The UKIP leadership contest is pivotal for the future of
the Party.
Speaking as a UKIP
MEP, I think it’s no
exaggeration to suggest that the wrong decision now could spell the death-knell
for the party.
If a candidate is elected who moves the party towards a
bland, establishment-style politics, too far away from its core vote and
demographics, we lose the basis of our electoral appeal.
If, on the other hand, the party lurches too far to the
Right, then it’ll be a mirror image of the
Labour Party’s mistake in choosing Jeremy Corbyn as
leader.
The job description is pretty tough. We need a candidate
who isn’t in one ‘faction’ or another, someone who can truly unite the
party.
We need a candidate who is UKIP through and through, who
has been a member through the good times and the bad, who has the capacity to be
unfazed and not panic because they personally have experience of going through
worse times and navigating us out through the other end.
Given the internal problems within UKIP, we need a
candidate with vast experience of the inner workings of the party. We need a
candidate who has experience of full-time elected office. We need a candidate
who can appeal to working-class people – how else can we take advantage of the
disconnect between Corbyn and traditional Labour voters?
I’m going to admit something that I never thought I would
have to say. Three weeks ago, I had almost given up hope. I knew that if I stood
for the party leadership I wouldn’t get enough support to win, and I couldn’t
see another candidate with the slightest hope of uniting us.
I was preparing for the worst, as many were, fearing that
the party would shatter into a thousand ugly pieces.
There was the altercation in Strasbourg between two of my
colleagues. After 15 years of loyal service to the party, there was a part of me
that felt like giving up and walking away.
Yet, in the days that followed, something remarkable
happened. The mood in UKIP changed almost overnight; the party collectively woke
up to the existential threat that we faced. There was suddenly a desire to
unite, to find compromise, to work together once more.
But there was still no candidate for leader. I had
despondent conversations with one of my trusted MEP friends. He, like me, lacked
the profile to be able to win a leadership contest. We both knew what needed to
be done; neither of us could do it.
Then came the game-changer: Paul Nuttall agreed to put
party first, sacrificing much in his personal life to do so, and stand for party
leader. The future of UKIP suddenly seemed much brighter with the only qualified
candidate to follow Nigel ready and willing to take on the
job.
I believe that the coming days we’ll see a serious
coalescing of support amongst UKIP’s MEPs for Paul Nuttall as the next leader.
He’s been a member of the party since, I think, 2004. His blood runs purple, and
to him the survival of UKIP matters personally. When he took over as party
chairman in 2008, the party was in an even worse state than it is in today – I
remember being utterly horrified by what happened in September 2008. Under
Paul’s chairmanship, the party was back on track by the European elections in
2009, where we had a huge breakthrough.
What does this mean for the North East? I note the words of
Labour’s Brendan Chilton (General Secretary of Labour Leave – and one of the
Labour people to truly understand the Brexit vote) this morning: “If Paul
Nuttall wins the UKIP leadership, my party, Labour, will be fighting for its
life in the heartlands.” This stark, rare, honest analysis is spot on in my
view.
A Paul Nuttall-led UKIP will be a UKIP led by a Northerner,
someone who understands the North and has spent plenty of time in the North
East. He’s spent more time here than any other national UKIP figure, visiting
Gateshead, Newcastle, Blyth, Sunderland, North Shields, Hartlepool, Redcar,
Middlesbrough and others, many multiple times.
He’s shown a commitment to the North East, understands how
to take the fight to Labour, and is vastly experienced
politically.
If I were the Labour Party, I would be very worried indeed
about Paul winning. As a UKIP MEP, I’m delighted to endorse
him.
Jonathan Arnott MEP. North East England.
Chronicle.
