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Ukip - why are they gaining support?

brogdale said:
:D

I'm just amazed that Butcher's has not yet identified which recent NLR piece I've plagiarised.:D

Though, tbf, the application to UKIP's rise was 'all my own work'.
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Perry of the andersons i guess? I've saving the piece up as i find his style too show offy to read unless the decks have been cleared.
 
brogdale said:
:D

I did try to weave in "reified" in honour of Dwyer, but lost the will...

T'was Nancy that I was reading.
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Ah, interesting - i was going to post something about her new book on that hiden abode the other day but lost the link. Can't remember if it was an event or an article or vid or something.
 
butchersapron said:
They took 27% across bristol - a labour councilor has just called UKIP voters "thick and ignorant". I reckon there are urban areas outside of brilliant super london. Some posters may have heard of them.
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Didn't UKIP get 20% in London in the Euros?
 
andysays I'm not arguing that voting UKIP is a "coherent expression of pro-working class politics". That would be silly.

It is, however, reasonable to assume that given the choice of narratives available via the ballot box in these elections that people who chose to vote UKIP chose the narrative most likely to be interpreted, and portrayed as "anti-establishment". In that sense I'd argue that it was a pretty coherent gesture.

That the political content of UKIP is as solidly pro-establishment and anti-w/c as the others is, at this point, neither here nor there. Voters had no intention of electing a UKIP government, they understood implicitly the limits of these elections and how the various available outcomes would play out.
 
chilango said:
andysays I'm not arguing that voting UKIP is a "coherent expression of pro-working class politics". That would be silly.

It is, however, reasonable to assume that given the choice of narratives available via the ballot box in these elections that people who chose to vote UKIP chose the narrative most likely to be interpreted, and portrayed as "anti-establishment". In that sense I'd argue that it was a pretty coherent gesture.

That the political content of UKIP is as solidly pro-establishment and anti-w/c as the others is, at this point, neither here nor there. Voters had no intention of electing a UKIP government, they understood implicitly the limits of these elections and how the various available outcomes would play out.
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Thanks for your response and expansion of your earlier point. I still disagree, because I think that, simply concerning ourselves with electoral politics*, there were other options which would be more coherently anti-establishment, for example the Greens or TUSC, imperfect though both of those options are. So the question for me is why has the major political and electoral beneficiary of the anger and fear caused by 30+ years of anti working class neoliberal politics been another party which is, to me and apparently to you too, explicitly anti working class and neoliberal, rather than something (anything) more positive?

Clearly the result of these elections wasn't going to be a UKIP govt, or even a UKIP council anywhere. Similarly, the coming general election won't result in a UKIP government, but depending on how and where their support develops, it may have a significant influence on the balance of the various parties and therefore influence, to some extent, the party make up of the next government.

But what it clearly (clear to me; I'd better say that other opinions are available in case I'm accused again of seeking to define the only acceptable terms of debate) won't do is make any difference whatsoever to the neoliberal anti working class nature of the next government or, in the longer term, help any of us to build any sort of pro working class, or even mildly progressive, alternative. This, for me is a cause of concern, rather than the sort of glee which some (not you) are indulging in.

Thank you also for recognising that my saying I disagree with you on this is an invitation for you to expand and discuss, rather than an attempt to shut down discussion.

*I still think that, despite banging on about unspecified social developments beyond the electoral arena, it's significant that no one has attempted to outline how they think that increased support for UKIP could translate into anything positive there either, but perhaps that's another question.
 
Brainaddict said:
I think this is what I find most puzzling about the notion that something good lies within the rise of UKIP - even the possible good they could do, i.e. help getting us out of the EU, would be done on death-to-EU-socialism/multiculturalism terms that would help determine the future course of economic and social policy within an EU-less Britain. And not in a good way. It's like hoping we'll withdraw from the WTO if people were wanting to do it on the grounds that it has the 'communist' country China in it. Sure, we'd be out of the WTO, but at the cost of demonising the left and with it many possible solutions to our own economic problems. It's paddling up shit creek knowing the crocodiles are going to nick your paddle when you're halfway up.
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I do think there is a limit to the significance of UKIP in the grand scheme of things. The left is dead in the country right now.

Remember the Tories will never interfere with capital flows, they might pander to the 'bigot vote' and talk tough on immigration (even propose impractical 'quick fixes' to Schengen) but that is where it stops. UKIP will never be more than a one man band, or a Tory spoiler. The fact the Tories are pandering to the right is probably a good thing. It is far more likely that the Tories just can't deal with this existential crisis, so we get a parade of unelectable right-wing toffs (remember Duncan Smith, Hague, Howard).

Even if Britain does leave the EU, what sort of country do you think will be left in its wake and what do you think that'll do to the neoliberal movement?
 
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Trevor Phillips, former chair of the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: “Integration doesn’t happen by accident – you have to work at it. If we want to avoid a slow descent into mutual bigotry, we need to drop the dogma, stop singing kumbaya to each other, weigh the evidence without sentiment, recognise the reality, and work out a programme – both symbolic and practical – to change the reality.”
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wise words?
 
andysays said:
Thanks for your response and expansion of your earlier point. I still disagree, because I think that, simply concerning ourselves with electoral politics*, there were other options which would be more coherently anti-establishment, for example the Greens or TUSC, imperfect though both of those options are. So the question for me is why has the major political and electoral beneficiary of the anger and fear caused by 30+ years of anti working class neoliberal politics been another party which is, to me and apparently to you too, explicitly anti working class and neoliberal, rather than something (anything) more positive?

Clearly the result of these elections wasn't going to be a UKIP govt, or even a UKIP council anywhere. Similarly, the coming general election won't result in a UKIP government, but depending on how and where their support develops, it may have a significant influence on the balance of the various parties and therefore influence, to some extent, the party make up of the next government.

But what it clearly (clear to me; I'd better say that other opinions are available in case I'm accused again of seeking to define the only acceptable terms of debate) won't do is make any difference whatsoever to the neoliberal anti working class nature of the next government or, in the longer term, help any of us to build any sort of pro working class, or even mildly progressive, alternative. This, for me is a cause of concern, rather than the sort of glee which some (not you) are indulging in.

Thank you also for recognising that my saying I disagree with you on this is an invitation for you to expand and discuss, rather than an attempt to shut down discussion.

*I still think that, despite banging on about unspecified social developments beyond the electoral arena, it's significant that no one has attempted to outline how they think that increased support for UKIP could translate into anything positive there either, but perhaps that's another question.
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I've just spoken to an acquaintance of mine, she is part of a big multi-racial family, she says they are 'terrified', (yes terrified) of what is happening in Europe, especially France, fear UKIP and see Farage as very dangerous, worried that the recent EU arrivals in their family will be kicked out, I think they may be over reacting, but I wonder what other such families feel, after all UKIP are getting numerous BEM votes.
 
it means stop the embarrassing hands-over-the-water stuff and just live as normal with people who were not born here but have come to fix the pipes, gamble, have a shit twice a day, have a baby, etc etc. Trouble is thats how everyone has been acting more or less. So he is railing against a straw man, or if I am generous railing against those sorts who think ethnic food festivals* and the like represent cultural intergration

*I have nothing against such festivals. I myself constantly score cheap cooked meats of a polish brand, some of which include offal. Don't really like offal but if it is in the mix, fuck it
 
DotCommunist said:
it means stop the embarrassing hands-over-the-water stuff and just live as normal with people who were not born here but have come to fix the pipes, gamble, have a shit twice a day, have a baby, etc etc. Trouble is thats how everyone has been acting more or less. So he is railing against a straw man, or if I am generous railing against those sorts who think ethnic food festivals* and the like represent cultural intergration

*I have nothing against such festivals. I myself constantly score cheap cooked meats of a polish brand, some of which include offal. Don't really like offal but if it is in the mix, fuck it
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Oh right. Less happy clappy liberal shit and using words like 'vibrant' and more being normal like what most people were doing anyway
 
But and this is key, he also means, have a body (with a potential head, say 80 grand for 3 days work a month) to "work out a programme – both symbolic and practical – to change the reality.”

Towards the end of the CRE, he really got the multi-culturalism from above is damaging segregating nonsense. But, the boy wants a job.
 
JTG said:
Oh right. Less happy clappy liberal shit and using words like 'vibrant' and more being normal like what most people were doing anyway
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pretty much. You know when immigration becomes an issue? when our kids are at school with their evil spawn.

never mind that the w/c have been existing alongside the incomers for ever.
 
Has anyone ever pinned Farage or UKIP down on exactly what they plan to do with the hundreds of thousands of EU citizens who have come and built lives in the UK in good faith? Would they deport them all, allow them all to claim citizenship, or will there be some kind of test or conditionality to make sure only people who are the right sort of people are allowed to stay?
 
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