The Tories are cock-a-hoop about the defection of UKIP MEP David Campbell Bannerman – positively crowing, in fact. “There’s nothing more satisfying,” said one CCHQer, “than UKIP suffering.” Activists and MPs alike reckon that the Conservatives could have won a majority last May if it weren’t for UKIP in the south-west.
Vengeance is sweet, but is it of lasting importance? Campbell Bannerman has used a blog post to justify his action: David Cameron is an inspiring leader and an avowed eurosceptic. Perhaps it will become a salve for the right, increasingly seen as Cameron’s blind spot. Equally, the answers Campbell Bannerman gave to Total Politics’ Amber Elliott could be used in the tussle for wavering eurosceptics. He said:
“[UKIP’s] not a political party. I want to be in a fully-fledged political party with a full set of policies. Otherwise you might as well be a single issue pressure group…[I’ve been thinking about returning to the Conservatives for] quite a few months. UKIP never really lifted a finger to run a campaign to influence the voting system. Then they went and backed AV which was a disaster. That came out of the ether. There was no proper discussion about it all. A political party has got to have a clear strategy. It has to win MPs seats. It has to have a domestic policy. All Nigel [Farage] is interested in is vague policies.”
Most Ukippers will say that Campbell Bannerman is merely the sore loser of a leadership election, but his indescretions to Elliott chime with what Nigel Farage said in a recent interview with the Spectator, particularly that the party is struggling to define a clear policy agenda.
Farage is conscious of the problem, but unless he can galvanise his party into coherence then it is unlikely to improve on its modest electoral performances. Farage thinks he has plenty of time; Campbell Bannerman suggests he might not.
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