Ukip - why are they gaining support?

[stereotypical]

FWIW I don't think Stewart Lee hates scousers, I think it was a poorly considered rhetorical device. But it was a device he wouldn't have used against a different target. And I'm not convinced it's a reference to Hillsborough, although I can see how it could be read that way (and considering the way the whiny scousers meme has become wrapped up with Hillsborough over the years, another reason to avoid).

I saw this video yesterday for the first time. Being a born and bred scouser still living in my fair old city. I will say this. Firstly Ive never seen anything from Stewart Lee before (although I know who he is). Secondly, I obviously despise UKIP and enjoy any opportunity to mock them. Thirdly, I can take a joke. A lot of us scousers, particularly the younger generation have shunned the whole defensive posture that lots of the older scousers have. I can understand why they feel this way (having been treated like shat for decades, managed decline etc etc etc) but we like to think the city and its people have moved forward now and a lot has changed here in the past 10 years.

Finally, in my opinion......It was a load of garbage and a lazy way to make a reasonably clever and effective argument. Shame, I wont be wasting my time watching him again.

Not a single UKIP councillor was elected in this city on Friday. They didnt even come close across the two councils, Sefton and Liverpool City Council. We're all rather proud of this fact.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The second clause of that sentence is precisely the problem: dismissing all Kipper voters as 'bigots' isn't accurate, isn't fair...

Quite.

...and gets in the way of a proper analysis of who is voting for them and why.

yep, because it elides anything to do with, for example, political disenchantment, protest voting and local social relations.

Tbh, too, living in a place where UKIP have just broken through and came top of the Euro poll, I resent the suggestion that I live amongst a crowd of bigots. I don't. Where I do live is in a relatively deprived city where the majority have been ignored and/or crapped upon by the political establishment and the modern economy alike, and who have quite understandably looked at the mainstream parties and said 'well, fuck you then.' I'd rather they didn't vote for UKIP and I think they're wrong, but tbh I don't think I can fairly blame a lot of them for having done so.

hear hear. When the alternatives to the UKIP shit sandwich is a Tory shit sandwich, a Labour shit sandwich and a Lib-Dem shit sandwich, people are just as likely to try the new flavour as the old.

 

[DotCommunist]

Sorry, one of their candidates did say something to that effect (the video is in the link). They also publicly stated sympathy for the EDL.

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/05/09/ukip-spokesman-calls-on-far-right-party-to-join-them/

yes and I recall there was mention of a 'sympathetic to UKIP' article suggesting possible links in Spearhead. That LBC interview with Farage the other day covered this. What I meant by 'wishful thinking' is that the BNP aren't hitching to UKIPS wagon, and elements within UKIP who would like that are not to the fore.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It is pretty obvious UKIP have been trying to tap into anti-immigration sentiment and thrive on it. While I guess it is unfair to describe UKIP voters as bigots, a lot (probably the vast majority) vote for UKIP because of their stance on immigration.

Really?

On what basis have you reached this conclusion - informed research and/or comment, or uninformed personal opinion?

 

[DairyQueen]

The BNP was a recrudescence of elements of the NF into a more "socially-acceptable" form, culminating in Griffin's attempts at "new"/Euro-rightism and electoral politics. The BNP aren't an offshoot of UKIP, and UKIP aren't an offshoot of the BNP. UKIP is the child of the joining of the Referendum Party and the Libertarian Alliance.

I guess my language was poor, as I did imply they were the same organisation. I thought it was an open secret that UKIP have been courting BNP votes quite openly the past few years.

 

[Roadkill]

UKIP are anti-establishment.

I don't find the portrayal of a party to the right of the Tories, with millionaire backers, led by the wealthy, Dulwich College-educated son of a millionaire stockbroker as 'anti-establishment' very convincing, frankly.

 

[DotCommunist]

I guess my language was poor, as I did imply they were the same organisation. I thought it was an open secret that UKIP have been courting BNP votes quite openly the past few years.

ah, vote fishing rather than talk of direct links, merger, tendency within etc

yes that I can buy

 

[DotCommunist]

I don't find the portrayal of a party to the right of the Tories, with millionaire backers, led by the wealthy, Dulwich College-educated son of a millionaire stockbroker as 'anti-establishment' very convincing, frankly.

but he has a fag and a pint at the same time

 

[DairyQueen]

Really?

On what basis have you reached this conclusion - informed research and/or comment, or uninformed personal opinion?

Well, why are they voting for UKIP and not Greens? Money might be an issue, but why did the BNP four years ago do so well and immigration tends to be on the top of everyone's shit list when times are good?

 

[Roadkill]

hear hear. When the alternatives to the UKIP shit sandwich is a Tory shit sandwich, a Labour shit sandwich and a Lib-Dem shit sandwich, people are just as likely to try the new flavour as the old.

Aye, even when on cl;oser inspection the turd in this particular sandwich turns out to be a particularly splattery and malodorous specimen.







I wish I'd not thought of that.

 

[DairyQueen]

I don't find the portrayal of a party to the right of the Tories, with millionaire backers, led by the wealthy, Dulwich College-educated son of a millionaire stockbroker as 'anti-establishment' very convincing, frankly.

Yes, but their rank and file are fucking crazy.

 

[butchersapron]

yes and I recall there was mention of a 'sympathetic to UKIP' article suggesting possible links in Spearhead. That LBC interview with Farage the other day covered this. What I meant by 'wishful thinking' is that the BNP aren't hitching to UKIPS wagon, and elements within UKIP who would like that are not to the fore.

Spearhead was tyndall's anti-griffin mag, it wasn't a BNP mag once griffin took over (i,e pretty much the whole UKIP period) - and it was relentlessly anti-UKIP seeing it as potential (non-racist) competitor and also as bound to die pretty quickly due to that same lack of racism.

 

[DotCommunist]

Well, why are they voting for UKIP and not Greens? Money might be an issue, but why did the BNP do so well and immigration tends to be on the top of everyone's shit list when times are good?

who were times good for. The boom times weren't for everyone.

 

[Roadkill]

Yes, but their rank and file are fucking crazy.

What, so people like ex-businessman and former Tory MEP Roger Helmer are anti-establishment?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I guess my language was poor, as I did imply they were the same organisation. I thought it was an open secret that UKIP have been courting BNP votes quite openly the past few years.

What they were courting was those few "respectable" votes (i.e. voters originating on the mainstream right) that the BNP turned up between roughly 2005-2010. They weren't targeting BNP ideologues, but voters who could rightly be described as right-wing "floaters" - people who usually voted Tory, but might vote for another rightist party for local political reasons.

 

[butchersapron]

I guess my language was poor, as I did imply they were the same organisation. I thought it was an open secret that UKIP have been courting BNP votes quite openly the past few years.

It was mostly the other way round - Griffin sent Buster Mottram to open talks and Farage used him to cut out the BNP element of the UKIP membership by letting the rat run for a while. For the voters, well, everyone is after them.

 

[Manter]

Scotland waking up to the depressing realisation that we've now got a UKIP MEP this morning. Of more concern to me is that of the 20,184 votes cast for Britain First across the UK, 13551 were in Scotland

I didn't know they were a party, I thought they were a Facebook site

 

[Roadkill]

but he has a fag and a pint at the same time

Truly an anarchist.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I don't find the portrayal of a party to the right of the Tories, with millionaire backers, led by the wealthy, Dulwich College-educated son of a millionaire stockbroker as 'anti-establishment' very convincing, frankly.

I think that we (people in general, that is) tend to throw around the term "anti-establishment" when sometimes we actually mean something else, such as "anti-the current state of party politics" or "anti-the tripartite hegemony".
Let's be clear, "the establishment" will still be "the establishment", however UKIP performs, because "the establishment" isn't "the state" or the government, it's a loose web of power, influence and privilege that can't be affected by "anti-establishment" sentiment in the way that the state or the government can be affected.

 

[DotCommunist]

I didn't know they were a party, I thought they were a Facebook site

an easy mistake to make given that they've astroturfed hardcore with bought facebook statuses.

look at the wki tho, they've links to the fleg protests and the NI right

 

[frogwoman]

If a real fascist movement was to develop in this country some of you wouldn't even recognize it.

 

[Treacle Toes]

I haven't accused anyone of racism.

That wasn't why I posted that link.

I posted it to point out that there are people around here who like to preach a great deal yet they aren't in position to be pointing the finger at anyone.

Read the thread and you will find it full of apologists and people using their rep around here to get away with the very thing they are critiscising on this thread.

 

[DairyQueen]

It was mostly the other way round - Griffin sent Buster Mottram to open talks and Farage used him to cut out the BNP element of the UKIP membership by letting the rat run for a while. For the voters, well, everyone is after them.

I don't think any party pursued (or could pursue) the BNP vote as openly as UKIP has done.

 

[Roadkill]

I think that we (people in general, that is) tend to throw around the term "anti-establishment" when sometimes we actually mean something else, such as "anti-the current state of party politics" or "anti-the tripartite hegemony".

Fair comment. UKIP are very definitely the latter, whilst in other ways being as 'establishment' as they come.

 

[Mr Moose]

Anyone like to speculate how a 'Yes' vote in Scotland would affect UKIP's popularity at the next General Election?

 

[butchersapron]

I don't think any party pursued (or could pursue) the BNP vote as openly as UKIP has done.

I think the language and policies of the main parties on immigration etc has far wider purchase and impact on potential BNP voters than some UKIP candidate saying send them all back. The same way that Thatcher had far more impact on the NF than the ANL did.

 

[chilango]

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/characterising-ukip.323917/

Exactly why I started that thread.

 

[DotCommunist]

If a real fascist movement was to develop in this country some of you wouldn't even recognize it.

ENGLAND PREVAILS!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Well, why are they voting for UKIP and not Greens? Money might be an issue, but why did the BNP four years ago do so well and immigration tends to be on the top of everyone's shit list when times are good?

Money is an issue, as is the activist base. The Greens barely have the financial and human resources to run candidates across the euro-constituencies, and only enough to target a limited number of wards. UKIP may have been able to call on (did call on, IMO) surreptitious support from local Tories in some of the wards they ran candidates in. The Greens don't have anyone ideologically-close enough that such support is possible, even if Labour or the Lib-Dems had much of an activist base left.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

A more useful comparrison than UKIP/Green hype may be BNP/Green hype.

5 years ago the BNP got 2 seats on about a million votes. The press were very excited.

Last night The Greens got 3 seats on about 1.2 million votes. The press hardly mention it.

The press like "sensation". Hate and blame are a big part of that.

When the establishemnt has a crisis of popularity, it prefers the dissent to be channeled rightward than leftward. That's what's generally happened across the EU with notable, less reported gains on the solid left (The Greens across the EU held their position with no overall gains or losses)