WE MUST HAVE MORE OF UKIP AND NIGEL FARAGE
Every time
I see Nigel Farage on TV I can’t help feeling I am seeing an invented figure, the
product of a comic mind, an Evelyn Waugh or PG Wodehouse, or perhaps someone more contemporary such as Harry Enfield; Nigel Bloke, the pub
politician, possibly being portrayed by Harry Enfield himself or Paul
Whitehouse. Nigel pint in one hand, cigarette in
the other, spewing saloon bar wisdom, down to earth ‘common sense.’ Nigel, self-proclaimed
man of the people.
Unfortunately Mr Farage represents something more sinister than a figure of fun and at present he is getting plenty of media time, what he, or more precisely UKIP’s policies, are not getting is exposure.
Unfortunately Mr Farage represents something more sinister than a figure of fun and at present he is getting plenty of media time, what he, or more precisely UKIP’s policies, are not getting is exposure.
Providing a
critique of UKIP’s policies however is not going to be easy, since first you
have to locate them. Go onto their website and you will see the following
message, “other [sic] policies are under review & updates will follow’.*
There is then a very general statement of beliefs, the key passage being:-
‘We believe in the minimum necessary
government which defends individual freedom, supports those in real need, takes
as little of our money as possible and doesn’t interfere in our lives.’
The
important line here being ‘minimum
necessary government.’ UKIP is a party considerably to the right of the
conservatives, the nearest equivalent being I suppose the American Tea Party
movement. Though many who vote for UKIP are unaware of the ideology driving UKIP . This, one suspects, is a deliberate consequence of presentation that
is strong on generalities but weak on detail. For example some voters at last year’s
local elections voted UKIP in protest at cuts in local services, blithely
unaware that UKIP holds that current spending cuts have gone nowhere near far enough.
Whilst at last year’s Eastliegh By-election UKIP’s policy platform called for a reduction in everyone’s taxes, the reintroduction of free student grants, an increase in the size of the military and the police, an increase in the prison population and the enhancement of pensions.
Whilst at last year’s Eastliegh By-election UKIP’s policy platform called for a reduction in everyone’s taxes, the reintroduction of free student grants, an increase in the size of the military and the police, an increase in the prison population and the enhancement of pensions.
Such a
platform is of course economically illiterate and incoherent and represents a fairy
tale sold to the gullible by a party that knows it will never have to come
good on any of this. But how many voters were made aware of the incoherence of
UKIP’s policy positions? Wanting out of the
EU may or may not be popular, the case for staying in not having been
effectively made yet, but it also serves to obscure UKIP’s right wing agenda.
Cutting the
state to the bone, accompanied by a necessary radical reduction in taxation,
with its implication for the health service, local services and welfare, and a bonfire of
employment protection law is unlikely to have much attraction to the wider
public once these positions are exposed. So let us have more exposure of Mr Farage, UKIP and its
policies; however Farage and UKIP must be subjected to the full Paxman treatment, let’s
have the spotlight properly focused.
Fortunately
for British politics UKIP is fundamentally unstable, still more a pressure group than party and at its core a one man
band, with that one man possessed of an impressive ability to alienate colleagues.
Eventually it will splinter and collapse, my fear is how much damage it might
inflict in the meantime. Pouring scorn on the hard core of UKIP supporters, as opposed to those who might be seduced by UKIP's simplistic messages to vote for them, is not enough, UKIP’s real agenda must be exposed to maximum
sunlight.
*There are in fact no policies on the website.
