The task facing UKIP's next leader

JohnPage

It'll probably be Farage again, or if not another Farage supported non-entity chosen to be no threat to him. You are talking about UKIP as if it were a proper political party. It's not.

Nicholas

" . . . they increased their share of the vote in the general election".

Yes, remind me again how many seats they won and at whose expense their vote share was increased?

You hit the nail on the head with your comment about whether they are more a party or a pressure group. Until the right can articulate a broad philosophy instead of cherry-picking manifesto issues they will face defeat at the hands of the united Left, which is a state of mind not burdened with details. So far, rump parties like UKIP and the ideological Centre-Left confusion of the coalition are fracturing the right. What is the right and what does it mean? What is its vision for Britain? Why is it so easily characterised as unattractive and so hard to understand?

Interested

What is a Political Party and how does one recognise it?

Private Schultz

@ John Page

Couldn't have put it better.

Clear Memories

Any thinking person knows that UKIP are simply the establishment/meida-approved alternative to the BNP.

Giving voters a choice dilutes the vote and allows mainstream politicians to claim that those opposed to the EU are simply either a misguided minority or a bunch of racist bigots.

Check out what the BNP are up to in Brussels and you'll find things aren't working out as those who wish to put down the British white man would wish.

David Lindsay

Farewell to Lord Pearson, High Priest of the cult of the fictional Margaret Thatcher, a figure who no more signed the Single European Act or joined the ERM than she signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, replaced O-levels with GCSEs, closed so many grammar schools that there were not enough left at the end for her record ever to be equalled, sat in the Cabinet that abolished the historic counties, arrogated to herself the monarchical and royal roles on the national and international stages, or gave the grateful nation the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the Children Act, and abortion up to birth. All eyes are now on the pro-drugs Nigel Farage.

At Ludlow this year, UKIP put up the former Conservative MP there, Christopher Gill. Gill is a mainstay of the doolally Freedom Association, advocates of every economic policy that has now been spectacularly discredited, and historically funded by apartheid South Africa. Gill's adoption indicated that Pearson's UKIP had nothing to offer that half of its vote for Strasbourg which is Old Labour or, especially in the West Country, Old Liberal rather than Old Tory.

Nor to offer the Old Tory half, come to that. Gill's and Pearson's position had nothing to do with that of those Tories who opposed first Thatcherism and then Maastricht. The economically populist and pro-manufacturing, morally and socially conservative, staunchly Unionist and pro-military, strongly church-based Toryism of the Wintertons. Or the unyieldingly constitutionalist and civil libertarian Toryism of Richard Shepherd. Or the Keynesian, pro-Commonwealth, anti-neoconservative Toryism of Sir Peter Tapsell. Or the conservationist, agrarian, anti-nuclear (indeed, Quaker) Toryism of UKIP's President, Sir Richard Body.

Verityred

UKIP are a badly drawn cartoon of a political party. Catching glimpses of the assortment of loons they have as candidates on election night was the political equivalent of gazing at the contents of the freaks tent at a late C19 American carnival. Very funny though.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

@John Page

"You are talking about UKIP as if it were a proper political party. It's not"

Considering all the "big three" are quite happy to cede sovereignty to a foreign, undemocratic bureaucracy, they hardly count either. They act more like EU QANGOs or Regional Gauleiters.

TrevorsDen

'Until the right can articulate a broad philosophy instead of cherry-picking manifesto issues they will face defeat at the hands of the united Left' ---- united left? I see no united left.

And I do not see any absence of articulating of tory philosophy. But philosophy does not win elections. governments lose them.

Mr Lindsay is indeed correct - the memory of Mrs Thatcher has been greatly mythologised. But in terms of the broad picture much of what she did has not been undone - like the union laws. Britain was spiralling into a union dominated lefty hegemony and that was defeated. Currently Britain is spiralling into runaway debt and overspending. This is the main task of this govt; to put expenditure and future growth on a sound footing. Thatcher made mistakes as will Cameron and the coalition, but they will not be socialist mistakes and heaven forbid this govt. will make mistakes as catastrophic as Brown's.

But on topic - UKIP are just a crying baby throw my toys out of the pram party. It will not and cannot ever achieve anything. Just the outlet for a bunch of grim chip on the shoulder grumps. IT is the party that is failing to articulate any realistic response to the EU.

mairt

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4350

BigMax

JohnPage

proper political party?

You mean like the conservatives who have just committed us to the EIO? Or who are happy with the european arrest warrant? or who have just rolled over under the Lisbon treaty?

If that's what you mean a real political party then you can keep it.

Nicholas

" . . . united left? I see no united left."

You must be blind then.

Diomalco

It doesn't matter who leads UKIP or the BNP the last election showed a vote for either of them was a wasted vote. They probably didn't pick up enough votes to make a difference to the Labour Party or enough to alter the fact of the coalition we presently have in government.

Should the coalition fall my money is on a majority of around 35+ seats for the Conservatives if nothing comes along before which thoroughly discredits them. These gains will hit Liberals more than the Labour Party, which will continue to be unelectable until those involved in the previous government have retired to PR, lobbying, unions and banking.

Liberty

UKIP have no chance of gaining power or holding the balance of power in Westminster. The EU parliament is a talking shop. EU elections are to give us little people the illusion of power every five years and no matter how well UKIP did it would make no difference.

The Tories, LDs and Labour will never reduce the power of the EU. The EU gives them power without elections or having to explain themselves or write tedious manifestos, not having to raise donations from people they hate and no constituencies where they have to be nice to people they despise and even sometimes do as they say. They can make the big decisions behind closed doors or fancy restaurants without having to justify them afterwards to anyone. Junkets to nice places, stay in five star hotels, first class travel and appear on TV and expound on the great issues of the day without having to be interviewed by that ghastly Paxman.

Even voting UKIP is an act of pointless indulgence that the Tories and Labour like really because it is an outlet for protest that can never impact on them.

David Lindsay

TrevorsDen, that things have not been undone does not necessarily mean that they are good in themselves. For example, there would now be no problem of illegal, or even a lot of legal, immigration if it were still a matter of "no union card, no job". And whenever there is a strike anyway, ask yourself how effective, in their own terms, the unrepealed Thatcher anti-union laws really are.

If people want "a real party" or "a proper party", then how about a party in the tradition of the Attlee Government, which refused to join the European Coal and Steel Community on the grounds that it was "the blueprint for a federal state" which "the Durham miners would never wear"? Gaitskell rejected European federalism as "the end of a thousand years of history" and liable to destroy the Commonwealth.

Most Labour MPs, and one Liberal, voted against Heath's Treaty of Rome. The Parliamentary Labour Party unanimously opposed Thatcher's Single European Act. The 66 Labour MPs who voted against Maastricht outnumbered its Tory opponents by three to one, and included, in Bryan Gould, the only resignation from either front bench in order to do so. Every Labour and Liberal Democrat MP, without exception, voted against the Common Agricultural and Fisheries Policies annually between 1979 and 1997; only in the very last days of the Major Government did the tiniest handful of Tories join them.

Half of the French Socialist Party successfully opposed the EU Constitution, and the Social Democratic heartland of North Rhine-Westphalia recently delivered the first great electoral blow against the euro. Half of the UKIP vote, based on its geographical distribution, must be Old Labour or Old Liberal rather than Old Tory. The No2EU – Yes To Democracy list at the 2009 European Elections might have had far too much of the Hard Left about it, but it also included Peter Shore's erstwhile agent, the leaders of the Visteon and the Lindsey oil refinery workers, and the immediate past Leader of the Liberal Party.

Something like that, by no means only with regard to the EU: now, that would indeed be a real and proper party. Roll on electoral reform.

Rhoda Klapp

Just tell me who to vote for to get a conservative policy enacted. No, not them, they have their chance every day, and they blow it.

Otherwise all votes are for the big wet party. And one thing that was shown in the interregnum following the election is that A can coalesce with B, and B with C, so just how different are they?

yank

As long as you lot fund the EU, and allow them to recycle that cash back to you and build their power base upon your own soil, and with your own money... they will do so.

You mustn't accept the recycled cash. That must cease. That is how the noose gets slipped around your neck.

And it'd be smart not to send them cash for these purposes in the first place. I'm sure the playhouses and YMCA's in Britain got along quite nicely before the EU came 'round. And it'd surely be more efficient if their cash came directly from you, and not first be channeled through some Brussels bureaucracy.

a stark warning to any recipients of EU funding

BigMax

David Lindsay
August 17th, 2010 2:39pm

Great post:

Nicholas

David Lindsay whilst I can appreciate your enthusiasm for the Attlee government and Old Labour it is still somewhat rose-tinted. The tendency is perhaps to conflate Attlee's personal characteristics with the decisions and actions of his cabinet, but they were not the same things at all.

60 years of Labour and left wing propaganda focussed on the bogeymen of the Right has somewhat masked the flaws and errors of that immediate post-war Labour government.

It is in any case difficult to ascribe any relevance to the current situation where the left are clawing back towards something thoroughly discredited by history and the right are either seething with grievance-nursing malcontent or pretending to be lefties. As Rhoda has it not much to look forward to or vote for in this world of smoke and mirrors and spin, spin, spin.

Ahmed Khan

@Clear Memories

UKIP = BNP. Interesting, very interesting! There I was thinking that the Coffee house was the ‘think-tank’ for the BNP!!!!

Neil Turner

It's a shame that UKIP are so badly organised. To my mind, they had the best manifesto of any party at the last election, describing the kind of Britain that I would like to live in

So much so, I even let them put up a sign outside my house

I very much hope that their new leader is able to galvanise and mobilise them properly

They'll get my vote next time too

Baron

Rhoda Klapp @ 2.39 once again right.

David Lindsay

Nicholas, staying out of the ECSC was a decision of the Attlee Government. Signing the Treaty of Rome was a decision of the Heath Government, with Thatcher in the Cabinet. Signing the Single European Act was a decision of the Thatcher Government. Signing the Maastricht Treaty was a decision of the Major Government, headed by Thatcher's chosen successor and packed with her closest allies.

As to the rest of your comment, tedious and tiresome old Sixties types who imagine that they are still enfants terribles (or ever really were) and who bleat that "Communism did not fail, because it has never been tried" have now been joined by tedious and tiresome old Eighties types who imagine that they are still enfants terribles (or ever really were) and who bleat that "capitalism did not fail, because it has never been tried". Grow up, the lot of you.

thomas

2001 GE UKIP votes: 390,563
2005 GE UKIP votes: 605,973
2010 GE UKIP votes: 920,334

The problem with Lindsay's analysis is that the Labour Party was pro-European when in office. It really is no good to say the real Labour Party is anti-EU, that's just what the Tories say, and Lindsay has shown how hollow that claim is. The truth is that the EU is a problem of the political class. Each party sees a way to get what it wants without going through the messy business of democracy, and so we get Thatcher seeing the EU as a free-trade zone, Labour seeing it as a source for social and employment legislation, and this coalition so far it seems sees it as a way to be 'tough on criminals'. They are all willing to see our power go down the tube as they are focused on their own careers and their own narrow interests. The whole lot need to be removed.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

@David Lindsay "if it were still a matter of 'no union card, no job'"

what a vile Totalitarian sentiment that is.

Imagine, full employment making junk nobody wants to buy.

In2minds

Neil Turner @ August 17th, 2010 5:36pm - It's a shame that UKIP are so badly organised".

I agree, in fact it's not just bad it's potentially corrupt. For example the route the money from the Ashford call centre took has never been fully explained to the membership.

David Lindsay

Indeed they do, thomas.

But how many of those 920,334 do you think that UKIP would keep under, say, David Campbell Bannerman, Mr Rail Privatisation, allegedly required by the EU, although that one seems to have escaped the notice of every other member-state?

Oh, well, electoral reform is on its way. Let's see what it produces. In fact, no: let's make sure that it produces what we want, need and deserve.

Boudicca

I will continue to back UKIP because I refuse to vote for a political party which denys the electorate the right to decide on the UK's membership of the EU and the sovereignty of our nation.

If a vote was held and the people of Great Britain voted to remain a member of the EU, I would reluctantly accept it. But I won't accept a situation where successive Governments have signed away our right to self-government without our agreement.

Clear Memories

@Ahmed Khan

Please don't join in debate when the medieval cult you belong to means submission and violently opposes democracy. Everything we need to know about your creed we learnt on 9/11.

Neil Turner

Excellent piece from Dan Hannan in today's Telegraph on Malcolm Pearson

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100050821/lord-pearson-of-rannoch-resigns-as-ukip-leader-i-am-not-much-good-at-party-politics/

Neil Turner

In2minds 8.48 "it's potentially corrupt"

I maybe naiave, probably am, but beleive this is more downto poor administration than corruption

If it is corruption, let the Political Party without sin cast the first stone