Guest wrote:Ed Milliband wrote:I think that every Tory voter should seriously consider voting for UKIP, especially in marginal constituencies.
It looks like the next big election will be in Bristol in November for the new post of Mayor. All Tory voters in Bristol should seriously think about voting for the UKIP candidate.
If all Euroseptic Tories did have the brains/guts to vote UKIP the political landscape would be hugely different and UKIP would have at least 40-65 MPs
The in-fighting in the Tory party over what position to take on the EU, will get worse before it gets better I would say. Especially with UKIP drawing votes from them.
I actually like Warsi, her comparison of UKIP with the BNP did not do either the Tories or UKIP any favours however, that much is certain.
With the decline of the BNP, we can probably be sure at least some of their former supporters will be drawn to voting UKIP, especially with regards to withdrawing from the EU.
But UKIP policies are starting to gain a distinct libertarian flavour, more libertarian minded voters are seeing UKIP as a worthwhile alternative to the LibLabCon presence that dominates the political landscape of today. If there is one thing that genuine libertarians cannot stomach, it is the dreadful policies of the BNP. I would expect that the libertarian presence in particular will help to purge UKIP of former BNP voters who fantasize (like the left) that UKIP are merely 'BNP lite'. As UKIP matures as a party, genuine racists from the BNP will not find UKIP as a refuge.
A guest poster has helpfully put up an image from the Political Compass website that gives a first approximation of where the political parties stand on a left/right authoritarian/libertarian grid.
We see that Labour are closer to the BNP than either the Tories or UKIP, but the article I link to in a previous post tells us that the BNP draw from disaffected Labour supporters. As night follows day it is no surprise that Labour highlight the BNP and tell us not to vote for the BNP, they are condemning their own former voters after all.
The grid also tells us that both the Tories and UKIP are less authoritarian than both Labour and the BNP.
I don't think that the guest poster wanted us to notice this.
As EU integration proceeds, there will be more of a stark choice for how the LibLabCon deal with a significant enough part of the voting public who have no problem with the free trade aspect of being part of the EU, but also don't want to be ruled by an intrinsically anti-democratic organisation that the EU is.
This presents a stark choice for voters too.
For all the distress that this issue is causing within the Tory party, at least this is an issue they are going to be forced to deal with. The Labour party can of course derive some initial glee from the discomfort that UKIP present to the Tories, such is the nature of politics.
But both Labour and the LibDems have yet to grapple with our future in the EU in a serious manner. The EU tells Labour and the LibDems when to jump, the weak response of Labour and the LibDems is to ask 'How high?'
It is going to be interesting in the years ahead to see how all political parties proceed with regards to our membership of the EU.
UKIP is still a party in the making, fringe elements and the like have to be included or rejected, but for now my vote is with them regardless.
The promise of UKIP as a strong force in shaping political discourse in this country with regards to the EU may amount to nothing, but at least it would have been worth it for UKIP to have at least tried.
The trajectory of the EU as an ever increasingly anti-democratic institution ensures its own self destruction in the long term unless it undergoes major reform.
Whether UKIP is part of that or not, I will still take great pleasure in the fall of the current EU where Labour and the LibDems put aside notions of democracy and told us we had to opine to it regardless.
