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| Taking the proverbial is not difficult |
And
although it’s come close to being a national sport for people and media from
across the political spectrum, it seems facile to invest too much time in
pointing out the more ludicrous comments and opinions that have come from
’Kippers, as supporters themselves have become known.
They have
loons in their midst, but they aren’t going to poll more than a handful of
votes because everyone who votes for them believes that Lenny Henry should ‘go
to a black country’ or because they want to ‘hate those dastardly gays just
like you can hate a cup of Earl Grey’.
The rise
of UKIP – just like the rise of assorted unsavoury parties across the continent
– is symptomatic of a general disillusion with mainstream politics, further revealed
in the UK by increased use of ‘ConLibLab’ to describe those parties.
What that
reveals is a belief that there’s so little distance between the three main
parties that you could barely slip a cigarette paper between them.
In other
words, there’s little meaningful choice.
And so we
have a party that claims to speak straightforwardly, and promises to lift up
Britain once more by stopping (most) immigration and hauling the country out of
the European Union.
The main
reasons for the UKIP leadership wanting us out of the EU don’t really matter to
those for whom all this country’s real or perceived ills are down to Brussels.
However,
the UKIP leadership wants to be able to reduce – or cut altogether – employment
rights, from paid annual leave to sick pay to maternity leave.
It’s
debatable whether they really do think that these are what is holding the country
back or whether those of them who are employers simply want to be able to
reduce their own labour costs.
Such an
approach, together with a commitment to reducing the state still further, is
entirely reminiscent of free-market fundamentalists in the US and indeed, a
great deal of the language to be found on forums in the UK is borrowed from
them.
But on
UKIP’s part, it hardly seems ‘patriotic’ to want to butcher the rights of the
same British workers that they like to pretend they’re on the side of, does it?
The EU as
a political entity is fraught with problem – not least legislation that, in
effect, enshrines neo-liberalism, irrespective of the democratic wishes of
individual electorates.
But then
it’s not neo-liberalism that offends UKIP – the party’s leadership wants to
plunge ever further down the marketisation path, to scrap vastly more public
services than current Chancellor George Osborne, and sack as many public
service workers as possible.
But such pesky
facts are not getting a very wide outing – and there’s a reason for that.
They’re not necessarily obvious vote winners, while there’s a fair few other
politicians in the mainstream parties, and more than one media proprietor, who
would be in almost total agreement.
How have
we reached this state?
The spin –
and the perception of spin – from all the mainstream parties has been
contributory, as has a perception that none of those same parties really cares
about Joe and Joanne Public.
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| Election at Eatanswill (Pickwick), 1836, Phiz |
The Lib
Dems earned themselves an increase in votes at the 2010 general election,
primarily because people saw, in their commitment to electoral reform, a
possible way to give a kick in the pants the system, but they had counted
without the fact that Nick Clegg and many of his MPs proved to be interested
only in an illusion of power.
The
Conservative Party has become the out-and-out supporter of marketisation and
big business: that is now its prime constituency, other than on election days.
Look back
at it’s actions in office over the last four years and you will see this borne
out time and again, from the privatisation of the NHS to the so-called lobbying
bill, which has been used not to do what was intended, but instead to gag a
whole range of groups from commenting on politics in the run-up to the 2015
general election.
Having, in
opposition, rightly opposed assorted attacks on civil liberties and privacy,
one talk from GCHQ has convinced it to champion mass invasions into private
communications, while also using the porn panic to introduce censorship by the
back door.
Labour, on
the other hand, seems like the proverbial headless chicken.
Its
leadership seems unaware that there is any alternative to neo-liberal
marketisation, however much it might make a few noises about the problems of a
low-wage economy.
Indeed, it
seems to be as wedded to such approaches as the Conservatives, but with just an
iota of embarrassment at such a betrayal of the party’s own history and its
traditional followers and a belief that a tiny bit of tinkering around the
edges will ease any problems.
The steady
drip drip of stories about the venality and greed and absolute lack of ethics
on the part of politicians has also had an unsurprising impact on public trust,
who generally seem to harbour the illusion that it was not always thus.
Take a
look at Hogarth and read Dickens’s Pickwick
Papers if you believe that politicians behaving badly is new.
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| The South Sea Scheme (c1721), Hogarth's 'casino economy' |
The
minimum that can be done is to use your vote – preferably after paying at least
a few minutes examining what all the candidates you can vote for are promising
and/or claiming to have done.
It takes
perhaps a little more effort not simply to believe everything that you read in
your newspaper of choice, but to look beyond a simplistic headline and story
that confirms any personal opinions, and explore an issue in different media.
It takes
yet greater effort to get involved in local politics – which doesn’t mean any
of those mainstream political parties or even any smaller parties, but can
involve community groups, for instance, or local campaigns.
It’s
simple: an investment of time is required to educate ourselves and be involved
politically – the things that offer us the possibility of having an influence
and even of changing something.
But when
the electorate becomes disenchanted to the extent that few even bother to vote
outside general elections – although millions spend the money to vote for a
contestant on Britain’s Got Strictly X
Factor Talent – then perhaps the point that needs to be made is that we get
the politicians that we deserve.
Far easier, indeed, than it is to try to get across
the real reasons why, among other things, incomes for the majority have been
declining for 30-plus years, the cost of housing has increased to such an
extent, job security has disappeared and nothing comparable has replaced all
the decently-paid, skilled manual jobs that formed a major strand of the
national economy until de-industrialisation was commenced for ideological
reasons in the 1980s – let alone to attempt to posit real alternatives.
It’s easy
to simply accuse those saying they’ll vote for UKIP of racism
for worrying about immigration.
And viewed
from that perspective, taking the piss out of UKIP smacks of political onanism rather
than a meaningful consideration of what has allowed that party to grow and how
the situation can be changed.
