I'm pleased to report that I have finally overcome one of the great banes of my existence. The deference that I've always habitually shown to those of more experience and learning is a thing of the past. I'm now 30 years old and have no excuse to pretend that I'm not a full adult and after the result of the council/European Parliament vote, it is clearly time that my generation exerted a fuller influence on national and supranational politics.
This being the case, there is a settled and persistent theory among the generations coming of age in the 1970s and 1980s that they are the ones who have been hit by the last 20 years of integration and normalisation into fiscally conservative social democracy. Or socially liberal neo liberalism if you prefer.
As a Scotchman, I don't have too much direct acquaintance with the UKIP following, but I do follow the arguments of their leadership quite closely. The grievances that have led to the so-called 'protest vote' in the European elections seems to emanate largely from a section of older, working class males who have seen a decline in their living standards at the same time as an influx of EU migrants have done more to effect productivity in the skilled and unskilled areas of manufacturing, hospitality, domestic and retail services. Perhaps they should look at the their opinions on economic structure to ensure that people who do valuable work are remunerated accordingly? Nah. That's Communism obviously.
The irony of course is that UKIP is fully in favour of laissez faire capitalism. Except for when the free run of the market is of disadvantage to themselves. The Conservative Party are routinely being described as being put on the back foot by this phenomenon with prominent Torys feeling like their best hunting ground is being taken over. In reality however, the rise of UKIP is actually purging them of the central contradiction which has made the party unelectable as the sole party of Government for most of my lifetime. It was Europe that sunk John Major and it was Europe that disbarred the party's best candidates from assuming leadership until the Cameron brand came along. If Cameron himself is discomfited by this change, I see no evidence of it. I would predict that we're about to see an audit among the right wing, which will finally put the EU issue to bed as a national issue and entrench the Conservatives as the natural party of Government until the next seismic political shift.
Fortunately, there are several things to be resolved first. Is renegotiation going to pacify or inflame the anti-EU vote? Is it going to be conducted by the current coalition or a more ardent right wing coalition or by Labour? Granted the latter seems unlikely, but likely voters in a general election might just squeak Labour into the largest single party, but definitely not the majority party.
History seems to suggest that the anti-EU vote will simply never be able to challenge for national favour. In the meantime, the Tories are pretty clever about distancing themselves, while remaining vigilant about European chicanary like the Human Rights Act and free movement of peoples. My sense is that the more UKIP do to identify themselves as the party of the anti-EU vote, the stronger the Tories become amongst former Liberal Democrats and New Labourists.
If we look at the actual facts from the last 4 years of this parliament, we find that the Liberal Democrats are nearly extinct. Nick Clegg himself will very likely lose Sheffield Hallam next year (I'd been told this repeatedly by his constituents, but polling is now available) and UKIP will have a strong showing at the very least. When I try to actually look at the projections suggesting a UKIP MP, my brain rebels.
Labour in the meantime have been trying to Blairise Miliband with the insane choice of David Axelrod as senior strategic adviser. It's as if a group of West Wing fanboys were running the Labour Party and trying to recreate the performance of Martin Sheen with Rowan Atkinson. I was a Labour child. I was a Labour teenager. I was a Scottish Socialist for about 10 minutes. I can no longer look at the current left without feeling like they are deliberately trying to alienate me.
Of course, they are most likely doing so in order to attract others. But who? Who in their right mind is being attracted by the vapid regurgitation of piss-weak populism from Ed Miliband? WHO GODDAMMIT? The intellectually self-confident? As the mob boss says: if you have to say you are, you probably aint.
If anything, I can only look at the current Labour edge as a mildish rebuke to the coalition. If David Cameron gets Ed Miliband up on the stage on his own, God help us all. The Torys might get a majority outright.
The Tories have franchised their radical right to UKIP soothing the fears of sensible conservatives and through cooperating with them have exposed the fundamental bad faith of the Liberal Democrats. While this seems to have caused a midterm dip in popularity for the Conservatives, it is no more than that. If the Cameronians can keep Boris and David Davies on a short leash for the next year, there is no party in a better position to sweep the board at the General Election.
#VoteYes
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