What Now For UKIP?

If it's true that UKIP doesn't have enough money to run another leadership election, it doesn make you wonder why the party's NEC voted no confidence in their leader, triggering another membership vote rather than thrash the problem out and come up with a less costly compromise.

Not being a UKIP member, I don't know whet's going on in the party, but it seems to me the NEC cannot seem to support any leader the membership vote for.

From my observations it seems the UKIP NEC is quite evenly split between the various factions and if any one side sees a weakness then they pull away their support for the leader in an attempt to get their preferred candidate in place. It seems that the UKIP hierarchy have lost the art of politics: the sort of deal-making and loyalty that keeps a fractured party together.

Instead it seems the top of UKIP are a boiling mess of macchialvelian machinations: plotting, back-stabbing, disloyal and with no sense of direction or leadership. I get the task of restructuring the party is like herding cats or platting fog: virtually impossible.

If I was a member of UKIP I would be deselecting members of the NEC for the amount of treachery and chaos they have wreaked on teh party.

There is a distinct lack of backbone and sense of purpose. No wonder, since winning the Brexit referendum UKIP have lost most of their sense of direction. It's a bit difficult with a one-policy party to steering it in a dirction once that policy has been achieved.

However, if I may, here's some ideas:

1. UKIP needs to start being an honest broker in UK politics, pointing out where party politics is adversly affecting the performance of government.

First off, on the NHS, UKIP needs to point out that both Labour and Conservative are correct. The Conservatives are correct in that record amounts of money are going into the NHS budget, but that Labour are also correct in that less of that money is going into NHS care.

The reason being that most of the NHS budget is going into paying lawsuits rather than front-line care.

UKIP should point out to the other parties that omitting the whole truth to serve a narrative is devisive and morally wrong.

UKIP policy should be that to solve the problem of the NHS you first need to be truthful in order to understand what is causing the problem and fix it rather than throwing money at it. i.e. Reducing lawsuits increases the money available for care.

Including (but not exclusively as Nigel farrage used to try and make it) the increase in the population. No need to look like a racist eh? But seriously, in the last decade the population must have increased by a third. Tax take hasn't risen and spending hasn't risen in step with those figures. So what's going on? Quite obviously a lot of those new immigrants aren't paying tax and the government therefore doesn't have the money to pay properly for the NHS.

Also the payouts of those lawsuits is calculated on the victim being cared for by private care for the rest of their lives. However in most cases that ongoing care is then provided free by the NHS. A double-whammy to the NHS. In these cases, NHS lawyers should add a clause to the payout that if the patient seeks ongoing care from the NHS after a payout for the condition the NHS caused, then it's only fair the NHS should charge private rates and recoup those costs.


2. UKIP needs to start defending UK forces and defence spending. As with the NHS the two main parties are telling part of the truth. Labour want to ditch the Trident nuclear deterrent as it is horrrendously expensive. It sucks money from other defence projects. However it is a necessary evil: we do need a nuclear option in order to defend the UK.

UKIP policy should be to defend Trident.

However, the rest of the defence budget needs to be spent more wisely. If anyone has followed the debacle of the Snatch LandRovers, they would also have followed the plethora of vehicles that have followed as replacements. Umpteen different vehicles have been procured with different capabilities and now relatively new vehicles are being sold off after being bought at huge cost. Such a waste.

UKIP needs to highlight this wastage and suggest a more intelligent and open procurement policy.

Now on the big issue of the moment, Brexit.

There is a whole raft of nonsense running around about Brexit. UKIP need to cut through the bullshit and start providing clarity on where policy should be and the cost effecitveness of any concessions we make to the EU.

For instance the budget that we have so far agreed (without any agreement on trade, which to me seems like extortion) UKIP should be there in the fray telling it like it is.

It should also be highlighting the differences between a hard Brexit and being in complete control of trade, immigration and borders and the cost of shackling ourselves to the EU single market and customs union.

Instead, UKIP are consumed with infighting and plots. Without leadership and stability in the party, there is a very grave danger of Brexit not happening or at least being weakened substantially at great cost to the UK taxpayer.

3. UKIP needs to be shown to be inclusive. It seems that women and minorities in the party are pretty poorly represented. They need to have more prominent candidates for more posts. Showing the party as a team of people rather than the Nigel Farrage party. Having "normal" people in post would help.

But for God's sake vet them first and make sure their girlfriends stay quiet!