Did those who voted for UKIP do so because they disagreed with the Coalitions’s policies, or because they thought that UKIP were the ‘real’ expression of the even more severe policies that they wanted to see ennacted?

No doubt Cameron will try to ‘take on the fruitcakes’ by adopting their rhetoric.

I’d volunteer that it comes under the section of “a bit shit”.
I think everyone’s a bit fed up with the major parties and wanted to give them the finger. At least I hope. UKIP with actual power is terrifying.

The mainstream parties are now completely disconnected from the people they are supposed to represent. They exist in a bubble totally detached from the daily concerns of normal people.

Nigel Farage, as Alex Salmond before him, recognises that we are all sick to the back teeth of politicians representing the interests of bankers, press barons, multinationals and private monopolies before giving a second thought to the great unwashed.

Farage has simply pointed this out, and said vote for me because I’m not them! And its worked. Its a two-fingers-to-the-establishment vote.

The fact that the BNP got twice as many votes than the Lib Dems (who only got 350 votes) should be a pretty clear indication of where Nick Clegg has lead them. Electoral oblivion awaits…

The Greens have more councillors than UKIP. Media only going nuts over the right wing xenophobes though.

Though if UKIP become the established, though totally ineefective, party of protest, won’t they become part of the establishment?

The really disturbing long-term effect they will have wil be to drag the tories still further to the right…

BBC polling expert John Curtice has been looking in more depth at UKIP’s success. He says the party “does better in places with relatively few graduates; it does worse in places with many graduates. This appears to be the sharpest difference of all.” In addition, UKIP does out well in places “with a relatively high level of people who claim a religious identity” and those “with more older people”.

what a suprise!

I think it’s just protest voting. They won’t do anywhere as well in the next General Election (or at least I hope not, BNP-lite is not something I’d ever want to see being taken seriously).

Hmmm a vulgar, populist party doing well in areas of lower education. who would’ve thought?

I find Farage quite engaging and amusing, don’t like his policies though and the muppets his party attract are plain scary.

I can’t see the two main parties managing to change themselves because as binners points out thay have lost touch with reality. Interesting times ahead, it it is a hot summer watch out for riots in your neighberhood.

My view-

When you try to flush a giant sheit down an old toilet, it often comes back up closer to the rim. If you ignore it and flush again, it goes away.

UKIP = poo.
Toilet = britain.
Flushing = common sense.

Don’t worry, it’s only 25% of the electorate who are fruitcakes and closet racists.

I see it as a reaction to the three parties (no longer all ‘main’) who are converging on the centre ground with over-chummy leadership. That’s to say Dave’s cronies from his Bullingdon days, and a Labour leadership either descended from Keir Hardie or conceived on the Aldermaston Marches.

I’m putting all my money into canned food and shotguns.

Voting someone onto a town council, as a kind of yaaa-boo ya bastards to Westminster is one thing. Voting them in to run the country, another thing entirely.

There’s not a cat in hells chance they’ll get anywhere near that kind of vote in a general election! As they’ll actually get there policies scrutinised. And at that point everyone will realise, if they hadn’t already, that they’re a bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth fruit loops

And I agree with Pigface – I think we can take inner city riots as a given this summer. As the people who don’t bother to vote express their disenchantment with the neo-liberal consensus. Its back to the 80’s! Hurray!

I think everyone’s a bit fed up with the major parties and wanted to give them the finger. At least I hope. UKIP with actual power is terrifying.

THIS
Farage was on the radio this morning praising Thatcher’s economic policies whilst rambling on about the Westminster elite – as if he is some sort of outsider man of the people- it is spin of which Blair and Campbell should be proud.

How on earth the privately educated ex investment banker ex Tory party member manages to play the role of a non extablishment “outside” figure is beyond me
He is basically Thatcher with more charm and zenophobia/little englander.
I dont see any major difference between him and the opther parties tbh beyond rabid hatered of Europe and a desire to remove foreigners [ but probably not his german born wife]

I suspect the publicity of showing their policies will harm them as they are clearly to the right of the Tories yet somewhow have cross part appeal

Only they’re not converging on the centre ground at all. They are all moving further right and this will only encourage them.

edsbike – Member

The Greens have more councillors than UKIP. Media only going nuts over the right wing xenophobes though.

The rare valid point in its natural environment!

Business opportunity for McMoonter in building timber hideaway lodges for the impending disintegration of society as we know it! 😯

Agree with Binners. And, as a long term Liberal I hate Clegg with a passion that I have only previously held for leaders of the Tory party or Labour who for decades have been disconnected with the business of governing the country and looking after the people of this country, and more focused on being seen as the good guys in focus groups. A curse on all their houses.

@ scotroutes: If you’re correct, that leaves room for a traditional pro-worker labour party too.

And I agree with Pigface – I think we can take inner city riots as a given this summer.

Yep no bread and circuses this year

I totally agree, UKIP winning votes in local council and previously euro elections doesn’t really mean anything

It doesn’t help that the tabloids have been running a racist agenda for the last few years, with ‘blame immigrants’ for everything headlines. This has pretty much left the door wide open for a BNP-lite party like UKIP.

LOL @ the elitists suggesting that university somehow makes your vote worth more…..
Intelligence isn’t the sole preserve of the well-off university going, bank of mum and dad raiding middle class you know.

Riots? Probably not. Many of those who rioted last time are still inside, and despite there being good reasons for rioting, I don’t think it will happen.

wrecker – Member

LOL @ the elitists suggesting that university somehow makes your vote worth more…..

Where was that?

Maybe. Are the existing parties going that way because it reflects the mood of society, or are the “pro-worker” voters simply not voting because there is no one to represent them?

LOL @ the elitists suggesting that university somehow makes your vote worth more…..

I don’t think anyone has suggested that.

Intelligence isn’t the sole preserve of the well-off university going, bank of mum and dad raiding middle class you know.

and intelligence is no judge of character either

I don’t want to turn this into a another spat, but the way I’ve read some comments they certainly at least insinuate that the thickos have voted for UKIP because….they’re thickos (having not been to uni)

well research says thickos [if not having a degree makes you thick]and the old are more likely to vote for them…it is fair to say no one proased them for this

Was it intelectually snobbery – a little bit for sure but not to the extent you claimed.

I think the thicko’s are still voting BNP, and going to EDL rallies

UKIP are proof that you don’t necessarily have to be thick to be bigoted and small minded. Though obviously it helps. In fact, a large rump of the Tory party are proof of that. And some of them have had the best education money can buy

Research has found that education is associated with more liberal opinions on a number of issues, but there is uncertainty about the scope and interpretation of these findings.

http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/2/141.abstract

So possibly you’ll get less BNP/UKIP support amongst graduates…

UKIP are proof that you don’t necessarily have to be thick to be bigoted and small minded. Though obviously it helps

🙂

And the sad irony is that UKIP will sully the reputation of the genuine cross-party opposition to the EU.

Don’t forget the Tories have upset the police, fire, nhs and GPs, and the military. That’s a lot of middle-class protest vote right there. The shopkeepers in my small town all have permanent SALE signs. They probably talk with each other at the golf club.

Interesting times: I think Dave has to learn to listen in order to survive, or he can continue to believe it’s a mid-term protest.

This is of course a bit of a nightmare, we now have a load more right wing nutters in local government, which is where a hell of a lot of stuff that should get done, doesn’t.

Even when they are all in agreement councils are purgatory, full of self interested cronyism.

It’s really hard to see how throwing a UKIP councillor into the mix is going to help at all.

The Greens have more councillors than UKIP. Media only going nuts over the right wing xenophobes though.

Pretty sure that won’t be the case at the end of today.

Though Cameron can always rely on Miliband snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and Clegg and the LDs being hated even more than the tories and so acting as their airbag once again.

If all else fails, launch another assualt on the poor and vunerable…

He is basically Thatcher with more charm and zenophobia/little englander.

He hates Bhuddists?

I find Farrage quite disturbing; I mistrust his jovial bonhomie and empty rhetoric. He reminds me of my late old school friend who was clever but a complete failure at school and joined the RAF as a humble Aircraftman then grew older with some extremely right-wing opinions. He also had the same worryingly schizophrenic inability to gauge his approach to other people.

They are the right wing protest vote equivalent of the Lib Dems. Let’s hope people learn from history and don’t put UKIP in a position to influence who is in power.

If all else fails, launch another assualt on the poor and vunerable…

I think you’ll find we’re in the middle of a five year war with them. The Tories main strategy seems to be ‘make the poor suffer and hope no one notices we’re screwing the economy into the ground’.

The coalition could do a lot worse than to find a new chancellor of the exchequer.