"UKIP needs to broaden appeal"

Nick Assinder has suggested in a well crafted piece on the BBC website that the new leader of UKIP "needs to unite the party and avoid any future civil wars. But he also needs more than the single issue of Europe to write into his party's manifesto" if it is going to achieve a political breakthrough, now that the issue of EU membership no longer has the urgency it used to.

Jeffrey Titford apparently accepted this line in a news interview this morning, saying

"Whoever comes through, you're going to find that we're going to be involved far more with national politics and not so much selling the European line.

"We've won the European argument, the European Parliament argument, what we're looking for now is to get into British national politics and I think that will be right up on the agenda of the new leader."

He has doubtless cleared this with Nigel Farage.

But will the new leadership realise how much they have to change their ways? Policy spokespeople will actually have to speak and campaign about their own policy areas.

UKIP can't expect David Bannerman and John Whittaker to write all the policy, especially given that the education policy was disappointingly tame. And the subsequent debate on that showed that the policy document would have benefited from wider discussion within the party before its release.

This route into national politics really will require a cabinet approach. It will be very interesting to see if the new leadership can make this huge change.