Greg Lance - Watkins (Greg_L-W)
WELL, I was expecting it and I dare say you were expecting it, but the Westminster political class really wasn’t expecting the spectacular UKIP advance in the local elections.
A few commentators had predicted modest gains – perhaps 40 council seats. Many others had cast doubt on the ability of Nigel Farage’s “ragbag army” to fight a nationwide set of elections. Yet more thought that once the negative campaigning techniques of the bigger parties and their sympathetic pressure groups were unleashed that the vast majority of voters could be deterred from even considering UKIP. It was all rubbish.
But it is the sort of rubbish we have come to expect. Time and again since the last general election political pundits have underestimated the appeal of UKIP and the prospects for UKIP.
Around two years ago when I dared to predict on Twitter that UKIP would soon overtake the Lib Dems in the opinion polls I had my sanity questioned. Now it is a rare poll that shows the Lib Dems in touching distance of UKIP’s (unprompted) vote share.
But failing to predict the rise of UKIP and failing to understand the appeal of UKIP has not deterred the punditry class from pontificating about why it has happened. The consensus seems to be that this is a mid-term protest movement and that a few tactical ploys by the Tories will cause it to ebb away.
Well as one of the few pundits who did forecast the rise of UKIP, I have some news for my colleagues: people voted UKIP last Thursday in very large part because they agree with UKIP policies.
From the flagship policy of leaving the EU, to support for reclaiming our border controls, to cutting the foreign aid budget, to ditching expensive green energy gimmicks, to dumping the European Court of Human Rights and building more prison places the polling evidence shows that UKIP’s positions command the support of huge swathes of the electorate.
On all the above issues the fundamental positions of Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems are pretty much identical and are unpopular beyond the chattering classes.
So that’s the answer; people support UKIP because they have been brilliantly led, yes. Because living standards are falling and the electorate wishes to kick the Westminster parties, yes. But most of all because only UKIP has dared to break with the politically correct centre-Left consensus that dominates elite opinion.
As it happens I do not think producing half-strength versions of UKIP policies will do David Cameron a lot of good. Having billed himself as a Tory moderniser obsessed with the centre-ground, it would look fake were he now to mount a wholesale move to the Right. His best chance is to be true to himself – whatever that is – and at least get a few plaudits for belated authenticity.
UKIP will continue to prosper by challenging the consensus of the elites on the EU, aid, law and order, energy policy, the human rights regime and the rest. The biggest challenge facing it is the first past the post system at the general election of 2015.
But even here the clever money is no longer on UKIP being unable to win seats. Yes, the party attracts votes in considerable numbers all over the country now. But it also has strong-holds; Ramsey, parts of Lincolnshire, Essex and Kent. A double-digit vote share and a clutch of parliamentary seats in 2015 is certainly a realistic target now.
And before that of course come the European elections of 2014 and the prospect of giving the Conservatives a humiliating thrashing less than a year before the general election.
There even now exists the substantial possibility – and I put it no higher than that – that we are witnessing the beginnings of a permanent transformation of British electoral politics, that never again will Labour or the Conservatives be able to command a parliamentary majority, even under first past the post and that both these traditional political brands are in an irreversible long-term decline. If this is the case then UKIP has by far the best prospects of any alternative of breaking into the Westminster big time.
If it does so, can it please promise the British electorate to remain the voice of common sense and never to turn its back on the beliefs and interests of millions of patriotic and hardworking British people.
Patrick O’Flynn is the Chief Political Commentator at the Daily Express. He tweets at@oflynnexpress
Ukip-vs-EUkip 
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