Article 50: UKIP’s crucial weaknesses under the spotlight

Writing in the Telegraph today, City AM’s Allister Heath delivers a balanced if whistlestop article exploring some of the major problems that UKIP faces yet is doing little to overcome.

However Heath’s otherwise valuable piece gets off on the wrong foot from the get go with its title, ‘Nigel Farage’s biggest problem is Ukip doesn’t do details’.  For the piece to be more accurate that should have read, ‘UKIP’s biggest problem is Nigel Farage doesn’t do details’.  After all, Farage alone calls the shots and the party dances to whatever tune he chooses to play on any given day.

Even so, some of the analysis is penetrating and underlines much of what this blog has been arguing, even if Heath’s colour commentary about ties with the EU needing to be ‘significantly loosened’ is weak fluff.  The emphasis below is mine:

Ukip’s problem is that its policy positions are uncosted aspirations, rather than properly thought-through proposals. Until this is sorted, they risk being torn to shreds as media scrutiny increases. Those who simply wish to protest against a snooty establishment, or who like how Farage “represents people like us”, won’t mind; but much of the country will, and Ukip’s bubble would deflate almost as fast as it takes its leader to down a pint.

In particular, Ukip doesn’t have a plan to exit the EU and to introduce alternative trading arrangements that reflect the complexities of the modern economy. The challenge is especially acute when it comes to complex rules of origin for manufactured goods, and to protect London’s financial services industry against protectionism. This problem is shared by the broader Eurosceptic movement, including in the Tory party; a lot of work is needed, and fast. For those of us who agree that the European project is a busted flush and that the UK’s ties with the EU need to be significantly loosened, this is a source of major frustration.

The absence of a cohesive UKIP exit plan and vision for new trading arrangements is the most critical issue for the whole Eurosceptic movement.  This gap is a knife to the heart of the credibility of withdrawalists. It is the equivalent of a boxer not lifting his gloves and instead allowing his opponent to rain blow after blow on him.

Without a plan that triggers negotiation to bring about a replacement trading arrangement and access to the single market before the UK leaves the EU and abrogates existing treaties and agreements – which can only be achieved by invoking Article 50 – voters will be convinced to stick with the status quo, through a combination of Europhile FUD and the all-too-accurate exposure of the damaging consequences of simply leaving before securing trade deals that safeguard our economic interests.

Unless and until Farage gets serious about withdrawal, does detail and understands the mechanics and states the strategy to enable the UK to leave the EU, while maintaining our access to the single market – and crucially ensuring we can trade with those other countries around the world with whom trade agreements only cover EU member states – the ‘No’ campaign will lose any referendum.

Article 50 is the path to restoring our independence after which we can unpick the acquis at our leisure, secure in the knowledge we have access to the markets our businesses are so worried about losing.  If the Eurosceptics present a robust plan to give businesses confidence that decoupling from political union does not mean we lose access to the single market or the countries with whom we have EU-negotiated trade deals, they have no economic basis for opposing the out campaign.

Curious creatures these defecting Tories

Very interesting to read in the Telegraph today that Conservative activists have begun defecting to the UK Independence Party in protest at the Tory leadership’s ‘arrogant and insulting’ attitude towards grassroots members.

So let’s get this straight.

• These Tory activists have stayed part of the Cameronista through broken promises over a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, the craven failure to repeal the Human Rights Act and a raft of conservative principles being torn up.
• They have seen the selection of candidate short lists taken out of their hands.
• They have seen candidates they have voted to select in European elections passed over in favour of women who received far fewer member votes.
• They have hung in there as a raft of EU budgetary demands have been paid in full.  They have sat tight as more and more law-making power has been thrown over the fence to Brussels.
• They have remained in the blue corner as public borrowing and debt has escalated to shocking levels.
• They have put up with Liberal Democrats derailing implementation of fairer parliamentary constituency boundaries.
• They kept up their membership as wasteful and inefficient wind turbines are being imposed on communities against their wishes and reliable power stations are shut down.

And despite these and numerous other instances of the party leadership treating them with contempt and eroding their autonomy, only now are some choosing to defect to UKIP, apparently because someone in Cameron’s circle is alleged to have described party members as swivel-eyed loons.

While UKIP may be celebrating these additions to its membership, one has to ask if that party really needs to take on people who compromised their political principles for years by staying in the Conservative Party, only leaving when they perceived they had been insulted.  You’ve got to wonder about people that willingly tolerated such a sustained and overt assault on what they claim to stand for, yet leave on the basis of an as-yet unsubstantiated rumour.

Regardless, if it weakens the conservative-in-name-only Tories, then long may the defections continue.

Memo to Nigel Farage: This is why detail matters

When one doesn’t do detail, a bit like a certain Nigel Farage, one is liable to get things wrong.  When one gets things wrong, it is difficult for people to have confidence in what one has to say – particularly when it comes to presenting details of how a particular aim, say, leaving the EU, can be achieved.

While it might not matter much to some people that Farage wrongly stated Sinn Féin’s policy on European Union membership, his high profile means that such errors are not merely a personal embarrassment for him, but are damaging to the credibility of the rest of us who want the UK to leave the EU.

As this blog has argued before, to indignation from some of his supporters, Farage’s ‘cheeky chappie, bloke you would be happy to have a pint with’ persona will only get UKIP so far in electoral terms.  Many undecided and non-voters are more sophisticated than many people give them credit for and will form any voting intentions based on the competence, character and credibility of a candidate or party leader.  If Farage won’t do detail and get his facts right, he won’t just earn the scorn of his rivals, he will be rejected by potential supporters who would have grounds to doubt his claims and question his suitability for office.

UKIP and the true Eurosceptic movement deserve better.

Farage attempts to snatch defeat before getting anywhere close to victory

Within hours of the party he has forged in his own image record its best ever results in local elections, if reports are to be believed, Nigel Farage has demonstrated yet again his complete lack of strategic thinking – which may arrest UKIP’s momentum and cost him essential votes from wavering Labour and Lib Dem supporters.

Having spent the election campaign delivering the message that UKIP offers something to Labour and Lib Dem voters who are unhappy with EU membership and the ongoing net influx of migrants, Farage has perhaps supped a few too many pints while posing for the media and, according to the Daily Wail, informally offered entertained the idea of [edited to reflect observations in comments] an electoral pact and coalition with the Conservatives as long as they drop David Cameron.

In many ways it’s not news because he’s said it before.  But in doing so now, just after making a comparatively major advance, Farage has blinked figuratively and shown weakness when he should be portraying strength and confidence.  Compounding this political illieracy Farage has also undermined UKIP’s apparent appeal as an entity that stands apart from the discredited three main parties; for instead of occupying the high ground above the political class in the eyes of jaded voters he has instead signalled his desperation to join with them.

What was supposed to be an insurgency designed to break the mould in British politics is now being revealed to those less schooled in the ways of Farage to have an altogether different aim.  UKIP candidates who enjoin voters to reject the Lib-Lab-Con will now have to explain why given UKIP’s plan is to cosy up to the Conservatives. As Richard eloquently explained yesterday to the Campaign for an Independent Britain, we are no further forward.

In the final analysis what this means for voters, desperate for a change to the political system and for this country to become democratic, is that real change is not on the agenda.  Farage’s objective is to be part of the political equivalent of the Royston Vasey community, which will result in the Lib-Lab-UKIP-Con.  Clearly the message to voters is that this league of gentlemen is a local bubble for local politicians and there’s nothing for us ordinary people here.

UKIP advances as voter anger with mainstream parties runs far deeper than realised

By rights and in keeping with electoral convention, in the first County Council election results that were announced on Thursday night, UKIP should only have managed to win a handful of seats.

To have won 42 seats before the main bulk of the contests have even begun counting, against a backdrop of a concerted smear operation by the Conservatives against UKIP candidates and the absence of anything that could be fairly described as an effective UKIP local organisation, is a stunning result.  This reveals the depth of voter anger with the mainstream parties runs far deeper than perhaps even we realised.

Cameron, Miliband and Clegg will be very fearful men this morning and with good reason.  Make no mistake, if the UKIP advance continues with the results to be announced on Friday this election, and the forthcoming European elections in which UKIP were already expected to do well, could represent a game changer in national politics ahead of the 2015 General Election.  The results could be that significant.

An unexpectedly high tally of seats to accompany a strong percentage of the overall vote is likely to bring about several things.  Firstly, UKIP can expect more scrutiny, but significantly more air time and coverage in the media to present their narrative – albeit in need of urgent improvement and cohesion.  This will result in more potential voters taking a look at the alternative to the mainstream parties, which could lift UKIP’s support even higher.

Secondly, with something now approaching a local base developing, we can expect to see an increase in dissatisfied Conservative councillors defecting to UKIP, as they become confident they have a fighting chance of still being re-elected outside the Tory umbrella.  Don’t underestimate the vested self interest of electoral prospects informing the decision making of councillors, many of whom are sick to the back teeth of Cameron’s evisceration of conservative principles and policies.

Thirdly, with wider coverage and evidence that UKIP can win seats promoting more confidence, party membership can expect to increase in the coming months.  Crucially for UKIP this would also result in more money – and there could now be a real prospect that some current Tory donors might consider switching their money to UKIP, as electoral success from virtually no base will show their cash could be used to achieve some tangible success.

Fourth, the EU referendum strategy, which Cameron has developed around the idea of batting it away into the long grass beyond the next General Election – and only then if the Conservatives win, which is now looking a more distant prospect – is likely to unravel.  Internal pressure within the Conservative party to address the issue much sooner in an effort to arrest UKIP’s progress, will be deafening as the non-wets assert themselves with electoral evidence of the strength of their argument.

In politics, momentum should never be underestimated.  A combination of opposition to EU membership, anger over immigration, and the opportunity to protest against the cosy mainstream political stitch up and reject the main parties, has given UKIP momentum.

What matters now is how it’s used.  As this blogger has always maintained, with Farage at the helm things have the capacity to fall apart quickly and people might find the party is all fur coat and no knickers.  There are a number of risks but two in particular that stand out.

First, that the lack of cohesion on policy due to Farage’s refusal/incapacity to ‘do detail’ results in contradictory statements and voting which embarrass the party.  Second, that Farage’s autocratic control of the party, which because of its relative size makes him more powerful comparatively than Cameron is over his Tories, means some unsavoury candidates have slipped through the net and as they are exposed – make no mistake, the media poodles will pore over them continually – they bring the party into disrepute.  There is a greater than average chance that UKIP proves to be its own worst enemy for the reasons this blog and others have trailed for many months.

We now wait to see what Friday’s results bring.

UKIP if you want to, the lady is for turning

It speaks volumes of the UK Independence Party’s internal political warfare – when its people should be focussing all their attention on fighting for this country to leave the EU – that another one of its highest profile MEPs and senior party members, Marta Andreasen, has defected to the EUphile Conservatives.  It’s another own goal for Nigel Farage, coming just before the Eastleigh by-election.

Quite how Marta Andreasen thinks she will further the cause of this nation’s independence from the EU from within a political party whose senior members are overwhelmingly wedded to continued EU membership, is a mystery.  But then, one wonders if this was ever really her goal and in any case this is a result of what happens when UKIP’s leader puts more stock in pulling attention seeking  stunts like recruiting and installing a high profile former EU Commission whistleblower to the party’s candidates list , over and above long standing members who genuinely believe in getting the UK out of the EU, rather than leaving the grassroots to shape the party and its direction.  To lose one MEP and senior party member is careless, but to lose two…

The Daily Wail, in its story on this, explains:

Marta Andreasen, who was elected as a UKIP MEP in 2009, said she is going to join the Conservatives because they now offer the only realistic option for those wanting to bring about real change in Europe.

If they were being strictly accurate that would read: ‘Marta Andreasen, who was elected as a UKIP MEP in 2009 and faced imminent deselection from UKIP’s candidate’s list, said she is going to join the Conservatives because they now offer the only realistic option for her to maintain her financially lucrative position as a MEP in the European Parliament and tap into yet more hundreds of thousands of taxpayer pounds and euros.’

The Andreason affair is a problem for which Farage is solely responsible. Yet again his judgement and lack of strategic nous has been exposed in humiliating fashion. It was Farage who parachuted Andreason onto a candidates list that gave her the best possible chance of joining the EU gravy train – by breaking UKIP’s own rules on candidate selection – in the hope her profile developed from her battle with Neil Kinnock’s commission would rub off on UKIP (lots of parallels with the autocratic Cameron you will notice).

Although Andreason managed to secure a Brussels seat and spend her time supping from the never diminishing trough, it is Farage’s autocratic control of UKIP and his allegedly misogynist tendencies that she has found to be not to her taste.  She has spoken out about them in a way that has caused maximum embarrassment for UKIP.

Now combine that issue with her worries that the Brussels trough she so savours may soon be denied to her, as she suspected that Farage was planning to repeat his mistakes of taking high profile individuals and combining them with his fetish for the cult of (often minor) celebrity to ‘install’ Neil Hamilton, and possibly his wife Christine, to a winnable candidate’s list so they end up sucking the public teat in the European Parliament.  The resulting blow back made it clear Farage’s masterstroke was soon going to become yet another UKIP-harming piece of shortsighted stupidity.

That brings us to today and the sight of yet another unprincipled UKIP rent seeker jumping ship and boarding another vessel, ironically heading in the opposite direction to EU withdrawal, in the hope of securing the patronage of the control freak Cameron and his penchant for top down dictatorial rule.

As usual the losers in all this are the poor bloody grassroots eurosceptics, who again see internal party intrigues, rent seeking, arrogance and the fallout of autocratic foolishness escalate into cause-harming events such as these.  It is the worst possible advert for the campaign to enable the UK to escape from the EU.  Well done Farage. Well done.  Richard’s thinking on the matter appears to be rather similar to mine, as he explains:

Standing back from that, one can only regret that the eurosceptic cause is served so badly by all these shenanigans. We have enough difficulties and hurdles without our own side adding to them.

Exactly right.

Why the UK can’t simply up and leave the EU

People who like Nigel Farage and feel I am unfair to him and should cut him some slack may not like this. But this is an issue that strikes at the heart of Farage’s credibility as a politician and explains why I cannot and will not support UKIP with him as leader.

Farage’s stated position is that the UK should simply up and leave the EU. It is what UKIP says it would do if by some quirk of fate it found itself forming a government. It is a broad stroke of a policy that utterly fails to acknowledge or address the difficulty and consequences of doing so. It demonstrates that Farage has not only failed to grasp the issues at stake but staggeringly, nae, disturbingly, that he has no coherent strategy for extracting the UK from the EU in a manner that protects this country’s economic and commercial interests.

There are thousands of different conventions, agreements, protocols and other arrangements which could realistically be affected by a UK withdrawal from the EU and make it more difficult to export goods to EU member states, with far reaching consequences for the UK economy.

By way of a short example Richard picks up on just one such issue to illustrate the complexity of what lays ahead; and separately explains how EU law could prevent our goods being shipped into EU ports – unless the UK carefully negotiates favourable new terms with the EU, something that can only be triggered with certainty by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

That Farage has never presented a clear, positive explanation of how his policy could be realised in the absence of such detailed negotiation and essential housekeeping reduces his credibility to zero. It leaves the truly eurosceptic side of the EU membership argument open to fatal attack that would see an in-out referendum lost as people buy in to the europhile fearmongering that, for once, would be an accurate reflection of what could realistically happen.

Leaving the EU without securing terms that protect this country’s interests is worse than folly. Criticising those people who point out the fundamental flaws in Farage’s UKIP approach is a similar folly. Allowing Farage to hold a prominent position on the eurosceptic side of the argument in light of his ill-considered and shallow exit policy is nothing less than lethal.

Getting out of the EU demands more than Farage’s brand of Jack-the-Lad, cheeky chappie punchline populism. As Richard has demonstrated, the stakes are extremely high. We can’t just up and leave. We have to negotiate the dotting of every i and crossing of every t to extract ourselves from the tangled web woven over a period of decades. Withdrawal from the EU would be a serious business requiring serious people who can master fine details.

Another example of Nigel Farage’s poor judgement

Many people who still hold faith in the political process, but are disillusioned by the three main parties, are looking for a home. A number of them may be looking at UKIP as a party they might support and want to know a bit more about its autocratic leader, Nigel Farage.

But if their search is for a political figure who offers reassuring gravitas and comes across as steady, measured and in possession of good judgement then a spotlight piece about Farage published in the Daily Wail last night is likely to have left them feeling disappointed and frustrated in equal measure.

Britain needs a serious politician for serious times and the dross offered up by the political party nursery production line of grabbers and troughers isn’t providing it. So Farage had clear run to conduct a clinical public relations campaign that confounds the ‘ordinary bloke, cheeky chappie’ image which prevents him being taken seriously and instead positions him and his party as leadership material.

However Farage’s ego has seen him walk straight into a hatchet job by the broadly pro-EU media which continues to present him as something of a lightweight prat. It won’t put off those people who are already sold on Farage, but it will do nothing to attract serious floating voters who take issues seriously and want to see a credible alternative they can lend their support to.

The Wail is expert in this kind of thing and played its hand well. It sent along a not unattractive female journalist, Jane Fryer, to smile and bat her eyelids at Farage in the knowledge that with his lothario-like reputation he would be disarmed and play up to her – resulting in him saying daft things and giggling away like a hormone-filled teenager. The resulting output could then be assembled into a harmful piece and that is what has subsequently hit the printing press. He may try to laugh it off and bluster past it, but this Mail piece has landed a blow.

Farage has been in politics long enough to have known better. His public relations advisers should have insisted he do a different kind of interview in which he could still display an easy charm while showing the public he is the kind of serious man for serious times alternative they are craving.

Whether his PR did advise this but Farage’s famously ‘my way or the highway’ approach took over, we will probably never know. But we can be sure he won’t be attracting the kind of supporter he and his party desperately needs. UKIP will continue to be viewed as the party that draws the slightly off-the-wall kind of person to it. Farage is more likely to get the nose-pinching desperate voter than the kind of voter who will only go out to vote positively and enthusiastically for a party’s candidate.

As with so many cock ups Farage has been at the heart of, it was completely avoidable. Another golden opportunity presented at an ideal time, utterly wasted. I often wish I could support Farage and the party he has moulded in his image, but this is another reminder of why I don’t.

Update: Richard has seen the Wail piece and has drawn the same conclusion, only with additional context and background. Well worth reading in full here…

David Cameron’s ‘fax democracy’ lie nailed by the facts

If you read about this…

Then please do take a few moments to read this by Witterings from Witney, followed by this from Richard at EU Referendum.

It might not please some of the Cameroon true blue Tory partisan party animals but the truth, rather than Cameron’s shameful lies, should be told.  When you see the scale of the deception you have to ask what other lies are being told.

Similarly it might not please some of the Farage fan club in UKIP but the content of those two blog posts, rather than tweets such as the one below a day after the lies were told, is how you tackle and defeat Europhile untruths.  It makes one wonder whose side he’s on.

UKIP’s folly

A sub-editor, responsible for finishing off a Janet Daley piece in the Barclay Brothers’ Beano about UKIP’s non-breakthrough, perhaps unwittingly spotlights the problem at the heart of UKIP’s ‘strategy’.

This big problem in this country is the establishment.  UKIP’s problem is its aspiration to be part of that establishment, to become members of that club.  The only difference between the current establishment members and UKIP is the level of disorganisation exhibited by that party, its lack of political nous and Farage’s failure to understand or recognise how to extract this country from the EU in a manner that safeguards British interests.

In many respects UKIP already acts like part of the establishment.  The core goal it claims to be pursuing consistently gives way to internal party intrigues.  But most importantly the message it articulates is one of negativity.  UKIP, like all the other parties, enjoins voters to support it for negative reasons (‘send a message to the other parties’, ‘send a message to the EU’, ‘we are not like the others’).

Psychologically people find it more appealing and much easier to support a vision that is unswervingly positive, hopeful and rewarding.  And when people are sick to the back teeth of the establishment, its stupid games and its climbers, as evidenced by the collapse in voter turnout in elections, they are not going to be excited by a supposed alternative that wants to ‘gatecrash’ that establishment.

Farage reject this, but the outcomes speak for themselves.  Like climate change, forget the models and the theories and instead focus on the real-world observations.

There are many good people with the right intentions who are part of UKIP or support it.  But even they need to take stock of the reality and ask themselves how, with every condition in their favour in a place like Rotherham – a majority of people wanting UK sovereignty, massive media coverage, an outrageous abuse of power where their immigration policy was grotesquely misrepresented, a former MP who thieved taxpayer money for his own ends among others – the party only received 4,648 votes from a possible 64,000 in the constituency.

Until they do and they take a different approach from the Farage crawl to also-ran status, the objectives those good people want to achieve will not be realised.

 

Roger Helmer abandons Europlastic Tories and joins UKIP

When this blog coined the increasingly common term ‘Europlastics‘ to describe politicians and tribal political party members/supporters who are pro-EU but claim to be Eurosceptic, it was as a direct result of comments made by Roger Helmer MEP in support of pro-EU Conservative MPs who were .

This blog had published a post that exposed yet more Tory deception, with MP Chris Heaton-Harris taking a leading role in a new Tory MP grouping that claimed Eurosceptic views when their Commons Committee actions and voting record showed otherwise.  Helmer stepped in via the comments to defend his friend and former fellow MEP while trumpeting Heaton-Harris’ Eurosceptic credentials.

While tribal Tories rushed to Helmer’s defence, our criticism and that of a number of other blogs that had joined the discussion, we learned that within Europlastic circles there was substantial concern about the way their fragile edifice was being demolished.  The Eurosceptic gloss had been wiped off and grassroots Tories were starting to accept the reality of the situation – their party is bereft of genuine Eurosceptics at senior and parliamentary level.

Roger Helmer’s statement that he has resigned from the Conservative Party (channelling Neville Chamberlain at the same time) and joined UKIP is a further nail in the Tory Europlastic coffin.

It suggests Helmer’s principle may have finally overcome the tribalism that kept him part of a party that does not share his publicly stated views on the most fundamental political issue in the UK today – whether this country is genuinely democratic and who really governs it.  While I am not a UKIP voter for reasons previously explained on this blog, I applaud Helmer for taking what I know to be a very difficult decision.

The response from the political blogosphere’s answer to Hans Christian Andersen is as predictable as it is laughable.  This is not a Cameron problem, it is a Conservative Party problem.  The Conservative Party does not provide the best, or any, hope for Eurosceptics. It remains pro-EU and anyone remaining in that party while professing to be a Eurosceptic is a Europlastic.

The fault lines in the Conservative Party now appear to be opening – and not a moment too soon.

Why UKIP is not the answer to the EU problem

The estimable Dr Richard North, writing at EU Referendum, has published a very personal and thought provoking essay explaining why he believes UKIP, rather than being the solution for those who want Britain out of the EU, is actually part of the problem. It almost completely encapsulates my thinking and saves me explaining separately why I am not a UKIP member or voter.

UKIP lacks leadership talent but must reject Farage

Lord Pearson of Rannoch, a decent man, has done the decent thing.  He has accepted that despite being a well meaning and respectable man, he is a walking disaster as a politician.  It is one thing to be a good business leader, it is a completely different proposition to lead a political party and so he has decided to step down.

Under Lord Pearson UKIP won an increased number of votes at the General Election, but it has gone backwards in terms of its profile and standing as a political force.  It is a regression that UKIP will find pretty much impossible to reverse as it has such a thin and shallow pool of talent from which to fish for a new leader.

What must be most worrying for UKIP’s remining members is that Nigel Farage is thinking of tossing his hat into the leadership election.  Farage is charismatic but he just cannot be taken seriously as a politician.  He is straight talking but he cannot connect with voters.  Farage gets attention not for the important messages he should be conveying but for the stunts in which he engages and behaviour that can be likened to that of an upper class twit trying to act like a rebel.  If he stands for election UKIP’s membership must reject him to stand any chance of a final throw of the dice to make a political break through.  If Farage stands and UKIP elects him, it will be the death knell for the party.

But then, perhaps the kindest thing that can be done with UKIP is to close it down.  It started life as a single issue party and despite pledging to widen its focus to include the full range of domestic and international political issues, it has been unable to break free from its caricature of being a refuge for malcontents who just happen to be opposed to EU membership.  It has missed the opportunity to be seen as a mature and viable political entity and despite David Cameron’s long march leftwards UKIP has squandered the chance to make the political centre right its own.

What is needed now is the birth of a new centre right party that stands on the common ground with this country’s disenfranchised voters.  What is needed is a party that talks to all the interests of the British people with honesty and integrity.  Britain needs a party that has not been formed primarily for the purpose of opposing EU membership, but that happens to possess a desire for national sovereignty and self determination among a whole raft of centre right political principles.

Who knows, perhaps Lord Rannoch’s resignation and Nigel Farage’s personal ambitions may have brought that day somewhat closer.

UKIP disintegration could mean turmoil for centre-right

One of the most extraordinary stories of this General Election campaign doesn’t concern the three main parties or their leaders – and it could have more far reaching implications as this post will explain.  It has to be the implosion of UKIP and its leader, Lord Pearson of Rannoch.

In recent interviews on TV and radio, Lord Pearson has demonstrated that he doesn’t have a basic grasp of his party’s manifesto, is unwilling to talk about issues such as education and health, and has sought to excuse his distinctly substandard media performances by saying he isn’t a slick, professional politician.  This has come on top of UKIP’s dalliance with identity politics, playing the BNP’s game and singling out the burqa as attire to be banned in public buildings.

It seems Lord Pearson’s communication deficiencies extend to internal party matters too.  It has emerged that the UKIP candidate in Taunton Deane, Tony McIntyre, learned from the BBC that he was supposed to step aside and end his campaign in the hope of assisting the Conservative candidate there, after Lord Pearson announced the decision in an open letter to the Mid Somerset News and Media.  Lord Pearson appears to be a decent and honorable man.  But the evidence is that he is completely ill-equipped to lead a political party that received the second highest number of votes in last year’s European Parliament elections.  His recent media appearances will have done nothing to convince floating voters that in lending their support to UKIP they would be voting for a competent party.

The UKIP three ring circus hasn’t faired any better in the local media either.  The weekend bore witness to a tragic performance of UKIP’s apparently kindly and well meaning candidate for Peterborough, Frances Fox.  Speaking on the Politics Show in the East, Mrs Fox was so nervous she spoke of the 100 million jobs that have been lost in the country and struggled to give coherent answers to questions as she struggled to refer to her notes.  It was not car crash TV, it was far worse than that.  Again it reinforced the reason why so many people with centre-right views do not take UKIP seriously and cannot bring themselves to support it.

Politics should not be about trivialites such as slick presentation or how one looks on camera and sounds on audio.  It should be about ideas, vision and positive plans for the way this country is governed.  But what UKIP is showing is that its leader and some of its candidates are unable or unwilling to address those core requirements.  In doing so it is unwittingly paving the way for what could be a truly seismic shift in British politics.

The result of UKIP’s downward slide would mean not only a weakened party with shrinking appeal that will not be taken seriously by voters, but also the possible creation of a political vacuum on the centre-right of British politics – where no party speaks up for a substantial proportion of the electorate and the issues that are important to people who want smaller government and personal freedom from the state.  That would be worrying and uncharted territory at a time when the paternalist, overbearing, centre ground consensus has little enough genuine opposition to overcome.

But of course the media circus so fixated with stage managed debates and faux disagreements about the extent of fiscal intervention, it has failed to notice what could prove to be a truly defining moment in politics in this country.  Perhaps we are rapidly approaching the point at which a new, moderate, realist centre-right political force commited to national political sovereignty and truly democratic politics, can emerge to provide the much needed alternative to the mainstream party consensus that is serving the interests of this country so badly.  We can but hope we do not sink deeper into what the Chinese would describe as ‘interesting times’.

Conservatives continue to delude themselves

I like Jonathan Isaby, the co-editor of ConservativeHome.  He is a genuinely nice guy and he is a good writer too.  But then, he should be having been on the roll at the Telegraph.  He is also an optimist and clearly as loyal as an eternally patient schnauzer.

But it seems of late that his loyalty is clouding any sense of realism in his public pronouncements.  The Times yesterday carried an Isaby opinion editorial about the new faces of the Tories, which contained the following section:

While they are generally socially liberal, sympathetic to localism and in favour of reversing Labour’s erosion of civil liberties, they are Thatcherite on Europe, tax, enterprise and defence. They are not, in the main, especially moved by the green agenda that Mr Cameron has so personally embraced.

There is an understandable rationale to Isaby’s plea because Thatcherism was the most successful form of conservatism and Cameron is no Thatcherite.  He is not even a conservative.  He is a frustrated liberal of the Orange Book wing who is using the wider electoral appeal of the Conservatives as a vehicle to realise his personal ambitions.

But the problem in Isaby’s written appeal to centre right is that while the new Tories who could be returned to Parliament will not be clones of Cameron, they will be completely subordinate to him.  Cameron is an authoritarian paternalist who believes he knows best.  He will brook no dissent from the new intake.  On Tory climate change policy, in accepting the flawed scientific argument and resisting doubters of the consensus, Cameron bared his teeth by saying:

“A very small number of people take a different view on the science, but the policy is driven by me, and that is the way it is going to be.”

What ambitious Tory fresher in Parliament is going to take on the leader and risk the frosty marginalisation that would follow?  Sadly Isaby is ignoring the reality of the situation.  And he was at it again today back on ConservativeHome in an article about UKIP possibly standing candidates against Conservatives even if they support the ‘Better Off Out’ campaign for withdrawal from the EU.  There is simply no basis in evidence for the argument made by Isaby:

All the same, I would argue that for anyone who agrees with UKIP’s principle aim of getting out of the European Union, their preferred direction of travel will be infinitely better represented by a Conservative Government than by a Labour one, and that voting UKIP is merely aiding and abetting the europhiles in Labour and the Lib Dems.

Time and again David Cameron has made it clear he sees Britain’s future as being in the EU.  Because it is what Cameron wants, it is Conservative policy and will remain so until any future leader has the courage and good sense to change it.  No voter who wants Britain out of the EU will be any better represented by a Conservative than by a Labour socialist or Liberal Democrat federalist.  To claim otherwise is to engage in the politics of delusion.

A Cameron government will not do anything that tilts towards the direction of travel sought by those who want the United Kingdom to be a sovereign independent nation once more.  I will not say Isaby is being dishonest for I think he really believes what he says; but he is deluded like so many other Conservatives who cling to the hope that once in office Cameron will suddenly reveal himself to have been anti-EU all along.

As for UKIP?  Yes, they want to take us out of the EU.  But as a political party with elements that are quite unsavoury, they do not appeal to me any more than the Conservatives.  The fact is there is a large proportion of the UK electorate that simply doesn’t have a political party they feel able to support.  The choice between consensus politics and extremist or intolerant parties is not much of a choice at all.