Luckily 45 percent of UKIP voters are over the age of 65 so they’ll all be dead or senile soon. Although I’m sure they’re senile already.

NSFW: http://memecrunch.com/meme/8IWT/racist-old-man/image.png

JY, my point was you claiming that I was anti EU (not for the first time by an means) That is not true. I am anti certain aspects of its current structure including the extension of the € too far. There are parts of Europe that could be common currency areas, but not the current lot. That (the € will not survive as it is) is one sure fire bet, the only question is timing and the severity of the shock that comes with the adjustment.

I agree that the coverage of UKIP is out-of-proportion especially pre-Thursday. So we have a fun challenge for newspaper editors. Fill the front pages with stories about the Green Party. That would address the balance but may well harm their circulation figures! Which will they chose/prioritise?

As an aside, given the oft-expressed dissatisfaction with the similarities between the major parties and the lack of genuine political debate in the UK, shouldn’t the emergence of new political parties that capture genuine interest among the population be a cause for celebration. Or does that only count when their policies and ideology suits?

capture genuine interest among the population be a cause for celebration.

I don’t think the reemergence of the far right (and I consider UKIP to be far right) across Europe in reaction to economic problems in the same manner as previous European political disasters is anything to be celebrating.

As for UKIP being an alternative for the masses disfranchised with the establishment as others have mentioned, UKIP couldn’t be more public school establishment if they tried. They’ve just managed to hide it like the Tea Party.

Well I am celebrating for a very simple reason. The emergence of UKIP is exposing important questions to wider debate. I do not agree with their solutions, but I welcome the fact that their success now forces the mainstream parties to address these issues and especially the conflicts that exist within their own parties on issues such as Europe, sexuality, immigration etc. Then there is the important question of who represents the so-called, “working class social conservatives.” Labour or the Tories? They are an example of sections of the UK that feel dis-enfranchised and it is important that we know just how the main parties (who despite all the hype will still form the next governments) intend to reconnect with them and address their challenges. If the “cost” of that debate and the answers (hopefully solutions) that it brings is a few extreme candidates on either side of the political specturm, then so be it. Blimey, I am a closet consequentialist!

As for UKIP being an alternative for the masses disfranchised with the establishment

i don’t think ukip voters are disenfranchised from the establishment, i think they’re just disenfranchised from the tory party which (rather worryingly) they imagine has moved too far to the centre.

Can anyone name (party’s supporters apart) anyone from The Greens?

I can name their local councillors (not ones representing my area, but on my local council). Does that count?

Well I am celebrating for a very simple reason. The emergence of UKIP is exposing important questions to wider debate. I do not agree with their solutions, but I welcome the fact that their success now forces the mainstream parties to address these issues and especially the conflicts that exist within their own parties on issues such as Europe, sexuality, immigration etc. Then there is the important question of who represents the so-called, “working class social conservatives.” Labour or the Tories? They are an example of sections of the UK that feel dis-enfranchised and it is important that we know just how the main parties (who despite all the hype will still form the next governments) intend to reconnect with them and address their challenges. If the “cost” of that debate and the answers (hopefully solutions) that it brings is a few extreme candidates on either side of the political specturm, then so be it. Blimey, I am a closet consequentialist!

So 45 percent of the voters are over the age of 65, these lot have a maximum of 20 years left and their numbers will decrease drastically over the next decade. That means (as UKIP got about…what was it…20-25 percent of the vote?) that adds up to around 13 percent of the vote that were of working age.

What I’m trying to get at is why should we legitimize the views of 13 percent of the working age nation and legitimize the views of a generation that no longer represents the future and direction of this country?

I agree that a referendum on the EU needs to be discussed but other than that this whole issue is giving political legitimacy to far right views and personally I take a German view about this – they should be sidelined and ridiculed, not discussed as if they were of a similar intellectual standing as the views of moderates.

IMO the media are driving a self-fulfilling prophecy in the way they seem to be constantly placing UKIP in the spotlight. It’s almost like 650B wheels.

I dunno, I just finished reading “The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements” consequently this whole saga is making me very very uneasy.

It’s very quaint that ukip is considered right wing.
Check out golden dawn in Greece. That’s a right wing party. Ukip is a centre liberal party.

Give it another couple of years and we’ll see some proper right wing parties in Spain and Portugal. All thanks to the euro.

Sounds like one step away from Logan’s Run?

The best way to sideline and ridicule is to allow them to expose themselves and put themselves up for scrutiny. Much better than censorship. It worked with the BNP and will, in time, work with UKIP unless they develop a wider, more credible political platform. Farage will become a mirage and we will see where the mainstream parties lie more clearly. That will be a positive outcome IMO.

It’s very quaint that ukip is considered right wing.
Check old golden dawn in Greece. That’s a right wing party. Ukip is a centre liberal party.

Not really, when you look at who the members are, who they are funded by and who they associate with they are far-right in all but name. They are Golden Dawn gentrified so the English can bring themselves to voting for them.

The best way to sideline and ridicule is to allow them to expose themselves and put themselves up for scrutiny. Much better than censorship.

Totally disagree once the media start engaging with them and holding their beliefs up as somehow as legitimate as rational well thought out political stances then the public get the idea that these views are perfectly reasonable and start to become attracted to them. You can’t engage with UKIP voters rationally, it’s a party that gains votes through emotion. The same goes for animal rights extremists, you can’t argue with or change the supporters views but every time they get mass media attention they pull in more supporters.

It worked with the BNP and will

The British would never vote for an openly fascist party because of A) the cultural character of our nation and B) our history in fighting fascists. UKIP on the other hand are an entirely different matter, see my earlier point.

I’m afraid I can’t share thm’s enthusiasm. If it takes a party of people who think smoking in pubs is great and who don’t like darkies or foreigners to revitalize politics in the UK, we are in a sorry state indeed.

Well, internal matters can be sorted out later without EU etc. All new govt has to go through those phase so I do not see a problem there. They will learn and learn it hard.

On the contrary – they have a shitload of people elected who are all under the UKIP brand but there has been not enough time to build a consensus on the policies the do have, or a set of policies that go beyond their vague platform. Farage is aware of this – hence the comment about not being able to screen all candidates. A few will turn out to be ex-Nazis or whatever, but a greater number will just turn out to be loopy or thick, and damage the brand.

More generally, as soon as an issue that comes along that doesn’t fit into the foreigners/not-foreigners dichotomy, they won’t have a freaking clue what to do, and will fracture. And in this they are just like the Greens.

are they bringing back smoking in pubs…!??

JY, my point was you claiming that I was anti EU (not for the first time by an means) That is not true

Well if you would like to state publicly that you would vote to stay in the EU then I will apologise. Farage also likes aspects of the EU like the free trade bit so no one is completely anti and no ones supports all aspects so no one is completely pro. I assumed you wished to leave us this wrong ?

Give it another couple of years and we’ll see some proper right wing parties in Spain and Portugal. All thanks to the euro capitalism.

are they bringing back smoking in pubs…!??

Yes, but not for foreigners.

English lung cancer for English people.

no ones supports all aspects

Which bits don’t you like?

Yes, but not for foreigners.

English lung cancer for English people.

oh.. 🙁

I’m quite exotic looking and my Dad was Scottish.. maybe I’ll be allowed to smoke herbal tobacco, but only with my meal or something..

Loving all the lefty knicker twisting 🙂

So what is the ‘Lefty’ alternative?

The sensible ‘lefty alternative’ would be a functioning realistic media savvy Labour party.

I know… 🙄

Loving all the lefty knicker twisting

So what is the ‘Lefty’ alternative?

UKIP aren’t an alternative, they are more of the same. Their funders and political elites are all cut from the same cloth as the old etonian Tories. They’re just a nastier variant of them.

So what is the ‘Lefty’ alternative?

To UKIP? The Tories.

Which bits don’t you like?

the members mainly 😉
Protectionist of farmers,inflexible and it has a political goal /ideal not matched by its citizens in terms of integration. Loads more but on a phone. Only on stw or Ukip meetings do I become a pro european I view it as simply not hating them

I haven’t read all of the above. There’s a lot to take in. I’ll go back and plough through it. But I am heading for 65, so I’m qualified to say this. A lot of UKIP voters are probably worried about the pensions they’ve been contributing to all their working lives.

No, mine isn’t state, it’s earned, at home and abroad.

So remind me please: just when do you plan to take away my vote?

(edit) Jenny Jones.

Well I suspect UKIP members might view me as pro EU!

acracer – UKIP members would consider Genghis Khan as pro-EU.

Or Margaret Thatcher, I guess.

Ah, what the heck. I don’t like political stuff, mainly because it’s just plain divisive and ultimately a personal thing, but here we go….

UKIP are a flash in the pan, what the media love at the moment have highlighted what may be worthy of consideration, but this will now become a strategic game between special advisers on the big 2 and the media, resulting in some new papers/polls and a couple of new wordy policies will be introduced that will ultimately make no difference…possibly.

UKIP are no different to any other political establishment in this country in the slightest, it’s disproportionately managed and sold through marketing.

The words they convey may be ‘new & fresh’, but the patronising strategy remains the same: us public are thick and we can be influenced by sound-bites and images. For every time one of Cameron’s people vomits the term “hard working people”, Farage is there drinking a pint with his white middle aged mates.

I don’t wish this to be true, but I cannot abide the general political establishment due to nothing other than gut instinct triggered by the way in which these people talk. I mean, think of someone you respect – it could be for whatever reason, but the chances are it is because they are informed, articulate and convey a cause which if you don’t already relate to, you can do because of their conviction, genuine good meaning and applied logic which means it is achievable.

I’ve never witnessed one of those attributes from a politician in my relevant years.

Flame away 😀

EDIT: I haven’t read the previous pages, so apologies if this point made already.

I’m of the opinion that policies are generated by civil service spreadsheet monkeys, polished through focus groups and spat out via the Commons with no regard to “left” or “right” – just a “hey we’re doing it this way – it’s better than the last guys” attitude.

This being the case I think I can wield more influence via online petitions than via the ballot box. If all MP’s were replaced with their equivalents from Madame Tussards – it would just make it quieter and cheaper.

Well there isn’t any evidence that UKIP are anything other than a protest party. And “fruitcakes and closet racists” is imo a very apt description of UKIP candidates/membership.

+1

Voting for an anti-EU party at council elections is pretty stupid as local Councillors have absolutely no say in the UK’s EU membership!

A lot of UKIP voters are probably worried about the pensions they’ve been contributing to all their working lives

And the EU has what bearing on this exactly?
I think they should spend their time worrying about the fact it will be far worse for their grandkids than it was for them

acracer – UKIP members would consider Genghis Khan as pro-EU.

Or Margaret Thatcher, I guess.
They were formed after she signed the maastrich treaty
Though the person who set them up left the party as they were too right wing and infested with racists

Pensions seem yet another reason for a middle class protest vote, don’t you think? Personally I’d like to leave stuff to my family. Let’s see: house price falling, shares (the few I have) fallen, pension shrunken, savings eroding. I expect it’s all my fault.

Yeah and going even more free-market is going to help you how oldgit? How are flat rate taxes going to effect your children and help them be secure in old age? Or are they going to earn enough so they don’t care?

Farage is an ex banker, do you really think he wants to help you? His kind were the types that got us into this mess in the first place.

house price falling, shares (the few I have) fallen, pension shrunken, savings eroding. I expect it’s all my fault.

Are you suggesting that’s all the government’s fault? Though I’m confused by the shares at least – mine seem to be doing quite well at the moment (yes I am an evil capitalist who owns shares and share derivatives).

Are you suggesting that’s all the government’s fault?

The hilarious thing is that ukip policies would do more to increase the gap between the upper and middle classes.

The Pitchfork Party , appeals to the worst in people, the petty bourgeois finds much to nod his/her head to, a protest against the standard pro capitalist/big business urgings of the reformist parties that have traditionallly held sway for the last century or so.

The fact that they are ‘marketed’ as different will gather a few more people who are ‘sick’ of the mainstream nonsense.

That they are more establishment than virtually any other party is a reflection on how politricks is conducted in this part of the world, the ‘management’ of information is one specialsim the british ruling class have mastered–a compliant media–dressed up as ‘independant’.

Rudebwoy, absolutely spot on, scary to find something you’ve posted that I’m fully in agreement with, do we have UKIP to blame / thank?

To go back to the OP’s original question, I think it shows that we need a radical rethink of our education system and why politics and government should be taught as a compulsory subject, linked to a better history curriculum than my two were being taught.

to go back to the OP’s original question, I think it shows that we need a radical rethink of our education system and why politics and government should be taught as a compulsory subject, linked to a better history curriculum than my two were being taught.

I think you’re trying to convince yourself that they’re the party of the stupid and ill-educated, and that if only they’d been indocitrinated withtaught proper socialist values at school they’d all been happily voting for the SWP LibDems.

It’s that disconnect that is part of the reason for UKIP’s popularity among people who feel abandoned by the ruling elite.

Pensions seem yet another reason for a middle class protest vote, don’t you think? Personally I’d like to leave stuff to my family. Let’s see: house price falling, shares (the few I have) fallen, pension shrunken, savings eroding. I expect it’s all my fault.

Well so far you have blamed the EU and now yourself …I am not really seeing your rationale here tbh so to repeat

And the EU has what bearing on this exactly?
I think they [pensioners]should spend their time worrying about the fact it will be far worse for their grandkids than it was for them

It’s that disconnect that is part of the reason for UKIP’s popularity among people who feel abandoned by the ruling elite

In what sense is the privately educated ex stockbroker/Banker and Tory member Millionaire Farage not a part of this ruling elite?
It is liking thinking that Boris is not part of the elite or Cameron or the Millibands

Pensions seem yet another reason for a middle class protest vote, don’t you think? Personally I’d like to leave stuff to my family. Let’s see: house price falling, shares (the few I have) fallen, pension shrunken, savings eroding. I expect it’s all my fault.

How about leaving them a legacy of affordable housing, reasonable working hours without being pressured into working an extra 20 hours just to keep a job, and generally better opportunities in work and life?

When I eventually gain my inheritance, It won’t be worth the stress, the redundancies, the unemployment and the financial worries of the 25 (and counting) years since I left school, caused by my parents generation taking out more than they put in.