UKIP

I don't really want to write about UKIP - I've been writing and arguing about them intermittently today on Facebook.

Anyone who thinks Facebook is all kittens and video clips doesn't see my pages.  There are very tough political slogging matches going on.  It's been lucky that I've had a good friend who shares my views doing a lot of the heavy lifting - and in some cases it was her statuses that provoked these fights.   Part of me just wishes that UKIP supporters would just shut up about it - but they've won the majority of the seats - they feel entitled to gloat - those of them who were more discreet before the results are now strutting about and going for fitting for their new uniforms (I jest!).

Although UKIP strenuously tries to distance itself from neo-fascist groups such as NF and BNP the more it protests, the more we are counting the spoons.... the fact is that it has attracted their supporters (as well as many disaffected Tories and Labour voters) is a small thing, the worse thing, I think, is that it has enabled people who are pretty racist to find an outlet and to express their opinions.

The people who say "I'm not a racist but...." mean that they probably wouldn't use the N- word - but that's now the only definition of a racist - feeling alienated from foreigners, unable to make them welcome - yes, it's xenophobia - but it often covers a racist set of beliefs.   These xenophobes are Ukippers - they aren't educated, cosmopolitan or sophisticated.  Are they nice, kind, decent people?  Perhaps - to their own kind - they would probably help out if they saw a foreigner in trouble - wouldn't they?   They aren't monsters surely.

Nevertheless, I am feeling as alienated from them as Nigel Farage would from a household of Romanian men - Ukipophobia... Sadly, I have rather exhausted my energies on them on Facebook - but my overall view is that this victory is voters who perhaps don't really understand how Euro elections work voting for people who aren't going to work in the European Parliament - so rather a waste of time.  Probably some voters think if they can get enough UKIP MEPs elected they will be able to change European legislation - well yes, but...

Apparently UKIP are going to overhaul their policies - at present they are trying to present themselves as a party of the politically marginalised working classes - who are ignored by the media and Westminster.  If the working class took a close look at their agenda and manifesto they might wonder how getting rid of sick pay and the minimum wage was going to help the working classes exactly? This is because UKIP are not of course a working class party - they are a Poujardiste petit-bourgeois small business persons' party.... their interests are limited to making themselves richer and letting the weakest go to the wall.  Again not something most ordinary British people are totally enamoured of - we are famous for liking under dogs - I don't think we've lost that yet.   Perhaps we are safe.

I certainly don't believe they will make significant gains in a General Election in 2015 - barring some unforeseen horror... However, Nigel F is making the most of his victory - crowing that it is the first time a third party has won a "national election" for a 100 years.  Pas grand chose really - EU elections are not exactly national elections - correctly it should be "won a majority in the national section of a Europe-wide election".  But the truth isn't always a good sound-bite is it?

The Resistible Rise of Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage is a superficially "impish" version of a type that I find familiar, latterly from the ghastly networking breakfasts that I used to go to when I was trying to set up a business.   He is a commercial person who has not got much intellectual training behind him, and has spent his life concluding that what his "common sense" tells him must be right and true, because all the chaps in the saloon bar or at the nineteenth hole agree with him, largely because, like him, they are not strong on critical faculties, and their knowledge of the world, society, humanity, economics is restricted to the small number of things they have experienced.

Their views are comforting, because they do not encounter opposition or disagreement, since most of the people they meet are either their employees, or people similar to them.  When they do meet someone who disagrees, they can easily dismiss them as a "leftie" or a "nutter", or, perhaps a "foreigner".  

We all have a bit of "them-ism" in us.  Few of us can agree with the humani nil a me alienum puto (I don't find anything human is alien to me) of Terence - we all have our prejudices, our dislikes (one of mine being heavily blinkered small businessmen).  UKIP seems composed of people who have formed a party against everything and everyone that challenges their limited worldview.  Unhappily, there are many other people in the country who have had even fewer opportunities to understand the world and are happy to follow UKIP's lead.   Something is rotten in the state of England, and unfortunately it cannot all be put down to a scheming uncle.

If, as shorthand, and on the understanding that this is an over-simplification, I refer to the typical UKIP candidate/activist as a small businessman (women too sadly) then a great deal of their policy becomes clear. For years there have been various spokesmen (not women usually) for the Federation of Small Business(men) interviewed on the radio on phone-ins and consumer programmes, and they have usually argued fiercely against any improvement in conditions for workers... no statutory sick pay, no maternity leave, compassionate leave, flexible working, job-shares, paternity leave, adoptive parent leave.  Left to them, children would still be drawing coal trucks underground and going up chimneys.  Of course, not all small business operators are the same: we don't have employees in our business, Architectural Archaeology, so we haven't been destruction tested on these issues.

These views, dictated by common sense and self-interest have been transferred wholesale into the UKIP manifesto.  In addition, they apparently wish to privatise the NHS.   This is wonderfully Un-English/British of them.  It has long been known that large sections of the population would probably go to the stake for the NHS - it has been apotheosized during the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony.  Yes, GPs make mistakes (bad ones), yes people die, yes, there are useless individuals in the system - welcome to the real world... but on the whole, the UK is very proud of the NHS and loves it, warts and all.   Yet UKIPers, who claim to love their country, would deliver their fellow citizens to unaffordable insurance and illness and toothache and so on so that they could save a bit of money.

Why?  Because UKIPers are not really for anyone except themselves.  Their agenda is to reduce their own expenditure - they will pay less tax under their regime, unhealthy, disabled babies will not be born to be a burden on the state, the small businessmen will not have to subsidise the feckless and weak who get ill, or manage to have accidents, and this will mean more money for them.

This whole Poujardiste agenda is actually half-concealed, while they use people's ignorance and anxiety about "them" - whether these are Eastern European gypsies, or famine dodging Sudanese, to attract attention and support. The EU is composed of foreigners, so they can't care about us, so they must be screwing us in some way.  Foreigners wish to come here to work - how very dare they?!  Who would have thought people were so frightened about schools being full, about having to wait a little longer for a doctor?  Whatever happened to British pluck?  We are now such a nation of snivelling ninnies apparently, that we will tolerate suffering people being refused asylum, rather than have to spend an extra 30 minutes in an NHS waiting room.

UKIP shamefully like to try and use Christianity too - not because they are Christians, but to highlight the fact that they are not Muslims.  When Jesus said "who is my brother?" he meant everyone was, not just a few special people who were his siblings.  But if you ask Nigel and his chums "who is your brother?" their answer would probably be "Fuck 'em, I'm an only child."   Who was it who said the only true interest is self-interest?  The trouble with UKIPers is, they don't really have any other interests.