A great night for the UK Independence Party - coming second to Labour in the South Shields by-election and making a breakthrough in the County Council elections. All this comes as no surprise. Nigel Farage's party has been on a roll for several months now, and these results had been widely anticipated.
Of course, I doubt if many of those who voted UKIP had read a single line of the party's local government manifesto, although in fairness, very few people who vote in local elections read the manifesto of the party they vote for, regardless of whichever party that is. In local elections, some of us don't even get a single leaflet through the door, and I have spotted only one billboard for any candidate in our village - an Independent, as it happens. It is not really logical, but local issues do not actually loom large in the choices many people make at local elections
Listen to BBC Radio 4 or read the press, and the words "Protest Party" come up over and over again in the analyses of UKIP's success. Is this true? Is UKIP nothing more than a protest party? The answer is yes and no. In the words of party leader Nigel Farage, ""the people who vote for us are rejecting the establishment and quite right too". That's classic protest party stuff. He claimed that people were no longer content to support "career politicians who don't connect with, or even speak the same language as them." This too could have been uttered by Beppe Grillo, the Italian comedian who leads the Five Star Movement - a protest party pure and simple, which still managed to scoop up some 20-25% of the vote in that country's recent general election.
UKIP does not have a joined-up political strategy, and a few analysts have picked holes in its spending and taxation plans. Nonetheless, there is more to UKIP, even in its present state, than Beppe Grillo's party or even the Lib Dems when they were the receptacle for protest votes. I confess (and hang my head in shame!) I once voted Lib Dem, but I didn't have a clue about the party's policies when I did so. It is hard to imagine anyone voting UKIP without being aware of at least one policy - the party's commitment to withdraw the UK from the EU. Quite a few people know the party supports a tough line on immigration. Probably a good number of UKIP voters also know that the party supports the return of grammar schools, and it is no secret that it isn't too keen on wind farms either.
What we have are bits and pieces of a small-government pro-freedom agenda, and if there could be some serious joined-up thinking, the party could become something much bigger than a party of protest. It can go beyond picking up the votes of people who are merely saying "a plague on all your houses" if it can adapt the thinking of St. Augustine, Calvin, the English and American Puritans, Locke, Adam Smith, von Mises and Hayek to the 21st Century- In other words, to say to people who are disillusioned with politicians that the best solution to the problem - having fewer politicians doing less, interfering less in our lives and spending less of our money - is not only the best way of running a country today, but has proven track record of working very well in Britain (Until socialism came along and messed everything up.)
Socialism, our membership of the EU and signficiant changes in the ethnic mix in the UK don't seem to have eradicated either our deep-seated loathing of being bossed around or our love of freedom. Maybe as Roger Scruton (I think) suggests, it's something in the soil. Whatever, there are plenty of people looking for a party that will get the state off their back and who willl vote for politicians who will represent their interest and recognise their accountabilioty to the people who put them in office. UKIP isn't there yet. Maybe it never will be in its present form, but something will unquestionably emerge with a manifesto that could be summed up as "We want to make the UK the least taxed, the most lightly regulated, the least dictatorial, the freest country in the Western world." A party with a manifesto like this will soon find itself much more than a party of protest - it would soon be the government.
Of course, I doubt if many of those who voted UKIP had read a single line of the party's local government manifesto, although in fairness, very few people who vote in local elections read the manifesto of the party they vote for, regardless of whichever party that is. In local elections, some of us don't even get a single leaflet through the door, and I have spotted only one billboard for any candidate in our village - an Independent, as it happens. It is not really logical, but local issues do not actually loom large in the choices many people make at local elections
Listen to BBC Radio 4 or read the press, and the words "Protest Party" come up over and over again in the analyses of UKIP's success. Is this true? Is UKIP nothing more than a protest party? The answer is yes and no. In the words of party leader Nigel Farage, ""the people who vote for us are rejecting the establishment and quite right too". That's classic protest party stuff. He claimed that people were no longer content to support "career politicians who don't connect with, or even speak the same language as them." This too could have been uttered by Beppe Grillo, the Italian comedian who leads the Five Star Movement - a protest party pure and simple, which still managed to scoop up some 20-25% of the vote in that country's recent general election.
UKIP does not have a joined-up political strategy, and a few analysts have picked holes in its spending and taxation plans. Nonetheless, there is more to UKIP, even in its present state, than Beppe Grillo's party or even the Lib Dems when they were the receptacle for protest votes. I confess (and hang my head in shame!) I once voted Lib Dem, but I didn't have a clue about the party's policies when I did so. It is hard to imagine anyone voting UKIP without being aware of at least one policy - the party's commitment to withdraw the UK from the EU. Quite a few people know the party supports a tough line on immigration. Probably a good number of UKIP voters also know that the party supports the return of grammar schools, and it is no secret that it isn't too keen on wind farms either.
What we have are bits and pieces of a small-government pro-freedom agenda, and if there could be some serious joined-up thinking, the party could become something much bigger than a party of protest. It can go beyond picking up the votes of people who are merely saying "a plague on all your houses" if it can adapt the thinking of St. Augustine, Calvin, the English and American Puritans, Locke, Adam Smith, von Mises and Hayek to the 21st Century- In other words, to say to people who are disillusioned with politicians that the best solution to the problem - having fewer politicians doing less, interfering less in our lives and spending less of our money - is not only the best way of running a country today, but has proven track record of working very well in Britain (Until socialism came along and messed everything up.)
Socialism, our membership of the EU and signficiant changes in the ethnic mix in the UK don't seem to have eradicated either our deep-seated loathing of being bossed around or our love of freedom. Maybe as Roger Scruton (I think) suggests, it's something in the soil. Whatever, there are plenty of people looking for a party that will get the state off their back and who willl vote for politicians who will represent their interest and recognise their accountabilioty to the people who put them in office. UKIP isn't there yet. Maybe it never will be in its present form, but something will unquestionably emerge with a manifesto that could be summed up as "We want to make the UK the least taxed, the most lightly regulated, the least dictatorial, the freest country in the Western world." A party with a manifesto like this will soon find itself much more than a party of protest - it would soon be the government.