How Much Damage Has Kilroy-Silk Done To UKIP And England?


Robert Kilroy-Silk MEP claims (not surprisingly) that his battle with the UKIP leadership is being fought for all the right, altruistic reasons and is nothing to do with ego. Kilroy-Silk claims that he should be the party's official leader because he is already formulating party policy, because he is the party's best known member and because the members want him to be leader. He admits that he wants power.

Kilroy-Silk's battle with UKIP is so intense that that though he came back into politics as a UKIP MEP, the former Labour MP has admitted he might stand at the next general election as an independent.

I think Kilroy-Silk's personal battle with the long established UKIP leadership has done the eurosceptic cause enormous damage. Pro-Europeans must be sniggering all the way to Brussels.

UKIP was never going to win the next election. Indeed, given our archaic and unfair voting system it was probably not going to win many seats. It might have even ended up winning no seats at all.

UKIP's significance was as a pressure group pushing the Conservative Party towards a stronger anti-EU policy. Knowing that UKIP was likely to win the support of many traditional Conservative voters, the Tory party leadership was under great pressure to promise more and more to the millions of Britons who don't want to be part of a United States of Europe but who do want to retain their national identity and independence.

Kilroy-Silk has caused confusion within UKIP. And I believe that the havoc he has created must affect UKIP's ability to concentrate on the Big Issue and must damage the party's appeal to the voters and therefore its threat to the Tories.

I don't know whether Kilroy-Silk is driven by ego and a personal desire for glory, or by a genuine desire to create a stronger, greater party and a belief that he is the only man who can do that job.

I really don't care because it doesn't matter a damn.

If UKIP was a strong, united party it would still be a growing force in British politics. And it would have its greatest effect by forcing change upon the main parties - particularly the Conservative Party, since the other two main parties are wedded to the idea of abolishing England and turning the former Great Britain into Scotland, Wales and nine anonymous regions.

My personal view is that Robert Kilroy-Silk has now probably done as much harm to England's chances of survival as any other contemporary British politician.

But England will survive the Labour Party. It will survive the Liberals. It will survive the Conservative Party. And it will survive Kilroy-Silk.

England will outlive them all.

I have no doubt of that.

Copyright Vernon Coleman 2004


Vernon Coleman's books on England and the EU (England Our England and the sequel Saving England) are available from the shop on this Web site, from other Web sites and from good terrestrial bookshops.

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