Friday 5 April 2013

Winning Elections is like the National Lottery. You have to buy a ticket

Winning Elections is like the National Lottery. You have to buy a ticket

If you buy the ticket, there is a remote chance of winning. If you don’t buy the ticket, there is a 100 percent chance that you will not win. If political parties kept waiting for elections that they can win, they would not win any election.

Having been a member of the party for more than a decade, I know about the famous debate and the arguments of those who do not want to fight elections because they might lose. Sun Tzu, the famous Chinese strategist said that battles are lost before they even start and I reckon that the defeatist argument will certainly lead to defeat.

For many years the Croydon Branch, when the Croydon Branch was a strong branch, wanted to stand a candidate and they didn’t do it even when there were people around able to pay for their deposits and there were many people ready and willing to support whoever could throw his or her hat inside the ring.

For many years, in many areas of London (and of the rest of the country), the British National Party has not had a full slate of candidates because somebody, somewhere, thought that it was a bad strategy to fight elections that they thought could not be won.

UKIP is making inroads being second in Eastleigh and first in East London. We did not fight Eastleigh and we fought in East London. If somebody expects that suddenly perception about the British National Party, a perception created by misinformation and stereotypes propagated by the mass media, will change, they should go and fall asleep like Rip Van Winkle. Every time that we do not fight an election, we make a further step into oblivion. If you don’t buy the lottery ticket, you will have no chance whatsoever of winning the lottery.

A by-election in Longbridge in Barking is just around the corner and there are other by-elections happening across the country. Will we stand up and fight or will we coward and walk towards the bushes hoping that some day there will be a perfect election that we will win?

Like armies are made to fight wars, political parties are made to fight elections. Fighting elections is the very reason why they exist as political parties. We have heard not once, not twice, not thrice, but on a regular basis how British National Party supporters abstain or end up voting for other political parties because the British National Party does not stand candidates in their areas.

I come from a different world, a different tradition, a tradition that says that you must die with your boots on. When those in command walk away from the true business of a political party, those who follow become despondent and very soon talk of leadership challenges arises.

Political parties, like religion, are items of faith. Most people work as volunteers because they believe that they can make a difference. When motivation is gone, when faith has been diluted, political parties are weakened and sometimes vanish forever.


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