09/05/2015
It is for the pollsters to sort out their own grief, and for the respective political parties to do their own
post mortems to find out (if they can), why they failed. That, of course, will not happen with Ukip, whose activists are already doing what they always do â blame everyone else for their own inadequacies.
Furthermore, Farage has injected his own poison pill into the party, from which he has supposedly relinquished leadership. By standing down yet leaving it open as to whether he stands for the leadership election in September, he has paved the way of a civil war within the party.
When the contenders have fought themselves to a standstill, he will then offer himself as the saviour, ready to rebuild the wreckage of what is left of the party.
This is a classic Farage "play", and will demonstrate just how far detached the man is from the task Ukip was set up to achieve â leaving the EU. This is all about "me-me-me" and, as with his
faux valedictory speech, fails to take any account of the trivial issue of an EU referendum.
Only thus could the leader of a supposed anti-EU party afford to take four months off to consider his future, when starting gun has been fired on a referendum, and it should be all hands to the pump.
In a way, though, Farage is doing us a favour, keeping his party preoccupied and less able to interfere while we get on with planning a campaign â and that is where our focus must be.
What an odd situation that puts us in. No sooner than we applaud the "victory" of the man who is committed to giving us a referendum (and has re-affirmed his intent) than we have to mark him down as our enemy, the man slated as the only one who can keep us in the European Union â the man we have to beat if we are to win the "out" campaign.
Make no bones about it, we are going to be hard put to win the battle, but it is now no secret that we have been working with the Campaign for an Independent Britain and the Bruges Group, with The Harrogate Agenda and EU Referendum, with others, to create an alliance which could form the nucleus of a campaigning group.
For much of the initial work we are indebted to Peter Troy, whose gift for organisation had been put to good effect. Sadly, Monday evening, week last, Peter suffered a massive heart attack and has been unconscious ever since. While he is currently in intensive care in the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, I was told Friday morning that he is not expected to recover.
I am sure Peter would want us to continue with the work, and we have another meeting planned on 19 May, to progress the campaign, which will go ahead â unfortunately without him. But I intend to dedicate the Flexcit plan to his memory.
That sombre note reinforces our commitment to the task ahead. This is not a game, and no one should under-estimate our resolve. Mr Cameron, public enemy number one - has made his move. Now it's our turn to win. Peter Troy and many others would expect no less of us.
