If you are going to call for a ground-breaking piece of regulation to be scrapped it is always best to do it before it has been introduced.

The UK Independence Party (UKIP) should take note.

The origins of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) date back to 2006 and seven years later – and with a potential cost of £2.6bn to the industry – the RDR is here and the business model of every UK financial adviser is never going to be the same.

The RDR is now over 100 days old and the impact is being felt all across the industry as adviser numbers continue to fall in the wake of the commission ban and move to greater transparency.

It is at this point that the UKIP decides to call for the RDR to be scrapped.

UKIP’s rationale is that RDR has made financial advice the preserve of the rich (if that wasn’t the case already) with MEP and economic and monetary affairs committee member Godfrey Bloom (who is a former IFA), saying that banning commission payments to advisers is wrong.

Bloom says: “UKIP is against the RDR on the basis that it is not libertarian. We believe you should be able to make any arrangement with your financial adviser that suits you both. It is no part of Government to directly interfere in liberty of contract.

“The lower and middle classes will not have access to financial advice and it will be a preserve of the rich, which is not what the Government wanted.”

Founded in 1993, UKIP currently has 27,000 members and has been built around calls for the UK to leave the European Union.

While many an adviser who has a small number of high net worth clients is likely to jump on the UKIP bandwagon the facts are that RDR has improved professional standards in financial services and weeded out many a sales cowboy who has sold a product because it is in their best interests and not the client’s.

The truth is that the RDR is here to stay. It is a work in progress that needs refining and there was always going to be unintended consequences. Scrapping it now would be a disaster as many an adviser has reshaped their model to fit the new regulatory regime.

Talk of caps on commissions or watering down the level of qualifications needed by an adviser in order to do business… these are the next steps in the RDR debate, not scrapping it. Then there is the education issue on explaining the value of financial advice to the masses.

Aborting the RDR at this stage doesn’t do anyone any favours. Political parties need to be forward thinking and not attack every niche issue simply to garner as many supporters as they can; but I fear many a financial adviser in the UK may see things very differently.

UKIP has got the headline – and the attention – it wanted.”