With absolutely no understanding even of his own base, no more than half of which is so much as ancestrally Tory, Lord Pearson sounds the death knell for UKIP.
Just as Plaid Cymru has only ever been a pressure group for lavish central government spending on, and other privileges for, the Welsh language; just as the SNP is now only a pressure group for ever-higher central government spending in Scotland; and just as even Sinn Fein is now nothing more than a pressure group for the maintenance of a highly localised theme park of Gaelic-Irish Republicanism at the British taxpayer's expense; so UKIP has become nothing more than a pressure group for the party of the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, and 18 continuous years of three line whips in favour of the Common Agricultural and Fisheries Policies, to renounce the whole of its own history on the Eurofederalist issue, including the Prime Minister to whose historically baseless cult the remnant activist body and core vote are utterly devoted.
Those of us who stand in the tradition of most of those MPs who voted against the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, and the annual renewals of the CAP and CFP (whatever happened to those yearly votes?), are now going to have to make our own arrangements. We include half of those who have hitherto voted for UKIP at European Elections, the Elections at which UKIP has hitherto done best.
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David,
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with your general analysis of UKIP, and where their votes come from, I'm not sure you're quite on the money on this one.
If UKIP could achieve an effective withdrawal from the EU they would have done a good work. That may be a second best (to you - and I think to me too) to a total re-alignment of British politics, but it would be a great achievement even by itself. If Eurosceptic Old Liberal and Old Labour UKIP voters could be sure of a government that would deliver that they might (I stress *might*, because I don't know) be preparted to vote for Conservative Party on a one-time basis. After all, they might conclude that one neo-liberal government is very like another, and at least they would get something they wanted.
Of course, there are a lot of ifs in that scenario. On the subject of Europe I suspect even members of the Conservative Party (I include myself) don't trust the rhetoric of the leadership very far, for both historical and present day causes! Then the CP was never very likely to engage properly with Lord Pearson - as it has proved - because, I suspect, it still doesn't (institutionally) take UKIP seriously. Then we don't know what the result of a referendum might be, and we don't know how Britain would extricate herself in the event of an "Out" vote.
So I don't think Lord Pearson's project was ever plausible. But it was an imaginative offer aimed at achieving the primary aim of UKIP. If Liberal or Labour tribalism or patronage were the most important thing to UKIP voters they wouldn't *be* UKIP voters.
Now, the question arises as to whether that argument is symmetrical in terms of Conservative voters. It would seem not, in that the Conservative Party has held on to the votes of a substantial number of hardening-Eurosceptic voters and members. Appeals by (ex-)Conservatives to vote for other parties out of Euroscepticism have met with only limited success. To that extent the (possibly disingenous) Eurosceptic rhetoric of the policymakers of the Conservative Party has been successful.
My own pet theory is that naturally pessimistic Conservatives don't really believe that withdrawal will ever be possible, so they aren't prepared to risk a vote for UKIP and damage the Conservative Party. Whereas Eurosceptics on the left are more optimistic about the future of Euroscepticism and believe, in the tradition of their utopian forefathers, that something can be done.
The alternative theory is that Old Liberal and Old Labour voters are more disillusioned with the conduct of the Labour and LD parties than Conservatives are with the Conservative Party. It is the Conservative Party leadership, after all, which is most often accused of "pandering" to its grassroots. (I thought that's what parties were suppposed to do, but no matter.) And both Labour and LD parties are doubtful about their own identiry and unity. Meanwhile the COnservative PArty is fairly united, and today's analysis by Tim Montgomerie suggests that fiscal conservatism is what is uniting it. If that uniting factor no longer applied (perhaps because it failed to be delivered in goverment) it might be interesting to see what splits now hidden might be revealed; then we might see definite Eurosceptic commitment as more of a defining factor in how nominally Conservative voters actually vote.
I shall be watching Buckingham with interest at the election. In a contituency where there is no possible reason, local or national, for the Conservative to vote for the nominally Conservative candidate, I suspect Farage may do very well. He'll have all those Old Liberal and Old Labour votes as well, remember!
"If Liberal or Labour tribalism or patronage were the most important thing to UKIP voters they wouldn't *be* UKIP voters"
ReplyDeleteThat is precisely why they are. They would never vote Tory. And they will never vote for a Tory pressure group.
"the Conservative Party has held on to the votes of a substantial number of hardening-Eurosceptic voters and members"
Where are they?
"I suspect Farage may do very well. He'll have all those Old Liberal and Old Labour votes as well, remember!"
Only they can win it for him. The Tories there have been voting merrily for Bercow up to now.
"That is precisely why they are. They would never vote Tory. And they will never vote for a Tory pressure group."
ReplyDeleteThat's a fair point - sometimes I can hardly bring myself to vote for them myself. But *if* the Tories were truly committed to a Eurosceptic policy (I don't believe they are) then that might be shortsighted.
As to the Tory voters of Buckingham, I suspect they have been merrily voting for the un-Conservative Bercow in order to try to elect a Tory government. It won't have that effect now.