Looking at things from the inside of UKIP in the final weeks of 2012, we knew that
things were going our way. The internal drive to professionalise the party was
slowly bearing fruit. We had a more coherent approach to campaigning, to
building local branches and to fund raising. True this had not borne much in
the way of productive fruit at the PCC elections of November 2012, but we did
feel the campaigning had gone significantly better than in the General Election
of 2010. I certainly thought that our efforts had been better organised and
better targetted than before.
The only way, it seemed, was up. What none of
us knew was that events were about to take a hand. In fact, they already had.
While I was busy pounding pavements in the West Midlands others were fighting a
very different sort of campaign down in Northamptonshire. It was a campaign
that would confirm that the rise of UKIP
was well and truly underway.
On 6 August 2012, Conservative MP Louise
Mensch announced her resignation as MP for Corby and East Northants. She had won
the seat for the Conservatives from Labour in the 2010 General Election. Her
resignation was not a surprise as she had talked increasingly about the
difficulties of combining motherhood with a political career – during an
interview with the New Statesman in October 2011 she said she felt “stretched
multiple ways” – but the timing of a forced by-election was something the
Coalition Government would probably rather not have faced.
At first, UKIP was rather disturbed by the
prospect of the campaign. By-elections are expensive things to fight. The most
recent parliamentary by-election in March 2012 in Bradford West had seen us get
3.3% of the vote, down from 5.5% at Feltham in December 2011. The central party
was gathering strength for the County elections of 2013, hoping to use good
results then as a springboard for the far more important European Elections of
2014. An expensive by-election with an uncertain result in a constituency where
we did not have a very good record was not really what was needed.
Nevertheless, political parties exist to fight
elections. This was an election. UKIP
would fight it.
Corby was an unusual seat. It is a marginal
constituency split between the Labour stronghold of Corby and the more
Conservative rural villages and towns of East Northamptonshire. It had a
Conservative MP, William Powell, until 1997, when Phil Hope won the seat for
Labour with a majority of 11,860. By the time of the 2005 General Election
Labour’s majority had shrunk to 1,517. Louise Mensch won the seat back for the
Conservatives in the 2010 General Election with a majority of 1,951.
The town is staunchly Labour. Of the 30
borough councillors, 23 are Labour, four Conservative and three are Liberal
Democrats. This contrasts sharply with
much of the rest of the constituency. East Northamptonshire Council has 40
members, of whom 35 are Conservative and only two Labour. Oundle, for example,
is a pretty market town about nine miles east of Corby and has a public school
and an international arts festival. The 14 members of the town council are
non-partisan but the county councillor for the town, Rupert Reichhold, is a
Conservative.
UKIP had no councillors at all. However, UKIP
did have a local branch which was in a position to offer local information and
local expertise. I was not at the meeting that they had with the national
leadership just after the by-election was called, but I gather that they were
fairly optimistic of getting a reasonably good vote.
from "The Rise of UKIP" by Bill Etheridge MEP
Get your copy HERE
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rise-UKIP-Bill-Etheridge/dp/1909698334/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406731670&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=rise+of+ukip+bill+etheridfe
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