Nigel Farage forces Ukip into the political mainstream with a stunning haul of seats in the local elections
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There is nothing as
frustrating and sad, as watching and listening to politicians burying
their heads in the sand in the hope that an unpleasant situation
will, somehow, pass them by. Yesterday, the two main news stations on
television were in fierce competition parading politicians from the
three traditional parties, in front of the camera to explain and in
most cases dismiss, how it was that a political party which has no
base in Westminster, has no well oiled organisation and was, until
yesterday at least, derided as “clowns” and “fruitcakes”,
could come from nowhere to claim 25% of the vote and gain more than
140 seats to hold 147 at the end of the day. Admittedly, the overall
turnout was quite low at less than 40%, but never the less, 25% of
the votes cast is a significant number of people. No matter what
Gove, Hughes, Chuka Umunna, Cable, Harman, Cameron, Clegg or any of
the others may say to spin out reality, yesterday was a bad day for
the three traditional parties.
Even more worryingly, they
were as one when resorting to the usual meaningless clichés of
having to listen to the people, explain their policies, re connect
with the public, ensure that lessons are learned, and all the other
tired old phrases which always see daylight following parliamentary
by-elections or local council elections.
Paradoxically of course
each of the party spokespersons are able to explain away, (at least
to their own satisfaction) how the result was, on balance, quite a
good result for their own party. Taking first prize in this charade
was Simon Hughes, who was able to convince himself, if not his
audience, that the Liberal Democrat vote held up quite well, with the
party holding on to many of their seats in the west Country and
coming second in many others. The fact that the Liberal Democrats
lost over 130 seats across the country was conveniently passed over.
No matter what personal
political views anyone may have, the fact remains that UKIP had a
very good day and have struck a chord with significant numbers of
people around the country. UKIP councillors now have seats in many of
the County Halls in the United Kingdom, as well as seats in the
European parliament. Next year there are European elections, with a
UK general election in 2015. Yesterday's result was an indication of
many things. Some elements of “Protest” votes quite probably, but
not sufficient in itself to create such a dramatic shift in voter
preference. To dismiss this 25% poll showing as a “flash in the
pan” and to “confidently predict that this will never happen
again” as one Tory commentator come politician did in a live
interview on BBC, is taking wishful thinking to an absurd level.
Never say never as someone once remarked.
There has been a
realignment on the right of British politics and the politicians of
the traditional parties would be well advised to recognise it. With
the present “First past the post” voting system in this country,
UKIP would have little chance of turning their percentage share of
the votes into parliamentary seats in Westminster, albeit that the
Liberal Democrat have consistently had less than 25% vote share since
1983, but have still managed to convert that into seats in the House
of Commons.
However, between now and 7
May 2015 (except in the event of a two-thirds majority of MPs voting
for an early election), it is not beyond the realms of possibility
that support for “the 4th Party” will increase to such an extent
as to ensure that the make up of the Commons will be very different
from that which we see today.
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