UKIP are hardly in the news now except where plots, rival campaigns and divisions are concerned. They seem to have collapsed from the party that as promising to win 100 seats at the last General Election and got just 1.
An example of this is in South Thanet, which was meant to be their top target at the General Election, with party leader Nigel Farage MEP as candidate. They no longer appear to be taking the seat seriously. In your top target area you would expect to contest every election vigorously throughout the Parliament, even Town Council by-elections. Some might say especially Town Council by-elections.
5th May sees a by-election in the constituency’s medieval market town, Sandwich. There are only Lib Dem, Conservative and Labour candidates; no UKIP. Given that the area has no regular local elections on 5 May it should not have been hard to find one candidate.
In another part of South Thanet, two UKIP councillors on sick leave from Thanet Council have been charged with shoplifting. UKIP took control of Thanet Council promising to bring about a re-opening of Manston airport. You will not be surprised to hear it remains closed.
If this nasty party is falling apart in its self-declared top area, then everyone who loves politics based on compassion, generosity of spirit and facts will be glad to see it go.
The Liberal Democrat candidate in the Sandwich by-election is retired headteacher Dick Perry who has lived in the town for 45 years.
* Antony Hook was #2 on the South East European list in 2014, is the English Party's representative on the Federal Executive and produces this sites EU Referendum Roundup.
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Lib Dems pick Richard Kilpatrick as candidate for the Greater Manchester Mayoral election
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10 Comments
Do you expect him to keep his deposit?
(joke)
That’s two parties struggling then?
Farage has refused to publish his Tax Return. We should push for him to do so.
Possibly because UKIP will be defunct in 3 months, at least in its current form
UKIP will get many times more seats in the Welsh Assembly next month than the Lib Dems.
I don’t think UKIP will be defunct in 3 months, and whatever the result of the Ref, I think it will maintain at the very least its seemingly steady baseline support of 11-12%, for the forseeable. They have a proper core vote now.
David Faggiani: UKIP have got the core protest vote which formerly went to the Liberal Democrats. Combined support for the 2 largest parties seems not to have changed much.The Liberal Democrats are not getting much more support than UKIP had before 2010 when you take into account the number of seats contested by each party.
Leanne Wood, PC, said on Any Questions (repeated 16/4/2016) that she was on a programme with “the leader of UKIP”. It was not clear whether she meant Nigel Farage or whether UKIP has another leader for Wales. She said that he openly said that he has/had an account in the Isle of Man which was to avoid tax. She deplored that.
firstly there’s no such thing as a deposit in council elections. secondly UKIP’s vote is consistently down in Local Elections this year, and the Liberal Democrats generally (but not quite so consistently) up. That is not, however indicative of much YET, except that UKIP struggle to organise campaigns and mobilise voters in target seats. If it continues it may be indicative of something.