News today tells that Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP, is stepping down as party leader, to challenge the new speaker of the House of Commons as MP for Buckingham. Following the removal of the previous speaker for his role in the MP expenses scandal, the new speaker is not popular amongst his own party and was also implicated as having taken advantage of his own expenses. Ironically, Mr Farage has led a party that has plenty of its own instances of dodgy financial dealings.

This could be excellent news for all anti-EU protestors in this nation.

Mr Farage has been the very reason why this party has lost so many good members. He speaks superbly on TV and has gained a huge amount of votes in EU elections through his appeals for our nation to be free of EU rule, but the democracy that he speaks of has been denied to the members of the party he leads. This is the very reason that Veritas, Popular Alliance, UK First, etc, have sprung up and gone their own ways.

Many of the UKIP votes gained in the recent EU elections have come from those not willing to vote for the party in national elections, and therefore have been mostly protest votes against poor Labour and Tory parties. The core anti-EU vote, from many of those who truly oppose the EU, went to UK First.

Popular Alliance are very much in favour of smaller parties uniting under a common goal, allowing various single issue groups to represent their own issues under a united umbrella organisation.

UKIP now need to elect a new leader and hopefully a new manner in which they conduct their internal behavoir. If a party cannot conduct itself internally in a respectful and mature manner, then it deserves no support whatsoever from the general public. Is this now the time when UKIP can mend its ways and bring back the former members who feel that the they didn't leave the party, and that in fact, the party left them ?

The name "United Kingdom Independence Party" also needs looking at. Does the UK need to be completely independent from Europe and the rest of the world ? Popular Alliance members certainly do not think so.

European nations are our neighbours and we do benefit from common sense co-operation, we just do not need to be ruled by faceless body of bullies, that drains our finances, changes our laws and does not understand the meaning of the word "NO."

The name Popular Alliance suggests a respectful Alliance of people with the same popular, common sense views and the name UK First certainly says that we should consider UK matters as our priority, however this does not mean that we do need a smaller organisation to enhance the shared benefits we can gain from co-operating with our neighbours. An independent UK suggests isolation and  none co-operation, which does nobody any good, short or long term. We need a new relationship with our European neighbours - and many other EU member citizens agree with this. The EU has completely over-stepped its mark.

The UK is quite capable of ruling itself, running its own courts, laws, statutes etc, and in many ways, it has been the British way that has influenced many issues brought to bare in other European countries.

It has however, been the inconsistency of adhering to those laws that has irked so many Brits - (eg) the French farmers, the Belgian liberalism, our monies contributing to so many projects across Europe, which then lead to black holes in the budgets for so many similar projects in the UK (eg : new Power Stations, sustainability of UK farming).

Can a new UKIP leader be elected without behind-the-scenes interference from Mr Farage ? He says it has nothing to do with him, and yet the top table is full of his existing junta.

Perhaps the word "Independence" can be used internally and allow their members to democratically elect a fair new leader who can unite the whole anti-EU movement upon these shores once and for all, because we cannot rely upon the present 3 main parties to protect us from the European Union.

We wait in hope.