NEWLY launched “centrist” party Change UK is in serious difficulty, with founder member Chuka Umunna quitting to join the Lib Dems after grim EU election results. But what about the other “new centrist party,” United for Change, set up by multimillionaire Simon Franks? 

According to its latest accounts, United for Change has plenty of money. But that doesn’t buy it success: in the latest stumble, its chief executive has resigned as its public launch recedes into the distance. 

This new party started as a company with the codename-sounding title Project One Movement. The latest accounts for the company, since renamed United for Change, were filed in June. 

Because United for Change is filing the less detailed accounts of a small company, these do not show its turnover. They do give some insight though. 

United for Change has a full-time staff recruited from PR, marketing and fundraising backgrounds, with a smattering of former student politicians and ex-Labour types. 

The accounts show that, even after paying their staff salaries and other costs, like polling, United for Change still has £263,319 of cash savings left in the bank. 

That is a fair war chest. When it was launched last April reports suggested they had access to £50 million in pledges. 

Those may be exaggerated promises, but it seems money isn’t a problem. Everything else is. Its founder member and current chief executive Ryan Wain told me that he resigned in June.

Wain became chief executive last July when his predecessor, finance investor and former Goldman Sachs investor Adam Knight also resigned to split away to set up his own new centrist party, called Twelve Together. 

Knight’s Twelve Together party never actually materialised and now Knight, like Umunna, is backing the Lib Dems.

United for Change is also lowering its target. Last December Wain told the Times he wanted to set up a movement  that “will win the next general election.”  

Last month Wain told The Real Agenda, a small news podcast, that United for Change was only “a political movement” with a “digital platform” not a “party.”

It is also stuck, since it plans to launch after Brexit because it doesn’t “want to be drawn into a Remain or Leave camp.”  

It planned to launch this summer, but Brexit delay is messing up timings: Franks decided against being a Remain party even though this caused Knight and other staff to leave, because, led by private polling, he wants to make tough noises on “confidence in our immigration system.” This has left his would-be party in limbo.

Franks has the fortune to bankroll this scheme by selling his DVDs-by-post company Lovefilm to Amazon for around £200m. 

But Amazon promptly closed Lovefilm down — it seems Amazon just wanted to absorb the subscribers for its online video service and shut down the competition. 

There is a good chance United for Change will just collapse, with what is left from the wreckage ending up in its bigger competitor the Lib Dems as well. 

On the positive side, there is a dystopian fear that the super-rich can easily influence politics by spending their money on polling, PR, spin and online advertising. 

The ongoing failure of United for Change suggests that trying to substitute money for an actual rank-and-file membership is much harder than it sounds.

I approached Franks for comment, but he made no response.