Vote UKIP...

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TonyR
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by TonyR »

Well it looks like the far right National Front party has won the European election in France. As did the Danish People's Party in Denmark and the Freedom Party in Austria. While in Greece they've gone for the far left Syriza party. More people voting for a party they don't want perhaps? That should all reduce the European Parliament to a shambles with who knows what effect on us.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27559714
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mjr
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by mjr »

There seem to be a lot of people in the UK who are racist, stupid or worse. This is scary to a very English European like me. This country is great because of all the peoples and cultures that have contributed to it. Fat cat politicians getting fat on expenses while failing to take full part in politics on behalf of their electors is a problem, and UKIP MEPs have a track record of doing just that. Far from being a protest vote, it's an endorsement of the worst sort of politicians.

There even appear to be cyclists prepared to vote for a rabidly anti-cycling party, which may encourage other parties to become more anti-cycling to compete for that vote. This is very sad, I think.
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CREPELLO
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by CREPELLO »

I reckon the crisis we're in (and it is a crisis, albeit, long and drawn out) boils down to resources and our secure access to them. These include everything from food to housing, health care, land, money, labour, etc. So if the stranger is perceived to threaten that access, we may become defensive or hostile to them. But is it always the stranger who is the direct threat to our resources?

Neo-liberal political-economic strategies have reduced much of our secure access to resources in all fields of life, principally through hyper-inflating the effect of markets and speculation. They have concentrated wealth (resources) in the hands of the few. The many are left to squabble over what's left. This is when we start pointing fingers at strangers. It doesn't really matter the colour of their skin.

I'm not convinced that there is necessarily a population problem, but one primarily of equal and fair distribution of resources, and it's relation - redistribution of wealth. In that, Neo Labour has failed the majority. But what do you expect from a party that has become infected by the same neo-liberal ideology as the Lib-Cons? (AND UKIP). I do not expect from Miliband, any more than I do from Clegg or Cameron.
TonyR
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by TonyR »

Scary, scary night. The rise of the extreme right again in Europe. Last time nobody thought they would get elected until they were and then it was too late. We now have parties like Golden Dawn in Greece, the Freedom Party in Austria and the Front National in France being elected while in the UK some Tories are already talking about having an electoral pact with UKIP.

I just hope these results scare the electorate that voted for them as much as they scare me and bring them to their senses. Even the Americans have had the sense to turn against the Tea Party after a brief dalliance with it and seeing what its elected representatives did.
beardy
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by beardy »

It is only happening because the soil is ready for the seed to grow.

There is an increasingly large portion of the population who are being pushed to the limit, they feel they have little to lose and possibly a lot to gain by any change in the system.

Meanwhile the politicians are still coming out with "we are failing to get our message across" as a reason for it.

Larger proportions of the populations of Europe are like a spring that have been wound up too tight and they are ready to snap.

The bedroom tax, Tories "helping people into work" by cutting their dole below what they need to hold their heads up (or often feed themselves), no chance of ever buying your own house if you dont already have a foot in. For sure a few can break out of the ghetto but not the majority.

They may actually be worse off under the UKIP but they have found out that voting for any of the others will not help them. Also if they fail to get UKIP in the existing parties will use the vote swing to justify doing more of what they were already doing as everybody can attach their own reasons for the vote swing and the reasons are probably much more diverse.
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661-Pete
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by 661-Pete »

I am scared too. Just as my parents, at the time living in central Europe, were scared by the events of January 1933. In a way, I am almost thankful that neither of them is alive today to see what is happening here and in other parts of Europe in May 2014.
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al_yrpal
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by al_yrpal »

A Conservative spokesman was asked what he thought of UKIP's success in the local elections.

"BLOODY UKIP" he said, "coming around here, stealing our jobs."
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mjr
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by mjr »

If you have satellite TV, turn to Euronews or France24 and listen to how France's national front is saying almost exactly the same as UK IP. If you only have freeview, RT or AJ might be broadcasting it, but I'd be surprised if sky or BBC are. Dear quarter of voters, please see what you're voting for and reconsider. Raising the right is not a good protest.
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Psamathe
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by Psamathe »

The French vote does not surprise me. France often "protest votes", except in their internal elections this happens in one of the "primary" votes and they invariably vote more sensibly when it comes to actually selecting somebody. So I suspect we have just seen the "protest" and they have overlooked that it's just the one vote (they mentally expect a 2nd chance when they will be more sensible).

Ian
Psamathe
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by Psamathe »

CREPELLO wrote:...and it is a crisis, albeit, long and drawn out...

Sometimes reported we have experienced only half the austerity cuts and we still have the same amount of cutting still to go!

Ian
Psamathe
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by Psamathe »

mjr wrote:There even appear to be cyclists prepared to vote for a rabidly anti-cycling party, which may encourage other parties to become more anti-cycling to compete for that vote. This is very sad, I think.


Agreed. Applies to all their policies. The stronger their vote, the more "mainstream" they become and the more socially acceptable their policies become.

Ian
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Trigger
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by Trigger »

TonyR wrote:Scary, scary night. The rise of the extreme right again in Europe. Last time nobody thought they would get elected until they were and then it was too late. We now have parties like Golden Dawn in Greece, the Freedom Party in Austria and the Front National in France being elected while in the UK some Tories are already talking about having an electoral pact with UKIP.


As was mentioned last night, one saving grace is that all these right wing parties wont have anything to do with each other; FN are too extreme for UKIP, and Golden Dawn are too extreme for FN to team up with, and in fact in Greece the protest vote went to the hard left anyway.

For us I'm not too concerned, the turnout figures proves this wasn't some mass mobilisation of the unheard masses screaming for EU referendum and immigration to be dealt with- it was a pretty typical, if slightly lower than previous, turnout.

This was a case of main party voters sending a message and I don't think that message was a racist/fascist one because they had the BNP to vote for if they so wished, and they took a severe battering.

I think the real bellwether will be the Newark by-election next week, if UKIP comfortably win that seat then there will be some serious main-party re-thinks going on.
Psamathe
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by Psamathe »

Trigger wrote:
TonyR wrote:For us I'm not too concerned, the turnout figures proves this wasn't some mass mobilisation of the unheard masses screaming for EU referendum and immigration to be dealt with- it was a pretty typical, if slightly lower than previous, turnout.

But the party leaders (Comedy Dave at least) is treating it as such and has already been on the Radio spouting his promise again to hold an in/out referendum by whatever date he said. OK, he's promised referendums before and nothing came of them (what is a broken promise to a politician), but I suspect his own backbenchers will not allow him to break this one an definitely not after the UKIP successes.

And, as somebody who thinks we should stay in the EU (but work to sort out its failings), my worry is that the "referendum" will not be about the advantages and disadvantages of membership for the UK, but rather it will be about immigration - as that is what the politicians have been using to stir-up the electorate. And the one aspect of the EU that will NOT change is freedom of movement (which is one of the aspects of the EU that has been there pretty well from the start).

Ian
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Trigger
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by Trigger »

I think they'll all hold off on any panic policy u-turns until after next weeks by-election. If it's a Tory victory then Cameron can calmly carry on as he was, banging his economy recovery drum but still emphasising his commitment to a referendum after the election. If UKIP do indeed win the Newark seat then I expect the rest to have prepared seriously re-jigged manifestos, I bet they're already working on them should it happen.

For Labour it just confirms that they're in a mess, they may well point to the percentages and other such figures but the truth is they're completely clueless and don't know which way to turn or what to promise. Rudderless. They're relying solely on their core support who vote Labour no matter what, plus hoovering up Lib Dem voters pee'd off with Clegg and wanting to separate themselves from the Tories. They have no key policies and no manifesto that speaks for the majority of workers, which is what the Labour party should be all about.
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Si
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Re: Vote UKIP...

Post by Si »

That the Kippers did much better in the Euro elections than the council elections suggests to me that people still believe that they are not capable of running the country, and that much of their vote was either protest or based solely on leaving Europe/stemming immigration. I think that a lot of their supporters will be back with the Tories come the national elections. But....

I look at the party and the only UKIP politician I can name is N. Farage (unfortunate initials)....any other Kipper that I have heard of has been thrown out of the party for not being able to keep his/her ridiculous views to him/her self. I ask: would people really vote (in the national elections) for a party whose public face is this posh boy goon mad Farage? Then I think "Boris Johnson" and have to go and sit in a darkened room for a bit.

Another questions raises its head: UKIP have got in there because the Cons have moved their public image (if not there reality) a little towards the centre, thus there was room between them and the totally loony far right for moderately loony party. So, given Nu Labourers first march to the centre (and beyond?) why have we not seen a new moderately far left party sitting between Labour and the socialist small fry no-hopers? I guess that you might say that the Greens fill some aspects of this, but they haven't taken off like the Kippers...probably because they are honest enough to admit that there are no easy fixes, unlike the Kippers who can happily blame everything on Johnny Foreigner. The other reason is that Farage does sell newspapers to mouth-breathing Middle-Englanders....thus the press are very much cashing in on UKIP..and as they say: no publicity is bad publicity.
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