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Posts Tagged ‘UKIP’

Our politicians should tell the truth about immigration: it’s good for Britain

28/03/2013, 07:00:01 AM

by Peter Watt

The immigration debate is very much alive again. UKIP in particular have attempted to tap into the rise in concern amongst some of the issues. Lurid headlines warn of hordes of Bulgarians and Romanians about to pour across the sea, hot on the heels of the Poles and the Lithuanians. And in response the three main party leaders have followed suit as they all seek to be tough on the issue. The result is a lot of heat and not a lot of light.

The debate focuses on a number of key themes:

Does immigration benefit or costs the economy?
Do immigrants get preferential treatment?
The extent to which we can “control” our borders as members of the EU.
Is there an increase in pressure on public services?
The alleged abuse of asylum status.
The extent to which immigration changes communities and people’s attitudes to this change.

The answers are complex and much debated in homes, streets and indeed by our politicians. The truth is that of course we are economically benefitting from immigration. On the whole those arriving are younger and are employed. They pay taxes and don’t really need to access health services and rarely claim benefits. But also that there are some areas where there has been pressure on local services that were initially ill prepared like GPs and schools. The impact of “changing communities” is however harder to gauge.

Personally I am completely unconcerned that the number of accents that I hear in shops or on the bus has increased massively. I like the fact that my children have friends from a huge variety of different backgrounds – certainly they aren’t worried! And I am very proud of our history of welcoming those fleeing persecution. I suspect that many people feel the same as me.

But I also know that there are plenty of people who are increasingly wary of the changes that they see. They worry about losing control of their way of life and feel that their area is being “taken over”.

They are nostalgic about the good old days and feel strongly that someone is to blame for letting this happen because they sure as hell weren’t asked. For them, the proliferation of eastern European accents is a manifestation of their worries and reinforces a sense of powerlessness in the face of change.

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Yes they’re right wing, but UKIP is not fascist

14/03/2013, 02:48:43 PM

by Kevin Meagher

David Cameron famously described UKIP members as a collection of “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”. But are they fascist too? This is the question being posed by campaign group Hope Not Hate.

It is asking its supporters whether their successful efforts at taking on the far right in the shape of the BNP and English Defence League since 2004 should now extend to UKIP ahead of next year’s European elections.

“Should we begin to oppose them or should we stick to extremist groups like the BNP?’ they ask on their website:

‘The case for opposing UKIP:

‘UKIP is increasingly taking an anti-immigrant tone and as anti-racists we cannot ignore that. They are whipping up fears over new immigration and as we approach next year’s European Elections this will even get worse.

“The growing support for UKIP is scaring the mainstream parties and it will push them to adopt more hard line policies on immigration and multiculturalism. We need to prevent this and offer a positive alternative to the politics of hate and division.

‘The case against opposing UKIP:

‘We might not like some of UKIP’s policies but they are not a fascist or far right party. They are embedded to the democratic system and have more in common with the right wing of the Conservative Party than the fascists of the BNP. And, despite their current anti-immigrant rhetoric, they are still basically a single issue party.”

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Yes, Eastleigh was bad for Cameron but it wasn’t much better for Ed

01/03/2013, 07:00:56 AM

by Atul Hatwal

There’s spin, and then there’s self-delusion. This morning, Labour needs to remember the difference.

Publicly the party will be busy deflecting blame and attention from its result throughout the day. The spin cycle was already in overdrive last night: “Eastleigh wasn’t even close to being on our key seat list”, “constituency boundary changes moved Labour wards out of Eastleigh,” and “the real losers are the Tories.”

Presenting a positive front is a necessary part of the political process. Fair enough.

But, away from the cameras and microphones, Labour needs to reflect on reality. Forget the lines to take and just think for a moment: fourth. Over half-way through this parliament, we finished fourth.

A win would have been unbelievable. Literally. So this was never an expectation.

Second would have been the actual win. It would have shown that the one nation narrative had resonance with voters and Labour could compete anywhere in the country.

A close third would still have been a good performance and, given Labour’s lack of historical presence in the seat, provided a strong indication that Labour will be competitive in its 30 southern target seats in 2015.

A distant third would have been poor, but just about could have been explained away on the basis of past performance.

But fourth?

Two immediate lessons emerge from this result.

First, Labour fought the wrong campaign. Last week John O’Farrell said, “I’m surprised how much of the literature from the Conservatives and Liberals has been about local authority issues…I’m not standing for the council. I’m standing for Westminster.”

Unfortunately, the voter is never wrong, and it was obvious from the first week of the campaign that Eastleigh’s electors were focused on local issues. Nothing Labour did could shift this.

That the Labour party campaign did not pick this up and pivot to fighting on issues that matter to voters echoes the disaster of Bradford West: a pre-packed campaign, running on auto-pilot, oblivious to voters’ views on the ground.

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Politicians in the Westminster bubble don’t understand how real people feel

03/01/2013, 07:00:01 AM

by Peter Watt

There are a lot of clever people who have recently been analysing the relative merits of the political parties and their respective political fortunes. Over the Christmas and new-year period pundits have written article after article about the ramifications of the latest polls, changes in demography and so on. I even penned a piece myself although I certainly wouldn’t put myself in the “clever” bracket!

The consensus seems to be that the Tories are very unlikely to form a majority after 2015 and that the most likely outcome is the formation of a government of some sort lead by Ed Miliband. There have though been one or two siren voices. These are saying that Labours position is less certain and that it needs to watch its economic polling numbers which appear to be going in the wrong direction following the chancellor’s autumn statement.

Just before new year I tweeted that:

“@PeterWatt123 I always hate the last few days of the year. Makes me feel sad.”

It was meant as a slightly maudlin reflection on the emotional highs and lows of the festive period. But in response, Ian Austin MP, who I respect and occasionally joust with on Twitter, quipped that:

“@IanAustinMP Surely you could write piece for Labour Uncut about how end of year is all Labour’s fault, proof of unfitness to govern etc.”

It was a good riposte and I guess indicates that Ian is not a fan of my blogs! But Ian does make a fair point that on the whole I am not comfortable with some of the direction of travel of the Labour party at the moment.

I worry that most of our poll lead is solely down to current government unpopularity, that Ed is still not seen as prime ministerial and that our stock with the electorate is dangerously low when it comes to the economy, welfare reform and immigration. And I honestly think that our economic message is disingenuously trying to look both ways on the central issue of deficit reduction and the scale of cuts required whoever wins next time, regardless of whether we have economic growth.

But most of all I worry that no political party is seen by voters as having the answers to their worries and concerns. Because at its heart, current political discourse is still being conducted between the political parties inside the rarefied world of the political bubble. It certainly isn’t being conducted with voters.

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UKIP will take votes from Labour as well as the Tories in Rotherham today

29/11/2012, 07:00:18 AM

by Peter Watt

There is one aspect of the UKIP Rotherham storm that I have found intriguing and that has, for the most part, passed largely without comment: the foster carers who were at the heart of the story were former Labour voters.

And yet this on the face of it belies the presumption that UKIP is a problem for the Tories. Psephologically speaking of course, it does seem that for the time being at least UKIP has taken voters from the Tories.

It is why Michael Fabricant MP said the unsayable this week by talking of Conservative electoral pacts with UKIP. But psephology alone is surely only half the story because scratch the surface of the assumptions about UKIP and there are some others bout who votes UKIP and why.

One of the main issues is that those of us who suffer from an obsession with politics still tend to see politics on a linear ‘left-right’ spectrum. This means that we could sit in a bar and quite quickly group policies as “left” or “right” with a high degree of consensus amongst ourselves.

So broadly, parties on the left are in favour of bigger government and those on the right smaller government. Parties on the left are in favour of the state directly delivering help to the poor and those on the right are more supportive of community and self-help options. And so on; and depending which party you are from would depend as to whether the broadly left approach or broadly right approach was seen as a positive or not.

Even though in reality we know that it isn’t in fact this simple, it is a stereotype that we instinctively feel is broadly right. And we think this because it complies with our worldview as Labour activists. And the same would be true for political activists generally.

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Despite everything, Labour will win in Rotherham tomorrow

28/11/2012, 05:32:32 PM

by Kevin Meagher

Labour will win the Rotherham by-election tomorrow.

To paraphrase George Orwell, that’s a revolutionary prediction in a time of angst for the party in what is usually thought to be a safe northern heartland.

A perfect storm of hostile circumstances surrounds this election, from the botched selection of the party’s candidate through to last weekend’s train wreck issue when a foster couple in the town, who happen to be members of UKIP, had three children removed from their care – with 20 minutes notice.

But these are trifles compared to the deeper issues affecting the town – and the election.

It is of course set against the revelation of a systematic problem of child-grooming by mainly Pakistani men in the town. Specifically, the indolence – and therefore complicity – of public authorities in Rotherham who knew of the problem and failed to act out of a misplaced sense of not wanting to inflame racial tension.

And, not to be forgotten, there’s the actual reason for the by-election in the first place: the resignation of Denis MacShane, in disgrace, after the Commons’ standards and privileges committee pilloried him over his expense claims.

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The Tories would have to be mad, literally mad to cosy up to UKIP

27/11/2012, 07:00:49 AM

by Mark Stockwell

“Political correctness gone mad.” That’s what they’re all saying about Rotherham Council’s decision to remove three children from their foster parents because they had joined UKIP. In this instance, sadly, it seems they may have a point. Now it seems a fair few Conservatives are also intent on beating the well-trodden path to political insanity.

UKIP can clearly expect to do very nicely out of the foster-care furore.

As chance would have it, the good people of Rotherham go to the polls on Thursday to choose a new MP. Normally this would be a shoo-in for Labour – the town’s former MP, Denis MacShane, won with a handsome 5-figure majority over the second-placed Conservative in 2010 – but the circumstances in which MacShane was forced to stand down have left a nasty taste in the mouth.

There has been a controversy in Rotherham lately after the ill-starred local authority asked staff to bring their own IT equipment to work in an effort to cut costs. It turns out they could just have popped into see our Denis in his office, made him a few cups of tea, and walked away with one paid for by the taxpayer after all.

Now the storm over the three foster children means UKIP is ideally positioned as the party of protest against mainstream politics, especially in a town where it’s hard to see the party’s stance on immigration costing it too much support outside the council’s social services department.

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Sunday review: “Populism in Europe and the Americas: threat or corrective for democracy?” by Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser

25/11/2012, 08:00:25 AM

by Anthony Painter

Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi, has granted himself sweeping new constitutional powers over the constitution, democracy and the legal system. Hugo Chavez did the same in Venezuela and suppressed political opposition and voices of dissent in the media. Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, has changed voting rules and given himself power over the judiciary and a wide range of protections against legislative change unfavourable to Orban – constitutionally enshrined.

Ideologically, Morsi, Orban, and Chavez could not be more dissimilar: a political Islamist, a socialist, and a radical conservative. Something does link them though: they are all, in different ways, populists. Straight away we enter the realm of confusion. Populism has become a dirty word, synonymous with impulse, emotion, charisma, authoritarianism, fundamental institutional change and destruction of minority rights. From Morsi, Orban and Chavez it can be seen as some if not many of these things but it’s something even deeper than that and where there is democracy then there is populism – yes, even in the case of the UK as we shall see.

Cas Mudde and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser take a look at the impact and nature of populism in their important new work, Populism in Europe and the Americas. In this edited volume, experts look at Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Mexico, Austria, Venezuela, Peru, and Slovakia. They might well have added the tea party in the US and euroscepticism in the UK for they define populism as a battle between “the pure people” and “corrupt elites.” In the case of the former, the “corrupt elite” is, of course, Washington and the Wall Street. For eurosceptics they are “eurocrats” or ECHR judges and all who conspire with them.

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Uncovered: a secret memo to George Osborne

22/11/2012, 07:00:57 AM

by Peter Watt

I can’t tell you how this came into my possession but the following memo was found on a photocopier in Westminster yesterday. The send field was hidden.*

MEMO

To: Rt Hon George George Osborne

Date: 20/11/2012

STRICTLY PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

Turning around our current polling situation

George, as you know the Labour party think that they have the next election in the bag. They think that the public have pretty much decided that the government is a busted flush. They think that what has undoubtedly been a pretty appalling year for us has sealed our fate. Privately they accept that Miliband has a way to go before he’s seen as a prime minister but think that our self-inflicted wounds (if we are honest, our incompetence and successive blunders) will mean that he is given an easy ride through to the election. And that ultimately our unpopularity will overcome his shortcomings in the minds of voters. But as I have said to you, I actually think that not only are they wrong, their confidence in the face of their substantial poll leads will prove to be their undoing.

In essence I think that that whilst the Labour party undoubtedly has a lead at this stage, its position is exaggerated by the positions of the Lib Dems and UKIP. It is virtually certain that the Lib Dems will rise in the polls before the election and in all likelihood will poll in the high teens on election day. Equally, whilst Farage and co might do well through to the Euros they will fall away as we near the election. If both of these are correct then the true polling position is considerably closer. In other words the Labour lead can be overcome. Of course, that does not mean that we do not need to regroup and fast.

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Three cheers for Nigel Farage!

09/11/2010, 12:00:33 PM

by Kevin Meagher

NIGEL Farage is back. Yes, that suspiciously French-sounding, irrepressibly upbeat Euro-baiter par excellence swept up 60% of the votes to retake the leadership of UKIP last week.

This is of course the same job he casually abandoned just a year ago. For big talents on small stages, there is always the lure of something better. In Farage’s case, defying Parliamentary protocol and standing against Speaker Bercow in the general election. That did not work out, so it’s back to the old day job: jolly Euro-bashing and all round right-wing populism.

To many, leading UKIP is a dubious honour. This is, after all, a party David Cameron once described as “a bunch of … fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists, mostly.” But therein lies the point: Farage’s enemies are on the right. The two men in British politics loath to see Farage return to lead UKIP are David Cameron and Nick Griffin. (more…)

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