UKIP have an MP

Axe_meister

Crap. UKIP won in Clacton

stickyfiddle

Why crap? Maybe this will make the main parties wake up and realise everyone hates them.

Jalapeno

Indeed ... both main parties have taken Joe Q Public for granted for too long - we're just here to be milked for taxes and exploited by multi-nationals.

That's not to say that Nigel Farage isn't a populist charlatan of course !

thermionic

I preferred things in the good old days, when nobody voted for the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Drew_TNBD

Yeah. Coz FUCK democracy huh!?! WHO'S WITH ME!?!?! RAWR! RAWR! RAWR!

Axe_meister

I just wish there were a more moderate protest vote party, not a party that is picking up the remnants of the BNP and the rest of the looneys

ICBM

I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand I think they're a vacuous but nasty party, the worst kind of backward-looking small-minded reactionary closet-racist xenophobes with no real policies, other than that they don't like Europe or foreigners, and I'd love it if they didn't exist at all let alone had a seat in parliament, but on the other hand this is a democracy - sort of. Actually in a proper democracy with a more proportional form of representation they would have a *lot* more than one MP. In fact I think the BNP would still have one, even now that UKIP have stolen most of their votes…

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Evelyn Hall, about (and often attributed to) Voltaire.

chrispy108

Yes he's a UKIP MP, but he was a Conservative two weeks ago, so how much of the vote was for the candidate not the party? And how much was a protest?

richardhomer

Watching this on the news this morning, it struck me forcibly that what used to be referred to as 'race relations' are moving dramatically in the wrong direction now.

As a child growing up in the 70s, racism was pretty common - regularly seen on TV (Love Thy Neighbour, Jim Davidson, Bernard Manning, et al) - and racist language was pretty common, particularly among my parents' generation.

By the time I'd reached adulthood, attitudes had moved spectacularly - no one (other than horrible BNP supporting thugs) used racist language - being a racist had become socially unacceptable.

Having made that massive journey in a fairly short period, Farage and his unpleasant colleagues are endeavouring to take us back - with no doubt a decent dose of homophobia thrown in for good measure. He's quoted this morning as having said 'stopping people diagnosed with HIV coming into the country would be a good start to controlling our borders'.

I am far from an advocate of having an open door policy to our borders - there are good economic reasons why excessive immigration is not tenable - politically I don't consider myself to be on the left, or right - on economic matters I believe in free markets, on social issues I'm probably to the left of centre - but one thing I cannot be doing with is extremes of either.

I feel genuinely saddened by today's result....

Moe_Zambeek

This is what happens when the political class ignore a large segment of the people they claim to represent, see for example gimpy Gordon and 'that horrible bigoted woman'.

Whether we agree on it or not lots of people, particularly in the East of England, feel extremely negatively about immigration because it's fundamentally changed their local areas, their job prospects and their quality of life. If they speak up about it they're accused of racism / ignorance / thuggery (as indeed in this thread). Now, lo and behold they have a viable 'other' party to vote for.

Clearly Clacton voted for the MP as much as the party but the party was not enough to stop them doing so. The result in the other by election was pretty close too.

chillidoggy

I can't get upset about this, because people should vote for whichever candidate they want, whoever they think is likely to improve their lot, and that's what has happened here. But then I'm a tart when it comes to voting time, I don't hold any allegiances.

Nigel Farage is likely to stand in South Thanet, which is my area, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he wins the seat because for the locals, the immigration thing is a huge problem, and it's presently top of their agenda.

That and the bin wankers.

dchwhite

Moe_Zambeek said:

...

Whether we agree on it or not lots of people, particularly in the East of England, feel extremely negatively about immigration because it's fundamentally changed their local areas, their job prospects and their quality of life....

There was a report on immigration to the East (specifically Wisbech fwiw) yesterday, in the Gdn: link.

Axe_meister

The thing is direct immigration is not that much of a problem just more visible.

We have to question why people are coming to the UK and why our own population are not taking the jobs the immigrants are taking (the benefit immigrants are actually a very small minority).

People coming here to work are contributing to the economy. What should scare people but is not visible is the export of jobs and money abroad. We are seeing this massively in the IT industry. 
The trouble with this is, all it does is improve a companies profitability. Fine if it's a UK based company as the money stays here, but a) The company may not be paying the tax due on the extra profitability, b) the company may be a non UK company and the profit flow outside, thus not in anyway contributing to our own economy.

Fretwired

Clacton is a unique case. It's not about immigration - I think I read that the area is 97 per cent white British. Clacton suffers from acute deprivation and poor public services that the main parties have failed to address over the last 20 years. What the Tories and Labour are seeing is a backlash from white working class voters who feel marginalised from mainstream politics. The MP is a two-faced twat. He saw he was going to lose at the general election so jumped ship from the Tories to Ukip to protect his £70K salary and privileged position.

Drew_TNBD

richardhomer;375334" said:

Watching this on the news this morning, it struck me forcibly that what used to be referred to as 'race relations' are moving dramatically in the wrong direction now.

As a child growing up in the 70s, racism was pretty common - regularly seen on TV (Love Thy Neighbour, Jim Davidson, Bernard Manning, et al) - and racist language was pretty common, particularly among my parents' generation.

By the time I'd reached adulthood, attitudes had moved spectacularly - no one (other than horrible BNP supporting thugs) used racist language - being a racist had become socially unacceptable.

Having made that massive journey in a fairly short period, Farage and his unpleasant colleagues are endeavouring to take us back - with no doubt a decent dose of homophobia thrown in for good measure. He's quoted this morning as having said 'stopping people diagnosed with HIV coming into the country would be a good start to controlling our borders'.

Please explain how that is either racist or homophobic. What? Only black gay people get HIV? It's not that I agree with what he said, it's that I disagree with the connections you're making.

I feel genuinely saddened by today's result....

Do you really? Or are you just trying to show us all what a swell guy you are?

Phil_aka_Pip

UKIP MP?

YAY!!!

And bollows to the lot of the PC types who bewail it

Fretwired

Phil_aka_Pip said:

UKIP MP?

YAY!!!

And bollows to the lot of the PC types who bewail it

What's Ukips policy on education or health? Answer: unintelligible. And how come two party donors who have paid £4 million and £1 million respectively are now standing as prospective MPs in the next May's general election. Does Ukip offer the chance to stand for parliament to the highest bidder?

I'm aware that Farage and co are struggling with the thorny and troublesome issue of a designer handbag tax and expect more daft ideas from this half-baked party.

I suppose that those who voted for Hitler thought it was a good protest vote. Unfortunately they never got a chance to vote again until after the war.

Drew_TNBD

Fretwired said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

UKIP MP?

YAY!!!

And bollows to the lot of the PC types who bewail it

What's Ukips policy on education or health? Answer: unintelligible.

Yup. Pretty much this.

But even worse than UKIP, are the Green party. Their policies on education amount to indoctrination, and their policies on health are that the planets health is more important than people's and a whole bunch of their cabinet are homopathy enthusiasts. They're probably the worst culprit for anti-science that we've got going. That includes UKIP!

jellyroll

Come the general election, if the Tories & Labour both lose votes to UKIP but Labour also pick up votes from disaffected Liberal voters, would that leave Labour as the largest single party? 

Another Lib-Lab pact?

Whoopee.

Although, if Liberals are wiped out, there'll be nobody for Labour to form a coalition with.......bring on the Tory-UKIP pact.

Moe_Zambeek

Fretwired;375431" said:

I suppose that those who voted for Hitler thought it was a good protest vote. Unfortunately they never got a chance to vote again until after the war.

That didn't take too long

p90fool

UKIP are similar to the Tories in that trade on people's perceptions of what's going on rather than facts. I'm enjoying the fact that they're stealing Tory votes too, but it'll be short lived as the Tories move further to the right to win them back.

I think we're on the cusp of a very depressing and dangerous age in this country, it actually scares me how many seemingly rational people now hate Muslims, the unemployed, or basically everyone who's on a lower rung of the social ladder than themselves.

According to Oxfam there are five families in the UK who have more money than the lowest 20% of the population put together, and yet our collective loathing is constantly aimed at "scroungers" and the very poorly paid.

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