Britain’s ‘big three’ political parties don’t just look over their shoulder at the upstart UK Independence Party anymore, often times they now look up ahead at them. And with Euro elections (UKIP’s strong point) approaching in May for the first time there seems to be real concern amongst political and media elites that a permanent shift is taking place.
Mahatma Gandhi once said “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.” UKIP has completed the first two of Gandhi’s four stages and they are now approaching stage three – a fight where the challenger is given equal credibility going in.
A combination of the two most recent polls shows Labour winning the elections next month with 35.5% while the Conservatives garner 29.5%. UKIP looks solid in third place at 19%. But ‘the polling factor’ remains to be answered. How accurate is the methodology and how honest are the answers?
Polls before last year’s local elections showed UKIP garnering about 11% just days before the election. Yet they doubled those percentages and elected 150 new councilors across the country. The answer likely goes back to Gandhi – “then they ridicule you”.
The major political parties and the mainstream British media (particularly conservative stalwarts like the Daily Mail & Daily Telegraph) have engaged in ridiculing UKIP and highlighting every mishap any one of its members has, whilst comparable offences by other politicians are treated as routine. This successfully creates the impression amongst some voters that, as the Prime Minister so aptly put it, UKIP is a bunch of “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”.
Now where have we heard that kind of language before? That’s right, just seven hours across ‘the pond’ in a Jumbo, American media outlets in New York City, the city ironically of Lady Liberty fame, spew out the same kind of deceit about the American Tea Party like an old fashioned Telex trying to report on a barking Chihuahua.
Some of the British simply won’t admit to pollsters, depending on the methods employed, that they will vote for the fruitcakes. However polling has detected that UKIP has a favorability rating several points higher suggesting that a chunk of voters may yet switch late as they did before or just won’t admit that they already intend to do so.
Metro, a free paper circulated on the London Underground from the publishers of the Daily Mail exclaimed in its Monday headline “This Ukip thing is getting out of control!” Author Alex Stevenson goes on to point out that Westminster is unmoved because inside the Westminster bubble UKIP have no presence – yet. But he says “Their kneejerk jingoistic patriotism might leave an unpleasant taste in the mouth. But it’s exactly that willingness to speak bluntly which makes Ukip so compelling to voters.”
Meanwhile Sky News Political Correspondent Anushka Asthana said: "We're only a few weeks out from the European elections and UKIP are kind of what the Lib Dems used to be - the party that stands against the establishment. They used to just talk about Europe - now it is local, popular issues such as HS2. (High Speed Rail) The Conservatives are really badly hit by UKIP rising because that tends to split the right. And pollsters say if UKIP get anything over eight points in a general election they would split the right and would stop David Cameron from winning an overall majority. So he will be very worried about that."
But Asthana illustrates her upbringing in places like the very establishment London Times. UKIP doesn’t run as an alternative to the establishment like the Lib. Dems. have for 65 years (having previously been part of it). UKIP is anti-establishment and that’s a difference that people are recognising.
She also quickly gravitates to the notion that UKIP is taking only Conservative Party voters, whereas last year’s elections and current polling shows that they take slightly more support from the failing Lib. Dems., a party who’ve never really established who they are.
UKIP on the other hand is establishing a new ideological position in the British political landscape. True conservatives are working their way over like ants moving a colony across the street. Meanwhile anti-establishment libertarians have arrived in bluster. Some traditional Lib. Dem. voters fall into the ‘none of the above crowd’ and these too are ever so cautiously arriving in the Nigel Farage camp but they won’t easily put down roots.
These groups have a lot of common or similar enough positions but it will take great political skill to knit them together into a common magazine of ideas. So far party leader Nigel Farage seems to be up to the task having demonstrated the ability to engage in debate, damage control and statesmanlike appearances.
If the Tories (Conservative Party) do fall into third place in the upcoming Euros it will further enhance the credibility of UKIP, it could mortally wound the Lib. Dems., and there will again be questions from Tory insiders as to whether Cameron is the right man to continue to lead them.
