from the grass roots.

My annoyance is that in the West Midlands we don't have a single candidate such as Drew or Ray (both in the SE) who are clearly committed to building the party in their region.

mrabody

Oh, dear, you mean Niall finds building the grassroots up "boring"? Looks like he might have something in common with those he accuses!

I'm sorry you don't seem to have anyone in your region that you feel you can vote for. As you point out, in the Southeast you have Ray and I, and several other candidates who want to devote MEP resources to developing the party at the grassroots level. In the East Midlands and Northeast you have Steve Allison, in Humber Jonathan Arnott, and in the Northwest Paul Nuttal. I believe there may be others in those regions as well.

Everywhere I go I find that UKIP members, particularly the activists, really want the party to grow and to do better at the local level. I think that whereas a few years ago, our activists would stand for local elections to show the flag (and this is still true in many cases) we now have many who want to win. Unfortunately I'm not sure that the leadership of the party recognizes this just yet, which I think creates a great deal of frustration. If we were as focused as the BNP at organizing locally, and winning council seats, I think we would soon discover that the rest (organizing for Euro and Westminster elections) would become much easier, and would fall into place.

Drew

__________________
Drew Belobaba,
UKIP PPC for Lewes
Almost as unelectable as Raymond Finch!

T.N.Warry

I've built up UKIP membership in Wales in the early days and more recently maintained the membership level in Cheltenham. the trouble is without the support of the centre and with all the 'bad' publicity UKIP gets, which is nearly always associated with our MEPs, then build on the grassroots is now virtually impossible. I learnt a long time ago that banging your head against a brick wall is a pretty pointless exercise.If newcomers to UKIP are prepared to try and build up the grassroots then good luck to them. Time will tell how successful they are.

SponPlague

We have to have realistic local policies, for example, a while back, I remember encountering the UKIP Southampton website, which pledged, if elected, to make the council "Go Linux" to save costs etc...

T.N.Warry

Local policies before and all out effort to leave the EU is pointless. Building up our grassroots is a long term project and we DON'T have the time. Surely we should concentrate on getting out the EU. Local policies on bin collections are pointless and can wait.

chikrodah

Niall, what's your preferred method to get us out of the EU?

T.N.Warry

To get out before the inevitable collapse we have to apply as much pressure as possible on our MP's at Westminster. Our ancestors died to save this country while on the other hand UKIP MEPs quaff wine in Brussels!!

T.N.Warry

UKIP has a product to sell -that is the get the UK out the EU. Therefore all our strategies and tactics should be concentrated on that end. I'm afraid local politics, party policies,manifestos etc don't help our IMMEDIATE aim. If we keep doing the same thing we will get the same result. It is time to change starting at the top.

mrabody

Yes we do have a product to sell - but who is the intended buyer? None of the three establishment parties seems to be interested? If you mean we are selling to the public I agree, but to what purpose? Presumably to get enough MPs elected to Westminster to either become the government, or at least enough to scare the government of the day into acting.

But, given that UKIP as a political party has never run anything, not even a parish council, why should the voters put their trust in us? And since voters place the EU well down on the list of issues on which they base their votes, that means we will have to develop other policies.

I'm sorry but there is no magic bullet that will kill the EU monster dead. We need to get MPs in Westminster and to do that we will first have to get town, local, and district councillors elected.


I noticed that you still don't offer an ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY - you just say that it's time for a change - that and fifty pence will buy you a chocolate bar but it won't get you out of the EU.

__________________
Drew Belobaba,
UKIP PPC for Lewes
Almost as unelectable as Raymond Finch!