I heard Iain Dale on the radio today, correctly, is surprisingly, saying that "probably half" of UKIP's European vote last time had come from people who would normally vote Tory. Certainly, it was no more than that: add together the Tory and UKIP votes in any of the three Northern regions, or in either of the two Midland regions, or in the South West, or even in Scotland or Wales, and you arrive at a ludicrously high figure for the natural Tory vote there. It certainly did not happen like that.
UKIP is busily imploding. Its star turn from last time hasn't been a member for years. Its Leader was bumped off Question Time this week to make way for someone from the CBI, while Janet Street-Porter was kept on. And its actually quite interesting programme has been written up as a book by a Tory MP and a Tory MEP, as the putative programme for a future Tory government certainly not headed by David Cameron or George Osborne, i.e., as the basis for a successful or unsuccessful putsch in the next Parliament.
Meanwhile, the BNP has taken UKIP's seat on the Greater London Assembly. It only need one ninth of the votes cast (not the eligible vote, the votes cast) to get a Strasbourg seat there in June. Same in the North West. A mere one tenth in the South East. And so on. Its supporters are far more likely to vote, because they are angrier peopl, while UKIP's electorate now cares more about immigration than about Europe, and far more than was the case at the last European Elections.
Thanks to the complacency of those who set the agenda in this country, the BNP is home and dry in eight out of nine English regions (we in the North East would only be spare by having a mere three seats to fill), and well on course for two seats in at least three of them.
There is only one way of stopping that, and only one place for last time's normally Labour or Lib Dem UKIP voters to go.
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"There is only one way of stopping that, and only one place for last time's normally Labour or Lib Dem UKIP voters to go."
ReplyDeleteBack home to Labour and the Lib Dems naturally, or more likely, taking a risk with Cameron's Torys. One can grow tired of the groupscules like UKIP or Veritas, one supposes. These small parties are always splitting (Respect, WRP), haemorrhaging members (CPGB, SWP, UKIP) changing leaders (UKIP) or subject to charismatic individuals who end up alienating their few followers (Galloway, Kilroy Silk, Gerry Healy, Scargill).
Doubtless someone from North West Durham, yet to gain a national profile outside a few blogs, will join the latter group in due course.
North West now has eight seats. BNP would be third out of the three scrapping for that in the 2004 case. Though one of the other three is collapsed UKIP (an incumbent MEP) the other two are Lab 4th and LD 2nd on list. Neither of whom are Asian which is what took the LDs past Lab last time.
ReplyDeleteHardly, Philip. Our Constitution is carefully constructed to prevent demagogues. Anyway, you must be thinking of Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair.
ReplyDeleteThe Labour Party that so many people called home no longer exists, the Cameron Tories are arguably even further from their position than New Labour is, and anyway people like that would never vote Tory in a million years. It would simply never occur to them.
Chris, immigration is a far bigger issue now than it was in 2004. As you say, UKIP has collapsed. The Greens can't survive a recession. So the BNP is home and dry.
Unless, of course, there is an alternative. "Pro-life, pro-family, pro-worker, anti-war" - one eighth of the vote is the North West, of all places, is a dead cert. I wouldn't bet against one quarter and two seats.