Millhouse

Of course, it would be a disaster if UKIP actually got in power, but I do like Farage and he has done an amazing job.

mikelincs

Benefited greatly because the current government is so disliked, I really do suspect it was just a protest vote, like the one the Green Party got a few years ago, will melt away at a general election.

mikewot

The real question being will the idiots in parliament listen ti what the voters are very clearly telling them, get us out of Europe NOW!

Dick Dasterdly

Best of luck to the guy.
I think he is now being taken quite seriously.
There's little real faith in Labour and the Tories will continue to lose out by having to enforce unpopular measures trying to clean up their mess.
He's surprising quite a few today and I think he will continue to do so at the next election.

Ethos83

It was a protest vote, of course.

Too many people disappointed with all the major parties whose leaderships have grown to resemble each other more with their post-modern London centric sensibilities than they do to their respective bases.

How it'll all play out, I don't know. The danger with UKIP is that it's not drawing the vote from one party as the Greens did to Labour, but from all the main parties. There's no love for the current Labour leadership among the traditional Labour bases either.

The upshot of all this is that we'd better be getting the EU referendum sooner rather than later.

Boomhauer

It is always a good thing when the big dogs squirm.

kittycat1

WTF

Kix

Totally agree, and stop the immigration from the Eastern European States, stop all their benefits until they have contributed to the economy through taxes and NI for a minimum of 5 years.

Not just for Europeans, but for ALL immigrants.

Beakersful

Why not go all the way and force them to wear badges, or armbands? Maybe only allow them to shop at Primark, where the quality of the clothing will set them apart from the good and deserving?

Voting for the MRLP is a real protest vote

Millhouse

Oh, the irony.

The Dean

There is no reason to fear UKIP. My own involvement is well-known round here, so nothing much to add. I pointed out more than 20 years ago (when the Maastricht Treaty was first published) that the EU itself would be threatened if the single currency went ahead, and I could still be proven right.

What I did not expect was that the so-called 'criteria' to get into the currency in the first place would be relaxed so much, for purely political reasons, that eventually even Greece would be allowed in. In any sane world, someone would have at some stage said 'Look, this thing isn't working - let's scrap it' but as we all now know that must never be allowed to happen. Even Angela says it is 'irreversible'. UKIP was founded less than a year later.

UKIP could have been stopped in their tracks much earlier if the old parties had been willing to open their eyes and see what was going on - UKIP have fed on the ignorance not of the people, but of the politicians. They have now cleverly spread their wings to embrace a wider policy spectrum - they will need it, as the scrutiny will start in earnest now.

Whether they ever get into Downing Street - either alone or in a coalition - is a moot point. The key issue is that they will increasingly affect the results of others, and will therefore increasingly become a party that others need to 'keep happy' - the current coalition was formed because UKIP took enough Conservative votes in about 40 key seats in 2010 to deny Cameron an outright majority. It is also clear that UKIP are taking ex-Labour votes too, so that can work in all parts of the country.

Nevertheless, they are where the Tories should be, and it is hardly surprising that Conservative supporters looking for Conservative policies and philosophy should be turning to them if their own party fails to offer these.

I can confirm that Nigel is a first-rate bloke, will happily talk to all sorts of people about all sorts of things (including his own testicular cancer survival), and is here to stay.........

........... but perhaps his finest moment was when he said he would be delighted if 'there were no need for UKIP to exist' (i.e. because the other parties had addressed the issues at the heart of UKIP's concerns). That was very clever, and not at all the sort of thing you hear from the political careerists.

Yesterday was great fun - watching the Sky News graphic showing 'UKIP Gains' climbing ever upwards..............

mikelincs

If UKIP is ever to be considered seriously, then they do have to get rid of the loonies in the party. Two candidates posting pictures of themselves on the social media, one in a Nazi uniform giving the Nazi salute, and another photoshopping his face so he looked to be in a photograph with Hitler. There were others at counts dressed like the people from the monster Raving party, full cowboy uniform and other fancy dress get ups.

The Dean

They are already taken seriously - very seriously. When UKIP find those idiots, they kick them out, as they have already done many times. Other parties have loonies too.

Other parties knocking UKIP was one factor that worked in UKIP's favour this week.

Eeyore

What concerns me is how much of UKIP's support is coming from the racists who think that UKIP has a better chance of doing something about "all the foreigners" than the BNP does. How many people who voted for UKIP last week have the first idea about what their policies are on *anything* other than immigration? How many even *care*?

It's troubling that every week on Facebook I'll end up having to read one of those tiresome and *always* completely untrue "asylum seekers get every benefit going as soon as they arrive in the UK while British pensioners starve and freeze - like and share this if you think it's wrong" things being liked/shared by someone I know, and inevitably there are many more "likes" underneath it, because stupid people (and there are *many* stupid people out there) believe everything they read on Facebook that supports their own prejudices. I'm sure that quite a few of them would have voted for UKIP, and I'm also sure that UKIP leverages that sort of thing rather than being honourable and pointing out the factual inaccuracies.

Eeyore

Unfortunately, those of the electorate saying "get us out of Europe NOW!" are the kinds of people who would support a campaign saying "Ban dihydrogen monoxide!" - in other words, somewhat hard-of-thinking and easily led if you know how to press their buttons. Immigration, asylum seekers and Muslims are usually reliable topics to get them foaming at the mouth.

The arguments over whether the UK should be part of the EU are complex and nuanced, so of course there's no hope of them being properly debated ahead of any referendum. The "anti" vote is going to be motivated almost entirely by ignorance, racism and debate on the level of a Sun headline. Sorry, but it is.

He's an ex-Tory who made his money in the City and now heads an anti-immigration party.

If it looks like a ****** and sounds like a ******...