Much like the assertion that nobody can talk about immigration without being accused of being a racist (if anything immigration is talked about too much relative to its impact), the idea that public concern about immigration is related to the numbers of migrants settling in the UK appears also to be a myth.
If I feel a sense of déjà vu as I watch UKIP’s rise today, just imagine the view from Crosby’s chair at Conservative Party HQ. David Cameron’s election strategist hasn’t just seen this film before – he’s already written the script.
With the CBI having already warned of the risks to industry of Britain no longer being at the heart of the European Union, a further uncomfortable truth surrounding the Conservative Party’s increasingly isolationist rhetoric is now becoming apparent.
Today YouGov released poll data that UKIP are on 14 per cent – something that wasn’t news to me as this is exactly the same as the calculations I made last week. However the figure looks decidedly dodgy.
When Europe comes to the fore of politics in Britain, the polls shift in favour of staying, as they did after David Cameron’s speech. When it comes to the crunch, however, the voting public are too clever to turn away from our most valuable relationship.
It’s something of a love that dare not speak its name, but Powellism has remained a major subtext on the British right for something like half a century, and the rise of UKIP marks only the latest incarnation of this ongoing infatuation.
There is a myth, propagated by much of the commentariat, which says that the public are far to the right of the major parties on three issues – immigration, welfare and the European Union. It is a myth that has been doing the rounds for some time now, but one which will no doubt be given another boost by today’s local election results.
In terms of forming a Labour government, the only way is not Essex, but it’ll be an important staging post along that path. The signs, it seems, are promising even if work remains to be done.
t is no hardship to support the speech of those whom we agree with. For our democracy to thrive, we need to welcome the “fruitcakes and closet racists”, the jihadists and holocaust deniers to the debate.
Writing in The Times yesterday (£), Nigel Farage claimed that if Margaret Thatcher was still leader of the Conservative Party there would be no need for Ukip. More specifically he said: “Had she still been in power in 1992, there would have been a referendum on [the Maastricht] treaty, and the need for UKIP would probably never have arisen.”
