David Cameron – in language that would get him immediately banned from some leftwing blogs – famously derided the UK Independence Party as ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’.
Well, the stridently anti-Brussels neo-Poujadists in question have just secured a base in the House of Commons. Rightwinger Bob Spink (pictured), who recently lost the Conservative whip at Westminster, joins two Lords, ten euro-MPs, 55 or so councillors and a claimed 16,700 members in what is clearly Britain’s largest minor party.
This is the man who three years ago published a newspaper advert on immigration, under the headline: ‘What bit of “send them back” don't you understand Mr Blair?’ True, he didn’t preface the slogan with ‘If they’re black’. But for anyone who remembers the National Front catchphrase from the seventies, he didn’t have to.
Anti-immigration hard right outfits have had MPs before, of course. In 1976, disgraced Labour MP John Stonehouse – on remand in Brixton after bizarrely faking his own death – became the English National Party’s sole parliamentarian.
Mr Spink, although by all accounts quite a colourful politician, is a more serious proposition. UKIP are reportedly confident that they can retain his Essex seat at the next general election. If Respect, the Blaenau Gwent People’s Voice Group and the Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern can pull off victories against the mainstream party machines, that cannot be impossible. We shall see.
For some reason, UKIP is an outfit that the left - which habitually pays obsessive attention to developments in dozen-member microsects, the finer points of the Respect Renewal/Left List split and the chance of the British National Party securing representation in the Greater London Assembly – usually prefers to ignore.
That is odd, and possibly complacent. UKIP’s populist right platform has undeniable appeal to swathes of the electorate. The 2.7m votes it picked up in the 2004 euro contest illustrates that. As Cameron waters down or jettisons many Tory traditionalist shibboleths, that tally may yet grow.
In many ways, UKIP has the potential to act as a focus for the nationalist reaction in ways that the BNP cannot, because it is not tainted by fascist association. Precisely because it is constitutionally opposed to racial discrimination, and because it has fielded black and Asian electoral candidates, its opposition to immigration can be passed off as respectable.
It is not enough simply to write these guys off as the provisional wing of the Daily Mail any more. For more than a decade now, the hard left has talked (and talked and talked and talked and talked) about regroupment; the hard right has been getting on with the job, and is now a consolidated force in organised political life.
Posted at 13:57, 22 April 2008
Comments (15)
The Hard Right might have been getting on with the job because they have had no illusions in the Tory Party.
Well, few people - other than your former comrades the Grantites - have 'illusions' in the Labour Party, Doug. I fully realise what its class nature is; I just don't see any alternative.
"Hard Right"?
We're rather more classically liberal than that I think you'll find.
On income tax, for example, the first thing to do is raise the personal allowance to £10 k.....
I think one of the reasons that the left ignore UKIP is that where they have electoral successes they do absolutely nothing of substance with them - whilst a strong BNP presence in an area is bad news.
UKIP members may be an odd bunch, and are often unpleasant and reactionary, what they are not are dangerous on their own... although I'm sure given the right circumstances they could contribute to some really dire unpleasantness.
Analysis of the 2004 elections, when local and European Parliament elections were held on the same day, throws up some fascinating figures.
Where there wasn't a BNP candidate in any one election, it was clear that most of the BNP vote went UKIP, but not the other way round.
And then there was the famous Goresbrook byelectionof 23 June 2005, when Labour won back the only BNP seat on the Council. The UKIP candidate was the Labour agent's brother. No, it wasn't a plot, more like a family feud.
Erm, Dave, Doug is not a member of the Socialist Party (unlike his son, i.e. me) nor was ever a member of Militant.
And if there's 'no alternative', you build one, not give up and join a load of anti-working class, privatising war criminals.
"its opposition to immigration can be passed off as respectable".
Well it is, isn't it? I realise that probably the only policy area where you will never abandon your ultra-left past is that of immigration, where you will obstinately cling to a no borders policy adhered to by nobody else apart from the libertarian far right. Fair enough, but your attempts to portray anybody who demurs as a racist or fascist are not particularly helpful, and perhaps account for the utter isolation of your beloved "Trots".
It seems odd to say the right are getting their act together organisationaly, when UKIP, EDP and BNP are all standing against each other in LOndon, and the BNP have been riven by expulsions and councillors resigning the whip.
Andy newman is right (hey, I said it): UKIP itself has had its split, with Kilroy (remember Veritas?), and that chappy who swindled the European Parliament out of allowances hardly got his act together. There's also competition on the non-BNP hard-right, for example with the EDP and other fragments.
Having stood next to them on the Corn Hill (in the days before the Liberal-Tory Junta privatised the market and freedom of expression was permitted publicly in Ipswich), I would describe them as frothing at the mouth, off the wall, numpty as an O'Nutter, barmy as bampots, as daft as brushes, and well short of the Euro.
They are standing two candidates in the local elections here (no BNP). I expect they will do well: they appeal to a certain kind of crack-pot mentality that rails against Europe, and finds the source of all evil in foreigners.
Cue for some UKIP type to come forward and say: I speak twelve European languages, including Basque and Dalmatian, take my holdays in Switzerland, eat Wurst for breakfast, and have a doctorate - Walpurgis University - in Econometrics. I am simply opposed to those EU bureaucrats who want to flood East Anglia, fulfill Hitler's plans for a United Europe, and send insulting messages to myself and my wife in tins of peaches.
Some partially correct points, Andy. When I argue that UKIP represents the hard right getting its act together, I mean it in the sense of getting the bulk of hard right activists in the same formation, which has secured representation at every level.
That doesn't mean that there are not other rightwing political formations and that there are not splits.
The parallel is, suppose that Respect Renewal did take off in the way you would like it to - not that I think this can possibly happen.
The SWP would still exist, groups like Workers' Power would still split. But the majority of the hard left would be under one roof.
"Cue for some UKIP type to come forward and say: I speak twelve European languages, including Basque and Dalmatian, take my holdays in Switzerland, eat Wurst for breakfast, and have a doctorate - Walpurgis University - in Econometrics. I am simply opposed to those EU bureaucrats who want to flood East Anglia, fulfill Hitler's plans for a United Europe, and send insulting messages to myself and my wife in tins of peaches."
Well, I am a UKIP type, speak three European languages (very badly indeed I might add) live in Portugal, in fact, I've lived 19 out of the past 20 years outside the UK, it's a B.Sc from the LSE actually, but yes, the rest is entirely correct.
Tim
Well, classically liberal = Thatcherism = hard right, in my book. You demur, I take it?
Cue for some UKIP type to come forward and say: I speak twelve European languages, including Basque and Dalmatian
One of the Manchester UKIP candidates goes by the name of Gutfreund-Walmsley. Hands across the Nordsee!
BTW - one fact often overlooked about UKIP is yhat they have a lot of support among evangelical Christians.
A few years ago I was involved in anti-deportation campaign to prevent a young Christian woman being deported back to the Ukraine, and her adopted familly here in the UK were strong UKIP supporters, and the UKIP parliamementary candidate in North Swindon in 2005 was an evangelical.
Also, the UKIP supporters I have come across have not been particularly exercised by immigration, but more by big stateism (and dog whistle noises to those concerned about "ZOG" power)
All in all an odd bunch.
Nigel Farage told Andrew Neil Christian cranks are at least as much of a problem as BNP entryists.
Tim, there are solid libertarian activists involved in UKIP, but.. what's Bob Spink got to do with it? Their strategy is to peel off whatever, yes, hard right Tories fall off the Cameroonie train, deselected for saying Enoch was right, or whatever. Too much nationalism, not enough liberalism.
Ashley Mote? C'mon.