Nigel Farage's rigid leadership will eventually run its course
Yesterday it was reported that the BBC is being investigated after it showed a 10-year old boy saying he supported UKIP because they ‘get all the foreigners out’. Because of the backlash which now threatens the child, who was identifiable, Ofcom has suggested the broadcaster breached child welfare standards.
This is the first time there has been such explicit vilification of UKIP and its policies since the election. The result of 7 May meant that practically everyone focused on the ‘nasty party’ rhetoric of the Tories; and there hasn’t seemed much point in talking about UKIP since we realised the electoral system was an effective barrier to its gaining real power.
UKIP won 3.9 million votes but only one seat, an undemocratic result by anyone’s standard. In a way, this plays into UKIP’s hands; it has always positioned itself as the victim of an establishment which wants to silence its authentic voice. Nigel Farage has always maintained that his party is treated unfairly, and in this instance it has been.
But what will happen to UKIP now? There was some brief post-election farce with Nigel Farage’s un-resignation and Patrick O’ Flynn’s ugly outburst about the party leader, but on the whole UKIP has been quiet both on new Conservative policies and on analysing it’s own defeat. What’s more, the press seem to have forgotten about it.
So is UKIP about to slide off the scene?
In May 2010, BNP leader Nick Griffin suffered a humiliating defeat in his Barking constituency. A promised election breakthrough by the party never materialised and in 2014 Griffin lost his European seat too. The party unravelled fast; at this election it garnered just 1,667 votes, compared with 563,743 in 2010.
I don’t like UKIP/BNP comparisons in general. The BNP’s reach was never as wide as UKIP’s, and it is much more extreme; until 2010 it had a ‘whites only’ membership policy which was only overturned by a court order. I can see that many UKIP supporters are not racists but vote based on their feelings about the EU; I don’t think the same could be said of BNP supporters.
But the parties are alike in that they came in a surge, from obscurity to the front page, that they polarise people, and that ultimately they promised great things that they could not deliver. The refusal to let Farage go spoke volumes – without him UKIP is too shambling to carry on and the fate of the BNP must have been in everyone’s minds during the few days without him.
But Farage broke a promise – he had always said he would step down if he failed to win in Thanet South – and in doing so he will have lost credibility. A few days after the election, Kent police closed an allegation of electoral fraud in the constituency – UKIP supporters believed the election had been rigged to keep Farage out, but there was no evidence. All this points to the fact that Farage couldn’t quite believe he hadn’t won, and things have become a little hysterical since.
Deputy chairman Suzanne Evans stepped down after being accused of plotting to undermine Farage’s leadership; economic spokesman O’Flynn called Farage ‘snarling, thin skinned and aggressive’ and said his return made the party look like a ‘personalitAdd Mediay cult’.
O’Flynn was right in that it is difficult to see who could take Farage’s place. He has had consistently high approval ratings, topping a YouGov popularity poll in April. He has spent years reciting the spiel of ‘we’re not a racist party, we just have some bad eggs’, and has had ample opportunity to practice it. The party’s rejection of his resignation shows that they know no one else is up to this job, that getting the public to accept a new leader as an ordinary, honest bloke who genuinely doesn’t mean to attract so many racists will be a mammoth task.
Plus, criticism seems to bounce off Farage. This week Douglas Carswell, UKIP’s only MP, accused him of ’employing ‘mean-spirited arguments’ during the election campaign, particularly in regard to comments about immigrants with HIV.
Carswell said that, as a party which ‘didn’t do as well as it wanted’, UKIP needed to ask some ‘awkward’ questions. Farage rejected this entirely, saying that:
“Though many in the Westminster bubble were outraged by my comments about the impact of Health Tourism, and appalled that I mentioned those with HIV as part of that problem, what was clear was that the general public did not share that outrage.”
UKIP is reliant on one man, and that man has zero capacity for self-reflection. The success of Carswell has led Farage to accuse him, essentially, of going over to the other side, of being consumed by the ‘Westminster bubble’ simply for assessing how the party could improve.
This does not bode well for UKIP’s longevity. Add to Farage’s ego the fact that Cameron could well manage to siphon off some of his less right-wing followers with Europe reforms, and it looks very likely support for UKIP will be dwindling by 2020.
This is why seats for UKIP are a price worth paying for electoral reform. A party so rigidly resistant to change will eventually start to look ‘mean-spirited’ even to its own supporters. Meanwhile the UK can say that it truly gave all parties a chance, and that the people in power really are there because the public want them.
Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter
68 Responses to “Comment: UKIP’s days are numbered”
Torybushhug
BTW Carswell is increasingly unpopular in UKIP because it turns out he too has failed to forensically engage with the real and toxic effects of mass immigration. Farage is not irreplaceable, he just wants to see the job through. Evans and others are all more than capable of leadership when the time comes.
The left is so tortured by the fact the it failed to give rise to a mass English people’s movement. First it must learn to listen, really listen and put down the niave academic papers.
I was using the language of Owen Jones back in my late eighties common room, incredible that the likes of he have not evolved.
JAMES MCGIBBON
Leave aside the personalities and go back if you are old enough to recall the 1976 referendum. We were cleary lied to and told it was a trade agreement. We now have an EU gravy train parliament. Do we need this and how many more parliaments do we need to subsidise the idle with taxpayers money. Time to get out of the EU or renegotiate the Treaty back to what they originally said that it was, just a Trade Agreement.
Thomas Evans
“But the parties are alike in that they came in a surge, from obscurity to the front page, that they polarise people, and that ultimately they promised great things that they could not deliver. The refusal to let Farage go spoke volumes – without him UKIP is too shambling to carry on and the fate of the BNP must have been in everyone’s minds during the few days without him.”
I’m confused.
Does that make the Green Party and the BNP comparable then?
The Greens also came from relative obscurity to the front pages, they polarise people, especially young people, the Greens promise things that they ultimately cannot deliver.
As for leadership. I have not seen anyone question Natalie Bennett’s leadership.
The Greens lost 51% of their deposits, wholst the Lib Dems lost 38% and UKIP lost just 9% of their deposits.
They came 2nd in 120 seats across the UK. Yet left wingers keep pushing for Farage to step down.
Meanwhile as I have said, the Greens lost over half of their deposits, made poor gains in council elections including losing control of Brighton council whilst UKIP gained control of Thanet district council and took control of Ramsgate town council.
So where are the calls for Natalie Bennett to resign?!
Oh and before I forget, this article claims UKIP “make promises they cannot keep”? Really?! There was me thinking that UKIP were the only party to release a fully and independently costed manifesto?!
The claim that UKIP are finished is more a case of wishful thinking from the author.
UKIP increased their vote by 3 million between 2010 and 2015.
The Greens increased their vote by 900,000 between 2010 and 2015.
Are the Greens days numbered?
It seems to me that UKIP’s days are just starting.
If the UK vote to stay in the EU, it will solidify a lot of Eurosceptics attitudes towards the EU (as we saw in Scotland) which will in turn boost UKIP support and membership.
You will also see numbers of Eurosceptic defections from the mainstream parties to UKIP. Of that I am sure.
If the UK votes to leave the EU, people will look toward UKIP for direction and again that will boost support, membership etc as the country looks toward life outside the EU.
David Lindsay
I cannot for the life of me see why there might need to be a by-election at Orkney and Shetland. But if such a thing were to be held, then there would need to be a candidate who, both before and after entering Parliament, would take on the SNP’s record in office, as it has now been for quite some time.
The swingeingly cut college places. The 320 per cent increase in private ambulance use. The 11 per cent drop in literacy standards. The reduction in the number of Mental Health Officers, and that despite a rising population. The outsourcing of transport policy to Brian Souter. There is plenty more besides.
The Scottish media do not scrutinise the SNP at all, and seem to be rather afraid of it, while the national media also do not bother when they visit Scotland. As on Thursday’s Question Time, when none of these issues was raised. They never are.
Oh, and speaking of Thursday’s Question Time, John Nicolson was a speechwriter for Daniel Patrick Moynihan, of all people. So much for the SNP as any part of the Left, or as any foe of neoconservative foreign policy. As any new MP for Orkney and Shetland would need to make abundantly clear over, and over, and over again.
Patrick Gearon
You haven’t stated one reason why you think UKIP might fail and yet it was both your opening and ending statement (with some disgruntled Labour talk in the middle).
Dropouts from other parties is not what UKIP needs and many (especially those making racist comments) quickly come to realise this as they are axed.
It is decentralised party, (very much Tupperware) and works the grass roots level up, NOT from head office down.So the recent in house fighting has had no effect whatsoever on its support base which, is at the bottom and not the top
This is where political commentators (and aspiring ones like yourself) get it so wrong.
UKIP is most definitely here to stay
But please don’t even consider ‘dropping out’ into it. You’d only get rejected.