Geoffrey Collier

BobFM: I allow for the fact that you are something of a cultural cuckoo; having not yet been able to differentiate between the illegal, (illicit) and that which is capable of being known (elicit); a bully, who constantly seeks the approval of the 'management' by the willing endorsement of all their deeds; however, that will not serve you well in the long-term. There is no substitute for courage, and there is no substitute for honesty in all its forms and manifestations. Obviously, you won't agree with that, confident that the lack of principle and sensitivity, which has served you so well in the past, will continue in the future.

If you believe that the party is in a stronger shape to-day, than it would have been if honesty rather than concealment, had been the central principle of our management, you would believe anything. The age structure of this party is conspicuously old, fortunately that may be changing, but what I say is still correct. Members must have no doubt that when they give financial aid to the party, those donations are secure. That is not the case, and financial irregularities have been tolerated by the leadership for years. Likewise, when they vote in Leadership, MEP candidate selections, or NEC elections the final result must be an honest one. Those two specific areas can be - and should have been for years- placed into the hands of independent agencies. With the possible exception of yourself, there is no doubt that well-founded concerns as to our trustworthiness still exist. Do something to change things for the better; your role as resident cheer-leader is sickening. A democracy can survive with a few of your kind, but when they become a significant number, the evidence strongly suggests that it will collapse. Think on these things.

Tashry

Anti-UKIP people would be saying that UKIP's membership has dropped to below 10,000, but compared to the loss of membership from Labour, UKIP slight decrease is minimal.
UKIP will probably pick up during the campaign for the 2009 EU Elections.

__________________
http://cyburnyouthkip.blogspot.com/

Geoffrey Collier

Tashry: All political parties lose members between elections. There are competing interests and priorities: all that is quite understandable. While that is unfortunate for the larger parties, when elections approach their suppoerters, in businesses, trade unions, professional associations, etc, come to their aid. Any bad publicity has a disproportionale effect on the smaller parties. In addition, they are dependent upon activists, to compensate for the limited paid employees at their disposal.

Large political parties can sponsor legislation which can be advantageous to their donors. Honours, from peerages to MBEs', frequently gravitate to those who, perhaps coincidentally, are also individual donors, or chairmen of banks, unions, professional organisations, which contribute to the larger political parties.

Percentage comparisions between the larger and smaller parties doesn't make sense divorced from these wider considerations. All parties should be clean and trustworthy: for the smaller parties, those same attributes can determine whether they live or die.

It isn't a matter of what anti-UKIP people say or don't say, it is a matter of what we can conclude from experience and the evidence, irrespective of what we may personally believe or desire.

Aardvark

When I was in Witney Tories, Cameron country, the branch had up to 1500 paid up members with 300 or so who would attend meetings at various times. We got 80-100 for supper club! At the next GE they will canvass virtually every house in the constituency. They have voting and canvass records going back years, a stack of funds of immense proportions (over £100k banked) and a high public profile. They will actually get a surge in the run up to the election as well.

Witney UKIP would need a membership surge of several hundred per cent just to get an activist in every ward. At the last GE I was the only UKIP person who visited polling stations, the Tories had manned virtually all of them with tellers.

What the Tories do here Labour and Lib Dems do elsewhere. We need to be realistic about our hopes and aspirations in some areas. Bob FM might be correct that his branch is doing well, but up the road in West Oxfordshire there is little activity.

If the Tories have 250,000 members and only 1 in 4 is active at the GE or thereabouts that will still mean the best part of 100 Tories per constituency. If we had 4000 activists we would have barely 6 activists per constituency. A 25% increase for us would equate to 1.5 people per consituency giving 7.5 total. The Tories could take a 20% cut in active supporters and outgun us at every turn.

It is a numbers game, but we're not the only ones playing it.

__________________
When in Woking do as the Wokes do.

"I do not wish to form my opinions by thoughtlessly quoting others; I wish others to support their opinions by sensibly quoting me." Paul Wesson (Aardvark) 13th April 2008

Bob FM

Amazing how every post has to be countered by paragraph of paragraph of 'if's and adn's'. I merely made the point UKIP has not lost loads of members as has been claimed by some on here. There in lay the difference, the proof is in the published document, the lack of proof by those frequently making allegations of all types, is glaringly apparent.

mrabody

I am happy to report that in Lewes, the Tories are not in such a dominant position. The UKIP membership, whilst low is increasing thanks to the membership drive we are currently engaged in. Whilst the Tory membership has reportedly increased this year this is apparently mostly people whose memberships lapsed at some point in the past and who now at the first hint of future success have returned to what they see as a winning team. On the other side of the equation, many of the active membership are demoralized, and two senior Tory activists have joined UKIP in the past year. We hope to recruit more. If the current parliament lasts until 2010 then I am reasonably confident that we will be in a position to take the fight to both the Tories and the Lib Dems in Lewes in a general election.

The other parties may currently have a large advantage over us at present in terms of membership. THis need not be the case as we are currently showing in Lewes. There are people out there who want to join us and help. We just need to ask them.

Wowbanger TIP

Wow. It would be amazing to see anything like the Whitney Tories in the West Mids. I doubt the total number of activists involved on all sides in say a round of local elections in the entire eleven constituencies of Brum would be more than a few hundred.

Estimated number of BNP activists per constituency nationwide 0.3/0.6.

Bob FM

In the end it is not the number it is the quality and commitment of those you have, that was reflected in Swindon delivering 50,000 leaflets in just a week before the election. mrabody is right we in Swindon feel we can really take the fight to the Tories and the Lib-dems who we've already pushed into fourth place 8 times, against the national trend.

T.N.Warry

Could you please explain just exactly what it is you hope to achieve in Swindon that will help the UK leave the EU?

blueblood1920

Even on a thread just about UKIP you have to bring BNP into it to try and attack them. You are a very sad individual.