Real time, Semi-Partisan tweets and analysis of the incoming local council election results are accessible here.
The first results are only just coming in, but from those early towns and cities to declare, there is undeniable evidence of a strong UKIP result, with large jumps in their percentage of the vote and some early seat wins on local councils.
The UKIP surge is coming at the expense of all of the other political parties so far, with both Labour and Conservative leads significantly dented in a number of wards.
The political establishment are clearly spooked – Labour’s Chuka Umunna is hard at work on the BBC News Channel continuing the anti-UKIP smears and offering glib and oily platitudes in defence of the political establishment, while Tory MP Douglas Carswell is already appealing to UKIP to agree to a pact with the Conservatives for the 2015 general election.
It is shaping up to be a long, eventful day – and a potentially awkward one for everyone other than Nigel Farage.
Whatever your political convictions may be, PLEASE make the effort to get out and vote today. People have given their lives in defence of our democratic right to choose our representation; the least we can do is take time to read up on the candidates/issues and make the trip down to the polling station.
Remember: those who can’t be bothered to get out and vote forfeit their right to complain about all things political until the next election.
For those who want to read a final Semi-Partisan analysis of the European election landscape before voting, click here.
In less than twenty-four hours, the polls will close and British voters will render their verdict in the European elections – as best they can, given the negligible differences between the main political parties, the lack of debate about EU policy and the vast shortcomings of the media’s coverage throughout.
This blog would have relished the opportunity to provide coverage and commentary on the three main political parties, had they made any substantive policy proposals or generated interesting news of their own – but in terms of the European election in Britain, almost from the start, it has been UKIP driving the agenda and making the headlines.
Today has been another day of incessant attacks on UKIP and euroscepticism by the main political parties, the media and spontaneous social media efforts. The #WhyImVotingUKIP hashtag, announced by the party’s leadership in a naive bid to gain positive grassroots momentum, was immediately and predictably hijacked by anti-UKIP activists and self-proclaimed wits across the country, resulting in some occasionally amusing (but mostly tiresome and false) jibes at their expense.
UKIP’s support having remained solid despite the missteps of the past week and the concerted efforts of nearly every major media outlets to portray isolated, reprehensible racist and homophobic actions as being representative of the party as a whole, the final tranche of negative UKIP stories betrayed signs of desperation. Today’s burning new reasons not to vote UKIP ranged from cycling policy to the similarity between UKIP supporters and football hooligans.
More seriously, a UKIP candidate standing in the local council election in Lancashire was allegedly stabbed in the face by a neighbour as a result of his political views. A man has been arrested and bailed pending a police enquiry, but if it is determined that the attack was indeed politically motivated it should give serious pause to those who have so gleefully participated in the free-for-all effort to paint UKIP as the British Union of Fascists reborn and their supporters uniformly as hate-filled individuals deserving of public scorn and shaming.
Throughout the election campaign, this blog has been torn when considering the electoral options on the table. There is no easy, natural option for those with small-government or libertarian-leaning views, who are eurosceptic and in favour of nation state democracy but pro-immigration (in this blog’s view, an entirely consistent and strongly defensible worldview).
Those who still believe in the European project and want lots more – though such people are few and far between – have it easy. The Liberal Democrats will happily take their votes and translate them into continued and unquestioning rubber-stamping of European Union policies, borne out of the ingratiating desire to ‘harmonise’ with the rest of Europe and driven by their pessimistic assessment of Britain’s strength and place in the world. They will also happily patronise the more wavering pro-European with assurances that they too believe in EU ‘reform’, though the specifics of this reform remain forever unarticulated and unattempted.
Those who buy into Ed Miliband’s fuzzy socialist view of Britain and who couldn’t care less about European policy – the party certainly hasn’t offered any concrete ideas, just platitudes about “getting the best deal” and “bringing jobs and growth” to Britain – will always have a welcome home in the Labour Party.
The eurosceptics and the libertarians are left to choose between the Conservative Party (whose track record is long and verifiable, but decidedly mixed) and UKIP (who represent uncharted territory and unwelcome controversy but seem to hold closer to their convictions).
In truth, the Conservative Party has played the role of Lucy to the public’s Charlie Brown in their wavering policy toward the European Union, holding out the ball of an in/out or treaty ratification referendum to win eurosceptic votes only to yank it away and wrongfoot the gullible voters once safely returned to office:
Just kidding about that referendum.
Nonetheless, it must be acknowledged that many existing Conservative MEPs have worked effectively in the European Parliament to scupper some of the more damaging pieces of legislation, creating something of a much-needed opposition in an institution otherwise characterised by consensus and groupthink. Since Britain’s immediate withdrawal from the European Union is not on the cards, it is important (for those of a democratic mindset) that an effective rearguard action can be fought to defend British interests while a more comprehensive renegotiation with or withdrawal from the EU is completed.
The Conservative MEP and staunch eurosceptic Daniel Hannan reinforces the important point that the European election is not just a glorified opinion poll, and that the electorate’s verdict will have real-world consequences. But while this is true – and the new European Parliament will be making decisions long after the 2015 general election in Britain – the campaign has been fought along such determinedly domestic political lines that protest voting has been inadvertently encouraged from the start. And there is more than enough to protest.
London liberals believe that a) their liberalism is self-evidently smart and b) anyone who rejects it is a bigoted moron. For years, those who do not subscribe to London’s fashionable politics have had to put up with being told not only that they are wrong but also mentally deficient and prejudiced. Hence, the attacks on Farage as a racist fool inspire, if not sympathy, a recognition that this slight is daily inflicted upon almost everyone who lives outside the M25. By treating so many of their fellow Britons with contempt, the London establishment has built up a tide of bitterness against it. And, on Thursday, that tide will probably break against the shore.
Stanley goes on to add:
I’m probably a London liberal – but I’d be the first to say that we’ve got it coming and that it’s richly deserved.
This kicking is indeed coming – UKIP are still polling in first place, despite their recent missteps and the attacks from the establishment, as well as the uncovering of a decidedly nasty element of indeterminate size within the party.
But whether UKIP’s success is based on growing support for their policies or through being the main beneficiary of the protest vote (the truth lies somewhere in between), a good result for them will be a stunning rebuke to the main political parties – a rebuke too important to be dismissed as a simple act of blind protest.
National protest movements might capture 10 or 15 percent of the vote on a good day. An election result of 30 percent or more (as UKIP are predicted to achieve) isn’t evidence of a mere protest vote, or the electorate “letting off steam”. It’s a clear sign that a significant body of British public opinion is being ignored and not given a home within the three main political parties.
The rise of UKIP reflects the realisation among British voters that our democracy is becoming increasingly illusory. Regular elections may still take place and the campaigns may be boisterous as ever, but they are increasingly fought within a vanishingly small segment of the political spectrum, with an enormous degree of consensus among the ruling elite that has simply not been achieved among the population in general.
This spurning of popular opinion – on a range of issues from immigration to capital punishment – is epitomised by our politicians’ attitudes toward the European Union, with Britain being swept down the stream to ever-closer union without any public consultation since the referendum of 1975.
The point is not that the elites are always wrong – capital punishment is abhorrent and its reinstatement would be hugely regressive, while the idea that one additional immigrant automatically means one less job for a British worker is laughably misguided, for example – but at some point they must make the effort to change the hearts and minds of the people, rather than high-handedly overriding or ignoring them. Yet high-handed presumption seems to be all that the main parties now know and practice.
Suppose that an alien, familiar with and supportive of the concept of democracy but ignorant of modern British and European history, were to land on Earth in the midst of this election campaign. They would ascertain that Britain joined what was then known as the European Economic Community in 1973, following a campaign based largely on joining a free trade group. But they would then be aghast to see that organisation – with no new referendum through which the people gave their consent – grow into a political union negotiating its own trade deals, decreeing its own understanding of human rights, making its own foreign policy pronouncements and acting independently on the world stage on behalf of all, but with the consent of none.
The remarkable fact is that more people are not outraged at this betrayal by the political class – but the betrayal has taken place very slowly, with degrees of sovereignty handed over to the EU in imperceptible stages, until – like the frog placed in cold water and slowly boiled alive without ever realising the danger – Britain finds herself so enmeshed within the developed European institutions that any renegotiation or withdrawal becomes an inevitably traumatic prospect.
A British exit from the European Union – or a wholesale renegotiation of the terms of Britain’ membership – could have a net positive effect or a negative overall effect on Britain, depending on the terms under which they took place. This European election campaign – since it was never going to be about EU policy – was a golden opportunity to have this debate and consider the various proposals for renegotiation or exit and submit them to scrutiny. But instead it was spent making headlines out of gaffes and missteps, and throwing the kitchen sink at the one party whose views lie outside the pro-European consensus.
And yet the reviled anti-establishment party remains on course to win.
When Britain voted to remain within the EU in 1975, the late Tony Benn – then Secretary of State for Industry and leading figure from the No campaign – had these magnanimous words to say in the hour of defeat:
When the British people speak everyone, including members of Parliament, should tremble before their decision and that’s certainly the spirit with which I accept the result of the referendum.
Today, the British people will speak and deliver their verdict on 39 years of ever-closer union without consultation, but no one will tremble before our decision. The party PR machines will whir into action, the spin doctors will get to work and a herculean exercise in groupthink will take place until the establishment convince themselves – and many of us – that the result is an aberration, a blip, a flash in the pan which can be explained away with talking points until normal business can quietly resume.
No, they will not tremble or humble themselves. We do that now.
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The Telegraph has been carrying the amusing but unfortunate story of charity cyclist Matt Adams, who swerved off the road and dived head-first into the long grass after taking his hands off the handlebars of his bike to strike a victory pose for a photographer. There could be no better analogy for UKIP’s fortunes over the past five days, with the long asphalt road representing the election campaign and the wayward bicycle as the party’s newfound trajectory following a series of stunning self-inflicted wounds.
Conventional wisdom has it that following his contentious interview on LBC radio last week in which he made sweeping and deeply unpleasant generalisations about Romanian immigrants, Nigel Farage has lit a long fuse to the dynamite underneath his political career. The interview – which Farage’s chief aide tried at one point to halt – can be seen in its entirety here:
The blowback, even from fellow eurosceptics and normally reliable media sympathisers, has been intense and unrelenting, with even The Sun publishing an editorial denouncing Farage’s comments as ‘racist’. The nation’s opinion columnists cannot agree on precisely how soon UKIP will founder, but a strong consensus says that it is only a matter of time.
For this, neither Nigel Farage nor the party he leads deserve sympathy. Such is the degree of euroscepticism within the country, the level of pent-up rage against the political establishment and the smug deafness of the main political parties that a strong showing for UKIP in the coming elections was all but assured – and, until recently, deserved.
In fact, because few voters pay attention to LBC radio interviews or the post-game coverage in the wider press, the party may actually avoid facing the real consequences until after Thursday’s European and local council elections, by which time the narrative could have changed in their favour. But when reality finally catches up with UKIP, no one will be able to say that it was undeserved.
Up until now, normal, non-racist UKIP sympathisers have largely been able to cling on to the narrative that while there may be some unpleasant and noisy individuals at the margins of the party, their principles remain solid and the leadership strong. But Nigel Farage’s image of calm, steady leadership has taken a justifiable beating over the weekend, and while UKIP supporters may abide instances of nastiness or foolishness coming from isolated candidates at the fringe, it is asking a lot to expect them to look the other way when the very same misdeeds are being committed at the top.
Nigel Farage’s “car crash” interview has effectively combined with the antics of the fruitcake fringe to trap UKIP’s more moderate supporters – fervent eurosceptics or libertarians without a racist bone in their bodies – in a pincer movement, and they now find themselves very exposed to the blanket charges of racism and xenophobia emanating from hostile media outlets such as the Guardian and the Huffington Post.
The sad thing is that Farage & co. have been here before, but clearly failed to learn the lessons from their last foot-shooting extravaganza.
At UKIP’s last party conference in September 2013, delegates were enjoying buoyant poll numbers and a period of unexpectedly benign press coverage when one rogue MEP, Godfrey Bloom, managed to spoil it all for everyone by making sexist comments at a fringe event, and then hitting a journalist over the head with a conference booklet while making his escape from the scene.
Instantly, the tone of the press coverage changed and any conceivable bounce from the conference was lost. No-one summed up the feeling of frustration within the party at the time better than Nigel Farage himself, who said in his closing speech:
There have been once or two incidents today … There is no media coverage of this conference. It’s gone. It’s dead. It’s all about Godfrey hitting a journalist and using an unpleasant four-letter word. It’s gone. And we can’t – put – up – with – it. And I said to you earlier, we cannot have any one individual – however fun or flamboyant or entertaining or amusing they are – we cannot have any one individual destroying UKIP’s national conference, and that is what he’s done today, and I’m sad about that, but we can’t tolerate it and we have to act.
The anger and frustration was real and visceral then:
Strong words, and yet Nigel Farage has effectively managed to equal Godfrey Bloom’s feat of self-sabotage a mere eight months later, and just days away from what could be UKIP’s pivotal moment. Will Farage now turn that same withering, critical analysis on himself?
UKIP does not have a deep bench of political talent from which they can draw in times of emergency or turmoil. They have no one else as charismatic as Nigel Farage, no one cannier with the press, no one better at putting out (or genially dismissing) the various fires that the party’s lesser candidates so frequently start. But can UKIP abide this eleventh-hour implosion from their leader?
The media’s coverage of UKIP, like the political establishment’s attitude toward the party, was never anything close to being fair and balanced. But the slurs and accusations that UKIPers complained about just last week are nothing compared to what comes now. As far as getting any kind of message out via the mainstream media goes now, it’s game over. UKIP is a racist party. Euroscepticism is just racism repackaged. Libertarians are in bed with racists.It has already started.
UKIP may yet emerge from this latest self-inflicted crisis relatively unscathed. There may be too little time between Farage’s gaffe and polling day for the impact to feed through to peoples’ voting intentions. UKIP could yet win the European election, in which case the narrative and news agenda will completely change, allowing UKIP to find their feet – until the next campaign, when the video and audio footage will be unearthed by every hostile journalist in the country.
Even in this best-case scenario for UKIP, the LBC interview is an urgent reminder that they simply cannot go on existing in the public consciousness as a one-man party, where Nigel Farage alone serves as chief executive, chief political strategist, chief policy architect, chief salesman and chief damage repair technician.
This twenty minute radio interview, this “car crash”, also reminds us that some of UKIP’s principles – euroscepticism, libertarianism, that fervent anti-establishment spirit – are too important to be entrusted to any one single person, even the leader.
The British voters deserve a eurosceptic, libertarian party that they can vote for in good conscience and without fear of unintentionally consorting with or abetting racists, while moderate UKIP supporters deserve to be able to watch the evening news without constant fear or trepidation of the next scandal about to beset them.
Whether Thursday’s elections bring triumph or disappointment for UKIP, there are now many serious questions to be answered. The party’s weaknesses have been brutally exposed under the unceasing glare of media scrutiny and through calamitous self-inflicted crises. And without new faces and the immediate jettisoning of the party’s nasty rhetoric on immigration (and the block of undesirable votes that come with it), things will only get worse.
When the cyclist Matt Adams plunged headfirst from his bicycle off the road and into the verge, he hopped back on the seat and continued riding, thinking that he had “got away with it” – until he crossed the finish line and realised that he had become a minor internet celebrity. The internet always remembers. People always remember. And the electorate will remember how nasty UKIP managed to make themselves look over the course of the past week, not just when they vote on Thursday but also when the more important general election takes place in 2015.
Whatever the result of Thursday’s European elections, UKIP – and respectable British euroscepticism – will now be stuck in damage control mode for many months to come.
The commentariat class continue to scratch their heads in puzzlement as to how UKIP’s support is not melting away in the face of wall-to-wall attacks from the media and the political establishment, and this blog continues to patiently explain why this is the case.
Well, for those who obstinately refuse to learn, here is yet another reason – Labour and the Conservative Party have given a clear demonstration of their ideological muddle by both hiring former Obama campaign officials to help with their respective 2015 general election messaging efforts.
Ed Miliband hailed the appointment as “excellent news” and predicted the strategist would be a “huge asset to our campaign as we work to show the British people how we can change our country for the better”.
Mr Axelrod said he had been struck by the power of the Labour leader’s ideas and the “strength of his vision”.
He drew a comparison between Mr Miliband’s economic policies and the arguments articulated by Mr Obama in 2008, saying both have at their core “the experience of everyday people”.
The Conservatives have also recruited another former adviser to Barack Obama, his ex-campaign manager Jim Messina, to work on their 2015 election team.
As with Mr Axelrod, Mr Messina is not leading the campaign on the ground but remains in the US, reporting to the Conservatives’ senior management team.
It is common knowledge that the Britain sits well to the left of the United States on the political spectrum, so in one sense it is not surprising that an American Democrat such as Axelrod might still find common cause with Britain’s centre-right party (he wouldn’t be caught consorting with a Republican in a million years).
But in another sense, it is a terrible indictment of the British political system that both main political parties – our two ‘polar opposites’, the alpha and the omega of our choices come election day – are either so intellectually bankrupt or coldly calculating that they can both recruit from same same American political talent pool and still present themselves to the British public as though they are different as chalk and cheese.
Intellectually bankrupt or coldly calculating. In truth, there is a fair measure of both at work in the Labour and Conservative parties. Both have followed the example of ‘triangulation’ pioneered so successfully by Bill Clinton, in order to win over the undecided middle while hanging on to just enough of their restive core voters to make it over the finish line.
Tony Blair’s New Labour certainly took the triangulation strategy and moulded it into a political work of art. But make no mistake, the Conservatives are at it, too. Even when accounting for the fact that they have governed only in coalition since 2010, the fact that they have allowed harmful defence cuts and continued encroachments on civil liberties while largely tolerating Labour’s legacy of tax hikes and fiscal drag shows that they, too, see more value in playing to the woolly undecided voters in the middle than making a convincing ideological case for their core principles.
Which brings us back to Nigel Farage and UKIP.
Say whatever else you like about them, but here is a party that has a set of core beliefs and is unafraid to articulate them plainly and simply. (If you are reading this and thinking “but surely all UKIP stand for is leaving the EU, with a portion of racism on the side” then you have been indoctrinated well by the media who have slavishly served the interests of the main political parties – but UKIP do actually have a broadly libertarian policy platform that can be easily researched).
Leaving aside the coming European elections on Thursday 22 May, UKIP’s increasing (and surprisingly solid) popularity is not just a function of the British people having nowhere else to meaningfully express their euroscepticism or their dislike of politicians in general (the protest vote). It is driven also by the fact that conviction politics is all but dead in Britain, leaving many thoughtful and politically aware people with no one who speaks their language, but a host of politicians willing to patronise and double-cross them to gain votes, before discarding them once they are delivered into power.
Tony Benn and Margaret Thatcher are no longer with us, and British politics is suffering the absence of them and their kind. The few conviction politicians left in the House of Commons tend to be curmudgeonly old men and women (think Glenda Jackson or John Redwood) whose prime days are behind them and who will never be brought back in from the margins. And this leaves the political future to be shaped by the oily likes of Ed Miliband in the labour party (with young guns such as Chuka Umunna or Gloria de Piero to look forward to when he is inevitably deposed), and Cameron-Osborne for the Tories.
So forget about the European Union and the Newark by-election. Forget about the mudslinging and accusations of racism from one side and intimidation from the other. In many ways, it’s all just noise, the kind of nonsense we are left to argue about when there is so little left to distinguish the three main political parties from each other when it comes to real life policy.
When Labour and the Conservatives are so indistinguishable that they both instinctively look to buy Barack Obama’s 2008 message of “hope and change” from across the Atlantic, is it any wonder that the only party with an authentic, home-grown message is reaping the rewards in the polls?
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