Quite naturally, the mood in the hall at the Ukip conference in Doncaster is far more upbeat than anything Labour could muster. This is an insurgent party on the brink of getting its own MP and that is spooking the Conservatives no end. So the party with a realistic chance of taking power next May seems depressed, while this party is full of beans.
A series of speeches from policy spokespeople was intended to show that Ukip doesn’t just have one face representing it. This year’s conference is intended to show that Nigel Farage’s party really has grown up and has grown far beyond just his leadership. So those policy spokespeople had far more to announce and far more excitement about the role than most of the Labour frontbench, although of course if you are the party with a realistic chance of governing from May 2015, you may be a little more cautious and a little more downbeat about what that governing will involve.
The most powerful speeches this morning came from Jane Collins MEP, who is the employment spokeswoman, but spoke mostly about Rotherham, which she represents. She called for criminal charges to be brought against those who covered up the abuse of 1,400 children, and accused the local MPs of knowing about the abuse. Steve Woolfe, the migration spokesman, managed to get members clapping at the end of almost every sentence with a powerful speech in which he promised a further 2,500 border staff, told illegal migrants without identifying papers that ‘we will send you back’ (though he wasn’t clear where).
In each speech, the spokesperson managed to say far more than a mainstream politician would get away with. But what was striking was how much of their focus was on Labour, rather than the Tories. They spoke of Labour’s failure in Rotherham, Labour’s failure on immigration policy. There is a sense that now they’ve bagged a Tory in Douglas Carswell, they need to show that it’s not just the Right of politics that they threaten. A speech being given by Louise Bours will, I understand, try to address Labour’s biggest attack on the party, which is on its NHS policy.
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