The battle for the heart of the UCP is finally on.

Premier Danielle Smith’s ministers and MLAs are firing out messages to current and former party members.

It’s time to take the UCP back from the fringe separatists.

Smith’s crew urges people who might have lapsed to rejoin, attend the next general meeting and vote federalists onto the party board.

Separatists are said to hold at least half the elected seats on that board.

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The current group, led by president Rob Smith (no relation), has 17 elected members.

The premier is automatically the most senior person on the board. Two MLAs are non-voting members.

The rural regional directors are mostly separatists.

Some were deeply involved in the movement to unseat ex-premier Jason Kenney. Now they’ve turned to separatism.

A hostile board can take out a premier. That happened to ex-PC premier Alison Redford in 2014.

By March that year she had many critics, but board hostility was the last straw.

Some hardline separatists, including Jeffrey Rath, now vow to sign up masses of new UCP members........

© Calgary Herald