What is actually going on inside UKIP to encourage such a major stalwart/supporter to do a 180% about turn and not only resign but wish the Party to which he has been dedicated to fail?
No doubt the Party line will state that he was a suspect BNP infiltrator all along.
Although recently I have been critical of how the party is being led, I was still always wanting the party to win, as Britain's only hope. But I have now altogether lost faith. Suddenly I find I no longer want UKIP to be electorally successful, since I feel UKIP tarnishes the cause for which it ostensibly stands.
It is now just the Nigel-Farage Party I always said I would never resign, since it was my party as much as it was Nigel Farage's,but this sudden loss of faith these last ten days has made me realise it would not be honest to continue as a member.
My earlier idea had been that if I felt that the leadership was lacking, e.g. over opposition to the Lisbon Treaty, then we should remedy the lack, which was what we started to do with the Stop the Treaty rally. I was also keen on the idea that as so many activists had left UKIP over the years, those of us still in UKIP should build bridges to them. I now find that we (those of us who had stayed with UKIP) are now the junior partner here, and there are now more patriots outside UKIP than remain inside.
Even though I now find there is no light at the end of the tunnel, I respect those who somehow still feel they must stay inside the fold and fight there.
I remember the arguments I myself put in the past to try to persuade others to stay. Nor do I hold no animus against those who feel they must continue to support Nigel Farage. I am as sharp a critic as any of actions or inactions, but I cannot bring myself to dislike persons. I have always hated the personal vituperation and character assassination that is rife in someUKIP quarters in both supporters and critics of the leadership.
The worst of these have been the frustrated rants of Greg Lance Watkins, which are widely circulated but so crude as to verge on the silly, and the much more professionally composed black propaganda of Mark Croucher, an expert at making bricks without straw. I shall be glad to leave all that behind.
Although I have been critical inside the party, outside I have been apassionate spokesman for it. In my own town of Long Eaton many people know my name only as the representative of UKIP. My friends and relations have come to avoid getting on to the subject of politics with me; I had become a UKIP bore to them. It is going to be a personal embarrassment having to go public with an admission that I now find UKIP unfit for purpose.
I will blind-copy this to all the friends and acquaintances in UKIP. As I have got a lot on my plate at the moment - not only long-term commitments tobook publishers but also a short-term writing contract with tightdeadlines - I emphatically do not want to spend any time in telephone discussions. But I will try to reply to emails. However, now I have made my decision, UKIP is the past, it's a dead duck as far as I am concerned, and I no longer interested in discussing what is happening inside it.
Best regards
Geoffrey Kingscott,
Writer and Translator
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