Ukip should return – our politics depends on it

‘The return of Ukip’ declared the headline on our cover story last week. The polling boffin Matthew Goodwin to whose analysis this referred was in fact more careful. Professor Goodwin did argue, however, that the potential may be there for a Ukip revival.

So it may. But the figures for new recruits that he cites are modest. The doubt he describes as surrounding Nigel Farage’s chances of a comeback is real. Ukip’s present stance under its latest leader Gerard Batten (who has developed links with the campaign for the disgraced and imprisoned former leader of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson) looks crazier by the week. And there’s a world of difference between disappointed Brexiteer respondents telling pollsters they’d support Ukip, and the solid organisational revival that would be required of that carcass of a party if it is to present the Conservatives and Labour with a real threat in a real general election.