Resisting UKIP

Some of my comrades in the Stand up to UKIP group want to write a pamphlet - with the working title of "How we beat UKIP".  Although we have agreed that this will not be the title - I feel this highlights a fundamental issue.   My analysis of what happened in the general election in Thanet South is very different from theirs, and I don't think there is much chance of an honest discussion within the group of "what really happened" or the "truth" as the more philosophically inclined of us like to call it.

SUTU did a wonderful job in encouraging people to realise that they were not alone... and that we should try to resist the Purple Menace with all our might.  Despite my occasional suggestions that we should do something to undermine UKIP's attempts to seize the council, this was contradicted saying "Farage is our focus".  He didn't win the seat, but both Thanet District Council and Ramsgate Town Council are now dominated by UKIP.   Last night - at our post election meeting - it was said by several speakers that having a UKIP Council (the only one in the country) was somehow "a good thing" because it gave us a focus to continue the struggle.   It may well be - but I cannot see it being objectively a "good thing" for the people of Thanet.   It is "a good thing" perhaps that more people have been politicised and engaged than for a long time - but at what cost?

Personally I would rather not be continuing the struggle - personally I would like to be cultivating my own garden and not attending meetings etc.  I would like to do something useful, but I don't want to continue doing it this way, in this style, and I'm not sure whether the Labour party will be the place for me now either, as some people begin to salivate at the prospect of a return to Blairite values.

How did we "beat" UKIP?

I would love to believe that our relentless campaigning, leafletting, stall running, stickering, etc. had beaten UKIP.  I don't want to take any glory from the people who worked so hard (harder than me probably), but this is why I think we beat UKIP - or rather, why Farage was not elected.   I don't have statistics and so on to back me up - but this is how I analyse the election result here.

In 2010 the Conservatives won 48% of the votes and had a 6,600 approx majority over Labour; UKIP came 4th. with 2,500 approx.  This was after a boundary change had made the constituency a far safer Tory seat than it had been previously.  Labour won it in the 1997 landslide - and Ladyman held on to it, with tiny majorities, partly due to the benefit of being the incumbent.

I have no doubt that Laura Sandys would have comfortably won it if she had run this year.  It is a Conservative seat.  In this election a large number of Tories defected to UKIP as did a roughly similar number of Labour voters, and apparently most of the Lib Dems....The Tories held onto their seat - the polls were wrong, Will Scobie (Labour) didn't in fact have a realistic chance, and we were lucky we didn't have to vote Tory to defeat Nigel.   Many Tories dislike UKIP even more than we do.  Laura Sandys' Hate not Hope letter to the constituency may have been helpful - or it may have been too late to make any difference.   Perhaps SUTU prevented even more Labour people from defecting to UKIP, and perhaps dislike of Farage galvanized more people to come out and vote against him, or perhaps love of Farage encouraged traditional non-voters to come out and vote for him.

People love novelty.  They  don't like change when it's thrust upon them - but they like feeling that they can bring about change.  By getting the only UKIP council in the UK they have got a change of their own making.  We are hoping the council will screw up big time, indeed we are expecting it.  However, our definition of screwing up and the voters' definition are two different things.   Local Kippers may be emboldened by their success and delighted by what the council does (privatised litter fines for example).

No more glad, confident [Friday] morning...

For all these reasons I couldn't share the delight in the great moment when Farage lost on Friday morning.  Of course I was relieved and pleased, but not triumphant: because frankly, with a Tory government, and now a UKIP council there's not much to rejoice about, and the combined evil of these forces rather overwhelms my pleasure at seeing Farage depart from Fannet South in a puff of purple smoke never to be seen again - oh, until Monday, when he returned as the newly-re-elected Party Leader.  But at least he won't be coming here for his next crack at Parliament - which is why I say: Long life and Good Health to our Tory MP  vivat McKinlay!

Manston Airport - what next?

Despite the protests of the not enormously economically savvy local afficionados, Manston is likely to remain closed.  It is selling its equipment to Lydd apparently (Lydd is another whole can of worms - owned by the Sheik Fakeh al Athel - perhaps for another blog).

Local fury has turned on Mrs Anne Gloag.  Famously not a very nice woman, with large Bette Davis eyes and a withered visage which sits oddly with her youthful blonde bob.  She is 70-something, and like other determined business people (Rupert Murdoch springs to mind) shows no sign of letting up.  Strange that they are both apparently Christians yet both so nasty - would they be Christians in the Mrs Thatcher (The Good Samaritan was only a good thing because he had MONEY) mould?   So, I am not a fan of Mrs Gloag.  Unfortunately, public opinion in this tiny province of the Empire, is now so polarised that anyone who is happy the airport is closed, is immediately assumed to be an adherent of hers.   The idea of a nuanced position is not well-understood here.

Mrs G bought the airport for £1 last year and, as I suspected, bought it for its land bank.   It is effectively the biggest brownfield site in Thanet.  Unfortunately, many local people didn't understand this - they thought the Bus millionairess had bought it for some other reason - perhaps to invest even more money in it and turn it into Kent's answer to Gatwick.   Oh, you think I'm being cruel to the simplicity of local people?  I assure you that is fair comment - bear in mind that we have some of the lowest levels of educational qualification and skills in the county.

Mrs G has now closed the airport.  She is going to put housing on it.  I think that is pretty much inevitable.  It would take about 20 years to return the land to agriculture, it could be used as a solar field perhaps in the mean time - but honestly, realistically, in this climate, turning it into housing is the answer.    So my argument is, if there is to be housing there, let's make damn sure that it is decent, high quality housing, with a good portion of social housing, high ecological standards, plenty of trees to offset the carbon used in the construction, open spaces, facilities, planning gain!   Of course, knowing TDC this is a bit of a pipe dream.  This is a local council which doesn't seem to understand about planning gain.

There was considerable opposition to the housing idea from the Manstonistas - many of whom, to judge by their comments, must be UKIP supporters - comments on the lines of "we don't want sink estates" (as if - this will be expensive stuff - that's where the money is), "we don't want everyone being emptied out of London coming down here"  "25 families from Brixton have already moved here " (Brixton is code for "black").  The little Englander is alive and well.  I don't totally love the idea, I like the open spaces, the flat windswept ridge, I don't want to see it covered with houses - hence my longing for trees!  But I recognise that there are economic realities.  TDC could deny her planning permission, but she will take it higher and eventually be granted it by the Minister - so why bother? Get control of the situation now, impose conditions - make sure it will be an absolutely fabulous place to live.

Unfortunately, there is now a massive hare running that Mrs G is going to apply for "Garden city" status for her proposed development.  Cue mass hysteria.  And I would object to that, because (a) it will be harder to impose planning conditions (b) it won't be a garden city that Ebenezer Howard would recognise (c) there is talk of it extending to embrace the "Science Park" on the Pfizer site - in other words it would take in Cliffsend and swallow hectares of agricultural land along the A256 to Sandwich.   For heaven's sake!  Unfortunately, to support any housing is seen as support for the Garden City scheme - so I am anticipating some weeks of vituperation and irrationality.  Deep sigh.

I am hoping the Garden City hare is just a strategy to make us all relieved an grateful when it just turns out to be 1200 houses on the airport site.