Farage’s greatest gamble – win or resign

Jonathan Lindsell, 3 March 2014

UKIP’s leader Nigel Farage has a spring (conference promise) in his step – UKIP will win this May’s EU parliamentary elections, and at least one seat in the general election. If they fail to place an MP, Farage will quit.

Timing is everything here. Baroness Ashton’s involvement in the Ukraine crisis demonstrates everything wrong (or right) with the EU, depending on your outlook.  The latest ONS net migration figures showed a rise to over 200,000, effectively proving that Cameron’s promise to restrict entry to the ‘tens of thousands’ is impossible. The House of Lords killed the EU Referendum Bill weeks ago, lending weight to UKIP’s argument that the traditional parties are out of touch with, or deliberately dismissive of, the national mood. Farage’s party bests the Liberal Democrats in most polls.

The scene is set for a drama. Unlike certain other politicians, Farage will be bound by his promises. He has made his career through savaging ministers and straw-MPs from ‘LibLabCon’ for their weasel words, slippery allegiances and self-interest. He has made great show of his party’s grassroots appeal, his own virtue of ‘straight talking’. If UKIP fail to win a seat next May, Farage will be gone.

Would this blot UKIP’s chances, and those of wider Euroscepticism?

Farage has been at the helm throughout the party’s rise to prominence, and it’s hard not to give him the credit. The likes of Paul Nuttall and Gerard Batten can perform on Newsnight or Question Time with reasonable aplomb, but Farage shines through a ferocious media schedule while simultaneously performing the running detox battle against the proverbial fruitcake.

Farage’s importance is highlighted by his critics. Marta Andreasen MEP, former Treasurer, joined the Conservatives in February after denouncing Farage’s “Stalinist…dictatorship…anti-woman…he doesn’t care about the membership or the grassroots.” While Andreasen’s grievances are understandable, Farage’s command-and-control model may be exactly that which keeps UKIP afloat.

UKIP currently has no manifesto – Farage called the last one ‘drivel’. A party with so short a history needs benign dictatorship to keep its members singing from hymn-sheets that are even vaguely similar. Despite the skipper’s strong-arming, UKIP has had its share of ‘loonies’ since Christmas – a spring conference speaker compared Polish Olympians to metal thieves and Somali athletes to pirates; one councillor blamed the Somerset floods on equal marriage legalisation; an MEP called on British Muslims to sign a charter denouncing parts of the Qur’an.

Is Farage an indispensable rudder for SS Ukip? Janice Atkinson, a prospective MEP who’s gathered prominence to counteract  Godfrey Bloom’s ‘sluts’ comments, was left scuppered on live television when she was unable to describe UKIP’s actual plans for leaving the EU. To add to the confusion, a fire-fighting article on the party website gives no additional detail and raises more questions. Farage routinely shrugs off such broadsides without incident.

So Farage’s promise may be a worse gamble than a confidence stunt: if the weather turns bad and UKIP wins no seats, the whole ship might go down with the captain.