Can Henry Bolton Turn UKIP around?

The above cartoon is being passed around Westminster by Tory members who may be counting their chickens far too early. It is quite possible that Henry Bolton may do a Corbyn routine and surprise everyone by defying UKIP's senior figures and putting the shambolic party into some sort of order, with the support of his party's rank and file.

Britain needs a party of protest, a role that was carried out very well indeed by the Liberal-Democrats until 2010. Then they decided that they were actually a serious party, so joined in a coalition with the Tories, voted to increase student fees, along with raising the pension age and doing over the claimants. They paid the price for that in 2015 and were given an extra dose of stuffing two years later. 

So, the political vacuum is there and UKIP could be the party to fill it. The Kippers are helped by the fact that they are now the party of hard Brexit, which gives them a very unique selling point indeed since there are a lot of people who just want to be rid of the whole EU debate. They voted to leave the EU and cannot understand why the government has not told Brussels to take its hook.

A streamlined UKIP would still not win many seats, but that is not the job of a protest party, is it? What UKIP could do is take votes off both main parties and continue to keep the political system off-balance and force both Labour and Tory to adopt a far harder line with the EU than they have hitherto been willing to do.

  Bolton has two things going for him. The first, funnily enough, is Jo Marney, his rather sexy bit of totty pictured above in all her glory who is clearly enamoured with the middle-aged, balding, former army captain. She may offend the Guardian reading wankerati, but such people are never going to vote for UKIP, anyway, so they can be ignored. 

Having access to Jo's assets gives our Henry a Trumpian type aura that offends the people who should be offended and makes millions of others chortle with delight at the randy old rogue. Just as Donald Trump is able to shrug off the howls of the people who have always hated him, not least because he gets decent talent like Stormy Daniels to lie down for him and then shows no signs of being embarrassed by his horizontal actions. Bolton can do likewise just so long as he remembers that Trump does not try to appeal to the wankier element in American society. He knows where his bedrock is to be found and he speaks only to them. Henry Bolton must do the same - and take the luscious Jo with him as a giant two-fingered salute to the British wankerati. Just so long as she is told to keep her pretty mouth shut, that is.

However, before that can happen, Bolton needs to structure UKIP professionally. He should remember that what kept the Liberals alive during the dark post-war years was the fact that they had an organisation to fall back on. The Social Democrats didn't, which is why the Liberals were able to swallow the SDP pretty much whole when it came to unifying both parties.

If Bolton can turn UKIP into more of a British army battalion, and less of a ragtag guerilla band that it is at the moment, then his battle will have been won. That means getting rid of the big swinging egos who will oppose any leader because they think that they can do a better job than him and just cannot understand why nobody else happens to agree with them. 

Nigel Farage, who is still the best asset that UKIP has, seems to be supporting Bolton in this and if Arron Banks, the money man behind UKIP when Farage led it can be brought onside, then the Banks/Farage plan to create a new hard Brexit pressure group may be put on hold to give our Henry a chance.

The next step will be the special conference that will be called to try and unseat Bolton. If he can appeal directly to the rank and file at that conference, then UKIP will be his and he can streamline and professionalise it. The party could be structured as Farage wanted to structure his pressure group into one that mimics both the Tories and New Labour. The membership will have no real control over anything, with policy being made at the national level as it is with the Tories. Focus groups would then be used to decide policy, an idea that was stolen from New Labour.

It all sounds very simple, but Nigel Farage was not able to turn UKIP's chaos into order, and neither were the two leaders who followed him, although they both tried. Henry Bolton might be more successful because so many senior figures have resigned over his affair with Jo Marney.

Britian needs a protest party and UKIP can still be it, if Henry Bolton can seize his moment.