Alan Sked founded the United Kingdom Independence Party around twenty years ago, but dropped out at an early stage. He has now registered a new political party which he hopes will displace UKIP as the party of choice for voters who want Britain to leave the EU.
He claims that the party will espouse policies which he does not regard as extreme, and that it will not contest elections for the European Parliament as he considers that doing so would be hypocritical.
I remember back in 1999 when UKIP first won seats in the European Parliament. Their election flyers promised that their MEPs would not be part of the Brussels gravy train, and would claim only reasonable expenses. Shortly after the election, one of the three UKIP MEPs wrote in a national newspaper that he was astonished at how easy it was for MEPs to make money by abusing their expenses.
UKIP in those days seemed so innocent in comparison with the major parties, but it did not last long. Their MEPs soon made themselves comfortable on the gravy train, and one of them was even secretly filmed saying that he could make shedloads of money as an MEP.
Nevertheless I think Sked is wrong to argue that his new party should not contest elections to the European Parliament. Being elected to the European Parliament does a lot to raise a party's profile, and there is not one party in the UK which has ever achieved any significant electoral success which did not contest European elections.
A better idea would be to contest European elections, but require that the party chairman is not one of the candidates. The chairman should then be allowed to discipline any MEP who claims more than reasonable expenses.
This contrasts with UKIP, which for many years now has been led either by MEPs with dubious loyalties or else (briefly) by the ineffective Lord Pearson.
Another thing Sked needs to understand is that unless his new political party is to be his own private fiefdom, then he will not be able to dictate its policy direction. Whatever its policies might be initially, the membership will always be able to force change if they want to.
Alan Sked appears deluded, and I do not expect his new party to last long.
Previous posts about UKIP concern its electoral fortunes, press smears, the behaviour of one of its councillors, more press smears, and Enoch Powell.
Steve Crowther, the UKIP chairman is not an MEP and is not on the candidate list for 2014. If you mean that the party leader should not be an MEP then I agree with you.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that comment.
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, a registered political party is required to have a chairman, and it is normal in small parties for the chairman to be also the leader. The UKIP website lists Nigel Farage as the leader and Steve Crowther as the chairman. I do not know whether or not the chairman of UKIP is able to discipline the party's MEPs.
My comment was not about UKIP though, but about New Deal (Alan Sked's new party), and I do not know what that party's constitution will be. For the time being I assume that the party will be led by its chairman.