I believe that Sunday 5th January 2014 will go down in history as the day that public perception of UKIP turned from being that of a bunch of ex-Tory “fruitcakes” that got a bit nerdy about the EU, to a party for the working man and woman. Why?
The day started normally enough with the morning papers. We had an Ashcroft Poll showing us where our supporters are coming from. While a half of Tory defectors were found to now vote UKIP, 60% of UKIP voters came from other sources, including people who had never or who had stopped voting, but also a lot from Labour too.
Then, Nigel Farage appeared on Sky’s Murnaghan Show. In it, the presenter quoted some of Enoch Powell’s infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech and asked Nigel if he recognized it. Nigel did not, but when told, Nigel said:
“Well what he was warning about was the large influx of people into an area, that change an area beyond recognition, there is tension – the basic principle is right.”
What we must bear in mind was that while Enoch Powell was a Tory, he represented what was effectively the working class district of Wolverhampton South West, and in his speech he was presenting the problems related to him by his constituents caused by a local hotspot of “mass immigration” from the Caribbean in 1968. It was those at the bottom of society who suffered, not the better-off.
Also, in the same programme, Nigel went on to talk about the massive over-supply of unskilled labour which is pushing the wages of British people down, while enabling big business to profit. Again, it is the “little man” who suffers. Nigel said:
“There is no question that it’s pushed wage inflation down; it’s helped big companies and big corporations and big landowners to make bigger profits – no argument about that.”
As the day progressed, the Mirror Online referenced the Ashcroft Poll, and put up a self-selecting voting intention poll. The results must have shocked the left-leaning Mirror journalists, which showed UKIP with a landslide of Mirror readers for UKIP. Here’s just one representative snapshot of the vote:
What really did it for me, indeed it quite choked me up to see it, were the responses to the UKIP Facebook page post on the Ashcroft Poll. Take a look at these responses from ordinary working people.
Daniel describes himself as “Sainsbury’s Mess Cleaner” to which he gained other not very well worded replies, but heartfelt ones. There’s one more now: “first time I voted was when blair got in. never voted before or since. now i will vote nothing but ukip, every time.” These are all ordinary working people who 20-30 years ago would have voted Labour or not at all, and today they are going to get out there and vote UKIP.
It also made me think of two of Tony Hooke’s articles which advocated UKIP forging links with the Trade Unions: the “What is the Point of Labour” and “UKIP and the NHS” articles. I know that in some quarters these two articles have predicated sharp intakes of breath. Of course we don’t want a return to the old days of Union barons who held the country to ransom, nor do we want Unions who are part of a Political Correctness Industry, but Unions who want to responsibly represent the needs of the working population would sit well with a Party that wants to represent the mass of the people of this country rather than the elite.
While I am sure that much of the Mainstream Media will still babble on about us splitting the Tory vote, it is the splitting of the Labour and “None of the Above” votes that the establishment needs to worry about. If we can build solid bridges to the working men and women of this country, victory is certain.
Isn’t it ironic that a party started by some intellectual right-wingers who could see the fallacies of the European Union ends up as the party of the working man!
Amazing stuff!
Yeah, right, only in your dreams, pal. I used to think that UKIP was a broadly based, anti-EU coalition, and I joined on that basis. When the party asked me to run as a candidate in Pendle Central for the May 2013 elections it was made clear that candidates could choose their policies from the manifesto rather as items are picked from a smorgasbord. Since UKIP do not have a system of whipping, each candidate is treated as an independent, and is responsible only to his electorate. I lived in a working class district and had become known as the bloke who helped people fill in their benefit claim forms, so I knew that this would give me a boost, and being able to pick my own policies made my chances of coming in a decent second even better.
Then Thatcher went off to be toasted by Hell’s furnaces and in common with millions of others I joined in the gloating at her weepy followers. Within a day I was told by Fred McGlade, the Northwest Regional Organiser, that my candidacy was to be withdrawn and the people of Pendle Central were to be left without a UKIP candidate. When I objected, I was offered money. When I pointed out that I needed time to remember my expenses thus far and get receipts, McGlade told me that he did not want any paperwork and was happy just to pay me. Whenever I mention this to people they immediately reply that this looks suspiciously like a bung, but I am sure that was never in McGlade’s mind.
Finally, when I complained to the national party about this I received a wonderfully illiterate attempt to muddy the waters and defend McGlade. Trust me, that and other documents are going to come in handy in 2015.
UKIP proved with this incident that it has nothing to offer the working class people who live in the big cities. It is the party of nasty little men in their nasty little towns and shires who fantasise that Mummy Maggie is going to return to smack their naughty bot-bots.
It could have been all so different.
By your nasty vile comments about the late Margaret Thatcher a human being after all even if you didn’t agree with her politics proves UKIP did the right thing standing you down. UKIP want people who are professional and not someone who uses such unprofessional language.
Thank you for proving my points. Good luck getting any votes on any council estate!
I grew up on the most notorious council estate in Wales UKIP will get their votes have no doubt about that
Only in your dreams. You will do very well in the Euros, as the only people who vote in Euro elections are the truly committed, but the next year when it is for real, the cities will not vote for a gang of small town Poujadists. As for the saloon bar bores in their blazers, most of them will go back the the Tories.
You have what you wanted: a party of the crappier towns and shitty suburbs. Remember my words when it all turns to shit for you next year.
Reading your tweet I now realise it wasnt the anti thatcher that caused your downfall in our party its that they realised you were an interloper who is a leftie and would have tried to cause damage to our party BACK TO YOUR MATE ED
Don’t be silly. I never pretended to be anything other than a socialist, and I was welcomed into the party by the local branch on that basis. Remember that UKIP was pretending to be a broad coalition in those days. Here’s the deal: coalitions involve people other than the ones that we like.
Broad church yes but you leave your previous allegiances at the door UKIP its it own party with its own policies its not Labour2
By the way, I did dump the Labour Party when Blair took over, so that jibe won’t wash. I might also add that you have clearly not left your loyalties to dead Tory leaders behind, otherwise you would not be yapping in such an entertaining way.
No-one likes to be rejected Ken and that’s exactly what’s coming through loud and clear here in your – let’s be honest – angrier and angrier replies to posters. A reality check: your socialist anti-right prejudice’s, bigotry’s, loathing and hate towards Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives, culminating in your gloating gleefully over her death, is why you were stood down as a candidate. So you really have no-one else to blame for your stupidity but yourself mate. As for your quite serious allegations against Fred McGlade and UKIP’s national leadership, well you have offered no physical evidence other than your rejection fuelled anti-right ranting’s here on this page, and have essentially sealed your own fate with regards to being welcomed back into UKIP. But then I don’t think UKIP was ever going to be the right party for you, and would wonder only why you chose to stand as a UKIP candidate in the first place, remembering your obvious and quite open anti-right leanings as a confirmed socialist.
Angrier and angrier – what? My comments are getting shorter and shorter as people seem to be unable to read back through my comments and make the same remarks again and again.
For instance, all your first point does is reiterate what I had already said. I was given money to stand down by McGlade because the old slag’s passing had me in hysterics. You write as if you have discovered a universal truth, but it was one that I gave you!
Please do try to read what I write, because I did not ask to stand, UKIP asked me – get it? I was a well known local figure who helped people fill in their benefit claim forms – how many times do I have to repeat that? Thus I could bring a base of support to a seat that had never had a UKIP candidate before, and even though I was never going to win, I felt that I could have come a decent second.
I just want to get the UK out of the EU for reasons that are far different from yours. You have made it plain that to you it is better to stay in the EU than to build the large coalition needed to get out.
When 2015 comes along to bite you on the bum, please remember my words.
I was also a Labour Party member in Pendle for decades and there is certainly anti-Thatcher feeling in Red Nelson (that’s going back!). I’m now happier in UKIP.
I feel you were treated harshly by UKIP but that the party did the right thing in difficult circumstances. We should never gloat at someone’s death even if we didn’t like them.
Yes, UKIP has to appeal to working class voters but celebrating a death is misguided if understandable.
Why not? If you want working class votes in a place like Nelson, then anything but hatred for the Maggot and the creatures who worshiped her is a non-starter.
The sensible thing would be to do as the Liberals do and run different campaigns in different areas. So long as all Kippers agree on leaving the EU, it really does not matter if candidates choose differing policies form the party’s smorgasbord. That was how UKIP was presented to me, before they had their collective brainfart when the old slag cashed in her chips.
In other words it is all tosh: UKIP is the voice of the small towns as I said earlier. It offers nothing to the working class.
You can’t really be surprised that your candidacy was withdrawn if you were ‘gloating’ at someones death. I’m no fan of Thatcher, but UKIP gets far more scrutiny than any other party and it wouldn’t exactly look good if UKIP representatives were gloating at her death.
*comment deleted due to obscene language*
It’s good to see UKIP filtering out candidates who make such comments – it will cause some rejected individuals to “spout off”, however it’s the right thing to do however difficult for a young party.
I did admire Margaret Thatcher, in her determination on trying to get a better deal in Europe and reshape Britain, but she did sign the Single European Act and then tried to sell it to the public, that there was nothing to worry about.
Later of course, it must have nudged her conscience while trying to sleep, for her speech in Bruge caused a big storm, and spawned whole new movements. She didn’t last long after that, though, when the knives came out for her, from her own party. I have to thank her, for at least galvanising some people to form the Bruge Group, and then UKIP and several other movements.
Celebrating someones death, so soon after is not very good form. It would be seen as “not very becoming”
We have been discovering this for a long time now whilst campaigning throughout Wales; that the people turning to us are ex Labour/Plaid Cymru supporters, and more importantly – those who gave up voting or have never voted at all. We are not Far Right… We are Common Sense. Only UKIP can knock on the door of a stately home, or a council house, and give the exact same message without having to modify it, and receive the same positive response. Because we speak for the majority of the people and we are their voice.
People like Prof Tim Congdon, though – who ran for the leadership and has Nigel’s ear – want UKIP to go down the arch-free trading globalist route, which would be very damaging to UKIP’s chances among normal working people (who constantly lose their jobs to this ideology).
I fully agree. As an example, my mother has been a lifelong Tory voter. She supported Cameron (as did I), and for the first time last weekend following the EU immigration disaster said she will be voting UKIP after watching Farage on TV. Up until this point she had believed the media whitewash that UKIP were, to put it bluntly “fruitcakes”.
The simple process of watching Cameron explain why open borders is “fine” followed by the clear and logical rebuttal from Farage has won her over.
Stay logical, well argued and reasonable and UKIP will continue to win support from across the political spectrum, and people will see the criticism from the media as it is – a whitewash to preserve the status quo.
Theconlablib party you may as well treat them the same they have the same policies will never allow us a referendum, and people are beginning to realise this, moribund and Clogg are rampant europhiles and camoron is only pretending that he will allow one hence the doomed to fail private members bill to pretend that he isn’t lying about the vote for me I will give you a referendum then we have the media with its far right tag, well people are beginning to realise that the BBC is biased in its reporting, certainly in Stafford we have seen how it sensationalises things to make up news. I did see that the europhiles on the eussr backed euractive, which is supposed to be a place to debate the eussr think Farage was hammered by murnaghan but can’t reply because they block anyone who does not post positive eussr replies.
Barry and All,
I went to euractive and picked on this page (Euro 2014 Euroscepticism): http://www.euractiv.com/general/euroscepticism-linksdossier-514131
I then posted this:
I am told that anti-EU posts are liable to be “moderated” out, so I am going to try making this brief anti-EU post.
The EU is a flawed institution. It is the imposition of a dictatorial empire by stealth on the peoples of Europe, fronted by the faux-democracy of the European Parliament, but effectively run by non-elected commissioners, 28 of them including Jose Manuel Barroso as President. 28 people controlling the minutae of 500 million people’s lives, to a broadly deep socialist agenda.
All the EU regulation (especially the “green” agenda) is making Europe more and more uncompetitive on the world stage, beggaring the people of Europe.
The Euro is even more flawed, a political project with no financial probity, that is driving southern Europe to ruin. The EU cannot even run its own finances, failing audit for nearly 20 years now!
And all this from a “Common Market” that the British (and other) publics were fooled into voting for, but who have rarely been allowed a democratic vote on any of the life-changing treaties since.
It is not going to dismantle itself, but as the countries of southern Europe default, and the Euro crumbles, and countries with strong Eurosceptic movements (aka UK) move towards exit, “the project” is going to crumble, either by evolution or revolution or combination of both.
There is not one word, phrase or sentence in my post that can be regarded as “offensive, racist, or homophobic as well as hate-speech”. Fail to pass it through moderation, and be accused of muzzling free speech. My post has been copied and is posted on another website.
Please keep an eye on it and see if they moderate it out.
Excellent Brian.
I have never considered UKIP to be a right wing party. There are some “right wing” policies in our box of tricks and some “left wing” ones too. What does it matter, we are free to choose what’s best for the majority, what they want, not tied up with bonds of dogma. UKIP exists to serve the electorate, the plebs, ordinary people, not special interests groups. It’s perfectly possible to put the majority first without harming legitimate minorities. We don’t need Europe or the Westminster bubble to tell us what’s best for us (them). We need out country back and we’re coming to get it.
Murnaghan was laying a trap. Farage rightly agreed with the selected part of Powel’s speech, but it was sure to be spun as “Farage = Enoch Powell”. Well it has failed, and once again the public has seen through the media tricks. The British are wakening from their political slumber. Not before time.
The reason it failed is because people agree with the points Nigel raised.
Every time they lay a trap it backfires it must be so frustrating for them.
And also that Powell did make some good points – yet he is a pariah who cannot be discussed in the mainstream media.
Good on Farage though – he stuck to his guns and came off really well, very refreshing.
Seeing those sort of comments coming from the young does indeed gladden the heart. Also been all over the blogs today and the trap that the smug self satisfied BBC reject Murnaghan, tried to lay for Nigel has backfired spectacularly.
They never learn will they? oops yes they will in 2014, big time.