UKIP must remain calm

INTERVIEWED ON Sky News, Ken Clarke has played the race card against some candidates and supporters of Ukip. He said, “I’ve met people who satisfy both those descriptions in UKIP. Indeed some of the people who assure me that they are going to vote UKIP I would put into that category. And I rather suspect that they have never voted for me.” Expanding upon this he used descriptions such as  “clowns” and “indignant, angry people” .

His comments follow those of David Cameron, who, you may remember used similar language; “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”, he called them (at least Clarke only targeted some of Ukip’s supporters). That there are such people in Ukip, there can be no doubt; indeed, there are still a few Tories left on the Government back benches, but they are, like those Ukip ‘racists’, in a small Eurosceptic minority.

The truth is, Ukip poses a threat to many Conservative councillors come next Thursday (the Sunday Telegraph suggests they could take 100 seats, mainly from the Tories) when local elections take place. The Tories are genuinely fearful that their Divine Right to rule is being put under such stress. So on this final Sunday before the polls open, Ukip are being bombarded with below the belt rhetoric and smears to frighten off those Conservatives who were considering voting Ukip.

Ukip should remain calm and withstand the comments from these paper tigers. There is in this country (as Ken Clarke made clear), an ever increasing circle of voters who are disillusioned or angry with today’s political class and are turning to Ukip, and they should continue to do so.

I have had it put to me that today’s  assaults and the talk of Ukip disunity were part of a campaign organised between politicians of all parties (for it is not only from the Tories that Ukip are benefiting) as well as the Conservative and liberal press. Private polling within all the main parties have shown the impact that Ukip has had on their various electoral expectations and they do not like what they have been told by their pollsters.

Remember when the floodgates of immigration were opened by the previous Blair government; and remember the charge of racism  hurled at those who questioned such a policy? Then it was Labour playing the race card, usually aimed a Conservative MPs, as well as the party generally, as the source of such contamination. Now the likes of Cameron and Clarke are playing the same card to try and stop Conservative voters from voting for Ukip.

KEN CLARKE is a yesterday man. Even in his political prime he got everything wrong. First as an enthusiastic (even ecstatic) knife wieldier at the time of Margaret Thatcher’s removal from office. His greatest claim to fame (even to this day) is his championing of  European Federalism, and would, even today, after the pain it has brought to millions, still be prepared to join the euro.

            This man will support whatever Europe insists upon. He will stand firm against any politician that challenges his European ideal. There is nothing Europe can do, right or wrong, that will not meet with his total support. I only once came across such a stubborn, almost bigoted stance to a political idea. It was at the time of my membership of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) between 1973-4.

Then it was to the Soviet Union we all bowed and scraped (I was, if you like, a plebeian Ken Clarke). No policy that emanated from the Soviet Union could be challenged by any member of the CPGB. But then, as with Ken Clarke and European Federalism, there was no enthusiasm for doing so in any event. Even after the events in Hungary (1956) and the then Czechoslovakia (1968), we put the responsibility for such events down to Western propaganda and interference.

UKIP should hold firm and disregard the bile that appears and is being poured over them ( just three days before local elections). The Westminster political class are out of touch with the people – even their own polls suggest such. The people want major issues dealt with – major issues such as Europe (enter Ken) and immigration.

They know that come the end of this year, a new influx of probably 350,000 migrants (according to a BBC poll) will arrive on our shores from Bulgaria and Romania – yet Ken Clarke, as a Europhile, would undoubtedly welcome such an addition to our already overpopulated island.

Those Conservatives in the shires and throughout our towns and cities, who believe that the virtues of Conservatism have been weakened by David Cameron, should rebel en-mass, because their allegiance to Cameron has been ill-rewarded. He has used traditional Conservative rhetoric to maximise his parties vote and nothing more. Cameron has as much traditional patriotism for his country as the Labour Party.

Those traditional Conservatives must send a message to their party. If it cannot change, then we stay with Ukip until it does; and if it does not, then the party needs to go its separate ways, away, that is, from Europe.

Within the Labour Party, among their own traditional voters the same concerns occupy them also, but as yet on a lesser scale. Nevertheless, many of them will also vote Ukip. Loyalty to Labour is entrenched even more deeply than such loyalty to the Conservative party among its own core vote. With Labour, class politics still ring a chord among their voters embedded in family tradition passed, without examination, from generation to generation.

If nothing more, Nigel Farage will have done his country a great service if he can force the political class to steer away from European Federalism, if that is, they wish to hang on to power. Ukip is the party of the moment and it should not be over concerned with the bile that its opponents, in a state of alarm, desperately seeks to pour over them.

Ukip has nothing to lose and they should remember this. It is because the main parties have so much to lose, that they have turned nasty toward Ukip. Come next Thursday Ukip will hopefully exceed the Sunday Telegraphs expectations  more than the 100 seats they predict.