UKIP is a new political party , of traditional values. What does that mean?

• Put simply, it is a party of Common Sense. Whether we like it or not, and in our heart of hearts we all do, we are all born into an extended family called Britain which feels a sense of kinship within itself. It is common sense to want to preserve this family intact and not to merge it with other countries who have their own and different aims and traditions. We must keep our independence and identity.

• It also stands for Small Government – we do not see the role of Government as that of interfering in every last detail of people’s lives ; on the contrary we believe in leaving people to run their own lives as they see fit, and intervening ONLY when abuses are occurring as a result.

UKIP is a NEW party, only formed in 1993. It currently has around 17,000 members, and is getting bigger. It is smaller than the much older “big three”, which are, however, shrinking rapidly. Tory and Labour have around 200,000 members apiece and the Lib Dems around 70,000 members.

Locally , shortly after UKIP’s formation, an Epsom branch was formed and also a Mole Valley branch. The most successful of the three constituencies to date has been Reigate; a branch here was formed in 1997 .The three branches merged into a larger branch in 2003/4, the Reigate, Epsom and Mole Valley branch.

UKIP has fielded candidates in all three constituencies in all General Elections since 1997. In the last General Election in Reigate in 2005, Jerry Wraith achieved almost 2000 votes and just failed to keep his deposit, scoring just under 5% of the vote.

In local elections, Reigate UKIP did not field a significant number of candidates until 2003, when 6 wards were contested. The number of wards contested has since steadily grown and in the May 2007 Borough Elections 12 of the 17 wards were contested. At the same time, our vote has steadily increased; in 2007 an average of 12% of the vote was achieved in the Borough, and UKIP became the third party in overall votes, pushing Labour into 4th place. In two wards – Banstead Village and Horley West
- we came 2nd, ahead of the Liberal Democrats.

In Mole Valley, 5 wards were contested in 2007, and in Epsom 1 ward.

In accordance with UKIP party policy, which discourages large multi-constituency branches and requires party units eventually to cover no more than one constituency , the branch demerged on July 1 , into the original Reigate branch, formed in 1997, and the new Mole Valley and Epsom branch.

Mole Valley and Epsom branch still covers two constituencies, but will aim to demerge further into two single branches at some point in the future.