Debate Magazine

UKIP MEPs Well on Course to Hit 2019 Target Number of Resignations

Posted on the 21 January 2018 by Markwadsworth @Mark_Wadsworth

Back in 2014, I ran a Fun Online Poll on the topic of how many UKIP MEPs would have resigned by 2019 (the end of the current term of the current EU Parliament).
During previous terms, on average just over a quarter of their MEPs resigned/were sacked (summary here). Having gained 24 MEPs - the highest number of MEPs of any UK party in the 2014 elections, please note - I would expect at least six of them to have resigned/been sacked by the middle of next year.
The weighted average result in the Poll was six, although the results were pretty evenly spread between "none" and "more than half".
True to form, their sixth MEP resigned yesterday. The BBC says that brings them down to 18, although the UKIP page still shows 19 (having promptly removed Jonathan Arnott).
I suspect that the difference is because one UKIP who resigned, Roger Helmer, did the decent thing and allowed somebody else to take his seat (as a UKIP MEP) instead of hanging on as an indpendent. So a bit of misreporting by the BBC there, methinks.
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On a personal note, I really liked Jonathan Arnott. He was highly intelligent, approachable and seemed pretty liberal. IMHO he was too good for UKIP, but I couldn't swing him round to a more Georgist point of view.


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