Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Ukip conference: Paul Nuttall, a very different Ukipper, appeals to the Labour vote

Even if Nigel Farage’s speech was, as Fraser blogged earlier, a wasted opportunity for the Ukip leader to impress the voters that he really needs to attract, it still pleased the members in the hall. In fact, there was more of an excited, energetic atmosphere at this conference than at any party political conference I’ve ever attended.

When I interviewed Nadine Dorries for the magazine earlier this year, she recalled the dying Tory government in 1997, saying that ‘[Voters] hated us because the Labour party promise, the vision, the song “Things Can Only Get Better” had a purchase on people’s imagination, and in their hearts that I see being replicated by Ukip today.’ You can see that start-up excitement in the delegates thronging around Westminster Central Hall today. And really, the excitement was best embodied not in Farage’s speech, but in the one that came before, from Paul Nuttall.

Paul Nuttall MEP is about as different a Ukipper as you can get from Nigel Farage. He’s a bald Liverpuddlian, for starters. This means he can appeal to a different section of the electorate, and one that as Fraser said earlier, Farage needs to attract. He told the conference that Labour voters are ‘easy pickings’, adding:

‘It’s clear now ladies and gentlemen that Ukip is now the official opposition to Labour in the North of England.’

He said he believed that Ukip would succeed in beating Labour for two reasons:

‘Firstly, the Labour party itself has abandoned its working class roots. If you look at the opinion polls, it shows that between 1997 and 2010, the majority of the Labour votes lost were in working class areas.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in