Diane James Takes Over UKIP - But What Will She Do With It?

The election of Diane James today was accompanied by a titbit of data.  She gained the support of 8,400 UKIP members.  The other candidates shared around 6,500 between them.  So the party that came third in the popular vote at the 2015 election has around 15,000 activists engaged enough to cast a vote in the leadership election.  Of those 15,000 many will play no role in politics apart from paying their subscription.  It's probably a generous estimation if we say that only half of those people will do very much at all.  That leaves about a dozen active members per constituency.


This is not the basis for a strong political force.  And in fact the emergence of UKIP as an organisation with any kind of grassroots support is something that followed on from a media led PR style campaign run by Nigel Farage.  All credit to him for this by the way.  It can't have been easy.  But the plain fact is that the news agenda has been favourable to UKIP's basic cause over the last few years.  The EU has had self inflicted problems with the Euro, and responded poorly to the migrant crisis.  And we are now coming out of the EU, so the big goal of the party has been achieved.  It is rather hard to see what is going to enthuse people to join in the near future.  Brexit might well run into problems, but UKIP are not very likely to be the answer to those problems.

All in all, it is rather hard to see what exactly Diane James is even going to do with her newly won job.  The obvious starting point is building up a base on local councils.  That is a way of keeping her party busy and establishing a track record.  It is also more or less the only way to get the training to learn how to do do politics.  The trouble is - with so few members they are going to struggle to find enough candidates let alone put the work behind them.  

For comparison, the other party that will be keen to be making a mark in local elections are the Lib Dems.  They have been at it for decades.  Since the election they have signed up 16,000 new members. That is roughly as many as voted in the UKIP leadership election.   These things may not get reported much,  but over time they matter.  Imagine yourself as the lonely UKIP candidate walking the streets and observing just how many more Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem workers there are knocking on doors and delivering leaflets.  And for what?  You've already won the big prize.

Politics is full of surprises but the way things are looking UKIP are set to fade away.