Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing Eurosceptic party currently upsetting Britain’s staid tripartite political system, made a recent flying visit Ireland to express his support for UKIP candidates contesting European and local elections in the north-east of the country. One wonder’s if he is aware that his UKIP organisation on this island nation seems to have been annexed by people closely associated with hardline Unionist groupings, including the anti-Catholic Orange Order, the militantly fundamentalist Protestant Coalition and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA-UFF), a British terrorist group that has murdered and injured hundreds of Irish men, women and children?
Are UKIP now the new voice of Unionist extremism in the Northern Pale?
re. “Are UKIP now the new voice of Unionist extremism in the Northern Pale”
I have to confess a liking for the boy Nige,(although disagreeing with his policies) But he appears to be having a bad few days having taken a hell of a beating on LBC and then lining up with the buachaili above. I’m not sure to what extent his meeting above was pre-planned but if so lets hope the British press sit on it until after the lection so UKIP can tear the Tories apart for a while longer.
I think this story will eventually require clarification from Nige.
ps ‘Northern Pale’ – will be borrowing that terminology
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Borrow away! I think Farage is not as bad as made out. 50% a Delboy / retired army major. Certainly not a racist/xenophobe on the Jean-Marie Le Pen level or anything like it.
I must admit a good UKIP showing is what I’m hoping for purely because it serves Irish (and Scottish) national purposes. A fractured British polity is good for Ireland and Scotland. Selfish I know but that’s politics. The Tories embracing Greater Englandism will further alienate Irish voters in the north-east and kill “soft” Unionism while boosting the Yes campaign in Scotland.
Looking at some of the polls it seems that the majority of the British electorate now favour Right/Centre-Right parties. Does that reflect actual reality on the ground in England for once? A nation that is culturally centre-right in nature?
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Shame they make a good point about the EU without realising their own hypocrisy in preventing Scottish independence
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True, the democratisation of the EU will be one of the great debates of the next few decades. If it survives.
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He hates Eastern Europeans. That’s enough for me not to like him.
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Jānis, I’m not sure he “hates” them. His wife is a Central European after all and he has worked widely on the Continent. I do believe he said some complimentary things about Polish people, though I could be wrong. But he definitely has some prejudices and is using nastier sentiments to build an electoral base on. That may well unleash worse views in the future if UKIP poll strongly.
Despite the predictions it is worth noting that the British electoral system is loaded against new and minority parties. It is essentially a two-party system. Coalitions are a rarity outside of wartime periods.
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Of course he can’t express his hate/dislike openly – that would kill his career immediately.
Just enough to get the right wing loons to vote for him, but not enough to be marginalised by the media and voters.
After all – you can easily judge a party by its voters and supporters – and it’s obvious that many of them are racists and nationalists and express their hate more openly – just read their comments on daily mail and elsewhere – they’re disgusting.
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We can speculate as to Nige’s views as to whether he is racist or not. It is not racist to discuss immigration although it may encourage racists and racism and has therefore to be discussed sensibly.
There was a serious problem in Britain with the ‘left’ jumping up and down any time anyone dared to speak on the subject and this has left they way open for Nige to exploit that space as a result.
UKIP will probably ‘win’ the Euro elections in Britain and probably help elect the Labour Party ( the party that decided to invade Iraq and was then re-elected by the British people) as the next government by splitting the Tory vote.
With the Lib-Dems reeling from resentment at their breaking of their election promises(especially on Uni fees) its not a great choice for the British electorate unless perhaps you live in Scotland or Wales where the Nat parties sound fairly reasonable.
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Their arguments are something like this:
“Eastern Europeans are your enemies, they’re after your job.”
“If you’re unemployed – look no further – those damn Eastern Europeans are responsible for your misfortune and we promise to kick them out”
Immigrants are the easiest scapegoats ever – always have been – and people still fall for this cheap scare tactic.
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They are to all intents and purposes the English Nationalist Party. They don’t quite understand the difference between England and the UK (nor do most of their supporters I imagine), and have no real understanding of Scotland, and I suspect also Ireland. They may have a little purchase in Wales due to (a) the large proportion of English ‘immigrants’ settled there and (b) the present rather pathetic state of Plaid Cymru.
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More the Greater England Party given the views of many of UKIP’s members. They have now got one MEP in Scotland. Will that actually aid the pro-sovereignty side? A counter-reaction to UKIP triumphalism?
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The UKIP MEP for Scotland is a total and complete joke, you just couldn’t make it up. He’s lived in London for the past 20+ years and just has no idea about Scotland and very little it seems about Europe. Had he not been elected, the Greens might well have got an MEP, the LibDems having gone into total meltdown throughout the UK. How do you oppose a government when the ‘opposition’ (i.e. Labour) seem to have adopted all the same policies and the usual protest party is actually in coalition with the government? For the ordinary, probably not very thoughtful, English voter UKIP was simply the only place to go to make their point.
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UKIP managed to get 140,000 votes and one openly gay MEP elected in Scotland.
That’s with almost zero members.
Most of the old guard (all five of them) were chased out the party by Farage.
Does make you wonder about there being no rightwing in Scotland.
140,000 out of nothing is more than a blip.
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Yes but it looks likely that studies will show that the UKIP vote came from a mix of social conservatives and committed Unionist voters. In fairness though the spread of their vote was impressive, at least going by the headline reports.
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