UK Independence Party launch European election campaign
The UK Independence Party launches its European Parliament election campaign today.
The Party is defending three seats in the EP – those of Nigel Farage, Graham Booth and Jeffrey Titford – but with a Populus poll published yesterday putting its level of support at around 1 per cent and a reduction in the number of UK seats from 87 to 78, the UKIP is not widely expected to have a good election.
Nonetheless, the party has a number of high-profile supporters, including the former TV presenter and Labour MP Robert Kilroy-Silk, who is standing in the East Midlands region; Robin Page, the former presenter of “One Man and His Dog”, who is standing with Mr Titford in the Eastern Region; publicist Max Clifford, who is running the UKIP’s campaign; and Dick Morris, a former adviser to Bill Clinton.
The UKIP also claims to have an election fund of around £2 million – considerably more than it has had available at previous elections.
It is also putting up a full complement of candidates in every region of the UK, with the exception of Northern Ireland, which employs a different electoral system to the regions in Great Britain.
The UKIP proposes withdrawal from the EU, and its campaign slogan is “Say No” will from today be deployed on a series of billboards across the country.
Although the UKIP’s national level of support is belied by its strength in some regions, particularly the south west, the reduction in UK seats in the European Parliament, a consequence of May 1’s enlargement of the EU, is widely felt to work particularly to the disadvantage of smaller parties.
The UKIP’s three MEPs currently sit with the Europe of Democracies and Diversities (EDD) group in the EP.
Other members of the EDD group are the Netherlands’ ChristenUnie-SGP, France’s Combats Souverainistes and the Chasse Pêche Nature Traditions group, and Denmark’s June Movement (JuniBevægelsens). Altogether, the group consists of 17 MEPs.
