UKIP Leadership Special: The Talking Clock interviews David Campbell Bannerman MEP - EXCLUSIVE!

Following the first two exclusive UKIP leadership contest interviews, The Talking Clock is proud to again continue assisting UKIP members in their decision - and inform the wider public about the characters involved in the race to lead Britain's fourth biggest party.

We invited all of the leadership hopefuls to spell out, through The Talking Clock, their vision for the party and where they stand on a number of issues of interest to our readership.

Today, we present for you, our EXCLUSIVE interview with David Campbell Bannerman MEP.

Transcript:

Note - in order to present a level playing field, this is a verbatim transcript. It has not been tidied to erase speech hesitations and is as accurate a record of every word as is possible.

The first obvious question is why do you want to be leader of UKIP?

Well, I think what’s important about leadership of the party is where the next leader takes it. I think we have to look ahead these four years, the strategy has to be right – that’s what this is all about, I mean, personalities are important – yes, but really this is about strategy; who has the best vision for the party and what I believe in is a vision where we can achieve twenty MPs, thirty elected peers, and be the largest UK party in the European Parliament.

I believe we can achieve that, but we have to be more professional, we have to be more focussed and we have to work harder to achieve that objective but, errrm, I believe that is achievable and I’m already working on a lobbying campaign to try and get AV+, that could get us these twenty MPs – that’s Alternative Vote Plus – I’m already working on some various other things like Positive Vision that will get this message across. We have enormous potential, but we’ve got to be more professional to realise that vision.

So, what would you say are the main things that you would offer to the party if you were to win the leadership race?

Well I hope it’s a mixture of the vision I’ve touched on and experience. I mean, my experience: I’ve worked in Government as a special adviser on the Northern Ireland peace process – right at the top, working in Number Ten; I was Chairman of the Bow Group – a think tank of a hundred MPs; I’ve been a local councillor, I’ve fought loyally for UKIP in a number of General Elections and Scottish Parliamentary elections, I’ve fought in European elections and local elections as well and got, obviously, I was elected as an MEP.

So it’s experience, I think it’s experience of politics and of a strategy and of communications. I believe that we can realise that vision of twenty MPs, thirty elected peers, the largest UK party in the European Parliament but it will take proper professionalisation of the party, proper use of strategy and proper hard work and energy to do that.

So, how prepared are you for the media scrutiny that the leadership role would bring?

Oh, it’s inevitable. I enjoy the media, I’ve been on Newsnight, I’ve been opposite John Humphrys a couple of times on the Today programme, done all BBC News, Channel Four, ITV, local TV and radio as well – I’m very comfortable with the media; my style is different to certain other people that go on the media, errrm, but I’m told I come across well and I’m up for it – I enjoy talking to the media, I – of course, national press as well - I brief and I’ve got good relations with them as well - so, yes, I’m looking forward to the media side.

Do you see the UKIP leadership election as a matter solely for the UKIP members or do you think there will be broader interest in the wider electorate?

I think there will be wider interest, clearly it’s the members who vote and they’re the key people that must decide what they want. My view, as I say, it’s not about personalities, it’s about where – is who has the best strategy? Who has the best vision? I mean, I want to keep Nigel as the face of the party – Nigel Farage as the face of the party, but I think I’m better and professionalising and managing and driving the strategy of the party and I think we could work very well as a team and that’s what I think members actually want now.

So developing that theme, how happy have you been with the direction that UKIP has been heading in and what do you think UKIP has done well so far?

I think UKIP has achieved an awful lot – you know, we’re the largest… well, thirteen MEPS, we’re second only to the Tories in the European Parliament, we increased our vote by fifty percent. This is all good stuff, but you know, what can we achieve by being more professional, more organised, more strategic?

I think, you know, we’re only really touching on the true potential this party has and with the right leader in place that can actually drive the party in the right direction, I think we will achieve great things. But we won’t do this by just sitting on our hands and looking backward, I think that we have to look forward and take it to a higher plane. It’s not about criticising the past, it’s about seizing the opportunities of the future.

So, developing that into specifics going forward, what changes – if any – would you like to see in the UKIP focus?

Well as I say, I want to be more strategic, I want more of a team-based approach – I mean, not just a one-man band, I want to be, you know, have a strong team who are put there on the basis of meritocracy, good people from all backgrounds who can help us achieve our objectives. Specifically, I want a Head of Fundraising based on a commission basis who, who will actually be able to raise big funds for us in a methodical, professional way. I want a Head of Membership Marketing; I do set an objective to raise our membership to fifty thousand over three years.

We should be just behind the Liberals, they’re - the Lib Dems are on about seventy thousand. I reckon UKIP should – as the fourth largest party – we should be fifty thousand. I think a Head of Membership Marketing that knows the techniques of membership organisations can help deliver that and I just think that by professionalising party, working as a team, we can really raise our game and achieve the objectives we set.

So what do you think of the way UKIP is portrayed in the media and is there anything we can do to improve the image and the depth of coverage in the corporate media and, if so, how could that be achieved?

Unfortunately, I do think UKIP is portrayed negatively often. We’re accused of - of being… ummm… slightly sort of loony, we’re accused of being slightly racist – well, we’re neither of those things, we’re definitely not racist, we’re nowhere are we anything near like the BNP and I want to make that absolutely clear.

I mean, I want a Party Chairman in Abhijit Pandya who is there on merit - he is an LSE Prof… a Fellow, I beg your pardon, an LSE Fellow lecturing in international trade. I want him as the Party Chairman of UKIP because he would be brilliant in terms of arguing our case on free trade agreements and the Commonwealth and the opportunities in the Commonwealth and I think it would send out a message that you know, we are – you know – we are a broadly based party.

I think in terms of media, we just have to get across our messages more effectively and we need to knock down this more left-wing bias against us which says, you know - we’re ‘extreme’… we’re not extreme. Remember that we represent the majority of the British people. Even the BBC polls last year put us at fifty-five percent of the British people want to leave the European Union – umm, we represent the majority and we’re a common sense party with common sense solutions.

Talking about the levels of potential UKIP electoral support, how would you hope to excite and energise the public to vote positively for the party?

Well, as people probably know, I generated seventeen policy groups based on the talent – there’s huge talent in UKIP, some really key people. We produced a great manifesto which went down very well. I believe in policies. Some of the other candidates don’t believe in policies, I’m afraid this to me is a contest about whether we’re going to carry on with policies and be a proper political party or fall back into the single issue of the past – I don’t believe in being a single issue group, we’ll never appeal to the grass… to the majority of the British people by doing that.

We need policies right across the field to be relevant. Because when professional pollsters like MORI ask the British people what they’re interested in, what their top issues are, I’m afraid it isn’t the EU – it is health and education and crime and the economy and immigration – but of course, we all know the EU has a huge impact on all of those areas. So when we’re talking those policies we’re talking EU. But only by having policies are we relevant and we’re lost without that. It’s no good people mouthing platitudes about policy. If they don’t believe in policy, they cannot take this party forward.

Staying with UKIP internal politics for a moment, what would you like to see the UKIP branches differently and what are they doing well?

Well there’s a huge amount of loyalty and devotion and hard work from our branches. I believe they need more support, more communication, more training. I’m a great believer, when I talk about professionalising the party, it’s not about bringing in paid professionals – it’s about adopting more professional techniques and, you know, I was recently involved in assessment for Welsh candidates for the Welsh Assembly; that was very encouraging because we could identify areas where training could make a huge difference to our performance and make our candidates feel better.

We have to roll this out right across the UK and mean it, you know, our candidates need support, they’ve got the policies now, I’m going to do a lot more help on the policy front explaining how they can be used in campaigning, as campaign tools – but training will make a huge difference and financing, obviously, and general support and communications; all of these things will help people at a local level do better in their local elections.

What role does UKIP’s youth wing – Young Independence – play in your vision for the party?

Oh, very central. I think the young people… I was very inspired; I always have been by Young Independence. We have a lot of young people coming through who are very articulate, clever, principled young people and I’m, you know, I take huge heart from that – it’s very, very important.

I’ve really, I’m really honoured that so many have joined because we have policies other than to do with the EU, you know. The Chairman joined because he believes in grammar schools, for example, and this – by broadening the base and appealing right across the board, we can attract a lot of young people who are disenchanted with the EU but also want to hear about other policies, not just the EU – and that’s the way we want to go, I want to fund them properly, I want to ensure that we reach out through the universities, with university stands and something I really believe in – Fresher’s Fairs, showing the face of UKIP and attracting young talent into the party.

Okay, we said we want to talk about things other than the EU, but it won’t surprise you to learn there are a couple of questions on it…

Yes…

Polls obviously show the majority of British people are against it - I’m sure I don’t need to tell that to you - but if Parliament is supposed to represent the will of the people, how did we get here?

Well, we were lied to, errrm… Ted Heath said there’d be no loss of sovereignty by joining the then Common Market; that was a blatant lie. British politicians have lied blatantly because a lot of the British people are not with this project and only wanted trade. Now, in my view, we could keep the trade quite happily with a free trade agreement, a Swiss style model, errrm… and we can keep the benefits of free trade with the EU but we do not want the politics. Super trade, yes; superstate, no – and we’ve got to get that message across, but basically, we have a political class in Britain that has been lying to us year after year.

We have to expose those lies and we have to knock down the myths that we can’t leave the EU or it’ll cost three million jobs, that’s something I’m going to be doing with this Positive Vision project. Let’s knock down those myths and sell a positive, uplifting, common sense solution based on an independent Britain.

Some detractors of UKIP still label the party as a “one trick pony” despite this very comprehensive manifesto at the last General Election. So, away from the EU, what is the first thing that would go into your manifesto?

Well, errrm, I think, I mean the economy is the top, top issue at the moment and you can put immigration number two, so you take those.

The economy; no tax on minimum wage. You know, we’re not just an alternate Tory party – we must appeal to the Labour voter. I worked on the Norwich by-election, we hit the council estates in Norwich North and we did very well – we got the highest ever by-election result for UKIP by doing so. But no tax on minimum wage – that gives people an incentive to work, takes them out of benefits, rewards them properly and that’s fair and important. I think if you want to create jobs, scrapping National Insurance for employers over five years – twenty percent a year over five years – that is a huge incentive. I think where I criticise the Coalition government at the moment is that, yeah, they are cutting back on the public sector – quite rightly. However, what are they doing to generate jobs; to stimulate the economy? Nothing it seems, to me, and that is something we’ve got to focus on – you know, those two areas – I think incentivising work and creating jobs, you know, helping businesses create jobs, is absolutely essential to the economy.

And then immigration, the second one – well, we’ve got a comprehensive set of policies on immigration. We basically, we’ve got to manage and control immigration, get a grip on it, treat every immigrant the same – whether they’re from the EU or non-EU, let’s not discriminate against non-EU and let’s put a cap on the numbers, and use work permits – by all means, come in but you’ll only come in if we need the skills you have to offer.

Different topic – does the West Lothian Question require an answer?

Yes, it does. I’m very pro-the Union and I’m glad we are the U.K. Independence Party and it always will remain pro-Union under me.

What I believe on the West Lothian Question is something I’ve promoted over the last few years and that is that you strip out the national MPs or Assembly members like the AM’s in Wales - the sixty AM’s, the 129 MSPs in the Scottish Parliament – and you replace them with the national representatives from Westminster. So, I’ve been round the Scottish Parliament, it only meets about eight days a month now – it’s meant to be full-time and a lot of those days are short days; you can do it in a week. So, one week in every month, the English Parliament meets.

What’s the English Parliament? It’s not a new building; it’s actually just English MPs meeting in Westminster – Scottish MPs meeting in the Scottish Parliament, Welsh MPs in the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly, MPs meeting there as well from Northern Ireland. That would reunite the UK and it would be just a common-sense solution.

And the English – you know, it’s really more of an ‘English Question’. The English need to be treated properly. Then get rid of the Barnett Formula, be fair to England, treat them the same way as the rest of the UK.

Is the UK a police state?

Well, unfortunately, it is going that way. I mean, the European Arrest Warrant – a lot of our MEPs have done good work on that to highlight that – but it is very scary that we can be arrested now in the UK on the basis of crimes that don’t even exist in the UK. And be carted off – never mind Habeas Corpus, never mind the British legal system. This is why we’re overridden because under the EU Arrest Warrant, every EU legal system is as good as any other. Of course, that’s not the case and I’ve been in the Royal Courts of Justice – the Andrew Symeou case – and it’s scary to see, you know, where the British judge is unable to stop, unable to look at the evidence – prima facie evidence of crimes and they just have to see that the form is filled in properly and people are sent off to foreign jails, you know, to be… to languish there for years on end – that’s appalling.

And then you’ve got the European Investigation Order, just come in – this Coalition Government signed on this. Very similar – allows foreign courts to use our policemen and access to our banking records and our DNA, you know, for foreign crimes, for foreign courts. I mean, this is – this is absolutely appalling and we’ve got to really highlight these civil liberties issues.

Staying on that theme of civil liberties, a lot of people who are authors of ‘neighbouring’ blogs and people who contribute to them are making an increasing reference to common law and saying that aspects of our written constitution are actually being breached…

Yeah…

Do you have any response for them?

Well I mean, I think one needs… – I mean, UKIP sees the bigger picture in all of this. If you’re gonna have a European super state – which all the other parties deny is happening but clearly is the truth, if you have an EU super state then it must have one common system of law. And guess what? It’s not gonna be English law. It’s not gonna be English common law, it’s not going to be Habeas Corpus, it’s not going to be trial by jury – it’s going to be the continental system, Napoleonic Code, and that’s the way it’s going. And this increasingly by the backdoor; our own legal systems – Scotland, Wales, England – are being undermined by this Napoleonic Code and, I see – you know – this is all part of ‘the bigger project’, you know, you’ll need harmonised taxes and you need a harmonised legal system and it’s as clear as daylight to people from UKIP.

Okay, is there anything I’ve not asked you that you would like people to know when considering your candidacy for UKIP leadership?

Thank you, yes. I mean, I think we’ve touched on a lot of areas. I mean, I think – I suppose what I’d like to say is that I do believe that UKIP needs stability in its leadership. The media at conference were mocking the fact that we’ve had four leaders – or gonna have four leaders – in one year. We need stability, you know. Nigel had to step down before the General Election and then we’ve had Lord Pearson; we have an interim leader now, then we get a new leader. All, you know, ‘four leaders in one’ is what they’re saying.

I think we need someone that can stand the course for four years; that has the right vision, and can - clearly the experience – the right kind of experience to deliver that vision. It’s not about personalities; it is about what is the right vision for the party. And I hope that, you know, my track record as Party Chairman, as Deputy Leader, as Head of Policy – writing the manifesto, putting together these policy groups – shows people that I’m not just talk, I am about delivery and can professionalise this party. And I believe that we can actually achieve great things by realising our opportunities.

One slightly more light-hearted question to end with, David – the result of the leadership ballot is going to be announced on November 5th… would you like to comment on the significance of that date?

Well, I would hope that whoever wins would put a non-lethal bomb under Parliament and we’ll have a proper democratic revolution as a result of that ballot...

We would like to thank our very special UKIP contact for helping to make this possible. We won't embarrass them by naming them - they know who they are. Thank you!