Thursday, May 2 will see local council elections across the country in England as well as in Anglesey, Wales. There was little shift in elections one year ago where mostly district councils were elected in England, Scotland and Wales. Where there was movement the balance of power shifted toward the Labour Party.
However, a year can be a long time! The national Conservative government has since been pushing hard for gay-marriage; and demonstrating that it has no power to stop the EU from imposing immigration on the UK despite its tough talk; and no power to stop the subsequent benefit programmes for its new immigrants.
Policy advances by the Cameron government are unpopular not only with Conservatives but with many of the electorate at large. This has given rise not only to a surge for the Labour party but also to UKIP, the Tories rival to the right. Sensing a genuine and possibly permanent shift in party power, the first since elections after World War II, the 3 main parties and their accomplices in the media have sought to discredit UKIP, with the left-leaning Observer openly critical of the party on its front page this Sunday.
Conservative party activists have been exposed for trawling through the Facebook and Twitter accounts of UKIP candidates looking for ‘dirt’ or anything else that can be used against them. Indeed it doesn’t take much! The Observer ‘s ‘hit piece’ actually quotes harmless E-mails between UKIP senior leaders and uses them to allege that the party is in disarray and doesn’t know anything about its candidates. In reality, the e-mails make reference to the growing pains being experienced by a rapidly growing organization.
The existing power structure is desperate to hang on to the status quo, but Britain is in the mood for change with a YouGov survey for The Sun conducted 2 weeks ago showing big gains for Labour and UKIP at the expense of the coalition of Conservatives and Liberal-Democrats that currently rule in Westminster. Up to a third of incumbent Tories are set to lose their seats along with 110 Liberal-Democrats. Labour expects to pick up the bulk of these but UKIP is showing strength and is positioned to gain 40 seats on top of the 10 they are already defending. Indeed the bookies have UKIP 7/4 to gain 50-100 seats.
According to Stuart Parr, an elected UKIP local council member from Telford, The Labour Party is involved in significant voter-fraud, whilst Conservative activists set-up fake Facebook accounts to monitor UKIP candidates, including himself. Recent Conservative shenanigans are becoming well known as UKIP attempts to fight back in the media. On the other side of the aisle Three Islamic Labour party activists were convicted in 2005 of postal vote fraud, while another 14 party organizers and two others faced charges. Parr is quick to point this out and as a result, smaller party opponents are doing their best to keep this and the more recent parliamentary expense scandal in the public mind as a principal reason for a more permanent change.
It’s a pivotal time in UK politics with the real possibility of a permanent realignment of the landscape as previewed in the recent Eastleigh By-Election.. It’s been the Lib-Dems who’ve represented an alternative to the Big 2 for decades, having previously been one of them. In reality the party has drifted leftward and in many ways is indistinguishable from Labour. The main difference is that while they may court an affair with the unions Labour is definitely married to them.
The shift could see the Lib-Dems relegated to insignificance despite their ‘hold’ in Eastleigh 2 months ago. Campaigning in the last General Election in 2010 as a sort of new left, they’ve ended up in a coalition with a party they are more opposed to than support. Subsequently they’ve been unable to assert any real identity that sets them apart from the others.
A new political alignment would see Labour picking up hardened lefties from the Lib-Dems; Tories moving toward the middle as they have been, almost trying to emulate Tony Blair; and UKIP solidifying true conservatism, patriotism and traditional values of the UK.
For UKIP to be successful they will have to break the mold that they are right-wing and convince the country at large that old fashioned values coupled with smaller and more responsive government is what is needed and what they represent. Britain is ready to hear that but the old guard politicians and journalists will continue to muddy the waters. As for the Lib-Dems it’s hard to see where they go in the long-term unless UKIP can be destroyed.
