UKIP’S HIDDEN AGENDA



AFTER EASTLIEGH IT IS TIME THAT UKIP FACED SOME SERIOUS QUESTIONING




David Cameron’s characterisation of UKIP as being a party of fruitcakes and closet racists was correct.[1] Ed Miliband’s softer stance was more politically savvy;[2] though the UKIP view of Johnny Foreigner being indistinguishable from a good portion of the Tory right. It is also true, at one level, as one newspaper columnist has observed that UKIP’s agenda is little more than a Victor Meldrew  ‘moan list,’ you know the formula queue jumpers, benefit scroungers, the price of petrol, lazy workers, foreigners taking British jobs  and the demise of British industry.[3]
 UKIP has largely been given a free ride in the media, presented constantly with an open goal of EU ineptitude.-If the EU had hired a PR firm comprised of Mr Bean and Frank Spencer they could hardly have made a greater hash of things. Still the rabid anti Europeanism of UKIP, bordering at times on psychosis, hides a more sinister agenda, kept largely out of sight for obvious reasons. A party of protest, as UKIP has now become, is an empty vessel into which you can pour all of your legitimate anger, resentment, gripes and prejudices. Thus we have people voting UKIP in protest at the loss of their local library or the way a disabled son has been treated by the benefits system. We now have the phenomenon of someone voting UKIP in protest at spending cuts; this a party that believes that the Tories are lily livered lefties when it comes to cutting public spending, they would go much much further, eradicate the state from a whole range of basic service provision, repeal all the remaining laws protecting organised and unorganised labour and abolish the minimum wage. UKIP is a party of the far right, true it is closer to the American tea Party movement than the BNP, but of the far right all the same.
So for the second time in a week I find my self criticizing the BBC. I understand why UKIP representatives are constantly questioned on the European question, it is after all their raison d'etre ; though I think there position is now pretty clear, in case anybody out there is unclear, they want out. But as the party now claims to be part of the political mainstream, a party with a whole raft of policies, isn't it time they were grilled on these? For example, “you say the government has not cut enough, where would you cut, have you done the maths?” This might at least go some way to eradicate the preposterous phenomenon of voters appalled by the current carnage being wreaked upon community services from considering voting UKIP.


[1] Though I do not believe that UKIP voters all fall into this category.
[2] Miliband was too mindful of the point above.
[3] Of course some of these concerns are legitimate, the require important questions, though whatever the answers might be you can be pretty sure it is not UKIP.


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