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A MESSAGE FROM MALCOLM WOOD SOUTH WEST COUNTIES ORGANISER - U.K. INDEPENDENCE PARTY - SOUTH WEST NEWS BULLETIN Hard Pounding : This is the name of a book by longstanding UKIP member Dr Peter Gardner. It is particularly fascinating for those of us who have lived through years of the turbulent history of UKIP, but newer members would gain a valuable insight into the Party from the book. The title (Wellington’s description of the battle of Waterloo of course) says it all. The first thing that came back to me was just how incredibly difficult it was to achieve any publicity at all. Just one example was the European Election of 1999 when, in the nick of time, we gained our first electoral success. At the time there was a Pro-European Conservative Party, run by a John Stevens, who stood for joining the Euro. The media, particularly the BBC, must have given them five or ten times the coverage they gave to us. Then the people spoke. UKIP scored 7.1% and they got 1.3%! It was only late on the night of the elections result that David Dimbleby was told that he had better mention our name because we were going to win seats. All night, until then, he had referred only to “others”. He must have pronounced our name, for that first time, through gritted teeth! We picked up 3 seats and suddenly withdrawal from the EU was on the national agenda. By 2004, when we gained 12 seats, even our founding leader Dr Alan Sked, who always does everything he can on behalf of the Tories to damage us at election time, was conceding our success. He admitted that when he started out, talking of leaving the EU was perceived as the first sign of madness around any polite dinner table; but not any longer! Members can be very proud of fighting their way from nowhere to become a major political force, hated and feared by the political classes. Now we get more of our message in a single week than we got back then in several months, and getting that message out to the British people is our first duty and great service to our country. We can be less proud of the internal commotions that followed success. In 1999, just as in 2004, some of the egos in the Party seemed unable to handle success and internal bickering and personal jealousies broke out. After 1999 it all but destroyed us but our cause is greater than the personalities and we survived: The first new Party to achieve electoral breakthrough since Labour 100 years ago. Unfortunately nothing changes and we still have enemies within who will listen to the enemies outside the Party rather than getting on with the job of saving our country. As Cicero put it two thousand years ago:
"A nation can survive
its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An
enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner
openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly
whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government
itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to
his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the
baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation,
he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city,
he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less
to be feared." This describes perfectly our political elite over the last three decades. We must make sure it does not also apply to any of our own members. I heartily recommend “Hard Pounding” which costs £9.99. Let me know if you want a copy. New Members: For the third successive month I can report an increased South West membership. Great credit must be given to the campaign inspired and directed from Lexdrum House by Trevor Colman and to all the hard work leafleting around most branches. Pride of place among the established branches must go to Christchurch who have increased their membership during the past 12 months by 26% by imaginative leafleting, incorporating not only our message but related local issues. Even more fascinating though is the effect of the SW campaign in the largely virgin UKIP territory of Bristol, aided by seven hoardings, where sheer dogged hard work by John Knight (from Wiltshire) and his team have increased membership by 29% in one constituency and 17% in another. This is a splendid example of people working outside their own area to help another. We can now treat Bristol as a separate area with representation on the South West Counties Committee. Local Elections: In the last bulletin I mentioned 70 on the prospective candidates list. Now we have 150, so we are well on course for our target of 200 in the South West. This is largely due to the enthusiasm at local meetings when we explain the research put into this election by the steering committee. We have logged every seat fought in 2003 and highlighted those where we can win or make a difference to the result. One of my daughters, then four years old, when physically negotiating back seat space in the car with our dog, used to complain “Cindy is getting her teeth ready”. The other parties could well say the same of UKIP! We still need lots more candidates so please consider standing, if only as a paper candidate, backing up the working candidates in the multiple seat wards where we cannot afford the second or third votes going to the other parties for lack of extra UKIP candidates. Please ring Jenny or me on 01722 744814 if you want to be on the list or if you just want to talk it through. Mainstream Media Coverage: As mentioned above this been at an all time high since our leadership contest and is having an effect on membership. Piers Merchant, who oversees the Head Office at Lexdrum House, mentioned to me recently that they have to reinforce staff when Nigel Farage is expected on the media because of the resulting acceleration in enquiries. Letters to the Press: I have been seeing some excellent letters from UKIP members recently, including 3 in a single edition of the Daily Telegraph. I had better avoid naming individuals, because I will miss someone out, but make sure John Kelly has sight of anything you get published and he will circulate to his extensive e-mail list. Also let him know if you are not on his list but want to be. The Political Scene: I am delighted to report that David Cameron is continuing to alienate his hitherto most loyal members, to our great benefit. We are not ungenerous people and you may have read that UKIP sent him a bouquet of flowers as a token of our appreciation. Watch this space, there may be some further good news of high-level defections coming to us. UKIP is not, however, a right wing party, but a common sense one and we have long known that a large number of our votes come from Labour supporters sickened by phoney Tony. Personally though I look forward to the day when the Lib/Dem voters finally realise that their leaders are plotting the end of their Nation. Then we can replace them as the third party in British politics at a national level, as we have already done in the European elections. The local elections are a good place to start telling them the truth about their anti-British leaders. Past Events: Many branches had successful Christmas functions. The largest I attended was Salisbury who got over 60 people to a “cottage pie” evening with Roger Knapman and made several hundred pounds profit. Others had pub events. I probably enjoyed East Devon, where Graham Booth was guest of honour, a bit too much since John Kelly was driving me! Weston-Super-Mare was also well worth the drive and the North Dorset regular dinner was exceptionally well attended in the run up to Christmas.
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