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Thursday 9 May 2013

UKIP - the earthquake?

I would like to congratulate UKIP on its 139 Council seats won in the recent local elections. It is sensational turn-out for a Party which had previously only had a small number of councillors - if you exclude the parish/town councillors which UKIP's figures often used to mention. It is not so long ago that they were getting tiny votes despite their huge EU resources.
 But the newspapers have been reporting remarks along the lines that it is an “earthquake”, a “seismic shock”, a “body blow” or the “death knell” of the British political Establishment. 
 To establish a sense of perspective and balance on this, I think it is worth pointing out that overall there are 20,680 councillors throughout Great Britain and therefore talk of body blows, let alone of anything fatal for the British Establishment is well and truly over-blown. 
An interesting and carefully worked out  and sobering analysis on the imapct that UKIP has had has been done by Nigel Farage's former right-hand man here >>> http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83861

 If we want to use an analogy or simile, then because the media have been so vocal about it, it is clearly a blow to the face and perhaps even a black eye to the Establishment, whereas the less well reported numbers of Green Councillor candidates elected would perhaps also be a bruise, but hidden under the clothing. In neither case could it sensibly be said that the British Establishment’s skin had been broken, let alone any bones! 
Having recently shed Peter Davies, our “maverick” mayor of Doncaster, who was an ex-UKIPer, to my personal relief, given his vain and egotistical character and unwillingness to do anything at all in our manifesto, I do not envy Nigel Farage’s coming job in having to deal with perhaps 147 Peter Davies’, let alone having to deal with fire-fighting all the scandals and ructions which will now develop amongst those of UKIP’s new Councillors, who never expected to be elected and who in the nature of a previously small party, as Nigel Farage candidly admitted, had not been properly vetted.
Despite all this I congratulate UKIP and Nigel Farage, in particular for having greened up the ground on the so called populist right vacated by David Cameron’s Conservatives and his Coalition. Many of us feel very much the same regarding the EU, immigration and law and order.
The big difference between the English Democrats and UKIP is of course on the question of England, which UKIP has no interest in at all, as amply demonstrated by their failure to mention England or the English in their two recent Party Election Broadcasts.
I fully expect that as we move towards the Scottish Independence Referendum, questions relating to England and the English Nation will gather greater momentum in the way that troubles within the EU have helped UKIP’s recent progress. I look forward with relish to the English Democrats’ getting coverage then.

13 comments:

  1. The recent pro UKIP vote was, i think, because people were voting about things they did NOT want, rather than what they do want. IE, against immegration, against the present Gov's austerity and not FOR England.
    The press gave and continues to give UKIP great exposure, has the BBC an axe to grind??

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  2. What a wonderful response to the UKIP "earthquake"! Mr Tilbrook is coming out fighting! More strength to your pen, sir!

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  3. It would be easy to resent UKIP success given their UK credentials and lack of focus on the 'English Question' -but Robin's comment has put an upbeat side to the equation, in that what can happen for UKIP, can happen to the EDs, also.
    I hope - very much so!

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    1. Your comment shows how you are out of touch with reality. Most Brits can't
      understand why a very small party [ED] focuses on the differences between
      the four segments of the UK, but they can understand what UKIP stands for
      and that an EU exit can ONLY be good for the island. Leaving the EU is an
      unblocking action which leads to contrlloing our own borders as well as saving maybe £20 billion a year, and means terrorists like Quatada can be issued with one-way tickets. It would follow that we simultaneously exit the 1998 European Human Rights Bill. We are all essentially nationalists, we should get behind any nationalist party that succeeds in any degree.

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    2. I'm very much in touch with reality- hence my comment about resenting UKIP success based on EU and Immigration mostly. This is only a part of the shortfall in democracy we suffer -and until we get a proper franchise for England [the MAJOR player] we will see game play on the fringe - much like your comment. Others here have made better assessments- but then, they are true supporters of the EDs.

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    3. Anonymous, Brits like you (Ukip or BNP supporters) might not understand why the ED focuses on the English, but English folk get it only too well. And they understand that Ukip represents Britain; not England.
      Anyone with any nous can see that Ukip cannot achieve what it tries to kid us that it wants to do, i.e., get out of the EU.
      There is a majority for getting out in England, but not in the UK as a whole.
      In the meantime the Ukip MEPs are living it up at our expense in Strasbourg.
      By 'nationalist' you presumably mean BNP, but like Ukip they are not nationalists; they are Unionists.

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    4. The BNP most certainly are nationalists which is why the media demonise them so much. As far as I am aware they are the ONLY party in Britain which recognises that the white British population is composed of four ETHNIC nations ie the English, Scots, Welsh and Ulster-Scots. UKIP doesn't do this hence the media give them a free pass and masses of mostly positive publicity.

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  4. That looks like a cream biscuit does not suprise me, not many in a packet of them and they can be sickly. He is a tory/concervative in disguise using UKIP and they know all about taking off the cream and giving watered down milk to the people. I prefer a glass of fresh farmed fruit juice and a English rich tea biscuit a lot more in a packet and less side affects.

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  5. Farage has admitted that Ukip doesn't have a clue where the party's newly elected representatives stand on anything and that they don't have to stick to the party's manifesto. Talk about herding cats.

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  6. Farage has already admitted he would do a deal with the tories to keep labour out. If that isn't a big enough clue as to what might happen, I don't know what is.

    Many people are going to be deeply disappointed by UKIP when Farage reverts to type and comes to some slimy deal with the establishment parties to maintain the status quo, by 're negotiating' the relationship with europe rather than giving an in or out referendum.

    I suspect his free market ideology will water down his anti immigration policies too.

    There is something about Mr Farage though brave and likeable which suggests to me that he, like the lady, protests too much.

    I suspect he will turn Turk at the eleventh hour, leaving millions of English people totally exasperated with the political class.

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  7. Obviously we must be glad that UKIP's success has got the troika of the three look-alike Cultural Marxist parties in a bit of a tizz, even Labour admitted they had lost votes to them. However, I still have a nagging doubt about Farage's economics. He is a son of the City of London who signed Mrs T's book of condolence, hence betraying his libertarian economics. The EU, as a Greek academic said, is for bankers and not its people. It is as much the work of globalizing capital as Marxist lunatics. So if he is a libertarian, how is he going to manage without a constant supply of cheap labour? Also, he is too much of an Atlanticist.

    You are right that the Scottish referendum will highlight the position of England and if they do vote yes then it will bring the constitutional situation to the fore. However, I rather suspect they might vote no which will mean that nothing will change. As for the English, they seem very good at moaning and doing nothing.

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  8. Nigel Farage is the very image of a travelling salesman in shirts and ties, except that he peddles Britannia snake oil

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  9. They wont retain the support of the English vote unless they address the issue of an English Parliament

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