Ukip - why are they gaining support?

[J Ed]

Apart from glancing at the Sheffield Star the only proof I've seen in Sheffield that an election was actually happening was a pro-Labour poster in the window of a big house in a posh bit of Sheffield Hallam. Maybe it was Billings' house.

I didn't vote, I didn't even consider voting. They are all scum.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Oh, believe me; I do so hate elitism. Including the kind of sneering, elitism some urbanites excell in on threads like these.

Ask a question, a simple question, from a simple person and there's never a straight answer. Just oneupmanship.

Well, sod UKIP and sod those who are trying to paint them as some kind of anti-establishment party. The voice of the people.

My arse they are.

Nobody here is saying UKIP are an anti-establishment party. But you are singling them out as racist and nasty and beyond the pale and this is a thread about why UKIP are getting support. It therefore is surely reasonable to ask about your attitude to the 3 main equally racist and nasty parties?

What's different about UKIP, in your view?

 

[SpackleFrog]

Apart from glancing at the Sheffield Star the only proof I've seen in Sheffield that an election was actually happening was a pro-Labour poster in the window of a big house in a posh bit of Sheffield Hallam. Maybe it was Billings' house.

I didn't vote, I didn't even consider voting. They are all scum.

A TUist I know was asked to stand for Labour. He told me they said "We want someone who is a labour party member but who has no connection to the labour party."

 

[youngian]

People have a right to change and be given the benefit of the doubt.Here Nigel Farage's election agent shows how far he has moved from his far right nationalist past

Mr Heale, party leader Nigel Farage’s campaign manager in the Kent constituency of South Thanet, had previously said that his membership of the NF in the late 1970s was “a bad decision” that he “sincerely” regretted.

But in an about-turn, Mr Heale has now leapt to the defence of the organisation.

In today’s issue of the London Review of Books, Mr Heale is quoted as saying: “There’s been an attempt by many people to associate the National Front with the far right. But that’s not fair, that’s not true.

“It was a bit of a social club,” he told the journal. “Initially the National Front was just a group of retired people and soldiers.”

Mr Heale was a branch organiser for the National Front in Hammersmith, west London.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-ea41-UKIP-OFFICIAL-DEFENDS-RACIST-NATIONAL-FRONT#.VFdMyfmsUfV

 

[brogdale]

People have a right to change and be given the benefit of the doubt.Here Nigel Farage's election agent shows how far he has moved from his far right nationalist past

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-ea41-UKIP-OFFICIAL-DEFENDS-RACIST-NATIONAL-FRONT#.VFdMyfmsUfV

To avoid any confusion about dates, this story comes from James Meek's "Farageland" published in the LRB (Oct 9th).

In which Heale does indeed talk about his NF past, but (and in no way trying to defend the indefensible) the MS extract above omits to say that, in the interim, Heale was for "a Conservative" for two decades.

Heale was one of 17 Ukip members elected to Kent County Council last May, making them the second biggest party. (Of the eight seats in Thanet, Ukip won seven.) Before that, in 2003, Heale stood as an independent against a Tory councillor but lost. Before that, he was a Conservative for twenty years. Before that, living in London, he was in a group called the Progress Party; before that, he hung out with the anti-immigrant fringe politician Dennis Delderfield; before that, in 1978, he was a branch organiser with the National Front.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes, the full LRB piece needs to be read rather than just the piece from the desperate short searchlight journo labour party member and oxbridge boy.

Good to see the MS opening up it's ranks to the w/c.

 

[krtek a houby]

Nobody here is saying UKIP are an anti-establishment party. But you are singling them out as racist and nasty and beyond the pale and this is a thread about why UKIP are getting support. It therefore is surely reasonable to ask about your attitude to the 3 main equally racist and nasty parties?

What's different about UKIP, in your view?

I guess they appeal to people who hate politics/politicians

 

[Louis MacNeice]

I guess they appeal to people who hate politics/politicians

So a small potential constituency then?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[krtek a houby]

So a small potential constituency then?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

I guess that depends on the people who hate politics enough to vote to prove that they hate politics.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

I guess that depends on the people who hate politics enough to vote to prove that they hate politics.

Do you think that disliking current politicians is an understandable/legitimate motivation for people's electoral choices?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[Pickman's model]

People have a right to change and be given the benefit of the doubt.Here Nigel Farage's election agent shows how far he has moved from his far right nationalist past

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-ea41-UKIP-OFFICIAL-DEFENDS-RACIST-NATIONAL-FRONT#.VFdMyfmsUfV

not far from the sounds of it

 

[krtek a houby]

Do you think that disliking current politicians is an understandable/legitimate motivation for people's electoral choices?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

I guess that would depend on whether they are voting because they feel "swamped" or whether they want to be treated better; ie; higher wages, less taxes etc

 

[Louis MacNeice]

I guess that would depend on whether they are voting because they feel "swamped" or whether they want to be treated better; ie; higher wages, less taxes etc

Interesting? So UKIP voters could be progressively motivated; e.g. looking for better terms and conditions...this would be part of UKIP's appeal? also is paying less tax necessarily being 'treated better'?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[krtek a houby]

Interesting? So UKIP voters could be progressively motivated; e.g. looking for better terms and conditions...this would be part of UKIP's appeal? also is paying less tax necessarily being 'treated better'?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

They could be a gang of sassy saints and scholars for all I care. I won't be voting for them, despite your best attempts.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

They could be a gang of sassy saints and scholars for all I care. I won't be voting for them, despite your best attempts.

I'm not cheer leading for UKIP. I'm saying that if you want to stop people voting for them - and I'm against people voting for a whole raft of reactionary anti-working class parties - then you need to understand why they have done so. It's not as easy, or maybe as immediately satisfying, as jerking your knee or thumbing your nose, but it will be more productive in the long term.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[SpackleFrog]

I guess that would depend on whether they are voting because they feel "swamped" or whether they want to be treated better; ie; higher wages, less taxes etc

Why would they feel "swamped"?

And is it not possible that it's a powerful combination of both?

 

[youngian]

I'm not cheer leading for UKIP. I'm saying that if you want to stop people voting for them - and I'm against people voting for a whole raft of reactionary anti-working class parties - then you need to understand why they have done so. It's not as easy, or maybe as immediately satisfying, as jerking your knee or thumbing your nose, but it will be more productive in the long term.

And it does no harm to explore some factual findings into the mentality of Kippers instead of relying on crude stereotypes

Ukip supporters are overwhelmingly more likely to believe in ghosts and other paranormal phenomena than their Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat counterparts, according to recent polling by YouGov.

http://www.newsweek.com/ukip-supporters-more-likely-believe-ghosts-poll-finds-281788

 

[krtek a houby]

I'm not cheer leading for UKIP. I'm saying that if you want to stop people voting for them - and I'm against people voting for a whole raft of reactionary anti-working class parties - then you need to understand why they have done so. It's not as easy, or maybe as immediately satisfying, as jerking your knee or thumbing your nose, but it will be more productive in the long term.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

He said, patronisingly. Yeah, I think I get it now.

 

[butchersapron]

It's the krtek lunch hour of happiness!
O wonderous times!

 

[krtek a houby]

It's the krtek lunch hour of happiness!
O wonderous times!

What has that got to do with UKIP support, do you think?

 

[butchersapron]

We could call it houby's half hour.

 

[krtek a houby]

We could call it houby's half hour.

What has that got to do with UKIP support, do you think?

 

[butchersapron]

What has that got to do with UKIP support, do you think?

Every 12-30 to one o'c clock people would gather together around the modern televsion. It could re-ignite a sense of our common humanity through the sheer delight to each and all that it brings in equal measure.

 

[krtek a houby]

Every 12-30 to one o'c clock people would gather together around the modern televsion. It could re-ignite a sense of our common humanity through the sheer delight to each and all that it brings in equal measure.

What has that got to do with UKIP support, do you think?

 

[butchersapron]

What has that got to do with UKIP support, do you think?

Then, of course, the terrible descent into disruptive enervating self-pity and maudlin flight to many different australia's might follow. It's a risk i think we should take given the sheer joy it might bring in the here-and-now.

 

[krtek a houby]

Then, of course, the terrible descent into disruptive enervating self-pity and maudlin flight to many different australia's might follow. It's a risk i think we should take given the sheer joy it might bring in the here-and-now.

What has that got to do with UKIP support, do you think?

 

[butchersapron]

I must say, it's a refreshing informed set of arguments/positions/etc that you've brought to this debate houbers. Thank you for taking the time.

 

[krtek a houby]

I must say, it's a refreshing informed set of arguments/positions/etc that you've brought to this debate houbers. Thank you for taking the time.

What has that got to do with UKIP support, do you think?

 

[butchersapron]

Oh - the end so soon. Very def farce second time around, but containing all the tragedy of the first as well. Bravo!

 

[krtek a houby]

Oh - the end so soon. Very def farce second time around, but containing all the tragedy of the first as well. Bravo!

What has that got to do with UKIP support, do you think?