“And fifthly your honour…”
In what must rank as one of the greatest electoral cockups in British history, UKIP has admitted that its London Mayoral nomination papers were filled in wrongly, meaning the party’s candidate Lawrence Webb – and candidates for the London Assembly – were listed under “Fresh Choice For London” by mistake.
The party were hoping for two seats on the London Assembly after polling at 8%, but at the end of the day, all those faithfully cast votes counted for nothing, zilch, zero – nul points.
Party leader Nigel Farage said the unforgiveable blunder probably meant large numbers of would-be supporters assumed UKIP was not taking part in the ballot, and gave their vote to someone else. Er….and also 8% of the London electorate cast their vote for nothing. What a bloody shambles.
Nigel the Nonplussed told reporters, “We can only put our hands up and say sorry to voters who wanted to back us but couldn’t find our name on the ballot paper. We hoped and expected to get two seats, but this has cost us dear. It is a lesson hard learned.”
A lesson hard learned, eh? Perhaps UKippers everywhere need an open debate about what the real significance of this ‘hard learned’ lesson is. But for The Slog, it’s what it has always been: UKIP’s organisation and leadership is pure AmDram codswallop.
The Slog 