to love UKIP?

[Hullygully]

Every time a UKIP person speaks, they want to say rape within marriage is ok, Lenny Henry should go back to Black Land, bit too scared to stand in a by election just now...yet

PEOPLE ARE STILL DESPERATE TO VOTE FOR THEM.

What hope is there? Humanity is as truly doomed as ever.

" People don't vote for parties anymore, they vote for leaders."

I don't think that's true at all.

Tucson - when the Conservatives were elected in 79 they promised to decentralise government. Which went well. Perhaps we should do away with the whole thing and spend the money on secure tech to make truly democratic decisions!

Well, Tuscongirl, i was just highlighting the serendipity of Claig's post rather than calling folks stupid, cause that would be rude.

But I do think that if you plan to vote for a party that is all about the NO, with no indication as to what a YES looks like, then your vote may be a tad ill-considered, yes.

However, I was brought up in Ian Paisley's constituency, and could be a tad over-sensitised to intransigent bigots... or maybe I just know one when I see one? Who knows?

'What I can't see is how it can be a successful sea change in politics. Say UKIP do win 50% of the seats, what then? The big three go back to their careerist advisors who tell them to promise a referendum. They do that. The media crucify them. Anything they've said will be used against them if the result is OUT. What then? We go back to the same old system?'

You are right. No one knows and nothing is for certain. But, even though George Bush joked that he wished he was a dictator because it would make things easier, we don't live in a dictatorship. We do live in a democracy, even if as Natalie Bennett rightly said that our 2 and a half party first-past-the post system has broken down.

And they great thing about democracy, is that no one single person is in control. There are competing parties, competing newspapers , competing businesses and competing millionaires and billionaires. These people wil all start to panic about the result of the next election if UKIP cause an earthquake.

At the moment Murdoch is obviously anti UKIP as the Sun and Times attack Farage on expenses and dig out as many fruitcakes as they can find. But if it looks like disaster for Cameron, millionaires and billionaires and the Daily Mail and the voters will start abandoning Cameron and calling for new leadership. MPs will fear that they will lose their seats and in all that turmoil, the establishment will have to throw some bones to the public to keep them quiet and steady the ship. There will be change. What change, we don't know, but change there must be. And it is in that period of change, that we the people win more rights and have our voices heard as the establishment try to win us back on side.

The politicians are only in power by consent, first by us as voters, but crucially also by the consent of billionaires, moguls, newspapers etc and if they all start to panic, then a new set of politicians will have to appear.

Don't worry about UKIP because the public are not voting UKIP because they agree with all of their few stated policies - they are voting UKIP because they disagree with the establishment of Labour and Tory.

The change that happens may not be led by UKIP. I think we will have to be granted a real proportional system and then if you are a Green, you will get your voice heard etc. The public does not expect UKIP to win the General Election, it is using UKIP to tip over the apple cart and force some change.

'I think the future lies in smaller and more local government.'

I think TucosnGirl is right. This is the coming political battle over the coming decades - the people vs the elites and establishments. Localisation vs centralisation. We are seeing it in Scotland now and the anti EU vote is about the same thing. The elite will fight it becaue the Etonians and the chums will lose power over the people. UKIP want referendums for any issue that gets 5% public support. If that happened, then the elite would not be able to push through HS2 or fracking or GM food etc etc because they would be constantly losing referendums.

The battle for democratic representation will have begun. The elite won't like it, but I think they will lose and the rise of UKIP is the first indication of how the people are defying the entire establishment and voting against them all.

UKIP started off as a one-issue movement and when its job has been done, it may even fizzle away, but it will have begun the battle for representation of the people versus the rule by an arrogant, unlistening, condescending, privileged elite who prefer to spend billions on wars than on hospitals.

'UKIP have been rattling around for what 20 years? Only now in a time of economic strife are they making waves.'

Yes and the fascinating thing is that UKIP haven't got the answers or the policies, but the public doesn't care, because it sees in UKIP the first step of getting rid of the problem - an out-if-touch elite that does not follow its manifesto promises and does not fix the scandals and real issues that concern ordinary people.

What change we don't know.

Hmm see I am naturally a cautious person and I don't like to jump before I know what I'm landing on. Change is not necessarily good. I'm sure the papers have all sorts on most politicians that they use when they choose and they run the country as they wish. UKIP have ain't going to stop that. Editorial decision rules.

My MIL referred to Farage as 'my hero' recently. I don't know how I didn't beat her to death with her copy of the Daily Hate

Yes, I agree. But i think the reason taht teh public has gone crazy for a party that just 2 years' ago hardly anyone voted fro, is because the public want change, they don't want more of teh same, with the same spinners an politicians fooling them. They are all playing the Who song - "Won't Get Fooled Again".

We don't know what the real establishment want - look at Ukraine as it is now getting worse and more people are dying and being injured and remember what Farage said about the EU and Ukraine.

These Euro elections will cause an earthquake - both in Britain and all over the EU. Can the people win and stop whatever the real establishment are leading us to?

Sorry didn't see the last post.
Labour should have been dealing with the whole issue of the fears of the people who are voting UKIP at the sharp end. But the intellectual socialism has rendered them unable to dislike anyone so they don't. Ed Milliband is the manifestation of that. The Conservatives with CallMeDave at the helm are busy trying to be everyman. But they're all posh and we know it. They've all been born of politics.

So clowns or dyed in the wool party apparatchiks?

Claig I suspect you and I are are very different ends of the political spectrum iirc. As I said way up thread I will spoil my paper. Futile I know!

And so to bed.

Yes, I am to the right and you are probably to the left, but I agree with you about Miliband and Labour and Cameron and the Tories. We all want the same thing - a better society and more representation for the people, we just disagree about which party can deliver at least some of it.

Don't spoil you paper, create "an earthquake".
Remember the words that Farage said, which have made him a "hero" to darksideofthemooncup's MIL

"come and join the people's army, let's topple the establishment who have led us into this mess"

That is what darksideofthemooncup's MIL and just about everyone else will be doing.

Goodnight.

Boulevard, I too grew up in NI. Albeit at the polar oposite of the political spectrum to you. I think your experience has made you, not hyper-sensitive, but more aware of bigotry,and why it's a waste of time and resources.

Totally agree with HauntedNoddyCar and can also totally see the points made by Claig too.

I won't be voting UKIP but I must admit for the first time in 32 years I am totally unable to feel any alliance with any party.

And I totally blame labour for this.

"Tony Blair's fortune tops £75m as he makes rich list"

www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/355000/Tony-Blair-ex-Prime-Minister-in-Uk-s-top-earners

Wow! He must have done something really good, he must have worked really hard and created or invented something that everybody wants to buy and use. I hope he is a Sir, because it sounds like he deserves to be for all the hard work he has done. nd teh best thing about it is that he is a socialist, which shows all of us ordinary people that it is not just capitalists who can earn such well-deserved rewards.

I heard yesterday that his "fortune" may now be about £100 million, but I don't know what newspaper it is in.

You cannot say everyone who votes for ukip are racist. I am voting for ukip because I want control on our borders back, I do not believe in unrestricted immigration. I also believe ukip are the only party willing to do this at the moment which is why so many people support them.

The fact the media are on full attack just makes me want to vote for them even more, you cannot shut me down by calling me an racist.

The only people who vote UKIP have no sense and no souls.

You cannot say everyone who votes for ukip are racist.

If course not, some are homophobes and disablist too

I don't think I will vote UKIP in parliamentary elections. But I will probably vote for them in the European elections, despite the unreconstructed ideas of some of their representatives, because I want out of Europe. Not because I think all the Poles should fuck off home - I have lived in Europe, I own property in Europe, I speak two European languages fluently - but because I fundamentally believe in democracy and the EU lacks all but the barest shred of democratic legitimacy.

Our parliamentary system, for all its flaws, ultimately answers to the electorate. The EU, fundamentally, does not - we can't kick them out if we don't like the laws they pass. We can't reject laws we don't like. The British parliamentary system holds as a principle that no Parliament can bind subsequent parliaments, ie laws can always be repealed. There is no such provision in EU government and EU commissioners have explicitly stated that once EU laws are passed, that's it. I could go on.

Ultimately the EU represents the interests of lobbyists - or, to put it another way, of large corporations. I'm not saying this doesn't happen in the UK - we know it does - but in the UK there are better checks and balances, the scale is smaller so media exposure has more effect, and ultimately if we don't like a government we can vote them out. I think the deep sense of helplessness many people feel as supposedly free citizens of a democratic nation when laws are passed with no democratic mandate, by people we never elected, that we have no capacity to repeal or even challenge, has contributed significantly to the alienation many people feel towards the political classes. We have allowed the development of an undemocratic supra-national body whose legislative powers supersede those of our democratic government. The presence and activity of that body underlines, constantly, the nagging worry we have that we are governed ultimately by people who have no interest in the will of the electorate and will ignore democratic process (or, to use the EU code, 'populism') wherever possible. Though I think there are other forces in play too - for example technological developments mean that labour is currently losing out to capital all over the world, a situation which is widening inequality everywhere - I believe that for our country in particular the EU is a significant contributor to the slow death we are currently seeing of a system of parliamentary democracy that was once a model for nations the world over. I think this is disastrous and needs urgently to be reversed.

I know there are economic arguments in favour of the EU. You can argue the economic case convincingly both ways. But for me this isn't about economics, any more than Scottish independence is about economics.

When the debates about iScotland started heating up, I was sceptical about independence and broadly on the side of No (though I'm not eligible to vote). But I've come to understand that for many Scots it's not about economics. It's about self-determination and a deep frustration at being governed from Westminster by a group of people who the Scots feel they did not vote for and who don't adequately represent their interests and values. It's ultimately about a positive conception of nationalism as a set of shared values and experiences that enable a people to vote, democratically, on how they should be governed. Looked at from that perspective I can totally see where the Nats are coming from, and entirely respect their wish to be rid of Westminster to govern themselves as they see fit.

I think a very similar argument applies to leaving the EU. Not because of racism, or because we think we'd be better off (racism is just silly, and as far as the economic argument goes I think no-one really knows) but because fundamentally I believe sovereign nation states are the best way of safeguarding democracy, and that democracy - with all its flaws - is the least worst system of government humanity has developed to date.

So despite the fact that I think UKIP has more than its fair share of jokers, I will probably vote for them in the EU elections. Not because I think black people should live in a 'black land' or disabled foetuses should be aborted or any such claptrap, but because I see them as a means to an end, ie lending my voice to a growing groundswell of protest against the beginning of the end of the amazing achievement that was British parliamentary democracy. I want an In or Out referendum, urgently, and I want out of the EU before that democracy and the culture it has enabled are gone for good.

So who did racists vote for before UKIP?

(I know you are going to say Tory )

And are we by extension saying that anyone who votes for the Green Party or labour can't possibly be homophobic or racist...because you know that's utter bollocks don't you?

I think that saying that everyone who reads or votes for something you don't like is stupid or racist or homophobic means that you have lost the argument

Which is a shame because if we had a racist scale for parties I'm pretty positive UKIP would be in pole position

So who did racists vote for before UKIP?

BNP? Nick Griffen has been moaning that ukip have nicked their campaign slogans

As I said way up thread I will spoil my paper

And women died to get you the Vote. You should be ashamed.

It was my understanding, Rebecca2014, that the UK doesn't have unrestricted immigration.

Can you correct me if I'm wrong?

One of the things I've found myself mulling over as I've followed the UKIP and iScotland stories recently is the concept of nationalism. The question of whether nationalism can ever be good is central to the debate. For many (including some posters on this thread, I imagine) nationalism is reflexively conflated with xenophobia and hatred - as though it is impossible to be proud of or even identified with one's nation or culture without tattooing swastikas on one's forehead and beating up forriners for a larf. I think this is mistaken though.

Certainly the Scots don't see it like this: I learned that from a very articulate defender of positive, civic Scottish nationalism on an iScotland threaad here on MN. The Scots argue that national pride and identity are absolutely compatible with tolerance, inclusivity and an openness to the world beyond - and, further, that national pride and civic participation are inseparable from democratic independence.

It got me thinking about the way nationalism and national identity seem to be such dirty words in England, and have become so divorced from the idea of civic participation and democratic representation. It's as though there's a modish belief among educated liberals that national identity and pride is only for thickos and racists and those who are incapable of thinking beyond their nasty, undereducated, pebble-dashed little worlds.

The problem that we have had, historically, is that after the two world wars there was an abiding feeling that nationalism, however horribly perverted, had been a major cause of the horror and bloodshed and that therefore the best way to ensure it never happened again would be to stamp out nationalism. One of the EU's founding visions is of a Europe 'freed' from national identities and identifications, in the belief that this will prevent anything like WWI and WWII ever happening again.

It's a well-meaning vision but I think it is mistaken. Far from being an inevitable step on the slippery slope to Nazism, I believe that some degree of identification with, and appreciation of national identity and civic belonging are the cornerstones of democratic participation. In other words, you can't have a functioning democracy without some degree of nationalism. Rather than attempting to do away with any kind of nationalism and to create a state that somehow retains democratic legitimacy without a single polity, without any kind of shared vision, values, language, founding story or cultural reference points I think we should take a leaf from the Scottish book and ask ourselves whether it's time to look again at the idea of a positive, participatory British nationalism. Without any kind of positive contribution from kind, tolerant, civil people to the idea of British nationalism the idea gets left to the thugs, racists and fucknuts, while the sense of shared experience and identity that underlies any kind of meaningful civic participation trickles away and, with it, goes any hope we may have of retaining a democracy.