Simon's Blog

Well now we know – Nigel Farage will not stand at the Newark by election. Given the way that the national media handle everything UKIP at the moment this will be trawled through for any sign of great potent. It is not. UKIP survive where there is doubt and where hard and fast rules do not apply – welcome to the bonkers world of the European Parliamentary elections. In a by election for Westminster you have to start to stand for things other than broad strokes. So does the candidate support this hospital or that post office? These are the sort of questions likely to be thrown at you rather than broad issues where you can throw up huge smoke screens and offer very little in the way of an answer.

There was always the question of the size of the Conservative majority that didn’t seem right either. How could UKIP turn around a 16,000 majority in just a few weeks even with the buzz going on around them at the moment? It seemed a tall order. Let us not forget that Farage refused to stand in a much more winnable by election at Eastleigh a year or so ago when he was fighting the much weaker Liberal Democrats with a much smaller majority. Might this suggest a pattern? I suspect it does but only time will tell on that question.

As for the European Elections next month I just get the feeling that things might not go the UKIP way as much as we are lead to believe. At the moment every media outlet is screaming out UKIP in its coverage of the election but there seems to be little real evidence upon which this is based. We see poll after poll but are these that reliable when it comes to the Euro elections? I’m sure the experts on these matters would defend what the polls are saying but I just wonder is this a really cunning plan by the Conservatives? It is one of the oldest tricks in the political book – making things look far worse than they are and then when you do better than expected you can present this as a triumph of sorts – sounds familiar?

Now of course this has one huge flaw – it assumes that the Conservatives are that cunning and capable of delivering such a plan and there are great doubts about that. Nonetheless I just get this feeling that we are about to see the UKIP bubble start to slowly subside. This doesn’t mean that they will not be a problem for the Westminster parties – far from it. Nor does it mean that if the Conservatives fail to win a majority next year at the General Election then there won’t be an almighty split on the right as we finally start to get a realignment of the political world – remember the old political parties are dying both metaphorically and actually – members are getting older by the day and are not being replaced by the young – so sooner or later something is going to have to give and I suspect that process will start after the next election. Also remember that we might be facing the disentangling of the UK after the next elections if Scotland votes Yes and I wouldn’t like to be a Scot trying to make a reasoned argument about what is fair in such an atmosphere. Things could get very nasty indeed.

It just means that the heady excitement and froth that is going around at the moment for UKIP and Farage – can you name any other UKIP politician? – will seem rather silly by summer time. Nigel Farage – headlines today chip paper tomorrow. Too simple I know but we have been here before – SDP anyone?

Simon Marchini
http://www.simonmarchini.co.uk