When Gerard Batten inherited UKIP in April 2018, the party was on its knees. Stripped of a reason to exist by the U.K.’s vote to leave the EU, it was rapidly haemorrhaging members and heading toward bankruptcy. Only an emergency request for donations, after Batten became leader, saved it from going under.
When Batten took over the party it had less than 18,000 members, membership is now thought to be approaching 27,000 according to senior UKIP officials.
In March 2018, UKIP was polling 1 percent in an ICM/Guardian poll. Under Batten's leadership the party climbed to 7 percent in a poll in September.
Despite all the good work done by Batten, there are those who are unhappy with UKIP's move to the right and the appointment of Tommy Robinson as UKIP special adviser on Muslim rape gangs. A number of high profile members, including Nigel Farage, have left the party calling for Batten to be removed as leader.
If Batten is forced out against his wishes, it's worth considering what the consequences might be for UKIP.
Most of the 9000 new members who joined the party since he became leader, joined because they supported the direction the party is now taking. If the party changes direction under a new leader, there is a risk that those new members would either resign or allow their memberships to lapse. That means UKIP could lose one third of its membership.
If Batten is removed, Tommy Robinson and his one million Facebook followers will walk away and so will UKIP's 3 youtube activists and their hundreds of thousands of followers. A vast pool of potential new members which UKIP has just started to tap into, will be lost.
If Batten goes, the Veteran's Against Terrorism group who support both Gerard and Tommy Robinson may well decide to sever all ties with UKIP. Another group that could do the same is the "Justice for Women and Children" group. A group set up to raise awareness of Rape, Sexual Assault, Grooming and Child Abuse. One of their organisers, Sharon Binks, spoke at the UKIP conference last September in Birmingham at the invitation of Gerard Batten.
Sharon Binks - image, youtube
With the loss of this level of support, UKIP will quickly go bankrupt.
The DFLA, who organise the London Freedom marches, and have close ties with Gerard Batten, would no longer offer UKIP a platform. This has been a valuable asset for UKIP as it gives the party publicity and is a good way to recruit new members.
Under a new, less controversial leader, the media will soon lose interest in the party and UKIP will become starved of publicity.
With Batten gone, UKIP will revert to being a one issue, Brexit only party at a time when the public are starting to experience Brexit fatigue. Two years on from the referendum, the idea that UKIP can rebuild its support on a Brexit only platform is wishful thinking.
A new, more moderate leader may well decide to rewrite Gerard's manifesto and remove the policy to ban Religious Slaughter. It's known that Farage didn't support the policy and it's quite possible a new leader may feel the same. This policy is supported by the vast majority of the membership and a large percentage of the British population.
If Batten is removed and UKIP backs away from confronting the issue of Muslim rape gangs after all the publicity this has been given by the media, the lower working class who live on the council estates where the grooming gangs operate, will feel betrayed. Any hope of gaining their support will be lost forever.
With the Snowflakes back in control, UKIP will be condemned to a slow death on the fringe of British politics, starved of publicity, irrelevant and soon forgotten.
Batten maintains that Tommy Robinson represents “ordinary, decent working-class people … who were the backbone of the Brexit vote in 2016.”
According to Batten, “To get anywhere under Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, you have to be a mass movement. Sometimes you have to take risks to do that.”
Tommy Robinson has hinted about where he sees his future. Speaking at the December 9 "Brexit Betrayal” rally, he said: “Let this be the start of a political mass movement in this country.”
As part of the emergency agreement which saw Batten take over as leader unopposed in the spring of 2018, he promised to hold another election after a year in the job. With Farage’s departure, alongside a dozen other senior figures, the party is devoid of big names to challenge Batten.
Batten himself has not decided whether he wants to continue leading UKIP and even said he might give up on politics entirely if Brexit is overturned.
“I’ll be 65 next year,” he said. “Do I really want to work seven days a week until I’m 70 years old?”
