An Aimless Ragbag

Samuel Dale writes:

Ukip is losing and its future is bleak. Its poll rating is being squeezed and its manifesto was an aimless ragbag of populist ideas.

It wants to attract lefty Labour voters and right-wing Tories so it ends up with an incoherent, hollow message.

The manifesto wanted increases to the carers allowance and an end the bedroom tax while slashing income tax for the wealthiest.

The only thing they can all agree on is leaving the EU and attacking immigrants.

This unholy alliance will boil to the surface after the election, especially if Nigel Farage loses in South Thanet and has to quit.

The seeds of the discontent were sown at the party conference in Doncaster last year with the party riding high amid defections and rising polls.

At an Institute of Economic Affairs fringe event on economic policy was the libertarian immigration spokesman and MEP Steven Woolfe and the economics spokesman and MEP Patrick O’Flynn.

MEP Tim Aker and Tory activist Tim Montgomerie were sat by their side and the session was hosted by ex-Lib Dem and IEA director-general Mark Littlewood.

Earlier in the day, O’Flynn had set the conference tone by unveiling income tax cut proposals for middle earners by raising the 40p threshold and introducing a new 35p band.

But he also unveiled a “wag tax” proposal to increase VAT to 25% on luxury goods such as expensive cars and shoes.

One Ukip member asked O’Flynn about the party’s philosophy. Specifically he was asked whether he supported the party’s 2010 election manifesto proposal for a flat-rate income tax – the same rate for everyone of, say, 30%.

O’Flynn was blunt and abrasive. “When you boil it down the idea of a flat tax is too right wing, it’s too right wing for me,” he said.

“I believe in progressive taxation, which is partly behind my proposal on VAT of luxury goods. The growth we do have is going to a smaller and smaller number of people. I don’t want to make you sound like a dangerous right winger but I am not as right wing as you are.”

Speaking immediately after O’Flynn, Woolfe – a former hedge fund general counsel and well-respected senior figure – brazenly disagreed and backed a flat rate tax.

“I am going to come back to Patrick,” he said. “This is the great thing about Ukip; Patrick and I sit next to each other and banter about this all the time.

“I like the single tax which is even more complicated to sell to people. You are going to get this lovely banter between the two of us and that is what is radical about Ukip.”

Mmmm…. “banter”. The next day Nigel Farage held a press conference after his speech where he was asked about the proposed increase to VAT.

Journalists asked why his party was supporting these lefty causes such as opposing the bedroom tax while even re-nationalising the railways was raised in on fringe.

I pressed him on whether the VAT proposals would mean more tax rises under Ukip.

Farage looked flustered and poorly briefed, giving evasive answers and half-hearted backing to the VAT proposals.

Farage was again asked about O’Flynn’s VAT move on the Andrew Marr show. He said it was now “dead” and not Ukip policy.

O’Flynn had been brutally over-ruled. Farage took one look at the policy after the press conference and killed it.

This is just one example of a policy muddle but there have been others.

We have the spectacle of libertarian Douglas Carswell supporting £3bn a year increase to the NHS budget. Everyone knows he wants an insurance-based health system.

Nigel Farage is an arch-Thatcherite. His old pal Godfrey Bloom, who shared a flat with him in Brussels, told me Farage is really just a Tory in disguise and hankers for a return to the 1980s.

O’Flynn wants to make inroads into the northern heartlands where Ukip’s best long-term prospects lie.

Only the cult of Nigel Farage is holding Ukip together through the strength of his personality and popularity.

A post-election Ukip leadership battle will be brutal and could tear the party apart.

So a reminder: if Farage loses South Thanet then he will resign as leader.

If that isn’t an incentive to campaign for Labour candidate Will Scobie, who is neck and neck with Farage, then I don’t know what is.