UKIP - To the Barricades or the Boozer?

The local election results were declared yesterday with the media trumpeting a fanfare of stories about UKIP breaking through, parroting Nigel Farage's claims that UKIP are foxes in the "Westminster hen house" and that the main parties will need to adopt UKIP's agenda, especially on immigration, for any of them to have any chance of success next year in the General Election. Although no one has quite yet suggested UKIP will be swept to power itself, the prospect of "Kingmaker" Farage has emblazoned many a headline today. Additionally, there have been some pretty sycophantic interviews with Farage including such searching questions as "Is this a big breakthrough for UKIP?"; and "Have people voted for you because you say what ordinary people are thinking?"

 By contrast, although Labour won almost as many councillors as everyone else put together, reading some papers today, the impression given is that Ed Miliband is in crisis. And today the BBC even stooped to giving airtime to a complete lie that the Leader of the Opposition had pinched some Fanta from a Subway outlet (perhaps subliminally trying to link Ed to Fanta's dodgy origins as the soft drink of choice of Nazi Germany when the local Coca Cola franchise was isolated from its US parent at the outbreak of hostilities in 1941 - oh, as if they would be so subtle or well-informed!). At least they had to apologise afterwards.

UKIP's media people are pretty crap at their work, but it hardly matters when journalists seem more than a tad keen to do their job for them. In the case of print/online corporate media with its deregulatory agenda, this is no surprise, but with notionally impartial broadcast media (other than the notable exception of LBC) it falls into the category of a disgraceful breach of quality and possibly even regulatory standards. In fact, beyond someone in the newsroom telling them UKIP has done well, you seriously wonder if many of the TV interviewers actually took any time to check any facts before fawning over the beer-swilling former stockbroker. Little wonder that a twitter account parodying the BBC's Chief Political Correspondent Nick Robinson tweeted today;

But the whole narrative, the whole story, is fantasy. UKIP have done reasonably well - and certainly as a Green supporter, this blogger would have been delighted to see the Greens making the gains UKIP did (although, hidden away from the headlines, the Greens have actually polled very well indeed and more than doubled their councillors). But the rightwing, pro-business, anti-NHS Faragista party's showing is not exactly, to borrow an old phrase, "breaking the mould of British politics."

The facts are:
- UKIP won 162 seats out of 4,200 contested: 3.6% of the total
- UKIP polled an assessed national vote of 17%. That's up 13% on the last time the seats at stake were fought, but it is nearly 7% DOWN on their showing this time last year at the county council elections.
- Turnout was 36% across the country, meaning just 6.12% of the electorate chose UKIP
- UKIP polled extremely badly in London; their own spokesperson has bizarrely said this is because they struggle to win the support of educated people, something of an insult to his own supporters.

Who would have guessed Labour won the elections?

However reluctantly, no one would deny UKIP had a good night. But it was not the Spectacular! they were anticipating, nor the Breaking-News-Fest that the 24 Hour News media are portraying it as being. This isn't sour grapes - but rather a concern that by giving yet again a completely false impression of a groundswell for UKIP, a fiction will inform even further the panic among the three establishment parties, who will respond with ever more illiberal, rightwards shift in policy and action. Already senior Labour MPs are saying they must "talk more" about immigration, and Tories are even calling for a pact for the general election next year.

The truth is that UKIP have no functional party machinery across whole swathes of the country - in Kirklees they managed to put up in just 5 out of 23 wards (Greens and even the Lib Dems fought all of them) - and other than a big donation for the Euro-elections from a single donor, they are not flush for money. Their members tend to be semi-activists, reflecting the armchair location of many of them, and large quantities of their leaflets were delivered by commercial companies (including those with low wage, zero hours Eastern European staff).

Just as its arguments and policies depend on appeals to blind emotion rather than any informed facts, its organisation such as it is appears to be haphazard and chaotic. While the feelings of its voters obviously deserve to be taken note of and given the same weight as others, UKIP's showing should not be allowed to dictate the terms of political discourse - notwithstanding, of course, that more than a few in the three old parties in truth share much of UKIP's neoliberal worldview. Whatever happens, even if as is likely they perform better in the European results announced tomorrow, the polling of this revanchist, populist party should not be allowed to legitimise or necessitate an even further lurch rightwards in our politics.

So it's not a revolution - 6.12% is a theatre-outing rather than the People's Army march that Farage hubristically declared it to be. UKIP is lazy politics and the equally lazy (or biased, surely not?!) media would do well to take note. No one is going to the barricades when the leader is already down the pub.

Green Gains

Greens are performing well as results are declared in local elections throughout Britain. At the time of writing, with most English and Welsh results announced and Scottish ones ongoing, Green parties have picked up on average 9% of the vote where they stand, up 1% on last year, and have made a net gain of 11 new council places. This is in spite of the big swings to the Labour Party which might have been expected to squeeze the Greens down.

More here:
GREEN PARTY OF ENGLAND AND WALES WEBSITE

in Scotland, some big breakthroughs:
SCOTTISH GREEN PARTY

and here
BBC ELECTION RESULTS

If Voting Doesn't Change Anything, Why Did Hitler Abolish It?

"I don't vote, you're all the same..."; "Voting never changed anything..."; "I'd vote for you, but Corrie's on..."


Tomorrow is local elections day across the UK, as well as the election for the London Mayor. It is difficult to be sure, but turnout will almost certainly be well below 50%, and probably far below 40%. This is in spite of the country being in the grip of official recession and austerity economics driving a coach and horses through the social and economic fabric of the nation. It is in spite of the assault on education, health services and welfare by this most perniciously right wing of governments.

Nazi election poster March 1933

It doesn't mean that people reckon the Government is doing ok. Few governments have ever been so unpopular. In one poll this week, the two Coalition parties could barely muster 40% of the potential vote share between them, and the "others" column keeps nudging up to record highs in opinion polls - with the right wing UKIP doing particularly well in recent weeks; but also with growth for the Greens, Nationalists and a smattering for left wing Respect. The moribund BNP is the only one clearly out the running now.

But the real crisis is the loss of faith in voting changing anything. It is pointless, so many argue. And it is often hard to disagree, especially for local elections, if you look at how local government remains so emasculated and governed by national diktat even after the Localism Act supposedly devolved power to communities. Add on top the virtually identical agenda of the three main parties and a voting system which squashes challenges and a media that pretends they don't exist, and yes, you can sympathise with the "voting is a waste of time" argument.

Or you can, for about a minute.

Because the bottom line is that voting can change things. It might not happen overnight, and it might not provide exactly what you want, but voting can make a huge difference:
- between austerity and investment economics in the face of recession
- between a welfare state and "every man for himself" greedonomics (women and children perish)
- between war on Iran and diplomacy with Iran
- between nuclear power and renewable energy
- between public services and privatisation
- between developing land endlessly and protecting greenbelt
- the difference between Adolf Hitler and Otto Wells

Even locally, having served on a Parish Council and seeing the work now of District Councillors in my own area, Greens and others, making a difference to their communities, I readily choose voting over sitting at home complaining. Sure, there isn't always a good choice - but who makes the choices, who are the choices? We can leave it to big business, to the powers-that-be. Or the choices can be made by ordinary people - you, me, the woman down the street, the retired joiner. Any and all of us.

We do not live in a democracy - the combination of voting system, media ownership and a host of other controls prevent this. Likewise, the tragic subversion of the Labour Party by revisionist "third way" Blairites and the co-option of the Lib Dems into the free market magic circle much reduces any immediately obvious choice of different directions voters can opt for. But we do live at a time, unusual in historical terms, where enough of us working and voting together can make a difference.

I make a huge distinction between those who argue for the politics of resistance beyond the ballot box alone - through strike action, public demonstration and peaceful resistance/civil action: all these have a big role to play in driving change forward. But it is essential to elect radical new politicians and parties to lever the power of the state into truly democratic hands and to oversee the function of social and economic programmes beyond the local community. Otherwise, protest and dissent will be suppressed by the continuing control of the organs of the capitalist state by reactionaries - and any change will take longer and come about more violently, with all the awful consequences of such a path.

As for those who prefer to sit and watch Corrie and see the height of public participation being the tele-vote for X-Factor or Celebrity Undertaker or whatever passing pseudo-reality show has grasped the public's attention, I can say only wake up for God's sake and stop wasting this most precious of opportunities to make your life count beyond the numbers on the lottery balls. Voting can make a difference; but only if you get off your backside long enough to go and do it.

So, tomorrow, please...go and vote. For real change - for compassion and community.

Homer Simpson tries to vote for Obama from RandyR.net on Vimeo.

Jobs and the Environment: Caroline Lucas on Gideon's Tragedy

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP has blasted as "economically illiterate" Chancellor George Osborne's claims that tackling global warming and environmental degradation would damage the economy. On the day that Britain slipped back into official recession after two years of Con Dem slash-n-burn austerity economics, she talked about how Green Councillors have led the way in job creation.

Nationally, the green economy contributes almost 7% of GDP with potential for much more to get the economy moving and people in jobs, sustainably and cleanly.

You can hear Caroline Lucas' full interview, originally broadcast this morning at the ungodly hour of 6.50 am on Radio 4 to allow the BBC to claim it provides balanced broadcasting, by following this link HERE. 

Caroline Lucas MP (right) with Green councillors on a recent visit to Kirkburton in Kirklees; more on  Cllr Andrew Cooper's blog, "Greening Kirklees" HERE.