Semi-Partisan Politics

The normal model for distracting media attention away from your political party when negative stories start swamping the agenda goes something like this:

1. Party member says or does something offensive

2. The media picks up on the story and it becomes widely circulated

3. If the political party is small, the received wisdom is that the story is a symptom of the party’s immaturity and extremism. If the political party is large, the commentary will be that it is a sign of general malaise in the political system

4. Party leader comes out swinging, criticising the media for focusing on sensationalist, insubstantial nonsense rather than serious policy differences

When the big three party leaders (Cameron, Miliband, Clegg) attempt this move for the hundredth time, it sounds formulaic and insincere, an obvious attempt to wrench the media’s attention back to their scripted talking points. But somehow, when Nigel Farage adopts the same strategy, he actually appears convincing. And he had the need to do so yesterday at UKIP’s conference in Torquay, when he was inevitably asked to defend or renounce those members of his party who have strained or flat-out violated the boundaries of political correctness.

James Kirkup praised Farage’s approach in his Telegraph Evening Briefing:

Ukip’s virtues came to the fore when Mr Farage was talking about the curious and colourful views expressed by some of his party. Instead of doing what other politicians do and disowning the off-message stuff, Mr Farage embraces it and turns it into an attack on homogenised political class:

“We’re not career politicians, you’re absolutely right. Unlike [Nick] Clegg, Cameron Miliband, d’you know what? I actually had a job – I worked. And this is obviously fairly extraordinary in modern-day politics when almost everybody goes straight from Oxford University into a research office, they become Members of Parliament in their middle-to-late 20s and they’re all very PC and no one really says anything or stands up for their convictions, and with us you’ve got people from all walks of life. There are 34,000 paid-up members of the party and some people have views that are mildly eccentric. I would have thought that was just consistent with democracy.”

How refreshing it is to hear an honest answer from a political leader, and how sad that examples of this kind are so rare. As I wrote on this subject last year:

And so we have a whole generation of MPs from all parties – people like Chukka Umunna – who are basically airbrushed, well-groomed and telegenic candidates who never really lived in the real world before entering politics and who have no idea what they would do with their lives if they ever had to leave it … [We should not] be looking for the next bland, cookie-cutter candidate who has gone through the 7-step “become an MP by the age of 35″ programme. If a candidate’s life up until that point has been all about gaining political power, what chance is there that they will ever want to relinquish it and do anything else after their first term? Their second? Their third? Their fourth? Until retirement beckons?

Blaming the recent flooding in England on the government’s pro-gay marriage stance, or suggesting that the country has become something akin to a foreign land (as Farage regrettably went on to do later in the same appearance) are ludicrous. But there is something to be said for a big tent political party that doesn’t automatically excommunicate its members for going off-script.

The upcoming European elections will prove a good test of just how much the British electorate values this trait.