Monday 29 September 2014

UKIP

With the exception of the Celtic fringes, third parties tend to do dreadfully in British politics. For more than 300 years, a combination of demography and the first-past-the-post system has produced two large political groupings; originally for or against the Crown, nowadays broadly right of centre (Conservative) or left of centre (Labour). Labour replaced the Liberals at the beginning of the last century, but otherwise the system has pretty much remained the same throughout. The current Conservative-Liberal coalition is the exception that proves the rule.

The UK Independence Party, whose only coherent policy is to leave the E.U., has done better in European and local elections, where proportional representation is the norm. In this year's European elections it came first, narrowly beating Labour into second and the Conservatives into third, and winning 24 of the U.K.'s 73 seats. It is now trying to break into the British Parliament. Will it do any better than the Greens, Social Democrats, British National Party and other odds and sods who have failed in the past?

Its strategy seems to be to get Eurosceptic Conservative MP's to defect, resign their seats, and thereby force a by-election under the UKIP flag that they will then win. By-elections are a rather curious British idea. If a Danish MP, for instance, dies, goes on maternity leave, or gets fed up with being in Parliament and wants to leave before time, then their seat gets taken over by the next person on the party list. However, under FPTP, there are by definition no party lists, so no substitutions.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has so far managed to persuade two Conservative MP's to embrace his strategy, both from areas south and east of London where people are concerned about immigration, particularly of the European sort. The by-elections will be held this autumn, and UKIP has a very good chance of winning at least one of them.

The timing couldn't be worse for the Government. A general election is due in 2015, and both immigration and the UK's tortured relationship with the E.U. will be high on the agenda. The irony is that by voting for UKIP (and thereby splitting the right of centre vote), it is more likely that Labour will be part of the next Government. The fact that voters know that and still vote for UKIP shows just how hard it will be for David Cameron to remain in office.

Walter Blotscher


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