So we’re supposed to take UKIP seriously, are we? Accept that they represent some legitimate and long-established current of opinion in British politics?
Let’s take those questions in turn. First of all, how can we take seriously a political party which largely consists of grumpy old men? These are people who for reasons entirely of their own are uneasy in the modern world, mainly because everybody else – their families, their communities, their Westminster representatives – doesn’t take them seriously any more.
They can no longer be assured of a hearing for their prejudices and preferences, so they’ve set up a new political party to shout them at the rest of us. “Natural Conservatives” to a man (and odd woman), they have simply bridled at the concessions and token gestures Cameron and his Notting Hill set have had to make to cosmopolitan values, the stylistic adjustments to Thatcherism, and to their Lib Dem Coalition partners. No longer welcome at the Tory dinner party, they’ve organised their own, with stodgy pies and lashings of gravy and custard. And no gay husbands or lesbian wives, the beneficiaries of our latest small step towards a truly tolerant, modern society, are on the guest list!
Why are people voting UKIP? Firstly, there’s always been a loosely-defined, shifting “protest vote” in modern British politics, between ten and twenty per cent of the electorate who have no clear principles, established allegiances or constructive outlook, beyond a sense of resentment and grievance that things aren’t going their way. The electoral system doesn’t help, because “first past the post” punishes the smaller parties that would elsewhere shape this ragbag of incoherent rage into something like a coherent political programme.
At the moment there is especially widespread public revulsion at “the political class”. The expenses scandal (latest exhibit: Maria Miller); politicians who don’t even resemble let alone represent ordinary people and a much diminished range of (neo-liberal) political options available. Thus, the political class is largely in hock to the City of London and the super-rich, telling the rest of us that we have to like globalisation or lump it. Westminster politics in particular, with its weird rituals and customs and gentlemen’s club atmosphere, is a million miles away from most people’s daily lives.
But to those considering voting UKIP as part of what Nigel Farage calls “a people’s army”, we should be asking: do you know what you’re voting for? The seriously wacky stuff; repainting trains, making seatbelts voluntary, and all the other stuff Farage disowns when it’s brought to his wayward attention, is highlighted by the other political parties for their own electoral advantage. Then there is the stuff that few know about: the hard-right economic libertarianism that would smash the NHS and public education and reduce the size of the state to a shadow through a flat tax. I wonder how many of UKIP’s growing ‘army’ of working-class supporters realize that they are the brilliant allies of their own gravediggers, voting for a Party that directly opposes their own interests, and works in those of the 1%?
But the rest of UKIP’s main programme, it’s better-know selling points, is if anything possibly even more alarming, precisely because large numbers of the electorate currently find what they know of it appealing.
Opposition to immigration has always carried more than a whiff of racism and xenophobia. Amongst UKIP supporters the whiff becomes a stench. They feel culturally or economically threatened by people who just might be more adventurous, skilled and educated than they are. In most cases immigrants are enterprising enough to leave their own countries in search of a better life here, and prepared to work harder when they arrive.
Then we come to Europe. What do UKIP supporters know about Europe? Have they any idea what the founding principles of the European Union – above all to prevent another ruinous war – actually were? OK, European politics can be boring and occasionally a bit silly, but by and large it’s about protecting and improving the lives of all of us Europeans. It’s not just jobs either; so much of the legislation that actually makes life bearable – from the goods we buy to the air we breathe – comes from Europe.
Finally, with the spring floods just about receding and the polluting dust finally shifting east to restrict some other poor country’s breathing, what has UKIP to say about the biggest issue of our century, human-influenced climate change? Simple really: it isn’t happening. Let’s bury our heads in the Sahara and it might just go away. An incredible position to take up, after this winter’s weather-chaos provided a wake-up call at last. The denial of climate change is a dangerous and damaging thing and will be seen harshly in a historical light.
So, UKIP-ers, think on that when and if you cast your “protest vote” for that old spiv Farage’s “people’s army” on 22nd May. Or maybe, just maybe, wake up and smell the post-floods coffee instead…