Ukip and the politics of despair

Back in the late 1970s, I protested outside meetings organised by the National Front. I disagreed with the far right whose ‘policies’ such as they were, centred solely around immigrants and foreigners.

I remember attending Bristol Rovers matches at Eastville Stadium and finding more sellers of the NF magazine ‘Bulldog’ than programme sellers.

Exposing the NF for what they were ensured that they did not succeed in the 1979 General Election and anyway the arrival of Margaret Thatcher on the right of politics ensured that interest in the neo fascist right declined.

The successors to the NF, the British National Party, have gradually fizzled out over the years but I had a terrible sense of deja vu when the result of the Clacton by election was announced today.

Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, is no Adolf Hilter or Nick Griffin but it would be a mistake to ignore his position on the right of politics.

It was dispiriting to hear the radio interviews today with residents of Clacton who had voted for Ukip. Two thirds of Clacton’s population is over 65, most of the town is white. They have not been overrun by immigrants but the vox pops suggested that was all the town folk cared about. They were taking all our jobs, claiming all our benefits and Europe…well, we were governed entirely from Brussels. One man said we needed to get powers back from Europe but when he was asked as to which ones he had no idea.

And that’s how Ukip works. A narrow, bigoted agenda of hate and despair in a country full of foreigners freeloading off the state.

Ukip promises huge tax cuts which would be paid for my slashing the state, apart from the MOD which in any case has escaped George Osborne’s axe almost entirely. And Farage would slash the bloated welfare budget! But hang on a minute: the overwhelming majority of money in the welfare budget goes to…pensioners, you know, like the 65% of Clactonians (or whatever they are called).

It’s the politics of despair.

So many people are sick of politicians and with good reason. As we have said before, in the UK a political party, currently aided and abetted another political party, wins an election and for the next five years does what the hell it likes. I don’t feel represented by the likes of Cameron and Clegg. They are telling me what to do, how I should live my life. No. We should be telling them how we want them to make our lives better, to make our views count.

We’re sick of them, they’re all the same, but of course they are not all the same.

And Ukip are nothing new. Farage proclaims himself as some kind of anti-establishment leader, as befits a very rich former merchant banker who went to private school. He is not anti-establishment: he is an integral part of it.

He is an outlet for disillusion, he gives us something and someone to blame. And that someone is almost always a foreigner.

We do need to take them seriously, even though David Cameron probably called it right when he referred to them as ‘fruitcakes and loonies.’ I’d add to that as saying they are extremely dangerous fruitcakes and loonies who, if we are not careful, could undo what remains of the post World War 2 consensus and plunge us into undreamed of misery and division.

Honestly, the victory of Ukip today was one of the darkest days I have woken up to and if we don’t all wake up to the dangers of far right politics there will be far worse to come.