by Richard Fullerton, Branch & Membership Secretary. Image via Steven Fettig.

Are you thinking hard? I am sure that the thought of joining the Brexit Party has crossed the minds of many UKIP members. After all, it won the European Parliament elections hands-down and is high up in the national polls and would almost certainly win seats in any General Election.

Contrast this with UKIP which lost its remaining MEP seats and had a similarly poor showing in the Local Elections. Additionally, we've been taking a hammering in the mainstream media (MSM) over our association with Tommy Robinson, and over some of our candidates for the European Parliament who said some stupid things on social media.

Despite this, I encourage you to stay loyal to UKIP - and here's why:

• We are nothing if not resilient. We have been here before and recovered. We can do it again. Look at the LibDems - they were down and out until the European Elections.


• I have great admiration and praise for how Nigel Farage has seized the moment and quite possibly is re-shaping British politics. But the Brexit Party is in its honeymoon period which will end soon. They will then have to start creating a manifesto, party rules, and party structure. The leadership team, mainly MEPs, is a smorgasbord of disgruntled Tories, ex-Kippers, ex-Labour party members, celebrity business people, favourites of Nigel Farage, and Marxists. Wait to see them fight like rats in a sack over their party's policies. And just wait for the MSM to turn its hostility to TBP in the way they went for us.


• Gerard Batten saved the party, for which we are grateful, but he must now make way for a new leader who can shed the party of the issues that damaged us and pursue a revised and exciting agenda.


• There is nothing to stop us working with TBP in the future - we have a shared goal of taking the UK out of the EU. It will just take pragmatism and commonsense by the leadership of both parties.


• We have a loyal membership base who have stuck by the party through some hard times since the referendum. We are now 30,000 strong.

Other parties have shifted to the left to appear 'nice' to appease the rapacious liberal media machine. Not us. We have the courage of our convictions to do the right thing for our country. Besides a 'No Deal' Brexit, that means we'd re-build our Armed Forces (and withdraw from the EU military apparatus), tackle immigration and housing (both are inextricably linked), increase police numbers, abolish the CPS and unfair extradition treaties, stop the mayhem in prisons and ensure criminals are properly punished, cancel the white elephant of HS2, bring back Grammar schools, abolish the Biased Broadcasting Company licence fee, massively cut foreign aid, fight radical Islam in this country, and stop the pervasive and cancerous threat of political correctness.

What's not to like? Does the Brexit Party have policies like these? No. That's why you should stick with UKIP.