Fighting an election sooner than intended, it is struggling in the polls but Chuka Umunna insists the new party is on the up
When Chuka Umunna and his six Labour colleagues dramatically resigned from their party in early February, Umunna said he intended to move quickly and form a new party by the end of the year. But like so many ideas that have been formed around the Brexit process, that plan had to change even faster than intended.
When Theresa May conceded that an extension to the Brexit process would require British participation in European elections, Umunna and his fellow MPs found themselves needing to set up a new party, Change UK, in just two days.
Just a few days from the vote, the optimism of that moment has been tempered by the hard reality of the polling numbers, with the party currently at about 4%. But Umunna reflects on the urgency with which the nascent party swung into action.
“We literally registered the day after the Electoral Commission said to us: ‘You would need to do this urgently.’ And we said: ‘What does that mean?’ And they said: ‘Like, now,’” he remembers, sitting in the sunshine on a brewery rooftop in Cardiff, before one of the rallies he is fronting in many of the remain-leaning towns and cities where Change UK hopes to win support.
The party, whose campaign centres on forcing a new referendum and remaining in the EU, had to come up with a name, a brand and a campaign within hours. “It’s a startup. You have no idea what is going to happen at all,” he says.
“When you leave one of the established parties, you are putting everything on the line. You don’t do this in expectation of loads of glory, becoming the prime minister. You do it for what you believe. The one thing that people come up and say to you is to tell you that you are really brave. It’s everywhere I’ve gone, in every part of the country.”
As startups go, though, this one has had its teething problems, and the scramble to launch has led to a campaign that has felt somewhat haphazard. Their original name, the Independent Group, was refused by the Electoral Commission, as was their logo design for including a hashtag. Their new name sparked a row with petitions site Change.org, who accused them of using their brand.
Meanwhile, Umunna and his colleagues have had to contend with a series of dismal polls which has also shown strong results for the resurgent Liberal Democrats. The defection of a candidate to the Lib Dems has not helped matters.
Read more: www.theguardian.com