Personal knowledge only gets you so far.
I've been in the Party since 2001, was Local Elections co-ordinator 2006-2008,
General Secretary 2008-2014 and then an MEP 2014 onwards.
So I know the candidates from my own
region - Lee Harris and Rhys Burriss - quite well. I know them well enough to be
confident that they've got skills to offer. Indeed, their skills are very
different from each other's: Lee is ex-military and Rhys has a legal
background.
I know Andrew Moncreiff and Sebastian
Fairweather; they are good people who have experience serving on previous NECs,
at a time when the NEC was working very well for the Party. I've worked
alongside them. I know both to be intelligent, calming influences who will do
what's right for the Party after due consideration. They're not on any 'wing' of
the Party as such; they're sensible, rational people who wish UKIP the best and
consider each proposal on its merits. If I want to make the NEC a better place,
I could do worse than elect people who WERE on it when it WAS a better
place!
Obviously, I know my brother, Simon
Arnott. He's got a broad range of experience: former military, going undercover
behind enemy lines in Afghanistan (he's a linguist, and they trained him as an
interpreter), charitable work and now runs his own business. He's much more
sociable than me (I'm the intellectual, and he's the type to enjoy a good party)
and his common-sense approach would really make a difference.
There are many others of the candidates
that I do know, but I'd say that I don't know half - or maybe even two-thirds of
them personally.
How do I make up my mind who to vote
for? I look for certain clues:
Who are their main supporters? Do they
have the backing of senior people in the Party? I look at their proposer,
seconder and assentors.
How long has the person been a member of
the Party?
Do they understand UKIP and have they
contested elections for us?
Have they ever been involved in any
scandal or generated negative publicity for the Party?
If they have their own ideas for
changing the Party (and we all do), does their statement say anything about how
they'll react if they're in a minority and can't get their pet idea
through?
Do they bring experience to bear:
business, military, legal, media, etc. - something which tells us they have the
skills to be on a management board of the Party?
Is their personal statement free from
spelling and grammar errors? (Don't get me wrong, some people struggle with
those things - but if you're standing for an important position like this, and
you do find them difficult, getting it proofread shows respect for the position
you're standing for)
Even if I know them, and like them, I
run people through these criteria; overall, two NEC members seeking re-election
- Piers Wauchope and Rob McWhirter - do well when compared against these
criteria.
If you read through your Independence
News carefully, you'll see that I've proposed, seconded and assented to several
of the candidates. If you're interested in my views - and you may not be, that's
okay! - that might give some further indication as to the direction of my
thoughts.
I won't tell anyone 100% how I'm voting
in the NEC election, and indeed, I'm going to see whether there's any absolutely
outstanding candidate I wasn't aware of before I make my final
decision.
But I could
certainly do a lot worse than to vote for the seven names mentioned in this
post. It's going to be a tough decision - even before reading the magazine
carefully there are probably 10-12 candidates that I really want to vote
for!
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