UKIP’s folly

A sub-editor, responsible for finishing off a Janet Daley piece in the Barclay Brothers’ Beano about UKIP’s non-breakthrough, perhaps unwittingly spotlights the problem at the heart of UKIP’s ‘strategy’.

This big problem in this country is the establishment.  UKIP’s problem is its aspiration to be part of that establishment, to become members of that club.  The only difference between the current establishment members and UKIP is the level of disorganisation exhibited by that party, its lack of political nous and Farage’s failure to understand or recognise how to extract this country from the EU in a manner that safeguards British interests.

In many respects UKIP already acts like part of the establishment.  The core goal it claims to be pursuing consistently gives way to internal party intrigues.  But most importantly the message it articulates is one of negativity.  UKIP, like all the other parties, enjoins voters to support it for negative reasons (‘send a message to the other parties’, ‘send a message to the EU’, ‘we are not like the others’).

Psychologically people find it more appealing and much easier to support a vision that is unswervingly positive, hopeful and rewarding.  And when people are sick to the back teeth of the establishment, its stupid games and its climbers, as evidenced by the collapse in voter turnout in elections, they are not going to be excited by a supposed alternative that wants to ‘gatecrash’ that establishment.

Farage reject this, but the outcomes speak for themselves.  Like climate change, forget the models and the theories and instead focus on the real-world observations.

There are many good people with the right intentions who are part of UKIP or support it.  But even they need to take stock of the reality and ask themselves how, with every condition in their favour in a place like Rotherham – a majority of people wanting UK sovereignty, massive media coverage, an outrageous abuse of power where their immigration policy was grotesquely misrepresented, a former MP who thieved taxpayer money for his own ends among others – the party only received 4,648 votes from a possible 64,000 in the constituency.

Until they do and they take a different approach from the Farage crawl to also-ran status, the objectives those good people want to achieve will not be realised.