Many wrongly see UKIP as a net positive for Labour – this is wrongheaded. Labour needs to get serious about UKIP, says Sam Fowles.
Last week Nigel Farage announced his ambition, not just to be David Cameron’s “worst nightmare” but Ed Miliband’s as well. The general perception amongst the progressive media appears to be that UKIP’s increasing threat (aptly illustrated by the, suspiciously timely, resignation of Douglas Carswell) will be a net positive for Labour, making it more difficult for the Conservatives to win the next general election. This is a mistake.
All too often we see politics as being only about the next election. It’s not. Politics is about the sort of nation we want. Winning an election is a means to an end. That end is the principles we support becoming the principles that govern our nation. Elections themselves are not defining moments but the inevitable products of public debates. They are won and lost in the collective consciousness, not at the ballot box.
Margaret Thatcher defined the public discourse. Although she herself lost office, every government since, including those comprised of her political opponents, have pursued policies based on the ideology she espoused. They view the world according to the paradigm which she established.
Here’s an example: Most good economists will argue that the financial crisis was caused by a failure of the (private) financial sector. Yet all economic arguments in our public debate are based on the premise that we must cut back on the state. We don’t discuss the logic behind this; it’s become an irrefutable “fact” of British politics. The “private: good/state: bad” paradigm is unsupported by history or economics but every political party conforms with it because it is the paradigm which defines our public debate.
To win elections but, more importantly, to see their principles realised, a political party needs to define the debate. Unless it can do so (as I have argued before) it will always be arguing according to it’s opponent’s terms and thus will always lose.
UKIP may prove to be of short-term electoral advantage to Labour. In the long term, they will push the public discourse further to the right. Labour may be in power but their principles will not. A party that is content to maintain power by implementing ideals that it should fundamentally oppose does not deserve to exist.
In the United States some liberals privately welcomed the rise of the Tea Party when it appeared that its effect would be to make the Republican Party permanently unelectable. Instead American public discourse was pushed to the right. GOP establishment figures like Karl Rove were made to appear centrist and reasonable while Democrats were forced to refight old battles on abortion and race.
If UKIP continue on the road to mainstream acceptance how long will it be before progressives in the UK are forced, once more, to defend hard won legislation on equalities, employment rights or the minimum wage? Rather than arguing for a better future, the left will be forced to devote all its energy simply to prevent it becoming worse.
So how should the left respond? It’s tempting to mollify UKIP voters, acknowledge that they have real concerns about immigration or Human Rights, in the hope of winning them back into the fold. But history should teach us that pandering to xenophobes only breeds more xenophobes.
UKIP supporters do not have reasonable concerns. The basis on which most positions in support of UKIP are founded are factually inaccurate. Supporting UKIP requires believing things which are simply not true. Pretending anything else will move the political discourse to a place where reality is permanently eclipsed by provocation.
There are real reasons that UKIP voters feel disenfranchised and these should be addressed but not in the way they are expressed by Farage and co.
In the 2008 election Obama For America destroyed John McCain’s credibility by focusing on the ludicrous positions of his running mate, Sarah Palin. Her most famous statement, “I can see Russia from my house”, came from the lips of Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey. Palin’s politics were absurd so she was effectively laughed out of office. UKIP should be treated the same way. A party which bases it’s electoral appeal on ignorance and xenophobia should be a punch line, not an election contender.
The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Labour needs to get serious about UKIP. But the only way to do so successfully is not to take them seriously at all.
Sam Fowles is a researcher in International Law and Politics at Queen Mary, University of London
68 Responses to “UKIP is a threat to Labour – it needs a serious response”
wj
Oh, I’ve no problem with debate – and I don’t tell lies, the fact that you find it hard to believe that normal working people are rejecting your philosophy of life is your problem and only you can deal with it.
I will have to accept the democratic process come election time.
What being a Scotsman has to do with anything I do not understand.
TC
Oh the irony. The author says that to support UKIP is to believe things which are untrue. He then backs up this wild assertion by linking to an Independent article of last year about a survey of the public which asserts much of the public is misinformed on crime, benefits and teenage pregnancy, simply because they could not give the official figures when stopped in the street. It does not relate to ukip or ukip supporters at all. The author is a fool. And again, another piece from a “progressive” on the EU which does not want to talk about the constitution or democracy, only to smear its opponents as xenophobes and fearful. The real reason that Labour does not take UKIP that seriously, is that it has taken a strategic decision to appear aloof from the EU debate, while supporting it since Delores won the formerly patriotic unions over. And yes, Labour may pay a heavy price for that.
TC
So, prior to joining the EC, the poor in “isolationist” Britain had no rights? What about that 1945 Labour govt for example? The EU is a treaty organisation designed to defend elite interests against what it deems as dangerous populism. The mass franchise only arrived in the 1920s so, while once elite interests were guarded by the arguments of aristocracy, now it is by the idea of a frail international system which guards the rights of the poor like no election ever could. The truth is that in the EU living standards and legal protections have declined, for the UK and elsewhere. Law is now about legal activism which is filling the politics shaped hole. Yet for all the anti discrimination stuff, look at the number of self employed, zero hour contracts and worrying developments like the European Arrest Warrant.
Sam_Beresford
I’m not screaming about anything – and if my argument is strong and my language harsh then its because i’m really pissed off about the issues I raised. It’s not about having a narrow world view – I wouldn’t be reading Left Foot Forward if I did.
Firstly, there is nothing ‘far right’ about wanting to limit net immigration to 50,000 or so people a year, which is UKIP’s policy. ‘Xenophobia’ means fear and/or hatred of foreigners – this is totally different from wanting to have limits to who can settle here. After all we are a small, overcrowded country. UKIP’s policy is to not discriminate against skilled people from India or Australia in favour of unskilled people from Poland, which is what we do now, because we have open borders within the EU and very complex restrictions towards the rest of the world. A work permit system like Australia is what UKIP want. My Grandad was Polish, he came here during WW2 and married a local – I have nothing against Poland or anywhere wlse, but I think its clear that having an open border with much poorer countries enables mass migration and is not a good thing for Britain.
Also, my point about Labour in 1945 is taken from David Kynaston’s book ‘Austerity Britain’. He showed that two thirds of Labour MP’s elected in 1945 were from middle class backgrounds (lawyers, civil servants etc) whereas two thirds of Labour MPs in 1935 were working class (miners, industrial workers and so on). It’s not revisionism, its fact. By the way I highly recommend the book.
I’ve no idea why you called me a ‘Banker’ (I’m not), but you raise an interesting point. So much of our national life is dominated by people who don’t contribute anything positive and have no accountability – for example bankers who make high profits from British companies being sold to overseas ones, which move production elsewhere. Look at Kraft buying Cadbury, or Pfizer trying to buy AstraZeneca. I’m not a fan of that, just as I’m not a fan of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels making our laws, or the rentier-elite that has captured the Labour, Lib Dem and Tory parties (privately educated, oxbridge, no life or commercial experience). It’s all a problem. UKIP is about taking back power from these vested interests – whether international bankers, politicians or bureaucrats. Who doesn’t want that?
Jack
Let me explain the issue people have with your posts. You use a phrase like “keep talking about your rich and lavish lifestyle” when the the poster made no mention of his lifestyle, rich or otherwise. It makes you look stupid.
The thing is, of course, many of your other posts show that you are clearly not stupid. So you do it deliberately. Can you throw some light on why?