A whiff of realignment?

A whiff of realignment?

The party conference season starts early this year, kicked off by the UK Independence Party which has previously shoehorned its weekend event in between the Labour and Conservative conferences.

And, as always happens when UKIP takes a higher profile than normal – i.e., ceases to be invisible for a brief moment – the detractors leap into breach. 

This time, it is the europhiliac Independent but, in its enthusiasm to dish the dirt, it has fallen for an egregious "plant", offering stories of dark and sinister plots against Nigel Farage. 

Interestingly, the story prominently features UKIP's erstwhile press officer, Annabelle Fuller, who is styled as an "ally" of Nigel Farage. That is one way of describing their relationship, and has absolutely nothing to do with her complaint, retailed by the paper, about being subjected to abusive telephone calls, "including one at 3am calling her a whore."

More to the point, this Mz Fuller could be the same person who hurriedly departed her post after a confidential and highly damaging video of a mock selection interview – in her custody - had been mysteriously posted on YouTube. This was the one which featured a hapless aspirant MEP candidate, headed, "how not do politics", in an obvious attempt to denigrate the subject. That it was uploaded in Morocco where Fuller happened to go on holiday was, of course, a complete coincidence. 

Nothing, as one might expect, appears in the piece about this, nor of the fact that the self-serving Fuller is under criminal investigation by Suffolk Police for an alleged breach of the Data Protection Act.

Needless to say, Iain Dale falls for the scam, aided and abetted by Fuller's former very close associatewho has absolutely nothing to do with her complaint about being subjected to abusive telephone calls, "including one at 3am calling her a whore." 

Conveniently, the piece gives both Dale and The Independent scope to ruminate on whether UKIP is about to implode. In fact, despite the fond hopes of the newspaper, nothing could be further from the truth. As the line-up at the conference shows, what we have just seen is another internal coup by Farage, still further consolidating his grip on what has become a one-man party.

Out goes current chairman, the independently-minded Dr John Whittaker, to be replaced by Farage's 31-year-old bag carrier, Paul Nuttall, one time history lecturer in Liverpool and until recently the MEP's researcher.

He is now elevated to the highest office (apart from the leader) in the party and has been also been catapulted to the lead position on the UKIP candidate MEP list in the North West, replacing the former lead candidate – voted in by the members. This was the regional organiser Gregg Beaman, who was forced to stand down in favour of Nuttall. He has quit his highly-paid job in disgust and is "mulling over" his continued membership of the party.

Nuttall is thus positioned to serve his master well, keeping the members at bay while the next stage of the Farage agenda is rolled out.

For this, the clues were in the keynote conference speech given by Farage, where he spoke of needing a "21st Century relationship between Britain and our European neighbours." UKIP's line, he said, "needs to be less about what's wrong with the EU… It needs to be positive messages about what we stand for and positive messages about what our MEPs will do."

Although larded with references to the UK being outside the EU, this does not sound like a party committed with anything like the same fervour to the policy of withdrawal it has previously espoused.

For an explanation of this, one must look to Farage's recent meeting(s) with Declan Ganley. There, it was made clear to Farage that UKIP's open hostility to the EU stood in the way of a closer relationship.

With the party all but bankrupt, marginalised in national politics and facing a poor showing in the euro-elections, with insufficient cash to finance an effective campaign, the promise of the Ganley millions was enough to spur Farage on to deliver his coded message from the conference podium. 

With a covert alignment in the wings, we will indeed hear "less about what's wrong with the EU…" from Farage. And, with The Independent offering stories of dark and sinister plots against the great leader inspired by la Fuller, the stage is set for bagman Nuttall to crack the whip against the real dissenters – the more dangerous of whom were not "fingered" by Fuller.

Hilariously - if you are that way inclined - the Independent, so keen to see the downfall of UKIP, has helped cement it in place, although it will not be UKIP as we know it. But, in that, the paper has perhaps unwittingly achieved precisely what it wanted, neutering the eurosceptic voice. Only time will tell.

COMMENT THREAD

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 06, 2008

More UKIP infighting. Apparently.

Via Timmy, it seems that the Independent has picked up on some of the infighting in UKIP.

At the same time, another plot to remove Mr Farage is being co-ordinated by the former Ukip member Andrew Edwards who was removed from the party after it emerged he had links to the BNP.

In January, he sent an email to friends saying, "Happy new year and damnation to the enemies of Britain and the British".

He confirmed yesterday that he wants Mr Farage removed, and named several other figures who believe Mr Farage is not taking a hard enough line on issues including immigration and who are moving against his leadership.

As Timmy points out, Andrew Edwards has little influence in the party and the sooner he fucks off to the BNP, the better frankly.

Then there is David Abbott, a member of Ukip's national executive committee (NEC), and former candidate in the European elections. He once donated money to the American Friends of the BNP (AFBNP).

Dr Abbott, whom Mr Farage has tried to remove from the NEC, said he was working for Mr Farage's removal from the leadership, saying "UKIP needs effective leadership".

The kind of "effective leadership" that would actually ensure that Farage could remove you from the NEC, you mean? Seriously, arseholes like David Abbott sit about and complain that Farage rules the party as a dictator but is, apparently, still in office. Not a very effective dictatorship then, eh, David? You fucking tosser.

A quick reminder that David Abbott gave money to the BNP and then, when this was revealed (in yet another damaging press story), claimed that he had no idea what the BNP actually stood for. It seems that we must apply the Polly Conundrum to Dr Abbott, i.e. is he pig-ignorant or a lying piece of shit?

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, confirmed both Dr Abbott's donation – which he said was a one-off and on "free speech" grounds – and Mr Edwards' ever-closer involvement with the BNP. He said Mr Edwards regularly wrote for the BNP website, confirmed he was involved with the BNP while in Ukip and said that he "was with them and is now much more sympathetic to us".

He said Mr Edwards was "one of a number of people who joined Ukip in good faith and then found that it wasn't – and Nigel Farage in particular wasn't – what they had thought".

Indeed so, and therein lies the problem with UKIP—it's this schizophrenia that was the prime reason for my leaving the party.

You see, there are two parts to UKIP: there are those who want to leave the EU because they believe in free trade and minimal government—these libertarians include Nigel Farage and, of course, our classical liberal blogging friends, e.g. Timmy,Vindico, Mark Wadsworth.

Then, of course, there are those who want to leave from a nationalist point of view—because they view the EU as a construct of evil foreigners who wish to do Britain down. They are on a fairly broad spectrum, from the ultra-Conservative to the more extreme end; this latter group are very definitely potential BNP material. One can only assume that they joined UKIP to avoid the opprobrium that membership of the BNP would bring.

However, all of the conservative group despise the libertarians, who they perceive as being, at best, wishy-washy liberals and, at worst, actively dangerous lunatics. I mean, everyone knows that the legalisation of drugs is quite simply an evil policy, don't they?—one that will lead to our streets being awash with addicts intent on mugging decent, hard-working folk to feed their crack and crystal meth addiction. And we all know that free trade will lead to every person in Britain being slung out of a job and being replaced with darkies, do we not?

The problem for UKIP is that these two groups are unreconcilable. You will all know which side I favour and which side I think are stupid, pusillanimous cunts. Unfortunately, the latter group are extremely noisy and just will not shut the fuck up. And there are a lot of them.

The libertarian group—and those who are not actively opposed to the libertarians (mild conservatives, if you will)—continue, in the main, to hold the positions of power at present. But if they should ever be ousted, then UKIP could become a very ugly party indeed.

Let us hope that this does not happen, for I do retain a certain affection (and admiration) for those who lead this rag-tag bunch of people. Whatever the state of the party, I would also urge you to vote for UKIP at the Euro-elections: although The Huntsman disagrees, urging a Tory vote, he is absolutely wrong. If we wish the next Conservative government even to start negotiating a withdrawal, we need to show them that there is the wish and the will in this country to start such negotiations.

And, realistically, the only way to do that is to vote for withdrawal; and, because General Elections are decided on a great many issues other than the EU, the only real chance that we have to vote solely on this issue is at the Euro-elections. We need to send a message to our Lords and Masters in Westminster that there is popular support for withdrawal, and that they must stop swithering, take their balls in their hands and start the process of withdrawal: the only way to do that is to vote for the only credible party advocating such a move—UKIP.