MP Carswell calls for Ukip to focus efforts on referendum
UKIP’S ONLY MP has called on the party to stop blaming the media for its failure to secure more seats at the General Election and the infighting that has followed.
Douglas Carswell suggested the way Ukip had presented its case to voters had put off some voters who would otherwise have voted for the party.
He said: “Perhaps some of the more strident language that we used meant that some of those people were less inclined to vote Ukip when the General Election came along.
“Now rather than blaming this all on the media, I think sometimes what we need to do is to say did we handle our messaging as best we could?
“You know, we need to be careful that we don’t end up actually preventing from happening the very thing that we’re supposed to be about.
“We’re about getting this country outside the European Union and we need to be very careful that we don’t get distracted by all the offers of short money, all the offers of being on telly, all the offers of this and that, we don’t get distracted by all those arguments and find ourselves in a situation where our actions are making it harder for us to achieve the majority support for British withdrawal from the European Union.”
The Clacton MP also questioned the decision of Ukip’s na- tional executive committee to reject the resignation of party leader Nigel Farage.
He said: “Any credible party, any mature party that has just had an election campaign that didn’t achieve the result that it wanted quite normally and quite naturally and quite sensibly reflects on what went wrong, and quite sensibly asks if there are alternative ways of making sure that we get what we want next time.
“You know, if the Liberal Democrats, for example, were suddenly to come on to your programme and say that they had decided that, you know, all these key decisions had been taken and, you know, the National Executive had appointed Nick Clegg as leader for the next three years and we were going to plough on, I think a lot of people would say is that in the best interests of the Liberal Democrat Party.
“And I’m simply saying is this in the best interests of Ukip?”
Ukip’s deputy chairman, Suzanne Evans, said the party’s future was in the “compassionate, centre-ground” of British politics and in becoming a more inclusive organisation.
We need to be very careful that we don’t get distracted.
Ukip MP Douglas Carswell