Skip to content

Well, if you think right wing means conservative, then people are correct

Voters see Ukip as more left wing than the Conservative Party in a shock poll finding that will fuel concerns among Ed Miliband’s allies that Nigel Farage is “parking his tanks on Labour’s lawn”.

A poll for The Independent on Sunday exposes what Labour strategists have been fearing for months – that voters do not regard Ukip as a party of the far right, but as one closer to the centre ground than the Tories. As such it could win Labour votes in the North.


One thing that
Ukip isn’t is conservative, it’s a radical party. We are, after all, trying to overturn the established European order: this is not something that is conservative (please note the distinction between conservative and Conservative). And if you think that being right wing is being conservative, as many Brits do, then thi9s is all entirely consistent.

28 thoughts on “Well, if you think right wing means conservative, then people are correct”

  1. Nationalising railways, loose monetary policy, sov wealth fund, ban gay marriage, turnover tax…

    That’s a policy list Jack Jones would have recognised, but I can’t vote for it.

  2. Are they advocating banning gay marriage as policy? Other than that, what do we expect? Socialists and all leftists are liars, so faced with a threat of losing votes to UKIP they lie about them.

    PS re the thread above with no comments, I suggest First Cut Is The Deepest.

  3. The working class aren’t leaving Labour to join UKIP; Labour has left the working class to become the party of the progressive elite.

    The working class have always been conservative.

  4. UKIP’s great weakness is being up against party infrastructures built up over more than 100 years. Even the Lib Dems struggle to attract “talent” due to the pull of the big two.

    Come the election, UKIP is going to struggle to avoid fielding too many nutters, and policy considerations may come a distant second.

    On the other hand, Labour has no coherent platform at all, and the Conservatives seem to be resting their case on what they’ve done in government (which has largely been dictated by external events and by what they think people want to hear in a few marginals).

    It could get very interesting indeed.

  5. Tim. Unfortunately in recent months UKIP have started to become the party of anti imigration alternative to Labour rather than rather attractive vaguely libertarian free market lets get out of EU party.

    I joined briefly but found the magazine unrwadable, and since then thevy seem to have got worse.

    As it stands they are now a liability in the event we actually get a referendum.

  6. bloke (not) in spain

    I’d have to be with B-in-I on this.
    There was a time I’d hopes for UKIP. Recent stuff coming from the UKIP direction has all the flavour of the Daily Mail Clickbait Party.
    I’d say “from the UKIP direction” intentionally. I’m wondering if there’s a UKIP to have policies.
    It’s something I’ve been saying for a while. UKIP don’t seem to have any coherent foundation philosophy. Not one known to many of its members, anyway.
    Say what you like about Labour, but there is some sort of intellectual thread runs through socialism. So if you ask a Labourite a snap question they can usually give you an answer that’ll be within shouting distance of Labour policy. Try the same with a UKIP enthusiast & you can get some strange results. It is possible to ask the same question twice. Although you may well be asking the same question in totally different contexts. And you get totally contradictory responses. Here they’re opposed to intrusive regulation. There they’re in favour of much tighter regulation. On what amounts to the same issue.

  7. bloke (not) in spain

    Give you an example:
    “Small businesses are tottering under the weight of regulation! UKIP says there should be a bonfire of red tape. Further, government should help small business. Invest in small business.”

    Now I can go with the first half of that. Get the bureaucrats out of small business & let ’em get on & create wealth. But the second part? Sounds like Wilson from the 60s. Unless they’re proposing leaving big sacks of money at the entrance to business parks, small business proprietors can dip into as they pass.
    “Help” & “investment” in small business, by government, inevitably ties it up in another tangle of red tape & regulation over who’s entitled to what help & investment.

  8. In the same way there is a difference between conservative and Conservative, there is a difference between progressive and Progressive, that UKIP is more the former and Labour more the latter is where the muddy tread marks are to be found.

  9. A liberal free – trade party would be great for the UK; anyone want to try and form one with me?

    Instead we in England we have 4 centre – left parties obsessing about immigrants (Tories, Labour, Libdems and Ukip). The poor Scots have 5 of them. Truly conservative.

  10. So Much for Subtlety

    Ironman – “Instead we in England we have 4 centre – left parties obsessing about immigrants (Tories, Labour, Libdems and Ukip). The poor Scots have 5 of them. Truly conservative.”

    No, we have three left-of-centre parties devoted to more immigration. We also have about 50 million voters who are utterly dead set against any more immigration.

    Hence we have the spectacle of three left-of-centre parties pretending they aren’t going to continue to flood Britain with as many Third World peasants as humanly possible.

  11. b(n)is

    “Small businesses are tottering under the weight of regulation! UKIP says there should be a bonfire of red tape. Further, government should help small business. Invest in small business.”

    Now I can go with the first half of that. Get the bureaucrats out of small business & let ‘em get on & create wealth. But the second part? Sounds like Wilson from the 60s.

    “Help” & “investment” in small business, by government, inevitably ties it up in another tangle of red tape & regulation over who’s entitled to what help & investment.

    FWIW, whilst I agree whole heartedly with the sentiment, I can give you one example where proactive help (rather than simply backing off) might be useful.

    The public sector has increasingly been encouraged towards the use of PSLs (preferred supplier lists) in procurement. The argument being that it helps simplify procurement and make it more efficient. Fewer suppliers to deal with, less administration etc.

    But that potentially damages small and micro businesses that were able to deal directly and competitively with their customers previously. Because a small business will never be one of the small number of large companies that gets on to the PSL.

    Hence, increasingly the only way a micro business can contract for business is by applying second line through the very large corporates (ie those on the PSL) who then subcontract stuff out, and at which point the micro business will often get completely screwed on margin (ie by the corporate).

    The only real beneficiary of that process is the corporate (or middle man) that can then take its cut and take full advantage of its new privileged position (being on the PSL).

    These large private sector companies know precisely how to game the PSL process to best advantage, and are generally a lot more savvy than their counterparts in public sector procurement.

    The public sector is fooled into thinking it is getting both good value and cheaper and easier administration.

  12. >One thing that Ukip isn’t is conservative, it’s a radical party. We are, after all, trying to overturn the established European order: this is not something that is conservative

    Well, these are ambiguous terms. ‘Conservative’ means various things, but generally the main meaning is supporting traditional family-based societal structures, with a minimum of welfarism. UKIP isn’t radical in that sense.

    UKIP is radical in the sense of wanting to change things, but then that is true of every party in some respects. But then looking at things in terms of that sort of radical-conservative spectrum isn’t very interesting these days, especially considering that two parties could be equally radical (in this sense) but in completely different ways.

    Basically, that way of looking at things is outmoded, and not very useful. Even the left understands that, which is why duplicitous leftists often use ‘radical’ as a term of abuse these days (“they want to abandon all our hard-fought freedoms”; translation: “they want to abandon all our hard-fought regulation”).

    As far as the poll mentioned in that article goes, the problem with it is that the right-wing vs left-wing divide is very vague these days. Unless you specify precisely what each means, you can’t just assume that everyone has the same idea of it.

    Finally, a further problem is that it is clear that even UKIP itself is split on which way it wants to go. Obviously it is playing up the left-wing ideas to attract old Labour voters, while also trying to keep hold of the old Thatcherites, and there is no correct answer at this point as to what the real position of UKIP is.

  13. bloke (not) in spain said:
    >Give you an example:
    >“Small businesses are tottering under the weight of regulation! UKIP says there should be a bonfire of red tape. Further, government should help small business. Invest in small business.”

    BNIS is right in what he says about this. ‘Helping’ and ‘investing’ in small business’ is maybe possible without red tape, but no government has ever been able to do the former without increasing the latter.

    Would there really be a bonfire of red tape if UKIP won the election? Given the idiots in charge of UKIP, I suspect not. (Obviously if Tim had a big say there would be, but I suspect Tim would be marginalized in such a case.)

  14. UKIP is doing what any party wanting to get elected in the UK tries to do, more or less successfully: they are attempting to pander to the various conflicting strands of voter opinion.

    Since UKIP is a new party without any kind of ideological core, they are more prone to jump inconsistently from issue to issue and less prone to dictate to or try to steer the electorate in a particular direction. They are a true populist party in other words. Expecting them to retain any trace of libertarian ideology or policy as they gain support is incredibly naive. If libertarianism was what the British people wanted then it is what we would have, more or less.

    Sadly the current direction of UKIP is a fairly true reflection of what the British voter wants. This is why they are gaining support. Don’t worry; as they begin to feel more secure they will become more arrogant and less responsive.

    Isn’t democracy great?

  15. ‘Sadly the current direction of UKIP is a fairly true reflection of what the British voter wants. This is why they are gaining support.’

    I don’t think it’s sad that a party is gaining support because of what the British voter wants. I’d say that was a pretty happy, and, more importantly, pretty democratic, outcome.

    But I’d look at it from the other perspective. They are gaining support because of what they are not, not what they are. If Brand and the creature from the back row of Question Time are demonstrative of ‘progressive left’, and the Tories (and by association the Libdems) are flip flopping about their position on Europe, and future spending cuts, who is the average centrist voter left with ?

    We Brits are a funny race. Telling a significant number of people that they are wrong to vote for a certain party is likely to have exactly the opposite effect. Attempting to demonise people for exercising their free will, especially in the absence of solutions, and in language the average person can understand, to the very problems people are experiencing day to day, doesn’t endear you to voters.

    If the immigration issue alone is important enough for people to switch allegiances away from their traditional parties, then it’s not UKIP’s absence of other policies that they should be worried about. It’s that they haven’t understood quite how important the immigration issue to the average person.

    If a party gets greater representation on one single issue, they’ve still got greater representation. UKIP aren’t going to win a parliamentary majority, but the bigger the party becomes, the less of a barrier exists to move away from the cosy confines of the traditional party system, and the more time they have to develop other key policies.

  16. Sadly the current direction of UKIP is a fairly true reflection of what the British voter wants.
    What’s sad is that you and the British political class think your views trump those of the British people.

  17. 50 million voters! Really! Which country is this? Mine is the UK.

    And those “50 million voters” are “utterly dead set against immigration” are they? Well fine, because we have something called an election coming up and they can prove it can’t they. Although I.must say, we would all be massively surprised to see “50 million voters” express that sentiment.

    I’m the meantime can I offer a big thank you to he cyber kippers here for proving again that, despite protestations to the contrary, Ukip has indeed morphed from a party interested in withdrawal from the EU into an anti-immigrant party. 6 years ago I was genuinely interested in joining Ukip… but now

  18. I know it wasn’t me you were shouting at, but I think you’ve demonstrated exactly the mistake the major parties are making. I know its a tired mantra, but UKIP is not (the odd, and hopefully dwindling, idiots aside) anti-immigrant. It is anti uncontrolled immigration.

    Branding people racist because they want controls on immigration is exactly what is driving many people to vote UKIP. They understand that the parties making that accusation haven’t understood the problem, or more importantly, how they feel about it. If somebody wrongly calls you a racist, are you more or less likely to vote for them ?

  19. It’s not the control of immigration issue per se for me but the worry that those who support the controlled immigration issue will also buy into the anti-free trade/ protectionist arguments. I think they can be separated but the question is whether UKIP and the other parties are actually going be explicit and do that when there are floating votes to play for. The appeal of withdrawal from EU has for me is the freedom to pursue more liberal policies than EU politics and compromises and treaties allow…but it also gives the freedom to pursue less liberal ones.

  20. bloke (not) in spain

    It does get me, the way disquiet about levels of immigration from Eastern Europe somehow gets leveraged into “racism”

    Go sit in a McDonalds in Bucharest & it’s like being in an English market town in the sixties. Look around, and the people with which you’re enjoying your big Mac are indistinguishable from what one would regard as the indigenous Brit. Blonds, brunettes, even the odd, regrettable ginger. The only thing, sticks out is, unlike modern England, they’ll all be white European. Brown & black faces are a rarity in Romania.

  21. “What’s sad is that you and the British political class think your views trump those of the British people.”

    Not in the slightest.

    I just don’t support unfettered democracy. Because I don’t think that you and the British people have any right to tell me how I should live my own life or spend my own money.

    Democracy is a disaster for freedom, and the more popular UKIP become, the more obviously this reality reflects in the policy they churn out.

  22. “I don’t think it’s sad that a party is gaining support because of what the British voter wants. I’d say that was a pretty happy, and, more importantly, pretty democratic, outcome.”

    You seem to think that the views of a voting majority constitute some kind of legitimate authority over your life choices. I don’t share this view.

    Personally I don’t want to live every aspect of my life according to the aggregate viewpoint of the people that share the same geographical space that I do.

  23. ‘I just don’t support unfettered democracy. Because I don’t think that you and the British people have any right to tell me how I should live my own life or spend my own money.’

    If you can let me know the political system you have found that serves your personal freedoms better than unfettered democracy, you have secured my vote.

  24. Who enforces the rule of the King of Saudi Arabia over his unfortunate subjects? Who enforces the grip of the Communist Party over China? Who enforces the will of the robber to take my stuff?

    Enforcement does not equal legitimacy. Enforcing limited political power or unlimited political power are the same- they both claim control over what is mine using force. The more limited the power, the more freedom remains for me. More freedom is better, so more limited is better than less limited democracy.

    Any limit set is preferable to the current situation because it increases freedom which is of itself a good thing.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *