Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Will the UK stay in UKIP?

UKIP does not only stand for British withdrawal from the European Union. At the last election it had a whole manifesto of policies, including:
  • reinstate grammar schools
  • increase defence spending by 40 per cent
  • bring back Pullman trains
  • reinstate the Radio 4 theme 
To these it has recently added opposition to equal marriage.

These policies have no logical connection. Just because you support British withdrawal from the EU there is no reason you cannot support comprehensive schools, gay marriage or contemporary rolling stock design.

What unites them, of course, is that they are issues that unite angry white men - particularly angry white men of a certain age.

But there is another issue that appeals to this demographic.

Unionism used to be the Conservatives' trump card. It won them a majority of Scottish MPs in the 1950s, which is something that it is near impossible to believe now.

Not only is Unionism less effective as a policy: the Conservatives are not that keen on it any more, as I once observed when looking at King's Lynn Conservative Club.

And if you ask an angry white man of a certain age what he thinks of the Union he will most likely tell you (if he lives in Southern England, as so many of them do) that he is fed up with paying for services in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales that are better than the ones he can use himself.

If the Scots want independence, he will likely continue, let them have it and see how much they enjoy paying the full cost of those services themselves.

Which makes me wonder how long the UK will stay in UKIP. Their target voters are not keen on it at all.

5 comments:

Beastinblack said...

I agree, they should change their name to the ENP. Englands version of the SNP....

Anonymous said...

Scotland more than pays the full cost of its own services. It gets only 9.3% of UK spending while contributing 9.6% of UK taxes.

Scotland is fed up subsidising Whitehall waste from a government of incompetent Lord Snootys that it didn't elect!

wolfi said...

UKIP seems to me the typical "Nazi" party that you find everywhere - in Germany we have something similar as well as in Hungary wher they call themselves "Jobbik" ie "Better" ...
It's really a shame - humanity seems to find no progress ...

Anonymous said...

If you keep repeating the mantra often enough 'anonymous'maybe you will persuade someone to believe it.
Me? I look at the facts.
Which countries' students have been condemmned to years of debt, by the introduction of £9000/YR student fees?
Which countries' sick people get charged £7.85 per item on a prescription?
Which countries' people have to pay for eye tests?
Which countries' elderly have their homes and assets stripped from them to pay for care in old age?
Which country is denied equality, fairness and democracy in the disunited Kingdom?
Which country's name is never uttered by any politician from the Lib/Lab?Con despite the fact that most of their time is spent dreaming up more taxes for those that live here?
Worked it out yet?

Anonymous said...

Daggs

which country wants to replace trident at £100 billion and counting?

which country just had the Olympics?

which country is using public money to give west ham the olympic stadium?

which country uses public money for painting of ministers?

which country is going to replace westminster to the tune of £3 billion.

which country joins illegal wars costing billions?

worked it out yet? england can afford better services, your government chooses not to and instead pisses all over people in england. stop blaming scotland and everyone else. i didn't know english people were so weak to throw their money at other countries for free.